The Lone Ranger (2013)

I don't even know where to start. I could do it with the five negative reviews I've read to find out why the bashing for this movie, asking myself if it's sabotage against Disney's superproductions that try something else than what already worked with the public (= pirates series and reboot to pirates series), or is just pure dumbness and flock behavior from the critics. Getting more into this would transform though this entry in one directly attacking others, by taking line by line what's written here and there and proving how shallow or hypocrite it is, and the result would be probably extremely boring and won't make any justice for "The Lone Ranger".

Don't take it the wrong way. If I'm looking at my entries, is most often the case that I'm in the line with the ranking on pretty much every site. So, it's not a general opinion, but I see that I'm stumbling more and more often on cases (as "Gravity" recently) when I'm actually astonished by how consistently is either appreciated or bashed a movie which is clearly far from the pole of value where the "experts" placed it. Ok, I'm outraged, I assume it's already clear :) .. Let me try to say something more useful for the de facto subject of the current entry ... First, this is not a movie to be taken as a standard western. Gore Verbinski's option for "Lone Ranger" is so "westernish" in the classic sense as it's "Rango" to "quote" from the same director's CV. It's clear from the first minutes that this movie doesn't take itself seriously, even more that's actually trying at least a bit some irony or satire on the genre. And it's probably sufficiently stylish and discrete to be completely missed by who was waiting a product that mandatory should've been a mix between John Ford and Sergio Leone and nothing else.

The story is simple. I don't want to give too much. The Lone Ranger, a pacifist attorney disappointed by the helpless attempts to enforce justice by the book in the wild west, and .. let's say his pal, Tonto, an indian who's a bit "gone" in this version, have some score to settle with a series of bad guys, more bad guys and very bad guys. That's one of the major issues of the movie by some. If there is more than a villain, already the critics' neurons start to get confused. Even worse, if the bad guys are gradually introduced instead of having a simple long fight from start to end with a precise target, it's already too much story (although honestly, you have to be naive not to get from start who's the mastermind, but well, those neurons ...). Yup, the movie is long. It has two hours and a half. And yes, the story is short. But wow, there is a story, not just some 10 minutes long explosions linked by dumb scripted lines a la Michael Bay. Ok, we have some secondary threads which are a bit more than necessary, but they still connect somehow with the story. The script is, again, quite discrete in some nuances, with a dark to grim tone here and there to tell you that "life in the wild west was wild indeed", and some surreal scenes thrown from time to time (very nicely integrated, but that's more a matter of taste). All these aren't doing anything else than underlining again, clearly, for who has eyes to see, that what's given to the viewer is a story, a fairytale, not a western.

Technically, the movie is superb. I hope I'm not mistaking and there's a version I don't know about, but what I've seen is the perfect example that you can live without 3D (I'm wondering if this is one of the hidden reasons for which it took the bashing, but I already start to feel that I'm generating a conspiracy theory). The camera work is above everything I've seen in a movie with some solid action since long ago. I don't even know what other comparable example to give. The scenes are shot in such a way that, in 2D, to give you an intense feeling of movement in space. I'm not even getting into filters and light, but that's something I'm used with from Verbinski since I've seen "The Ring". I don't know though how much is his touch or the cinematographer's, Bojan Bazelli. Getting to the audio area, I'm trying to convince myself lately that Hans Zimmer starts to get overrated for the last scores he did, but apparently I'm again wrong. It's indeed a soundtrack that reuses stuff, with clear influences from Morricone, and of course an arrangement for the Wilhelm Tell overture, but it fits so well the scenes where it's played that I can't say anything bad about it.

