The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Feeding the Beast
or
To Kill a Mocking-jay

I mocked The Hunger Games rather mercilessly when it came out (as if it would prevent a single sou from entering its coffers) , because even though it was a hot publishing phenom' and a breathlessly anticipated movie, the original concept was a bit derivative without being very divergent (yeah, that's a snark for a future film there).  So now, the second of The Hunger Games films (of four total) Catching Fire has come out (with a new director, Francis Lawrence, of Water for Elephants and I Am Legend as a bit of an improvement over Gary Ross, even with Steve Soderbergh assisting) and this one's a better film.  For one thing. "this time it's political," and the easy targets of reality TV and the excesses of the rich (with an eye towards the Roman Empire and its parallels of bread and circuses) are a bit less strident, although they haven't disappeared.  They're just presented a little better this time.  And the politico's of the Capitol are being a bit more cagey than they were previously.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) now finds herself the most watched human in Panem.  Her victory in the 74th Hunger Games along with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) has earned her and her family a cushy residence in Victor's Village and the vulture-like scrutiny of Panem's leader, President Snow (Donald Sutherland, as creepily confident as if he were selling you orange juice).  He sees the way that Katniss has reached out to Panem's people and now she's the centerpiece of a swelling revolutionary movement.  A personal presidential visit amounts to a threat that she'd better be convincing in her devotion to the State.  "I'll convince them." assures Katniss.  "No." replies Snow slowly.  "Convince me."

And with that, the stakes are raised.  A "Victory Tour" is planned for the remaining districts (the ones that haven't been nuked), but at each appearance of Katniss and Peeta something happens that brings out the riot police.  At the suggestion of the Capitol's new gamesmaster (check out this name) Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman, keeping a straight face), who comes up with a plan to put more pressure on Katniss and speeding the inevitable moment when the public turns against her.  Then, with the next Hunger Games competition occurring (the 75th), it is decided that, rather than having a "Reaping" lottery among the populace, the competition will be between past Victors, considered by the State now to be potential inspirations and inciters to riot.

So now, the Games are between past champions (including Jeffrey Wright, Jena Malone, and Amanda Plummer), some of whom are just as determined to win, while others are angry at being targeted again, but there will be only one survivor.  

It's a better film with more tricks up its sleeve, and the media manipulation is played by all sides—it may be an illusion but Stanley Tucci's teeth actually look whiter this time—with a terrific set-up for the next films that comes out of left field...if you haven't read the books.  It's an entertaining change-up from the situations of the original, and promises to be even more intersting next time out.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a Matinee. 

Star Trek Into Darkness

It's Ongoing Mission:
To Explore Strange New Worlds, 
To Seek Out New Life and New Civilizations, 
And to Shamelessly Retread Where the Old Series Has Already Gone Before.
(Oh, and Lens Flares.  Lots of Lens Flares)

I'm disappointed.

The first Star Trek (Beta Two) did a great job of re-imagining the '60's sci-fi mythos of a 23rd century, and dragging it, shouting and flaring and shaking the camera, into the 21st Century.  It shook the faithful, too, reinforced what was great about the series (the characters, frankly) and what wasn't (a little too Hornblower and "Wagon Train to the Stars," too-vintage TV concepts, and the Enterprise corridors always seemed like a circular Ramada Inn). 

The 2009 Star Trek of J.J. Abrams was a game-changer.  It completely exploded (and sometimes imploded) the Star Trek Universe that was starting to harden (the way it did with the Star Wars Universe) with continuity.  That's the way it goes with science fiction series: everything that seemed fresh in the first go-'round, becomes rote and repeatable and formulaic, given a timeline and a structure, and the creativity becomes more about stretching the budget as opposed to stretching the possibilities, or the minds of the audience.  It was ever thus, with "Star Trek."  After its first season and a half, that saw scripts by some of science-fiction's best and brightest, "Star Trek" (the original series) was becoming rote, concentrating on relationships (there was a rotating "crewman-in-love" every week with the exceptions, significantly, of Sulu and Lt. Uhura) and planets that had remarkable resemblances to Earth.  When the movies came along, all of them (including the "Next Generation" movies, which had strictly prohibited the habit in its TV run) settled into the "Khan" pattern of having a central antagonist, rather than dealing with a cosmic crisis or ethical problem dictated by a planet's sociological peculiarities.*

But the Star Trek retro-fit changed the rules.  By altering the Trek timeline, the series could literally "go" anywhere to the "strange new worlds"—or old ones—of the mission statement from the "series bible."  So, for me, it's something of a lost opportunity that the first adventure out of the space-dock is a re-visit, tinkering with a too-obvious choice of what to "fix" and particularly re-writing one of the films to mixed results.

