Reviews by yord

Years ago, I was searching for a surreal film, something vast and strange and incomprehensible that I would struggle to wrap my brain around, when I found Roy Andersson’s dystopian masterpiece. Meticulously photographed and yet minimally directed, with mise-en-scène that would make even Orson Welles jealous, the film tells the story of Kalle, a local businessman who sets fire to his office in an attempt at insurance fraud. His son, whom he loathes, is unreachable—lost in himself and unable to cope with the sadness of the world around him. Or as his father says, “He wrote poetry until he went nuts!” Across the city, a magician accidentally cuts a man in half. A man is fired just before retirement. A swindler tosses his plastic product into a garbage heap, uttering, “Who could ever hope to profit from a crucified loser?” A traffic jam has not moved for days. A board of directors sacrifices a child to turn the markets in their favor, as a last resort. The priests watch on. And the ghosts of the past still wander the streets, as cold and empty as the living. I will close with a quote from Roger Ebert:

”You have never seen a film like this before. You may not enjoy it but you will not forget it.”

Rarely does a film entrance me with the kind of atmosphere and ideas that Tarkovsky’s films do. He is the master of nostalgia, of the great struggles with reality and memory, of morality and selfishness. Can one escape a mistake from the past? How do you possibly learn from a mistake like that while simultaneously putting it behind you and out of your mind? At what point does tragedy lose its impact? In this film, Tarkovsky shows how real these memories can be for people, despite the decades that have passed. Dr. Kelvin is sent on a mission to go to the space station docked at the mysterious planetary object dubbed Solaris, which seems to be having peculiar effects on its inhabitants. Of the team sent there to research the planet's great oceans, only two remain. The rest have either left or succumbed to their ailments, tormented by apparitions conjured by Solaris. But not just any apparitions, these are personal ghosts of the individuals on-board the space station—in fact, the most personal. Kelvin, who never really got over his ex-girlfriend Hari’s suicide, now seems to have a chance to start anew, or at least find some sort of closure in this apparition… but what exactly is it? “It” knows that it is not Hari, that it looks and feels and talks and remembers just like Hari, but it is not human and cannot age and cannot die. There is a memorable scene where Kris Kelvin, stricken by a fever, begins to see Hari everywhere he looks. He cannot imagine ever leaving Hari, nor loving someone like he loves her now. But this is not Hari. Who is Hari? Did he love Hari? If Hari is dead, the only thing left of her is Kelvin’s memory of her, which is what this apparition seems to be… so is she not Hari? Is this apparition part of Kelvin himself? As Kelvin slowly becomes an island of a man, the film wraps up with what is one of the greatest closing shots I’ve seen, cementing itself as a true masterpiece that reveals the emotional and moral power of science fiction.

Being a huge Joss Whedon fan, I went into this knowing I’d like it, even though I hadn’t watched any of the individual superhero’s films. I couldn’t have been more right. I am so happy that the executives at these studios finally bet big on Whedon to carry their well-defined troupe of characters, and that it is paying off. There is nothing Joss handles better than witty, good-hearted bands of misfits, and he makes this a popcorn flick worth the cash. But the real star of this movie is the only actor that wasn’t involved in any of the previous movies: Mark Ruffalo. He excells as Bruce Banner, playing his reserved self so perfectly that we almost forget what monster lives inside him. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of action movies in general, but this one is worth the money to see it on the big screen. No self-affirming speeches, no lofty ideas, no endless plotting—just a straight-up good time.

Director Guillermo del Toro shows us what he has been working on for over a decade in this highly imaginative and visually stunning film, and it does not disappoint. Ofelia’s mother is pregnant but very ill, so they pack up and move to live with her new husband—a brutal Spanish Nazi commander. Things are not going well at the post. They are being attacked by rebels and there is a sense that the Nazi’s promised victory will not be realized. On top of this danger, Ofelia’s new step-father does not like her, and treats her as he would a bastard. This is no place for a child, so when Ofelia is alone, her imagination goes wild. She would much rather spend time in her fantasy because she is important there, and her actions are necessary to cure her mother. It is sometimes hard to watch the hardships she puts herself through, even in her fantasies, but they reveal every human’s need for some sort of control, some sort of cause and effect that they have a hand in. This is not a movie for children. It is tragic, but beautifully so. Del Toro has an eye for the fanciful and is careful not to overdo the CG effects, which is wise. But he is also a great storyteller, and this story is helped immensely by Ivana Baquero who plays Ofelia. You can’t help but put yourself in her perspective, root for her and hope that everything she imagines is real.

Lars von Trier invites his friend and mentor, Jorgen Leth, to participate in a series of exercizes—or Obstructions—in which Leth must re-shoot his best known film, The Perfect Man. With each re-shooting, von Trier introduces a list of rules that Leth must follow, intent on analyzing not the film, but the director behind it. Von Trier sees Leth as The Perfect Man—cool, calm, in control—and he wants to upset that. He wants desperately to get Leth to peer inside himself and see the imperfections, and the weakness that one feels against such nihilistic obstructions (one of which being no shot can be longer than 12 frames). Leth, however, is clearly a gifted director, and he manages to take every painful obstruction and make it work beautifully for his own purposes. He has an insatiable creative drive that is constantly searching for new solutions, new perspectives, and when he comes back from his shoot time after time with a successful film, von Trier starts to realize that Leth is unbreakable. In his nihilistic attempts to force another to view themselves as insignificant, he discovered his own sense of elitism and pettiness, and is humbled once again by his mentor. Any fan of film analysis and production will love this powerful and acutely insightful movie.

