2010 SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION!
Rated R
125 minutes

***

Hideo isn’t happy but at least he has the perfect relationship. After a grueling day waiting tables, he comes home to his beautiful girlfriend, Nozomi, and unloads his problems on her while she listens patiently. Following a relaxing co-ed bath, he unloads on her in another way. She’s always up for it. She was created for that very purpose. Nozomi is a sex doll. And she’s the only satisfying thing in Hideo’s sad, bitter life. Until one day, without warning, she comes to life.

For Nozomi, “finding a heart” is at once a blessing and a curse. Instead of waiting in bed, naked and undignified, for Hideo to come home, Nozomi now has freedom to leave the house and learn what it means to be human. Unfortunately, being human kind of sucks. There are many stories in the naked city, all of them terribly tragic. There’s a bulimic girl who sits alone in her apartment gorging herself on junk food, an insecure woman who is having a hard time dealing with her aging body, a single father and his young daughter and a man who eats the same meal alone every night.

Though she barely understands what a movie is, Nozomi somehow lands a job at the local video store (I’m sure applying in a sexy maid’s outfit didn’t hurt). It’s not long before she starts to fall for a fellow clerk named Jonichi. He takes her on dates and patiently answers her rudimentary questions about life and death. He doesn’t seem at all phased by her affinity for garbage or her lack of general knowledge. Granted his tolerance of her eccentricities may have more to do with her appearance than he lets on.

Nozomi’s independence is limited because she still must beat Hideo home each evening and pretend to be inanimate. Now intimacy with Hideo is more than just creepy. She’s become his sex slave. It really drives home (no pun intended) the notion of how much of the fun of sex is in the consent.

“Air Doll” is beautifully shot and performed. Doona Bae is marvelous as Nozomi. Her movements are as light and airy as the role requires. Though her face is absolutely doll-like, she somehow exudes both innocence and pain. But director Hirokazu Koreeda’s take on the human condition contains so much darkness that a peppering of jokes does little to lighten the mood. His message seems to be that life is lonely and that even when we do find someone, we’ll just end up hurting him or her in the end. Though Nozomi has essentially gained autonomy, there is little hope for her happiness, nor for the happiness of any of the other characters with which she crosses paths. The adult world is no place for someone with a child’s mind. Especially when that person is a sexy lady. She’s physically vulnerable as well. Though she has a soul, she is still a doll. She cannot eat, her seams are visible and she’s susceptible to accidental deflation. What’s worse, she doesn’t know how to control the power that she does have. Fundamentally, Nozomi is a beautiful version of Frankenstein’s Monster.

There’s little hope for the human characters in “Air Doll” as well. Nozomi laments that life is constructed in such a way that no one can do it alone. But finding someone to share it with doesn’t seem to solve anything either. Even meeting her creator leaves more questions than answers for her and the audience. Her God is kind but he can’t help. He just keeps creating and leaves his children to fend for themselves in a cruel world. Typical.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct). 

June 14, 2010
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat, SIFF . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2010 SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION!
Unrated 
103 minutes

****

“Bass Ackwards” is a road trip film written, directed and starring one Linas Phillips. It’s about a videographer who, having been evicted from his friend’s couch and dumped without explanation by his married girlfriend, decides to reinvigorate his life with a road trip. The vehicle: an old VW van he acquires from an alpaca farm. The destination: his parents’ house in Boston. Along the way, he has many meaningful encounters. The character’s name is Linas. One assumes the film is at least semi-autobiographical.

Linas is a good man who, of late, has made some very poor decisions. When he sets out, he’s short on cash. All of his belongings fit in only a few bags. “Would you still love me if I weren’t giving you food?” he asks a llama. He’s only partly joking. In fact, he’s barely holding it together. But before he reaches his destination, he’ll meet a number of people who will teach him about real pain and how fortunate he actually is. He’ll help some people. He’ll hear some stories. He’ll also make a new best friend in the form of an eccentric borderline vagrant who is trying to reunite with his daughter in New York.

It’s a beautiful film, taking a lot of cues from “Easy Rider” in terms of showcasing the American road and the many characters that live along it. But it’s a more realistic film and, as sad as many of the characters are, more optimistic. Linas is kind of a deadbeat, but he means well. He’s depressed but he’s not a sad sack. He laughs through the pain. He genuinely likes humanity and he’s really trying to find the inspiration he needs to make his life significant.

