Life After Beth

Life After Beth - Dir. Jeff Baena (2014)

Zombies have always worked well as metaphors for hot button issues, such as rampant consumerism or the darker side of humanity. It's not surprising that a few ingenious filmmakers decided to use the zombie apocalypse to deal with romance and relationships. Edgar Wright did it best with Shaun of the Dead while 2013's Warm Bodies had fun with the premise in our post-Twilight era of cinema. Life After Beth mixes the genres of undead horror with young romance, but in a different manner. Whereas Warm Bodies is set years after the fall of civilization and told from the point of view of the handsome zombie boy, Life After Beth takes place just before the outbreak and told from the point of view of the relatively normal Dane DeHaan.

DeHaan is Zach Orfman, whose entire world has been shattered following the death of his girlfriend Beth Slocum (Aubrey Plaza). She died of a rattlesnake bite while hiking in the woods by herself. Zach is hit just as hard by the lingering regrets he feels because Beth was going to break up with him. There were a lot of things he could have done to improve their relationship like going on a hike with her.

Everything changes when Beth returns, alive and well, with no memories of her death or romantic problems with Zach. Her parents, Maury and Geenie (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon) aren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. They're more than content to accept that she's been resurrected though Zach is obviously freaked out. Then, he realizes he's been given a second chance with Beth to do all the things they only talked about. Although, there are little instances that Beth isn't quite right. For example, she has a predilection for sleeping in the attic and listening to smooth jazz. She's also prone to fits of rage and feats of incredible strength. And that skin complexion doesn't look quite right…

Life After Beth was written and directed by Jeff Baena, who also co-wrote David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabee's. There's a similar quirkiness on display in "Beth" with the film set in a heightened version of milquetoast suburbia. The story is almost a prequel to the zombie apocalypse showing the initial return of the dead and their subsequent transformation into a ravenous horde. Baena does an interesting job in setting the parameters of the world, but he never delves further than surface level.

Zach is a blank cipher, a largely reactive protagonist who comes off on the whiny side. Baena hardly gives his supporting characters much beyond what's written on the page and leans heavily on his actors. Luckily, he's cast a wealth of talent accomplished enough to make something out of the one-dimensional denizens of Life After Beth. This includes John C. Reilly, Paul Reiser and Cheryl Hines as Zach's parents, and a throwaway cameo by Garry Marshall. Molly Shannon is pitch perfect as Beth's sweet-natured mom, even maintaining her ultra-sunny disposition after having a hand eaten off. Matthew Gray Gubler is cast against type as Zach's older brother, Kyle, a rent-a-cop with delusions of grandeur and a hard-on for his Desert Eagle .50. Kyle is nothing more than a cartoon thrown into the mix to be quirky for quirky's sake.

Aubrey Plaza is great as Beth, getting a chance to play character outside of her usual sarcastic tone. Anna Kendrick pops in for a handful of scenes as a childhood friend of Zach's. You can't help but imagine the possibilities of a buddy comedy starring Plaza and Kendrick with the former's sardonic humor pitted against the latter's adorable perkiness.

Life After Beth had an intriguing premise with an excellent cast, but never lived up to its potential as a hybrid of horror, comedy, and romance. Unfortunately, the movie decomposed quicker than its title character.

Rating: ** (*****)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Dir. Marc Webb (2014)

I was never against any attempt to reboot the Spider-Man movie franchise. The character has undergone dozens of creative changes since his creation in 1962. However, insufficient time had passed when Sony relaunched the series after Sam Raimi's attempt at Spider-Man 4 fell apart. The memories of Tobey Maguire in the red and blue tights were still fresh in our memories and the reasoning reeked of a desperate bid to keep the rights from reverting back to Marvel. The Amazing Spider-Man was met with mixed reviews, but scored over $750 million worldwide, more than enough to justify a sequel. Not that it mattered; the studio had already greenlit The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Spoilers ahead.

Spoilers Ahead.

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is set to graduate high school and has settled into his role as New York City's favorite webslinger. However, his relationship with girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) hits a bumpy road as Peter remembers her dying father's wish…that he stay away from Gwen to protect her from his enemies. Those enemies are coming out of the woodwork.