Not that Star Trek Into Darkness isn't fun—let's say that upfront—and never short of entertaining, taking full advantage of the shifted relationships of the Enterprise's new-old complement, but never straying from them that much to incorporate anyone new.  

This crew is more squabbly than the one from the Shatner-Nimoy-Kelley days. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) have an uneasy truce, still getting to know each other, and wondering why they should take a mutual mentor's advice that their alliance is mutually beneficial.  Kirk and Scotty (Simon Pegg, still delightful) are at odds over Kirk's motivations for a trip into Klingon territory and Mr. Scott takes a leave of absence from the crew, briefly, to be replaced by Mr. Chekhov (Anton Yelchin, who is underutilized, and frankly needed the job) as Chief Engineer.  And the unlikely romance between Lt. Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock is going through some warp-turbulence**—seems she thinks Spock is a little too aggressive in doing his duty and passive in accepting death, a nice little argument against the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is further touched on throughout the movie.

Oh, that mission across the Klingon Neutral Zone mentioned earlier is to take out a terrorist, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, quite brilliant in this), who seems to be on a personal revenge campaign against Star Fleet, blowing up a London facility, and seeking asylum among the newly imagined bumpy-headed warriors on Kronos.  Kirk is charged by the hawkish Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) to find Harrison and fire some specially designed photon torpedoes at him with extreme prejudice.  To say anything more in the way of plot would be to spoil all sorts of little surprises and one big surprise in the film, which would be some sort of violation of the Movie Prime Directive.  I say that with some irony as once things start being revealed, the movie doesn't go off the rails, but rather travels a little too closely on them.  Oh, it has its own spin, and one that makes a shade more sense than ... Damn.  I can't even say that.  Let's merely say that for an alternate universe, this one sure provokes a sense of deja vu.***  For me, it seems a bit like the franchise is playing it very, very safe, which is particularly sad after its terrific (and risky) relaunch.  Not a good sign, especially as Abrams is moving on (to helm the first Disney "Star Wars" film).  

We need to go a bit more boldly next time.

Star Trek Into Darkness is a Matinee.  Dammit, Jim!

* Even Star Trek: First Contact took the brilliant conceit of a collective-mind tribe like the Borg, and created a never-before-seen "Borg Queen" as its antagonist.

** Small trekkie annoyance: Throughout the movie, she calls him "Spock."  Aren't they intimate enough that she can use his first name?  He has one, and the joke in the series was "You couldn't pronounce it."  Okay.  But she's an alien linguist.  So, if anyone could... Oh!  And another thing—at one point Kirk accuses Spock of "throwing me under the bus."   How archaic a reference is that?  Especially considering that seemingly everything floats in this universe.  Go ahead, throw him under a bus, it's going to sail right over him!  Now, if he'd said, "throw me into the warp-core"...heh, that would have been more appropriate. 

 *** Unrelated to those thoughts, but along the same lines: Cumberbatch's villain is the latest in a recent line of what should now be considered a new movie trope—the villain who lets himself be captured, following in the heels of The Joker in The Dark Knight, Loki in The Avengers, and Silva in Skyfall.   Okay, screen-writers, "you just don't get it, do you?"

Walking Kurosawa's Road: Sanshiro Sugata Part 2

The inability to write about the films of Akira Kurosawa to my satisfaction led me to to take a different path: start at the beginning, take each film in sequence, one after the other, and watch the progression of the man from film-maker to Master.   I'm hoping I can write more intelligently and more knowledgeably about his work by, step by step, Walking Kurosawa's Road.

Sanshiro Sugata Part 2 (Akira Kurosawa, 1945) Any director thinking that "they don't do sequels," should bear in mind that Kurosawa did one...with only his third feature film.  Before embarking on his next project, the soon-to-be Japanese Master was pressed by his financiers to follow up his popular judo film with a continuation of the story, following the path of Sanshiro, now two years in self-imposed exile, having abandoned his position as Judo champion.

