Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In is a modern vampire tale done right.  The setting is a snowy Swedish town.  It feels as it looks, cold and lonely.  Right away, we are shown a situation that draws in our curiosity and sympathy: twelve year old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), alone in his room with a knife, fantasizing about getting revenge on his bullies.  With only that, we are hooked, and the vampires and murders haven’t even started.

When they do, we are sucked in even more.  We watch an older man, Håkan (Per Ragnar), draw in his unsuspecting victim by asking him what time it is.  The poor kid seems to have gotten the lesson on stranger danger, but he get too close.  Soon he is hanging upside over the pure white snow as Håkan lets his blood drip down and drain into a funnel.

Enter our vampire, Eli (Lina Leandersson).  Oskar meets her outside his apartment complex.  He has no friends and is immediately smitten by this mysterious girl.  Could this be yet another vampire love story filled with adolescent angst?  It sort of is, but in such a great way.

After Oskar meets Eli, he seems to gain confidence against his bullies.  The three boys are menacing, even though they are still half grown, like Oskar.  In a scene that leaves Oskar with a scar across his face, we finally understand how dangerous they can be.  But when Oskar stands up against them, the consequences later are more than he, or us, expected.

Oskar’s problems are quiet and domestic compared to Eli’s.  She is more concerned with where her next meal will come from.  Either Håkan brings her back fresh blood, or she has to go out and kill for herself, a risky and messy chore.  And that innocent group of drinking buddies keep getting picked off by Eli.

Like I said, this is a vampire movie done right.  Though Eli is a little girl, she is a classic vampire.  She bites necks, can only drink blood, gets sick after trying candy and can’t go out during the daylight.  Best of all, one of her victims doesn’t die and we get to see what happens to a new vampire around cats and exposed to daylight (a beautifully horrific scene!).

This is the sort of film that unfolds perfectly.  Things are not revealed right away, but slowly, methodically.  The focus is on the relationship between Oskar and Eli, not on the blood, gore and horror.  However, I think that is a good thing.  This isn’t a horror movie filled with jump moments, but some moments are plenty gruesome and disturbing.  And while Eli is no Count Dracula, but simply a girl doing what she needs to in order to survive, I found the bullies just as scary as Eli, but not nearly as powerful.

Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In  is a great film, and I’m so glad I finally got around to seeing it.  I want to thank my dear reader, Anthony Lee Collins, again for suggesting it (twice!) for my horror movie marathon.  And I want to suggest it to anyone who wants to see a good modern vampire story.  Have faith, vampires are not over, there is more out there than Twilight!

“What happens if I don’t?  What happens if you walk in anyway?”

The Dark Knight

In early 2008, The Dark Knight was well anticipated for its summer release when it encountered unexpected tragedy.  On January 22, 2008, Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of a sleeping medication.  Days before his death, I remember seeing teaser posters going up in the local theater, with Ledger’s Joker hazed and writing Why So Serious? in blood in the foreground.  The weekend after Ledger’s death, those posters were gone.  The premature end to a great, young actor was too serious for the film community to keep such an ironic image in the public eye.  To further the sad irony, The Dark Knight deals with elements of chaos and tragedy that Ledger’s Joker unleashes across Gotham.

In The Dark Knight, Batman has become a well known vigilante, but not everyone agrees that what he is doing is good.  While some criminals are running scared, others are larger than ever, seeming to act out of defiance.  This leads some to believe that the Batman should be arrested.  But with the arrival of a new kind of criminal, who doesn’t have any motive other than just to throw Gotham into pure chaos, Batman is necessary.  Meanwhile, Bruce’s love interest, Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is now dating Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Gotham’s District Attorney.  It’s only a matter of time before they become The Joker’s targets.

It takes an amazing amount of discipline to portray chaos in a manner that doesn’t leave the audience confused.  In the film, Nolan has scene after scene of Gotham being thrown into The Joker’s insane plots to deal with and control.  There’s an attempted assassination during a memorial service.  Two ferries, one full of civilians, another full of prisoners, with the ability and choice to blow the other ferry up, or they will both be destroyed at midnight.  Most nerve wracking, in my opinion, is the threat that The Joker will blow up a hospital (we can only guess which one) if a certain man is not dead in an hour.  This puts all of Gotham in a frenzy to evacuate all the hospitals and protect a man that many citizens are trying to kill.  With The Joker hatching new schemes and Batman, Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the rest of Gotham scrambling to keep up, there is never a dull moment in this film.