Meek Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) is an electrical engineer at OsCorp whose designs were stolen for use in the company's new power plant. He develops an obsession with Spider-Man that turns deadly when he falls into a vat of genetically modified electric eels. He becomes Electro, a being of pure electrical energy bent on revenge. Meanwhile, Peter's best friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) returns to the Big Apple upon news of his father's impending death. Harry learns that he has inherited the same rare disease that has killed his dad and the only hope may lie in Spider-Man's blood. When he refuses to help, Harry is driven to take an experiment serum that mutates him into the Green Goblin.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has so much going for it and equally as much going against it. Many of the action sequences are surprisingly good showing that Marc Webb has grown into the role of a blockbuster director. The film opens in POV as we ride along with Spidey while he swings through the bustling metropolis of Manhattan. The IMAX 3D version feels just like a thrilling rollercoaster ride. This is followed by a fast-paced set piece in which our wall-crawling hero Aleksei Sytsevich aka The Rhino (Paul Giamatti), a Russian gangster who has stolen a shipment of plutonium from OsCorp. Here, Spider-Man is at his best as he breaks out an assortment of acrobatic moves and a steady string of quips. Despite being video game-y, Webb employs Matrix-style bullet time to simulate Spidey Sense as the world slows down while Spider-Man assesses the situation. It's best employed during Electro's attack on Times Square when he saves several citizens from being fried by electrified rails.

Yet, Webb's forte is clearly the smaller, more emotional character moments. These are the scenes where the actors are allowed to shine without being buried by make-up and CGI. While both films have their problems, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone remain beacons of brilliance. No knock on Maguire, but Garfield more closely resembles the Peter Parker of the comics in both body and spirit. He's got the lanky frame and the plucky, nerdy charm necessarily to bring Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's creation to life. Stone effortlessly plays Gwen as a strong and intelligent young woman. Garfield has fantastic chemistry with her and it probably helps that they are also a couple in real life. Their scenes together feel ripped out of a John Hughes movie, especially one in which Peter crosses the street through dangerous NYC traffic to speak with Gwen. There's also a funny bit when the two hide inside a closet, then point out how clichéd it is to hide inside a closet. And nobody told Sally Field she was in a comic book movie. She plays it straight as the doting Aunt May. Field's scenes with Garfield alternate between amusing (an argument about the laundry) and heartbreaking (discussing Peter's dead parents).

Unfortunately, these events are crushed underneath the weight of a bloated script credited to Jeff Pinkner (Lost, Fringe), James Vanderbilt (Zodiac), and the omnipresent duo of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Transformers). Critics complained about Batman Returns having too many villains way back in 1992. I imagine their heads would explode after viewing this sequel. Not only do we have Electro, the Green Goblin, and Rhino, there's also Colm Feore as a duplicitous OsCorp exec, B.J. Novak as Alistair Smythe the future creator of the Spider Slayers, Felicity Jones as Felicia Hardy aka The Black Cat, and Michael Massee as the mysterious Gustav Fiers aka The Gentleman. The filmmakers have also laid the groundwork for future appearances by Dr. Octopus, The Vulture, Kraven the Hunter, Venom. Studios such as Sony, Fox, and WB have fallen in love with the way Marvel has created their shared universe. On the other hand, they lack the patience and the skill to properly build one of their own. They are so enamored with the idea of a Sinister Six movie that they've forgotten about the present. The sequel suffers from the same lack of focus as its predecessor. Subplots are left dangling and footage shown in previous trailers isn't found anywhere in the final cut.

The most egregious example is Shailene Woodley who filmed scenes as Mary Jane Watson only to land on the cutting room floor. Aunt May working as a nurse to put Peter through college never goes anywhere while Jones, Novak, and Chris Cooper in his lone scene as Norman Osborn could have easily been chopped off. The corporate backstabbing angle has already been done in Raimi's Spider-Man and Fantastic Four, not to mention Jamie Foxx's transformation into Electro is painfully reminiscent of Jim Carrey's Riddler in Batman Forever. Therein lays another problem, characters that go from 0 to 100 with no logic or consistency. Garfield and DeHaan are great young actors, but the script doesn't do enough to establish them as best friends. Harry goes insane fairly quickly and that disease seems to hit him remarkably fast. Nobody bothers to ask why Harry doesn't utilize the same procedures his father used to extend his life. And why does Peter Parker, a scientific genius, still need to watch instructional YouTube videos about how batteries work?

