After a long absence, one of our favorite Fanboys John Fountain is back with a review of the new remake of Maniac starring Elijah Wood.  And I have to say I agree with everything John says here.  The film was terrific and Elijah Wood sells this flick.  So enjoy John’s review and welcome him back to our little domain.

A Review for Fangirl Magazine

By John Fountain.

Maniac (2012)

Meet Frank Zito (Elijah Wood).  He has mommy issues.  Unfortunately for the young, attractive women of the city, he deals with these problems with his own form of therapy: stalking them for their scalps, which he then staples onto mannequins and calls them his girlfriends.  Frank seems nice enough, apart from this minor personality defect, and scrapes out a living restoring antique mannequins in his shop, which has serial-killer lair written all over it.  Also written large on the shop, and Frank’s psyche, is his mother’s name and her memory.  Frank loves his mother, but he also hates her.

As the story progresses, we find out that Frank’s mom was a bit of a slut, taking two men on at once while the little boy version of Frank watched from a cupboard.  What makes this even more disturbing is that Frank’s mom knew her little boy was there the whole time.  Why this makes Frank hunt scalps is never quite explained, other than a general sense of the poor guy being loony-tunes.  Into this already quite crowded relationship Frank has with his fly-blown “girlfriends” comes Anna (Nora Arnezeder), a fine-art photographer with a passion for mannequins that while not exactly like Frank’s sparks the seeds of love in his little serial-killer heart.  And so we slip, gracefully, into the awkward love story of boy-stalks-girl, boy-kills-girl-for-her-scalp, boy-meets-another-girl-but-doesn’t-want-to-scalp-her-so-takes-her-to-feed-the-birds-then-a-movie-then-discovers-she-thinks-he’s-gay-so-kills-someone-close-to-her-so-he-can-comfort-her.

It’s a story we’ve all lived in our own lives, surely.  Or maybe that’s just me.  Anyway, this latest murder causes a whole raft of problems for poor Frank, whose attempts to explain it to Anna fall on unreasonable ears.  Needless to say, this love story probably isn’t going to end well.

Maniac is a remake of the William Lustig/Joe Spinell movie from the 1980s: y’now the one, Tom Savini did the effects then tried to distance himself from the final film.  As remakes go, this is pretty faithful to the original, at least in terms of plot.  However, most of the film is shot from the Point-Of-View of Frank: if we hadn’t been saturated with a decade of “found-footage” movies, this would have become tedious very quickly, but being filmed in this way means that when the POV shifts, no matter how subtly, we are wrenched away from Frank’s inner narrative and forced to reposition him as a character.

Frank is played by loveable, blue eyed Frodo Baggins, who becomes more and more like Gollum as the film progresses.  He even gets Gollum’s patented line in schizophrenic dialogue, albeit with the other side being played by a completely absent mother-figure.  But Frodo, sorry, Elijah Wood, manages to come across as shy, manipulative, pathetic, and psychotic to such a degree that not only do you like and pity this character, you don’t really question his actions too much.  There is the inevitable “No Frodo, don’t do it, you’ll find love someday!” feeling running through the movie, and yes, you really do want this nutty murderer to come through at the end, cleansed, loved and redeemed.

But deep down, you know that ain’t going to happen.  Not after the exchange between Frank and Anna after they watch The Cabinet of Dr Caligari at their local cinema.  From then on, things are going to start spiralling downwards for Frank, and you really feel for the pathetic killer.  This is a triumph of three things: a minimalist script, Wood’s voice acting, and the acting of Arnezeder, through whom you have to filter most of Wood’s action (because he’s just not there to look at).  The other triumph of the film is how it looks: it is both glossy and slightly sleazy (as opposed to the “just sleazy” feel of the original), and apart from a chase through the world’s most deserted major metropolitan subway station, allows the city to act as a shroud for Frank’s deeds.  He uses the city as his hunting ground, and at no point do you feel that he is not part of the dirty underbelly itself.

