Let the Right One In

If you watched the recent Academy Awards, you probably saw Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart of the "Twilight" series introduce a tribute to the horror genre, a genre repeatedly ignored by the Oscars for whatever reason. It could be that the genre is ignored because in many ways these horror stories branch off from the fantasy genre, and everyone is quite aware of the handicaps of fantasy films at award ceremonies.

I don't recall if there was a moment in the montage that featured this Swedish film, "Let the Right One In," though there were moments from "Edward Scissorhands" and "Beetlejuice," hardly horror films by any stretch of the imagination. Regardless, what good would it do if "Let the Right One In" was included? As I recently stated, if the Oscars wish to honor the genre, perhaps they could actually give these films a couple of rewards.

What better way to start off a review than with a rant? Yes, the Oscars have nothing to do with this movie (particularly so since the film was not nominated in any category--maybe there could be a token category for horror films like the Best Animated Feature award). I am not an expert on Swedish cinema, but based on films that I have seen, like Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" and "The Virgin Spring," and based on its position next to the melancholic and pessimistic Finland (a nation "depressed and proud of it," as Morley Safer said), it seems fitting that this very acclaimed film came from such a country.

This is a very gloomy film, from its snowy beginning to its violent climax. It is frightening, far more than most recent horror films, but not gratuitous. There is an urge not to look away, even at its gloomiest. It possess spectacular cinematography--of snowy forests that are simultaneously dark and bright--without simply pleading to be viewed and offering nothing much in return. And to bring back Mr. Lautner and Ms. Stewart, "Let the Right One In" is often called "'Twilight' for grown-ups." I have never seen either of the "Twilight" films, but I would be willing to bet money on whether or not it is worth my time to watch them instead of "Let the Right One In."

The main character is a boy named Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), who is bullied his classmates; he's even called a "good piggy" by the jerks. Oskar does not utilize a mirror at home like Travis Bickle, but he does work on his intimidation fantasies on a tree. It is here when he is outside practicing that he meets a young girl (Lina Leandersson).

The young girl, Eli, is a vampire. Vampires are by definition quite hungry, so she requires the help from an older man (Per Ragnar), who spends some evenings murdering people to collect blood for Eli. When he is taken out of the picture, she relies on herself. She cries when she kills a man and drinks his blood.

Oskar does not realize at first that his new friend, whom he talks to frequently and who never wears a jacket despite how cold it is, is a vampire. He eventually asks her if she wants to "go steady," which must be a peculiar question for a vampire. She's not a girl, she tells him. To Oskar, of course, this means that Eli is a boy, but he loves her anyway.

The film, similar to "Paranormal Activity" released the same year, becomes increasingly unsettling. Sometimes it goes into territory it needs not enter, like when a group of angry CGI cats attack a vampire. This sequence looks incredibly dated--have the Swedes just now discovered CGI? Fortunately, the attack of CGI cats is only brief. That character who must suffer from the cats' malevolence eventually faces a situation, or rather fate, which is expected, but for it to run its course it seems to take about twenty minutes. The character believes she has been "infected" with something by the girl, Eli.

This is a brilliantly crafted movie. It deserves comparisons to "Nosferatu" and the better "Dracula" films, perhaps even to "The Exorcist." Ignored, like so many, at the Oscars, it is nevertheless far more memorable a film than blue aliens or an ignorant hangover.

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Encounters at the End of the World

In 2005, "March of the Penguins" had outgrossed all of the Best Picture nominees for the Oscars--"Brokeback Mountain," "Crash," "Capote," "Good Night, and Good Luck," and "Munich." The next year, "Happy Feat" won the Best Animated Film award. There is a man--not a penguin--interviewed in the beginning of Werner Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the World." Several moments later, the audience is introduced to a driver of 67,000 pound trucks. He is an idealist not concerned with money, or safety for that matter, as is evidenced when he discusses his time in the Peace Corps. Later there is a plumber who is part Apache and part royal family of the Incas. Another traveled through Africa in a truck and barely escaped several times.

Herzog makes it clear that this is not another film about penguins. There are penguins here, obviously, since it takes place in Antarctica. There is a sad moment when a penguin rushes towards the Arctic oblivion, and the humans are commanded not to interfere. There is no explanation known to humans why some penguins do this. Regardless, it happens, and the penguin is certain to die.

But Herzog is more concerned about those watching, studying, and appreciating the penguins and other aspects of Antarctica. This is a documentary about people living here--what brought them there and why they stay. They are people who, at the time of the filming, were living in an environment where for five months there is a lack of night, and at times looks like an ugly mining town. The weather they operate in is freezing, but the sea lions are certainly less frightening than the bears of "Grizzly Man." The people there are living on ice, a dynamic, living entity, as described by one of them.