At its heart, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a comic book movie and a certain level of silliness is inherent, but that doesn't excuse how dangerously close the picture skirted into camp. We could have done away with Marton Csokas as the cartoonish Dr. Kafka, Peter seeing the ghost of Captain Stacy (Denis Leary) or Electro playing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" with Tesla coils. These goofy elements work to undermine the genuine moments. Too bad the subplots involving Peter's parents (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz) had been edited out as they were in the first Amazing Spider-Man. The sequel opens with a poorly done plane crash depicting Richard and Mary Parker's deaths. It all leads to Peter discovering a secret subway car deep within a hidden underground tunnel containing evidence of OsCorp's dirty deeds. The big revelation is Richard Parker encoded OsCorp's spiders with his own DNA. Thus, Peter was destined to become Spider-Man, which blatantly goes against the very core of the character as an everyman suddenly thrust into the role of a superhero.

And was it absolutely necessary to kill Gwen Stacy? The Death of Gwen Stacy is one of the most heralded storylines in comic book history due to several factors. It was released at a time when killing off major characters was rare as compared to today where publishers use death as a marketing ploy to boost sales numbers. Secondly, when characters were killed back then, they didn't return a year later. For eight years, Gwen was a major part of the Spider-Man mythos and her death still resonates to this day. As wonderful as Emma Stone is, her Gwen hasn't had the opportunity to embed in our consciousness the same way. To their credit, the filmmakers did an excellent job in portraying her death; her body hitting the bottom of the clock tower drew an audible gasp from my audience. However, there was really nothing to be gained by paying lip service to the comic book audience. Why go back to Mary Jane when Stone's Gwen was well on her way to being far more interesting?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 repeats the exact same mistakes that torpedoed Spider-Man 3, an overstuffed script with too many subplots and too many characters.

Rating: ** (*****)

The Place Beyond the Pines

The Place Beyond the Pines - Dir. Derek Cianfrance (2013)

"If you ride like lightning, you're gonna crash like thunder."

Derek Cianfrance debuted as a filmmaker with 1998's Brother Tied, but didn't gain widespread notice until his second feature, "Blue Valentine," an intimate and heartbreaking story of a dissolving marriage. Cianfrance's latest movie, The Place Beyond the Pines, is a much more ambitious effort that re-teams the writer/director with Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling.

Place Beyond the Pines is a generational drama told in three parts about the sins of the father passing on to their sons. The tale begins with an uninterrupted tracking shot of Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), the main attraction at a traveling carnival. Luke and his partners, the Heartthrobs, ride their motorcycles around and around within the confines of a caged sphere, an apt allusion for Luke's vagabond life. That is, until he runs into old flame, Romina (Eva Mendes), and discovers they had a son together. Luke decides to stick around. In his own words, "I wasn't around my dad...look at the way I turned out." However, his job prospects are slim and the only work he can get is fixing cars at a low-rent body shop run by Robin (Ben Mendelsohn, once again cast as a sweaty lowlife). Looking to score some fast cash, Luke and Robin cobble a plan to rob banks with the former hitting hard and fast before escaping on his bike. There, Robin will be waiting with a box truck to scoop up Luke and make their escape.

The second act changes gears as we follow Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a squeaky clean beat cop who crosses paths with Luke, now dubbed the 'Moto-Bandit.' Avery's newfound notoriety catches the eye of veteran detective Peter Deluca (Ray Liotta). Soon, Avery finds himself in a dirty world where he's forced to take payoffs and steal evidence from police lockup. The story leaps forward fifteen years in the third act to focus on Jason (Dane DeHaan) and AJ (Emory Cohen), the respective sons of Luke and Avery. Jason has a lot of questions about the father he never knew while AJ feels ignored by his dad, who is in the running for New York's Attorney General. The two become friends not knowing the improbable connection they share.