Things have changed, but he hasn't.  The city he comes back to is now under occupation, and the disciplines that Sanshiro struggled so mightily to learn, seem to have little significance in this new atmosphere.

Returning home, his acclaim is widespread, but he's dissatisfied.  A promoter tries to entice him into participating in a match with an American heavyweight champion for money, something both against the rules of Sanshiro's dojo and his own hard-fought-for beliefs,  He attends, however, and is disgusted when the martial artist roped into the match is summarily pummelled before the crowd of blood-thirsty Americans and Japanese.

Things had changed for Japan, as well.  Defeated in World War II, and occupied by the United States, the country that Kurosawa made the sequel in was far different from the one in which he'd made the original.  And one can tell by the very first sequence, he bristled at it (despite the fact that the first film, made during the war, was chopped up by Japan's ministry, to the point where no original print exists).  Imagine my shock when the first words heard in this film are in English.  They come from a belligerent American sailor hectoring, then threatening his rickshaw-driver—the abuse comes in a different language, but the opening is parallel to the situation in the first film, only now it's Sanshiro who comes to the aid of the driver, in the position (flat on his back) that he was in at the beginning of the first film, before his transformation.

He retreats to his Master's dojo, but sinks into a deep depression while, simultaneously, training that young rickshaw driver he'd earlier saved.  His disciplines start to fall away, as he begins to drink, his fortunes falling as his young student's rises.  The dojo provides no respite and relief—he is challenged to a fight by a tag-team of brothers, the Higaki's (also brothers to Gennosuki Higaki, the previous film's final combatant), one extremely aggressive and the other, deeply insane, to exact revenge on their fallen kin.  He also reunites (discretely) with the woman who loves him, and with Gennosuki, who is now in ill health and seeks a reconciliation before he dies, a far cry from his brothers' path of vengeance. 

The battles Sanshiro must fight—and avoids fighting—are much like the battles raging in his own mind.  With his fame, and abilities still intact, he is caught in a dilemma of purpose—should he fight with the stakes becoming decreasingly honorable?  And how long can he maintain his reputation while avoiding confrontation (and does he even want that reputation—with its incumbent honor—anymore, given how cheaply and shallow the value others impose on it are?  Is his reputation worth it in such a world?  And will the matches with his own demons (represented by the brothers) keep him from maintaining his own "wa?" 

It's a universal problem negotiating the minefields, internal and external, that dot our lives.  But, there's something else going on here, given the context and the environment in which Kurosawa made this film.  This was his first post-war film after the Japanese surrender (Kurosawa paused in the filming of The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail in order to listen to Emperor Hirohito's "Gyokuon-hōsō") and for the nation this was a crushing, demoralizing defeat, especially given the fervor that the government had invested in its people.

How does a nation, especially one so steeped in tradition and pride, endure after such a concession?  Kurosawa encapsulates the answer in the fighting brothers who have challenged Sanshiro, one incapacitated by an epileptic "spell," the other who fights the master on a hilltop—not of frantic wind-swept grass as the first film—but a precipice blasted by snow.  After a long struggle, where Sanshiro is mostly passively defensive, the revenge seeking Higaki is defeated and sent tumbling down the hill.  He is saved and tended to by Sanshiro, while under the baleful watch of the younger Higaki brother, who in a moment of clarity, understands Sanshiro's purpose and responds to his brother's lament with the same words...and a beaming smile.

The influence of the good, the dedicated, the humble, and the charitable perseveres in this world of defeat and cynicism.  One could take the position for seeking revenge, but how much better it is to have grace—not curling up and dying, of course—and follow the better path, as this most popular of Japanese heroes, demonstrates.

This may be the greatest sequel in all of film.  But more than that, it is a gift from an up-and-coming master filmmaker to his nation, at its most desperate hour, in gratitude for the opportunities he had been given, and providing balm, solace, and wisdom, to go on.  It is an amazing film, inside of itself, and outside in the world in which it was made.

