Sin #57: Modern Musicals

Ever since Al Jolson spoke the first words in a motion picture back in 1927 (with “The Jazz Singer”), Hollywood has had a dear affection for musicals. For a while they provided grand entertainment and audiences loved to see the elaborated choreographies backed up with catchy tunes. But then, they kind of fizzled out and musicals were deemed old-fasioned and corny, almost a relic from the past.

In 2001 there was a movie that single-handedly brought back the musical genre for a new generation. That was Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge”, a movie that combined an ancient and well known story (the love affair between an artist and a dying prostitute) with several covers of modern pop songs; the effect was both delightful and awe-inspiring, finally there was a fresh take on the genre and the movie became a big hit leading to other movies to follow its example (a year later “Chicago” took home the best picture Oscar, although it pales in comparison to “Moulin Rouge”). Today, there are many musicals around the corner and most of them are stale and boring.

A few weeks ago I saw “Nine” from Rob Marshall (who also made “Chicago”) and was startled at the cast he managed to convince to appear in it; we have Daniel Day Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Sophia Loren…these are some very talented actors (especially Lewis who burned the screen in “There Will Be Blood” and is known to be an extreme method-actor) but they are all wasted in a lousy remake of a Fellini classic that features not a single memorable song. “Nine” resembles a fashion shoot; it’s all glitz and glamour signifying absolutely nothing.

A recent musical I did like was Julie Taymor’s “Across the Universe” that featured very well known songs from The Beatles to tell a love story in the hippie era. While not every cover is successful (I hated the “Let it Be” cover), the movie is powerful and visually inventive (especially during the “Strawberry Fields” sequence) and remains an entertaining tribute to the lasting power of The Beatles.

Some musicals, however, can be true endurance tests for audiences. Take “The Producers” for example; in the theater it became a massive hit and was even an integral part of season four of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (resulting in hilarious situations for its star Larry David) but as a movie the musical is a complete stinker. Not only are the songs pretty bad but the performances are outrageously awful turning people into grotesque caricatures; the film is a mess.

Coming back from a trip I saw another awful musical called “Dreamgirls” that managed to be a unique musical in the sense that the stars didn’t actually sing but rather screeched the tunes as if paid by the decibel level. Everybody praised Jennifer Hudson’s performance (she even won an Oscar for it) but I found her annoying and irritating not to mention unbearable. “Dreamgirls” is the kind of film that gives musicals a bad name.

I don’t have anything against the musical genre, in fact two of my favorite movies of the last decade were musicals (“Sweeney Todd” and “Once”) but those films had great characters and their songs defined their personalities and helped tell a good story. Movies like “Nine” or “Dreamgirls” don’t care about anything except the technical aspect of their musical numbers, turning the whole venture into a cold, frivolous exercise. Musicals went in and out of fashion once and we are seeing it happen again. Every time I sense something bad about to happen I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel so bad…

Sin #56: No Country for Young Men

Cormac McCarthy is the kind of author that takes the brutal, the heinous, the vile and painful as a poetic anchor for describing human misery. His stories are dark glimpses into the life of characters that are stuck in an endless purgatory of suffering. I’ve tried to finish reading his “Blood Meridian” but simply cannot; it’s an odyssey so harrowing that at times I’ve had to put the book down to catch a breather. McCarthy describes the violence in such startling detail that even the stench of a corpse is palpable through the pages.

This kind of despair is difficult to capture on film, where audiences expect to at least empathize with its hero (as a film “Blood Meridian” might feel like an endless slog through hell without a ray of sunshine to be found). When I heard “The Road” was being adapted I was afraid that Hollywood might glamorize the story and make it accessible for Cineplex-attending audiences (its trailers sold it as a post-apocalyptic action movie, almost a “Mad Max” clone). But then I remembered its director John Hillcoat, who made a stunning Australian movie called “The Proposition” a few years ago that felt positively McCarthian in the way its blood-soaked violence defined its characters and I knew that he was the right person to adapt this story to the screen.

After watching “The Road” I felt I’d gone on an unforgettable and painful journey to the heart of darkness, which is the right feeling for this story. Beyond the barren landscapes and the cannibalism, the story is really about a father and son struggling to survive in a world where hope has been completely forgotten. For it to work the movie needed brave actors and Viggo Mortensen and young Kodi Smit-McPhee deliver extraordinary performances. Their connection feels authentic and its closing scenes are heartbreaking.

