Movie Review - Chastity Bites

In the name of full disclosure, before I get into my review of Chastity Bites, let me first say that I'm a friend of the writer of this movie, Lotti Pharris Knowles and the director is her husband.  

With that in mind I was already pre-disposed to like the film, or, at the very least be willing to forgive a fair amount, if need be.  Fortunately, my willingness to forgive was not needed.

I'll be the first to admit, the horror genre is not my forte.  While I've seen a lot of horror films, they do not call to me.  There's enough screwed up shit in life that pushing your comfort level by scaring yourself is not something that interests me.  

Chastity Bites is billed as a horror comedy, but really falls more into the black comedy basket in my opinion.  Yes, there are horror elements, but it's not meant to scare.  Like the Joss Whedon written Cabin in the Woods, Chastity Bites specifically calls out horror tropes and flips them on their head. 

There have been several black comedies based in a high school setting over the years; the two most notable that I've seen being Heathers from the 80's and Jennifer's Body from 2009.  In many ways, I see Chastity Bites in much closer kinship to Heathers.  Then again, until someone pointed out to me several days after I saw Jennifer's Body that it was supposed to be horror comedy, I thought it was somewhat of a waste of my time.  Once I went back over the movie in my mind with an eye toward horror comedy the movie jumped from a horridly bad movie to one I could kind of get behind.  

But I had to be told it was horror comedy, which is a huge negative.

Chastity Bites makes no pretensions about what you are in store for. The opening scene pulls you both directly into the theme as well as being pretty damn amusing. I'm not one for spoilers but I will say this: there is a death in the opening scene and my wife commented about the character who was killed off that she could have stood maybe a minute more of their sanctimonious speech has they not been killed off.  That they were killed off in mid speech had all three of us laughing, my 19 year old son the loudest.

So, about the plot.  The movie is set in a small conservative Southern California town where it seems one of the few sole voices of liberal dissent is our heroine, Leah (Allison Scagliotti) a writer for the high school newspaper determined to swim against the current of popularity and let you know she's doing it in both in her writing and her sarcastic biting comments. Leah has one true friend, another outlier, Katharine (Francia Raisa), a shy lesbian who is clearly a romantic, but also self-conscious because of her acne, which she covers up with painted flowers on her face.

Enter the evil.  

We are introduced to the villain of the movie at a cocktail party of "concerned" parents who throw out catch phrases from Fox news with a bitterness only matched by some of the single mothers at the party as they examine the relationships of their exes who have left them for younger women.  The lights dim and a gothic opera ensues as Liz Batho (Louise Griffiths) enters the room looking like a regal porcelain doll with a devilish glint in her eye. Liz has come to town to promote her Virginity Action Group that has Chastity Leaders In Training. 

Liz proceeds to recruit the popular girls in school for her "Leaders," the same girls who's single mothers she also entices with her "illegal" beauty product.  Naturally, our heroine is suspicious, especially after Liz enthralls Katharine into the group.  Research ensues and our journalist in training makes the connection that Liz Batho is none other than the real historical figure of Elizabeth Bathory, the "Countess of Blood," a Hungarian serial killer from the 1600's who believed she would remain young by bathing in the blood of virgins.

You can guess where the plot is going to take you next.

The funny thing is, despite some of the beat-you-in-the-head-with-a-lemon-wrapped-around-a-large-gold-brick humor such as the obvious acronyms and some of the horror movie trope characters Chastity Bites has a lot of subtlety, especially with its social commentary.  I was actually left thinking about several of the themes of the movie well after it was over.  And it's in some of these themes that the real horror of the movie comes from.

First and foremost this movie really is about America's obsession with physical beauty and the lengths some people will go to obtain it.  A second, more subtle theme explores how people can be manipulated, especially by those with a stronger mind (in the movie's case there is some supernatural help).  There is also an undercurrent of longing throughout the movie that motivates several of the characters.  Finally there is the theme of alienation and what people will deny themselves because they see themselves as outliers in society and don't deserve to fit in.  

Of course I could be full of shit here, having taken one too many film study courses in college, and Lotti, when she reads this review, will be laughing her ass off.