Unfortunately, we spend a little too much time watching him search. Linas Phillips also edited his film but apparently he couldn’t part with the hundredth shot of the protagonist driving his van on the open road. I get that the van is supposed to represent Linas. It’s antiquated. It’s running on fumes. It’s an annoyance to the bigger, faster vehicles on the road. But it’s got a lotta heart, kid.

We don’t need to see him check into and wake up in every single lonely motel room. We get the point. Sure, it’s a good point. Linas isn’t a bad guy to spend 90 minutes with. Too bad the running time of “Bass Ackwards” is 103 minutes.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct). 

June 7, 2010
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat, SIFF . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2010 SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION!
Rated R
78 minutes

****

At the, ahem… core… of Mumblecore are characters who end up in extreme scenarios born from drunken conversations. In “The Freebie,” a married couple, following a pep talk to a newly single friend about boning as many people as possible, decide that the perfect way to rekindle their waning love life is to take a night off and screw other people.

Annie and Darren have one of those relationships in which they can be completely honest with one another without hurting each other. They’re an educated, cerebral couple. So cerebral that a long discussion about not being able to remember the last time they had sex ends, not in sex, but in a crossword puzzle race. That’s why when they both admit that they sometimes fantasize about sleeping with other people, their hypothetical conversation about “taking a night off” from their marriage actually seems feasible. After all, they’re both on the same page. They love each other and, as long as they are in agreement, it’s not cheating. They can have sex with someone else and come back to each other fulfilled and better people. They truly believe that as long as they think it through, they can rise above emotion. Annie and Darren are obviously forgetting their Dostoevsky. A certain young man named Raskolikov thought the same thing and he spent about 400 pages paying the price.

Of course everyone that they tell about this mad scheme knows where this is heading. Everyone in the audience knows where this is heading. But despite a few conversations that play like a game of chicken, they both find themselves getting dolled up on the night in question.

“The Freebie” is directed by and starring the First Lady of Mumblecore, Katie Aselton (she’s married to Mark of the Brothers Duplass). She does a fine job striking out on her own in the genre. Based off of her six-page outline, the actors all improvise their scenes, thus lending the film a very realistic, almost voyeuristic tone.

Most surprising is how well Dax Shepard fares in the role of Darren. His characters often come off as smug douche bags. Here, he tones down the smugness playing a thoughtful, albeit foolish, character. There are one or two moments in which his reactions seem to betray Darren’s personality. But for the most part, he is very believable and even, dare I say it, heartfelt.

The supporting cast also does well playing Annie and Darren’s nearest and dearest. Sean Nelson is particularly fantastic at being off-the-cuff clever. Known nationally as “That guy from Harvey Danger” and in my home town of Seattle as an indie actor, writer and Man About Town, he easily carried Lynn Shelton’s 2008 film “My Effortless Brilliance.” His brief moments in “The Freebie” are some of the best in the film and also provide a welcome bit of comic relief.

Like all Mumblecore, “The Freebie” is about thinking people’s problems. That’s probably the reason that many people are turned off by the genre. But the reason I like it, and the reason I liked this film in particular, is because though the characters over-analyze everything, they still react to drama the same way anybody would. They are still incapable of rising above the trappings of human emotion. Annie and Darren think they’ve solved their marital problems through careful reasoning but all they probably really need to do is have sex with each other. Perhaps man is not “meant to be monogamous,” but there’s a reason that most couples agree, or at least pretend to agree to sleep with only each other. Even with exhaustive ground rules in play, the alternative is far too messy. I wonder how many couples will go home after watching this movie and bone just to prove a point.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

June 6, 2010
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat, SIFF . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2010 SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION!
Unrated
93 minutes

***

I’m willing to bet cash money that writer/director Matt McCormick is a Miranda July fan. There is so much in “Some Days Are Better Than Others” that is reminiscent of her brilliant 2005 film “Me and You and Everyone We Know”. It’s impossible to ignore the uncanny similarities. Lonely characters plod through their mundane lives looking for beauty and meaning. One character drives around an old man. One character makes performance art videos wherein she interviews herself and gives brutally honest answers about her fragile emotional state. Indeed it’s so similar that it almost feels like a remake, albeit a poor one. The plot plays out like a reverse version of “Me and You…”; only “Some Days…” lacks a couple of key elements that made July’s film so wonderful. Namely: humor and performance.

