The Grouchy Editor

There are two impressions I can’t seem to shake after watching Countdown to Zero, a new documentary about nuclear-weapons proliferation.  One of them is the sobering knowledge that movies like WarGames, Fail-Safe, and Dr. Strangelove are not as far-fetched as they might seem.  Much of what passes for escapist entertainment in those films – technical malfunctions, human error – is alarmingly close to reality.

But there is also an image in the film that haunts me:  a black-and-white photograph of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist commonly known as the “father of the atomic bomb.”  In the famous photo, Oppenheimer wears a fedora, smokes a cigarette, and stares directly into the camera lens.  His eyes appear to issue a warning:  “I was Pandora,” they seem to say, “What happens next … is up to you.”  Oppenheimer looks fatalistic – which can’t be good news for the rest of us.

The following is an Oppenheimer quote from 1947, two years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:  “I have been asked whether in the years to come it will be possible to kill 40 million American people in the 20 largest American towns by the use of atomic bombs in a single night.  I am afraid that the answer to that question is yes.  I have been asked whether there is hope for the nation’s security in keeping secret some of the knowledge which has gone into the making of the bombs.  I am afraid there is no such hope.”

Hope seems in short supply in Countdown to Zero.  Director Lucy Walker’s film is a catalog of near-disasters and rampant dissemination of nuclear materials to just about anyone who can pay for them.  This onslaught of nightmarish news left me feeling pessimistic, despite Walker’s pro-disarmament message.  It’s not exactly heartening to be reminded that there are still 23,000 nuclear weapons on Earth.  Also disturbing is this potential conflict between the United States and Russia, as described by a member of the World Security Institute:  “Within 15 minutes, all of the forces on launch-ready alert [could] be in the air in their flight to the other side of the planet … and they could kill over 100 million Russians and Americans within 30 minutes.”

I’m guessing it won’t help anyone sleep at night to learn that, should the American or Russian presidents be forced to consider retaliation in the event of a (possibly false) reported attack, the amount of time allotted to make that decision would be about the same as the time you just took to read this review.              Grade:  A-

Director:  Lucy Walker  Featuring:  Graham Allison, James Baker III, Bruce Blair, Tony Blair, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter, Joseph Cirincione, Mikhail Gorbachev, Robert McNamara, Valerie Plame Wilson  Release:  2010

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Scenario 1:  Lady A is late to the movie theater.  Parking is impossible to find, and the concession-stand line is endless.  As a result, Lady A misses the first half of High Lane.

Scenario 2:  Gentleman B watches the first half of High Lane, but receives an emergency call from his cousin Bertie, who urgently needs bail money.  Gentleman B departs the theater, and misses the second half of High Lane.

The following day, you bump into Lady A and Gentleman B, and ask both what they thought of the film.  “A crackerjack adventure with gorgeous scenery,” Gentleman B tells you, adding, “I highly recommend it.”  “It was horrid, cliché-ridden, slasher dreck,” says Lady A.  “By all means, avoid it,” she adds.  Who is giving you the best advice – Lady A or Gentleman B?  Answer:  both of them.

The first half of director Abel Ferry’s … well, “horror/adventure,” sports some of the best, tensest mountain-climbing scenes this side of Cliffhanger.   The mountain views (allegedly of the Balkans but reportedly shot in France) are breathtaking.   Ferry’s depiction of these nerve-wracking crags and crevices and their effect on one character’s vertigo is dizzying, indeed.

But for some unfathomable reason, at the 45-minute-mark the film makes a Wrong Turn and steers away from nail-biting action to tiresome, seen-it-all-before horror.  I suppose the idea must have looked good on paper:  Deliverance Meets Leatherface.

Our heroes, a group of five young and attractive (naturally) climbers, suddenly find themselves stalked and cocked by a sort of Croatian Keith Richards, an unwashed hillbilly who, in the grand tradition of all bogeymen, has no trouble snaring young people who sprint full-speed while he simply plods after them.  Everything you expect to see is included:  A young woman miraculously displays martial arts skills; people go places they shouldn’t, and do things they oughtn’t – all in the service of a plot gone spectacularly wrong.           Grade:  C

Director:  Abel Ferry  Cast:  Fanny Valette, Johan Libereau, Raphael Lenglet, Nicolas Giraud, Maud Wyler, Justin Blanckaert  Release:  2009

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I don’t care how old you are, 15 or 50, the beginning of the end of the Harry Potter saga is sad news.  But for me, this magical film franchise really began to fade about five years ago.

The Potter films were a marvel in the beginning.  Director Chris Columbus reached into a hat and produced a pair of movies that captured not only the essence of J.K. Rowling’s novels, but also their appearance.  Think about it.  All of the Potter films – including the five not directed by Columbus – have relied on the ingenious casting, sets, and music introduced in the first film.  Who supervised the construction of Hogwarts?  What genius cast Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid?  With all due respect, it wasn’t David Yates; nor was it Mike Newell or Alfonso Cuaron.  Rowling could not have asked for a better director than Columbus to transfer her vision to film.