Let's jump to the characters both from an acting standpoint as well as writing.

Lotti not only creates believable characters that say things you might expect to come from teenagers and adults, that are full of current social relevance, but their actions are also ones I've seen in the course of my own children's teenage years and the other young adults they interacted with.  While I found the single mothers to be fairly one dimensional, that was intentional as a plot device.  

As a villain, Liz was well handled. Her motive is unfolded at a good pace and you can tell after centuries that she's got some world class manipulation skills even without supernatural help.  While she is a person of what America places as stunning physical beauty, you can tell there is a lot of ugly roiling beneath the surface and it comes out.

Leah's character is an interesting study.  She's strong willed and deliberately places herself outside of society in such a manner that she is an unlikely hero.  But she is a hero nonetheless because her best friend is in danger and she will move heaven and earth to fight for the people she knows as family.

Katharine's character is another standout.  She's a lesbian and has fully realized it, something that is difficult at most times, especially so in high school.  She endures her share of grief for her sexual orientation, but because of the self-consciousness her acne has brought upon her, I don’t think she's yet fully realized she's beautiful in her own right. While it was necessary for her character, I would have loved to have seen some seriously snappy comebacks at the sniping the popular girls dish out to her at the beginning of the movie.

The final character that really shone is Amy Okuda's portrayal of Ashley, the head of the popular girls.  Like the other strong willed characters in the movie, she rules with a force of conviction that overruns (for the most part) the other young women in her clique.  She's on her way to being another world class manipulator out of her intelligence on which way the waters are flowing.

You might notice I've said little about the men in the cast or as they pertain to the plot.

There's a reason for this.  As she's done with many of the horror tropes, Lotti turns them upside down and the males in the cast are there for plot devices.  Even Leah's romantic interest, Paul, another outlier, is left without a lot of depth and, I suspect, deliberately so.  This movie is ultimately a battle between two strong women and, like other horror movies, the opposite sex are casual throwaways.

So, is the movie perfect?

No, but there is nothing that screamed out for condemnation, though I will point out some of my sore spots.  

The direction is handled well, though there where a few quibbles I had with lighting in a night scene and there were aspects of the final battle action that felt a little unpolished, more so than intended.

The makeup effects of the film are very good, especially in some transformative scenes, but I did take issue with the lack of arterial spray in the ritualized neck cutting scenes (only one actually had some spray,) which was especially noticeable in a flashback scene where there is plenty of spray evidence from previous rituals on the walls, but not in the actual action that takes place.

There is a trope in the writing that I felt could have been handled better; a "big reveal" that didn’t have as much impact as it could have and sort of came out of left field, though it was seeded earlier in the film. 

But these are nitpicks rather than complete detriments. 

Overall I enjoyed Chastity Bites and have re-watched twice it since my first viewing.

Movie Review - Pacific Rim

Every now and again, a movie comes along that has "truth in advertising."  A lot of action movies are this way: What you see in the trailer is what you get. 

Pacific Rim is one of those movies.

I'll be the first to admit, much as I had trepidation over Cloverfield, Pacific Rim was another movie that I saw the trailers and thought "this is either going to be great or really suck."

I know some of my concerns had to do with having high hopes for the Joe Haldeman (one of my favorite authors) written and Stuart Gordon (ReAnimator, From Beyond) directed "Robot Jox" from 1990.  While the movie is not hideous, it never lived up to the movie I felt it could be.  If you haven't seen it, it is Cold War politics meets the Transformers with stop motion animation.  As the movie has aged it has become an interesting social commentary on both the cold war as well as the action movie "apprentice" sub-genre and the "style over substance" that heavily influenced the cyberpunk movement.

I've read a lot of reviews of Pacific Rim after seeing the film and many of them tend to be along the lines of "this is either the greatest shitty movie ever made or the shittiest great movie ever made."

For me, I enjoyed the film thoroughly.

With a lot of action films the biggest issue is pacing.  Either the director goes all in and you're subjected to a constant barrage of fights, chases and explosions all wrapped around a thin shell of story, or you're given an earnest attempt at a plot that just so happens to have a lot of action interspersed.  