There is also a moment where fans of the original will love, where the DVD sleeve of the Blue Underground release is captured in a reflection.  The other selling point here is the gore: it is extremely well done, and you can barely tell the CGI knife blades aren’t real as their pierce nubile flesh.  Every gore scene is wonderfully rendered: a mix of practical and CGI that works incredibly well, even down to the laugh-a-minute final scenes where Frank’s psyche decides that Freud was right, and there really is a “return of the repressed”.

All in all, the film is a triumph, and certainly an improvement over the original, if only for production values.  As a final verdict, this is great movie, but probably not one for a first date.  Unless you have a penchant for scalps…

Iron Man 3:  Iron Man in Pieces

A Movie Review

By Jessica Dwyer

Iron Man 3 had quite an act to follow in the Avengers.  A billion dollar mega hit, Iron Man 3 was the follow up to a lackluster and troubled sequel in the form of Iron Man 2.  But it had a lot in its corner.  The Avengers gave it a great building block to work from in terms of character arc.  It also had Shane Black in the director’s chair, a man who is known for writing witty dialog and making and scripting great movies like the Boondock Saints, Lethal Weapon, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which he’d worked on with star Robert Downey Jr.

But sadly instead of a worthy follow up and next step in the ongoing conquering march of the Marvel universe on the big screen, we got an uneven hodgepodge of comedy and angst and straight up out of character moments.  Also again we get a forced feeling love story that takes up a healthy chunk of the film.  Not to say that the film is horrible and it is nowhere near as bad as Iron Man 2 which had the distinction of filming without a completed script.  No, there are moments in Iron Man 3 that are brilliant and are obviously Shane Black with the witty banter within them.  But that makes me wish for the movie that could have been and wonder why this one feels so off.

There are going to be spoilers here.  Because if you read this site there is no way you aren’t going to see this movie.  But in order to explain my points of why I was disappointed by this film I have to reference the parts that made me disappointed.   We’ll count them down. Read more

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Movie Review

By Jessica Dwyer

Comedy is a tricky business.   There’s a magic to it, a combination of perfect timing, delivery, and most importantly good writing.  That magic is absent from The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, a film that had a ton going for it with hilarious trailers and a great cast filled with talent.  But that’s just not enough when you have a script that is as flat as this one.

Read more

Warm Bodies

Movie Review

By Jessica Dwyer

Horror and Romance don’t always go hand in hand.  Depending on who is at the helm the movie or the book can be horrifying for completely the wrong reason.  But when it is done right and you get the right mixture of actors, story, and crew it can be great.

Warm Bodies shambled from the pages of writer Isaac Marion’s novel of the same name.  The book made quite a splash when it was released because it took the concepts of zombies and flipped it on its severed head.  It told the story from the zombie’s perspective and it added bits of Romeo and Juliet and an actual story about the power of humanity and love that at its core was surprisingly deep and touching.  Simon Pegg himself touted the novel as did, for better or worse, Stephanie Meyer.

Zombies as metaphor and being used as tools for such is nothing new.  Romero, the man who is the Granddaddy of all Zombie started with this very same notion.  Using zombies to tell stories of where humanity is at the time and covering everything in a nice bright red blanket of gore is the un-beating heart and soul of his stories and so it is with Jonathan Levine film and the book by Isaac Marion.

Levine, who both wrote the screenplay and directed Warm Bodies kept to what makes the story of “R” and his Julie(t) so great.  It’s not a clean love story, not when your relationship starts with you eating the girls current boyfriend (and keeping bits of his brain to snack on later.)  The zombies in this film still eat people.  And they even have their own sort of predator in the form of the Bonies, walking scowling skeletons ready to destroy and consume whatever comes near them.

What makes the film and the book so great is that it manages to meld the story so well.  It keeps the zombie quotient and doesn’t shy away from the fact that they are in fact corpses.  They eat brains and people, and are trapped inside these aimless bodies simply wasting away.  There’s no explanation for why they are changed, what started the outbreak…not really.  The inner monologue of R is hilarious and at times poignant and telling.  He’s on automatic pilot like nearly all the zombies are, rambling through existence.