To give an example of another movie that gets slightly closer as feeling, probably the best one is "The Mask of Zorro" from '98 with Banderas. Not that much because it's another masked hero, but more for the comical element and the deviation from the standard western. Something else .. it's the type of movie that you should take as an exit from the real life, and enjoy the story as much as you can = a reason for I really don't see a problem with the length. It's not a story to put your mind at work, but also not one to make you roll your eyes at each overly dumb line you hear, or to give you ideas to check your watch for timing the action scenes because you're anyway bored of them and that's the best option you have. It is though a story witty and nice enough to keep you there. Maybe it's not "Star Wars", "Indiana Jones", "Back to the Future" or "Neverending Story". Neither "Prince of Persia" or "John Carter" didn't get there, but I hope that Disney will keep releasing such critic failures, even though it ends up losing money with them. Because besides these, the surprising exception "Pacific Rim", and obviously "Star Trek", I don't remember any other blockbuster in the last years to leave me at the end with the same feeling of "my brain got trapped in a story for the last hours, and it was nice ;)".

Rating: 5 out of 5 (to make some justice that I let myself influenced by the rating and I didn't see the movie in cinema, and it deserves that)

Ravenous (1999)

Considering that I'm writing about the movie based on some far memories, I don't know how much I'll miss or not, and forgive please the (probably) chaotic order of the following. I hope I'll catch the essence though, since I've seen the movie around seven times throughout the last 13 years. Also, during this time I reached the conclusion that's a movie which either you like a lot, or not at all. I don't know if I've met somebody to tell me that it was "so and so", and if I would count the opinions for the plus and minus sides, they're probably evenly split. It's a horror, but with a less touched subject - cannibalism - handled in a context and in a way which maybe surprisingly make the topic more "digestible" :) (no pun intended). Because the movie goes a bit more far in essence getting beyond the surface theme. It starts that with the intro taken from Nietzsche "He who fights with monsters must be careful not to become one" which, ironically, probably remains the only part connected to his philosophical ideas that's not attacked by the movie. I actually should give credit for this insight to some blog entry I've read once, I don't know where, that was debating in detail the subject "Nietzsche vs. Ravenous" :). Because the movie, besides the horror nuance it's a fine satire on the human condition, and more specifically targeting the importance of life. Probably it doesn't say much what I've written until now, but I hope at least I managed to generate some curiosity to who's reading, so let me drop a couple words also on the subject itself ;) ...

The action is set at some point in the middle of the 19th century. Following the "bravery" shown during the Mexican-American war - to be read: hiding under a pile of corpses, and managing to victoriously survive an impossible situation - John Boyd (Guy Pearce) avoids getting sentenced for deserting by being advanced to captain and getting sent to fill up the army personnel detached on an isolated fort, somewhere in the mountains before a passage to California. So, with a moral like it would've been better to get killed in battle, he joins the group of seven inhabitants at the place - 5 army members and 2 civilians, each weirder than the other. During a cold winter night the fort's "calmness" is disturbed by a guy who's more dead than alive (Robert Carlyle), frozen, who after getting on his feet starts telling a grim story. So, we find out about a trip to California ended badly by getting lost in mountains, and topped by the hunger effects on the travelers group. Our frozen guy apparently escaped before getting to be the main course during the next dinner. The rest of the story, in the movie ;) ...

Besides the acting, which is superb in building up the characters, something to be noticed in the movie is the soundtrack - Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman, which is probably one of the best and in the same time interesting scores ever made for a horror. I would even say it's on par with the masterpiece you can hear in Hitchcock's "Psycho", although the effect it creates is totally different. Hard to describe, you need to see and hear it.

The horror nuance is probably given, besides the general dark theme, by the bloody scenes, which are plenty, but we don't have anything extreme (as in "Saw" to give the "classic" example). At least for me it's not a movie to generate nightmares or to make you jump from the chair. More, the satire and the comic (even dark and grim as it is) relax the movie almost completely in respect to the "terror effect". Besides that, as I was saying, the movie's idea is a bit deeper and revolves around the motivation for living (or the lack of it), the price for that, and why paying it. I'll refrain from getting into philosophy right now, especially since I don't have the movie very fresh in my head, but it's not a title to take easy just as entertainment. In particular, there are plenty of details, from the used symbolism to lines lost in the context when you see it first, but which you might discover at a second view. As example, the fort commander breaks nuts with some books (I guess) in the beginning of the movie and with his bare hands in the end. This is just something going on in parallel with some conversation carried. The sense connects with the character state and also with some lines at those given points in the timeline, and I don't think you'll normally get the nuts detail from the 1st viewing. There are more like this one. I don't know how much is from the script (Ted Griffin) but the directing by Antonia Bird was flawless. It's the only movie I've seen by her, and since I've found out that she recently passed away, I felt the need to give some credit for who, at least for me, gave the best horror of the '90s. For the reader .. you might hate it, you might love it, I don't know ;)