Beginning with the third film, the series’s tone began to change.  Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the movies lost some of their charm.  As Harry, Ron and Hermione grew older and less innocent, the stories moved away from the wonder of magic and the mind-blowing concept of a school for wizards, and more toward standard teenage melodrama.  It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly when the fantasy began to diminish, but the transition was unmistakable.   If I were handing out Harry Potter grades in the Great Hall, they would go something like this:  First two films – A;  third and fourth films – B+;  fifth and sixth films – B.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a good movie.  The franchise’s expensive production values, veteran actors, and commitment to quality ensure that all Potter films at least look and sound impressive.  It’s the tone, the ambience, that has changed – and not for the better.

Rowling’s books somehow managed to avoid this pitfall.  Maybe that’s because in the books we don’t actually hear Harry’s voice mutate from soprano to baritone (as we did in Chamber of Secrets), nor did we actually watch Ron grow so tall.  Or maybe it’s simply a testament to Rowling’s skill as a writer.

Here’s hoping that Deathly Hallows, which opens in a few days, can recapture some of that old magic … although I don’t expect that it will.   Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:    Grade:  B-

Director:  David Yates  Cast:  Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane, Tom Felton, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith  Release:  2009

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Let’s take a little trip, shall we?  Let’s go back to the Garden of Eden.  While we’re there, maybe we can answer a few nagging questions.  Was Eve really a villain?  Are women more responsible than men for “original sin”?  And is life a matter of rational thought creating order … or does chaos reign?

Lars von Trier’s thought-provoking Antichrist has been attacked as a misogynistic film, but I didn’t get that impression.  In Trier’s hellish view of our time here on Earth, we are all of us pretty much screwed.  Here is an exchange between a wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband (Willem Dafoe):

She:  “If human nature is evil, then that goes as well for the nature of —“

He:  “Of the women.”

She:  “— the nature of all the sisters.”

Critics have seized on Trier’s storyline in which the wife, traumatized over the accidental death of the couple’s only child, gradually becomes an Eve apparently designed by the devil, leading to some graphically violent outbursts against her husband.  But prior to that, I had to wonder who was torturing whom — if your husband, a therapist, deals with his own grief by treating you like a psychological experiment in a Petri dish (“No therapist can know as much about you as I do,” he tells her), might not you snap, as well?  They say there’s nothing worse than losing a child.  After watching Antichrist, it seems there might be one thing worse:  marriage to a jerk who sidesteps his own problems by analyzing your every move and thought.

All of this sounds like dreary stuff, and it is.  There are a few graphic scenes, but nothing that fans of, say, Hostel haven’t seen before.  Trier has turned potentially off-putting material into an engrossing, visually dazzling, study of the nature of, well, nature.        Grade:  A-

Director:  Lars von Trier  Cast:  Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg  Release:  2009

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1988’s Night of the Demons was a true guilty pleasure.  It was a horror flick that never took itself seriously, but made sure to include all of the genre’s required ingredients – boobs, butts, blood, and boos (not necessarily in that order).  The acting sucked, the production values were cheesy, and the script was apparently concocted by Cub Scouts at a late-night campfire … but who cared?

Director Adam Gierasch’s remake gets some of this stuff right.  The story is still silly, the babes are on board, and the demons are suitably gruesome.  But other things are seriously out of whack.  The acting is superior in the new film – which is probably a mistake.  Part of the charm of the original was third-rate actors spouting third-rate dialogue.  Gierasch’s screenplay is corny enough, but these actors – like the movie itself – take themselves way too seriously.

As for the boobs and butts, well, where are they?  There’s a lot of teasing in Demons, but apparently political correctness rules the day over female flesh.  Gierasch includes a quick kiss between two of the male stars, but gratuitous female nudity – which is never “gratuitous” in this kind of flick – is in short supply.

This is how Gierasch explains it on the DVD:  “I don’t feel like you can get away with as much stuff now as you could back then [in 1988].  The audience is a lot more sophisticated.”  That’s the wrong attitude; it was the lack of sophistication that made the first film so much fun.

Star Edward Furlong, looking and sounding like someone who’s smoked, drugged, and drank way too much for a 30-year-old, says this of the remake:  “Lotta eye candy.  You got tits and blood – can’t really fail.”  Wanna bet?              Grade:  C-

Director:  Adam Gierasch  Cast:  Edward Furlong, Monica Keena, Shannon Elizabeth, John F. Beach, Bobbi Sue Luther, Diora Baird, Linnea Quigley  Release:  2010

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The late, great Alfred Hitchcock’s final film was 1976’s Family Plot.  The movie was a tepid, disappointing lark that caused the “Master of Suspense” to go out with a whimper.  Why couldn’t Frenzy have been Hitchcock’s swan song?