“Some Days Are Better Than Others” tells the vaguely intertwining stories of several residents of misty Portland, Oregon. Eli is an aimless temp who takes truly odd jobs (like counting the milk at grocery stores) whilst driving around with his step-grandfather, an eccentric inventor fixated on getting his experimental film recognized. Katrina works at an animal shelter and is obsessed with the notion of becoming a reality TV star. An insecure introvert, who wears her heart on her sleeve, she seems like an unlikely candidate for such a shameless, exposed medium. Camille, a sorter at a donation center, is even more socially crippled, interacting with other people only when absolutely necessary. When she finds an urn among the donated items, she becomes preoccupied with finding the owner of the little girl’s ashes contained therein.

There’s something to be said for hiring amateur actors in order to lend some realism to a film. But it only works if the dialog flows like natural conversation. When someone stumbles over philosophical lines it really draws attention to the fact that these aren’t their words, but the words of the screenwriter. It’s difficult to be moved by a film when you’re constantly being taken out of it. I don’t know if James Mercer (lead singer of The Shins) and Carrie Brownstein (lead singer/guitarist of Sleater-Kinney) get better partway through the film or if one just gets used to their stilted line readings. But they certainly never get good. Renee Roman Nose seems sweet and earnest but it’s almost painful watching her act. Her performance brings to mind the awkwardness of the non-professional cast of Steven Soderbergh’s “Bubble.” It’s not pretty.

McCormick’s script does attempt a few light moments and some of them aren’t complete failures. Benjamin Farmer is amusing as a brash supervisor at one of Eli’s temp jobs. But other jokes fall flat. A scene in which Katrina inadvertently finds herself at a seminar scam goes for the easy, obvious laugh. And it’s not particularly funny.

Not happy with just having his characters say how they feel, or letting Portland’s gloomy backdrop exemplify their mind-set, McCormick also throws in a few bonus moments of compulsory symbolism. The camera lingers for ages on a street lamp at dawn. Apropos of nothing, a sequence of shots of boarded up houses plays like a project from the first week of film school. A couple of unnecessary dream sequences redundantly illustrate Eli and Katrina’s respective anxieties.

On Bruce McCulloch’s comedy album “Shame Based Man,” he has a sketch in which someone calls into a radio show with the advice that all the lonely people in the world should “just pair up.” The reason this is funny is because it’s totally unrealistic. People are happier when they have other people, but finding that other person who can fulfill you isn’t as easy as just meeting someone else who is lonely. It works in July’s film because her two main characters have chemistry. Even so, their pairing is difficult. That’s because life is difficult and people are complex. But McCormick seems think it’s the answer for Katrina and Eli. His entire story is so obviously implying this “easy” solution.

Still, McCormick shows promise as a filmmaker. There are some good ideas here. Let’s just say some parts are better than others. But I definitely liked it better when it was called “Me and You and Everyone We Know”.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct). 

June 6, 2010
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat, SIFF . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2010 SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION!
Rated R
104 minutes

****

The horrors of science and parenthood collide in “Splice,” the new film from “Cube” director Vincenzo Natali. It begins when a couple (literally) of hipster scientists named Clive and Elsa (Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley), working alongside their tragically-coiffed assistants, synthesize a cure-all protein for livestock using the phallic animal hybrid creatures that they invented. But, since this amazing new protein won’t help the humans of this world beat their human diseases, Elsa gets a bug up her ass about taking it to the next level. What they need to do, she figures, is throw some people into this genetic recipe. The big old corporation they do science for doesn’t think this is such a good idea, but Elsa convinces Clive that they should do it anyway. You know, just to see if it’ll work. They won’t even bring it to term, she says. What’s the worst that can happen? She forgets, of course, that the gestational period of fantastical creatures is always expedited. Before they know it, their genetic abomination of a love child is born and hopping around the lab making all kinds of trouble. At first, it’s cute trouble, like knocking things over and making a mess. But the trouble gets ugly in a hurry.

It took a little while for me to warm up to “Splice.” It seems to take itself pretty seriously whilst having its characters say and do silly things. The Frankenstein parallels (including the characters’ names and a shot of a Frankenstein’s Monster toy) are a little on the nose. There is a dance metaphor in the beginning, which they really run into the ground. Clive and Elsa name their slug phalluses Fred and Ginger and work through their genetic problems by comparing gene spicing to choreography. Right out of the gate, their scientific methods are highly suspect. Clive spends a lot of time typing formulas into a computer and begging them to “come on” while he waits to see if they work. Meanwhile Elsa hovers over him saying supportive things. When the formula finally does “come on,” she dubs him “Bob fucking Fosse!” For scientists, they aren’t very smart. But then it occurred to me that we aren’t supposed to like these guys. Because maybe this isn’t a movie about scary science as much as it is a cautionary tale about breeding. Elsa and Clive, a young, fertile couple, discuss the notion of someday having kids. However, instead of getting a practice dog like normal people, they decide to practice on a test tube freak named Dren. It’s a girl.