The Dark Knight was nominated for an astounding eight Academy Awards, mostly for technical aspects, but only won two Oscars.  Heath Ledger posthumously won the award for best supporting actor with his daring and twisted portrayal of The Joker, and rightly so.  Every scene he is in, he controls it and mesmerized the audience.  His demeanor is so unsettling and raw that we are drawn in out of curiosity and cannot look away out of fear.  Some of his moments are hilarious in his own menacing way.  I love him visiting Harvey in a nurse’s uniform, complete with a red wig.  Others are horrific and surprising.  The magic pencil trick is a moment that shocks us and before we can even process what just happened, the scene is moving on with no remorse.  The Joker is a role that could mess with anyone’s head, and Ledger pushed boundaries with his character to points where his audience was in awe, disbelief and admiration.  He is an actor that is dearly missed.

Out of the trilogy, I hold The Dark Knight far above the other two films, and believe it is one of the biggest Oscar snubs in the past decade.  In fact, I suspect the Academy began picking ten Best Picture nominees after 2008 because of the great error in not nominating this film.  The story moves fast and keeps the viewer on the edge of their seats.  The sounds and visuals are amazing and immersive. And Nolan’s direction is only surpassed by Ledger’s acting.  Though other films based on comic books have been good, none were great until The Dark Knight.

“You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with.  Nothing to do with all your strength.”

Slumdog Millionaire

Who would have ever imagined such a great film coming off the basis of a cheesy game show like Who Wants to be a Millionaire?  The story is about a modern day underdog about to go for the final question.  Since he’s an uneducated young man from the slums of Mumbai, it’s assumed he cheated.  But the film gives the audience a chance to decide on their own, and opens the film asking them How did he do it?  Our choices are a) He Cheated b) He was Lucky c) He’s a Genius and d) It is written.  We won’t know the answer until the end.

The men running the game show have already locked in their answer: a) He Cheated.  They brutally interrogate Jamal (Dev Patel), demanding to know how he got the answers.  As they look back at the tape, we see a chapter of Jamal’s life as it relates to how he knew the answer to each question.

We are taken back to Jamal’s childhood in the slums with his older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal).  These images of children running through the slums, flashes of color and light, drums beating faster than their bare feet and the camera moving as uninhibited as these children are amazing.  It’s a piece of film making that feels revolutionary and uplifting, even as these children are faced with some of the harshest conditions.

The film lets us easily understand Jamal’s life, something I wasn’t expecting given the global and social differences.  We see his crowded classroom, where there is not much learning.  We see the violence that leaves him and Salim orphaned.  We see him meet Latika (Freida Pinto), forge a bond with her at an early age and then have to leave her for survival.  The story is not told or explained to us, which is perfect because Jamal is a quiet young man, not the type to narrate much.  What is shown is to put the pieces together and it make perfect sense.

As the story grows closer to the present, we see that Jamal’s reason to go on the show is not for the money, but to reach out to Latika, who has fallen under circumstances that can’t allow them to be together.  I’d rather not spoil anymore of the wonderful plot.

One of the greatest things about this film, is that it leaves you energized, happy and wanting to dance along to the ending credits.  With Slumdog’s recent winning predecessors (No Country for Old Men, The Departed, Crash) feeling like gloomy downers, this is a great change of pace.  Rather than sticking a finger in the the wounds of our world, it’s like a fresh band-aid after a skinned knee.

But some people don’t like this film because of the harsh situations the children are seen in.  Even worse, some of the child actors were really from the slums of India and after filming went right back.  It’s a very sad reality, both on and off screen.  Nevertheless, I hope you see Slumdog Millionaire, for the spectacular narrative style of Danny Boyle, to believe that a story centered around a game show can be satisfying and to gain more global perspective for many children in India.

“If it wasn’t for Rama and Allah, I’d still have a mother.”

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

It’s hard to wrap your mind around really, the idea that while the rest of the world is moving forward one man ages backwards.  How can he truly relate to anyone?  Any life long friend would have to know, understand and accept his oddity.  And his next generation, well, how could he possibly raise a child while he’s slowly reverting into one himself?  For me, many of the questions The Curious Case of Benjamin Button raised were given unsatisfying answers, like so many we find in our own lives.

Nevertheless, the film by David Fincher is done beautifully.  It feels fresh, real and vibrant even while firmly rooted in fantasy.  Brad Pitt portrays Benjamin in his reverse stages of man wonderfully, putting the character first and whatever age -or reverse age- second.  As time passes, from the end of WWI, through the sixties, seventies and onwards we get a sense of the changing world, but mostly a changing Benjamin and his life long friend Daisy (Cate Blanchett).

