The Project Iraq Film Series presents Meeting Resistance at the Rice Media Center on February 18 at 8 pm. From the RMC program notes: This daring and eye-opening film provides unique insight into the personal narratives of people involved in the resistance by introducing, face to face, the individuals who are passionately engaged in the struggle and documenting the sentiments and actions taken when their homeland is occupied. Meeting Resistance is the missing puzzle piece in understanding the Iraq War. The directors, Molly Bingham and Steve Connors, will discuss the film afterwards.
A constant sense of fairy tale danger gives a palpable edge to this otherwise PG kid's flick. The Spiderwick Chronciles successfully condenses the five short books in the series into a film that nicely ties the bow to the ribbon. There's a feeling of closure to the story in contrast to, say, Golden Compass (obviously bigger books), which still has two-thirds of its story untold by the credit roll. A mom separated from her husband moves her three kids to a country mansion that holds mysterious secrets of their ancestors. A long gone relation leaves behind a book that explains how to communicate with the various fairies, elves, and hog goblins that live in the surrounding woods. Moody interiors and spewing creatures hold your interest mainly through the relentless pacing of director Mark Waters (Mean Girls) working with a script whose writers include John Sayles. For those familiar with the story a couple of the creatures have been skipped and the climax takes place in the mansion as opposed to the book's underground lair. I never noticed that a couple of the creature voices were played by Seth Rogen and Martin Short, which is a good sign since I wasn't pulled out of the movie by that fact. Freddie Highmore last seen hustling guitar licks in August Rush plays twins and could be the male movie equal of Dakota Fanning he's lately become so ubiquitous. Adults coast in and out (where has Andrew McCarthy been?) but the real stars here are the kids and CGI creatures. The CGI brownies and orges don't seem out of place in the thick woods and a griffin (head of a lion and body of an eagle) makes a cool pet for the kids. I was caught up in the effects until this one scene where the kids are in a 3-shot along with the family cat. At a sound cue the kids look up towards the sky to indicate the griffin is flying overhead. The cat just looks the other way - he's a method actor. Also there was a young kid, about six, sitting next to me, only during the last ten minutes of the film he got scared at the action and moved to sit in his mother's lap. We all can't be as brave as the cat.
The world is a nicer place to live with Night of the Living Dead established as a classic horror film, just as the world spins smoother with works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Bram Stoker’s Dracula as literary anecdotes to ward off the onset of ennui in its various forms. All the imitators can come and go, and maybe some of them leave a mark, but George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead has never been surpassed as a zombie flick unless it was Romero doing the overtaking. Night of the Living Dead was not the first zombie movie. In the 1940s there were titles like Zombies Over Broadway and I Walked With A Zombie. “Don’t forget White Zombie,” reminds Romero about the 1932 Bela Lugosi movie. “Classic films are the ones that hold up.” Speaking exclusively to Free Press Houston by phone Romero provided insight into his latest film Diary of the Dead. “It’s a parallel story happening at the same time,” offers Romero, calling the storyline “a new beginning.” Actually Diary of the Dead plays like a spot-on re-imagining of Night only in the internet age. When the dead start to eat the living it’s captured on TV. In a matter of hours amateurs are downloading their own sightings on MySpace and YouTube. “Today all the world is a camera,” says Romero. A group of students from the University of Pittsburgh are making a horror film when they catch wind of the zombie phenomenon. With their teacher the sole oldster, the group embarks in an RV for a house in the wilderness hoping to avoid the carnage going on around them. Through the night various obstacles challenge the group. Romero’s films have always excelled in horrific effects. Likewise his direction has a flair that shines in all his films. Diary of the Dead continues in that mode with a tight pacing that allows for laughs (the Amish scene) in the midst of danger. The film unwinds as a film within a film called The Death of Death. And as the story has adapted the precedents of Blair Witch first person style narrative so has CGI been added to compliment the stunt work. “We had to use CGI for the acid gag,” states Romero about a scene where hydrochloric acid dissolves a zombies face. But another action piece combines both old school effects with digitally enhanced props. The sequence involves a sophomore turned zombie who gets taken out by a high velocity bow and arrow. The actor was the son of the stunt coordinator and was hooked up to a harness that slung him backward against a wall. At the same moment a CGI arrow slams through his head and impales him on said wall. Romero has previously made four other zombie films in addition to other genres including the action drama of Knightriders, a 1981 film that starred Ed Harris. Hollywood has no use for Romero’s genius yet they continue to remake his films. A Day of the Dead remake opens in April and The Crazies is listed on imdb for 2009. “The Crazies has been on the books for years, Paramount was going to do it at one point, you never know,” warns Romero. This is the guy who practically created the current horror atmosphere and yet Zach Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead busts a new record while the same studio (Universal) can’t sell Romero’s Land of the Dead (fourth in the series) to save their soul. If you want Romero’s opinion Land of the Dead was perhaps a tad too Hollywood. And in 28 Days Later a film clearly influenced by American zombie epics “they’re not zombies, they’re not dead, they’re infected.” Romero made the Hitchcock type cameo in his films up to Dawn of the Dead, but stayed completely behind the camera in the 80s and 90s. Dairy of the Dead finds him backin front of the lens with a one-liner as a police chief. Fans know that Romero turned up in a crucial scene in Silence of the Lambs, shot in his then hometown. “There were always films being shot in the Burgh. I had known Demme for years and he called me up when he got into town.” Local residents have the chance to see Romero in person at the Texas Frightmare Weekend, taking place in Dallas February 21-24. The convention refers to Romero as the Father of Modern Horror and every one of his zombie films will be getting the royal retrospective treatment. “I love my fans,” Romero states. “I meet people from 17 to 70 at these events.”