Levine doesn’t try to keep the message here from being obvious; it’s obvious to anyone with an uneaten brain.  As we see R trying to remember what it was like in his home of an airport he gets a flash of every person there not making eye contact and being glued to their cell phone screen…nearly walking the same way the zombies are around him in present time.

When R crosses paths with Julie and her human friends it happens when he and a pack of zombies are attacking them.  He saves her after a flicker of emotion comes through him which is amplified by eating her boyfriend’s brain and absorbing his memories of her.  That’s another part of Marion’s novel that I’m very glad was left in.  We’ve only ever been hinted at over the years as to why so many zombies love to eat brains.  This time around we get a fairly unique reason…brains contain the memories and emotions of the people they belonged to.

Zombies can eat them and feel, at least temporarily, human again.  With this idea, R decides to save Julie instead of killing her.  As the relationship plays out we get some great scenes between Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Plamer as R and Julie.  I truly believe that if it hadn’t been cast with these two actors the film would have suffered badly.  Hoult has some of the most expressive eyes I’ve seen on an actor.  R could have come off hokey and lame, instead you really love this guy and want to give him a hug or a blanket or something.  He’s sweet and funny and is perfect in the role.

The same for Palmer who brings a tired toughness to Julie, as well as a sense of fragility.  She’s been through hell but has acclimated to the world around her because she has to.  She’s all her father, played rather cardboard by John Malkovich (I’m not sure what happened to Malkovich…he’s got the same problem that Robert De Niro has now…which is he can only play Robert De Niro) has left.  Her father is the man in charge of the city that is the refuge for the surviving humans.  And so Julie learns to be a sort of soldier for him.  She’s used to the death that happens in this new world…something her boyfriend Perry (played by Dave Franco, James’s brother who could be his clone) sadly never gets used to.

The only thing I’ll say about Rob Corddry is he needs to be in every movie ever made from here on out.  That’s truth, plain and simple.

Warm Bodies looks great too.  I love the style of the film, the zombie make up, and also the Bonies who are total cousins to the Ray Harryhausen skeletons that fought Sinbad years ago.  Levine brings together everything and brings to life the book that I loved so much.  He also adds a great use of music and soundtrack to add to the fun factor of the movie.

The films personality makes it a close cousin to Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead, there’s no doubt.   It’s aware of what it is and has fun with it. Warm Bodies manages to be a blend of many genres, like those previous modern zombie films.  It’s a love story that knows its basis is in Shakespeare and makes no apologies.  It’s a horror film that knows many a zombie shambled before it.  It’s a comedy that knows how to be funny.   And it also has a great moral at its center, one that should appeal to everyone.

THANK YOU GOD FOR STOPPING THIS FROM HAPPENING

I’m glad the studio didn’t go the route it was thinking of when marketing this movie, which was hopping on the Twilight train (since it is the same studio).  The comparisons to Twilight started almost immediately even though other than the two main characters being a (dead) boy and a girl in love, there is nothing between the two books (or films) that could really be comparable.

Where Twilight in many ways (some not so healthy) says that love is worth dying for, Warm Bodies message is that love is worth living for.   Go see it…you won’t be disappointed.

Taken 2: Blu Ray Review

By Jessica Dwyer

Taken was the sleeper hit of the year it was released.  I got lucky enough to see the R-rated version before it was clipped up for the PG13 release seen in US theaters.  It was a more brutal film and thoroughly enjoyable.  I personally love seeing Liam Neeson kicking ass.  It makes me happy a guy his age is taking the Connery route and still able to do so.  He’s awesome.  Pure and simple.

Of course as is the case with movies that make major profits on small investments a sequel had to be made.  Taken 2 was released and by god did it do well.  A 50 million budget returned 350 million worldwide.  Yeah, read that again and tell me we won’t get a Taken 3.  In any event, Taken 2 did gangbusters at the box office and then it did it again on DVD when it was released.

