"Kick-Ass" Lives Up to Its Name

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 17 April 2010 21:09

Written by Frank Lovece

Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Screenplay by Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, based on the comic book by Mark Millar, John S. Romita Jr.
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong, Xander Berkeley, Michael Rispoli, Lyndsy Fonseca, Yancy Butler

The Marvel Comics name is nowhere to be found in the delightfully dynamic Kick-Ass, which adapts the 2008-09 miniseries published by Marvel's creator-owned imprint, Icon Comics. Audiences may think that the Marv Films logo on it might be the indie/classics division of Marvel Films, but it's simply the name of director and co-screenwriter Matthew Vaughn's production company. Not that Marvel would have anything to be embarrassed about in the super-salty language and stylized ultra-violence of Kick-Ass — indeed, some of Marvel's Icon and MAX comics lines can put Quentin Tarantino potboilers to shame in the name of good, tough stories (except for 2001's repellent Fury series — fans, Stan Lee and George Clooney all agreed that was a mistake). Marvel's new parent, The Walt Disney Company, probably had nothing to with keeping Marvel's name — or even, hmm, the Icon Comics name — off the picture.

Kick-Ass lives up to its title. Unlike the execrable, albeit blockbuster, Wanted (2008), based on a pretty great Top Cow miniseries by Kick-Ass writer co-creator Mark Millar, it actually improves on the comic by not metaphorically kicking in our hero's teeth at the end and making him a sad-sack schmuck who was wrong about nearly everything. Vaughn and co-screenwriter Jane Goldman may be a little less experimental and more mainstream in their approach, but given how borderline-fantastical the story is in both media, it's more satisfying having a relatively happy ending (a major character still meets a bad fate) rather than suggesting that striving for heroism is a pointless, useless, dead-end thing to do.

This isn't to say Vaughn isn't unrelenting in his naturalism. A knife blade flashes, and a gut-stuck Kick-Ass — a.k.a. high-schooler Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a comics geek who dons a scuba wetsuit and a couple of stick weapons to fight local thugs — starts bleeding out so badly you can practically feel him growing colder in front of you. When bad guys open fire, they aim for your head. And when Hit Girl — a.k.a. 11-year-old Mindy Macready (Chloë Grace Moretz), trained in martial arts and weaponry for six years by her obsessive, framed-cop father, Damon/Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) — slices predators with her katana, there's no dramatic hesitation or tough-guy quip; they're meat, not human beings, and dangerous meat at that. There's so little sentimentality that a minor-scale romantic subplot with Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca), here much less Mean Girls than in the comic, proves a needed counterbalance to the otherwise pervasive sense of optimism being stripped away layer by layer, down below angry cynicism and headed straight down the hole to nihilism. And if that's all there is, then, as the movie would not euphemize, WTF?

Vaughn and company keep the nearly two-hour picture flowing as briskly as a comic but without sacrificing plot; time is taken to give an explanatory line of dialogue rather than gloss over potential plot holes. Comedy-of-manners dry humor — reminiscent of the pioneering Hokum & Hex from Marvel's 1990s Razorline imprint — plays seamlessly amid scenes of stylized, off-camera mayhem. You know the expression "Long story short"? Vaughn does that well, retaining pertinent details.

The movie's meta-comics worldview makes you wonder what a more intellectual filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick, who gave us the similarly fantastical, ultraviolent A Clockwork Orange, would have crafted of this material. Kick-Ass may not be a game-changing masterpiece, but it encapsulates a certain mindset of our era with knowingness and not so much wish-fulfillment as what-if fulfillment. That Vaughn can be this dark and violent and still come through with wit and a sense of hope is kind of a kick-ass accomplishment in itself.

For more by Frank Lovece: FrankLovece.com

Kevin's Digital Week 20: Middle Earths and Straw Hats

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 14 April 2010 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

The Lord of the Rings
(Warner Brothers) 

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
(New Line)
Ralph Bakshi’s disappointing animated adaptation of the first two books of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978; using Bakshi’s rotoscoping technique—shooting with real actors and hand-drawing over them, frame by frame—the result was certainly an arresting, if awkward, visualization of Tolkien’s legendary Middle Earth. But Bakshi’s other limitations as a director forced his film into a no man’s land between unflagging inventiveness and clichéd spectacle. Crippled by indifferent voice actors and laggard pacing, Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings remains a brave failure. The worn-out print isn’t done any favors by Blu-ray’s exceptional clarity, as scratches and visual noise distract from the vibrant colors and action. The film needs a true restoration, but will probably never receive one.

