Director: Gore Verbinski
Writer: Ehren Kruger; based on Ring by Hiroshi Takahashi and Ring by Koji Suzuki
Cinematographer: Bojan Bazelli
Producer: Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald

by Jon Cvack

Now that we’re less than a couple years away from finishing out this decade, popular movies from the 00s are starting to take on a more distinctive style. I hadn’t seen The Ring since high school, where it’s terror spread by word of mouth, with many agreeing it was one of the scariest movies they’d ever seen. Still a coward to horror at the time, heading to the theater to avoid missing out on the event took a bit more motivation than usual. While I couldn’t remember my reaction or any specific details, like most I was horrified and kept awake long into the night by the image of the contortionist girl crawling out of the television. I tried returning to the film back in college, unable to  finish it, as by then the film had become parodied and replicated ad nauseam that it fell victim to what happens when transitioning out of any filmic phase - it felt boring and uninspired. The Matrix-like, desaturated greens and blues were adopted by countless other films, across a range of genres, and by the middle of the decade the look was completely played out.

Fifteen years later, the look is now associated with the decade. While the film isn’t perfect, it’s also far from what I remembered and expected, serving as much more a surrealistic mystery film than countdown murder movie. Remembering it as cheap and shallow, I found it smart and complex, whose flaws were apparent, but in no way diminished the narrative. Only able to watch the first half I had that rare experience of wanting to fight through Sunday’s bedtime and my exhaustion in order to see where it was going.

The story involves a mysterious videotape whose origin I didn’t fully understand, discovering that the Wikipedia page doesn’t have an explanation either, forcing me to a Wiki page which explained that in the original film the tape was made by Samara, who after being thrown in a well by her mother and dying after seven days, possessed or developed the power of nensha (aka thoughtography), which allows a person to burn images from one’s mind onto photographs, canvasses, or film. It was a particularly big idea in Japan during the 20th century. It therefore makes sense that The Ring would have such difficulty conveying this fact (if it even tried at all; as I don’t recall any explanation). Unfortunately, when you really think about this shortcoming, you realize how big of a plot hole it is, as we do not in any way understand what brought all this about.

It opens on the film’s most terrifying and popular sequence, involving two girls at a sleepover discussing an urban legend about a mysterious tape made years ago that kills the person seven days after they watch it. One then admits she watched the tape seven days prior, soon getting killed and driving the other girl insane.

A Seattle Journalist Rachel (Naomi Watts) is hired to investigate the strange death, soon coming across the tape, watches it, learns about the seven day limit, and enters into a journey to discover how it came about and who's involved.

Similar to The Blair Witch Project released just three days prior, though arguably beginning with Haneke’s Benny’s Video in 1992, the story provides a fascinating examination of analog versus digital formats. Now that VHS tapes have officially entered into the vintage category, this film captures the format’s death nail. By 2004, VHS sales would essentially be void, dominated by the rise of the DVD. In 2002, they were fractions of home video sales, providing a fitting tool for where an apparition would render their thoughtographies. Aided in the discussion is Rachel’s ex-boyfriend Noah (Martin Henderson) who has his own “A/V” business - which is cheesy to say, but it’s never specified what he exactly does, though he does know how to slow down the playback and print freeze frames, perhaps even speaking to the medium’s overall limitations, both in quality and durability.

It also speaks to the film’s reliance on imagery. Expanding beyond Samara’s infamous crawl from the well is that of the Rachel’s determination to unravel each of the shots from the film, all in an effort to track down the truth and learn about the tape’s origin. The images transcend the infamous Samras crawling from the well, including a black horse, a randomly placed ladder, a shot aimed directly into an old mirror, a strange woman, and a fly that seems to bounce in and out of the frame. While playing like a pretentious student film (and offering the movie's most poorly aged element), each of these images eventually makes it way into Rachel’s reality, with the horse offering the most thrilling sequence, minus a bad CGI effect of it falling off the ferry and into the bay.

While I’ve had problems with surrealists like Alain Resnais and Luis Buñuel, The Ring skirts the limits of patience, providing just enough explanation before heading into meaningless frustration (minus failing to explain how the tape got made). It was exciting to anticipate when and how the elements from the tape would arise in the film, abandoning the sepia tone in favor a the dreary Seattle streets and seasides.