Cianfrance announces his bold vision for Place Beyond the Pines right from the beginning with that memorable tracking shot courtesy of DP Sean Bobbitt, who also shot similar sequences for Steve McQueen on Hunger and Shame. Gosling commands attention with every scene he's in, despite the fact that he plays a slight variation of the taciturn loner seen in Drive. Gosling's smoldering charisma is so undeniable that the film suffers when he disappears. This is no slight on Bradley Cooper, but his character isn't nearly as interesting and his travails are fairly formulaic. The movie does improve in the third act with the arrival of Dane DeHaan, who bares more than a resemblance to a young Leonardo DiCaprio. DeHaan has quickly established himself as one of Hollywood's top newcomers due to his work on Lawless and Chronicle. His performance here is strong and carries the final section of Pines while Cohen overplays his hand with a thick Long Island accent. Eva Mendes is also terrific as the glammed down Romina. Well, at least as glammed down as Eva Mendes can get.

The Place Beyond the Pines is an uneven effort by Derek Cianfrance, but the writer/director has nothing to be ashamed about. There's a melancholy lyricism to the movie, which is handsomely shot and littered with emotional performances and naturalistic dialogue.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

Lawless

Lawless - Dir. John Hillcoat (2012)

One of my most anticipated films of 2012 was Lawless, based solely on the strength of director John Hillcoat's last two pictures, The Proposition and The Road. Closest in spirit to the former, Lawless is a Prohibition-era Western adapted from The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant, a descendent of the protagonists. The script was adapted by rock star and screenwriter Nick Cave.

The story is set in Franklin County, Virginia, where the hills are alive with the sound of moonshine stills. Bootleg liquor has become a lucrative business, especially for the Bondurant Brothers, who run booze out of their diner/gas station. Forrest (Tom Hardy) is nominally the leader, feared and respected for his legendary toughness. Howard (Jason Clarke) is a volatile war veteran. Then, there's the runt of the litter, Jack (Shia LaBeouf). The youngest of the Bondurant clan, Jack wants to become a bigger part of the operation, but is relegated to being a glorified delivery boy. He impresses his brothers when he lands a deal with feared Chicago gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman). The Bondurants are flush with cash. Jack finds himself in fancy new duds, fast cars, and romancing the town preacher's chaste daughter Bertha (Mia Wasikowska).

The good times come to an end with the arrival of a big city prosecutor, who is more interested in getting a cut of the profits than throwing criminals in jail. Anyone who doesn't fall in line answers to his enforcer, a brutal special deputy named Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce).

The story of Lawless unfolds through wildly divergent tones, which may be disconcerting to some, but plays into the dichotomy of the characters. Despite a frightening capacity for brutality, it is an absolute last resort for Forrest, who believes the bonds of family are most important. His credo, "It’s not the violence that sets a man apart, it's the distance he's prepared to go." There are scenes of extreme violence, such as a character getting his throat slit and a castration. In between there are tender moments in Jack's sweet courting of Bertha and surprisingly funny scenes. At one point, Jack and his sidekick, Cricket (Dane DeHaan) refuel their rundown truck with a jar of moonshine.

Forrest Bondurant isn't too dissimilar from Bane as both see Tom Hardy cut an imposing figure with a barely discernible voice. He speaks with a deep mumble and commands attention in each of his scenes. Shia LaBeouf stars in his usual plucky underdog role while Jason Clarke's Howard is hardly given any screen time to develop. The same goes for Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain as a former big city girl with an eye for Forrest. Both are great actresses and the make the most out of roles that are sadly underwritten.  Meanwhile, Gary Oldman's part amounts to a cameo though he's excellent for the little time he's around. The spotlight of Lawless belongs to Guy Pearce in an eccentric and chilling turn as a dastardly dandy, bordering on Dick Tracy villain. Clad in a dandy suit with slicked hair parted in the middle and dress gloves, Rakes stands as a stark contrast to the earthy country folk. And, for some reason, he has no eyebrows.

Adding to the atmosphere is an O Brother, Where Art Thou-esque soundtrack of bluegrass tunes put together by Cave and composer Warren Ellis with vocals by Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris. Rather than choosing 1930's standards, they go anachronistic with an original tune, "Midnight Run," by Willie Nelson and a montage set to a cover of Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat."

Lawless might not match up to The Proposition, but it is a solid period piece with delicious mix of action and drama.