Being a new parent is hard. Dren is a lot more work than they bargained for. She doesn’t just sit placidly in a glass case like Fred and Ginger. Clive and Elsa inadvertently find themselves living out many typical parental nightmares like illness and budding sexuality. The film also delves into the less explored, more emotionally taxing issues, like an adolescent daughter’s tempestuous relationship with her mother, what happens if she develops an Elektra complex, and how parental paranoia-induced social isolation can effect a young thing. Of course, since the child in question is a freakish, fowl-legged, amphibious mutant, the youthful rebellion gets bloody.

What “Splice” lacks in dialogue and plot contrivance, it makes up for in complex thematic elements. It’s staggering how many ethical questions they cram into the film. “There are moral considerations,” Clive warns Elsa early on. But he doesn’t go into specifics. Instead, the moral considerations reveal themselves after it’s too late to do anything about it. Should science play God just because it can? When does life begin? At which point do you relinquish control from the life you created? Are there some people who just shouldn’t have kids? Should a man be held responsible for where his penis ends up?

But the special effects are what really sell the film. Not since Gollum has a CG enhanced creature felt so real. Dren starts out a cute, armless rat and spends a brief stint as Rocky Dennis in a dress before blossoming into a beautiful, bald, supermodel with big, weird eyes set too far apart. She communicates in clicks and whistles, which sound simultaneously human and alien. Though she ages physically, she remains much like a real human baby, looking with equal parts wonder, fear, and frustration at a world she doesn’t understand. Clive and Elsa oscillate between pride and regret, repeatedly resolving to euthanize their creation before something happens to change their minds. You know this isn’t going anywhere good and, though it’s often easy to predict what’s going to happen next, it’s exciting when it does. Though “Splice” has viscera a-plenty, the horror of it isn’t in the gore. It’s in the notion that sometimes children end up evil and it might be entirely our fault.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com. 

May 31, 2010
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat, SIFF . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2010
Rated R
90 minutes

**

“I didn’t sign up for this shit,” laments the man known as Sarge in “George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead.” I know how he feels. I would have been happy with the preexisting Romero films. Granted “Diary of the Dead” was a piece of crap, but all the others were so good. Each one was better than the last. “Land of the Dead,” though at times obtuse, was also a whole lot of fun, thanks, in no small part, to Dennis Hopper. But this review, sadly, isn’t for one of Romero’s good films. It’s for “Survival of the Dead”, the latest film from a once great man. The man who invented the modern zombie is officially senile. Someone really needs to take away Grandpa’s typewriter.

“Survival” reads like an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger.” If you don’t know what that means, imagine a script that sounds like it came directly from the mind of George W. Bush. Two warring families inhabit an island off the coast of Delaware. They speak with Irish brogues that sound like they’re from County Kiluckycharms. They wear cowboy hats, ride horses and talk in clichés. Their (corned) beef: A difference of opinion regarding how to deal with the zombies that plague the earth. Should the “deadheads” be shot on sight (O’Flynn) or contained until a cure is found (Muldoon)? Muldoon quotes scripture but his pacifist policy doesn’t seem to extend to the living. O’Flynn isn’t bound by religious doctrine but he too does his share of shooting first and not asking any questions. There appears to be some sort of social or political message here, but whatever it is, it’s so on-the-nose that you can’t even see the damned thing.

Joining the Irishmen on the island is another group of clichés. These are rogue soldiers who appeared briefly in “Diary.” The man in charge is Sarge. With stubble that stands at attention and a cigarette perpetually dangling from his smug mouth, he’s the poor man’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan. In his company are a tech savvy kid and a horny Latino who is forever hitting on the tough-talking lesbian. They have a truck full of cash and they behave as though all those Bejamins have relevance in a post-apocalyptic society.

It gets worse. When Romero’s script isn’t being trite or nonsensical, it’s plagiarizing his own early work. Someone will be in denial about getting infected until the last minute when they’ll come to terms with the need for euthanasia. You can bet some parent is going to hide their zombified offspring and insist that they shouldn’t be killed because they’re just children. Most certainly someone will have to kill a loved one himself.