My largest problem involved Rachel’s peculiar son Aidan (David Dorfman), with the filmmakers appearing to be far more concerned with providing their own rendition of the Creepy Kid than plausibility. Looking up his peers, I was shocked to see Aidan topping out Buzzfeed’s ranking of the "Creepiest Kids in Horror Films", beating out everyone from The Omen’s ('76) Damien to Poltergeist’s ('82) Carol Anne. The complete lack of explanation as to why this kid acts so strange toward his mother makes the entire character seem unnecessary, serving no purpose than fitting the archetype. This isn’t to disparage Dorfman’s performance, who seems to deliver each line without a single blink of an eye. Rather, his inclusion seemed based entirely on the eerie concluding scene, in which Aidan reveals that he had watched a copy of the tape, forcing Rachel to make a copy of a copy to start an ostensible chain letter, in which the seven day death is foregone should someone else watch it.

The ending seems deliberately designed for a sequel, foregoing reason and explanation and diminishing The Ring’s position in the horror pantheon. Between the lack of explanation for the tape and strange rules which apply, while creepy in the immediate sense, upon further reflection it makes you all the more frustrated; wishing they could have foregone a few sequences in order to provide some - any - information as to why and how. Nevertheless, it’s a fun film that captures the essence of the decade, and just as other popular horror films from their respective periods didn’t necessarily make complete sense, these shortcoming - while glaring - are easy to ignore in favor of a pretty fun mystery/horror film hybrid.

​BELOW: A great surrealistic which I wish they cut out of before showing the horse floating

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Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Koepp; story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson; based on Characters by George Lucas
Philip Kaufman
Cinematographer: Janusz Kamiński
Producer: Frank Marshall

by Jon Cvack

I had put on this film immediately after I finished The Last Crusade ('89). I hadn’t seen TLC in nearly a decade, and the film was even better than I remembered, epitomizing Spielberg’s ability to converge craft of highest order with popular storytelling. Having always heard Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was terrible and made close to zero sense, I took my time getting to this one; not wanting to tarnish the first trilogy. But with TLC giving me hope that Spielberg’s prowess would at least provide some mildly entertaining sequences, I figured I’d put this on and give it go. What I experienced was one of the most heartbreaking moments I’ve experienced with cinema - as this is not just Spielberg’s worst film, but one of the worst sequels ever made, making Lucas’ Eps. I-III feel like Lord of the Rings. This film serves as the antithesis of what Spielberg stands for - relying on a barrage of computer graphics for extraordinarily illogical sequences, and obvious throwback elements to help try and relieve these problems. While with the original trilogy we dealt with magic and religion, this round we’re introduced to aliens, in which Spielberg forfeits any insight into any interesting questions whatsoever in order to provide us with a gaudy CGI fest that only leaves you more upset for how much better Spielberg is when he abandons the practice.

The story follows a Golden Yeared Indiana Jones, whose hair has gone gray, and whose aging body has forced him to slow down. We open in the middle of the desert near Area 51 as a caravan of Russian spies dress as American soldiers in order to invade a warehouse where a strongly magnetized box exists. It was from nearly the opening shot, when we see the two actual American soldiers ask the Soviet spies to forfeit their weapons, when Spielberg cuts to a shot of the commanding officer who then dips to a knee, revealing the half dozen spies with guns behind them, opening fire, as though the American soldiers wouldn’t have seen the strange formation these soldiers were taking while getting out of the cars. I always resent this type of logical forfeiture in order to try and accomplish a cool shot, which it isn’t is. As happens when you watch enough movies for a long enough time, I knew I was in for the long haul on this one.

Indy is then revealed and so is the evil Irina Spaiko (Cate Blanchett) who’s one of the most boring villains ever created, adopting the stolid Russian personality placed within Mia Wallace’s body. I can’t tell you one unique thing Irina does or says, and given what I mentioned in my TLC essay, in which a fucking tank driver was able to become a memorable character, I couldn’t help getting annoyed and fast. Still, I figured maybe this was a slow burn and Spielberg would surprise us. We then enter the warehouse, using gunpowder to try and find a heavily magnetized package, where they throw it up into the air and follow the direction it drifts toward. Eventually they find the box, which contains an alien corpse, and then Indiana attempts to escape and we get our first taste of Spielberg’s dependence on CGI rather than expanding on what he has demonstrably done with highest quality three times before.