I just re-discovered this lost classic ([Link removed - login to see]), and what a wonderful reminiscent trip it was. Each frame was animated by hand with painstaking attention paid to every detail. The style is very distinct, feeling like a mix between modern animations and ancient Persian illustrations. This lends a sort of mature vibe to the whole film, which was Richard Williams’ intent. The Cobbler, who is the main hero in the film, says only three words throughout, and the Thief says not one, yet we can understand them and what they are thinking through their motions, eye movements, and expressions. However, ZigZag, who serves as the main villain, became my favorite character the moment he [Link removed - login to see]. He is simply unforgettable, thanks to the superb voice acting of Vincent Price—rhyming each and every line with a sinister smirk (Ay, Phido?). Richard Williams spent over two decades working on this masterpiece, only to lose creative control over it a year before it was released. Warner Brothers decided it needed some Disney-esque songs and voiceover narrations before they heavily edited it, and then Miramax took a turn with yet another re-edit and even more voiceovers—dubbing their film “Arabian Knight.” Do yourself a favor and watch the [Link removed - login to see]. This is a monument to the achievements of the Golden Age of animators, and it will surely stand the test of time.

Unbelievably complex while at the same time being completely human and nuanced, one can’t help but be immersed in Heavy Rain. Brought to being by the creators of the almost-amazing Indigo Prophecy (worth a playthrough), they have truly shown the power of storytelling through video games. By putting the player in control of the five principal characters, the story inadvertently follows them and it feels more natural, not to mention more visceral when action scenes come. While previous games rely on a simple on-a-rail type storytelling which limits the player in obvious ways, Heavy Rain innovates. It mimics the feel of a game in which there is only one ending, but your actions directly affect the direction that the story goes in—often tragically so. But in order for those tragic events to actually feel like they matter, Quantic Dream had to make you care somehow. This was pulled off in subtle but key scenes, where you strive to make your child laugh, or make eggs for someone, but it was also helped greatly by having very realistic facial renderings and lip-synching technology. The way you had to move the joysticks or press and hold buttons may seem arcade-y, but I thought they were effective in their difficulty and awesomeness in those rare cases that you do it flawlessly. There is some really great voice acting by some key actors, however sometimes I heard native accents that seemed out-of-character. Also, in times of stress, simply navigating to another side of a room is made incredibly difficult by the clunky navigation controls. Those points aside, I still loved every scene and look forward to playing through again with this compelling power I have to shape the story in a way that might be completely different now that I know who the Origami Killer is.

The Duplass Brothers have created a wonderful thing in this moving and earnest film, which on its surface pretends to be a lighthearted comedy about a slacker and his aggressive brother, but becomes something much deeper and even cosmic. Jeff is obsessed with his destiny, frustrated with being stuck in his life and is constantly on the lookout for any signs or paths that may lead to something greater. Others pretend not to understand Jeff, or may not even realize how real their masks of indifference have become to them. But they’ve all got their own goals and their hopes and dreams for something far greater, and they’re putting in effort in order to get there in their own sometimes very strange ways. There are five main actors and actresses—each part they play seems perfectly cast for their strengths, and they all give tremendous performances. Without saying much, I will say the ending is earned and it is the reason I love this picture, as Jeff’s destiny becomes his own.

This film is more of a stylized melodrama about wealth inequality on the whole, but the entire project is elevated by [Link removed - login to see]’s bravura performance. He creates a tragically menacing figure as the character of Baby Face Martin, tragic in that you can see his rough childhood on his now menacing visage. On the run from the law and bitter from the wrongs that society has done to him, he feels a need to harden the boys around his old stomping grounds and becomes the corrupting influence that drives them to crime. All the while, his childhood friend Dave ([Link removed - login to see]) tries to teach them to be kind, forgiving, pillars of the community to help unite the poor and the rich and forge a better life for all—though, Dave realizes, such bitterness is hard to quell.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant. It took a long time for Deus Ex to be knocked off of the #1 spot of my favorites list, but it was worth the wait. Bethesda has crafted a satirical masterpiece, a post-apocalyptic look into a world scorched by nuclear warfare and a world where survival of the fittest is pushed to its very limits.

Liam Neeson, the familiar voice of your father, immediately draws you in and welcomes you into a semi-recognizable future, locked in a steel underground bunker with a semi-functioning society—and then leaves. So begins your quest to leave the safety of this familiar setting and out into the real world, with all of its dangers.

To me, the most interesting thing to see was not the way groups of people managed to stick together and organize themselves in order to survive, but the bureaucracy that formed around them. The federal government still clings to control via robots patrolling the surface, though no one has seen the president nor a functioning government for many months forcing a majority of people to fend for themselves. One town may have a sheriff, another run by slavers. One may secede from the US to form their own Republic, another may secede from humanity and live off human flesh. The kinds of details Bethesda reveals about these settlements makes these outlandish ideas seem eerily plausible.

This immersion grants going out and doing quests much more gravity. You actually want to protect this defenseless town from certain death once you learn they are all sixteen-year-olds expelled from another town by some other bureaucracy. And the pleasures of the V.A.T.S. combat system become all the greater. I love the ease of use and the satisfaction of using V.A.T.S. It’s simple, efficient, balanced, and a great way to improve your strategy by pausing and letting you think about what your next best move will be.

While the main storyline is merely adequate overall, it’s bad that they make the game end by completing it. This game is about exploring and doing what you want. Art imitates life, and Fallout 3 is a masterful example. You—not the designers—you prioritize what you want to do.