SHAME (Steve McQueen, 2011)

Here we have what must be the most disappointing film of 2011; Steve McQueen's sophomore effort, Shame.  McQueen made one of the most powerful debuts in recent history, 2008's Hunger.  Both films star Michael Fassbender (we should probably just be calling him The Ubiquitous One) and both employ a languid style, though for different reasons.  Here it's employed as a mirror of Brandon's (Fassbender) listless existence.  Listless that is, except for in regards to his sex life.  In that, he's anything but.  In that, he's a junkie.  Sex addict would be the term.

McQueen sets this up early by showing us a typical Brandon day.  This can be summed up as: wake up, shower and masturbate, ignore phone message from pleading sister, take train to job, take train home, and have sex with someone you either picked up or payed for.  He does this all with a stoic ease that either marks his complete indifference or a deep seeded sadness.  I present this 'either or' scenario because it is one of many.  In fact, the entire film is basically one big 'either or.'  Well, it wants to be.  McQueen and co-writer Abi Morgan attempts at ambiguity aren't nearly as clever or ambiguous as they intend to be (or think they are).  The majority of this forced ambiguity lies in the relationship between Brandon and the pleading sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan).  After she gets tired of Brandon ignoring her phone calls, she shows up at his door.  For whatever reason, she needs a place to stay.  Brandon reluctantly agrees and so begins the constant intimation that, perhaps, Brandon and Sissy have had an incestuous past.  Every scene they have together is marked by this undertone.  It's unfortunate really; had the film came out and said, one way or another, what their past was, it would have been much more effective.  By forcing this ambiguity on the viewer, the filmmakers have cheapened the film and diverted attention away from the seriousness of Brandon's dilemma.  Instead of focusing on Fassbender's fine and nuanced performance, we're constantly being made to wonder whether he fucked his sister.  But again, if we're paying attention, there isn't much to wonder about.  The film gives us one line, spoken by Sissy, that tells us all we need to know.  Late in the film she and Brandon are having an argument and as things calm down she turns to him and says, "We're not bad people Brandon.  We just come from a bad place."  So there you have it; fucked up childhood, most probably involving incest in some form.  Now we know (but, you know, not really because the film is SO mysterious).  What's next?

Not much.  Like the sex addiction, the incest isn't really explore in any kind of serious way.  It's just there to tantalize and make us wonder.  Really, it's not even there at all.  So we get more lovely shots of Brandon's slow spiral into self-loathing, and with the incest not really being addressed that leaves the cause of his shame simply his promiscuity.  It's a puritanical load of crap if you ask me.  Brandon's not a bad person.  He doesn't rape women, he doesn't drug them, as far as I could tell, he doesn't even lie to them.  Does he use them?  Yeah, but they always know what's going on.  He's damaged (assuming we disregard the incest angle), not because of what he does, but because of the way society looks upon what he does.  Put bluntly, Brandon doesn't have anything to be ashamed of.  We might though, if we think that we're somehow better than he is.

Despite my dissatisfaction with the movie I must admit it has a rather intense, cold beauty to it.  McQueen is a director with a great eye and serious talent.  There were moments, individual shots, that I found quite stunning.  A run through New York that follows Brandon with a tracking shot brought back memories of a thousand romantic films, and squashed there simplistic notions of love and happiness in a few mere moments.  There is also the only bit of a Carey Mulligan performance that I didn't find unbearable; at a restaurant  she sings a rendition of "New York, New York" that made me realize what a sad song was lingering behind that joviality normally associated with it.  In all other moments she continued to be unbearable, unfortunately.  There is also an extended sequence where Brandon is on a date with a co-worker.  It is clear that they not only get a long, but that Brandon really cares for her.  When they inevitably end up in a bedroom, Brandon can't perform.  He's spent his entire adult life using sex for sensation and the idea of using it for actually human connection is to much.  They part and she is never seen again.  It's a segment of the film to good for the rest.  It should have been the apex of the film but instead it's just an interlude.  Like a movie within the movie; it's just to bad it's a better movie then what we get.  In fact, that sequence is so good that it cast a glaring light on just how lazy the writing of the rest of the film is.  When Brandon's spiral finally puts him at bottom, McQueen's decision to express this through Brandon have a homosexual encounter cheapens the film to an almost embarrassing level.  The real shame here is so much talent and potential wasted.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (Ti West, 2009)

I give it a little extra love for employing Tom Noonan whose calm, measured voice coupled with his large stature, always makes him seem simultaneously inviting and menacing.  The movie itself is slow in a way that wants to invoke Kubrick's The Shining, but really just invokes boredom.