On interviews McCarthy has said that “The Road” is really about him and his relationship with his son and in factual truth is more of a love story than merely a horror thriller; one could say there’s something of a happy ending in its final sequence (even though happy is a very poor word to describe it).

It’s curious how some filmmakers use a canvas of despair to entertain and excite while others use it to provoke thoughts about the human condition. Take two movies for example, “I am Legend” and “Children of Men”; the first is an ordinary action movie starring Will Smith as the last person on the planet (or so he thinks) and the second one is an equally action packed cerebral exercise in doomed fascination. “I am Legend’s” scenario happens after a mysterious vaccine turns people into crazed zombies (although they look nothing like the zombies from the George Romero pictures or “28 Days Later”, more like ugly avatars from a lousy X-Box game); on the other hand, in “Children of Men” there isn’t really a scientific explanation, we have to accept that there’s simply no more children being born. I hated “I am Legend” as much as I loved “Children of Men”, and that’s saying a lot (one thing that bothered me with “Legend” was how dim the violence seemed thanks to the filmmakers intent in making the movie family-friendly).

Still, “The Road” casts a spell unlike any post-apocalyptic film, mainly because it focuses intently on a relationship between father and son. McCarthy may see it as a love story and a hopeful one at that but it is unrelenting in its starkness. Still, the love comes through.

Sin #55: Naughty and Nice

Christmas has become a brand. It used to be a religious celebration and an opportunity for families to gather together for a chance to reminisce about their past year. In a way, shopping sprees sucked Christianity out of the equation and families cared more about presents, food and decorations than actually having a nice and quiet time with each other.

As a kid, I used to detach myself from the chaos of Christmas Eve (a thunderstorm of shopping, grooming and placing the damn lights on the tree) by watching movies on TV, most of which were, in fact, disguised morality tales (especially with the Scrooge formula in which an old man learns to be good again after he is visited by three ghosts who give him a glimpse of his past, present and future life).

At home one of our favorite Christmas movies is “A Nightmare Before Christmas” which not only is a visual marvel (result of an amazing stop-motion technique) but also a fantastic musical whose songs remain classics to this day (it’s definitely Danny Elfman’s finest score, so inspiring that even rocker Marylin Manson covered a song). Jack Skellington’s obsessions and failures always felt more poignant that any of the phony melodrama of those other holiday pictures and the movie has cemented itself as a cult favorite (ironically, also a popular recurring merchandise item) and certainly one of the best Tim Burton films (even though it was actually directed by Henry Selick, who later went on to make the brilliant “Coraline”, based on a book by fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman).

My favorite Christmas movie however is, in a way, a sort of “Grinch” knockoff, although it lacks any of the PC-elements found in family films. Terry Zwigoff’s “Bad Santa” is a dark and hilariously twisted black comedy that manages to entertain, offend and even reach some sort of poignancy at the end (just a little, I must admit). It features a manic performance by Billy Bob Thornton that reaches a kind of grandeur (it’s a blast watching him dressed as Santa Claus in a mall next to small children, completely passed out having pissed himself) and the movie never compromises from its dark origins. His relationship with Marcus, his tiny partner in crime, so to speak, is very funny and adding an obese kid to the mix only makes the movie seem even funnier.

In a way, “Bad Santa” is the perfect antidote from the hypocrisy of Hollywood movies that are merely vehicles to promote consumerism. Movies have become so earnest in their need to appeal to audiences that they never seem to risk anything. Even if you hated “Bad Santa” for its vulgarities, you have to admit that at least it reaches for the fences and never apologizes for its rudeness, to me that’s enough merit to recommend it (without ignoring that it’s very well written and acted).

As for the holiday season, well, it’s pretty clear that some traditions are hard to shake off. I guess that I’ll still be putting the damn tree on December, eating turkey and reminiscing about how crappy Christmas films are (or maybe I’ll just watch “Bad Santa” again and laugh).

