Death Note II: The Last Note (2006)

The sequel to 2006's live-action manga adaptation, this entry tells the contuining story of Light, who uses the Death Note to kill whomever he wishes by merely writing their name within its pages, and L, the gifted, intuitive cyberdetective obsessed with uncovering his identity. Without ruining the last film, the ending implied that there would be a sort of team-up between the two characters, and this film largely revolves around the implications of that partnership, from both sides. While L is nearly certain that Light is the enigmatic "Kira," as he is known, he is continuously thwarted by Light's ability to use the constituents of the book to his advantage. Meanwhile, the rest of the world reacts, in various ways, to Kira's unrelenting presence in the media, along with the arrival of, what seems like, another Death Note into the hands of another "Kira."

As it is more directly bound by plot and specific characters than the last installment, this follow-up is not quite as thematically ambitious as its predecessor, and does not focus on the societal impact of Kira's actions as much as their effect on the familiar characters from part 1, and two crucial new female characters. Where the last one played with the viewer's emotions in regards to Light, and how he simultaneously expressed empathy and ruthlessness through the Death note, this one paints the characters in broader strokes, and makes less of an effort to keep their motivations behind their actions ambiguous. However, in exchange, there is more an emphasis on immediacy and suspense, and, after a full movie setting up the duel between L and Light, it is a blast to see their rivalry take center stage while the global ramifications of the Death Note pile up around them. The fundamental differences in their characters are more highlighted this time around, and their strained, yet somewhat understanding interplay is the main joy of the film. Also along for the ride, with further extrapolation, are Light's police official father, his apple-eating guardian god-of-death, Ryuk, and L's loyal handler, Watari; one of the advantages of the two films being filmed with such little time-lapsed is that not only is the entire cast present, but everyone looks and acts exactly as they should, considering the plot begins mere moments after the original's ending.

Highly Recommended for fans of the original, or of ambitious, morally ambiguous manga or cinema. I was not as taken off guard with this one as I was with the first one, but that is only due to my lack of awareness of the series prior to that viewing; in terms of sequels, I kept waiting for this one to show the dirt under its fingernails from playing in its own playground for too long, but the film managed to ride the momentum provided by the original until its thoroughly satisfying wallop of an ending.

The Apartment (1960)

Teriffic, swingin' 60's office comedy about a beleaguered clerk who gains standing in his company by allowing philandering executives access to apartment for their extra-marital trysts. Jack Lemmon secured his superstar status with his role as C.C. Baxter, the neurotic, high-strung cog in the machine who repeatedly sacrifices his dignity, his integrity, and much of his sanity in the attempt to advance his career; no stranger to spending the night on a park bench due to his "occupied" apartment, the film shows us how far he is willing to go before he decides to risk his job and reclaim his manhood. Just as he tenuously makes progress with his longtime crush, the cute elevator girl, played by Shirley Maclaine, his boss, Fred MacMurray, grants him a promotion with the stipulation that he must have on-demand access to Baxter's apartment to shack up with, you guessed it, the cute elevator girl played by Shirley Maclaine. The love triangle rambles along as MacMurray eventually assigns Lemmon the task of keeping an eye on Maclaine, which, inevitably, leads to lovey dovey scenes of their blossoming romance, with the increasingly stressed Lemmon being forced to definitively choose between the gold or the girl.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of this film, which no one had ever seen fit to mention in their appraisals of the film, is its firmly 60's era depiction of the workplace. The women are all secretaries, and, it is revealed, have all had affairs with their married bosses (until they got too old). The men are all joyous, fedora-sporting cads who amicably compete and banter without ever maliciously undermining each other for personal gain. There are plenty of cocktails drunk, floozies picked up, and codependent, selfless women; Maclaine's character is hopelessly in love with MacMurray, and provides a detached running commentary on the futility, and cliched nature, of her position as "the other woman." Fuck Mad Men; this is the real deal, without irony, in all of its politically incorrect, blissfully unaware glory. Lemmon's stalwart, yet career-minded schlub stands out among his peers for his minimal, but still-present respect for the opposite sex. His faded sense of morality makes him constantly edgy and nervous, and makes him both an identifiable, yet thoroughly watchable protagonist. MacMurray is surprisingly sympathetic as the big boss man, Maclaine is adorable and sympathetic as the perpetually dumped elevator girl, and Ray Walston kills it in a fast-talking smaller part as a coworker of Lemmon's. Billy Wilder made some very ambitious thematic choices for this era (including a scene, my favorite, of Lemmon picking up, and discarding of, an aging barfly floozy), and the end result is a film that has dated in all the right ways, and remains both a delightful narrative and a snapshot of a time, era, and mentality that does not exist (aside from bad xerox copies on AMC).

