Review: Fun "Piranha" Paints the Town Red

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 7 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

Piranha (2010)
Running time: 88 minutes (1 hour, 28 minutes)
MPAA – R for sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language and some drug use
DIRECTOR: Alexandre Aja
WRITERS: Peter Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg
PRODUCERS: Alexandre Aja, Mark Canton, Grégory Levasseur, and Marc Toberoff
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John R. Leonetti
EDITOR: Baxter

HORROR/COMEDY/THRILLER

Starring: Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr, Adam Scott, Jerry O’Connell, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele, Christopher Lloyd, Eli Roth, Brooklynn Proulx, Sage Ryan, and Richard Dreyfuss

It was called “Piranha 3D” when it was released last summer, but Piranha, the latest film from horror movie director, Alexandre Aja, is a remake. In 1978, director Joe Dante unleashed a campy horror flick entitled Piranha that was a spoof of Steve Spielberg’s Jaws. I didn’t see the new film in 3D, but I doubt I would have liked it more if I had seen it in 3D instead of the way I did – regular D on DVD.

It’s Spring Break on Lake Victoria in Arizona. Scantily clad girls are shaking their melon-like ta-ta’s, swinging their curvy hips, and bouncing their ample asses. Strangely, as healthy as the girls look, the guys are scrawny, but they will still provide good meat for the waterborne death soon to come.

Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) has her hands full trying to maintain order with an influx of rowdy college students. What she doesn’t know is that a small earthquake has split open the floor of Lake Victoria. From that chasm, a school of piranha has emerged from a subterranean lake. Sheriff Forester’s son, Jake (Steven R. McQueen), envies the fun everyone has while he has to baby sit his younger sister, Laura (Brooklyn Proulx), and younger brother, Zane (Sage Ryan). Fate has other plans for Jake, his family, his friends, and the visitors to Lake Victoria. The piranha are about to turn the lake into a bloody, killing field.

After the first 20 minutes or so of Piranha, I wanted everybody to die (even the two Forester children) because the movie seemed like it was going to be a disaster. By the time the piranhas really begin their killing spree, I was cheering this movie on and fretting over the fact that, at 88 minutes long, the movie would be over fairly quickly. As far as filmmaking merit goes, Piranha is trash, but as a horror movie willing to deliver bloody mayhem, it is pretty successful.

As a comic horror movie, Piranha is also winning, which isn’t all that common among films that mix comedy and horror. Director Alexandre Aja and his writers take the Spring Break movie set on the water and the wall-to-wall gore of a George Romero zombie movie and mix them into a death-by-trauma spectacular. There is so much blood in this movie that it often looks as if someone set off a cherry jello dirty bomb. The underwater shots of piranha pulling eyeballs out of sockets and stripping off flesh like pulled pork thrilled me – with my gleeful laughing as my own personal soundtrack.

Some viewers will consider Piranha a guilty pleasure. Others will wish more horror comedies could deliver the bloody goods the way Piranha does.

5 of 10
B-

Friday, January 21, 2011

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Eastwood + Beyonce May Equal "A Star is Born" Remake

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Clint Eastwood is in talks with Warner Bros. to direct a remake of the musical, A Star is Born, and Beyoncé is in negotiations to star.  Deadline first reported the story, and Warner has confirmed it.  The article at EW.com has a few more details.

The original A Star is Born was a 1937 romance and drama starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March.  The best known and perhaps most popular version is the 1954 musical directed by George Cukor and starring Judy Garland and James Mason.  In 1976, the story was retold with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, which is apparently the most successful version at the box office.

If you visit the EW article, please read the comments section which is filled with the general moron-arama that is practically every Internet comment section.  So many seem up in arms about Beyonce ruining a classic and expressing dismay that the great Clint Eastwood would dirty himself by directing a no-talent like Beyonce.