Sin #54: Someone Can Hear You Scream

They say in space no one can hear you scream (pretty logical since no there are no air waves to carry sound). There’s been lots of screaming though, in the movies where a bunch of astronauts are haunted by a menacing extraterrestrial presence.

One of the best horror movies is Ridley Scott’s original “Alien”, a movie drenched in atmosphere and mystery; in it we’re introduced to the amazing creature design of Swedish artist H.R Giger, whose conceptual art resembles something between suggestive eroticism and decomposing organisms. The key to the movie is its pacing; it takes time to build and is reluctant to spoil the fun early on. The movie is wise in developing characters we care about (including the now iconic Ellen Ripley, played in all four films by Sigourney Weaver); once we see the creature (first, in the gasping chest-burster sequence, then as a fully grown specimen) we’re completely absorbed in the character’s ordeal. “Alien” remains a classic that stands out from the other sequels thanks to Scott’s taut direction; Cameron’s sequel is more action driven, Fincher’s is claustrophobic but ultimately pointless and Jeunet’s is more fantasy surrealism (the less said about “Alien vs. Predator” the better).

“Alien” inspired countless retreads but one of the few worthy films it inspired was John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (even though it is a remake of an older movie, the film owes a lot to Scott’s movie). “The Thing” uses the isolated Antarctic as a location and instead of giving a fully formed creature, it uses a parasitic entity that possesses living organism and turns them into demonic and hideous mutations (the special effects for these creatures are astounding). The movie is a terrific exercise in suspense that has, unsurprisingly, become a cult classic and possibly Carpenter’s most accomplished film.

The first sequence in “The Thing” features a spaceship crashing on earth. Whether this ship contained the original aliens or were another race invaded by the parasites is one of the story’s many mysteries (similar to the origin of the infamous “space jockey” in “Alien”). Since the aliens need hosts, the movie bases its suspense on the audience (and the characters) guessing who might be infected next. There’s a sort of irony in the end and room for a lot of speculation (there are, in fact, many web pages dedicated to analyzing the movie in astonishing detail).

The formula of claustrophobic settings, a group of naive adventurers and horrible creatures has become a tired and worn out cliché. However, if done right they can be engaging and horrific (like with the amazing Spanish film “Rec”), if done wrong they can be predictable and laughable. Some are interesting in concept but fail to deliver the goods; “The Descent”, for example, is the story of a group of women exploring some mysterious caves in America where they find unspeakable horrors deep within the subterraneous caverns. The setting is stylish and the film sells its locations convincingly and yet, it lacks any substance; the characters are shallow, the creatures aren’t scary and the movie ends on a weird and unconvincing note (leaving the audience to exclaim WTF?!).

Still, “Alien” and “The Thing” remain prime examples of the genre and pure movie thrill rides. The news that Ridley Scott will be back to the franchise with a prequel brings a level of excitement that we didn’t think was possible with the franchise (thanks to the damage caused by “AvP”). We can only hope that if someone is screaming out there, if might be worth for us to take a look.

Sin #53: Sequelitis

Some movies warrant sequels, others conveniently force them. Good sequels expand their stories, add interesting characters and create a sense of an ever-growing mythology; bad sequels, on the other hand, repeat the same story and instead focus on refining the technical aspects so we get a sleeker packaging.

Something curious occurred to me after the screening of “Iron Man 2”; I sensed a distinct case of “sequelitis” (a common trait where the filmmakers try to give an epic feel to the picture by cluttering the screen with more characters and labyrinthine storylines). While the first “Iron Man” had a clean and crisp story with characters whose motivations we understood clearly, the sequel ads too many characters, a dumbed-down storyline and also crams as much external fluff to prepare us for a movie that’s two years away (“The Avengers”). I was disappointed because I found the original to be a funny and genuinely entertaining summer flick that gave us a terrific performance by Robert Downey Jr; “Iron Man 2” is by no means a terrible movie (some scenes are funny and the special effects are awesome, but the charm and originality are missing). I had a similar feeling with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels; there’s simply too much stuff going on that either doesn’t make sense in narrative terms or isn’t very amusing.

There are, however, good sequels but they’re usually the result of a strong directorial vision. I remember having a blast with Guillermo Del Toro’s “Blade 2” even though I found the first one pretty mediocre. Del Toro understood the concept and elevated the premise with brilliant creature designs and an aggressive pacing that made the film way more fun that we thought was possible (and a lot better than the first and third movies).