Tron: Legacy

"A Shaggy God Story"
or
"Rebel Without a CLU"

A sequel to Tron seems unnecessary: the first film was not that good.*  A simple story of corporate (analog) white-collar crime that is resolved and revenged in the digital realm of computers, it only came to life in the (at the time**) high-tech sequences that were computer-generated with simple high-contrast wire animations.  But, given the advances in techniques since 1982, it seems inevitable that a more sophisticated sequel be envisioned and given the green neon light.

Tron: Legacy, set 28 years later (and directed by Joseph Kosinski), is a better film in construction and underlying story-line—it has to be.  The Matrix films, which resemble Tron in a tesseracted inside-out way, raised the stakes, so audiences are no longer satusfied with cycle-chases and neon-frisbee duels.  Gladiator games are no longer enough.  The story must matter, and be relatable, tap into a collective story...mean something.

The movie tries hard.  At times you see glimpses of Matrix, Terminator, and The Dark Knight, "Frankenstein," the Star Wars prequels, with an underlying "Daddy" conflict out of Oliver Stone.  But, to their credit, there's some Despero there, too.  The Jeff Bridges character Kevin Flynn, CEO of ENCOM (as a result of events in the first film) turns into a messianic figure, part Steve Jobs, part Steve Ballmer, whose vision of life under his brave new cyber-world, promises much—but only if you're not related to him.  He's gone missing, with only grandparents to raise his entitled son, Sam (who grows up to be Garrett Hedlund).  Sam lives a solitary life (although he is a majority stakeholder in ENCOM) wanting nothing to do with the family business—maybe some Godfather in there too?—except for a yearly prank to keep the board from getting complacent.  Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) is still around,*** and a stray page from the old Flynn's arcade compels Sam to visit, and (wouldn't you know it?) he gets zapped to Tronleyland, which has had some extensive renovation done.

With the help of his digi-gangers to his analog counterparts, Tron, Clu and the others, Flynn has constructed a civilization in his cyberworld, until life, finding its way, is generated on its own.  The ISO's, as they're called, are a new lifeform, that could bring new possibilities to life outside the grid in Flynn's vision.  But every Creator must have his serpent, and Flynn's counterpart visionary, CLU, has his own designs for the future, which includes the invasion and occupation of territory—our world.  The stage is set for a confrontation between Flynn and his monstrous creation over their mutual goal, with Flynn's son, Sam, as the ghost in the machine, the spanner in the works.

The actors do fairly good work, given that they all performed in a green-screen purgatory, and Hedlund, with the biggest role, is okay, sometimes even engaging.  But it's Jeff Bridges' film.  Playing two roles, Flynn as his scruffy self, and CLU in a digitized de-aged '80's version of himself—pretty darned good, if the mouth movement is a little dodgy at times—he manages to push through two versions of the same personality, one that has grown older and wiser, the other that just stayed locked in his decades-old fantasy.  Every once in awhile, Bridges' Flynn will say something "Dude-ish" that seems more clever than it is, merely for the fact that it provides a refreshing touch of analog in a digital construct. 

A construct, and very derivative.  But with so many bits and megabits from so many sources, it does add up to some genuine sparks of ingenuity there, far beyond the original's "parallel wars" equation, and certainly moving beyond merely the highlight of the first film, the gladiatorial games theme.  Tron: Legacy is a bit like taking code from different sources to make new, more sophisticated functions.  The key element being: you have to go with the program.

Tron: Legacy is a Rental.  

* My opinion, of course.  There are lots of folks who've been influenced by Tron, including John Lasseter of Pixar/Disney, and Roger Ebert, who booked Tron into his first Overlooked Film Festival. 

** Okay.  A factoid: the computer they did the FX on had 2MB of memory.

*** Look for Cillian Murphy in an uncredited cameo as ENCOM's chief programmer.




The original light-cycle sequence from Tron (1982)
How far we've come.

Scare Me Once, Shame on You. Scare Me Twice...