The problem with the first type of film is any break in the action tends to throw the user out of their suspension of disbelief and they really start to question why they are watching this.  For those in this category you come across a problem with fatigue brought on by sensory overstimulation.  The second can work but it's a careful balance that most directors/editors get wrong and once again I, as the viewer, am left, usually after an over the top action scene looking around the theater/room as suspension of disbelief is lost.

Pacific Rim is one of the most perfectly paced films that I've seen.  

Guillermo Del Toro made a movie that made visual sense, had exposition that moved fast enough, especially after actions sequences that, as a viewer, I never lost the flow of the movie.

Speaking of visual, there are many reason I never watch the Academy Awards, and this year is no different.  I get it, awards ceremonies are political popularity contests.  However, as with Cloverfield and sound editing, that Pacific Rim was not nominated for any of the visual/technical awards is just insulting.  With most CG heavy movies the user is left with scenes that don't make visual sense or have such glaring spots where you are thrown out of the suspension of disbelief because the CG is just so unrealistic.

Pacific Rim balanced computer generated effects with practical beautifully.  This is a visually stunning movie, but the CG is so seamless that I never once stopped to think "hey this is CG."  Both the robots (Jaeger) and the monsters (Kaiju) where rendered with such care and precision that when they are fighting or moving toward a fight I never once considered this was CG.  Del Toro made some very smart choices to keep the movie visually dark; most of the battle scenes take place at night, but even when there are daylight shots the CG is not apparent.  

As this movie drew closer to release I did start watching the "making of" featurettes which Del Toro released.  To me one of the greatest achievements of this film is the practical effects.  The inside of the Jaegers are, for the most part practical.  They built multi-ton hydraulic platforms that the actors interacted with, including moving the arm and leg armatures.  It has always been a pet peeve of mine that both movies and TV shows seem to get very lazy, especially with coffee cups and don't fill them with liquid.  It is flat out obvious that there is no weight to these items and the actors aren't moving a muscle.  Not so with Pacific Rim.  You can tell the actors were seriously working out when inside the Jaegers. 

The sets on this film are also incredibly well done. From the wall in Alaska, to the Shatterdome where the Jaegers are housed to the downtown Hong Kong scenes everything makes visual sense.  Plus, as a cyberpunk writer/fan, I enjoyed the visual nod to Blade Runner in the Hong Kong scenes.  Granted, since I've never been to Hong Kong it's possible that is what it looks like, but since I have no experience, I'm going with an homage to Blade Runner.

So, is the movie perfect? 

No.

I had some nitpicks with both the casting of the movie as well as the acting. 

The main casting issue I had was the hero and his foil.  It's a time honored tradition, especially in action films with a war theme to have two strong male characters that butt heads.  And Pacific Rim is no different.  The issue I have is that the actors they cast where too physically similar so when they do get in a scuffle you lose their identity.

But maybe that was the point.  There is a lot of subtlety to this movie so it's possible that he was making a "two sides of the same coin" type of statement. 

A secondary casting problem I had was Charlie Day.  And this is personal.  I just don't like him as an actor and I know it is mostly his vocal inflections that grate against something within my head.  From an acting perspective his character was delivered very well, but when he opens his mouth I just want him to close it.

As I mentioned, my other issue was the acting and this could, once again, be a statement by Del Toro that just didn't resonate with me at times. 

Pacific Rim makes no bones that it is a movie of cinematic iconography.  The problem is that some of the actors delivered their iconic lines with Shakespearian fury while others, especially the foil seemed to think that these lines where to be delivered a la Sylvester Stallone.  It's a small criticism since the pacing of the movie generally pushed past some of the awkward acting moments such that it wasn't until after the film was over that I started to dissect the performances.

Finally I'd like to touch back on something I alluded to earlier, the subtlety of the film. 

