Children of Men and The Hitcher

Children of Men - The future is a scary thing. Twenty years in the future, the world is at war, cities and countries are torn apart, fighting and dying and bombing. Oh, and since women can't have babies anymore, the youngest person in the world just died. He was eighteen. That leaves our protagonist Theo (Clive Owen) to ensure the future of the world when he is somewhat conned into helping his ex-girlfriend get a refugee woman who just so happens to be pregnant out of war torn London and into the safety of a group of people who they're not even sure exist. Children of Men is a kind of revelation, the kind of jarring, subtle film that will surely benefit from further viewings. It's a convincing future world albeit a very terrifying vision so well realized. Clive Owen finally plays the sort of tragic hero role that we all knew he had in him and he holds this film together with that world weary face and those piercing eyes. Julianne Moore glows with such life and I have to say I've never enjoyed Michael Caine as much as in this film. The soundtrack is beautiful, the cinematography is gorgeous, the script is a delight. This is the kind of movie that grabs you from the start and never lets go. Initially, it's the differences of this future world that is so intriguing but soon the action starts and what was so surprising was the freshness of direction that made a reaction to bullets and death and violence like you'd never seen them in a movie before. If the script wasn't so wonderfully leveled with wit, it would be a grim and scary movie at times (although it's hardly an uplifting one). This is a movie that is horrifyingly beliveable and utterly beautiful to watch. There is one specific scene that, dare I say, was the best scene captured on film last year, when Owen's Theo is escorting young Kee and her newborn baby through a barrage of bullets, soldiers and refugees fighting to the death... but as soon as they hear that crying and see that baby... something no one has seen or heard for 18 years, the reaction is utterly and completely beautiful.
Grade: A

The Hitcher - The risk you run when remaking any horror movie is the inevitable fact that everyone is going to compare your new film to the original. Luckily for The Hitcher, not many people have seen the original (myself excluded). This isn't a great film or remake by any means but it does a pretty good job nonetheless even if the remake ultimately fails to surpass the original. Sean Bean takes over for Rutger Hauer and does a wonderful job. It was hard to imagine that he could be quite as cool and menacing as Hauer was in the original as the drifting psycho, but he gives a chilling portrayal. Director David Meyers does a pretty good job at keeping the film compact. Many films today (especially horror films) feel the need to be much longer than they need to be. In some cases, 85 minutes is just enough time to get your message across. The plot of this movie is quite simple and the new filmmakers keep it just as simple: two college kids (Zachary Knighton as Jim and the beautiful Sophia Bush as Grace) reluctantly offer a hitchhiker (Bean as John Ryder) a ride to a hotel a mere 15 miles away. Turns out, our mother's were right and we should not pick up hitchhikers no matter how friendly they seem. Still, much of the reason the film held my interest is because Sophia Bush is in it and I just love her. While the original film was a fun piece of B-movie celluloid, this film doesn't have the same feeling of fun or the same intensity. The writing is merely average and there's a reason no one knows who Zachary Knighton is. The plot is a bit ridiculous as well. While it's hard to take anything serious with the original, this film seemed to think it was serious. Which is fine. Except for the fact that all of these coincidences just kept happening and happening and happening. I'm willing to dispell believablity a few times because, after all, it's a just a movie but when coincidence after coincidence keep lining up, it's hard to keep interested in a plot you can see coming a mile away. The film also suffers from having a very anti-climatic conclusion that is a bit irritating (although Sophia Bush is quite the kick ass chick in the few final moments). Even if the film is only 85 minutes long, the final 15 minutes seemed to drag out forever. Still, it's not a horrible movie. It's pretty average, pretty ok. But it does get a boost from a C to a C+ because of the single coolest death scene I have EVER seen!
Grade: C+

Alpha Dog

This movie was supposed to come out last year at this time. I remember reading a story about it a year before that, so, more or less, I have been waiting to see this movie for two years. This movie could very easily have let me down because I had it so built up in my head. However, it did not in the least. It was well worth the wait. It's the sort of movie that sucks you in, entrances you, and then hits you over the head with a baseball bat. It's full of characters who are not too likeable, yet we somehow feel for most of them because they are free in ways that most people are not. Nick Cassavetes (who follows up The Notebook with this movie!) really does a wonderful job capturing the essence of this true story. The way he puts you into the prospective of what happened, the way you see what happened as though you are actually experiencing it yourself, is absolutely brilliant.
The story is true, as most people know by now. In an interview, Cassavetes said that this is as true to what happened as could possibly be. The only thing that he changed were the names. So, instead of Jesse James Hollywood, Emile Hirsch plays Johnny Truelove, a young drug dealer who sells various drugs to most of his teenage friends in the sunny, barren wasteland of San Gabriel, California. He's got a group of drug addicted, tough guy friends including Justin Timberlake as Frankie and Shawn Hatosy as Elvis. Ben Foster and his character of Jake Mazursky is sort of the catalyst for everything that happens in this film. It seems Jake owes Johnny money and after a few days of back and forth retaliation between the two (breaking windows, stealing televisions, using the living room carpet as a toilet...) things really spiral out of control when Johnny decides it would be a good idea to kidnap Jake's innocent and sweet little brother Zack (Anton Yelchin) who they happen upon en route to Palm Springs for Fiesta Weekend. They bring little Zack along for the ride and he doesn't mind so much because he gets to play video games, drink and smoke, have sex with two girls and all around feel like one of the crowd. If you've read anything about the true story, then you know what is going to happen next. Still, even if you see it coming a mile away, it still knocks you out of your seat. The relationship between Timberlake's Frankie and Yelchin's Zack is really the backbone of the film. They genuinely become almost friends and that final scene with the two of them will easily break your heart.
There's a mood and energy, a style that Cassavettes so easily captures and portrays that makes this film so far removed from any cliched studio product geared toward the teenybopper set. The film feels honest and genuine and has a lot of unexpected heart and soul, and that makes all the difference in the world. Cassavettes also does a lot of creative things in the movie including interviews to make it feel more like a documentary than a drama, split screen camera tricks, a run down of the dates and times that everything went down, and the part I loved the most, a running count of all the witnesses who saw the kidnapped boy over the three day period. To say that these kids are stupid is a huge understatement. But that's the point. They are a bunch of drugged out, tripping young kids who think they rule the world, because in a strange sort of way, they do. They think they can do anything they want and get away with it. This is, essentially, a story about a group of people who make one bad decision after another until it spirals so far out of control they have no idea how to get out of the mess they created. And, of course, they choose the worst possible way to try to get out of the situation.
The performances are really most impressive. This is a sprawling cast with a ton of wonderful performances. It's nearly impossible to pinpoint any one person specifically because I don't really think there was a star of the movie. This is ensemble casting at it's best. There are wonderful performances from Shawn Hatosy, Emile Hirsch, Chris Marquette, Sharon Stone, Dominique Swain, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Willis, and Anton Yelchin (whose last few moments on-screen are gut wrenching). Everyone just really does a great job. Justin Timberlake is the most surprising, of course. Surprise, surprise: the guy can act! Forget everything you think about him, all your preconceived notions of the boy bander or whatever. He crackles whenever he's on screen and he has all the right ingredients for a stellar acting career: charisma, screen presence and natural acting talent. But, the standout performance, for me anyway, was from Ben Foster. I remember watching a documentary a few years back about meth addicts and Ben Foster just nails it. He's so on spot in every single scene. He's almost frightening to watch. He's stunning and terrifying. I never thought that little Tucker James from Flash Forward would scare me so much but he does. He's just simply wonderful. He gives one of those rare performances that you won't soon forget.
Grade: A