"Just So You Know, I Won't Be Your Friend"

Let Me In is an American remake of Let the Right One In, the terrifically creepy 2008 Swedish film—(here's my review of that here).  For those who hate sub-titles, this is probably a good thing.  And what's good about the original is slavishly copied here, but director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) does some good things (and a couple bad) to move the situations from frozen Sweden to a wintry Los Alamos, New Mexico.* The best thing is the acting.  Let Me In includes such great thesps as Richard Jenkins (a fine actor and more people will see him in this than any other film he's done) and Elias Koteas.  But, it's the kids who are the best thing about it.  Anyone who's seen Kick-Ass already knows Chloe Moretz is terrific, but this is less of a joke-performance, and plumbs the depths of what she can do dramatically.  Her  waif, Abby ("I'm 12...more or less") starts out alarmingly strange, but as the movie progresses, the character turns more vulnerable and sympathetic—far more than Lina Leandersson in the original.  But, the stand-out here is Kodi Smit-McPhee as the initially screwed-up Owen, a victim in danger of continuing in an unthinking cycle of violence.  McPhee's Owen wears his heart on his sleeve—he just won't show it on his girlish face—but as the movie progresses, that face starts to beam (he is far more expressive than the Swedish version's Kåre Hedebrant, in fact, both kids in the first have a Teutonic reserve that is appropriate for that film's style, but would seem catatonic in this version) as he approaches his relationship with Abby with the same vulnerable hopefulness he just can't allow in his other interactions.

Reeves does manage to make some things his own, as well.  He mostly discards the firsts glacial blue color palette for a neon orange that suffuses scenes, and he nicely captures a bit of the gender-bending feel of the first, though differently.  Also, he very cleverly stages some of the violent sequences obliquely, thrusting them in the stage-rear of the frame while the main focus is going on in the foreground.  The more human attacks are handled extremely well, surprisingly—alarmingly so, but the movie veers into goofiness whenever more occultish violence occurs.  The director holds on the scenes too long, and even though a lot of it is done in back-lit cameo, the effects make it look like the perp is less a savage beast than a crazed monkey with a banana-buzz.  Sure, there should be some giddy thrill involved in horror, but "giddy" shouldn't translate to guffaws.  He also makes crystal-clear the true horror of the piece, something that only occurred to me, after a bit of time of contemplation—for some reason, I like my "OMG" moments to be outside the theater.  And he gums up the last scene of the film with a too-nostalgic pop reference that negates its effectiveness.

Still, after having dismissed the idea of an American remake with "may it never see the light of day," I have to admit that this one doesn't suck badly.

Let Me In is a Matinee. 

"Paramount Pictures would like to thank the family of the deceased..."

I'm surprised that Matt Reeves wasn't pegged to direct Paranormal Activity 2, considering he pulled the same cinéma vérité trick with his Cloverfield as Oren Peli did with the first PA.  Reeves might have actually done something different, as opposed to this corporate product generated to merely try and tap the success of the first.  Right off the bat, the vibe for this one is different, with the Paramount honchos putting the corporate brand in the very first crawl (which is partially used for the title of this piece)—a subterfuge, anyway, as it is "only a movie" and Paramount Pictures isn't thanking anybody, they're just trying to take your money, while fulfilling their initial wish to re-make the first movie (which was made independently for $11,000) under their corporate umbrella, thus inflating the cost to $2,750,000, while, cluelessly, also hoping to duplicate the original's success.  Guess what, Paramount?  The Paranormal Activity's financial success depended on the negative cost being so damned low.  That won't happen when you're paying gaffers, best boys, painters, assistant directors and assistants to the executive producer (all missing from the original) a sizable wage.*

They also can't duplicate the original's artistic success, either, such as it was.  The first film took a nugget of a good idea and ran with it, employing some audience knowledge of video conceits and, like any good horror-meister, letting the audience do their dirty work, trusting that what the sweating masses in the dark will come up with will be far more horrible than what actually occurs.  A couple of shock-cuts, and you leave them quivering in fear.

But Paranomal Activity 2 really doesn't do anything else than go through the same motions.  Oh, there is more coverage, thanks to an in-home security system that is installed after the initial "things that go crash on vacation" incident.  There is no 80herz hum that accompanies every incident, just some indeterminate sound effects (which are re-capped—and exposed as rather cheap—in the end-credits...End Credits?  That kinda destroys the illusion, too).  And this one is exposed to be more or less a prequel to the original...except that the actors shared by both look quite a bit older this time when the time-frame should be the same. 

