Cynical Cinema

Margot At The Wedding is about a woman named Margot who goes to a wedding. It comes out from Alliance Atlantis on Tuesday the 19th of February and it’s sort-of worthwhile. Margot is played by Nicole Kidman, who is a very uptight, scathingly bitter-tongued ice queen. She drags her son along with her to her sister’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding to unemployed musician Jack Black. The dialogue is very smart, the acting is terrific, and the family is believable. The big problem with the movie is the lack of likeable characters. Kidman gets to her sister’s place, and immediately makes herself unlikeable as she attacks everything around her, questioning her sister’s choice in a husband, exacerbating the war between her sister and her neighbours, and visiting the man with whom she is having an affair. Jennifer Jason Leigh has just figured out she is pregnant, but hasn’t told anyone yet. She tells Kidman, who then tells her son, who then tells his cousin, who then asks her mom about it. The whole family harbours intense bitterness and hard feelings toward each other, much of which is not fully explained in the film.

A lot of scenes ring very true, especially in the little details. My favourite little detail is when Jason-Leigh’s young daughter tells Jack Black he has to hide his King Crimson album. It is the In The Court Of The Crimson King album (shown below), and I have had to do the same thing myself. It was initially up on the wall with the rest of my favourite vinyl albums. Welcome To My Nightmare, The Kids Are Alright, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, Over-Nite Sensation, The Melodians Rivers of Babylon, and King Crimson. But I had to take it down, because my wall of albums is in the area downstairs where the kids play, and it really freaked out our 8-year-old. I can certainly understand why. This is just one in the many small details in Margot At the Wedding that ring so very true. Which is an indication of the intelligence of the movie. And some of these scenes are very funny, especially the Jack Black scenes. This is the kind of movie that suits him best. Where he is not the centre of attention, where he does not have to carry the comedy all on his own, but where he can add understated fat-sloppy-guy comedy to understated prim-proper-people type scenes. Think of the scene in High Fidelity where he laments the fact that the customer does not own Blonde On Blonde.

But Margot at the Wedding can only go so far on wit and intelligence and fine performances. For most movies, that should be enough. But the one adult character who is actually likeable is John Turturro, as Kidman’s husband, and he shows up for about two minutes of screen time. So by the end, the movie’s message is a decent one - no matter how lousy things get, or how lousy life is, you always have family to count on. But after watching the whole thing, you think “not THIS family!” These poor kids! Jennifer Jason Leigh is a space case, Nicole Kidman is a passive aggressive, unfaithful, clingy jerk of a mother, and Jack Black is a slovenly, childish, out of control deviant. (Which is funny, but not exactly laudable.) You wouldn’t wish this family on anyone, and you end up feeling pretty sorry for the kids. With more Turturro, this movie could have potentially been a 9/10. As it stands, it is very smart, but tough to watch in parts. And it jsut feels like a standard, well-written, indie dark comedy with nothing new to say.

Death At a Funeral feels so “indie” that it makes me cringe. However, it makes me cringe with laughter, and that, I think, is OK. It’s a British comedy in the grand tradition of low budget British comedies, the idea that humour can be found in even the least-likely-to-be-funny situation, in this case a funeral. Rupert Graves and Matthew McFayden star as Daniel and Robert, brothers who are hosting their father’s funeral. There is of course a good deal of sibling rivalry, but they are attempting to set this aside in the interests of their family, and specifically their mother, who is grieving with them. Many other interesting characters show up, including wheelchair-bound, angry old men, drug users, creepy stalkers and the standard cast one would expect from a British comedy such as this one. People get accidentally “dosed” with hallucinogenic drugs, they strip naked, other people end up with poop on themselves, and the standard funeral-comedy pratfalls ensue. If such a thing exists.

Overall, there is not much new about this film. It is well-written, but not exceedingly so. It is well-acted, but none of the performances are earth-shattering. Well, except for one. Once again, I am absolutely blown away by the talent of Peter Dinklage. Dinklage is probably best-known as the children’s book author who beats up Will Ferrell in Elf. He is a dwarf, and is therefore typecast. Hollywood is very good at casting regular actors as tiny people, (think Martin Short in that god-awful movie Clifford) but there is little they can do to cast dwarves as regular-size people. But Dinklage has a massive talent, and it would be great to see him in roles other than that of a little person. But of course, this won’t happen, so he must wait for appropriate roles in order to shine. The first of those roles was in the terrific film The Station Agent in 2003, a role which resulted in a lot of critical acclaim for Dinklage, but a very small audience. He was wonderful in that movie, and he is, once again, the best part of Death At A Funeral.