This is a beautiful documentary, partly because of the natural elements Herzog and his team have captured on film--the seals which make Pink Floyd-like sounds, and the serenity of the ice is majestic. Herzog shows us the usual beauty of Antarctica, but again, this is a documentary about people, and Herzog narrating comments little on the visuals of the land, and instead the experiences and stories and episodes of the people. Some of the researches here, for example, reserve their excitement in discovering three new species (they celebrate later), and some watch B-science fiction films. The newcomers have to wear white buckets on their heads to simulate the lack of visibility during snow storms for survival school.

The filming crew finds a linguist who notes the irony of being "a linguist on a continent with no language." The young man goes on for a quite a while about the extinction of languages, which must be paraphrased by Herzog. Later, an interviewee (who also is a survivor of the Iron Curtain) cannot articulately put together his thoughts like the linguist can. As it becomes apparent that he does not enjoy remembering his haunting memories, Herzog assures him that he does not have to talk about them. Just as in "Grizzly Man," Herzog treats his subjects appropriately and professionally, even if he finds them a bit odd (save for a pogo stick enthusiast searching for Guinness records, who is interviewed away from Antarctica and does not receive much appreciation from Herzog).

Extinction is a theme that is constant here. Herzog criticizes those who do not address the extinction of languages across the globe. He notes that the crew is pessimistic about global warming and aware that humans will not be around forever. One human creation that does seem permanent is Shackleton's cabin, which still stands just as it was before, nearly a hundred years ago, and resembles an "extinct supermarket." To suggest that Herzog often has a gloomy outlook of the world would not be an original statement.

There are penguins in this movie. In fact, the triangular relationship of some penguins described in the film would have been much more enjoyable than either "Happy Feet" or "March of the Penguins." This is a very-well made film. Actually, I have yet to see a bad Herzog film, and hope that no such thing exists.

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The Balcony is Closed...Sort Of

"At the Movies," the show where Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel formally and passionately argued about movies, has recently been canceled. Siskel and Ebert were American treasures. While there is some merit to accusing the two of lowering the standard of film criticism by simplifying things with "thumbs up" or "thumbs down," the two often admitted that they were not there to offer serious, academic film criticism. They were operating in the television medium, which, for better or worse, required a rapid and succinct review. But what often happened was truly fantastic. It is correct that the two more often than not agreed rather than disagreed, but it was when they disagreed that it was most rewarding.

Roger Ebert became the youngest professional film critic in America when the Chicago Sun-Times hired him in 1968 as their film critic. His primary rival eventually became a younger Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. According to interviews, the two did not particularly like each other at the start, and even when they became allies and friends they were still ultimately rivals, frequently trying to finish first with an interview or review. Siskel and Ebert formed "Sneak Previews" in 1975, which later became "At the Movies." Siskel and Ebert were remarkably different, not only in appearance--the small, rather large Ebert against the tall and balding Siskel--but in tastes, as Siskel claimed he was more analytical while Ebert favored more of an emotional response to moviewatching (nothing wrong with a bit of both). Siskel preferred to spend time in Chicago with his family, while Ebert relished attending overseas film festivals. (Siskel argued the films would be coming to Chicago anyway.) But they were both funny and admirable.

Thus, there was a method to their sparring, but they did, ultimately, adore each other. Ebert has not hid that he misses the person he has called his soul mate--Siskel died in 1999 of brain cancer complications.

Was Richard Roeper a bad replacement for Siskel? No. One did get the sense that he was not as excited to do his movie-homework as the other two were, and the rapport that Siskel and Ebert had was never matched by Ebert and Roeper, but he is a skilled writer and debater, and he deserves accolades for walking away from Disney when they wanted to make some "changes" to the show. Those changes, incidentally, brought Ben Mankiewicz from Turner Classic Movies and Ben Lyons of E! Entertainment to the arena. I have little, if anything, against Mankiewicz, the grandson of Herman Mankiewicz and the grandnephew of Joseph Mankiewicz, but I was annoyed after reading a comment from him found at eFilmCritic, in which he says that Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky" is "not a feel-good comedy but rather a comedy that literally makes us fell good." So in other words, as the author of eFilmCritic points out, it's a feel-good comedy.

Anyway, that remark pales compared to Ben Lyons. I don't typically try to get on any resentment bandwagon, and there are numerous words devoted to destroying Mr. Lyons, from eFilmCritic, to Stop Ben Lyons!, and even Roger Ebert (the LA Times wrote an article on Lyons called "Dumbing Down The Film Critic"), but sometimes it's simply too hard not to. Case in point, during their review of the wonderful documentary "Every Little Step," Lyons complained that he did not like the film because it often took place in a dark theatre, ignoring, as his co-host pointed out, that a theatre is where auditions take place. Anyway, Mankiewicz and Lyons were both fired and replaced by Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and A.O. Scott of the New York Times.

The reason, of course, that the "Bens" replaced Ebert and Roeper was because Ebert began to have cancer complications himself. Part of his jaw is gone, as is his wonderful voice, but he blissfully told his friend Leonard Maltin that he still has the written word. 