I imagine that quite a bit of the complaints center around the fact that this possible Eastwood/Beyonce version mainly offends fans of the 1954 Garland version.  So all the (drama) queens are out in force to protect Garland.  Beyonce may not have 1/10th the talent that Garland had (as one wag put it), but nor is she 1/10th the pill-popper Garland was (Why did I go there, Lord?).  I think Beyonce is quite a talent and quite a star and doesn't need to measure herself against a woman who was dead long before Beyonce was born.

If all it takes is a Beyonce version of A Star is Born to ruin the Garland film then Garland's wasn't shit to begin with.  The simple fact is that A Star is Born is the intellectual property of a hugh corporation that can be exploited whenever the owners see fit and however they see fit.  The only one that can force you to see a new version is yourself, although I'm sure some people will see it just to complain about it.

I'll update when I get more information.

Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy Cast in "The Dark Knight Rises"

As I promised, here, is The Dark Knight Rises press release:

Warner Bros. Pictures Announces Anne Hathaway for Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises”

BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Warner Bros. Pictures announced today that Anne Hathaway has been cast as Selina Kyle in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” She will be starring alongside Christian Bale, who returns in the title role of Bruce Wayne/Batman.

Christopher Nolan stated, “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Anne Hathaway, who will be a fantastic addition to our ensemble as we complete our story.”

In addition, Tom Hardy has been set to play Bane. Nolan said, “I am delighted to be working with Tom again and excited to watch him bring to life our new interpretation of one of Batman’s most formidable enemies.”

Nolan will direct the film from a screenplay he wrote with Jonathan Nolan, from a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer. Nolan will also produce the film with his longtime producing partner, Emma Thomas, and Charles Roven.

“The Dark Knight Rises” is slated for release on July 20, 2012. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Review: Blue Velvet (Happy B'day, David Lynch)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 77 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Blue Velvet (1986)
Running time: 120 minutes (2 hours)
MPAA – R
WRITER/DIRECTOR: David Lynch
PRODUCER: Fred Caruso
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Frederick Elmes (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Duwayne Dunham
COMPOSER: Angelo Badalamenti
Academy Award nominee

CRIME/DRAMA/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, George Dickerson, Priscilla Pointer, Jack Harvey, Brad Dourif, Hope Lange, and Dean Stockwell

By the late 1980’s, David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet was a trendy, cult favorite at the university I attended. One associate told me quite flatly that he really couldn’t tell me what the story was about, but that he liked the movie because “you were supposed to like it.” Apparently Woody Allen liked it so much that when he and Lynch were two of the 1986 Oscar nominees for Best Director, he asked Orion, his studio at that time, not to create an ad campaign to support his chances (for the film Hannah and Her Sisters) in competition against Lynch. Allen really believed that Lynch should win. Blue Velvet is not that good.

Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) is home from college because of his father’s illness. While taking a walk on a back road, he discovers a severed ear, which piques his curiosity. He makes a connection to the ear with a troubled and enigmatic singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). Jeffrey becomes obsessed with Dorothy at the same time he’s chasing Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), a high school girl he has become sweet on. As he digs deeper into the mystery, he discovers a bizarre and dark underworld of drugs and murder beneath the façade of his hometown Lumberton, USA, not the least of which is Dorothy’s sicko paramour, Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

At this point in his development as a surrealist, David Lynch was formulating his visual style, but the narrative style that would make the connection between him and his audience was still in the tinkering stage. The story of Blue Velvet is a noir-ish tale of criminals, damsels in distress, girlfriends, crooked cops, and the steady lawman, but these elements are mostly window dressing for the director’s pictorial staging. Out of the story we may get the idea that there is something dark, wet, and nasty behind the white picket fences of small town America/suburbia, but that idea has been done to death, even in 1986. There is usually something kinda brown and squishy behind every pretty façade.

There are a lot of good moments and characters in Blue Velvet. Some of it will make you laugh, and some of it is quite imaginative, as well as shocking. It’s fun to watch Lynch go through the process of staging everything and creating his visual shorthand for his brand of storytelling. However, in the end, this is a baby step towards what he would do in the future. It’s like Martin Scorcese’s Mean Streets in the sense that this is the shape of things to come, or at least the mold for Lynch’s future films.