I didn’t get a chance sadly to see this flick in theaters, I had to wait for the BR release.  And I’m sort of glad after seeing the film that I didn’t pay full movie price.  Don’t get me wrong though, it was a fun movie…but it lacked something the other film didn’t, a sense of danger.

Taken 2 follows Bryan Mills, aka Darkman, as he tries to reconnect with his daughter after the events of the first movie.  Conveniently his bitch ex-wife, Dark Phoenix, is having issues with her new husband.  They are most likely divorcing.  I guess having a lot cash and fancy cars doesn’t make up for the fact you were married to Darkman who can kill with his pinky.

Anyway, while this family drama happens the dad and families of the numerous (and I mean numerous) men that Darkman killed while trying to get back his daughter are angry and want revenge.  They don’t care how special Darkman’s skills are, they want blood.  And so our main bad guy, Murad, goes after him.  In a twist from the first flick, this time Dark Phoenix gets kidnapped and Shannon from Lost has to help save the day and help her dad get Dark Phoenix back.

Taken 2 has some decent moments, mostly towards the end when its just Liam Neeson using his special skills of beating the hell out of guys and looking wicked hot in a black leather coat.  But the movie just doesn’t hold your interest like the other film did.  Taken was relentless, there wasn’t a slow spot for 95 percent of the film.  It just kept going and Neeson didn’t need the baggage of an annoying teenager tagging along (he was trying to save one.)  He was the lone badass who took on an entire gang of white slavers and left nothing but destruction in his wake.  Plus, I don’t know why but Maggie Grace (aka Shannon from Lost) just annoys me in this film.  She’s whiney…I don’t like her.  I prefer her drugged up and quiet.

And plus, after the first movie, you just don’t give a damn about his wife.  I think the screenwriters forgot the fact that they made us HATE her in the first movie and made her out to be a materialistic bitch.  We don’t like you Dark Phoenix, you made our Rob Roy cry.

The best way to sum it up is less drivey drivey and more punchy punchy is needed.

Speaking of Drive…I caught at least two songs from the Drive soundtrack in this movie.  I know I’m not insane and I know I wasn’t wishing for the far superior Drive to be on my screen…so yeah, tell me I’m wrong.

The Blu Ray release though is a packed one.  Deleted Scenes, both versions of the movie (pg13 and unrated…but I can’t really figure out why it was considered unrated, it seemed tame to me.  But maybe I’m jaded.)  An alternate ending that’s 25 minutes long and changes the entire way the ending plays out.  There’s pop up bits that give you details during the film and Sam’s Tools of the Trade that give you a run through via that cutie Leland Orser  (who pops up in everything but you might remember as the poor bastard they put an Alien embryo into in Alien Resurrection) of all the goodies in Bryan’s magic silver suitcase.  It also has a regular DVD version, an iTunes digital download, and Ultra Violet.

So if you want a little more Badass Neeson go for it.  But personally I prefer my Taken shaken and not so stirred and bland.

In closing…this

Mama

Movie Review

By Jessica Dwyer

(slightly spoilery)

Guillermo del Toro has a knack for creating dark, dark fairy tales.  Even when he’s not directing the movie, he can still dig up the blackest, prettiest gem for us to gaze at because he’s just good at it.

Mama is one of those films.  del Toro saw the short that was the genesis of the film during a convention.  Barbara and Andres Muschietti had created a creepy 3 minutes of kids in danger from a creature that had no explanation…it was just scary.  And so of course del Toro fell in love with it and said “make this a feature.”  And thus Mama was reborn.

Barbara and Andres created a background for the story, a ghost tale and a tragedy that is at the same time a fairy tale.  Two children, abandoned in the woods is not something unheard of for the beginnings of a fairy tale, but this one has a much graver beginning.  We see via a very ingenious use of the credit sequence the two little girls and how they survive with the help of Mama.  We fast forward a few years and the girls Uncle (the twin brother of their father) has been searching for them.  He and his rock band girlfriend who has no interest in children succeed in finding the girls feral and dirty and living in a ruined house in the woods.