A young student, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue),  needs money so she decides to take the creepiest babysitting job in history.  She agrees even after being stood up by Tom Noonan's Mr. Ulman, getting driven into the middle of nowhere by her best friend Megan (Greta Gerwig), and finding out that the job isn't actually for a child but for Ulman's elderly mother.  Ulman assures her that she won't have to do a thing.  His mother is still able-bodied, he just wants Samantha there in case of an emergency.  Sure, sounds like a great gig.  She does need that money though, so whatcha gonna do?  So she accepts and sends Megan, who thinks she's nuts, on her way.

Anyone wanna guess if Samatha sits and watches TV like she tells Megan she's going to?  If you said yes, you're way off.  Instead, Samantha: dances on the furniture, breaks a vase, and starts snooping through the house at an alarming rate.  Eventually she snoops her way into finding the old lady she's supposedly "babysitting."  Well sort of.  She also finds out that the Ulman's have, or at the very least had, a son.  The end result of all this snooping and disrespect?  Samantha tied to a pentagram, soon to play host to "Mother's" rebirth.  I wonder what would have happened if she just sat there watching TV.  Would the Ulman's eventually just burst in?  'Ah, we expected you to be a little less respectful.  Sorry, could you come lay down in this back room for us?  Mother's getting really old and really ugly and could really use someone who looks like Margot Kidder, via Black Christmas, to inhabit.'  Samanatha doesn't go quietly but escapes her bonds and makes a break for it, but not before being force fed some of "Mother's" blood.  You know that's never good.  Somehow, though the film doesn't really take the time to explain, she seems to realize and understand what's going on.  Despite regurgitating much of the blood it's clear Samanatha isn't going to win this battle over "The Devil."  She actually does the right thing once she knows that she can't stop what's happening to her; she blows her brains out.  The film cuts to black right after the gunshot, and if it had ended there, on that image, I might have forgiven its other faults.  Unfortunately director Ti  West can't refrain from one more shot, ostensibly inserted to create an ambiguous ending but ending up feeling more like a cop out.

Perhaps if the film wasn't so lazily written I would find the visualization more compelling.  West has seen a lot of good horror films but rather than incorporate those influences into something distinct and unique he ends up with a pale facsimile, full of perfunctory scenes that numb instead of excite (or, heaven forbid, scare).  I haven't seen any of his other films but with a little more confidence in his own voice he may be able to stand out in a horror world that is saturated by "found footage" films, and even more egregiously rehashed plots and ideas.  I would certainly be more interested in West's future work over the next half-assed remake of a slasher film.  Still, it's hard to recommend The House of the Devil.  If it weren't for Noonan I'd say skip it and wait for West to grow a little but his scenes are enough to make it worth a look, if you've nothing better to do.

DRIVE (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)

It's easy to see why a lot of critics (particularly the American ones) are a bit gaga for Nicolas Winding Refn's noir/western/gangster flick Drive.  In today's Hollywood, so saturated with CGI heavy action films that might as well be cartoons, Drive is an anomaly; a star studded film concerned more with character and atmosphere than extravagance.  The latter it does masterfully, creating a cool retro eighties vibe while still make it clear that the film is set in the present.  As for the former, it does a decent job, better than most modern genre films, but no where near as good as it does with it's setting and atmosphere.

That atmosphere is established immediately with a cold opening that clearly positions the film as coming from The Driver's (Ryan Gosling, who never gets a name) point of view.  Like him, the film is cool, detached, and professional, with enough confidence for three leading characters.  During this opening, we see The Driver (do I need to specify that he's a getaway driver?) pick up a couple of crooks who have just robbed a warehouse.  As he takes them away from the heist he is simultaneously listening to a police scanner and a basketball game.  He moves casually through the streets and we think that he has gotten away clean.  Soon though we hear the scanner indicate that his car was spotted and police are on the look out for a Monte Carlo (the most popular car in California we're told in a brief flashback).  He knows that he blends in and never breaks a sweat.  Where you would most often expect, from a Hollywood film, some spectacular car chase where everyone's catching air and sparks are flying, you get instead a precisely edited scene where The Driver speeds only when absolutely necessary and we discover that he isn't just listening to the game because he's an avid fan and is just that cool but because he's been planning his disposal of the getaway car to coincide with the end of the game so he can make an easy escape by blending in with the crowd.  It's a brilliantly executed sequence and it sets a high standard for the rest of the film.  One that unfortunately, it falls just short of measuring up to.