It's just one of those moments of bone-headedness on the producers'/director's parts that show all they're interested in is going through the motions and collecting the cash, even if their efforts undercut the basic spookiness of the movie.  It's Corporate movie-making at its dumbest, laziest and most crass.  For example, you can't have a corporate movie release without some product placement (like that recognizable bottle of Sunny Delight in the kitchen, or the dramatically worthless talk about Burger King), which goes somewhat against the grain of a "captured" video source—and gaffe-spotters will have a field-day with this one—at one point, dad cracks a sexual joke by saying "Release the Krakken!" (the line from Clash of the Titans).  That would be funny, if it wasn't a glaring mistake.  That line of Liam Neeson's from the 2010 movie only became a catch-phrase this year...and the movie is supposed to be taking place...in 2006.  Oopsy!

There was no reason, other than plunder, for this movie to be made, and while one can say that the performances are decent, and it delivers enough jolts that you forget that dogs and children are the potential victims here, this is one best not attended.  Bad movies and bad movie franchises should be given the same advice as demon-poltergeists: "Just ignore it and maybe it will go away..."

Paranormal Activity 2 is a Waste of Time.




* Yes, it DOES snow in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and it has nothing to do with a Nuclear Winter.

** One of those Executive Producers is Akiva Goldsman, whose name seems to appear on any movie that sucks.

Faraway, So Close!

Faraway, So Close (aka In weiter Ferne, so nah!) (Wim Wenders, 1993) "Every time your ears ring, an angel gets its wings."  Wenders' follow-up to Wings of Desire is not a footnote to the original or a regurgitation.  It's one of those rare sequels that seems necessary and actually throws the first into a better light, complementing and expanding it.

Faraway, So Close! follows the path of "the other" angel, Cassiel (Otto Sander, who is brilliant in this, in a comic performance that Wings of Desire barely hints at), who, although he might want to become human, will not...until his hand is forced in an incident that is reflected from a tragic incident in the first film.  "It's so vivid here!" he exudes upon entering the world of color, following the same rules that the first film established (the angels' POV is black and white, but ours is color; no one but small children can see the angels, and when they "fall" they lose their armor...and their pony-tails), but things are different.

Wings of Desire takes place in a divided Berlin and so everything has a sense of separation and crossing over, but Faraway, So Close! has no Berlin Wall in it, the structure having been sledge-hammered into extinction by the very citizenry it restricted (and Mikhail Gorbachev, whose act of omission in preventing the incidents, allowed the Wall to fall, is prominently featured in a cameo).  Like the Wall, there's a lot of falling in Faraway, So Close!, but a lot of gliding, too.  In fact, the film is less about barriers than it is about how things transition so easily between one and the other.  Drama becomes comedy, comedy becomes tragedy, the color/black and white sequences fade together in a single shot, and the film is a sub-titler's nightmare moving seamlessly between several languages—Horst Buchholz (remember him from The Magnificent Seven?) plays a German expatriate moved back from America and he banters between German and English without missing an umlaut, and Bruno Ganz, the fallen angel from Wings..., has decided to become a pizza chef with accompanying Italian language (and why not?).

Where Wings of Desire was all Sturm und Drang in its romanticism, Faraway, So Close! is a comedy in both the modern and classic terms.  It feels less like an "important" film than its older brethren, but seems absolutely necessary, like a completion to the first, and makes you think that the story was really about the "holding-back angel" Cassiel all the time.  If you love the first, you should see the second, but don't expect the same response to either of the movies when you're done.  Still, it is always nice to visit old friends.

Faraway, So Close! also features Nastassja Kinski as the angel Raphaela, Willem Dafoe as a shady character with time on his hands, Lou Reed, and, of course, Peter Falk.

Shrek Forever After (The Final Chapter)

"Moving, with Shrekless Abandon"

I saw the first two "Shrek's" in the theater, and made the, in retrospect, wise decision to skip "3" and saw it on TV. The first two were cheeky fun, playing with the conventions of fairy-tales and the mass market merchandizing of same (Hallo, Uncle Walt), while playing with the idea that "Happily Ever After" is a bit relative, after all. "Shrek 3" recycled heroes and villains from the first two, and betrayed a certain Disney-envy by only adding a "Charlie's Angels" bevy of bickering Princessi to the proceedings. Although there were some good gags, it seemed like the ideas had run their course.