Let me pause to state that the primary problem with CGI is that, and the reason I would rather watch old films than many of these VFX-diarrhea machines is because I know that it’s not real. I know that Irina is not really driving a jeep through this warehouse that suddenly is about two miles long, even though it’s supposed to be the warehouse from The Temple of Doom. Time and again we cut to these great wide shots, showing the tens of thousands of boxes, as the car speeds the aisle, while Indiana Jones literally sprints across narrow rafters up across the ceiling, using his whip to swing down onto Irina, who’s still driving. None of this is real. It doesn’t look real, it doesn’t feel real. It’s like a video game or cartoon, in which case I rather just pick up a video game or watch an animated film. I honestly cannot comprehend how filmmakers today still refuse to understand that part of the spectacle for action-adventure films - and what makes them so effective - is that what we’re seeing looks as though it’s actually happening. Time and again, all we get is as much CGI as they can cram into each and every shot, rendering the whole thing completely unbelievable.

Case in point is The Last Crusade, where not once in the entire film was I pulled out because something didn’t look real - with maybe the exception of the blimp’s establishing shot, which looked more like a matte painting and not trying to be the coolest, most amazing complex shot of a blimp ever possibly conceived! The story transports you because we’re seeing Harrison Ford actually hanging from a gun turret cutting into a mountain, or his face being pushed into a tire tread, or an actual tank - even if a model - actually falling down the mountain. There is no magic to seeing an ornate CGI shot. I don’t imagine what the crew must have done to achieve it, or what the actor risked to perform it, or how the director decided to capture it. I just see a bunch of people in a room on their computers working complex software.

BELOW: Somehow driving unimpeded through the middle of a jungle, and it only gets worse
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Director: Lasse Hallström
Writer:Robert Nelson Jacobs; based on the novel The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Cinematographer: Oliver Stapleton
Producer: Rob Cowan, Leslie Holleran, and Irwin Winkler

by Jon Cvack

There was a movement between the late 90s and early 00s that provided such incredible mid-budgeted Domestic Dramas as In the Bedroom (‘01), You Can Count on Me (‘00), and The Ice Storm (‘97), typically taking place in small towns, featuring a broken family attempting to repair their severed or severing ties, with filmmakers like Ang Lee and Kenneth Lonergan going onto bigger and better things, and Todd Field looking to become one of the all time greats, though failing to provide another project since 2009’s Tom Perotta adaptation Little Children.

I had never read the Pulitzer Price winning The Shipping News, but heard amazing things. Lasse Hallstrom directs the story, who provided the wonderful coming of age John Irving adaptation The Cider House Rules (‘99) only a couple years prior. The Shipping News is equally impressive in craft and photography, but the story seems far too large for its two hour running time, introducing so many characters and plots that by the end it races to catch up and resolve them, leaving you with far more questions than answers, making you want to read the book in order to fill in the blanks, knowing that some of the more fantastical elements simply failed to translate.

The story stars Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) as a pathetically passive middle aged man who suddenly (within minutes) meets the trashy, though sexy Petal (Cate Blanchett), who declares within seconds that within a few hours she would fuck him. In a brilliant montage, we witness the rise and quick fall of their relationship, delivering a baby name Bunny (played by three actresses) along the way. Petal’s interest in Quoyle fades as fast it arrived, with her heading off to local dive bars and hooking up with whatever hunk of meat she happened to seduce, leaving you wondering what she saw in Quoyle to begin with, other than the obvious and easy exploitable man who could give her… something of which I’m not really sure. She takes off with one of the men, taking Bunny and selling her into sexual slavery (or as they call it a “Black Market Orphanage”). If things couldn’t get worse, Quoyle’s parents both kill themselves, though not before leaving a voicemail explaining their action and how disappointed they are in what Quoyle became. As things appear incapable of getting any bleaker, a long lost relative of Quolyle’s, Agnis Hamm (Judi Dench), shows up and invites him to start anew in Newfoundland. 