You can count me in the Jumper camp. Jumper is the new Highlander. Someone asked me if this is a time travel movie. My first impulse would be to say no, Jumper is more of a space continuum movie. A quick look on the internet reveals this gem if physics: "It is well known that the space/time continuum is curved. The curvature occurs as a result of the influence of mass against movement in time. Recently, it has been possible to detect this curvature. As three-dimensional beings, we perceive time only as a result of memory." You know what, maybe Jumper is a time travel movie. Only the time is here and now. The mileage Jack and Morgan got out of sitting on top of the Great Pyramid (in Bucket List) is tripled after Hayden Christensen as David Rice (no relation to the songwriter) learns to space shift and constantly goes for his me time on the head of the Great Sphinx. Rice found out about his abnormal ability during high school in a sequence right out of the ice pond from It's A Wonderful Life. Highlander was also mentioned, namely because Jumper spends most of the film establishing a mythology of Jumpers, much as Highlander laid out the groundwork for what eventually followed in that franchise. Much to director Doug Liman's credit he never has a scene where some character actually explains to another character what it means to be a Jumper. You just have to watch the film and get it. This isn't Mr. & Mrs. Smith kind of action on display, it's more thought provoking sci-fi with outbursts of kinetic excitement. The best scene has Rice and another Jumper racing a Mercedes through downtown London. Samuel L. Jackson plays Roland a white haired freaky dude who may or may not be with a secret government agency and who hunts Jumpers with the intent to kill. Diane Lane briefly comes to Rice's aid and may serve a larger role should Jumper spawn sequels. Rachel Bilson (The O.C.) and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) are welcome allies to Rice. Jumper won't replace The Matrix, but it will keep you occupied until something does.
The Free Press Houston film library shelf is bustling with DVDs of every sort. There are BBC series, there are movies only sold online, of course some cool reggae discs, and even mainstream releases. We’ve clocked over 22 hours watching the various extras, movies, songs and outtakes in the past two weeks and now pass our experience on to you. New Street Law: The Complete First Season offers a different view of the law. When these lawyers appear in court they first go to a kind of chamber room where defense and prosecution don robes and white barrister wigs. It’s the equivalent of teams suiting up for dodge ball only here words are being hurled. This BBC 1 series stars John Hannah, who actually does quite a few of these type dramas in the UK, as a legal eagle that actually cares. No, really, he gives a shit. In one show the firm Hannah heads nearly goes bankrupt while working on a pro bono case. In another they lose bigtime (and maybe even a little faith) when their client is found guilty of murder. There’s interesting cast interaction, and even some hanky panky. Most viewers won’t be familiar with the majority of the actors here, but they all are familiar faces in Blighty. Natch, Hannah is the second banana guy in The Mummy movies and his main court nemesis Paul Freeman was the baddie in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The series lasted two seasons and the final ep of the first season fades out on a cliffhanger. Ziggy Marley: Love is My Religion was recorded live at the Avalon Theater in Los Angeles (in December 2006). This concert DVD features 19 songs, plus backstage interviews with Marley and making of featurettes. The performance consistently engages whether Ziggy sings his father’s songs or his own. Both this disc and Africa Unite have street dates of February 12. Africa Unite documents three generations of the Marley family. On the surface the film follows the current Marley family on their initial trip together to Ethiopia. Thematically Africa Unite offers a concise history of imperialism mixed with rare news footage showing various parts of that continent as they achieved their freedom. Some obviously earlier than other, and thus Ethiopia, not only the cradle of civilization but an African nation that was not involved in the late 19th century Scramble for Africa. The concert footage was taken from a 12-hour event attended by over a quarter-million people. Cool extras include a video of Bob Marley strumming an acoustic guitar, singing “Redemption Song.” This particular DVD demands respect. It would be impossible to make a documentary about illegal immigration without the jingoism of a macho man crying with pride for his country. There are a couple of scenes like that in Border but they are balanced by interviews with Minutemen, ranchers who live along the border, and illegals just trying to tell their story. Made independently by actor and director Chris Burgard, Border works best when it lets the image tell the story: night vision photography that places the viewer less than the length of a game field from armed smugglers guiding over a dozen illegals through the desert. In the light of day Burgard traces the path that brought him close to danger the night before. The Border Patrol requests copies of his footage for training purposes. Another government agency tells him he violated the law by filming without a permit. There are some sequences that perhaps drag on too long, or footage ruined by bad sound, but these moments are leveled by the amount of statistics the film pitches. For instance, so many Chinese illegals also cross the southern border that additional translators are required by law enforcement. Included are some of the more horrific aspects of human smuggling, like rape trees and decomposed bodes rotting in the wilderness. Border, now on DVD after making the rounds at film festivals, is available at www.bordermovie.com Watching the two-disc edition of Across the Universe left me in awe at the overall accomplishment of the movie, directed by Julie Tamor and starring Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess. I found myself playing a couple of the musical sequences over and over, and the second disc includes extended musical staging of some of the songs. On the soft side are the extras that feel like rejects from an Entertainment Tonight special. As much as the film resonates with me, I would’ve liked a bit more depth from the featurettes, none of which address the conflict between Taymor and the producers who wanted to recut the film before it rolled out theatrically. The music commentary reveals lots of great insight into the production perhaps redeeming the weakness of the other extras. If you love the Beatles this movie speaks busloads about that magic time.
DVDs reviewed: New Street Law Season 1; Ziggy Marley Live: Love Is My Religion; Africa Unite; Border; Across the Universe
