No sign of
Be Kind,
Rewind,
it looks like the release
date got pushed to Feb. 22. Not usually a good sign but perhaps they’re hoping
to bank on Sundance Film Fest hype. Regardless, here at home, due to the release
of the Oscar Nominees, the good old Village 8 is bringing back some doozy
flicks for our viewing pleasure.
Remember how disappointed you
were with yourself when you missed
No Country For Old Men?
Well
the
formidable Coen Bros flick (count ‘em eight Oscar nods) is back in Whistler, as
are other nominees —
The Kite Runner, Atonement,
and the Daniel Day Lewis showpiece
There Will be
Blood.
They’re all good, but let’s
move along and get into the newest end-of-the-world movie
Cloverfield.
The tense (and unrevealing) trailer has been all over
the internet for months and the film, produced by
Lost
creator J.J. Abrams, dropped last week.
Cloverfield,
a
Blair Witch
-meets-9/11-meets-
Godzilla
picture, is about Rob, a New York City urbanite about to move to Japan and a
lofty position in an unnamed company. His buddies throw a goodbye party and
some hot chicks even show up – bonus. Then a big
alien/reptile/amphibian/pissed-off creature pops up and starts laying waste to
the city.
Amidst the quite-recognizable
scenes of the city crumbling to the ground our ‘heroes’ attempt to rescue
another hot chick who Rob slept with and loves. She’s trapped in a wrecked
building across town and, needless to say, people die along the way — although
you were never that sold on most of the characters anyhow so it’s kind of hard
to care.
The kicker is that the entire
film is seen through the lens of a handicam, held by an extremely poor
cameraman named Hud who stars in the film interviewing the partiers while
trying to pick up the girl of his dreams. When the giant lizard/alien poop hits
the fan, Hud becomes our eyes as the disaster unfolds just ahead of the
heroics.
This ‘first person shooter’
POV is even more shaky than
Blair Witch
was and will certainly turn many viewers off, but the verité style
does pull you in and add mayhem to the action even if the lull scenes seem a
bit contrived and draw attention to the gimmick.
If you’re looking for a
biting critique of YouTube culture and how our sense of realism is linked to
the media you won’t find much of it here, and, as a monster movie, there’s not
much of payoff though the parasite/spiders are cool, the beheaded Statue of
Liberty is a nice image (although it’s already been used on the poster of John
Carpenter’s
Escape From New York)
and
at the end of the day Abrams and director Matt Reeves can take credit for the
fact that they tried something different (sort of). For a 73-minute
end-of-the-world flick, they didn’t do too poorly.
Don’t miss the still-playing
Juno
, a whip-snap teenage pregnancy flick made in
Vancouver and starring Halifax girl Ellen Page (whose title character is not
only up there with classics like Napolean, Spicoli, and Wynnona Ryder in
Heathers,
but also earned her an Oscar nod for
best actress). Of course, for many entertainment junkies (and people who like
shooting perfectly good minutes in the head by eating potato chips and watching
three-hour awards shows) the big question is – Will the Oscars even happen? The
Hollywood writers strike, still looming, threatens to shut it down. My personal
Hollywood source (yes I do have one) tells me the strike is supposed to end
soon so perhaps the show will go on and the writers can all get back to pumping
out remakes, sequels and comic book adaptations.