Highly Recommended for fans of Lemmon or Maclaine, or of classic business comedies such as Sweet Smell of Success or The Front Page (also with Lemmon). I have not seen Wilder and Lemmon's previous collaboration (the obscure, largely forgotten comedy Some Like it Hot), so I cannot say how it holds up, but that film would have to be simultaneously funny, involving, and surprisingly touching to land in this one's ballpark.

Sucker Punch (2011)

Simultaneously over-ambitious and hideously involving, this girl-power flick tells, in metaphor, the story of a group of female mental patients and their attempts to escape, both spiritually and physically. After we are given the opening titles on a stage, as if setting up a musical, the ace opening tells us, without words, how the protagonist, "Baby-Doll," got herself incarcerated by assaulting her scheming, money-hungry caretaker. Once arrived at the mental hospital, she almost immediately reverts into a sort of trauma-induced hypnosis, where in her perception, the hospital is a brothel, her fellow patients are beleaguered prozzies, and the teeth-gnashing caretaker is a reptilian, pencil-moustached pimp. Revealing much else would betray the wild, intercontextual nature of the script, and the various, dare-I-say-it, sucker punches the film provides throughout. What I can say is that there is yet another level of reality the film sinks into, and, without a set of false, loosely followed rules (*ahem*, Inception), the visuals of these fantasies are allowed to be, well, just as crazy as what you've seen in the films' promotional materials. While much of the more lavish and mind-blowing visuals are contained solely in the characters' minds, they manage to incorporate enough of the main plotline to be more than mere distractions in what is, otherwise, an intimate, introspective tale. The performances of the main girls are hit-and-miss, with Jena Malone's Rockit faring the best (her energy is infectious, whether dispensing dialogue, or dispensing asskicking) and Vanessa Hudgens, surprisingly enough (heh, heh), embarrassing herself, and looking like she'd much rather be on the set of Beastly. Carla Gugino, with her comic-book lips and physique, is perfectly cast as the resident "Madam," Oscar Isaac is a thoroughly hissable villain, and, best of all, Scott Glenn reminds everyone how truly awesome Scott Glenn can be with his pseudo-Jiminy Cricket musings ("And one more thing…").
As grateful as I was for all of director and co-writer Zack Snyder's risk taking, as well as the unabashedly FLAWLESS integration of special effects and live-action, the film did not end up coming together into perfection the way that I had hoped for. I have done a great job of keeping spoilers off of Righteous Film, and I refuse to end that for the sake of attacking the decisions made in the film's third-act, but I must call to attention the striking similarities between the ending of this film and that of a certain futuristic spoof of bureaucracy (saying which would kinda ruin it). That crib, along with several other decisions make the ending feel like a sort of acknowledgement of the films stylized, inorganic nature, which would be fine, had that been the film's only goal. However, there are lengthy scenes, with substance, that serve only to invest the viewer's emotion in the plotline, the circumstances, and the characters, and the style-over-substance ending seems to undermine these more powerful, merciless moments. Had the ending lived up to the promise of those earlier SUCKER PUNCHES (the title, if you haven't guessed, is quite apt), the film would probably be the best film of Snyder's career, and the template for a new era in action-oriented fantasy. But alas, as is, the whole thing suffers Snyder's recurring lack of cohesion in his films (save for the director's cut of Watchmen), and the movie is best enjoyed as, simply, a movie, and nothing more. Which is a shame, because the successes of this movie are beyond mere moments; it achieves a certain flexibility in its tone and structure that few films try and pull off, and even fewer films actually achieve. Maybe the originally cast lead, Amanda Seyfried, would have been the missing link to the movie that is and the movie that could be, but as is, we are left with a fascinating, yet flawed (I think I already see the problems his Superman movie will have) drama-fantasy-sci-fi-actioner.

