I'm Seeing

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Daybreakers

I caught a matinee of Daybreakers yesterday at the Alamo Drafthouse Village (avoid the brunch scones), and find it a good, worthwhile film.

It's a newish take on vampire lore (not unique to the film, but not as tired as a lot of genre conceits), stylish and at times gritty, and it did a good job of sucking me in (ahem).

The basic premise is that it's the future, vampires are the dominant population, and humans are facing extinction as they're farmed or hunted for blood. But blood's running out, and unless a substitute is found, vampires face their own extinction as they devolve into brainless animals.

Vampire fandom aside, I'd watch Ethan Hawke or Willem Dafoe just sit and drink coffee, so I was likely to enjoy this movie just because of them. The hard-working Claudia Karvan makes a great muted romantic foil, and I appreciate that she's strong and sexy without being overbearing or slutty (both in-character and in the film).

Despite my enjoying the film, I do have to say it is amazingly uneven -- on pretty much every front (other than the acting, with the possible exception of Sam Neill, who plays up the whole "evil corporate entity"" role way too stereotypically).

By "uneven", I mean from the pacing to the focus on the mythos to the cinematography to the dialog.

Pacing ranged from staid and thoughtful to frantic and music video-like. The film didn't feel like it knew what to do with the mythos -- here was this great take on a modern vampire utopia, complete with the mundane versions of non-vampire living (commuting, getting coffee, etc.), that was at first set up and explored, and then thrown out to focus on serial happenings.

Ironically, this caused the film to lose a bit of its humanity, as it bulleted through plot points, at the expense of the relationships and exploring the societal impacts of this whole system.

The shooting is great, though there are some marquee moments in the film I found jarring, because you can almost see someone working hard to pose the actors and setup the shot, for the sake of it looking "bad-ass", at the expense of authenticity (and frankly, I almost laughed out load when I saw them).

At the same time, there are some great nods to traditional vampire tropes (staking, etc.) that are put in in surprising, fun, and non-obtrusive ways.

Overall, a worthwhile flick, at times unnecessarily gratuitous, but, overall, a good movie to add to your queue.

Labels: film, horror, reviews, sci-fi

Saturday, August 22, 2009

District 9

I've been looking forward to District 9 for a long time.

Helmed by director Neill Blomkamp, and produced by Peter Jackson, District 9 9 is the big-screen realization of South African independent director Blomkamp's Alive in Joberg.

I've watch Blompkamp for a little while now (though most people seem to know him as the Halo insterstitials director), and I am so stoked his short film has gotten big-screen commmercial play.

The film is pretty true to original, with the budget to do the stuff Blomkamp wasn't able to do before. This is one of his strengths -- despite being a wunderkind storyteller / director / visual effects wizard trapped in a mortal body, and despite being able to pull off effects he has no right to pull off without a budget -- he doesn't try to show what he shouldn't show.

Lesson to folks making films: Take a page from Mr. Blomkamp. Too many films fall over because they're trying to show something they're not equipped to show -- actors who can't get their emotionally, special effects that don't come together, too obviously cheated locations that rob the moment of import, etc.

I don't want to say a bunch about the movie, because I don't want to give stuff away, and if you don't know about the movie, going in fresh will be a ton of fun.

Be warned -- this is not a "popcorn summer movie". This is a sci-fi genre film that's not about the sci-fi; that's just set dressing for the important stuff. And it's pretty important stuff.

Oh, and while not a comedic movie by any means, the documentary trope gives some great moments, and there's a particular funny moment I found funnier -- and have put that item at the bottom of this post, so as not to spoil it for those purists among you.

Sharlto Copley is stunning in the lead role, and keep in mind, his only two acting credits are District 9 and the original Alive in Joburg. It's the kind of acting to which I aspire.

While the film was great, and did a great job of holding onto original vision while being commercially accessible, it was a bit heavy-handed at the very end. Uncharacteristically so. Kind of like, "Wow, that's kind of ... hey, wait, oh, now it's obvious, and I was already there!"

For now, here's the Alive in Joberg precursor film (but checkout Spyfilms.com for the high-quality version with far far superior sound).

Now, if only they would give me a Tetra Vaal film; or even Tempbot:

Spoiler(ish) from District 9: A sci-fi weapon trope is the gravity gun ("grav gun"). There's a brief, not overdone moment where a grav gun is used to unexpectedly grab and launch a large pig, killing a man. It's wicked fast, slickly executed, and not telegraphed.

Now let me ruin it for you.

The man was killed because ... (wait for it) swine flew ...

(It's hilarious! It's topical! I slay me!)

Labels: film, sci-fi

I'm Seeing (Subscribe)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Daybreakers

Saturday, August 22, 2009

District 9

Previous Posts

Archives