He plays the former lover of the deceased old man, and attempts to blackmail the brothers into giving him some of the inheritance money. Either they write him a cheque, or he will show everyone the salacious pictures of their homosexual relationship. This leads to many standard comic pratfalls, including another accidental drug-dosing. I won’t ruin the film by explaining how it came about, but the scene where Dinklage emerges from the coffin in the middle of the service is one of the funniest I have seen in a long time. My step-son made me rewind and play it several times, it’s that good. Death At A Funeral would be an extremely standard indie British comedy were it not for the talents of Dinklage, but his involvement raises the level of this movie from merely “standard” to “quite good”. Perhaps some day the movie industry will find a way to get Dinklage more involved in feature films, but I don’t think that’s likely. I think the best we can hope for is that his talent, now so well recognized, will be the catalyst for film makers to start writing parts designed specifically for him, and perhaps we will see dozens more excellent indie films with real roles for Dinklage and other dwarves in the near future.

Donal Logue is a pretty funny actor. He starred in one of my favourite films, the very-underrated Tao of Steve, in 2000. In that movie, he played an overweight, lazy slacker who still somehow managed to score every hot chick he came across. It was a great movie and a great role, because he was so slovenly and yet charming at the same time. And on some level, in some weird way, it absolutely made sense that he would be able to have sex with all these women. In the new film from Alliance Films, Almost Heaven, Logue plays a similar character. He is a television director who can no longer get work because he’s a drunk. One of those lovable, one-day-at-a-time, funny drunks, but I guess drunk enough to not work in Canada. So he gets sent to Scotland, to produce a fishing show, in a village where half the people are alcoholics, and the others still drink with breakfast. And although he’s a drunken slob, fat, who clearly pays no attention to his personal hygiene, he is still fighting off women at every turn. If there is a hot woman in this movie, there is a scene where she tries to sleep with him. It made sense in the Tao of Steve, it doesn’t so much make sense here.

So Logue goes to Scotland to film this show, and he has to do it with…his ex-wife! Hilarity will ensue! Anything that can go wrong will go wrong! There are no fish for the fishing show, people fall in the water, drunks fall over…it’s basically a sit-com for an hour in the middle. A very low-budget sit-com, where some of the scenes look like they were printed on the first take to save some money. Which doesn’t really hurt the film, in fact it adds to the small-town feel of the piece. Although therein lies a problem - the movie doesn’t feel to me like small-town Scotland. It feels like small-town Canada. Which is kind of a problem. The whole town feels like it was picked up in Scotland and dropped right into the middle of the prairies, such that half the actors seem like extras from Braveheart, and the other half think they are in an episode of Corner Gas.

Somehow, although Logue being a drunk is the central theme of the movie, and the question of “will he be able to overcome his problem and become successful” is the recurring theme, his drinking never really seems to actually be a problem. We see him take a drink, we see him get kind of tipsy, we know he is drinking because he gets other people to take his urine test for him, but it never appears to affect his work. The worst thing that happens to him is he sleeps in and misses breakfast a few days in a row. He falls for a local girl played by the gorgeous and charming Kristy Mitchell, and they have the inevitable fight that leads to the inevitable reconciliation, but it all feels strange, because a girl that hot and that smart and witty and together would be able to find a guy who wasn’t a fat ugly drunken slob. One would think. Logue’s small amount of charm in the film is not enough to justify his landing the best looking girl in the movie. This would be kind of like watching The Princess Bride, only Cary Elwes doesn’t get the girl because she’s fallen for Andre The Giant.

All this being said, Almost Heaven is almost good. As far as Canadian indie movies go, it’s sweet, charming and at times a little funny, thanks mostly to Donal Logue and Kristy Mitchell. Outside those two, there is very little to recommend this movie on any grounds. It’s a story we’ve seen before a hundred times, and it goes through the motions until it is over. Only Mitchell and Logue rise above.

Automation Transfusion is out now!  No, don’t get too excited and leap up and leave your house yet, let me explain first! I assume most people have been, up until now, blissfully unaware of the impending release of this film. And with good reason - It isn’t exactly Pirates of the Caribbean 3.  Although, in it’s own way, in it’s own niche, it’s a better movie.  But it’s a niche that is awfully small. You see, there is a small but influential group of people who are into films like this one.  I say influential, because this clique is just big enough, and definitely loyal enough, to make films like Automation Transfusion profitable. Profitable enough, in fact, that now studios like Alliance Films are in on the act.

The film genre is a little tough to pigeonhole. Some would call this a “splatter” film, or a “gorefest”, or some such thing. Basically, it is a low budget horror movie that relies almost entirely on blood, guts and gore for the scares. Very often these movies are made by just-starting-out filmmakers who really want to shoot a scene where somebody chews off another guy’s head. At other times, a talented director can make something like this into a work that transcends the genre - like Peter Jackson (now famous for Lord of the Rings) when he did a movie called Dead Alive, which involved some seriously funny splatter scenes, most of them involving a lawn mower. These films almost always involve zombies of some kind, female frontal nudity, and buckets of blood. They also seem to always have a black-metal or death-punk soundtrack. I assume the film makers usually just put on the songs that they like. A REAL twist on this genre would be pretty easy to do - just put some Roy Acuff or Desmond Dekker songs on your soundtrack.