The new perspective from Benjamin’s life is intriguing.  His childhood is spent with old people in a retirement home where death is a common visitor.  This odd idea of a child’s mind developing in an old man’s body isn’t too hard to grasp.  Many times we think of the elderly as reverting back to diapers already.  But later in the film where Benjamin has a whole life’s experience in a very young body, it seems more tragic.

I realize to connect to the film, to Benjamin, one needs a real suspension of disbelief.  I encourage you to find it, it makes the film very heartwarming and one of those moving film experiences where you leave wanting to live your life to the fullest.  But how can we really relate to someone who passes us the opposite direction in life?  I’ve tried, I really have, but I’ve only come to one real connection and praise to Benjamin’s life.  He lived it, tried to live it well and tried to pass something along to make it all make sense to the next generation.  That’s about as noble a life as anyone can live, no matter which way they’re headed.

Now, here’s something I feel like most of us just accepted and didn’t question too much, but how exactly is the clock in the train station connected to Benjamin?  Yes, I understand they both run backwards and share a similar lifetime, but I wanted it to be more than just a clever backwards motif to go along with the hurricane and the hummingbird.  I wanted a real connection, an answer, and it left me unsatisfied.  Because in the end, I hope my life has more meaning and connection than just another convenient motif.

“It’s funny how sometimes the people we remember the least make the greatest impression on us.”

Frost/Nixon

To enjoy Frost/Nixon you don’t need to be an old hippie itching to watch Nixon squirm or have lived though Watergate.  You don’t even need to know of enjoy politics.  The beauty of this film is that it simply comes down to a one on one duel and the way Ron Howard sets it up, fills everyone in and gets them all rooting for Frost.

In one corner, we have David Frost (Michael Sheen) a British television talk show host.  He did have a show in America, but now he’s most successful in Australia.  Interviewing Nixon is all his idea, a great way to gain acceptance back into American households and give Nixon the trial he never had.  But as he gets deeper into preparation for the interview, Frost is putting more and more at stake.  He can’t get major TV networks interested in his interview and ends up having to syndicate it himself and foot a hefty bill.  Even more important is can he get Nixon to admit to any wrongdoing, or will the crafty president just drone on and sound presidential throughout the entire interview?

In the opposite corner, we have former President Richard M. Nixon (Frank Langalla) fresh off his pardon from President Ford.   With the advice of his chief of staff, Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon), he agrees to the interview for the money and because he does not think a British talk show host will put up any tough questions.  We easily see that Nixon looks down on Frost and does not consider him a adversary worth worrying about.  But Frost realizes the power of television.

Langalla channels a spectacular performance into portraying Nixon.  He makes the former president very human and nearly frail with emotions, faults, but extremely cunning with crafty mind games.  Langalla devotes most of his talents to live theater and does only a few movies.  In 2007 he won a Tony for his performance in the stage production of Frost/Nixon, but was beat out for his nomination at the Oscars.  What a shame, I really believe Langalla deserved the award that night.  Perhaps Sean Penn’s speech really summed up what happened in the final vote.

The crucial piece of film making that makes this movie work so well is the editing.  Throughout the film, we’re constantly filled in with back-story and details from present day interviews as the story progresses.  The individual interviews seem to chime in at perfect times, helping the viewer gain a larger perspective of what just happened in the scene.  In the beginning of the film, where we’re filled in with bits of old news shows and historical television to fill everyone in on what exactly happened toward the end of Nixon’s presidency, the present day interviews nearly make the film feel like a documentary, but soon the narrative takes hold.  I don’t know how, or if that idea was conveyed on stage, but on film it works perfectly.

Frost/Nixon is not a breezy film to veg out to, but it’s not so hard-nosed that it becomes a chore to watch.  Howard makes the film engaging and accessible to most audiences while keeping it very smart, political and fast paced.  Even if you have no real interest in Richard Nixon or never heard of David Frost, you can enjoy the film while learning a lot.  It could also be a great tool for students, but with an R rating for language, it becomes a judgement call.

“You could see it in Frost’s face. If he didn’t know the caliber of the man that he was up against before the interview started, he certainly knew it halfway through the President’s first answer.”

 

The Reader

From the trailers and movie posters, it can be easy to dismiss The Reader as just another romance where Kate Winslet is naked all over the place again.  It’s not like that, at least not for the whole film.  Let me explain.

The whole story is spread over thirty years, beginning in Germany in 1958, where young Michael Berg (David Kross) gets violently ill outside Hanna Schmitz’s (Kate Winslet) apartment building.  She helps clean him up and guides him home in the pouring rain.  After Michael is well again, he goes to thank Hanna and they begin a sexual relationship.