Recommended (despite its flaws) to fans of outside-the-box sensationalism (i.e. Sin City), Zack Snyder, and GIRLS!! Seriously, hearing that the majority of the films audience have, so far, been male was a disappointment, because this is easily one of the more empowering female-centric action films I've seen in recent memory. But I guess that repeatedly shagging Ashton Kutcher, Jake Gyllenhaal, or Justin Timberlake without the threat of a long-term relationship is all the escapist fantasy that the current generation of young females need.

Battle: Los Angeles (2011)

Basically a very well-rendered, if not particularly imaginative, video game cut-scene, this actioner with sci-fi overtones concerns the military response to a hostile extra-terrestrial invasion, specifically on the coast of Los Angeles. While I disagree with Roger Ebert's half-a-star(!) review, I think he gave the movie too much credit by writing it a full-page review. This is not a full-page review type movie, because I doubt the execs ever gave a full page of notes during the whole show. This is a thin, thin, thin, thin movie, with terribly cliched dialogue, characters, and situations that even the most mildly educated cinephile will see coming a mile away ("Bye, Hoyt!"). The action is, until the end, pretty terrific, but it becomes obvious that the budget constrictions did not allow for ID4 or War of the World style carnage; even so, the more intimate battle scenes are nail-bitingly intense and well-choreographed. However, it does not fully redeem the grade-school scripting, and the movie is left to remain the cinematic equivalent of playing Gears of War for 2 hours (while being forced to watch the godawful dramatic cut-scenes, of course).

Slightly Recommended for action junkies, and fans of Aaron Eckhart, who is actually a badass and grizzled Staff Sgt. The rest of the cast is wasted, and if I see another movie where Michelle Rodruiguez pops up as a marine named "Santos," or anything similar, she will have fully lost her tough-chick street cred (although her "I got guns too, bitch" was a clear highlight in Avatar).

Rango (2011)

Inventive, ambitious, but somewhat void of emotion, this animated homage to spaghetti westerns revolves around the titular chameleon as he poses as a small-town sheriff (A+ for originality there) in an attempt to discover the true nature of his self (that part's better). The first act is the best, as Rango, voiced as a lively, scheming huckster by Johnny Depp, attempts to make his way through the desert after being unwittingly abandoned by his owners. With no presence of identity, instinct, or empathy, his futile efforts to contextualize his plight are very humorous and, dare I say, human, as plot takes a decided backseat to character development in these early scenes. However, once Rango arrives in the besieged town (*sigh*, there's always a besieged town), the narrative settles into the traditional western structure: 1. stranger arrives in town, 2. Series of circumstances force town into reverence of stranger, 3. stranger begrudgingly takes responsibility for the town, etc. blah blah they find out he's a fake and he has to stop being one anymore for the climax to go down in a satisfying, explosive way. Save for one third-act introspection sequence (which feels like the rest of the film from act one after a lengthy narrative detour), there are virtually no surprises in the latter half of the film, and everything that isn't deeply rooted in cliche is telegraphed miles in advance.

However, I must say, the character work in the film is strong enough to warrant checking out the film. For one, aside from the three leads (Depp, Isla Fisher, and Abigail Breslin), the casting is refreshingly anonymous (though not quite up to Despicable Me's daunting standards), with names like Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, and Bill Nighy turning in invisible and strong supporting work. They contribute to what ends up being the winning point of the film, its atmosphere. The sun-ravaged, desolate nature of the desert allows for a more cynical, worldly edge to the proceedings; sure all the different species of animals get along, but they are only doing so to survive in an otherwise uninhabitable region. The villains are mean, the heroes are open and endearing, and the supporting characters all but steal the film. But, in the end, the shallowness and obviousness on display are abundant enough to render any possible emotion or depth in the film moot and ineffective, and the film's thematic content, although sporadically phenomenal and magical, is basically left out to dry in lieu of explosions and flying bats with gatling guns (cool, but child's play compared to dogfighting dragons of all shapes and sizes *hint, hint*). That said, the opening 20 or 30 minutes are fun, interesting, and, surprisingly, provocative, and along with the breezy and easy pacing and tone of the film, as well as its deep respect for spaghetti western aesthetics, it is impossible for me not to recommend this film to anyone who thinks it would be worth their time.