Lucas and Annabel (Coster-Waldau and Chastain) get custody of two girls, Victoria the older one and Lilly the younger.  Lilly is by far more animalistic and takes after her “mother.”  Victoria is old enough to have a memory of a life before the spirit that becomes their savior.  As the film progresses that central difference between the sisters causes them to go along different paths.  But the little girls needs and circumstances cause them to grow closer to Annabel and Annabel to grow closer to them…even though she was against having them be there in the first place.  Of course no one is supposed to take the place of Mama, and the relationship between the girls and this newcomer doesn’t sit well.  Nothing comes between a mother and her child…

There are many factors that make this movie great.  Firstly is it just looks beautiful.  Andres has some very subtle touches in the special effects department as well as some not so subtle.  The film looks surreal at times, bright and dark and isn’t afraid to use silence to build tension.

Secondly are the little girls who play Victoria and Lilly Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse…they are amazing.  Especially Nélisse who plays Lilly…she can be flat out creepy one minute and adorable the next.  Both of these young girls bring it to these parts.  And good lord, the crawling scuttle thing they do is just unnerving.

Chastain’s Annabel is a realistic character and I love how she portrayed her.  It’s not often you get to see a character like her.  She’s tough and independent and isn’t afraid to let people know she doesn’t want to be saddled with this baggage.  But she has a heart and loves Lucas and eventually grows to love these two little girls.

That leads to the other part of this film I love, that fairy tale about the power of a mother’s love and the love of a child.  It changes you, it saves you, and that’s what the core of the film is.  It shows the ugly and the beauty of that love, the two sides which are in a way epitomized in the movie.  Through the eyes of a child, through that innocent and trusting love, even monsters can be beautiful and can be changed.

As you may have noticed, I normally am not the one to review discs.  I don’t own a lot of movies, but I make an exception in the case of movies by Wes Anderson, because they are perfectly re-watchable to me:  with Moonrise Kingdom that proves to be the case.  I saw it on the big screen when it came to my city, but I was worried about the home watching experience because this film is even more atmospheric than the rest of Anderson’s live action offers.

First of all,  I was a bit off put because this disc pulls “fresh previews” from the internet at the start.  I confess that I had not seen that feature before, and was pleased to see it could be skipped via the menu button.  The menu was simple, fresh and easy to navigate.  It was also the most not annoying menu that I’ve seen in a while.  I could have lived in that menu, because I just want to live in Moonrise Kingdom.

This film is really served by Blu Ray,which was relieving.  Being a nostalgic flick set in the sixties on a (fictional) New England island the cinematography switches between Instagram feeling vignettes,  awesomely beautiful and lush fairy tale feeling moments, and the almost stage play like continuous shots that Anderson is famous for.  All this is beautifully rendered in the disc.  The score by Alexandre Desplat and the selections from Benjamin Britten also feature well… one of the best mixed movies I’ve watched at home for a while.

The story itself is very much a variation on the themes of alienation and identity… but done in a sweeter way than I’ve seen this director offer previously.  Roman Coppola co-wrote the script, and perhaps that is the difference… it’s missing Owen Wilson’s narrative snark.  The story is both too simple and too complex to go too far into without spoiling, but suffice it to say it is sweet, funny and tragic.  An orphan (an Khaki Scout camp escapee) and the privileged but disturbed daughter of two lawyers run away together during a hurricane threat, and the whole island embarks on finding them.  Of course, it’s never that simple.  The whole thing is narrated by Bob Balaban, with that ironic and sweet manner that only he can deliver.

One thing that I know people complain about is that Anderson is all style and no pay out.   To me, especially in this film,  Anderson is the teller of fables.  His world is just left of what our world is like, and yet it is completely familiar.  The disaffected characters are sometimes a bit too distant, but the beautiful part of this film is that the protagonists are children, and are inherently perceived as being more vulnerable.  Unlike Margot Tenenbaum, Suzy’s ways of acting out seem to be a bit more realistic, a bit less odd and privileged.  Sam’s plan is plausible, and never gets to the extremes of Max Fischer.  In these ways, Moonrise Kingdom may be his most accessible film.  However, if you are not the kind of viewer who can “buy in” to a fable realm that looks a lot like ours,  a romanticized nostalgic trip through ideals and failures,  then you probably will not enjoy it much.