Rating: 5 out of 5

A soundtrack sample, on movie scenes ( or 4 minutes compressing all the bloody moments :) ) ..
The final scene (Warning ! = major spoiler, but it's the best clip quality wise that I found, although it doesn't catch much from the merits of this movie) ..
And a perspective on the movie from when was done by the people involved (unfortunately embedding disabled, so you need one more click) ..

Gravity (2013)

I had high expectations for "Gravity". Probably too high, and probably that's what generated the final verdict. To which I want to get as fast as possible, so ...

What you see in the trailer is already something like a third of the movie. I'll try to refrain from telling the ending, but I cannot keep out the fact that the movie is not a SciFi. Or at least the Fi in SciFi is missing. It's a "disaster-movie", as "Volcano", "Daylight", "The Day After Tomorrow", etc, .. although I guess some of these are actually "SciFi" compared to "Gravity" (not in the good sense if the quotes aren't clear enough). What's ok in "Gravity" is that it has a very original idea for a disaster movie. What's not ok is that's not clear at all about what it is and that it wants to be more. Let's start with the not clear part. To be fair, the trailer doesn't promise anything extra besides an accident is space, with two surviving astronauts who (probably) will try to find a way back to Earth. But it definitely leaves you hope for more than that. If you also do a quick check-up on IMDb, you avoid to read the full plot when you notice the gigantic rating (because well .. you don't want a spoiler for the "best movie of the year") but you see by chance a character named Aningaaq, and obviously the genre listed as SciFi, you really get to expect something more than just "survive in space". Well, let's say that I'm just subjective and I shouldn't judge the movie based on getting frustrated for not receiving what I hoped for. Fair enough. But it was something more - the movie wants to be more than it is ...

Let's say that if it would have been somewhere close to the level it attempts, I could look at it as to "Life of Pi" in space. After all, "Life of Pi" is still sort of a disaster-movie if we strictly consider the topic. But it's impossible to look at it like this considering the depth and complexity of the story. Another "spoiler" - in "Gravity" we don't have a "tiger". I'll let this to be read between the lines, who's not able to get it probably was profoundly impressed by the depth of space thinking that's it's something else than just the depth of space. Because it's not, not in this movie. Everything's at the surface. I'm fine with a dumb action movie which doesn't try to seem intelligent and is just meant to relax your brain, I'm fine with a thriller or a well built drama which doesn't want to give birth to some existential questions but it's still clever enough to appreciate it, I'm fine with a SciFi that wants to be deep and manages to get there leaving you to find something in it that's outside the written script. I can appreciate a movie that fits anywhere in these areas and even more. What's annoying is a production that throws frequently in my face a message of "look what (else) I want to tell you; it's right here between these two lines; let me draw another line for you just to be sure you see it; the same color as the other two ? sorry I don't have another pen" - you get sacrifice, you get the desperation of solitude, the will to move forward, you get many others .. So what ? It has the same effect as the line that I've just written. Zero = a simple enumeration that I have in front of me, from which I can't choose something specifically because everything is on par with everything. You want to impress, let me discover something on my own, and not too many at once, otherwise it transforms into a soap bubble meant to generate a storm of feelings for somebody easily impressed. But who, after probably no more than a day, won't remember exactly what was so impressive.