Slightly Recommended to fans of slightly off-kilter animation (this is a Nickelodeon Films production, and is accordingly out there, without blowing kids' minds) or spaghetti westerns. While the film gets a little too clever, and not involving enough, for its own good, it is a fun romp that, thankfully, does not require 3-D to create its own immersive world.

What a Way To Go! (1964)

Packed, front-to-back, with old-school Hollywood glam, but ultimately hollow, this star-studded affair concerns a young heiress as she recalls, to a psychiatrist, the circumstances that led to the various deaths of her previous husbands. Shirley MacLaine plays the bereaved, but ditzy young woman, who we see progress from a young, naive farm girl to an endowed, but still innocent millionaire. In an early role, MacLaine is hilarious and adorable; while not conventionally attractive, she possesses a certain quirky earthiness that provides a sharp contrast with the traditionalism of her contemporaries (Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn). However, due to the episodic nature of the film, the energy of the film is maintained only through the caliber of male co-stars they managed to dig up for MacLaine: her ill-fated husbands include Dick Van Dyke, Dean Martin, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, and Gene Kelly. They are all exemplary, highlighting various aspects and methods of attaining wealth, from Newman's anarchic, Pollack-esque artist to Robert Mitchum's big business executive. Newman and Martin fare the best with their zany, cartooney characters, while Kelly's sub-interesting throughline leaves him with little more than his quick feet to work with.

Aside from a co-star, each sequence gets a specific interlude where, in a musical montage, we see how MacLaine's character has encapsulated these relationships in her mind. For example, Dick Van Dyke's clumsy schlub gets a goofy, black and white silent-film bit, while Mitchum's penthouse provides the stage for a fashion show for Edith Head's phenomenally larger-than-life costumes. Director J. Lee Thompson has the most fun in these scenes, which are far more ironic and meta than many of the sillier, but equally gaudy '60s Hollywood vanity pics. However, in the end, the episodic nature, and the unfortunate positioning of Kelly's sequence as the sendoff, keep the energy of the film from going full speed, and keeps it as, merely, a gorgeous, but hollow postcard to a lost era in big-budget, production design-heavy Hollywood filmmaking.

Slightly Recommended for fans of the cast or really absurdly lavish and busy Technicolor Hollywood musicals of the '50s and '60s. There are a couple of truly memorable set pieces and musical numbers here; too bad they are not wrapped around with something more thematically ambitious.

Blast of Silence (1961)

Simultaneously old-school noir and new wave, this stark, black-and-white pic revolves around a hitman who comes to New York for a job that, progressively, becomes more and more complicated. The opening shot sets the tone for the picture, showing a train going through the last stretch of a tunnel while the voice-over relays, as the narrator thinks of it, the experience of childbirth. We are further brought into the material when we realize that the narrator, although, ostensibly, the voice of the protaganist, is referring to the actions on-screen in the third person, as if the main character, Frank Bono, is watching the movie of his life along with us. This provides a sense of moral objectivity and ruthlessness to the proceedings that weren't common in this era of American noir. As Bono, Allen Baron (who also wrote and directed) cuts a distinct figure, even in the pantheon of cinematic hitmen; looking a cross between George C. Scott and Robert De Niro, he is the perrenial New York outcast, trying to be invisible, and thus, inherently distancing himself and rendering himself conspicuous. As his various plans and assumptions become skewed and complex, Baron treats us with an intimacy into his frame of mind and the sort of conscience-less thought structure that dictates his behavior; he is neither the tragic, hardened figure that Lee Marvin perfected, nor the simpering, scheming fool whom we watch dig his own grave, a la Peter Lorre. The film utilizes New York locations better than any film of this era (save for maybe Hitchcock's The Wrong Man); the accompanying DVD documentary, shot in color, which visits the same locations 40 years later, shows just how impressively and majestically the gorgeous black and white compositions were rendered.