This is the part of the film that makes it easy to write off Winslet’s Oscar winning performance as an award for most boob-shots, but she gets so much better later in the film.  The majority of her scenes with young Michael are in the nude, because their relationship is basically that Michael comes straight over after school, reads to Hanna for a while and they have sex.

Now, you might cringe and slap Hanna with some predatory label once you realize she’s in her thirties and Michael is only fifteen, but I don’t believe the relationship is based on sex to Hanna.  She wants to be read to and can sense what a healthy young man like Michael will gladly take as reward.  It’s an efficient trade-off.  We may assume she’s taking advantage of Michael, but he’s young and enjoying himself too much to even think of that, until she’s suddenly gone.

The story then flashes forward to Michael as a young law student, sitting in and studying a war-crime trial, where Hanna is trying to defend herself.  It’s at this point in the film that Winslet earns that trophy.  We see where she got that German efficiency, her matter-of-fact tone and can justify a boy’s first love for some story time.  When Michael realizes something that can turn the ugly trial around for Hanna, can he face her again or will he let her pay for hurting him?

The rest of the story young Michael is replaced by Ralph Fiennes and Winslet dawns a lot of makeup to create the aging Hanna.  I don’t want to give anything away, so just see this film.  I was honestly surprised at how intriguing it was and how much I enjoyed it.  There is a lot of sex and nudity in the first hour, which is fine because it helps define the relationship and isn’t pointless, but after that the story gets exponentially better until the very end.

I know I keep going on about this, but I do believe this is Winslet’s greatest role.  And Hanna is such a hard character to pin-point, you can’t simply dismiss her as a predator or good or evil or anything.  There’s a part of her that is ignorant, naive or lacking in something, yet can we really let that slide?  Winslet’s portrayal of this simple, yet mind-boggling woman is exactly why everyone should see The Reader.

“The notion of secrecy is central to western literature. You may say, the whole idea of character is defined by people holding specific information which for various reasons, sometimes perverse, sometimes noble, they are determined not to disclose.”

 

Milk

Once again, it’s like my giant excel spreadsheet randomize button I hit months ago was a mystic fortune teller.  Here I am reviewing Milk days before Wear Purple Day, where I and thousands more will honor the memory of six young boys who took their own lives after persecution against their sexuality.

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected into any political office.  The film shows us the last eight years of his life, from a realization at forty that he had done nothing he was proud of, witnessing the homophobic San Francisco police brutalize his friends and neighbors, through his campaign struggles and his success at election.  But ultimately, he became a symbol and driving force behind the gay rights movement.

Sean Penn does not portray Harvey as some daring, flaming hero, but rather a man who saw what needed to be done.  He witnessed first hand the persecutions the gay community endured and simply realized that they needed one of their own looking out for them.  It happened to be him and soon he was able to rally angry mobs together for one purpose, even when they were on the brink of a riot.  Penn does not mold Harvey around stereotypes, but gives us a smart, kind, funny and quirky person we would all like to know.  His romantic relationships are sprinkled in, but do not define him.

We are shown, sometimes though old bits of news footage, Harvey’s biggest opponents.  There is Anita Bryant, a ignorant religious conservative usually interviewed with a church in the background and validates herself with phrases like “laws of God” and “normal majority.”  She actually becomes a catalyst fueling anger and rallying the community further.  Harvey’s closest enemy is Dan White (Josh Brolin) a fellow Supervisor who ends up assassinating Harvey and the mayor.  Harvey keeps Dan close, trying to make an allay out of him and believes that Dan is a closeted homosexual himself.

One of the most moving scenes in the film is where a teenager from Minnesota calls Harvey. The call is very brief and commotion is all around Harvey, but the boy says that his parents are going to take him to a hospital to fix his homosexuality and he’s thinking about killing himself.  Harvey tells him to get away, run before this gets to him.  Only problem is that that boy is in a wheelchair.  We’re sure the boy is a goner, until he calls again over a year later, thanking Harvey for saving him.

I’ll admit, ever since his remake of Psycho, I have not been able to be a fan of Gus Van Sant.  But what he has done here with the story of Harvey Milk is wonderful and is needed in our society.  Those who feel lost or bullied because of their sexuality need to see this film.  They’re not the first to feel like this and need to know that people are and have been fighting for them.  And we’re not going to stop.

Harvey Milk is just one of countless casualties over the gay rights movement, but how many more will we let die with him?  How many more teenagers will we hear about committing suicide to escape a world where they are only bullied?  Parents, students and all citizens of the world need to take notice, stop the persecution and have respect.

“All men are created equal. No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words.”