Maybe I'm too harsh, but I'm really in the "right mood" for it. Let me try ending though in a positive note. The effects and the cinematography are gorgeous. It confirms me again, after "Tree of Life", that Emmanuel Lubezki is probably too under appreciated, being clearly in the range of the top cinematographers in Hollywood, with a pretty well defined style, after Richardson, Deakins, Kaminski and others. Again, the subject is an original one for this genre (where genre, again = "disaster-movie" and not SciFi), and for this genre it also has a proper length. It's short enough to avoid getting you bored, although it's a movie without much content (I'm afraid though that keeping you connected is also due to the wait to get something that doesn't come). The soundtrack is nice, though not very impressive. Something else .. I don't know. For a SciFi in the "lost in space" range, which is actually a SciFi, and also carries a more .. decided message, covered by a thriller nuance, to get your neurons working a bit to find it, I'll stick to "Sunshine" by Danny Boyle. Which I, warmly, recommend ;)

Rating: 3 out of 5

Prisoners (2013)

It seems that the season of releases targeting next year's awards has started. Maybe it would be better not to provoke though "the cinema karma", or whatever sets the chance to get a good movie more often then once every two months. So, getting to the point, "Prisoners" enters the same set of recommendations I can make for what this fall has brought, after "Blue Jasmine" and "Rush". Let's see why ...

I can place the movie in the "serial killer thrillers" niche, with the difference that instead of killer we have a kidnapper .. or at least this is what the trailer gives to you. Trailer which probably contributed a lot (by contrast) to my final opinion. It's made in such a way that seems to serve you the full story and it doesn't promise much else in the movie = my expectations were so reduced that I almost skipped it. Well .. eventually I've been convinced to watch the movie by the surprisingly high ratings I noticed in some reviews. So, what's "advertised" shows us two families living in some US town suburbs who end celebrating Thanksgiving with less members than when started. More precisely the youngest daughters disappear. The police captures quite fast a presumed suspect seen wandering around in a RV, but no trace of the two girls is found in the vehicle, and as an extra bonus for the investigation the guy is a young retarded individual who is not able to communicate much. So, he eventually is released, fact that leads one of the parents to take charge and make his own law. And like this we're getting into another kidnapping, the presumed suspect being sequestrated for "proper interrogation". The other father is also brought into this, although more reluctant but in the end cooperating under the pressure of time passing + no info about the kids. That's pretty much what you get in the trailer. The movie is long though - two hours and a half - so it must be something extra there :) ...

I have to admit that the first half has some lengths, and the development is overall pretty slow. However, when you reach the conclusion that: ok, I'm looking at a decent movie but the story was clear before the first frame, a scene or even a single line hits you. In such way that you don't know what to think anymore. Probably not strong enough to change what you expect, especially since the movie tends to get back to the same story line. But is still enough to realize afterwards that "everything makes sense" and probably you're far from being a contemporary Sherlock Holmes since you ignored a ton of details given to you, choosing instead the ending before it happened. I'll limit myself to a "light spoiler": in the first phase of the investigation, a series of guys with some background in children molesting are questioned. In the case of an alcoholic priest the things get a bit more far, his basement holding the remains of a corpse rotten there years ago. The quick way of how all this is delivered to the viewer, makes you take it as a secondary thread which seems to be there just to show how creepy can be the neighbor across the road. Well ... (trust me, is just a light spoiler, I didn't even get into the heavy stuff).

What I want to say, and I don't know if I was clear enough, is that the movie plays with your mind. And it does it in a way that, at least in my case, made me to consider the script as one of the most clever written I've seen for a thriller since long ago. If you just analyze a bit the title - "Prisoners" - after the movie, it gets a newer sense than in the beginning, or in the middle. I don't know what other movie I could reference as comparable. I could say "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" but there is more the "exotic" character as effect than the story twists. "Seven" would be another example, but I barely remember it. Well ..

Since I referenced the above titles, I should say something about the rough scenes in the movie. You have to expect some, visually, but mostly psychologically. Honestly, the bloodiest scene seemed more tolerable than others where you don't have any red in your sight. It's not violence for free though. It has its place in the context (I don't want to imagine an Asian version of the story, especially considering that not so long ago I wrote about "I Saw the Devil"). It is however well fragmented to make it bearable. Even more, sometimes it actually gets slightly hilarious = at the end you can conclude that if you spend some time in the American suburbs you'll become "basementophobic", considering how often you get to see at least weird if not grim purposes of usage for any subterranean place in this movie.