It maintains the atmosphere, but the effect wears off.  The characters simply aren't developed enough.  There's been much talk about Albert Brooks and his turn as gangster Bernie Rose, and it is a good performances that Brooks eats up in his limited scenes (4, maybe 5).  Everyone else is more or less just a face.  Bryan Cranston plays Shannon, The Driver's mentor of sorts, and gets a fair amount of screen time.  He doesn't really do anything though, outside of the requisite exposition that gives a little of the background between him and The Driver.  Ron Pearlman, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks (who doesn't have a line if I'm recalling correctly), and Kaden Leos round out the cast who seem to have been cast for their faces.  Great faces all, but it would have been nice to have a little more character there as well.  No, I didn't forget about Carey Mulligan.  She plays Irene, The Driver's neighbor, and continues on her endless campaign to bore me to death.  She is one of the dullest, most one dimensional actresses around and her success baffles me.  But I digress.  The two meet and he is enamored by her (and her young son, Benicio).  A relationship seems like it might develop but then we, and The Driver, learn that her husband Standard (Isaacs) is about to be released from prison and come home.  Here Refn again wisely goes against our expectations; instead of a big confrontation between the husband and The Driver, they end up forming a tentative friendship.  Eventually, Standard's criminal past catches up to him and he is forced to do a job to try and relieve a debt that he incurred in prison.  Because of his affection for Irene and Benicio, The Driver decides that he will help Standard with the job, unbeknownst to Irene.

This of course marks the beginning of the end, as these things never go well in movies of this type.  A heist is planned, and is botched with Standard getting killed.  As it unravels we learn that the only players involved are all the characters that we've been introduced to, with Pearlman's Nino at the top of the pyramid.  It's the kind of situation generally reserved for stupid comedies or "Three's Company," where a simple conversation could probably fix everything in ten minutes.  Alas, that doesn't happen.  Instead we get a series of scenes with escalating violence with Nino trying to clean up the mess by sending a variety of goons to kill everyone off.  It's pretty Standard stuff.  Excuse me, standard stuff.

Through it all The Driver remains stoic, almost.  There were three instances that I thought I saw Gosling letting The Drivers feelings show, and they're all telling.  The first is actually a series of instances in itself; it's the interactions Gosling has with kid.  They get along and The Driver smiles at him, something I don't think he did once to Irene.  There is almost a hint of jealousy in The Driver's face when he looks at Benicio.  A longing to return to a more innocent time.  The Driver's next emotional outpouring comes during his escape from the botched hold-up.  Once he realizes things are out of hand, he and Blanche (Hendricks) take off and are pursued by another car.  What exactly this car was doing or who sent it, I didn't quite get.  I know they weren't cops.  It was a double cross of some kind I think but it's not really important.  During this chase The Driver gives a couple of looks of frustration and anger at the rear view mirror.  He seems genuinely pissed that someone is able to keep up with him.  That's it.  Outpouring over.  The final moment, and the most telling, comes when he stomps a man's head to pulp in an elevator.  Refn shoots The Driver from below, focuses on his face as he continues to stomp on his assailant long after he's dead.  In his face we see not just the psychopathic rage that he's manage to hide (even when committing other acts of brutality) but also a bit of glee buried in there as well.  Irene recognizes it immediately and steps away.

The rest of the film continues to follow The Driver as he eliminates the rest of the remaining players.  It's all fairly conventional despite the occasions mentioned (and perhaps a few others) where Refn deviates from our expectations.  That's all fine.  I enjoy genre filmmaking and  have embraced the amoral characters at the center of noirs, westerns, and gangster films.  So it was disheartening to see (technically hear), after so much that was good about the film, College's song "A Real Hero," used to close the film.  Refn gives us a close up of The Driver and we hear the refrain from the song  "...real human being, and a real hero..."  Now, I've been done with irony for sometime now but if ever there was a moment when it was need, it's this one.  Instead, Refn seems deadly serious; he really wants us to consider this guy some kind of hero.  Why, because he stood up for the woman?  Because he left the money on the ground after his final murder?  If he had just driven away, covered in blood, without the awful song force feeding us, the film would have been an undeniable success.  Instead, it's a well made, well acted, enjoyable ride, with a completely disingenuous ending that spits in the face of its audience.  Refn has enormous potential and this is an improvement over the misstep that was Valhalla Rising (2009).  I hope he can find the edge that he had in his best film to date, Bronson (2008), and doesn't become sanitized by the Hollywood machine.

Revamping

Not that anyone's paying attention, but I recently stripped the blog of most of it's reviews.  I left the few that I thought were decent.  I've also eliminated categories and tags as they just seemed to make things more confusing.  I'm going to attempt to do a post a least once a month but we'll see.  Two little ones make it hard to find the time (especially since I need time to actually watch the flicks).  Thanks to anyone who might actually be reading this.  Hopefully I'll have something new for you soon.  Peace.