It’s around this point where the movie attempts to condense far too many characters and plots into the remaining 90 minutes, with Quoyle learning he’s descended from barbaric pirates who use to pillage ships and assault women; Hamm putting Quolyle and Bunny up in a rundown house that’s held up against the strong gales by thick cables; a love interest, Wavey Prowse (Julianne Moore), and her handicapped son; ghosts showing up at the house, and really pushing the limits of story by not really providing any clarity other than it’s not really a ghost, but a man who ties knots in ropes to help relieve a strange curse on the house; Quolyle’s job at a newspaper where he works with the film’s strongest cast, involving Pete Postlethwaite, Scott Glenn, and Rhys Ifans, with Scott Glenn’s character Jake Buggit drowning in a boating accident, laid down at a wake days later, where right as someone provides the final words, he coughs up water, alive, further pushing into the movie into nonsense; a brother who raped his sister Hamm, who she later killed; and even more absurdities that I’m leaving out. If I had only read the synopsis, I'd consider it a parody of the subgenre.

What’s most disappointing is that, for all these elements, the moral of the story (the film version, that is) seems to be that you can’t escape your past, you can only change it, so try and change for the better. Or something. It’s a beautiful movie, and it left me wondering what ever happened to Lasse Hallstrom who, other than a few Nicholas Sparks adaptations and The Hoax ('06), hasn’t really made a movie I’ve heard of since. The camerawork and imagery are so strong, the performances fairly incredible, and yet it all added up into nothing much. Compared to The Cider House Rules or My Life as a Dog, both incredible coming of age stories, this left me hoping he’d return back to these smaller, more intimate dramas, rather than continuing the foray into colorful romance novels. It’s always a disappointment to see such incredible talent fall.

BELOW:  Spacey's character is too pathetic to be believable

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Director: Jonathan Mostow
Writer: Jonathan Mostow, Sam Montgomery, and David Ayer
Cinematographer: Oliver Wood
Producer: Dino De Laurentiis and Martha De Laurentiis

by Jon Cvack

Continued from Part 1...

Being away on location for a film shoot and confined to a bedroom with nothing other than my laptop, I watched the film with my studio headphones and had an absolute blast. Whatever you think about this story, the film has absolutely incredible sound design, going on to take the Oscar for Best Sound Editing. I’ve watched the movie many times, but it was only with headphones that I truly got to experience its glory, where you can hear every tiny squeak and breath which creates the highly claustrophobic atmosphere.

The impact of Das Boot is abundantly clear, though falls far short of the Wolfgang’s masterpiece. Steadicams follow with the sailors as they race down the corridors, working their way between compartments, closing doors and opening them. Shot wide, there’s depth to the frame, with focus pulling between sweaty close ups, complementing each sound we hear as they are left ever wondering whether the next explosions will be the last. And it’s here that McConaughey really shines, as again, while during the last time I watched the film he was perceived as the Rom Com lead, now that I’ve seen him steal the show in Mud, Interstellar, and Dallas Buyers Club - I came with fresh eyes. His performance has such subtle nuances and flavors, as he attempts to maintain calmness, searching to make the right decisions within seconds, hoping it’s the right one. Opposite Harvey Keitel as Chief Gunner’s Mate Henry Klough, the pair’s dynamic is powerful. Klough’s honor demands that he abides by each order, knowing that it’s not about whether he agrees or not, so much that discipline's vital in maintaining the crew’s morale. Keitel finds such a delicate balance, in which we’re never really wondering why he’s never moved up to Captain. It’s clear that he doesn’t at all want the role, finding his greatest strength in building up and encouraging the men. Counter to his often bad boy persona, Keitel’s prowess makes it believable; serving as the type of mentor you’d want if enlisted, knowing he’s always acting in the best interest of the crew.

It’s a film where once you accept the heavy embellishment, you can sit back and enjoy the show. This isn’t to be celebrated for his historical inaccuracies like Saving Private Ryan, When Trumpets Fade, or The Thin Red Line that’s trying to portray the horrors and realities of war. It’s a popcorn movie with big action scenes and excellent sound, kind of about duty and - if pressing just a tad - sacrifice. It’s the type of WWII film by the likes of Guns of Navarone or Where Eagles Dare, taking place beneath the water rather than on land. It’s not perfect, but it’s a fun one. And if you got headphones, it provides a nearly brand new viewing experience. Turn it up loud.

BELOW: McConaughey shines as a WWII Submarine Captain action star

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