I heartily recommend it to people who like to watch movies, not just for the sake of watching movies, but who particularly enjoy this form of storytelling for what only it can do. Blue Velvet is special, and because of the way that it tells its tale, it could only be a movie, so you have to watch it to experience it, warts and all.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
1987 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Director” (David Lynch)

1987 Golden Globes: 2 nominations: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Dennis Hopper) and “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (David Lynch)

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Anne Hathaway is Selina Kyle in "The Dark Knight Rises"

There is apparently a press release from Warner Bros. Pictures going around that announces the villains for next year's Batman flick, "The Dark Knight Rises" (July 20, 2012).  Anne Hathaway will play Seline Kyle who is Catwoman.  Apparently, the press release doesn't specifically call Kyle Catwoman.

The press release also announces that Tom Hardy will play the villian, Bane.  In the comic books, Bane is the monstrously muscular behemoth who once broke Batman's back.  Empire Online has more details.  I'll post the press release when I can find an official copy.

Review: Gritty "True Grit" Offers Great Characters and Superb Performances

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 6 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

True Grit (2010)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some intense sequences of western violence including disturbing images
DIRECTORS: The Coen Brothers
WRITERS: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (based upon the novel by Charles Portis)
PRODUCERS: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, and Scott Rudin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Roger Deakins (D.o.P.)
EDITORS: Roderick Jaynes (Ethan Coen and Joel Coen)
COMPOSER: Carter Burwell

WESTERN/ADVENTURE/DRAMA

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Candyce Hinkle, Roy Lee Jones, Orlando Smart, and Ed Corbin

The latest film from the Coen Bros. (Joel and Ethan) is the Western, True Grit. It is the second film adaptation of the 1968 Charles Portis novel, True Grit; the first was a 1969 film starring John Wayne. True Grit is the story of a stubborn young woman who convinces a tough U.S. Marshal to help her find her father’s murderer.

After her father is murdered by one of his hired hands, a man named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) arrives in a small town to collect her father’s body and get his killer. She attempts to hire U.S. Marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track Chaney into Indian country where he is hiding with a gang of criminals. Mattie tells Cogburn that she chose him because he has “true grit,” but that isn’t enough to convince Cogburn to take the job. When he does accept the offer, Cogburn decides to take a vain Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), with him instead of Mattie. But the young woman is about to show them both that she also has “true grit.”

As they do in all their movies, Joel and Ethan Coen get great performances from their actors. Jeff Bridges gives so many layers to Rooster Cogburn (the role John Wayne played in the 1969 film). The viewer will spend the entire movie peeling those layers back and still not have the whole story on this character that Bridges makes so real. Although LaBoeuf isn’t quite as interesting as Rooster, Matt Damon shows his true grit by making a vain chatterbox and (at best) semi-competent lawman/nincompoop a character that I wish was onscreen more.

Yes, the praise that newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, as Mattie, has received for her performance in this film is not mere hype. She’s a natural, and she makes this movie as much as anyone else does – including the Coen Bros.

The one glaring weakness that keeps True Grit from being a truly great film is how the filmmakers treat the villains. There is potential in Josh Brolin’s Tom Chaney and especially in Barry Pepper’s “Lucky” Ned Pepper, but both are hardly ever on screen. The film spends so much time showing us the tremendous work of Bridges, Steinfeld, and Damon and their characters that everyone else gets shorted.

There isn’t anything really profound about True Grit, except this tidbit at the end: time catches up with everyone. This film is really not about ideas. True Grit, even with the performances at its heart, is a Coen Brothers film. This is about how they do it – their style, their rhythms, their quirks, their directorial trademarks and flourishes. That’s not a bad thing simply because Joel and Ethan Coen do their thang so well.

8 of 10
A

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

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Halle Berry Declines Aretha Role

Recently, I posted about Aretha Franklin stating that Halle Berry would play her in a film about the Queen of Soul's life.  More recently at the Golden Globes, Berry politely declined.  Shadow and Act has the story and some opinion.