While the movie is a grandiose spectacular, there are a lot of small touches that really enhance the film either in the immediacy or in thinking about it later.  The obvious homage is the pinup decal on Gipsy Danger, a nod to US bomber sin WW2. I noticed some of the color usage myself, but it really resonated with my wife.  If you want to read a great detailed analysis of it, please check out this link which is much more eloquent on the subject than I could ever be: http://stormingtheivorytower.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-visual-intelligence-of-pacific-rim.html

Overall I loved Pacific Rim and on subsequent viewings of it I keep picking out little details I missed in previous sittings.

Star Wars

Once upon a time, the man ripped off a classic samurai film and thus created an Empire. Ever since then, he's been under the delusion that his vision is paramount and that no ones opinion but his own matters.

My understanding is he rejected Frank Darabont's Indy 4 script because it wasn't the movie he wanted to make. One problem, George; you're not making it, Spielberg is.

As for miticlorians, I'm honestly not sure where he got the beta version of Crack 2.0, but somehow he didn't read the Terms of Service which says it might be buggy.

In either case, while I admire the original Star Wars trilogy, and while I appreciate some of the additions he did to them when he released the special editions, I think he needs to understand that the same people that lined up for weeks to see the Phantom Menace are the ones clamoring to not see the movies he wanted to make bit was limited by technology. These are the people who want to recapture the feelings they had when they first waited hours in line for a movie that had been out more than 52 weeks (remember when they used to announce "now in it's xx week" in the newspaper ads for films?) not only because it helps them recapture their youth, but more importantly, it helps them recapture the sense of Wonder they had when first watching them.

The comparison was made to Casablanca and how would I feel if Rick goes back for the girl. The answer is that's a different movie than Casablanca. Greedo firing first, a CGI Jabba in the bay where the Falcon is docked, those change the movie as well. Does it make it a better movie? Maybe, but it's not the movie I waited two hours in the Alaska winter to see.

George argues that technology has changed and he wants to update the movies to the vision he had. Good for him. But enhancing the death start going foom is one thing, additions actually detract from the original feeling of the movie. For me, it would be like how would I feel if the updated "mother" in Alien to have a GUI interface and given her the voice of Meryl Streep. Well that's fine and good (not really) but you've just changed the movie.

I guess what it really comes down to is, With the Blu-Ray release George is trying to push the SE editions as if they were Coke Classic. We all known they are different, and we choke it down, but in our hearts we remember how the originals were and we know we're being duped.

Movie Review - The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I will be the first to admit, I love movies, especially ones that tell a good story that I can identify with some part of the narrative or one of characters.  Once in a great while you run across a movie that you really connect with on multiple levels and that is something special. For me, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" was one of those films.

I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on how it compares, but, given that the author of the book both wrote the screenplay and directed the movie, I imagine that it's as faithful as an adaption can be.

The basic premise of the story is "alienated teen starts high school and finds their niche".  Most films that start with this premise quickly devolve into comedy with some serious overtones. This movie is a serious drama with well-timed comedic moments.

So why did this movie touch me so deeply?

In many ways, I was the protagonist of this film. While I had my own underlying issues that differ from Charlie, my story was not that different.  I started high school very much alone and was lucky enough to find a group of friends, much like Charlie does.  Friends that, to this day, I can arrange to meet, even after not seeing them for twenty plus years and it's as if there is no gap in time. Friends that I can open up to completely without fear of repercussion.  Friends who will not judge me for past transgressions, but for who I am today.

As someone who had to start over in high school, I can completely relate to Charlie.

 

It doesn't hurt that the group of friends he connects with are not dissimilar to the group of friends I connected with.  Nor does the fact that the movie takes place very close to the time I went to high school (a few years after).  I do question the group's commitment to music if they didn't recognize David Bowie's "Heroes," but that's my own viewer 50% kicking in.

 

The story has a lot of depth, character growth and some undertones that are not happy.  But that's high school.  I won't go into details of the story for a few reasons:

1. Spoilers are bad. 
2. As I said, there is a lot going on in this film, and talking about parts of it I believe would lessen the impact of the movie.
3. From my perspective, character driven dramas, especially good ones, draw the viewer in.  This did this very effectively for me and even revealing details about the characters feels like I'd be ruining the experience.