Highly Recommended for fans of New Wave-era noir, such as Elevator to the Gallows or Le Samurai, or of seeing old New York in loving, evocative black and white. There are lots of films with vaguely similar subject matter, even from back then; this terse, yet surprisingly human entry is one of the better ones.

Burke & Hare (2010)

Clever, pitch-black English comedy about two Scottish peasants who begin selling fresh dead bodies on the black market in 1840's Edinburgh. Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis play the titular duo, who, after failing to make it as street vendors and hustlers, discover an enterprise to be made out of the local university's desperation for fresh cadavers for the purposes of public autopsies. They begin by hunting down the near-dead and waiting out their demise, but soon, they find that, to meet demand, making cadavers out of live subjects (read: murder) would be a more business-savvy approach. The film is nasty; aside from the macabre subject matter, the Scottish setting is grimy, foggy, and dirty, even in the halls of the Scottish aristocracy. However, the performers, and, especially, director John Landis do much to keep the tone lively and energetic, infusing the project with a less contemporary, more fearless style of comedy that, I'm sure, contributed to the film's current floundering for U.S. distribution (as far as I've heard).

Pegg is his usual sympathetic, blustery self, while Serkis, in a rare live-action leading man role (he's best known for mo-cap work as Gollum in LOTR and King Kong in...King Kong), creates a distinct character out of what could've been a typical cynical, money-mad barker type; I hope his comic, and, surprisingly, romantic (a flirty scene with him and Jessica Hynes was my favorite moment in the picture) sensibilities help him attain more actual on-screen work. Hynes, Pegg's costar from Spaced, outshines her former cohort in terms of energy, timing, and panache, but in her particularly British fashion, which may not translate to further work on this side of the pond (a shame). As the dueling aristocratic doctors, Tom Wilkinson(!) and Tim Curry(!!!!) are wonderfully in tune with the material, playing it straight and reveling in the comic bleakness when the situation calls for either. Isla Fisher, while initially distracting, is a serviceable femme fatale of sorts, and does not grind the picture to a halt like a more sympathetic, less merciless approach would have done. Cameos by British talents permeate the picture, with names like Stephen Merchant, Bill Bailey, and Christopher Lee popping up for, sometimes, just a line or two, along with the various directors Landis called in for his traditional filmmaker walk-ons (Ray Harryhausen, Costa-Gravas, among others).

The wonderful cast aside, it is John Landis who steals the show from off-camera. After a decade(!!)-long absence from narrative film, he pulled a Frank Oz and went to England where, it seems, the creative control allowed to him, due to his undeniable track record, the ability to render the clever script into fully-formed and well-devised comic set-pieces, which, while being more obvious and showy than the more recent, Apatow-led style of comedy, rings as true as the finer moments in his classic films (John Landis classic film rollcall for the unitiated: Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Spies Like Us, Three Amigos!, Coming to America). His style allows for both high-concept black comedy blunders and more restrained, human moments that never even border on schmaltz or corniness. While I am not hopeful for this film's stateside returns (the mix of jet-black comedy and the grimy Scottish setting will probably turn off most Americans), I am grateful that Landis was allowed even just one more chance to prove his last few pictures (Blues Brothers 2000, The Stupids, Beverly Hills Cop 3) were not the best he could do.

Recommended to fans of black or British comedy, John Landis, or the eclectic cast; for me, the dual joy of seeing John Landis and Tim Curry doing memorable big-screen work again would've been enough to warrant recommending the film, but the whole project is, while slightly less effective than Pegg's recent, more heartfelt Paul, an unabashed success.

P.S. WATCH THE CREDITS for a fairly genius, wordless epilogue.