Rating; *** (*****)

Chronicle

Chronicle - Dir. Josh Trank (2012)

With great power comes great responsibility. That was the lesson taught to Peter Parker and generations of comic book fans. Peter has a lot in common with Andrew Detmer, the lead character of Chronicle, as played by Dane DeHaan, an actor who closely resembles a young Leonardo DiCaprio. Both Andrew and Peter are lanky, socially awkward teens and suffered torment at the hands of high school bullies. Peter, at least, had a strong upbringing thanks to his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, who instilled in him a strong moral code. Sadly for Andrew, he did not have the same support system.

The shy and sensitive Andrew lives with a bed-ridden mother (Bo Petersen), who is slowly dying of cancer, and an alcoholic and abusive father (Michael Kelly), a former firefighter collecting disability. Andrew makes a new habit of carrying a camera everywhere he goes, recording his life at home and at school. His only friend is his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell). He's everything Andrew isn't. Confident and outgoing, Matt enjoys discussing Plato, Schopenhauer, and Jung. He invites a reluctant Andrew to a party where they meet up with Steve (Michael B. Jordan), the star quarterback who's running for class president. Together, they explore a pit in the woods where they discover a strange, glowing object.

Next thing you know, the three lads have been gifted with telekinetic powers. Do they fight for truth, justice, and the American way? No, they do what any teenagers would do if they were given extraordinary abilities. They pull pranks on each other and unsuspecting citizens at the shopping mall. They spook a little girl at the toy store with floating stuffed animals and knock one poor guy into a rack of groceries. There's even a Scott Baio in Zapped! moment when they lift the skirts of a group of pretty girls. Just when you think Chronicle is just Jackass with superpowers, things turn down a darker path as Andrew's mom gets sicker and his father gets angrier.

Chronicle marks the feature directorial debut of Josh Trank, who co-wrote the screenplay with Max Landis, son of John Landis, the director behind comedy classics like The Blues Brothers and Animal House. It's a fresh take on both the superhero film and found footage genre. The 1980 cult classic, Cannibal Holocaust, pioneered found footage, but it was The Blair Witch Project that really brought it to the forefront. The genre has exploded in recent years due to the immediacy of information in the YouTube era. It makes sense for Andrew to carry a camera everywhere he goes. The camera itself acts as a barrier between Andrew and the world around him, a point needlessly spelled out by one of the characters. At its best moments, the concept allows Trank to place the audience directly in Andrew's point of view as we witness the highs and lows of his life, from the heartbreaking cruelties at the hands of bullies to the invigorating freedom when the boys learn how to fly. Indeed, the flight sequences in Chronicle are some of the most captivating since Christopher Reeve first made you believe a man could fly. Even better, Trank isn't beholden to the conceit that the character must always be holding the camera at eye level no matter what ala Cloverfield. Thus, Chronicle isn't rife with queasy, shaky cam shots because the characters can simply float the camera at a convenient angle with their powers.

The question remains did Chronicle need to be done as a found footage movie? Not really. Trank mixes in black and white surveillance footage and news camera footage when he can to maintain the concept. Matt romances a pretty blonde (Ashley Hinshaw), who is a video blogger, allowing Trank to cut back and forth during their conversations. These scenes tend to draw too much attention to the genre's conventions and don't help the story. There are still places where it makes no sense for the camera to be recording. Andrew's dad berates his son for wasting money on an expensive camera, but still keeps it running? Although, you could argue Andrew switched it back on either consciously or unconsciously.

Luckily, the film is so well made and compelling that these minor quibbles do not diminish the overall experience. It's remarkable that Chronicle was made on a budget of only $12 million as the special effects are more convincing and the action more visceral than films made with tens times as much. Chronicle builds and builds towards a climactic confrontation at the top of the Space Needle before turning downtown Seattle into a war zone. The chaos and destruction harkens back to the drive-in sci-fi classics of yesteryear.

Chronicle turns out to be an origin story, but you'll walk out of the theater satisfied and craving more, instead of feeling ripped off at having only watched an extended first act. This is the debut of a filmmaker with great potential. Rumors instantly popped up that Trank would direct Fox's reboot of Fantastic Four, but they were quickly shot down. A shame since Trank can clearly bring a unique voice to the staid formula. There's a sly deconstruction of the superhero at work here evidenced by a scene where Andrew tortures a spider and plucks its legs off with a mere look.

Chronicle is the best non-comic book, comic book movie since Unbreakable.

Rating: *** (*****)