"Shrek 4" (whatever it's title is this week) in the required 3-D, at least goes back to the fairy tale world for inspiration, and with some careful noodling with movie idioms comes up with a good idea. Employing the trickster gambit, of those troll-like creatures, who would sell ya a hill of beans or a bill of goods which would promise one outcome and yurn into a life-complicating problem (In our modern times, we call them mortgage brokers and real estate salesmen). In this case, it's "Rumplestiltskin," he of the first-born fetish, who sees all of his troubles stemming from the fact that his little deal to become King of Far Far Away was dashed when Shrek rescued and won Princess Fiona away back in the first picture.

As Fate would have it, the opportunity arises for him to correct his sorry state of affairs: Shrek, now a father of muling puking ogres—no, they're not just infants, they're really ogres—is not feeling the domestic bliss. He misses the old days, when he would grind men's bones to make his bread, and frighten trespassers who came within a league of his hovel, and he didn't have to change diapers and do the chores, and arrange play-dates with donkey's kids. Worst yet, he has to drive a Subaru.*

So, Rumplestiltskin makes a deal where Shrek can have his old life back (the re-establishment of which is done to the tune of The Carpenter's "Top of the World") in exchange for one day—that day being his birthday. He wakes up in a world where he doesn't exist, where Rumplestiltskin is King (as Shrek never rescued Fiona), and in 24 hours he will cease to be.

Unless....(there's always an "Unless"—those old scribes never let themselves be written into a corner) and it entails True Love's Kiss. Naturally.

So, "It's a Wonderful Life" where Shrek must contend with no one knowing who he is, and negotiating his way through a country where he is just one of many ogres in a race war between the greens and the whites. That's all fine for us, but it's mind-warping for the kids in the audience. The infestation of kiddies near me were terror-struck that things were different than what they were used to seeing on the Pacifier at home. Shrek and Fiona aren't married? Donkey and Puss aren't his bff's—best furry friends? What if it doesn't work out and all the DVD's at home are changed...(it's possible, we're talking time-space paradox/parallel worlds here)? That's a lot for wee ones to wrap their tap-dancing sugar-plum minds around.

They'll live. It's odd to see how much more detailed the rendering of the characters is than it used to be. Everything is more crisp and nuanced, while also taking a big step backwards—the lip-sync seems to be a little soft, just fudged a bit to make it "work," and the characters tend to turn away while talking rather than expose it, like hiding bad teeth. Perhaps it always has and I never spotted it before, but I doubt it—it's one of those things I notice in movies. I watched in 2-D, but no one goes out of their way to throw something at the screen, but I'll bet the reality-transition scenes will be spectacular.

New voices this time around include Jon Hamm as a burly ogre-leader and the justifiably ubiquitous Jane Lynch. But the stand-out is Walt Dohrn as Rumplestiltskin; a writer-director of "Spongebob Squarepants," and "Shrek" gag-writer, his mealy-mouthed little schemer is easily the best performance in the film, which, given the usual talent, is really saying something.

"Shrek Forever After" is a Rental.

* Yeah, I made that up.

The Exorcist III

"The Exorcist III" (William Peter Blatty, 1990) An odd little experiment in horror, more compelling than William Friedkin's chest-thumping original,* with more humor—Blatty had written some 60's screenplays for Blake Edwards—and some genuinely unnerving moments that may not make one jump out of one's seat (well, one thing will), but will certainly creep one out.

It begins with a little bit of catch-up and two fine actors who did not appear as these characters in the original "Exorcist"—but probably should have. Lieutenant Kinderman (George C. Scott) is meeting up with old friend Father Dyer (Ed Flanders). It has been 15 years since the events of the original "Exorcist," and the two men have had a steady friendship with shared lunches and grousing about their work-lives—Scott and Flanders are so good that they milk laughs out of lines that are as dry as a dessicated bone. When we see them, they're both trying to cheer each other up, remembering their mutual friend, Father Damian Karras (Jason Miller). It's an off-kilter, unnerving way to start a horror movie, a little bit like starting a speech laying off your employees with a joke. And that odd humor occurs often, with stray one-liners and the bizarre visual touch, sometimes lurched into the foreground, sometimes folded into the cracks of a frame. It walks arm and arm with Blatty's atmospherics of weighted...pauses in conversations, shifting shadows, slight zephyrs of wind, and the occasional breath of laughter. Odd and unnerving are the two words that best describe "The Exorcist III."
Kinderman is investigating a bizarre series of murders that has ties to the exorcism of Regan McNeil, that bear the un-publicized M.O. of "The Gemini Killer" executed 15 years before. As if that wasn't bizarre enough, the murderer leaves behind a different set of finger-prints each time. There is more than one killer with secret knowledge, and the investigation soon zeroes in on Georgetown's Catholic hospital, where in the bowels of the psych ward sits a chained amnesiac, named "Patient X." When Kinderman's investigation takes him to this room, he finds his friend, Fr. Damian Karras.

