new to DVD: The Prince

Sometimes, a movie character is so bad-ass that another character feels the need to take a moment and explain to someone just how deadly, ruthless, and terrifying this antihero actually is. Christopher Walken built up Denzel Washington's reputation in Man on Fire, Kevin Spacey did it for Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects, and Steve Buscemi tried to warn people to stay away from Antonio Banderas in Desperado. The title character of The Prince is the subject of not one, but two scenes of this type in Fabrizio & Passmore's action thriller.

Only the latter two thirds of The Prince is actually an action movie. The first third is more of a drama/ suspense film, as a nightmare scenario for loving father Paul Brennen (Jason Patric), who one day tries to call his daughter's cell phone, and is confused when a total stranger answers and has no idea who his daughter is. Who is this guy, and why does he have Beth's phone?

Paul tries not to panic, but it's not long before his initially casual curiosity turns into a dreadful certainty that his daughter has disappeared. Skeptical of how the police would handle the situation, Paul launches his own investigation. We share Paul's maddening frustration with the many people he encounters during his quest to find his daughter. It's sadly convincing how many people refuse to help Paul -- even to such an extent as simply looking at a picture and saying whether or not they recognize Beth's face. Without exception, this refusal to help a fellow human being seems motivated by neither apathy nor hidden agendas, but merely by the fact that people seem disgusted by the mere idea of helping a man in pain and in need. When Paul tries to bribe an uninterested bartender to just look at the picture and confirm whether or not Beth seems familiar, his offer is rejected -- illustrating that even self-interest is not a sufficient motivation to get people to help him. It's not "only if there's something in it for me," it's "not if you get something useful out of it too."

These scenes are highly effective. It's bad enough that Beth is missing, and worse still that Paul feels he can't go to the police, but it's damn near intolerable that so many people seem to think that Paul's suffering seems somehow right, just due to the fact that he's a person who needs help.

I can't help but wonder how this movie would have been if it had stayed with this premise. However, at one point, the storyline necessitates a transition from "dramatic mystery" to "action adventure," as we learn the connection between the disappearance storyline and the  terrifyingly infamous former mob hitman known only as "the Prince." The Prince is a knock-em-off-their-feet, take-no-prisoners bad-ass, and the latter two thirds of the film feature the Prince in nearly every scene. These sequences are competently directed, performed, and written, but they're also strictly by-the-numbers; the artistry of the mystery and suspense of the first third of the story has been abandoned, in favor of car chases, fist-fights, and shoot-outs. All well done and entertaining enough. But it just doesn't meet the emotional promise that the earlier scenes delivered so well.

The Cabin in the Woods

Ever see a movie and love, love, love it, but couldn't figure out how to recommend it to people, because any attempt to explain why it's so great would also ruin the very surprises that make the movie awesome in the first place?

Well, if you're a movie buff, the answer is "of course" -- it happens all the time. Take The Cabin in the Woods.  This is a movie that starts out good, and by the time it is over, it has at least touched greatness.  How?  Can't explain. If I do, it'll ruin -- ah, but now I'm starting to repeat myself.

Okay, let me explain what little I can that doesn't give away any of the twists. There are basically two different stories going on in the movie, one of which is, or at least seems on the surface to be, the type of standard horror movie implied by the title. Everyone familiar with horror movies knows that cabins in the woods are unsafe places. There could be a serial killer roaming the woods, or a werewolf loose, or a cursed item in the basement, or zombies wandering about, or maybe the cabin itself is haunted. The Cabin in the Woods, unsurprisingly, presents five college friends who decide to vacation in the title location, unaware that death, suffering, and terror await. Unoriginal foreshadowing is provided by a redneck gas station owner, whose ominous but vague warnings to stay away from the cabin are easily overlooked due to his grotesque hygiene and antagonistic manner.

Meanwhile, in a seemingly unrelated storyline, middle-aged, white-collar office drones Gary and Steve report to work at a high-tech government facility. We see them go about their daily routine, and it all seems a million miles away in subject matter from the teenagers in the cabin. But soon we get our first clue that there is a connection, when Gary and Steve place a conference call with the gas station redneck. What in the heck could these three guys possibly have in common?

If you've managed to avoid spoilers from other sources, you'll never guess the connection, which is only revealed gradually. The first clues are provided almost immediately, but the final piece of the puzzle isn't put into place until the very end.

