Resident Evil: Retribution (Paul WS Anderson, 2012)

 Poetry in motion

Surprised to see Dave Kehr interviewed on Movie Morlocks; was even more surprised to see that Kehr is a fan of Paul Anderson--W.S., not Thomas--and that he loved Resident Evil: Retribution. Did not know Kehr was an Anderson fan. 

Not a big fan, myself (thought Anderson's Death Race was a mere shadow of Paul Bartel's 1975 satiric original), but did like Soldier, Anderson's science-fiction remake of George Stevens' Shane which, taking its cue from Kurt Russell's expressionless title performance, had a sneaky understated sense of humor. If you gaze at the soldier's genetically impassive face for any length of time you start reading emotions into it, much like a Rorschach blot; I thought this both a clever parody of the action hero's traditional impassiveness and a surprisingly effective way to suggest soulfulness (?!) in a science fiction action flick (these soldiers may be genetically altered to minimize the impact of pain, guilt, shame but nevertheless they feel these emotions--and the fact that said emotions have been trained out of them and still manage to register suggest the power of these suppressed feelings). Later when you're more accustomed to their stylized (Bressonian?) acting you can read pages into their expressionless mugs: a mountain of sarcasm in a slightly raised brow, a floodplain of sorrow in a downturned mouth.

Several comments raised my brow in the Resident Evil interview--I suppose one can see Milla Jovovich's Alice being lead heroine as some kind of triumph for the feminist cause, but video games (and their big-screen adaptations)  use sexy female protagonists (Lara Croft, anyone?) so often it's practically a cliche. Same with the Umbrella Corporation--faceless corporate villains are a classic trope in the genre, nothing truly innovative about their use.

Also a pity he needed to use Anderson to bash Joss Whedon's work. Whedon possibly lost some street cred with the ubersuccess of his The Avengers (he's establishment now, for better or worse), but I've always thought his writing sparkled (Cabin in the Woods) and his directing capable of continuity and flow (perhaps not necessarily in this multimillion production--though I'd cite Black Widow's escape early in the picture--but in titles like Serenity and the "Once More With Feeling" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). He can even do musical numbers, always a plus in my book ("Once More with Feeling," Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog).

Those points set aside, I can see Anderson's film being a continuation of what the Hong Kong filmmakers were doing in the '80s and early '90s; not so much Tsui Hark as John Woo, with his penchant for fetishized gunplay and stylized homoeroticism. Not a lot of development with relationships in this, homoerotic or otherwise, but plenty of development of action sequences, from handgun to automatic rifle to rocket-propelled grenade, with side trips into weighted chains and curved blades along the way.  Plenty of actual as opposed to digitized stunts-- on occasion Alice will face a CGI creature, which she mostly disposes of with a brief strafing and a belt full of explosives; the real confrontations involve human adversaries doing non-digital kicks and spins, in knock-em-down-drag-em-out fights that recall (distantly but authentically) Drunken Master 2.

And they're dances; they're exuberant exhibitions of balletic motion, done with grace and skill; Anderson shoots them in such a way that the movements remain clear in your head, entire sequences glitter like elaborate jewelry in the mind (that glorious moment when, at the beginning of this Resident Evil, we get a slow-motion reverse-play recap of the ending of the previous Resident Evil). Astaire would approve, I think; Kelly too, though I suspect the one who would truly clap his hands in sardonic appreciation would probably be Bob Fosse. What can I say about Resident Evil: Retribution? Best dance movie I've seen in a while, easy. 

9.26.12

Armando 'Bing' Lao, 2026 National Artist for Film

Armando 'Bing' Lao is 2026's National Artist for Film

This September 2026 Armando 'Bing' Lao (1948 - 2024) was posthumously granted the title of National Artist of the Philippines, generally considered the highest honor the state can give one of its citizens.

Coyote vs Acme (Dave Green, 2026)

Coming toon

I saw Dave Green's Coyote vs Acme and-- surprise surprise-- liked it. 

Didn't sound promising. The premise itself is looney tunes-- that Wile E. Coyote would finally come to his senses and attempt that most American of undertakings, file a lawsuit against the Acme Corporation; that the case would blow up into a congressional hearing commanding nationwide attention; and that this whole silly drama would be material enough to fill a hundred minute feature. 

Not to mention the real-world decision of Warner Discovery to treat the picture as a 30 million dollar tax writeoff; the struggle to find an alternative distributor; the last-minute rescue by Ketchup Entertainment, which bought the movie for fifty million. 

The big online fuss surrounding its unlikely commercial release; the basically low boxoffice returns which, most unlikely of all, barely fazes the fans-- no one is blaming Ketchup, and a handful of articles have called the release a 'win' despite the modest numbers.

The End of Oak Street (David Robert Mitchell, 2026)

Spielberg salad

David Robert Mitchell's The End of Oak Street is a bowl of Spielberg movie parts (ET, Close Encounters, Jurassic Park to name an obvious few) torn into bitesized pieces and tossed together, with a dash of Robert Zemeckis for plot dressing. Less obvious are bits of tone and detail from classic science fiction author Clifford D Simak, who liked to set one fantastic premise after another in a smalltown setting ("The Big Front Yard," Way Station).

Spielberg and Zemeckis are quick handy labels to slap on this concoction but I submit Simak is key-- not just to this picture but to much of what Spielberg (and Mitchell here) is doing. You get a patiently built-up portrait of suburban (in Simak's case rural) life, you're introduced to characters and their dynamic within the family, who in turn form relationships with the community at large. Then something happens and we're shown the characters' increasingly panicked reaction to events, the story's eventual resolution ideally a natural outgrowth of what the characters have learned along the way.

Asedillo (Celso Ad Castillo, 1971)

Gun and typewriter

By 1971 Celso Ad Castillo had written and directed a number of features when he was tapped by Fernando Poe Jr. to direct a biopic on one Teodoro Asedillo, a former schoolteacher and police chief turned revolutionary during the American Occupation. 

Apparently the two were feeling each other out. Ad Castillo may be a veteran filmmaker, having written eighteen scripts and nine features previously, but FPJ (as Poe is popularly known) had at this point directed eight, produced fifty, acted in approximately ninety. Ad Castillo must have acquitted himself well; FPJ called him 'my little genius' and asked him to direct three more pictures in quick succession (Ang Alamat, 1972; Sto Domingo, 1972; and Esteban, 1973)

FPJ was said to have impressed Ad Castillo in turn with the scene of Asedillo addressing the people of San Antonio (see pic above) who, thanks to American propaganda, have lost faith in him. The shoot happened in the latter part of the day, involved a high wide shot with plenty of extras, was eight pages long on paper including an intense monologue; on top of which they had already been delayed some three to four hours setting up. FPJ was exhausted; his brow furrowed while reading the script, and no one knew if he was happy or not with what Ad Castillo had written. 

Then the movie star launched into it: a long, involved speech at the end of which he was yelling himself hoarse, and you felt the frustration exhaustion and anger in his voice wasn't all acting.*

The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026)

Long day's journey into night

(Warning: story and plot twists of the movie-- and the three thousand year old epic poem the movie is based on-- discussed in explicit detail!)

First things first: Got no problem with Lupita Nyong'o's Helen/Clytemnestra or Elliot Page's Sinon (not Achilles as conservative pundits had complained about early on); Helen's fierce bitterness about being pawn and property to Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) and Sinon's hauntingly solemn reproaches to Odysseus for using him as bait are rare bright spots in the movie. 

I do have problems with Matt Damon as Odysseus. 

Troy (Wolfgang Petersen, 2004)

Looking a gift horse in the mouth

Wolfgang Peterson's Troy is an odd mix-- a summer blockbuster with the patina of a sincere attempt at adapting a literary classic painted all over its bright surface. David Benioff's script, loosely-- very loosely-- based on Homer's epic, tries to re-imagine the story as it might really have happened, that is, closer to what people might conceivably have thought and felt, filtered through what we might feel happened. For starters, Benioff (a newcomer, but not an entirely inept one--he wrote the novel 25th Hour and adapted it for Spike Lee to direct) does away with all the inconvenient gods and goddesses, without whom you get the impression Greeks and Trojans couldn't put one foot in front of the other much less wage a war. Then he incorporates a more cynical, more realpolitik motive for Agamemnon (Brian Cox) to go into battle: not to win back his brother Menelaus' (Brendan Gleeson) stolen wife Helen (Diane Kruger), but to use her kidnapping as a pretext to move on Troy, a bid to add the mighty kingdom to his already impressive collection of conquered territories (an act of arrogant aggression, in effect, by an established world power).