The Grouchy Editor

I don’t know about you, but when I board a rollercoaster, the real thrills don’t come from the car’s frenzied drops and loops.  I get my chills earlier, during the ascent as the train ominously clicks, wheezes, and grinds its way to the highest point.  The anticipation, or dread, of what’s about to happen — that’s the best part.

I can’t think of a better analogy than a nail-biting coaster climb to describe Ti West’s directorial style.  West, whose low budget The House of the Devil was surprisingly effective, knows how to turn the screws of suspense.  The Innkeepers, West’s new haunted-hotel movie, doesn’t provide many payoffs to his screw-tightening, but when the jolts do come, they’re nasty.

Sara Paxton stars as Claire, a young woman stuck in a dead-end job at the Yankee Pedlar, a 19th-century hotel preparing to lock its doors after one more weekend of business.  Claire shares hotel duties with fellow slacker Luke (Pat Healy), a nerdish cynic who relieves boredom at the front desk by working on his passion, a Web site devoted to the paranormal.  The only other (apparent) inhabitants of the Yankee Pedlar are a mother and her child, and a sharp-tongued actress (Kelly McGillis) in town for a speaking engagement.

Not much happens in the first hour of The Innkeepers, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.  It’s good because, unlike so many “young-people-in-peril” flicks, in this one we get to know our two heroes and, also unlike the youngsters in so many horror movies, they are actually worth knowing.  Paxton, especially, is adorable as awkward tomboy Claire, who must summon her reserves of courage.  (It’s curious that no matter how many chillers we see with “No! — Don’t go into that room!” scenes, they still work in the hands of a skilled director.)  There is also an amusing bit involving Claire, a leaky garbage bag, and a dumpster.  It has absolutely nothing to do with ghosts or the plot, but it’s priceless, one of the best scenes in the film.

The movie does take a long time to deliver the goods.  The characters, likeable as they are, can’t carry a full hour of thin material.  But for what it is — a small movie intent on delivering shivers — it’s a nice ride.       Grade:  B

Director:  Ti West   Cast:  Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, Kelly McGillis, George Riddle, Alison Bartlett, Lena Dunham  Release:  2011

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It’s been years since I last watched director Sam Peckinpah’s seminal drama Straw Dogs, but it’s the kind of film that you don’t easily forget.

Peckinpah’s thriller provoked howls of outrage in 1971 for its violent content, in particular a prolonged rape scene in which the main female character, Amy (Susan George), appears to take some pleasure from her assault.  Critics accused Peckinpah of misogyny.  If the macho director’s goal was to generate controversy, he succeeded big time.

I don’t presume to know if “no always means no,” but I do know that the sexual question mark in Peckinpah’s movie — did Amy prefer her alpha-male assailant (an ex-boyfriend) to her pacifist husband David (Dustin Hoffman)?  — was key to the film’s climax.  When the couple’s home comes under siege by the rapist and his thuggish pals, suspense was derived from audience uncertainty about whether David and Amy could work together long enough to survive.

Director Rod Lurie’s remake dispenses with any questions about the pivotal rape scene.  It’s clear this time that Amy (Kate Bosworth) wants no part of it.  This is a politically safe viewpoint, but it also subtracts tension from the remake’s final act in which, once again, the couple’s home comes under attack.

But Lurie’s Straw Dogs is still effective because of the universal conflicts it explores.  When Hollywood players David and Amy return to Amy’s hometown in rural Mississippi, the couple ignites a powder keg of culture clashes — city vs. country, privileged vs. poor, liberal vs. conservative, North vs. South, and atheist vs. believer.  Pretty boy David (James Marsden) is a lightning rod for Blackwater’s football-loving, beer-guzzling good ol’ boys. And Amy is a source of constant temptation.

Marsden is convincing as a proponent of the “can’t we all just get along” school of thought, but he lacks Hoffman’s charisma.  Bosworth is a credible small-town-girl-turned-TV-star, but she also projects a bland personality.  Hoffman and George were unforgettable.  I’ll remember them, but I won’t remember this remake.       Grade:  B-

Director:  Rod Lurie   Cast:  James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgard, James Woods, Dominic Purcell, Rhys Coiro, Billy Lush, Laz Alonso, Willa Holland, Walton Goggins  Release:  2011

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If you haven’t seen the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, then the American remake should please you.  If you have seen the original and decide to take in director David Fincher’s copy — excuse me, “reimagining” — prepare for deja vu.

A year ago, I saw the Coen brothers’ update of True Grit.  I enjoyed the new film, but it was a peculiar experience because, aside from new actors,  I felt as though I was watching the 1969 John Wayne classic again, pretty much verbatim.  I had that same feeling as I watched Fincher’s much-hyped thriller.  Fincher gets a lot of things right in adapting Stieg Larsson’s novel:  the wintry sterility of the Swedish landscapes; casting the right actress to play Larsson’s heroine, the enigmatic Lisbeth Salander.  But Danish director Niels Arden Oplev also got those things right in his 2009 original.

Oplev and Fincher both do some tweaking of Larsson’s plot, but they’ve essentially made the same film.  What made the first movie stand out was the chemistry between leads Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace.  Rapace, especially, made a strong impression as Salander, the goth-girl computer hacker who helps track down a serial killer.  In the new film, Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara also strike sparks.  But as the adage goes, the first time is always the best, and I prefer the two Swedes.