Another one of the great sequels is Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunset” which took more than a decade to be released. “Before Sunrise” was far from a hit in theaters but it acquired a new life on video where it became a cult hit. “Sunset” was clearly a labor of love for both the actors (Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke) and its director who actually collaborated together on the script. Both films form an amazing love story that deals with meaningful themes and actually chronicles two very specific moments in the lives of these characters (I’m hoping for a third movie, even if it takes another ten years).

These are examples of good sequels but usually we get terrible retreads. Take for example the ill-fated “Men in Black 2” which basically did everything wrong the same way the first one did everything right. The original was very original and funny and won us over with its story of a bureau than monitored extraterrestrial life on earth. It ended perfectly as Tommy Lee Jones trains Will Smith to be his replacement so he can enjoy retirement as a normal citizen; the second one brings back Jones (in a pointless decision that actually undoes the dramatic arc of the first one) and basically recycles the whole premise, except that the roles are sort of inverted.

Sequels are a tricky business to pull off; since most are cash in movies, writers refuse to give extra effort to story and characters. I felt this way with “Iron Man 2” and many other sequels. Maybe we need people like Del Toro or Christopher Nolan to show us how it’s done.

Sin #52: Bad Cop Routine

Picture this: You’ve been assigned to write a movie that features corrupt cops, drug dealers, prostitutes and a sleazy location (preferably in a decaying city), got it?

You might first want to introduce the characters. The hero could be a lieutenant with a bad drug habit who has a complicated relationship with a hooker (let’s make her preferably Latina). The cop begins to develop a partnership with the local drug dealers (preferably Afro-Americans) who use him as leverage in the precinct; slowly but surely he begins to lose his mind in a spiral of addiction. Pretty generic stuff, right?

Cop movies are a dime a dozen in Hollywood; most of them recycle clichés and formulas that strip them of any kind of originality, although every once in a while they can be a lot of fun (like with “Training Day” and Denzel Washington’s Oscar winning performance). Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”, however, doesn’t really resemble any of the other cop movies I’ve seen even though it features all of the elements previously mentioned. To begin with, Herzog is not a conventional filmmaker by any means and often deals with characters on the verge of madness. With this in mind, he lets Nicolas Cage roam wild in an exquisite performance of over-the top extremeness that at times borders on camp but that never breaks the reality of the situation. Now, about Cage; even though he has hurt his career by appearing in real turkeys lately (like “The Wicker Man”, “Ghost Rider” or “Bangkok Dangerous”), in the right movies (like “Adaptation”, “Matchstick Men” or “Bringing out the Dead”) he can be fearless, poignant and unforgettable. In this movie he is working without a safety net and relishing every minute of it; it’s really a joy to watch the character implode. The rest of the cast also works within the boundaries of clichés but always on the risky edge, making them more real and human (Jennifer Coolidge, in an unusual role, and Eva Mendes are very good).

There are two particular elements (besides the acting) that make “Bad Lieutenant” very different from your usual cop story. The first one is the location; by setting the characters in a devastated post-Katrina New Orleans Herzog has stripped the glossiness of cities like New York or Los Angeles (where these stories usually take place). The second element are those damn iguanas that fill the screen in intense close-ups that occupy the foreground as the characters mind their business.

According to Cage, Herzog owns those iguanas and really wanted them on the film (even though they weren’t in the script). As a staring iguana breaks the fourth wall we wonder about their meaning, are they there to add a surreal oddity to the film or merely for us to visualize Cage’s hallucinations?

It’s these kinds of puzzlements that make “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” such an odd and compelling movie; we don’t know what to make of it but we can’t forget about it either. Watching it we really sense that there’s nothing predictable in its story, especially about its ending that doesn’t go for the obvious solution but instead takes a more realistic approach (that final sequence left me with a giddy grin).

By the way, even though a while ago there was some controversy about this movie being some sort of remake of Abel Ferrara’s film starring Harvey Keitel (also titled “Bad Lieutenant”), it’s safe to say that there’s no semblance to the previous version except for its title. This is a Werner Herzog movie all the way.