Flying Bullets and Bursts of Color

Flying Bullets and Bursts of Color

Sin City

Out of all of the hack-filmmakers currently working in the movie industry, Robert Rodriguez takes the cake for being, by far, the coolest—and not just because he filmed numerous scenes of the voluptuous Jessica Alba pole-dancing in his latest extravaganza of viscera, Sin City (although it certainly doesn’t hurt his case). To me, Rodriguez’s perfectly fitting the mold of awesome writer/director/producer/composer/editor derives itself entirely from his crazy head. And while the concepts it creates may be entirely juvenile, there’s no denying that the ideas that the guy comes up with are amazing. Sure, anyone familiar with the Frank Miller comic-book Sin City could’ve realized its potential of being adapted into a film, but only Rodriguez was so bold as to execute such a task in the way that he has. No one else would’ve thought to film it entirely in black-and-white and then colorize only certain parts of each frame. No one else would’ve thought to take each scene from the source material and almost identically visually duplicate it. No one else would’ve thought to ask Quentin Tarantino to “guest-direct” a scene in their movie. With such an ability to scheme so ingeniously on his side, it’s no wonder that Rodriguez is truly in a league of his own when it comes to the creative aspect of cinema.

With all of that said, Sin City isn’t all that great of a movie. Rodriguez’s talents are worth every word of the praise I have just awarded them, but the actual finished pictures he makes are not. Sin City begins with a bang, almost as vibrantly alive as it is dementedly gritty self-indulgent. I immersed myself in the first of its three intertwined stories, left speechless by what I was witnessing. Little did I know, it would later become progressively less interesting, and I would find myself wishing it had been a short-film and not a full-length motion picture. The movie never really becomes anything; its gorgeous style is maintained in such a distinct way, throughout the duration, that it comes close to feeling trite and boring. Not to mention, the content of the second act’s story is so dramatically dull compared to that of the first act that the energized final third barely allows the picture’s sense of spirit to be rejuvenated by the end. Even with the wondrous, orgasmic opening there to wow them, it is a must that viewers of Sin City keep their expectations low in order to enjoy the full experience. Still, even for those like me, who walk out of the theatre ultimately wondering how much better the movie could’ve been, Rodriguez’s own sort of fan-boy liveliness and some killer performances (especially that of Mickey Rourke) will prove Sin City to be worthwhile.

The Downside of Going to the Movies

The Upside of Anger

Everyone, say Hello to Mike Binder, the latest self-infatuated new director to make a film. Well, he’s actually written and directed about three-quarters of a dozen pictures, but let’s be honest: no one had ever heard of him before The Upside of Anger. And it’s not a promising start to a high-profile career, either. Between Binder’s melodramatic la-de-da-de-da kind of pacing, mindless “Oh! My God! I’m being so fucking meaningful and dramatic!” style, and love for common contemporary character stereotypes (after all, what kind of movie would it be if he didn’t include a homosexual teenage boy in the plot, somehow?), this film becomes nothing short of unbearable by the fifteen-minute mark. The Upside of Anger is so harrowingly inane that it makes me wonder why I even go to the movies in the first place. Many critics have accused Quentin Tarantino of the exact same thing that I’m accusing Binder of—being a masturbatory filmmaker—but at least his work is interesting.

What’s even more of a shame about The Upside of Anger is that it represents a complete and utter waste of talent. Joan Allen, quite possibly one of the best working actresses in the film-industry, tries to be the revelation that Binder envisions her to be in the starring role, but his script barely allows her to remain within the range of God’s Artistic Grace. Kevin Costner, being a limited performer in the first place, is thoroughly annoying in his role, as he scruffily plods through his dialogue in a state of disarray. In fact, I can, quite frankly, only wholeheartedly defend two parts of the movie and say that they completely work. The first is Richard Greatrex’s timeless cinematography, which provides the film with an attractive gold-ish look that at least gives viewers something wholesome to latch onto when watching the film. The second is young actress Evan Rachel Wood, who was amazing in 2003’s Thirteen and is almost as good here, in a performance that ignores the conventions of the role and reaches out to connect with the audience. It’s unfortunate that her work is the only piece of The Upside of Anger which develops such a connection. Even the ending twist, which is so thoughtful it seems malapropos in the context of the utterly dreadful whole of the movie, fails to establish any artistic trueness akin to that which Wood does. For this, I eternally despise Binder. He had the best-of-the-best on his side, and the result was less emotionally resonant than what I could’ve made in two hours with a DV camera, a pig, and a gallon of mud.

A Squeaky Cog

Robots