The idea here, more than anything else, is low-budget. There are going to be actors no one knows, horrible dialogue, questionable acting performances, and over-the-top sight gags. Automation Transfusion is no different - the most over-the-top sight gag in this film is a scene where a zombie punches through the belly of a pregnant woman, yanks out the fetus, and devours it in front of her. Peoples heads are ripped off - very often the spinal cord is attached, which seems medically unlikely, but provides some entertaining gags as well. (Also well done - the ripping off of the lower jaw of a topless girl. Very gross.) This is a movie (as are most in this genre) that really can’t be taken seriously. To actually enjoy this, you have to be someone who can find the humour in a zombie being beaten to death with the head attached to the spinal cord which he has just ripped out of a person. It takes a certain kind of twisted individual to be able to laugh at stuff like this.

And I am not that person. At least, not very often. I can enjoy this for what it is for a few minutes, and maybe have a chuckle or two, but I can rarely take a whole movie’s worth. And toward the end, I was decidedly sick of Automation Transfusion. Actors who are barely good enough to star in porn, yet not attractive enough to star in porn, tearing out chunks of each other’s flesh and feasting on intestines and organs can get tiresome. Mercifully, however, it’s a short movie. At just over an hour, it manages to end before it becomes too much to handle. There is nothing scary about Automation Transfusion, because once you go over-the-top, there is nothing left with which you can shock or startle people. But as far as this genre goes, it’s pretty solid. It’s no Dead Alive (which remains the benchmark of splatter-gore-gross-out horror), but it will do. If you’re into this stuff. You weirdo.

Harold and Kumar will soon be going to Guantanamo Bay, on the big screens. So it would only make sense that Alliance Films would release the original movie, yet again, in time for the new film to hit theatres. Whitecastle, for those of you who don’t spend a lot of time in the States, is a burger joint that sells these cute little square hamburgers that are delicious. The name-dropping in the title of this movie is not (I am assuming) some kind of nefarious product placement, it is merely an indication of the love that the counter-culture in the U.S. has for this particular fast-food chain. (The Beastie Boys have referenced Whitecastle several times over the course of their career.) It is the ultimate stoner fast food, and fat guys like me love it as well because we can eat eleven or twelve burgers at a time. The reference to Whitecastle in the title of this film is more an indication of the popularity of the chain among the stoner crowd, and not a random fast-food selection at all. Harold And Kumar go to McDonalds? No. Burger King? Don’t think so. Wendy’s? Please. Were it not Whitecastle, Big Kahuna Burger might be the only other place that would make sense.

And there is set the tone of the film. Yes, there have been hundreds, even thousands, of these irritating teen-stoner comedies. Or college-stoner comedies, or young-man-in-a-boring-job stoner comedies. But few of them have been as funny as this one. There are definitely stupid, pointless and terrible moments. Riding a cheetah? The old guy with the sores on his face? Come on. Horrible stuff in an otherwise excellent movie. What makes Harold and Kumar work are the stars, Kal Penn (who was recently very, very good in The Namesake and very, very bad in Van Wilder The Rise of Taj) and John Cho, (who was really irritating as the “MILF” guy in American Pie, and has been very good in small TV roles ever since). The chemistry between Penn and Cho is terrific, and they come off as our buddies. We all know guys just like this. Guys who are great, regular, fairly boring guys in everyday life, but who become a little crazy when the idea of getting stoned enters their head on the weekends. They are not the totally useless stoners who sit on their couches and eat Doritos and barely get up when you come over, but rather the ultimate weekend warriors who want to think weed is their way of life, but are wrong. They are stoner-poseurs. Or, at least, Cho is.

So the quest, while it begins as a search for Whitecastle, turns into a search for weed, which then becomes a hunt for girls, and then an escape from the law, and then returns, full circle, to Whitecastle. And while there are the obligatory gross-out jokes (battlesh**s), and the over-the-top moments (hang-gliding), it’s the little things that make this movie better than average. Doogie Howser - Neil Patrick Harris - shows up. As himself. With cocaine and hookers. And he steals their car. An inspired bit of casting. The scenes with John Cho trying to avoid the young woman his family wants him to date are perfect in their realism and simplicity. And the writing of the dialogue between the two stars is bang-on. This new Extreme! Unrated! Edition! is really nothing new. The special features are actually more juvenile than the movie, with the exception of a “back-seat” interview with Cho and Penn. And for those who are Harold and Kumar fanatics (you know who you are, ya stoners) there is a pretty extensive sneak peek at the upcoming Guantanamo film. If you’ve already seen this movie, don’t bother. If you haven’t, at least this gives you the chance to do so again. Just be ready to totally shut off your brain.