Fincher is my favorite working American director.  He prefers dark subject matter, and always puts a personal stamp on projects.  So this movie surprised me, because it hasn’t a drop of originality.  It isn’t bad, mind you, just unnecessary.     Grade:  B

Director:  David Fincher  Cast:  Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Steven Berkoff, Robin Wright, Yorick van Wageningen, Joely Richardson, Geraldine James, Goran Visnjic  Release:  2011

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Fans tend to get upset when Hollywood decides to remake a treasured movie, but I don’t see much harm in it if the reboot is well done.  Fright Night, the 1985 cult-classic horror-comedy, was not exactly Shakespeare, but it was a lot of fun.  Fright Night, the 2011 version, is not as witty as its progenitor, but it, too, is a lot of fun.

Director Craig Gillespie and scripter Marti Noxon get a lot of things right in their remake, and they even toss in an improvement or two.  The story’s new setting, a cookie-cutter suburb of Las Vegas, is ideal for a vampire movie.  Already hellish, this bland chunk of isolated real estate is ripe for a monster invasion.

The film also retains the original’s sense of humor.  Anton Yelchin, as an awkward teen who suspects that his new neighbor might be a blood sucker, is an inspired piece of casting.  Yelchin is utterly believable as a kid struggling with high school horrors and, once Jerry the vampire (Colin Farrell) moves in next door, much, much more.  Charley is such an innocuous Every Kid that, five minutes after the film ended, I doubt that I could have picked him out of a police lineup — and that’s a compliment.

But Fright Night version II can’t quite top the original.  David Tennant, as monster hunter Peter Vincent, is no Roddy McDowall.  Baby-faced Farrell is much better than I expected as the hunky vampire, but when the time comes for him and his fellow undead to enact the titular “fright night,” the results are a bit of a letdown.  Special effects can only do so much.       Grade:  B-

Director:  Craig Gillespie  Cast:  Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Toni Collette, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Dave Franco, Reid Ewing, Sandra Vergara, Emily Montague  Release:  2011

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The Devil’s Double has been called the “Scarface of Arabia,” comparing it to the ultra-violent Brian De Palma film, but that’s giving the Devil too much due.

Scarface worked largely because Tony Montana was a fascinating character; Al Pacino’s Cuban gangster had goals, and he would do anything to attain them.  Montana was an immigrant pursuing his warped twist on the American Dream.  The bad guy in Devil’s Double, a spoiled psychopath based on Saddam Hussein’s eldest son Uday, also has goals, but they are base, childish, and ultimately uninteresting. Uday wanted instant gratification, and if that meant rape, torture, or murder, then so be it.

Uday rants, giggles, and satisfies his wicked desires, including the assault of schoolgirls and killing of his enemies.  But unlike Tony Montana, Uday had no real power — that remained with father Saddam.  Uday was Caligula without an empire.

This film is based on an autobiography by Latif Yahia, an Iraqi who was (allegedly) forced to act as Uday’s body double in the late 1980s.  Dominic Cooper plays both Uday and Latif and, although Cooper does a credible job differentiating between the two men, the script doesn’t offer a whole lot of depth to either character.

Cooper’s Uday has a high-pitched voice and manic mannerisms which at times border on the comical.  Not a good thing in a movie of this nature.  He plays Yahia, by contrast, with a laid-back demeanor and a permanently pained expression.

There is much violence in The Devil’s Double, if that’s your cup of tea.  I found it difficult to care about all of the mayhem on screen because I cared so little about the characters.         Grade:  C

Director:  Lee Tamahori  Cast:  Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Raad Rawi, Philip Quast, Mimoun Oaissa, Khalid Laith, Dar Salim, Nasser Memarzia, Amrita Acharia, Amber Rose Revah  Release:  2011

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It’s obvious what director J.J. Abrams hopes to achieve with Super 8:  He wants his movie to be Spielbergian, the kind of fantasy that appeals equally to children and adults.  Nice try, J.J., but I can’t imagine anyone over the age of 15 really enjoying this film.

For younger kids, this is the type of movie they will see, love, and recall fondly for years to come.  And then one day, 10 or 20 years from now, they will rewatch Super 8 on TV (or whatever device we’re using) and wonder what they ever saw in it.

The story begins well.  A group of middle-school kids in Lillian, Ohio, circa 1979, are making a zombie movie using the Super 8 film format.  A train approaches an old depot where the kids are filming, it crashes, and … something escapes from one of the train cars.  Shortly after this incident, animals and objects begin to vanish from Lillian.

Up to this point, Abrams’ script is warm and fuzzy, a nostalgic throwback to movies like Stand by Me or Steven Spielberg’s E.T.  But then the plot gets convoluted.  And special effects begin to dominate the story.  And Super 8 proves, once again, that no one can make a Spielberg fantasy anymore — not even Spielberg, who is one of the film’s producers.

It’s apparent that money was poured into the film, and yet a motion-capture monster is neither convincing nor frightening.  At some points, this beast resembles nothing so much as a jerky Ray Harryhausen creation from the early ’60s.  Meanwhile, Abrams’s movie goes from sweet and intriguing to frantic and clichéd.

The zombie movie that the kids had been making is more entertaining than the misfire that is Super 8.  Unlike the silly alien in this film, Abrams and Spielberg discover that, despite their best efforts, they can’t go home again.       Grade:  C

Director:  J.J. Abrams   Cast:  Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, Elle Fanning, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills, Kyle Chandler, Jessica Tuck, Amanda Michalka, Ron Eldard, Katie Lowes   Release:  2011

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