From a narrative standpoint, the movie unfolds very well.  There are some flashback scenes that normally pull me, as a viewer, out of a movie.  In this movie they were both unobtrusive and critical to the story.

The cinematography on this film is critical.  As much as I love "The Breakfast Club," for what becomes an intimate story, the actual technical filming of the movie felt like it distanced you from the characters.  Not so with "Perks."  The filming of the movie is done in an intimate fashion that makes you feel like you're part of the group and not an outsider looking in.

Where the movie really shines is the acting. As both the writer of the novel and director of the film, clearly Stephen Chbosky had control over who would play these characters who were so close to him.  And he chose well.  Logan Lerman, who plays Charlie was perfectly cast.  He has the acting range to pull off the depths in his character.  Emma Watson, as Sam, shows she can act (sorry Potter fans, but Hermione had very few character moments that stretched Emma Watson as an actress,) and act damn well.  Ezra Miller, who plays Patrick, Sam's stepbrother plays his part to perfection as well.

Though this is a movie focused on teenagers, it would not work without the adults in the film.  Dylan McDermott and Kate Walsh play small but very impactful roles as Charlie's parents and they do it in such a manner that I never doubted either their characters or their actions in any way.  Paul Rudd is his usual charming self in a pivotal role as a teacher at the high school.

I have to assume that much of the acting props really have to go to Stephen Chobsky.  This is his work of love and he has the talent as a director to make this come to life in the way he wanted.

Finally, I have to give a shout out to the music.  

As I mentioned, I went to high school a few years before this movie came out and music was a big part of my life.  The soundtrack to this movie is, in many ways, the soundtrack to my high school years and was just another level on which I connected to this film.

Not only was I entertained by "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," it's a movie I can and will re-watch many times.

Movies That Engage

I realized after rereading my "Desolation of Smaug" review and comparing it to others I've written there are two issues I have with the review:

1. Writing rust.  It's been years since I actually wrote a review and I was having some trouble finding an entry point.
2. I didn't engage with the movie.

I enjoyed watching "Desolation of Smaug," but I didn't immerse myself in the world.

At the core of most movies is suspension of disbelief.  This is especially important for movies that are set in a time frame/reality that is dissimilar from the one you live in.  If you don't achieve this in a movie, it leaves the viewer as just that: someone who is an outsider looking in.  The goal of most movies should  be to grab the viewer's attention and keep them surrounded in the story they have created as if they were experiencing it for themselves.  

In a heavily CG movie, writing, acting and pacing are key to this, though novelty also can be a valuable hook.

Part of the issue with "Desolation of Smaug" is that there really wasn't anything new with the movie.  There were no stunning CG moments that grabbed you and the cinematography could have been from any of the Middle Earth movies.  I mentioned a complaint about Jackson's use of long range shots in the review and that is also part of what kept me as a viewer of the movie and not a participant. 

There are two examples in the last five years that clearly come to mind of movies that got it right: James Cameron's "Avatar" and Guillermo del Toro's "Pacific Rim."

I'm not going to get into the "Avatar" debate right now (it is on my list of movies to review,) however for the purposes of this post, I will say that I enjoyed the movie for all its faults and my suspension of disbelief was total.  

"Avatar" was, in my eyes, a great movie from a cinematic standpoint. Cameron paced the movie well and the CG was such that it felt like you were immersed in the world.  I can clearly remember glancing to my wife during Jake's first flying sequence: she looked right at me and there was an amazing connection between us as we clearly were immersed in the world together.  It's rare that a movie can do that for one person, to have two people, granted like-minded people, share that connection is nearly unheard of, especially given my wife does not engage with movies as I do.

