SXSW11-Cave Of Forgotten Dreams/The Key Man/Insidious
“Nothing is real. Nothing is certain.”
CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (2010)
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Written by: Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog has a habit of making documentaries about pretty eccentric subjects. He’s been all over the world and made films about just about everything. Each subject he gives his own deadpan, creepy view of what’s going on.
This time out, he shows us the inside of one of the earliest places on Earth to be touched by humans. In 1994, a cave was discovered in France where the oldest paintings known to man were found. These paintings are somewhere around 33,000 years old. The cave was so pristine and the paintings so perfectly preserved, that the scientists at first thought that they were forgeries. Carbon dating, though, proved that they were beyond ancient.
This is the kind of film that every human should see and, if they are not touched in some way, they may not be considered human anymore. The first half hour, as Herzog was explaining the beauty of these paintings had me in awe of what I was seeing. The 3D (which was, unfortunately, not always effective) made things even more real.
The paintings are beautiful. Not in a Sistine Chapel way, but in a way all their own. They aren’t detailed in the way that we are used to now, but they are MUCH more detailed than the stereotypical cave drawings that we think of. The male lions had testicles. The running bison had eight legs to show motion. It was amazing to think of these prehistoric men figuring out how to do this.
And then there were the handprints.
A beautiful film in all ways. Go see this film and be amazed at what proto-humans could do. Then be amazed at how Herzog brought it to life.
Directed by: Peter Himmelstein
Written by: Peter Himmelstein
The festival seems to be backloaded with the good films.
The Key Man centers on Bobby (Jack Davenport), a once winning insurance salesman who is on his way down the ladder. He meets up with Irving (Brian Cox) and Vincent (Hugo Weaving), two men who, for some reason, need to get a “key man” policy for someone who doesn’t want to do it. They need Bobby to sign for him and give a urine sample.
Of course, they’re conmen and Bobby kind of starts to figure it out…but not until he’s in too deep.
The story is pretty decent, even if it’s based around a pretty big MacGuffin. (Who really cares about the key policy?) The acting, of course, is great. Hugo and Brian can do no wrong.
What is really the star here is the editing. The movie takes place in 1975 and the editing shows it. Like some movies of the time, there are split screens, wipes and all kinds of editorly tricks. By the time we get to a semi-chase scene, the split screen is on steroids and it really makes the scene more tense.
Certainly not a great film, but it’s a really cool conman flick that won’t take up too much of your time. Fun stuff.
Directed by: James Wan
Written by: Leigh Whannell
Every once in a while, Hollywood will put out a movie that I see a trailer for and think, “Oh, man! They’re actually making a movie that could be every bit as scary as Poltergeist or The Exorcist!”
Occasionally, they come really fuckin’ close. The Ring and The Blair Witch Project are about as frightening as I really need in my old age, but I keep hoping.
Insidious is not this movie.
James Wan (director of Saw, which should give you your first clue as to this movie’s “quality”) brings us the story of a young family of five moving into a new house…or a house that is new to them, anyway. They’re just about settled when the mother, Renai (Rose Byrne), starts to notice some crazy things happening. Then, their oldest son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins) falls into a coma. Doctors can’t explain it, so it must be supernatural, right?
Dear ol’ dad, Josh (Patrick Wilson), doesn’t buy the supernatural connection, but Gramma (Barbara Hershey, who had her own encounter in 1982′s The Entity) buys it wholesale. She calls in a specialist in the form of Elise (Lin Shaye). Elise is an old friend who is also a psychic/ghostbuster. She and her team determine that it’s not the house that’s haunted. It’s Dalton.
Dun dun DUUUUUUUNNNNNNN!!!!!!
The rest of the movie is basically Lin doing her best Zelda Rubenstein impression (except FAR more cheerful) and Patrick doing a damn good Craig T Nelson.
Here are some reasons why Poltergeist scares the pants off of just about anyone who watches it:
1) We identify with the characters. At different points in our lives, we are Robbie, Carol Anne, Steve or Diane Freeling. We get them. As kids, we don’t really know what our parents do, we just know that they work. We also know that they will protect us. As parents, we try to hold on to our own youth and are scared that we can’t always protect our kids.
2) The monsters are base fears for kids: clowns, old trees, moving, the aforementioned parents not being able to protect us, closets, fucking clowns, holes in the ground, mirrors and, of course, ghosts.
3) The movie knows how to scare you at different points in your life. Being a kid and watching that movie is deadly. Being a parent and watching that movie is scary as fuck.
4) Two words: Zelda Rubenstein.
5) The ghosts come out of our favorite thing: the tv! What’s fucking scarier than that?!
6) We don’t really see the ghosts until the end. They’re pretty much just bright lights or moving objects until the giant dragon thing is outside of Carol Anne’s door.
Why isn’t Insidious scary?
1) I didn’t identify with any of these people. Josh is a teacher who is afraid of growing old (early hint, by the way). Renai is a struggling musician. Sure, those things might be sort of relateable, but the characters themselves are no one that I care to know. They’re dumber than dirt. What’s the first thing you do when you hear a strange voice on your baby monitor? Well, you don’t just stand at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the monitor. You fucking run up those goddamn stairs! You do this LONG before the voice SHOUTS AT YOUR BABY!!
The kids are barely in it long enough for anyone to identify with them. There are two little boys and a baby. The baby cries and the other little boy disappears (along with the baby) pretty early on…off to Gramma’s. (Where they are at the end when Gramma is with the family is anybody’s guess.) And Dalton, of course, is in a coma for most of the movie.
2) Wan and company got one thing right, but I think that’s only because it’s become such a cliche of the ghost movie: the family moved into a new house. Other than that, unless you think that Darth Maul jumping out a closet is scary, you’re outta luck here.
3) Again, unless your kid falls into a coma, this movie probably won’t scare you as a parent. It might scare kids, though. I’ll give it that.
4) Lin Shaye is great. I love seeing her in movies. But she’s not creepy at all.
5) The ghosts are in the pretty normal places: behind doors, in the attic, falling out of cupboards. Sure, it’s scary, but nothing disturbing. Just cat in a closet scares.
6) The ghosts are everywhere in this movie. By the end of it, they are just another character in the movie. We’ve seen the guy with no lips so often that he might as well be Grandpa. The less said about Darth Maul, the better.
There are a LOT of cat in the closet scares in this movie. Unfortunately for James Wan, that does not make a good horror movie. You have to profoundly DISTURB your audience if you want to really scare them. Otherwise, it’s just another movie.
What I’m really trying to say here is this: James Wan is the McDonald’s of horror. His movies fill you up but, ultimately, they’re cheap knock-offs of the real thing that you don’t remember consuming ten minutes after you’ve done it. And they’re certainly not nourishing.
The most frightening thing in this movie is the fact that it is set up for a sequel. This is only surpassed by a shot of Josh in his classroom. Just over his shoulder, on the chalkboard, is a drawing of Jigsaw with the number “8″ under it.
AAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
I’m fuckin’ done with this guy.