I’m no authority on the films of Claude Chabrol, the legendary French director who died earlier this year, leaving Inspector Bellamy as his 50th and last feature, but I’m guessing that Chabrol’s legion of fans are also disappointed.

Bellamy is an alleged “murder mystery” starring portly Gerard Depardieu as a police commissioner on holiday whose seaside reveries are rudely interrupted by two sources:  a nervous stranger who seeks his counsel regarding an apparent murder, and the reappearance of Bellamy’s ne’er-do-well, annoying younger brother, a surly sort who carts old emotional wounds into guest quarters at Bellamy’s previously peaceful household.

Depardieu is a genuine movie star, and it’s just as engaging to watch him eat breakfast with his wife (Marie Bunel, in a strong performance) as it is to see him investigate dark doings.  But Inspector Bellamy is all breakfast and very few dark doings; it’s a character study with characters not much worth studying.

The mystery is uninspired, suspense is nonexistent, and the entire movie is oddly flat.  The greatest tension in the film occurs when Bellamy stops his brother from stealing a scarf at a dinner party.  The whole thing lacks zing.           Grade:  C+

Director:  Claude Chabrol  Cast:  Gerard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac, Jacques Gamblin, Marie Bunel, Vahina Giocante, Marie Matheron, Adrienne Pauly, Yves Verhoeven, Bruno Abraham-Kremer, Rodolphe Pauly  Release:  2009

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The people who made Troll 2 – a 1990 horror flick often called the worst movie since Ed Wood directed Plan 9 from Outer Space – were apparently a few tokens short at the troll-booth.

Michael Stephenson, child star of Troll 2, has now directed Best Worst Movie, a fascinating probe into the power of celebrity, both real and imagined.  Stephenson’s documentary examines the forces and people that propelled Troll 2 from straight-to-HBO joke into a major event at midnight screenings and memorabilia shows.  The documentary is an endless parade of loons, imbeciles, boneheads, knuckleheads, and delusional boobs.  I honestly can’t tell you who’s crazier, the fans or the moviemakers, so I’ll drop a few quotes and let you decide.

George Hardy is the star of both Troll 2 and Stephenson’s documentary.  Good-natured, goofy, and game-for-anything, Hardy is now an Alabama dentist who skyrocketed to cult-movie superstar status at conventions and screenings of “the worst movie ever made.”  Says one fan about George’s entrance at a screening:  “You would have thought that Robert De Niro had come into the building.”

Says George’s mother of her son’s acting talent:  “Let’s say he’s no Cary Grant.”

Says Claudio Fragasso, the proud, temperamental, and Italian director of Troll 2:  “I don’t make movies to be praised by critics.  Troll 2 is a film that examines many serious and important issues – like eating, living, and dying.   People want to eat this family.”

Says stuffed-animal lover and Troll 2 actor Don Packard about his experience at the original movie’s casting call:  “I was in the mental hospital at the University of Utah, and they gave me days off to go out.  I went there.”  Packard explains his state of mind during filming:  “I smoked an enormous amount of pot then to stay sane.  It was a terrible experience making that movie.  I remember there was a little kid there [Stephenson], a little Mormon kid who was really a pain in the ass and he was a star, and I wanted to kill him.”

Says Troll 2 screenwriter Rossella Drudi, explaining why her movie trolls are all vegetarian:  “At that point in my life, I had many friends who’d all become vegetarians, and it pissed me off.”

Says Margo Prey, who played Hardy’s wife and Stephenson’s mother:  “You compare our movie to a Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart movie, and it fits in.  Because our movie was all about people, and the experiences those people were experiencing, just as Casablanca and those movies are about people and the experiences they are experiencing.”

Says Robert Ormsby, who played Stephenson’s grandfather:  “Mostly I’ve wasted my life.  More or less I’ve frittered my life away, but then what else is there to do with a life but fritter it away?”

Says Fragasso to George:  “You were a dog, and you are a dog.”

Says Fragasso about the fans at a recent Troll 2 screening:  “These people are crazy.  It’s not normal.”

At times I found myself laughing out loud at these oddballs; at other times I thought the film might be an elaborate hoax (thanks a lot, Casey Affleck).  One critic calls Best Worst Movie “touching.”  I call it “disturbing.”  But I also call it “very funny” and “charming.”  It’s enough to drive me nuts.        Grade:  B+

Director:  Michael Stephenson  Featuring:  George Hardy, Michael Stephenson, Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, Jason Wright, Margo Prey, Connie Young, Robert Ormsby, Don Packard  Release:  2010

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