Salt (2010)

Unconventionally plotted, fairly riveting spy-thriller about a female CIA agent who, after being incarcerated by foreign powers, is accused of being a double-agent. The most inspired element of the piece is the script by Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, Ultraviolet), which initially plays it straight as a contemporary action-espionage flick, but then begins to call doubts onto Evelyn Salt's true allegiance. Keeping the protagonist a mysterious and inscrutable element for the length of the film is a very brave move for a film of this size, and I applaud the filmmakers for going ahead with something this ambitious. Angelina Jolie, as Salt, is more than up to the task of straddling the fence between sympathetic and despicable, without ever losing her enigmatic, style-savvy touch, even in a plethora of varied wigs and disguises. She was born for this sort of role, and even without Matt Damon's open-faced boyishness or Clive Owen's brutish masculinity, she carves out a presence that could go toe-to-toe with any of the contemporary spy heroes (needless to say, Daniel Craig's blonde hair would turn white after dealing with Eve Salt).

However, through truncated editing and direction, the film feels somewhat incomplete. We always feel a scene or two behind Salt's motivations, yet you sense Jolie's kismit with the role, so the fault lies with the pacing. The script, with it's bevy of double crosses, scenery changes, and dialogue-free, yet thoroughly relevant characters, was probably dismissed as confusing, and the filmmakers took it upon themselves to retain the framework of Wimmer's script, while expediting his particular brand of information dispersal. The end result is a hodgepodge of set-pieces, but without the character details and nuance that would have made this a true classic. Not only does the relevance of the action itself take a hit, but the plot twists, particularly the final reveal of the villain, end up coming across as contrived and calculated rather than organic. That being said, director Philip Noyce does display a previously-unseen talent for kinetic action choreography and spectacle that is a disctinct deviation from his usual, 1970's-cultivated sensibilities (see: Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Saint); he does not go as far as Paul Greengrass, nor as restrained and meticulous as Wimmer, himself, creating an effective, distinct style of his own. It is just a shame that the film ends up feeling like all the creative energy went to the set-pieces, and not the storytelling itself. Cast-wise, no one has enough time to really register, other than Liev Schreiber, who, once again, after X-Men Origins: Wolverine, manages to cobble together a memorable character out of a series of plot necessities and contrivances.

Recommended for fans of more difficult spy movies, such as the Holcroft Covenant or the Parallax View (read: NOT BOURNE), or Angelina Jolie; so far, there are two films which I would say appropriately convey her action-heroine potential, and while she was only second-fiddle in Wanted, this show is all about her, and, somewhat surprisingly, she lives up.

C.H.U.D. (1984)

Transcendent and fresh, this New York-set monster flick has a bunch of C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) breaking out of the Manhattan subways and bringing murderous carnage to the streets. We see several characters learning about, and dealing with, the eminent threat in various ways; the stalwart police chief attempting to bring it to the mayor's attention, the empathetic soup-kitchen worker (named "The Reverend") investigating his missing homeless familiars, and the seen-it-all photographer, who just wants to settle down with his girlfriend. I suppose I must credit the three not-yet-famous actors for supplanting this movie with a surprising amount of integrity: John Heard as the photographer, Daniel Stern as the disheveled humanist, and Christopher Curry as the Dennis-Franz-mustached cop (ok, two not-yet-famous actors). Along with Kim Griest as Heard's girlfriend, they render the potentially cheesy material to something strong and, dare I say it, human. The monsters themselves are not, particularly, terrifying; while they are shot in minimal, terse bursts, they do not prove as menacing as the city government that attempts to cover up the phenomenon. There is clever social commentary in how the C.H.U.D. only exist because the NYC mayor dumped toxic waste under the city streets; gentrification much? These elements are more than just filler and backstory, but provide a bulk of the movies substance, making it more nuanced and intelligent than your average mid-80's monster flick. That being said, there are gnarly deaths, some kick-ass make-up (a decapitated head, in particular, is impressively convincing), and a pretty terrific, tense climax. In the end, however, the low-budget renderings of the C.H.U.D. themselves ruin too many individual moments, and keep the film from being a true classic of the genre.

Recommended for fans of New York-set monster movies (this one was actually shot there, and it shows) or socially-conscious horror films in general; by the end, it's obvious that the political negligence, rather than the monsters themselves, is the true villain of the piece, not just a sideshow backstory.