Peter Jackson’s epically-scaled (three films, over nine hours) adaptation not only won a boatload of Oscars but also became the last word in the fantasy genre thanks to the very real brilliance with which the director and his stellar technicians conjured up a fantastically breathtaking Middle Earth. Superbly acted and containing an extraordinary array of live-action and computerized effects, Jackson’s trilogy has earned its status as a cult classic and as a riveting, absorbing drama in its own right. On Blu-ray, the uniqueness of Jackson’s vision comes out in spades, thanks to a superb hi-def transfer. 

The Bakshi Blu has one extra: a 30-minute featurette about Bakshi’s career, which glosses over his work on Rings when it should dive into the difficulties of bringing it to the screen—it was originally supposed to be two films, instead of abruptly terminating before the second book ends. Jackson’s trilogy gets an extra disc for each film, with numerous and illuminating extras about all facets of the production. This Trilogy set will do nicely until the inevitable extended-version set comes along. 

DVD of the Week

The Italian Straw Hat
(Flicker Alley)
Rene Clair, one of the pioneers of early French cinema (his A nous la liberte was an obvious inspiration for Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times), made this silent gem in 1927, transposing the action from 1851 to 1895, to the very beginning of motion pictures, which allows Clair the opportunity to make a delightful homage to those early, silly silent shorts. Frenetic farce, as Chaplin and Buster Keaton's silents have shown, rarely ages when done well, and Clair's fast-paced film deserves to be in that elite company. 

On DVD, The Italian Straw Hat shows its age, but the unavoidable blemishes are part of an 85-year-old movie's primitive charm; the print itself has a vividness remarkable for a film this old. Also included are a pair of music tracks—chamber orchestra and solo piano—which lets viewers enjoy Clair's classic in two different ways. The small but enticing set of extras includes La Tour / Eiffel Tower, a 1928 Clair short film, and Noce en Gouguette / Fun After the Wedding, a 1907 short by Ferdinand Zecca, an inspiration for the madcap chases in Clair’s film.

Pandemonium Stirs "The Black Waters of Echo's Pond"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 10 April 2010 20:32

Written by Maitland McDonagh / Miss FlickChick

Directed by Gabriel Bologna
Written by Sean Clark, from a story by Bologna and Michael Berenson
Starring: Arcadiy Golubovich, Robert Patrick, Elise Avellan, Electra Avellan, Nick Mennell, Mircea Monroe, Walker Howard, Danielle Harris, M.D. Walton, James Duval, Adama Paladino, Richard Tyson

In 1927, a team of archeologists finds a tomb dedicated to the pagan god Pan. Team leader Niegel (Adama Paladino) lays claim to a pre-Biblical board game entombed inside, which he takes home with him to Beacon's Island, Maine — infuriating Nicholas (Richard Tyson), who underwrote the expedition and who wants what's his. Niegel responds that he's hidden the game where no one will ever find it, and then kills Nicholas and himself.

Eighty years later, nine feckless friends arrive for a weekend of fun on the island, whose only resident is eccentric caretaker Pete (Robert Patrick). Well, make that eight friends — Anton (Arcadiy Golubovich) and his wife Erica (Elise Avellan); Anton’s best friend Josh (Nick Mennell) and his fiancee, Renee (Electra Avellan), Erica’s twin sister; Trent (Walker Howard) and his girlfriend Kathy (Danielle Harris); Rob (M.D. Walton), who got his sweet corporate gig through Trent but subsequently hop-scotched over his  friend; and buxom, blond, B-movie starlet Veronique (Mircea Monroe), whose relentless flirting has sometimes sorely tried the patience of her female friends — and one odd man out Rick (James Duval), whose drinking, drugging and relentlessly irresponsible carousing has alienated half his old friends and left him on thin ice with the rest.

Naturally, they find the ornate, wicked-weird looking game and decide to play — it must be just like Monopoly, they figure, only way cooler looking. Needless to say, the game quickly does what it does, unleashing repressed desires, exposing the fault lines beneath apparently solid relationships and ripping the scabs off unhealed wounds. The result is, well, pandemonium.

Credit where it's due to director Gabriel Bologna — the son of veteran actors Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor — and screenwriter Sean Clark: The Pan game is a novel touch in an otherwise standard-issue slasher movie. And there's something almost subversive about the casting. Yes, the actors are better looking than the average group of nine friends in their twenties… at least, nine friends in their twenties who aren't in the movie business. But the fact that a third were clearly not born in the US (Golubvich is from Russia, the Avellans from Venezuela) and that where they came from has absolutely no bearing on their characters is, in its own way, as striking as seeing Night of the Living Dead’s Duane Jones in a role that wasn't written for black man. It's a casual acknowledgment that Americans come in many varieties. That they're all equally vulnerable to the Great God Pan's malevolent influence is also a given, though true to the much-mocked cliche, one of the black guys dies first. On the other hand, there's more than one — that, too, could be construed as progress of a sort within genre conventions.

For more by Maitland McDonagh: MissFlickChick.com