The cast is simply amazing.  As some of our long time readers may know, I adore Edward Norton.  He completely engages with this script in a beautiful way.  Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand and the two child leads are brought together beautifully, along with the usual suspects from Anderson’s casting favorites.  The real surprise of the movie is Bruce Willis, who seemed like an odd choice for this sort of film, but brings a complex and understated performance that is the heart of the movie in many ways.

As far as extras, this initial release is a little lacking.  What amounts to an extended trailer, and some quick promo material does not really scratch my itch for behind the scenes material.  Even Bill Murray giving a backstage tour, though the highlight of the “extras” as it is amusing, is not particularly informative.  I’m hoping that later releases have more interviews with the cast, and maybe a mini-doc on the concept art (although I realize I’m spoiled by the thoroughness of the Criterion Collection Royal Tenenbaums).  Still, I would recommend this Blu Ray to anyone who wants to live in Moonrise Kingdom.

The Revenant

DVD Review

By Jessica Dwyer

Zombies are EVERYWHERE these days.  Thanks to the Walking Dead and numerous other flicks and shows the undead are easily accessible.  A unique entry into the world of the undead is getting to be a rare thing these days, but that’s exactly what The Revenant is.

Having been touring the film festival circuit for the last couple of years, the film got picked up by Lionsgate for distribution, releasing on DVD this week.  The movie stars David Anders (most recently well known for his turn as the mysterious Doctor Whale on Once Upon a Time) and Chris Wylde as two friends who death can’t split up, but a woman might just do it.

The flick starts off in Iraq where we are following a soldier named Bart (David Anders) as he goes on a routine patrol with members of his unit.  After an incident Bart breaks protocol and is gunned down by a group of insurgents.  We flash forward to his funeral and while his distraught friends and family are mourning him, Bart wakes up and heads to his best friend Joey’s (Chris Wylde) house after realizing he’s dead.

What follows is a hilarious and heartbreaking, gory journey for both buddy’s as they learn that blood may be thicker than water but friendship needs to be stronger than anything…even death.

While many will try to compare this to Shaun of the Dead, The Revenant isn’t a straight up zombie movie, nor is it in the same vein (pardon the pun) of Shaun.  Firstly, Bart’s not quite a zombie nor is he a vampire.  He’s a corpse that needs blood to keep from rotting and he’s only active at night.  He’s a bit of both worlds.  Bart’s story is also not a happy one by any stretch of the imagination.  While there are plenty of funny moments the film has a very dark side.

It enters into a sort of crazy Boondock Saints mode at points while the two friends find a very vigilante way to keep Bart supplied with fresh blood.  But as things progress, Bart and Joey’s luck begins to run out.

Writer/Director Kerry Prior creates a great blend of horror and dark comedy with a bit tragedy as the gooey cherry on top.  The Revenant is filled with damaged characters, but none so much as Bart himself, it seems even before his mysterious transformation into an undead creature.  He has to fall further than even his own grave before he starts what could be a journey back to where he should be, and it’s not smooth trip.

David Anders has an earnestness about him as Bart that makes you love the character.  And there are scenes where you just want to give the guy a hug.  Chris Wylde’s performance as Joey is fun to watch because I think we all know someone at least a little like Joey in our lives…and you’re still trying to figure out why you are friends with the guy.

If you love your comedy dark and slightly sticky then you need to check out The Revenant this week at your local video store.  It’s well worth the wait and a fun change to the zombie genre.

Check out Fangirl Radio this Thursday, September 20^th at 5pm Pacific on www.jackaloperdio.com and a few days later on download via iTunes for an interview with The Revenant star David Anders!