It could be said that I was a little naive to think five days would allow for a reasonable amount of time to pack up a good portion of my life and say my goodbyes to Winnipeg Folk. Yet it was. Barely.
When I wasn’t sleeping or packing or driving around town to meet up with friends, I was making up for lost time by visiting the various cinemas around the city. My only regret was that there were no decent films playing at The Globe. It would have been nice to go there one more time.
So away we go. Four films in five days:
The Social Network
Director: David Fincher
Written By: Aaron Sorkin
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
Snicker, Snicker, Snicker. The Facebook Movie. What a joke. Wait, what? David “Fight Club” Fincher is directing and Aaron “West Wing” Sorkin is writing the script. Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. Two talented actors. I fear I may have to put my foot into my mouth at a later date. Justin Timberlake…Yes! I can again laugh without fear!
Who knew that something as utilitarian as Facebook would lend itself so well to such dramatic, and sharp, narrative storytelling? The truth is, it doesn’t. But this does not detract from the feature in any way. Instead of the people behind the film choosing to focus on the popular social networking commodity that is Facebook, they instead treat the site as a MacGuffin. Facebook could be nothing; it could be replaced by many a profitable company. Facebook is an idea. Facebook is the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Facebook is the luminescent brief case in Pulp Fiction. This is more or less how Fincher and Sorkin treatment works. Facebook is a jet propulsion system rocketing the characters, from start to finish, through the run time. It is something that characters fight over and fight for, but something you feel they never really understand, not entirely anyway.
The Story: FaceMash. The Facebook. Facebook. Lawsuit. Lawsuit. Lawsuit.
I believe there are only two lawsuits depicted though, the extra lawsuit was for cadence.
Sorkin’s script, based on the book Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, apparently plays fast and loose with the truth. But, if I interpret correctly, the actual truth is rather unimportant in comparison with the thematic and ideological truths the filmmakers had always intended to play with. Dishonest? Maybe. Good fiction? Most definite.
Acting. Writing. Directing. All too good to comment while being brief.
There is more to say, but too much more for now. I need to see it again. If you haven’t yet, go see it already. It’s worth the shekels.
Let Me In
Director: Matt Reeves
Written By: Matt Reeves
Starring: Kodi Smit-Mcphee, Chloe Moretz
A romantic thriller centering on a girl vampire and a preteen boy. Fuck off Twi-hards!
But no it’s good, really it’s good.
Let Me In is the much derided remake of the Swedish – too soon to call it classic – film Let The Right One In. Fans of the original are calling Let Me In a shot-for-shot’ remake, but Gus Van Sant’s Psycho this is not. Some say two years is too soon for a remake. Others decry westerners inability to read subtitles.
These are all valid points, but they are ignorant and myopic valid points. Points never meant to address the quality of Let Me In directly. Rather than offering rational criticism of the remake, they are intended as an attack on the very existence of the film. Sanity must prevail, I reckon, so here I go: In honest, if you have already seen the original foreign film, you do not need to see this version. Maybe only out of curiosity, morbid or otherwise.
Here follows a cursory comparison of the two films: They is the same, yet different, but mainly the same.
This does not mean that Let Me In is bad. Far from it. The film has strengths and weaknesses in relation to the original. And for those who harbour any dubious feeling towards Reeves, you can rest your precious little heads as he shows an overt, if not, obvious veneration of the source – film and novel – material.
But wait, the plot! Let’s make this quick. Young boy is bullied. Is lonely. Strange girl becomes his neighbor. They meet. A connection. Stuff. Stuff. Stuff. End.
For anyone who hasn’t seen the original, but are fan of the genre (is vampire/love story/thriller a genre?), this film should be a definite point of interest. I’d say see either one you want to first. No order. I would actually be curious to hear from anyone who saw the remake, then the Swedish film, to see how they stack up.
And if you’re curious of my opinion. They are both equal.
Buried
Director: Rodrigo Cortes
Written By: Chris Sparling
Starring: Ryan Reynolds
The Ryan Reynolds One Man Show Extravaganza!
Or…
One man! One Phone! Various instruments of illumination!
Oh, I forgot to mention the coffin. Pesky coffins…
The story goes as follows: Ryan Reynolds is Paul Conroy – a name which causes me to think, insert generic white person name here- and Paul Conroy’s convoy has been intercepted and he now finds himself in a bit of a predicament. Conroy drives truck. He is a non military contractor, based in Iraq, who somehow survives an insurgent ambush that leaves the rest of his fellow workers dead. The filmmakers don’t show this. Instead, trapped an unknown distance beneath the ground and left with only a mobile and the aforementioned instruments of illumination, Conroy has to use his limited time and oxygen as wisely as possible. Favourable variables for a successful rescue, these are not.
No fear, while watching the film the cliche ‘his last day before retirement’ was never mentioned’, so I figured this man stands a fighting chance.
Buried is an impressive film, but I feel laboured calling it good. This statement may seem ambiguous, and it is, but it is difficult making a succinct statement on the quality of the picture. The problem with Buried is that it has so much working against it. It aspires to be a conventional thriller, but ends up being a niche entry into the genre. It plays, mostly loose, with the broad strokes often found in films of this ilk. There is basically one character. This character is surrounded by minor peripheral characters, Or, in Hulk speak, ‘plot-move-forward’ characters. Conroy occupies one setting. A very small location. A coffin.
There is one scene in particular where unneeded tension is added to the plot, which hinders the elements of relative nuance that came before it. I refuse to be specific, but it involves something that rhymes with rake. Also, the music is one particular note of awful after another. Bombastic and over-the-top are appropriate descriptions.
The ‘impressive’ aspect, which I mentioned earlier, comes from the constraints the film places on itself. These constraints are as follows: how do you make one man, in one location, interesting for 90 minutes? The answer is thoughtful direction and a strong lead. Reynolds is solid, and almost amazing, at playing with the tension and fear Conroy is forced to deal with. The audience is shackled to Conroy, a man who we first hear hyperventilating in the darkness, and must stay with him through to the rolling credits.
Catfish
Director(s): Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
A Documentary. Did I lose your attention? They can be just as interesting, if not more so, than narrative features. A question: So a documentary about catfish? Nope…well not literally. This film is proof that internet has caused the idiom “the truth is stranger than fiction” to spiral towards cliche faster than two clicks of a mouse.
The premise: Witness a connection founded on the internet. The message and conclusion: Disturbing.
Two New York assholes film another New York asshole as he creeps forward with a friendship he started over Facebook. Creep is how it started, but soon his relationship with people he has never met begins to snowball, and he is wedged into the lives of a family hundreds of miles away.
There is a twist. I won’t spoil it.
People thinks the story may be fake. That is has somehow been orchestrated. I am on the fence as far as the truth of the film is concerned. But those people miss the point. If it was at all faked, it is still fictional in the way ‘The Social Network’ is fictional. If this is the case, facts can only serve to hinder the truth that the film is trying to demonstrate.
This film is not for everyone. And I would not struggle to say it is made for, like many documentaries, a very limited audience. Interesting, but not essential.
Summary of my Summaries
The Social Network, Catfish and Buried could almost be shown together, with some thematic cohesion, as a triple feature called the ‘Technology Gone Awry’ trilogy. But out of all four films there are only two that I could genuinely recommend to most people: The Social Network and Let Me In.
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