30 Days of Night, Into the Wild, Across the Universe

30 Days of Night - File this under - 'What took them so long to come up with this brilliant idea?' The setting is Barrow, Alaska - the northernmost town in the United States. It's isolated for miles and miles on all sides. It snows all the time. Once a year, the small town is plunged into darkness for an entire month. This year, a mysterious Stranger (the electrifying, as always, Ben Foster) has arrived. He's destroyed all their cell phones. He cut off all their power. He killed all the sled dogs. He's burned many of the cars. Those that chose to stay (the last airplane leaves at sundown and a plane won't be back until dawn) are effectively cut off from the outside world. Being plunged into darkness for a month sounds creepy enough but when you throw a gang of supernatural vampires into the mix it's downright scary. A small band of survivors unite to try to last through the darkness and make it to daylight. They are led by Sherriff Eben (Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife Stella (Melissa George). When I told my mom this movie was a love story, I wasn't joking. It kind of is. Stella and Eben have a lot of issues and, really, when is it a better time to realize how much you love someone than when you are being stalked by bloodthirsty vampires? (See, there's something for everyone here). The movie is directed by David Slade who last directed the fantastic film Hard Candy and he does an equally impressive job here. There's a lot of quick cuts. There's a lot of fast action. And, there's a lot of blood! His overhead shots of vampires ransacking the small town are glorious. The movie isn't exactly scary but I've seen a million horror movies and so I'm a bit jaded by now. It actually plays a little more like a Western to me (maybe I like Westerns now?). It's definitely got the swagger and attitude down. The acting is solid but nothing spectacular (it is a horror movie, after all). Hartnett particularly impressed me because I'm so used to him feeling so rigid and stiff in his roles. He actually shows quite a bit of emotion here, especially in the last act of the movie. George is the weakest link here. At times, her performance is strong but there's something about her that just annoys me (Sorry but it's true). Of course, Ben Foster steals all the scenes he is in. This is pretty much the perfect role for him. He's a great character actor who seems to love characters who are a little bit strange, to say the least. Maybe his mantra is: 'The crazier the better.' And he's great at it. Here's hoping he keeps making movies like this and keeps playing such complicated, crazy, wonderful characters. The movie starts with a hectic, gritty intensity and it doesn't let up. The movie is definitely sinister, violent and unrelentingly violent. I'm over zombies, let's return to the vampire genre! And this is a great way to start that trend!
Grade: B

Into the Wild - There are movies that you instantly forget you ever saw. There are many of those. There are movies that are enjoyable or even thought-provoking that stick with you for a few days or a few weeks, sometimes months and years. There are many of those as well. Then, there is the rarest of films - the kind that burrows into your soul. The kind that you just know will live with you forever. The kind that is absolutely unforgetable. Into the Wild is the latter. Honestly, I'm not sure how to even review this movie. In a way, it's beyond words. There's too much beauty, too much tragedy, too much unexplainable perfect-ness to try to capture in a paragraph or two of clumsy words. But I'll try. Into the Wild follows recent college graduate Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch in a performance so powerful and astonishing, it's really hard to see how he can't be Oscar nominated in January) who burns his social security card, cuts up his credit cards and gives away his life savings to Oxfam. He leaves behind his family (Dad William Hurt, Mom Marcia Gay Harden, sister Jena Malone), gets in his car and just hits the road. We follow him on a series of life changing / life altering experiences and adventures. He meets a lot of great characters played by a lot of great actors (Holy Kristen Stewart! I was right, I was right. She can act!). He takes the name Alexander Supertramp and sets off to see it all. He does rapids from the desert into Mexico (without the permit that would require him to wait 12 years!). He works in a wheat field with Vince Vaughn. He forms a kind of tramp family with the lovely Catherine Keener. He has a moment of true clarity with an apple. All of these adventures, with hippies and nude colonies, Reno and the dirty streets of Los Angeles, moutains and deserts and sweet young love left unconsummated, his true goal is to go North - to Alaska. When he gets there he lives in a Magic Bus for over three months. He hunts (killing a moose which he writes is the biggest tragedy of his life), he pretends he's a bus driver having conversations with his imaginary passengers, he reads, he just lives. And then, well, nature has its funny ways. It's, perhaps, the biggest tragedy of all that the earth that he so worshipped and adored ultimately destroys him. To look at Emile Hirsch in those final few scenes is utterly painful. He looks so pained, to gaunt (you know, the Academy loves when actors lose a lot of weight for roles!!!). The cinematography is stunning. Sean Penn's rebellious direction is superb. The acting is downright brilliant. Hirsch, like I said, deserves to be nominated for an Oscar. I've been a fan of his for years but this is the performance that will cross him over into the mainstream - if he wants to. He gives his all to this role and the result is beyond words. The supporting cast is great as well especially turns from Hal Holbrook, Catherine Keener and Kristen Stewart. The bottom line is that this movie is just plain amazing. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best movie of the year and I can't forsee anything beating it. I'm sure some people out there might find the main character to be a pompous, stubborn asshole, but I see him (as does Penn) as some sort of martyr. His story is inspirational. If I had the guts, I would love to do the same thing. Is there anything wrong with this movie? I could say I didn't love Jena Malone's wise-beyond-her-years narration but that would just be nitpicking. As far as I'm concerned, this movie is as close as you can get to perfect.
Grade: A+

Across the Universe - Sometimes being visually daring doesn't exactly pay off. Sure, this movie looks great. It's got style by the truckload but that doesn't help a boring cliche filled script and loads of mediocre performances. The movie, of course, is set to Beatles music. And the songs are mostly great. The actors are up to the challenge of singing them. But sometimes it's overload. I'm pretty sure the only reason the character of Prudence is even in the movie is so they have an excuse to sing 'Dear Prudence' at one point. She's absolutely the most unnecessary character in recent memory. A few other characters show up just so they can randomly sing songs as well. In a way, the movie is an acheivement in art, design, style and dance. However, it's still a movie and as a movie it suffers from not having a strong script. It suffers from using every 60s era cliche it can possibly find. It suffers from being a little too strange for it's own good. It suffers from being about 40 minutes too long. (It's called editing Julie Taymor, please embrace it next time). There's no character development. No character arcs. No lessons learned. Nothing. But let's ignore the fact that the characters never learn or develop and remain completely one-dimensional because the movie looks great! No, I'm not that easy and you shouldn't be satisfied that easily either. Maybe what irked me the most was that it didn't follow the one very simple rule of musicals. You can pretty much get away with murder in a musical as long as you follow this one simple rule: All songs must advance the plot. This movie fails miserably at that. Jim Sturgess does a fine job playing the main character Jude, a man who leaves Liverpool to find his father in America and instead finds and falls in love with Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). Wood... annoys me sometimes. In some movies I love her and in some movies I don't. I loved her in Pretty Persuasion and Down in the Valley. I didn't like her here. Dana Fuchs pretty much steals the show as Sadie, a very Janis Joplin type singer. Her rendition of Helter Skelter is easily the best part of the film. The movie isn't so bad, however. There are some great scenes. I particularly loved the bowling alley scene, the 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' scene and the 'Let it Be' scene (eventhough, again, random characters who only serve a function to sing and then disappear). It's not the best movie of the year (nowhere near it) but its not the worst either. It's more or less a two hour long glorified music video.
Grade: C-