Sometimes a terrible script can be salvaged by some awesome carnage. Not in this case. Exploding heads? Been there. A group of zombies feasting on entrails? Seen that. Even the characters in the movie seem bored, never running or screaming or even looking surprised when they are attacked. In this universe, it hasn’t been that long since the dead began returning to life, but apparently it’s more annoying than horrifying. When they do try to get creative with the violence, it comes off as lazy and cartoonish. When Muldoon uses a stick of dynamite to dispatch a large group of zombies, he may as well be a bunny in drag. A film that relies so heavily on C.G. should really be bloodier.

To the two little girls in the audience at my screening, I hope you weren’t put off the zombie genre. If you were terribly disappointed, please don’t turn to “Twilight” now. I promise there are worthwhile zombie movies out there. But this was not one of them.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

May 29, 2010
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat, SIFF . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2010 SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION!
Unrated
95 minutes

***

Some people believe that the best relationships are built on full disclosure. They are the sorts who keep a company like Veridical in business. Using clandestine supernatural means, two be-suited individuals will come to your house and air your dirty laundry so that you may start your marriage off right or strengthen an existing one. Two such agents, Davis and Bennett (Ed Gaughan and Andrew Buckley) are the protagonists of “Skeletons,” the surreal black comedy playing at the 2010 Seattle International Film Festival. With a promotion on the line, they’ve been hired to help a woman find her missing husband. Of course, the job ends up being much more complicated than they’d anticipated. And it just may lead to some convenient self-discovery. It’s a cute premise with an interesting execution but it leaves too much of its universe unexplained.

This is what we know: The genial colleagues commute on foot through the English countryside, passing the time, like a pair of low-rent Tom Stoppard characters, with philosophical debates about the moral standing of famous historical figures. Once they locate their clients (using only an illustration of the residence), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get to work extracting figurative skeletons from the literal closet. Once done, they report their findings to the customer. These reports are likely not always well received, hence a comically exhaustive signing and initialing of paperwork to relieve Veridical of all blame. It’s a dangerous procedure too, requiring goggles and fire extinguishers in addition to magic rocks and machines that go “boop.”

We know other things too. Davis has a natural ability to do this on his own. It’s called “glow chasing” and he uses it to revisit a favorite memory from his childhood. But if he’s not careful, he could get stuck there forever. We know that Veridical is run by a gruff man called The Colonel who really wants to promote Davis and Bennett to his “A Team”, provided they do well on their next job.

This is what we don’t know: How does “the procedure” work, exactly? How did it become a business? How are people recruited for this line of work? And, most importantly, why would anyone pay these guys, supernatural abilities or no, to discover secrets they could just as easily tell each other for free? It’s as if their entire clientele consists of people just wanting to see if it actually works.

That is, until, they meet Jane (Paprika Steen), a woman whose husband disappeared eight years prior, rendering her daughter, Rebecca (Tuppence Middleton), mute. Jane isn’t in great mental shape either as she spends her days digging holes in the woods behind her house in the off chance that her husband is buried there. It’s a complex job from the start, made more complex by some pseudo-science techno babble they don’t really explain and the grumpy Rebecca, who just may have a secret of her own.

Written and directed by Nick Whitfield and adapted from his short film of the same name, “Skeletons” is not bad for a debut feature. The cinematography, with lengthy wide shots of fields and forests, is beautiful and the jaunty music keeps the beat. Maybe it’s all the mustaches, but the whole thing feels very French. The cast, particularly the two leads, does a great job making the adequate dialogue sound whip smart. The striking Tuppence Middleton aside, there is a refreshing bit of realism provided by any film filled with regular-looking people.

From a script standpoint, there are a lot of good ideas here but I suspect they felt more satisfying in short form. 95 minutes seems like a long time to not really get to know anybody. Perhaps Whitfield didn’t want over-explain things and as a hater of awkward exposition, I appreciate that. But at the end of the film, the characters still felt like characters strangers. I wanted to know more about them. “Skeletons” is a terrific shell of an idea that Whitfield should have fleshed out. In fact, it would make a terrific television series with this film as the pilot. It would be exciting to revisit these characters week after week and learn more about whom they are while they help people. But “Skeletons” the film is something you need only visit once.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct). 

May 27, 2010
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat, SIFF . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment