Author: Darren Goodhart

A young woman named Sarah is working on an old summer house with her father and uncle with the purpose of selling the house.  As things progress, Sarah finds herself trapped in the house under unknown circumstances and now must survive the nightmare that she’s about to endure.

That’s the cryptic premise to Silent House the new horror film (actually more psychological thriller) from director’s Chris Kentis and Laura Lau who previously directed the thriller Open Water.  It’s an adaptation of a Uruguay film called La Casa Muda that I haven’t seen.  Like Open Water, Silent House uses a gimmick to tell it’s story.  The gimmick here is telling the entire series of events with the illusion of one seamless 80+ minute take.  It’s certainly an ambitious move, though it also gets in the way of making this truly effective.

Now, the reason for that, at least from my point of view, comes from the twist revealed at the end of why all of this is happening to Sarah.  This twist doesn’t come out of the blue and there are certainly clues leading up to it, but I think you almost need more time with Sarah to become truly invested in her experience by it’s end.  With that said, I do think that this could be a more fulfilling film on a second viewing considering that you’d now know to look for certain things, but I don’t know if it would make it any more effective.

I’m trying not to spoil anything about this movie, but it’s somewhat hard to do so and still go on about my criticism about it.  While this isn’t a direct spoiler, I’m going to make a comparison here that could certainly act as one, so you’ve been warned and you might want to avoid the rest of this paragraph. If there’s any movie that Silent House resembles most to me, it’s Alexandre Aja’s movie from 2003, High Tension.  If you’ve seen High Tension, then you’re already familiar with it’s twist and the twist there isn’t that far off from the same twist in Silent House.  The threat of this film is from Sarah’s own internalized past history.  The difference though is that High Tension takes a little more time to get you invested in it’s main character and thus makes it extremely effective when the twist is revealed.  Because of the nature of this film (being presented as one long take), you just don’t have the same opportunity to do the same with Sarah.  I give Kentis and Lau a lot of credit though, they try to do what they can within their box, so to speak, but it’s not quite enough.  I’d almost rather that they’d made this more of an external tangible threat and did away with the psychological elements entirely, but doing so would’ve changed this film entirely and would’ve made this a much different piece.

Now with that said, I do think they pull off their illusion pretty effectively even though there are certainly moments that can be picked out where there would be breaks in the filming.  The film’s sound design is extremely well done and for a film like this, it should be.  Elizabeth Olsen (the younger sister of Mary Kate and Ashley) plays Sarah and she’s terrific considering what she has to work with, but what she has to work with is more of a character sketch more than anything else.

I don’t think Silent House is a horrible movie by any means, but it’s just not as effective and horrifying as it could be and most of that is due to the nature of it’s gimmick.  I love a good gimmick movie, but this movie’s gimmick stands in the way of really getting behind it’s main character considering where they take their main character.  There’s certainly stuff here to chew on that I think would certainly be worth a second viewing down the road, but until I do that myself, I can’t say for a certainty that it would make it any more effective.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ most famous creation is undoubtedly the lord of the jungle, Tarzan.  Mr. Burroughs has also taken us to lands where dinosaurs still run free, the Earth’s core and to planets near to us, both Venus and Mars.  Burroughs’ trips to Mars were always my very favorite, and his heroic creation, John Carter, was, to me anyway, one of the greatest creations in literature.  I grew up reading first the comic book adventures of John Carter in the pages of DC Comics’ Weird Worlds where writer Marv Wolfman and artists Murphy Anderson and later Sal Amendola chronicled the adventures of the good captain, loosely based around Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars.  Of course the actual book came next and I was in love with the character and the fantastic world of Barsoom (that’s what the Mars inhabitants call their world) all over again.

So yeah, I guess you can say I’m a big fan and so I was very much looking forward to it when Disney announced a big-budget live-action film version which was going to be more spearheaded by some of the Pixar kids more than on the Disney side.  Pixar’s own Andrew Stanton is the director of John Carter making his live action directorial debut after directing such films as Wall•E and Finding Nemo and he’s obviously a big fan as well, he definitely gets it and has made a film that I thought was quite an enjoyable experience.  Sometimes you wonder though if Disney marketing would’ve let him take it as far he did.

See, originally, this was announced under the title of John Carter of Mars and then it was simply titled John Carter as, from what I understand, a result of focus group testing in which a full 50% of the people tested said that they would not go to see the movie if the “of Mars” was in the title.  Oh yeah, there’s scantily clad people running around in battles with swords, there’s airships flying about, there’s a guy who can leap great distances, and let’s not forget the 10-foot tall four-armed green men and women as well… and the “of Mars” would keep them out of the theatres…. You hear about things like this and you sometimes just have to wonder why they even bother.

But no matter… as I said, I thought John Carter was a pretty enjoyable ride.  The basic premise is this: Carter, a former confederate cavalry captain is in America’s west after the end of the Civil War.  He’s about to be conscripted in with the United States cavalry (against his will) and goes on the run.  As he’s on the run, Carter goes into a mysterious cave which he soon finds to be a doorway to the planet Mars.  Once on Mars, or as their inhabitants call it Barsoom, Carter finds that his strength is much greater on the planet, he meets up with the race of 10-foot tall four-armed green people known as Tharks (their leader, Tars Tarkas takes great personal interest in Carter) and soon gets caught up in the struggle between warring City-States of Zodanga and Helium.  Helium’s princess, the ravishing Dejah Thoris, persuades Carter to help her in Helium’s battle with their enemy all the while a greater threat looms.

Now that’s the basic premise, though there’s much more to it than that, but generally speaking, this is extremely pulpy material and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.  During the credits, it will say “Based on ‘A Princess of Mars” where it should actually say “loosely”– again, nothing wrong with that as long as the basic spirit of the piece is preserved, but I just bring that up in case anyone decides that they want to read the book later- well, parts of it will be in the movie.  Fortunately, the spirit is well preserved here and there’s quite a bit that Stanton and company get dead solid perfect in this, but also a few stumbling blocks as well.

The biggest stumbling block is that I think they try to do too much in just this one film and overcomplicate things a bit.  I mentioned above about a greater threat looming- well that threat is certainly true to the books, but doesn’t come along until a little bit later in the series.  What they’ve done here is basically push this into being more of an epic than it has to be, whereas there’s enough basic material in A Princess of Mars to more than make for a good rousing adventure and have the chance to breath a bit when it needs to.

The other thing that bothers me a bit, though I don’t think this will really deter from anyone’s enjoyment of the film, is the relationship set-up between Dejah Thoris and John Carter.  It starts as adversarial when there’s really no need to do so.  Yes, they want to make Dejah Thoris more than just this object of desire, and that’s certainly fine, but I don’t necessarily think you have to go at it with both characters sorta sniping at each other from the start.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not unbearable and it’s not all pervasive, it’s just a little different from what I’m used to seeing with these characters and thus I question whether it should even be in there.  It’s a moot observation.

When they get stuff right here though, they really get it right.  Carter’s first experiences on Mars, adjusting to the Martian gravity and then coming into contact with the Tharks was just so pleasing to see.  The entire art direction and design should please anyone who’s seen any other visual version of Carter and company in the past.  Carter’s epic battle with one of the White Apes of Mars, is genuinely thrilling and casting through the whole film is right on the money.

Taylor Kitsch plays John Carter and Lynn Collins plays Dejah Thoris.  Both have worked together before on the first Wolverine movie and their casting for this film was announced shortly after that movie came out.  Kitsch wouldn’t have been my first choice for this part (I would’ve cast Lost’s Josh Holloway as the good captain), as he seems a little too on the younger side, but once things get going, you can tell that Kitsch is having a ball with the whole thing.  He may not be my own personal first choice, but still he was a good choice to play the part.  Lynn Collins has moments where she’s just the purest of visions to what I expect Dejah Thoris to look like in live action  To me, that just might be the toughest thing about casting that part- getting an actress who has those looks, can pull off the regality and isn’t a big enough name where her name overshadows everything else, Collins does the job.

Nice support all around, Willem Dafoe is going through the whole motion capture route to play Tars Tarkas of the Tharks, and there are some great moments between him and Carter at various times through the movie. If you know the series, then you know that the relationship that happens between these two is right up there to something like Riggs and Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon series.  There are glimpses of it here (and there could’ve been more had this stuck more to the source) and it’s always cool when it happens. Ciarán Hinds plays Tardos Mors, the leader of Helium, Dominic West plays the villainous Sab Than of Zodanga, and Mark Strong plays Matai Shang (part of the looming threat I allude to above).  Joining Dafoe in the motion capture end you’ve got Samantha Morton as Sola (Tars’ daughter), Thomas Haden Church as Tal Hajus, a challenger to Tarkas’ leadership and Polly Walker as Sarkoja, a female Thark who absolutely delights in ratting out Sola whenever she can.  And adding even further, you’ve got the great Bryan Cranston in at the start as Colonel Powell, the cavalryman who’s trying to get Carter to join with him.  It’s a terrific supporting cast and my one lone complaint is just not enough Tars Tarkas…

Did I have a good time John Carter? Hell, yes… Was it at the same level as some other big action films like a Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol? (and I only use that as an example because it’s another action film from a director who’s best known for his work in animation)  Not quite… I guess I might be a little too close to the source material, but still, I do think it’s very much worth seeing and they certainly do get a lot right here, it’s just that the mix may be a little too filled with some unnecessary (for now) stuff for an introductory movie.  It is a great time and it sure as hell beats the Asylum/SyFy Channel version that stars Antonio Sobato Jr. as John Carter and Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris (though that is good for a laugh, but still, it’s so low budget that they couldn’t afford the four extra feet in height and two additional arms for their Tharks).

A deep-cover CIA operative has been working within the system of a Philippine drug ring run by a man known as Christo.  Christo is suspected of having deeper ties to organized terrorism, but so far is just suspected.  The operative has been discovered and now she’s being tortured to tell what she knows.  An elite Navy SEAL team, SEAL Team 7 under the command of Lieutenant Rorke and Chief Dave has been dispatched to rescue her and in the process uncover a plot of potential devastating terrorism that takes their team around the world in order to stop it.

That’s the premise to Act of Valor, a movie that I’ve been looking forward to ever since first seeing it’s trailer in the fall of 2011.  This movie has been promoted by the fact that the SEAL team is in fact being played by real-life active duty Navy SEALs. So right off the bat, in the eyes of some that could be a huge drawback simply because these guys aren’t professional actors.  Personally though, I thought it was a breath of fresh air.

Because they’re not professional actors, Act of Valor doesn’t feel the need to go into it’s characters in an overly complicated way.  Near the start of the film, before the SEALs are deployed, they’re enjoying time with their families all together on a beach.  As their party draws to a close, the SEALs come together with the leaders of the team right off the bat asking everyone if there’s any sort of personal or financial problems that any of them have.  They basically want to put those to rest right away so that everyone’s mind is purely on the mission at hand.  Doing this takes that whole little bit of overcomplicating the characters right out of the picture and instead concentrates on the action, the plot and the fact that these guys are the very best at what they do and as one should expect, upstanding people who you can count on.

What you get is an incredibly slick piece of entertainment that has total authenticity to it’s action.  The action set pieces are incredibly well made and you really do get an accurate idea of what it must be like to be right in the midst of the type of firefights that these guys have to endure.  From what I understand, this is the first feature film from directors Mike “Mouse” McCoy and Scott Waugh, though you’d never know.  The action scenes are extremely compelling and the whole thing is edited with a tight pace.

If I have any criticism at all about the movie, it’s in the fact that something that happens to one of the SEALs is telegraphed at the very beginning of the film and so when this event does happen, it doesn’t quite have the impact that it should.  You’re basically expecting this to happen at some point and while I get why it was done, I’d like to think that there should’ve been a way to get the same points across without telegraphing this action.  These guys aren’t professional actors, but at least in my case, I still tended to give a damn about them and felt just a little robbed at not getting the emotional impact from this bit of business that I should’ve gotten.  It’s not a dealbreaker by any means, and the end denouement supplies a pretty darn satisfying emotional resolution  to the life these men have chosen to lead.

Normally, I’d take a little time to specifically talk about the actors and their performances, but because these guys are active duty SEALs, their full names aren’t given in the end credits.  For not being professional actors, I think these guys do a pretty good job at getting you sucked into the action particularly Rorke and Dave and a character known as Senior who acts as an interrogator.  Their line delivery may not be as professional as it could be, but it’s more than made up for by their screen presence, authentic actions and facial expressions.

Act of Valor is  a very entertaining and unique film.  It’s distinctly made (at least to me) outside of the Hollywood system and yet it’s action can stand head and shoulder with films like Black Hawk Down or We Were Soldiers.  This is real stirring filmmaking and needless to say (though I’ll say it anyway), highly recommended.

Johnny Blaze is literally on the run from himself, or more precisely the demon inside him known as the Ghost Rider.  He’s found himself in seclusion in a non-descript area of Eastern Europe,  Simultaneously, a religious order is under attack by a group of men seeking to take a young boy from them who’s under their protection.  As the attack occurs, the boy, Danny, and his mother Nadya go on the run and manage to escape their pursuers.  Moreau, a member of the order, tries to find them but has little luck.  One thing that Moreau is aware of is the fact that the Rider is near by and he knows he could persuade Johnny Blaze to search for Danny and Nadya.

Moreau finds Blaze and explains why the boy is so valuable, and with the offer of being able to release Blaze from his curse, Johnny Blaze soon joins the pursuit.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is the second film to use Marvel Comics’ superhero/supernatural character and all it has in common with the first movie is Nicolas Cage playing Blaze and the broadest of aspects of the character’s origin.  It’s both a sequel and a re-boot, which of course for most are already two strikes against it.  But under the able directorial team of Neveldine/Taylor (Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor who have previously made the Crank movies and more recently Gamer with Gerard Butler), there’s a lot of new life here, but it’s hard for me to say if it will be embraced. For myself though, I had a ball with this.

Neveldine/Taylor and Cage are basically embracing all of the “B” movie aspects of the Ghost Rider and just playing them to the hilt.  Just about every part of the film is over-the-top fun.  Neveldine/Taylor’s hyper-kinetic shooting style just fits this thing to a “T.” I’ve already read complaints of the style for this film from others as being too fast and shaky, and it is fast and shaky, but honestly I just didn’t have any trouble following the action in the slightest.  I think the choice of setting this in a non-descript area of Easter Europe was on point.  The locations are both bleak and beautiful and add a bit of surreality that for me harkens back to such horror movies as Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes or Robert Fuest’s The Devil’s Rain.

The attention to detail is terrific and really on focus with the background settings and in the re-design of The Ghost Rider himself.  The new look of the Rider is evident in his skull visage and close-shots of the leathers he wears which are both charred and boiling due to the intense heat caused by the Rider.  Neveldine/Taylor are directors who were made for 3D and their use of the effect is extremely entertaining both for it’s immersion and it’s moments of being in-your-face.  One of the better uses of the technology is also one of the more quiet scenes in the film.  This scene is a split screen phone call that takes place between Roarke (the man in pursuit of Danny) and Carrigan (Roarke’s lead in the pursuit).  When the screen is split, it offers up to completely different planes of depth that’s just really fascinating to watch.

Nicolas Cage looks like he’s really having a ball with this one.  In the first movie, I thought his quirks worked a little against the story that was being told (though in general, I like the film), but here, Neveldine/Taylor really play that up to a point where it’s funny to watch, but still entirely suitable to the story.  When Cage is in action as the Ghost Rider, he adds some jerky movements to the character that can imply two things; either Blaze still trying to contain the character or the demon being uncomfortably confined to a human host- either way it works.  I tend to think Cage is at his best when he’s making “B” movie fare and I certainly enjoyed him in movies like Drive Angry and Season of the Witch.  He certainly plays with that here, but there’s also a little bit in common with his work with Werner Herzog in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call-New Orleans as well.

Violante Placido and Fergus Riordan play Nadya and Danny, and they’re the most “normal” parts to the whole film (though Placido is over-the-top gorgeous in her part).  Johnny Whitworth plays Ray Carrigan, who later gets transformed his own self into what should be a worthy opponent to the Ghost Rider, and i general, he’s a fun character.  Idris Elba plays Moreau, and it’s a character that to me certainly has a lot more life to him than others that Elba has played.  Much like Cage, Elba looks like he’s having a ball making this film.

The biggest surprise to me in the cast though was Ciarán Hinds as Roarke.  Hinds has always been one of those guys who for me has always been a little on the stiff side in his parts (though don’t get me wrong, it’s worked for some of those parts as well).  Here, he’s positively animated in a way that could suggest that’s he’s some sort of strange mix of Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Ernest Borgnine and the Devil Incarnate rolled into one.  Now I know that mentioning two of The Three Stooges here could sound detrimental and it’s not meant that way at all.  There’s something that’s just both fun and funny about Roarke and Hinds looks like he’s lapping it all up and just enjoying every single minute of it.

I suspect I’m going to be a minority on this one, but I just had a terrific time with Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  Neveldine/Taylor’s visual style is a perfect fit for the character and their use of 3D is both inventive and immersive.  The performances, in particular from Nicolas Cage and Ciarán Hinds are over-the-top and not meant to be taken seriously at all, and much like the visual style of the film, they fit.  All this really needed to further it’s embracing of “B-movie trash” (and I say that with great love for “B” movie trash) was adding some of the scratched and warped film effects that Robert Rodriguez used in his portion of Grindhouse, Planet Terror.  This was a lot of fun and I look forward to eventually seeing it again down the road.

Andrew Detmer is a very troubled young man.  His father, a former firefighter who’s lost his job due to injury, gets drunk and lashes out at him.  His mother is bed-ridden and dying a slow death.  Andrew is constantly being pushed around at school with his only real friend being his cousin, Matt Garetty.  Andrew has begun to keep a video chronicle of his life for unstated reasons, though one could assume it’s for a number of things, and begins to carry around a video camera constantly, which of course gets him pushed around even further.  Matt wants Andrew to come out of his shell and go to a party, though he tries to get Andrew to leave the camera home, but to no avail.  After a series of mishaps at the party, Andrew finds himself alone outside, when he’s approached by Steve Montgomery, a fellow classmate who’s running for class president.  Steve and Matt have found something very strange out in a back field and they want Andrew to come and film it.  What they discover is something mysterious in origin that gives the three superpowers.

That’s the premise to Chronicle a new movie from first time feature director Josh Trank and it’s written by Trank and Max Landis, who’s the son of director John Landis.  To be perfectly honest, I was only slightly interested in this by seeing it’s trailer.  It’s trailer presented itself as a “found footage” movie, but I didn’t find altogether that much to grab me by it other than that.  In addition, it seems like over the last couple of years, there’s been this trend to start the year off with some movies that tell stories about young people who have superpowers.  Movies like Jumper, Push and I Am Number Four have followed, and while I haven’t seen I Am Number Four I’ve seen the other two and didn’t much care for either of them.  So I was somewhat hesitant to see Chronicle.

And now I thank goodness that I did… Chronicle is just fantastic filmmaking, a real evolution of the “found footage” genre, and a story that absolutely gets everything right in it’s presentation of young people with superpowers.  One thing that I thought some of the above-mentioned efforts seriously lacked were appealing characters.  Based on the initial trailer for Chronicle, I thought it was going to do the same, but that’s not the case at all.  Right from the start, Trank and Landis get you invested in Andrew, and as the movie builds, I really found myself liking Andrew, Matt and Steve a great deal and really giving a damn about what happens to them next.

Though Chronicle can be described as a “found footage” movie, it really moves everything up another level.  Other films like this present themselves as a documentary, but this goes to a different place and once the trio get their powers, it adds in a new wrinkle that makes it’s presentation even more effective.  Things get even more interesting later in the film during it’s terrific final twenty minutes, when it then incorporates security camera footage and footage shot by another character, Casey- a video blogger who becomes Matt’s romantic interest.  This presentation is just fantastic and Trank really knows how to use it effectively.

Then there’s the actual use of the powers themselves… Compared to other films, Chronicle is certainly a lower-budgeted piece.  There’s something that seems a little more raw to the visual effects here, but combined with the way the film is shot, it’s really effective and absolutely feels real.  I don’t know for sure, but I’d certainly guess that both Trank and Landis have to be real fans of the genre and it feels like there’s tips of the hat to such pieces at Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira and Alan Moore’s Miracleman comics, and for a comics fan like myself, it’s nice to see these nods.

I really have to give the three young actors who play our leads huge kudos.  Dane DeHaan plays Andrew, Alex Russell plays Matt and Michael B. Jordan plays Steve and all three have their individual characteristics and also have great chemistry together.  As I said above, you care about these guys, they are lived-in characters and compelling to follow.  I really have to single out Dane DeHaan amongst the three as the guy to watch.  He’s absolutely terrific here and has the same qualities of a young Leonardo DiCaprio.  This kid’s got a real future ahead of him.

Chronicle is just one terrific movie.  Though it has a short running time (under 90 minutes), it gets a lot in and every scene counts.  Josh Trank has a terrific understanding of the “found footage” genre and pushes it forward in some very interesting and appealing ways.  Trank and Landis have created three characters that you care about and want to follow and their use of their superpowers (especially in the film’s final twenty minutes) are just thrilling to watch.  This is terrific stuff and of course, highly, highly recommended. Don’t miss Chronicle.

John Ottway is a solitary man who’s dealing with huge depression since losing a woman who’s very important to him.  He’s run away from his undefined past to work security for at an oil-drilling site in Alaska.  His security work involves the hunting down and killing of dangerous man-eating wolves that are a constant threat to the workers.  His solitary existence leaves him with little compassion for the men he works with, but still he diligently does his job.  He’s up for some leave time and joins some fellow employees on a flight to Anchorage when something happens with the plane he’s on and it crashes,  Ottway and a handful of men survive the crash and now must fight for survival in the midst of the elements and the wolves.

The Grey is the latest movie from director Joe Carnahan and star Liam Neeson who last teamed together on the movie version of The A-Team. Prior to this, Carnahan also directed Smokin’ Aces and NARC. I had a decent time with both The A-Team and Smokin’ Aces though I wasn’t necessarily bowled over by either of them.  NARC on the other hand was a different story, it was an absolutely terrific film and I’ve been hoping for Carnahan to hit me the same way since.  The Grey certainly comes a lot closer though I do have a couple of issues with the movie.

Those issues involve the slow pacing of the film and little development for the film’s side characters.  I absolutely get why the film is slowly paced- this is pretty much a impossible situation to survive and so it’s inevitability would be natural to be drawn out, but here it’s just drawn out a little too long and it feels it.  Though Neeson’s Ottway is the character we’re essentially following in the film, we’re also given a handful of survivors that are slightly drawn with little to get behind.  One of these characters near the end of the film engages in some existentialism that just, at least to me, comes out of nowhere.  It seems forced and while I suppose it could be argued that this really could result out of this situation, it just doesn’t quite ring true and further drags the pace of the film.

To be fair though, Carnahan’s set pieces involving the wolves and the survival tactics are quite well done.  Liam Neeson is excellent in his part and certainly brings the needed intensity to the role.  I think it could’ve been improved with having a couple less side characters from the start who could’ve been a little more clearly defined as the film progresses.  With that definition, then some of the existential moments would’ve made more sense and would’ve been more poignant.  The Grey isn’t a bad film by any means, but it could’ve been tightened up a little more.  Tightening it up would’ve made it’s message about survival in an impossible situation a lot more pronounced.

If you’re wanting to see a movie like this that gets it’s points right on target, I’d suggest the thriller Frozen about three friends who get trapped aboard a ski lift and left to the elements to try to survive.  It’s an extremely tight film with three very well-drawn characters that truly do make you give a damn on whether they survive.  And as a final note, if you do choose to see The Grey, then you should stay through the end credits for one last little scene.  My friends and I could literally feel some dissatisfaction from the audience from the abruptness of the ending of the film and of course by the time the end credits rolled, they had all left the theatre.  This one little scene could’ve gone a long way to alleviating a little of that had they either stayed through it, or better… if Carnahan had placed it right after the main credits had rolled.

While I don’t necessarily consider myself a writer first and foremost, I surely do love talking about movies and writing what I think is pretty reasonable commentary and criticism of them.  Some days though, it can almost be like having your teeth pulled…

… and then other days, a gem like Haywire comes around and I just want to scream to the world about it.  To say that I just “liked” this one would be a bit of an understatement.

Now, I admit to a bias on this; ever since I saw the trailer for it in September, I’ve been eagerly awaiting seeing it in theatres. Haywire is the latest movie from the highly prolific Steven Soderbergh, who just happens to be one of my favorite filmmakers.  It’s his first pure “action” film, and so I couldn’t wait to see what he did with it.  Add to this that it’s also the first feature film for Mixed Martial Artist Gina Carano, who I was just entranced with after seeing her as part of NBC’s revival of American Gladiators a few years ago.  And taking it even further, this movie came about when Soderbergh, just by accident, happened to catch one of Carano’s fights on television.  Soderbergh was just as entranced by Carano and stuck the idea of making a movie specifically for her in his mind.  Now take this even further, and I find out later that it’s a reunion between Soderbergh and writer Lem Dobbs, who Soderbergh worked with on another one of his great movies, The Limey. Mix this whole combination together and you get one really slick piece of entertainment starring a woman who should become the next big deal in Hollywood.

Carano plays Mallory Kane, a former Marine who now works as an “independent contractor” for covert operations for the United States.  Mallory’s just been involved in the retrieval of a particular person, and she’s thought that the job went well and is about to move on to the next job provided by her handler, Kenneth.  The thing is, Kenneth has other plans about his future and this job becomes his opportunity to take out the one person who knows just a little too much about him, that person being Mallory Kane.  Now Mallory’s on the run and trying to find out just why she’s been set up.

It sounds pretty simple and it is, but the way Soderbergh has made this and the way Dobbs wrote it, there’s nuance all the way through with a pretty complete picture of just who Mallory is and just what she’s capable of.  This movie doesn’t have the budget of, say Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol but it still delivers the thrills in a big way.  The look of the film is extremely slick and Soderbergh shoots the action scenes the way you want to see them; with his camera pulled back and you being able to see the complete action.  Adding to the slickness of this whole production is a terrific score from musician David Holmes, who’s previously worked with Soderbergh on Out of Sight, Ocean’s Eleven and all of the Ocean’s sequels.  I cannot say enough about just how cool the music is in this film, it really gives this action piece it’s own unique flavor and makes me want to own the soundtrack.

Soderbergh has assembled quite the cast for this production.  You’ve got a great foundation of talent to give Carano excellent support.  This cast includes Michael Fassbender (one of my very favorite actors out there right now), Ewan MacGregor, Channing Tatum (easily the best thing I’ve seen him in in quite awhile), Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Douglas.  All of these guys do solid work here and even though their parts vary in size, just having guys like this in the film gives it even more substance.

But make no mistake, the real star of this film is Gina Carano, and even with this excellent supporting cast, she does indeed carry the film.  Where to start?  Well, obviously her athletic skills should make her a pure natural for this, but you need more than that to make her a magnetic character and that’s obviously where Soderbergh comes in.  George Clooney was certainly respected before he made Out of Sight, but when he made that film with Soderbergh, he turned himself entirely over to the director and Soderbergh in turn raised Clooney’s game considerably.  Since then, the two have went on to collaborate on more films (including the Ocean’s series, and Clooney’s star has just shown brighter as a result of it.  To me, it looks like Carano is doing the same thing; she’s turned herself entirely over to Soderbergh and Soderbergh in turn knows just how to make her at her very best for the film.  But then you have her natural skills and when you see her in a fight sequence here, it’s totally authentic.  And going even further, Gina Carano is just drop-dead gorgeous.  There’s a couple of sequences in the film which call for her to be dolled-up and dressed to the nines and as far as I’m concerned, she gives someone like an Angelina Jolie a run for her money.  I’m a big comic book fan and there’s certainly been a lot of talk about a Wonder Woman movie being made at various times.  Well, if this movie gets made, Gina Carano would be an ideal candidate for the job.  I really hope this is just the start for her and cannot wait to see what she does next in film.

I just had a blast with Haywire. It’s tightly made and Steven Soderbergh looks like he’s having a blast giving us his version of an action film.  It’s been rumored that after his next three movies, he might be going into retirement, and while I can understand that, I hope he doesn’t do it.  I still think he’s one of the very best filmmakers out there and it’s always nice to see him stretching his wings.  Gina Carano is a star in the making and if her work with Soderbergh is any indication, I certainly hope that this is just the start of a new career for her in movies (and hopefully not just action pieces).  I saw this with a group of four other friends and we all had a terrific time.  Haywire is terrific entertainment and highly, highly recommended.

Chris Farraday is a former smuggler who’s gotten out of his past life and now treads the straight and narrow path.  He now has his own private security company and devotes his life to his wife, Kate and their two sons.  Kate’s brother, Andy starts to follow in his brother-in-law’s path.  After a smuggling job goes awry, Andy now finds at the mercy of a ruthless low-level criminal named Briggs.  Chris now finds that he has to get back into his former life to save his brother-in-law and keep his family safe.  Chris and his best friend Sebastian come up with a plan for Chris to join a shipping crew and head to Panama, where he’ll make a big enough score to get Andy off the hook… or so he thinks.

That’s the basic premise to Contraband, the latest movie for star Mark Wahlberg.  Contraband is an adaptation of Icelandic film called Reykjavik-Rotterdam and is directed by the original film’s producer Baltasar Kormákur.  The original has never been released domestically, so I can’t say that I’ve seen it.  If Contraband is any indication though, I certainly would like to.  I had a pretty good time with Contraband though it’s not a perfect film by any means, with two particular points that get in the way of this being something even more special.  But before I get into those, let’s talk about the good stuff.

Baltasar Kormákur does a great job at building intensity through this.  What he shows us of the whole smuggling trade operation certainly seems believable and authentic.  Kormákur does a great job at engaging us in some simultaneous action at different locations and the entire film is very nicely shot.  In addition, this takes a few twists that I thought were surprising and one in particular really stunned me (this is a scene late in the film involving Sebastian and Kate).

Where this falls though is in the overall tone of the film.  As this is building, it just seems like there should be no pretty way out by the end and yet they find a pretty way out at the end.  This wraps the whole thing up in a conventional “happy ending” way (which especially quells the scene that I mentioned involving Sebastian and Kate) which just doesn’t jibe with the rest of the film.  It’s not a dealbreaker at all, but it does keep this from being more than what it is.  There was an opportunity here to turn this more along the lines like some recent hard-boiled films like Faster, The Mechanic and Drive and instead, this opts for the conventional and safe route.  It’s still entertaining, but more as a diversion than anything else.

The cast is terrific.  Mark Wahlberg excels at this sort of hard-edged part and he’s certainly highly watchable here.  Kate Beckinsale plays his wife does a nice job at playing a character who’s less glamourous than she’s normally been seen.  The always terrific Ben Foster plays Sebastian, and as expected from Foster, he puts a lot of nice nuance into this as he’s not only playing a facilitator for Chris, but also playing a recovering drug and alcohol addict.  There’s some nice supporting work from Lukas Haas and J.K. Simmons and a terrific little bit involving Diego Luna as an old Panamanian associate of Chris’.

But there’s another falling point with the cast as well and that’s with two members.  Giovanni Ribisi plays Briggs and Caleb Landry Jones plays Andy.  Ribisi’s Briggs looks like a cartoon character in comparison to the rest of the cast, it’s obvious from the first moment when he speaks.  Caleb Landry Jones’ (who you might remember as playing Banshee in X-Men: First Class) Andy just has “screw-up” written all over him without a clue as to how to do the right thing.  Though this wraps everything up in a happy way, you still get the idea that this character would be bound to screw up yet again if given the opportunity.  There’s nothing to care about with this guy other than the fact that he’s related to Chris and Kate.

But even with these qualms, I still had a pretty good time with Contraband. Though it’s not as special as it could’ve been, it’s still some nice diversionary entertainment, but not something that you have to run right out and see immediately.

In 1989, Maria Rossi murdered 3 people.  She did this while being the subject of an exorcism and since then, she’s been locked away by the Vatican.  It’s now 2009, and her daughter, Isabella, wants some answers.  Izabella has joined with a documentary filmmaker to travel to Italy and find out if her mother was truly possessed.

That’s the basic premise to The Devil Inside the newest horror film to follow the general style of “found footage” movies like Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project. The difference with The Devil Inside is that this presents  itself as a straight-up documentary from the start, complete with prologues using news footage, expert commentary and police video.  It’s a good idea to try something like this, but unfortunately the filmmakers never quite follow through with this as a straight-up documentary.

Basically, the start-up is sound, but then the follow-through goes back to the familiar with just found footage. Now I tend to like these sort of movies, but The Devil Inside makes a few key mistakes that shatters it’s illusion.  The most apparent of these is obvious “acting” by some of the principle players.  One scene in particular stands out for this and that’s a bit of business when Isabella, who’s now been joined by a couple of priests who are experts in exorcism, takes part in an their examination of her mother.  Up until this point, Isabella, has been cautious about getting involved with any of the proceedings.  But when her mother, in the midst of displaying multiple personalities in scattershot ways, starts to beckon her with a childhood memory, Isabella gives in too easily.  It’s just too obvious to the point of looking like it’s forced by the filmmakers as opposed to being something that naturally happens.

It doesn’t stop there.  It’s obviously apparent to the audience that Maria Rossi is the victim of demonic possession and later revealed that she’s possessed by multiple demons all ready to spread further.  This does indeed happen with one of the priests, who after his encounter with Maria, isn’t quite himself.  This priest, David, has to break from the documentary and go perform a baptism where he’s followed by the director of the film.  At this baptism, David performs a pretty heinous act, which one would figure would have him being stopped and subdued by the crowd immediately, but that isn’t what happens.  Instead the film breaks and David is able to make his escape back to the rest of the principle players.  It’s a contrivance that just doesn’t ring true with the set-up.

What would’ve been more inventive is if this movie had followed the initial idea of totally being created as a documentary, say somewhat along the lines that a movie like The Fourth Kind did.  It certainly would’ve been more difficult to do that and get the kind of scares that the filmmakers wanted to get, but it could be done (the earliest of these found footage movies, The Last Broadcast actually does this quite well).

Now, The Devil Inside certainly has it’s good moments as well, the scenes with Maria acting out are really nicely done (with the one exception) and real standout moments for actress Susan Crowley.  The main cast, for the most part, are characters that you want to follow, in particular the two priests Ben and David, played by Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth respectively, and that’s even taking into account the forced bit that the director, William Brent Bell, puts David through.  Fernanda Andrade plays Isabella, and again, except for the forced stuff she has to do, she does just fine (though she sort of comes off to me as Mila Kunis-lite).

Though I have these problems with The Devil Inside, I’m also willing to chalk up some of this to the environment that I saw this in.  This was a packed house with a lot of people there who’s main concern was entertaining themselves more than watching the movie.  If I see this again through home video, then I might come away from it a little bit differently down the road.  For now though, there are certainly better examples of this kind of film that I can more easily recommend.  If you must see The Devil Inside I’d suggest waiting another week or so for a less interactive audience.

Swedish investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist has made some serious allegations against a powerful business magnate that has backfired on him.  Blomkvist’s reputation is shattered and the magazine that he writes for (and co-owns) is facing a tremendous legal battle. Simultaneously, Blomkvist is being investigated by another business tycoon as part of a background check with the main investigator being a brilliant young woman with her own demons named Lisbeth Salander.

Henrik Vanger, the man having Blomkvist wants to hire Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of a woman who has been missing for forty years.  BlomKvist agrees and starts to make headway, but needs more help.  Through Vanger’s resources, Blomkvist comes into contact with Lisbeth Salander who proceeds to help him with the mystery.

That’s the premise to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo the latest film from director David Fincher adapted from the novel by Stieg Larsson, as well as from a Swedish film production of the same title.  I’m totally new to this whole thing.  I’ve had the opportunity to watch the Swedish original thanks to Netflix Instant Play, but have decided to hold off, just to see Fincher’s version first.  There will be no comparisons to either the book or the original movie here simply because I have not seen or read either.

But I am a huge fan of Fincher’s and have seen all of his movies.  Fincher makes movies designed to provoke and all with a distinctive visual style.  If there’s any of his movies that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo most resembles, it has to be Zodiac. Both movies take their time in uncovering their facts and both are meticulous about their methods of investigation.  Both also lean back a bit with Fincher’s visual style, though they are still very good-looking movies.

I found the story and characters of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to be thoroughly engrossing and I was surprised by just how fast this 2 hour and 40 minute movie seemed to fly by.  Fincher makes every scene count whether it’s in uncovering the mystery or adding more to the characters of Mikael or Lisbeth.

Speaking of those characters, much has been said about Rooney Mara’s performance as Lisbeth, and it really is a terrific performance.  After seeing this and also seeing Mara’s sister Kate as part of the cast of FX’s American Horror Story (she played Hayden on that show) there’s a part of me that would never want to be in the same room as the Mara sisters.  Lisbeth, to me anyway, is not a likable character, but she’s still fascinating to watch and Rooney Mara’s performance is absolutely compelling.  When she’s on-screen, she commands it, even when she’s playing opposite of Daniel Craig.  She is possibly the most disturbing character I’ve seen in any movie all year and huge praise goes to Mara for investing so much of herself in this part to make her so compelling.

Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist and it’s in no way near  his character of James Bond.  He’s a terrific counter-point to Mara’s Lisbeth and brings a great balance to the course of the investigation.  Near the end of the film, Mikael is in really deep trouble, and the fear that Craig projects is certainly palpable.

Both are backed up with some terrific support.  Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Steven Berkoff, Robin Wright, Joely Richardson and Geraldine James all do great lived-in work with the standouts being Plummer and Skarsgård (who’s certainly having a good year in film with this, his work in Thor and in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia).

But, I do have one minor quibble with the film and it occurs near the end.  There are a few spoilers here, so consider yourself warned and if you want to dodge them, then proceed to the next paragraph.  As part of his agreement with Vanger, Blomkvist has been promised help in reclaiming his good name and getting back at  Wennerström, the man who sent Blomkvist’s career spiraling.  As part of this, Lisbeth has also chosen to help Mikael due to the relationship that has developed between the two throughout the film.  Up until this point, while Lisbeth has certainly been an extreme character, things happen here that stretches credibility quite a bit.  Basically, Lisbeth assumes an entirely new identity complete with a drastic change of appearance and character that goes a little beyond what we’ve seen of her skills up until now.  This whole identity change that she goes through is on the same par as watching Tom Cruise do his disguise work as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible films.  It seems totally out of place for this whole thing and as such, it put me off of this just a little bit.  Now this isn’t part of the main story though, and it helps wrap up some things with Mikael outside of the main story.  So while it is off-putting, it’s not by any means a deal breaker.

That aside, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is terrific entertainment brought to us by a true master director in David Fincher.  The performances are all outstanding and Rooney Mara will leave an indelible mark after seeing her in this film.  There are some intense sexual and violent situations in the film and it certainly does earn it’s “R” rating.  If that’s off-putting to you then you may want to avoid this.  For all others, then go out and see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.