"Pacific Rim," was another example of how to pace a heavy CG movie correctly, but also how to do CG correctly.  "Pacific Rim" had all the makings of a movie that could have gone very wrong: a lot of CG, just about every character was an archetype, and a story that was very "take it or leave it," in its premise. Yet, for me the movie worked and for very specific reasons:

• The computer generated effects didn't feel CG to me. The effects were so painstakingly rendered that at no point did I think to question them. 
• Another aspect was the way the CG scenes were shot. It is one thing to create beautiful art via the computer. However if the lighting of the scenes and the camera angles are inadequate CG feels forced, which was the case with "Smaug."  The lighting and camera usage in "Pacific Rim" were very natural in an artificial environment which kept me engaged in the fantasy which was being created.
• There was a great balance of practical effects with the CG.  Many people might not be aware, but the inside of the Jaegers in the movie are an actual set.  Del Toro had a huge platform created with hydraulics for moving the head of the Jaeger and the entire suit connection including the armatures which were powered by the leg movement of the actors were real.  All too often in visual media based presentations the actors are acting with empty props.  I can't tell you how many times I've watched a scene where an actor has a coffee cup with a lid and I get annoyed because it's clear the cup is empty by the movements the actor's arms arm making. That Del Toro went the extra mile to create the machinery of the Jaeger paid off because you could tell the actors were physically working to move the rig and it made the scene that much more real.

It's not just movies with effects that need suspension of disbelief and the need to maintain it.  Comedies rely heavily on this as do action films and dramas, but each comes with different needs. 

For a comedy to work, you need to either buy into the story or be so taken by the characters that you need to engage with them.  A good example of this working is "Dodgeball: An Underdog Story."  The title tells you what you are in for: an underdog movie that takes place in the framework of a game you might have played as a child.  What makes the movie work are the characters. Just about every member of the Average Joe's Gym team has character development, and they are likeable people.  The humor in the movie is a great balance of visual, spoken and physical comedy and the usage of multiple types of comedy helps the movie, but without engaging characters you would have another one of the cookie cutter National Lampoon "Blah Movie" titles that are released every year.

For an action film to truly work, it's all about the pacing, the action and the characters.  A cookie cutter action film like "Cobra," leaves little to enjoy.  Sure, you can satisfy a craving to see some ass kicked, but really, there is not much there.  "300" came closer to a really good action film, but Zak Snyder's cinematic tricks (action pacing that stopped for a slowed motion close up) , rock video soundtrack (do we really need to have bombastic music only playing during the action?) detracted from the movie, but where it really fell down was the characters.  I hated Leonidas.  I knew he was going to die and could have cared less.  To get to that next level, you need characters that you care about.  One of the best examples in recent times has to be "Taken."  You can identify with Liam Neeson's character, the pacing of the movie is almost perfectly balanced and when he is in action mode, you believe he has these abilities and it's not an "actor" playing a role.

Drama is, in many ways, the hardest to have suspension of disbelief.  If the story and characters don't work, the movie fails and fails hard.  Yes there may be some action, but in order to maintain the viewer's attention, it all falls on the actors and writers with the director having an input in his camera usage choices.  To contrast, I'm going to use two Oliver Stone movies: "Platoon" and "Savages."  "Platoon" is an example of how to do things right.  You have characters that you care about and the story is both engaging and acted in such a manner that you are drawn into plot.  The cinematography on this film is beautiful and adds an extra dimension in engaging the viewer so they feel as if they are part of the plot.  I'm not sure where Oliver Stone went wrong after "Platoon," but by the time he got to "Savages," he'd clearly lost his way.  "Savages" is one of two movies I've actually turned off without finishing it in the last ten years.  If I had paid money for the movie, instead of DVR'ing it during a free preview weekend I'd have been really pissed. I never cared for any of the characters in "Savages," which made it hard to watch.  Stone's cinematography skills have regressed into almost a third party observer mode and by the time the movie devolved into the torture porn route it was headed but I hoped it wouldn't go, I was done. 

To sum things up, I can still enjoy a movie if I don't completely engage with a film.  I was entertained by  "Desolation of Smaug," and didn't engage.  Clearly, if I leave a theater and am talking a lot about the movie, both the good and bad, I've engaged on some level.  I left the theater after seeing "Desolation of Smaug," had a perfunctory discussion with my family as we walked to car and, by the time we left the parking lot I was already trying to figure out what to make for dinner instead of continuing the discussion about the film in the five minute drive home.