The film was compromised somewhat by the studio's insistence that there be an actual exorcism (by Nicol Williamson's cameo priest), thereby muddling up the finale, but the film up to then is disquieting and in a far less bluntly hammering way than Friedkin's head-revolving original. Blatty's direction makes you not trust the film, and to be wary of what awaits on the other side of every edit of the film (and just when you think you have his pattern figured out, Blatty will do something different).
He's not afraid to exploit Scott's penchant for showing untethered behavior, but the kudo's for the best performance of the film belong to Brad Dourif. Quick as mercury, quirky as Hell, his performance as "Patient X" (a role shared by Miller and the voice of Colleen Dewhurst, the former Mrs. Scott), is a tour de force played mostly to the camera in long unbroken takes, with the odd touch of a tear that slides down the left side of his face, and the electronic manipulation of his voice to drop it into the lower depths. The movie starts to fall apart once Dourif departs, but for most of its running time, it manages to rise above the other films in the series.

If you think you can take it, you can watch "The Exorcist III" (in 11 parts) on YouTube, starting here.

* And miles ahead of John Boorman's "sexy beast" movie, the deservedly reviled spawn of satan: "The Exorcist II: The Heretic."

The Two Jakes

"The Two Jakes" (Jack Nicholson, 1990) The second part of a planned "Jake Gittes" L.A. trilogy (that had started with "Chinatown") was snake-bit almost from the start. Centered around the three great California swindles (water, oil, and transportation), the second film, to be entitled "The Two Jakes"—involving real estate and related oil grab—was set in the post-war 40's. Robert Towne, who wrote the original "Chinatown," was set to direct his old friend Jack Nicholson for the sequel, and for the real estate baron Jake Berman, it was agreed to cast executive producer Robert Evans, who hadn't appeared in a movie since 1959.

Something happened. The particulars are hazy, but the story is that Towne was unhappy with Evans' performance, and Evans being the executive producer was unhappy with that (his autobiography is, of course, "The Kid Stays in the Picture"). The production was shelved until 1989 when Nicholson himself took the director's chair, Harvey Keitel in Evans' spot and a new production began, with a script that wasn't done to Nicholson's satisfaction and was being re-written while shooting.

What emerged was something of a mess. "Chinatown" was a complicated film, but "The Two Jakes" had the added burdens of a complicated plot and a carry-over theme from the previous film. Some sections seem well thought out and designed, and others rushed to the point of obtuseness. To patch the bare spots and try and salvage the dramatic flow, Nicholson wrote and recorded a narration—not an unusual thing to find in a detective movie—that had more to do with character points than clarity.

The other thing is casting: Meg Tilly was a bit too young to be playing Berman's philandering wife, her acting makes her character something of a blank spot, and her motivations are never hinted at—and she's absolutely critical to the story. On top of that, her presence makes Gittes appear to be pretty stupid for not spotting what is revealed in the story, and the plot-machinations a bit contrived. This is apparent if you've seen "Chinatown." If you haven't, 'The Two Jakes" leaves you high and dry, it's plot about the diversion of water to the city an integral part of the information needed to get anything out of the film. It tries to do too much, introduce too many incidental characters, and ultimately fails to congeal as a coherent movie rather than a roughly assembled series of scenes and ideas. If Towne had been around to tighten the script, it might have been different. If he had directed it, rather than Nicholson, it might have been more cohesive as Towne is a fairly strict director. But the important part is that the three essentials for the project—Nicholson, Towne and Evans could not compromise, and so "The Two Jakes" was compromised, taking the third film in the trilogy—the much-rumored "Cloverleaf"—along with it. It's what happens when hubris replaces professionalism.