With all due respect to Philips and Scott, two of America's best critics, the magic of Siskel and Ebert is gone, and probably will not come back. Perhaps there will be another Siskel and Ebert. Regardless, it won't be quite as fun or funny. In many respects, the balcony is closed.

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Alice in Wonderland

Todd Gilchrist recently wrote an interesting piece about the filmmakers who have influenced Tim Burton. It is not difficult to see the obvious similarities between Burton's work and that of Robert Wiene, Fritz Lang, Roger Corman, Ray Harryhausen, Terrence Fischer and Walt Disney, all mentioned in Gilchrist's article. The homages Burton paid to each of those filmmakers were really simple; obvious to film lover's but not blatant plagiarism. In essence they were appropriate and fitting, and helped to establish a Burton look highly admired.

In his newest film, "Alice in Wonderland," however, there is little of that previously found influence, despite how ripe his material was for it. It is not too inconceivable perhaps to envision what the film would have looked like with Burton's previous ways of making films. There could have been an Expressionism-style set, just as he did with "Batman Returns," or Corman silliness, just as there was in "Beetlejuice." (Wouldn't it have been more enjoyable to see Alan Rickman in a costume, able to project so much of that famous persona of many of his characters with that face, instead of being hidden behind graphics that appeared to have been stolen from a children's show?) There might have been a stop-motion climax of the Jabberwocky instead of hackneyed use of CGI.

Tim Burton has been in good company, with filmmakers like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson salivating over CGI effects. Who can truly blame Burton? With the encouragement and perhaps pressure he must have felt when James Cameron's "Avatar" made so much money all over the world, it was probably much easier to shelve the older ways in favor of a CGI orgy.

In this adaptation, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is pressured to marry a young man she is not interested in the slightest, so she rushes away from. Predictably, she falls down a hole and returns to Wonderland, a place she has completely forgotten. Her old friends (whom she has forgotten) are happy to see her, for the Red Queen has taken things over, and they need a champion to set things right.

On an acting note, Burton has as usual assembled a fine cast who all appropriately fit the parts: Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar, Christopher Lee as the Jabberwocky, Michael Gough as the Do-Do Bird, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen. Depp is his usual fun to watch. Particularly noteworthy is his approach to the character, and he explained that his inspiration to have the Mad Hatter's hair be orange came from the fact that the term "mad as a hatter" came from mercury poisoning from the hats of the 19th century, though for some reason he's so mad that his accent arbitrarily changes so often that it's maddening, if you will. Bonham Carter, though, really does shine here as the villain. Her head so ingeniously enlarged, and she really has understood how to perfectly combine the silliness and the terror of the character's tantrums. Finally, Lee, who has found his renaissance in the cinema thanks to Burton, has said that he is simply too old to travel to New Zealand if he is asked to return as Saruman in "The Hobbit," though he would like to voice the role of Smaug the dragon. If he does not get his wish, then he would have at least achieved it here as the Jabberwocky, though his voice is heard only briefly.

The sense of imagination I found in the Disney "Alice" and in previous Burton films was mostly missing here. For one, Burton has stated that he never particularly enjoyed the previous adaptations and so this called for a new story. So, in a style similar to "Hook," Alice has forgotten all about Wonderland and must learn about its wonders in new ways. That is fine, theoretically, but as a friend of mine stated, "Alice couldn't remember anything about Wonderland, and dammit, neither could I!"

Another complaint is that Burton has shifted away from his wonderful sets and marvelously simplistic stop-motion effects in favor of these bad CGI effects. By the end of the film, Alice now has a sword (so does the Mad Hatter), and she and the rest of the actors have to do their best to make believe with green screens. And finally, 3-D glasses are not the most comfortable glasses to wear, but sometimes (like in "Coraline") the movie is so good and the 3-D is done so well that it is justifiable. Here, this is not the case. One of the things that really made Burton's previous films work is that the designs of the films really elevated the stories, instead of simply forming a distraction. With "Alice in Wonderland," the latter prevails.

There is a fascinating article in the New York Times by Melanie Bayley called "Algebra in Wonderland." Bayley writes about the mathematical symbolism in Carroll's "Alice" stories. One example is the Queen of Hearts (or Red Queen in this movie) is often keen on ordering an execution by way of ax (a pun, according to Bayley, on the word "axes," the plural of axis of a graph). The point I'd like to make is that Carroll's stories apparently are ripe with symbolism, philosophy, and thought, little of which is evident here.

This does not make the movie awful, and to use the simplistic language of the newer "At the Movies," would say "rent it." But if one is looking for that true sense of wonder and awe found in Burton's previous films, one might be disappointed. To put it another way, hopefully this concludes Burton's trilogy--"Planet of the Apes," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and "Alice in Wonderland"--of films that are not particularly bad but not particularly satisfying either. Though, to be fair, in the time that he made those films, he also made "Big Fish" and "The Corpse Bride," much finer films. I do hope his next tale will be more wonderful. Please, Mr. Burton, please help rid movie-making of this unhealthy addiction. A return to the "Burton look" would help.

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