I'm slowly getting as long as the movie is. Let me try wrapping this up. I heard appreciations for the cinematography. It's ok, but for me Roger Deakins did a better job in other productions (e.g., "True Grit" or "The Reader"). I guess the main merit for the movie feeling belongs to the director Denis Villeneuve, but again the original script (= it's not an adapted material) is the strong point here - where we have a name that doesn't say much, Aaron Guzikowski (I see he's credited for "Contraband" which now I'm convinced to watch). I should also say that's the best role probably in which I've ever seen Jake Gyllenhaal, as the detective handling the case, although pretty much all reviews praise Hugh Jackman, already nominating him for next years Oscars. Where I guess we'll hear again about "Prisoners" also in other categories ...

Rating: 4 out of 5 (because technically it could've been better and is slightly too "grim" for my taste)

Rush (2013)

I don't really know what to start with ... I don't know if "Rush" can be named a movie about Formula 1. And I don't think it's addressed only to the Formula 1 fans. I guess is more a movie about a real and unique episode, which from a personal point of view exceeds the boundaries of the sport itself. Honestly, I don't know how this movie wasn't made by now since the story is quite old and spectacular enough to fit a screen version. Anyway, let me detail a bit the subject ...

The focus of the movie is on the 1976 season, but first we have some background to see how it got there. Background which explains how the rivalry grew between two pilots: James Hunt and Niki Lauda, some saying it was the fiercest in the Formula 1 history (I would put it after the Prost - Senna duel as far as I know, although I'm not old enough to have witnessed any of them). Well, to get back to '76 ("spoilers" starting), that's when the rivalry got to the climax, both pilots rolling on close cars as performance, Lauda on Ferrari and Hunt on McLaren. Lauda did catch though a consistent lead on points in the first season half. Up to the race in Germany, where we probably have one of the few, if not only, examples of tragic F1 accidents with a happy ending .. well, sort of .. Lauda's car got burning with him inside, being saved eventually with very bad wounds. The happy ending .. the guy survived. Even more, as unlikely it may sound, he returned to driving in less than two months with bandages on his head and his lungs wrecked, decided to defend the title which seemed stolen by Hunt. And the story continues .. with what happened in the last race, but let me keep a bit of mystery for who doesn't now the full history ;)

I started watching Formula 1 long ago, when I was a kid, in 1994, probably the worst season in the history when you could've got into this. It's the year when Senna died (and I guess is also the last fatal accident happened during a race), and from what I've seen had one of the ugliest season finale, with Schumacher winning at one point difference after a hit with Hill's car. Yup, I still remember ( not very clear though :) ) because this was the reason why I never liked the German driver, and I ended up supporting either McLaren or Williams or more precisely I was anti-Ferrari :). To cut it short, from 2006 if I'm correct, I gave up on watching the races. I don't know exactly why, I never thought about it .. Anyway, seems I'm left with some nostalgia, since I just wrote this paragraph that doesn't have anything to do with the movie ...

Where I wanted to get is that I don't know if I can express any objective opinion about the movie's message, which keeps itself neutral enough despite some typical Hollywood nuances here and there. But I also can't limit myself only on a fan view over this sport, because I'm not in that position anymore. I could discuss the production's technical parts, where I've probably seen the best editing, both video & sound, of the year (which effectively gives you chills from time to time even if you know what's coming). I'm really not in the mood though to get too long analyzing this now. Maybe I'm digging too deep, but as I started, I guess the conclusion is beyond a simple report of what happened, once, at the end of '76 on a rainy day in Japan. Where, as the main track of the movie score says it was a situation of "lost but won", but which I guess it applied to two pilots, and not only one. It's a life moral, which says that the line "no risk, no win" is a non-sense, either because knowing when not to risk might be a winning even if you lose, either because risking and winning might be a loss.

Rating: 4 out of 5