The Cabin in the Woods, despite its seemingly standard premise, is an immensely creative film, and I want to recommend it to everybody, but I have often wondered: Would non-horror fans enjoy it? It's an interesting question. You certainly don't have to be a horror fan to enjoy most of the scenes with Gary and Steve, whose mostly comical dialogue is expertly performed by Bradley Whitford (of The West Wing) and Richard Jenkins (of Six Feet Under) and written by Drew Goddard (who also directed) and Joss Whedon (who also produced). The storyline involving the teenagers in the woods works as a straight-forward slasher film, but for fans of the horror genre, Goddard and Whedon provide so much more, and I fear that many references will be lost on audience members who don't have at least a vague familiarity with horror movie conventions.

I'd say that for fans of either Jenkins or Whitford (or just well-written dialogue), at least half of this movie will be highly entertaining, and for horror fans, the other half will be a great thrill  ride and more. If you happen to fall under both categories, this is a must-see. Why? Can't explain. If I do -- ah, I think you get it by now.

movie review: Birdman

Birdman tries to be all things to all movie-goers, and despite this schizophrenic ambition, it mostly succeeds in at least entertaining us. It's an art film, it's a commercial film, it's a comedy, it's a drama, it's an exercise in self-referentialism, it's an insider look at showbiz, and it is probably the only movie in existence that has explosions, super-powers, a Shakespearean soliloquy, and an assumption that its audience is at least vaguely familiar with the work of Raymond Carver.

Much has been made of the casting of Michael Keaton in the lead role, as both the actor and his character, Riggan Thomson, are using a serious project to A) prove that he's got acting chops, and B) make a comeback after his career has gone downhill after turning down the sequel in a superhero film series. To those critics obsessed with the parallels (i.e., apparently all of them) between Keaton and Thomson, I'd argue that Riggan has a lot more to prove in these regards than Keaton does. Yes, Keaton has never achieved the same spotlight he had when he was playing Batman, but on the other hand, he never had a career slump that he had to come back from, either. His work, from his supporting role in Jackie Brown to his directorial effort with The Merry Gentleman, has (perhaps unintentionally) eschewed the spotlight, but consistently earned the respect of critics.

But I digress. Birdman -- sub-titled The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, for reasons that remain unexplained for the vast majority of the film -- stars Keaton as Riggan Thomson, a has-been actor who hit it big in the early 90s as the title superhero character, but whose career never recovered after he refused to reprise the role in the proposed Birdman 4. Two decades later, Riggan is back, hoping to prove his value as an actor with What we Talk About When we Talk About Love, a stage adaptation and expansion of the Carver short story. It's an ambitious undertaking, as Riggan is the director, playwright, and star, and is, perhaps unrealistically, co-producing the project with his lawyer (a skillfully, mostly understated Zach Galifinakis).  Birdman shows us only two of the scenes of the play in detail, and the filmmakers deserve some kind of kudos for making me wish I could see the whole play.

Riggan can be self-absorbed and selfish (if you can appreciate the distinction) at times, but he is basically a good guy. He's surrounded by people who are so thoroughly unlikable that, in contrast, Riggan himself comes across as even more sympathetic than he perhaps as a right to.

One of those three people is Riggan's own daughter (Emma Stone). Employed as Riggan's personal assistant, Sam Thomson seems to have never outgrown the teenage "rebel without a cause" phase, and her cynicism is matched only by a hatred for her father that is beyond all reason. Why does she bother to work for him if she hates him so? She can't explain it, any more than she can adequately explain why she hates him in the first place, after an actor in the production asks her point-blank, "what did he ever do to you?"

Edward Norton co-stars as Mike Shiner, an actor whose celebrity and genuine talent is matched only by his unprofessionalism, and his eagerness to stab anybody and everybody in the back, apparently just for the hell of it. His presence in the cast of When we Talk About Love creates a real dilemma for Riggan, as Shiner's celebrity pulls in much-needed tickets, but he's also the kind of guy who might disrupt a live performance because the gin (to use an example) in the stage glasses is actually water, and thus disrupts the "realism." It's hard to think of a single character whom Shiner doesn't screw over at one point or another.

Then there's Tabitha, a theater critic who has a small role in the film, but whose personality turns out to be so full of dishonesty, sadism, and self-righteousness that if she had been in even one more scene, she'd qualify as the villain. She's depicted as so awful that, in contrast, even the otherwise despicable Shiner comes across as honest-to-god noble when the two characters meet.

Despite all of these unlikable people, Birdman itself is mostly a likable film. We find ourselves caring about both Riggan and his dilemmas. There are moments that are funny, moments that are insightful, and moments that are just plain interesting. There are aspects of the movie that I admired, but that I can't get into without spoiling important plot points. All I can do is recommend the movie, and observe once again that if they ever actually proceed with making this particular stage version of Carver's story, I'd wanna buy tickets.