1953 ... What a Year!

Because I have been busy watching some classics on the big screen, I really did not have time to see anything new at the cinema lately - and honestly, the latest Pirates debacle will take some time to recover from.

Having previously only experienced these films on television screens of varying sizes, they were even more impressive this time around. Surely, despite the convenience home viewing provides, nothing beats seeing a film at the cinema. I could have written reviews or some reflections on these cinematic pilgrimages, but I didn't for a couple of resons:

1. What can I possibly add to what has already been said about Earth, Man with a Movie Camera, Taxi Driver or Apocalypse Now?
2. I am not feeling particularly inspired to write anything that doesn't read like it came out of my left nostril after a heavy night of drinking.

Red Hill (2010)

Red Hill is an imitative Western from Australia (perhaps it should be called Antipodean?). The Morricone-like arpeggios fill the soundtrack, while shots of a lone rider in pale moonlight are used in many a transition shot. There is also an umnistakable Coen-esque feel to it, especially that of No Country for Old Men

Yet, despite all these deliberate attempts at creating a genre movie that we have all been accustomed to, Red Hill is a taut thriller, with no plot thread left dangling. Its protagonist appears to be absent from the main action through a good chunk of the middle, but that's just a minor quibble in an otherwise (dare I say it?) great film.

Hanna (2011)

Hanna is a rebellious action thriller with an artist’s soul, and as such constantly strives to defy your expectations. A coming of age story about a trained teenage assassin hell-bent on destroying her mother’s killer, Joe Wright’s film is a high-concept globetrotter with a punk attitude. It’s violent, it’s funny, it’s thrilling and it’s engaging. It’s also underdeveloped and incredibly messy. Like Duncan Jones’ Source Code, it gets high marks for being different. But is being “different” really enough?

Source Code (2011)

Source Code is an emotional drama masked as a sci-fi thriller. On the surface it appears to be about a man who basically time travels back to the same spot over and over again in an effort to prevent a bomb from decimating the city of Chicago. Each time he finds himself inhabiting the body of a man he’s never met, on a train 8 minutes from exploding. Soon he’ll realize he’s plugged into The Source Code, a magical mystery device that allows him to access the last 8 minutes of someone’s memory.


Somehow, while in this memory, he’s allowed to move around independently, go places this man has never gone, and possibly change the future. It’s an utterly absurd and unexplained movie device; a Groundhog’s Day meets The Matrix approach to the war on terrorism. If you try hard enough, you might be able to convince yourself that the “science” of the film works. It doesn’t. And it doesn’t really matter.

Limitless (2011)

Limitless boasts the rebellious self-improvement spirit of Fight Club, ironically crossed with the “greed is good” monstrosity anthem of Wall Street. It’s a movie about changing perspective, about taking control of your life and achieving a 21st century enlightenment. Oh, and looking cool. It’s definitely about looking cool.

Unknown (2011)

Unknown is a manipulative and clumsy thriller that nevertheless does enough right to succeed as a generally adequate suspense flick. And that’s about the nicest thing I can say about Jaume Collet-Serra’s movie (or any of his movies, since the best thing he's done on film was kill Paris Hilton in 2005’s House of Wax).

Cinewise Throwback - Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

We're big advocates of writers here at Cinewise, of the screenplays behind the films we all love, and the scribes who rarely get the credit/respect they deserve for their part in bringing these works to life.  So with screenwriter Kurt Wimmer's Salt spicing up the blockbuster buffet this summer, we thought it would be nice to take some time to look back at some of his previous work, starting with last year's Law Abiding Citizen.  Here's what we said then...

Law Abiding Citizen isn’t the maverick “make ya think” flick it pretends to be, but it at least aims to be, which is more than you can say for most Hollywood thrillers. Gritty, violent and by the books, it’s an action-thriller that entertains via doctrine – a few modern cowboys butting heads in a modern, Saw-crossed moral frontier.

Salt (2010)

In Salt, Angelina Jolie plays a character once written for Tom Cruise. If you’ve read anything about the movie over the course of its multi-month media blitz, you’ve probably read that. Primarily this tidbit is used for publicity. But to ignore the impact this sex-swap had on the film itself is to miss the importance of Salt as a potential launch pad for a new breed of action heroines.


As a thriller, director Philip Noyce’s film is a speedy, sturdy jaunt through twisty turns and heart-pounding action – the kind of film that hits you with a far-fetched concept anchored by a “did she/didn’t she” mystery, but rarely slows down long enough for you to ponder the ridiculousness of the plot, or the holes that might be found within its core question. In other words, it’s of the same breed as Enemy of the State (1998) and similar political-minded summer blockbusters, all grouped together by one common theme – success.

Shutter Island (2010)

Martin Scorsese is on a roll. Since 2002 he’s been nominated for the Best Director Oscar three times – for Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), and The Departed (2006), for which he won – produced one of the greatest rock docs of all time with No Direction Home (2005), and re-established himself as one of the premiere directors of our time. Through most of it he’s been accompanied by Leonardo DiCaprio, a talented young actor who, like Robert De Niro before him, has reached new heights as Scorsese’s muse. So it’s only fitting that the duo close out the decade with something as consuming and masterful as Shutter Island.

Following almost a year of trailers after months of delay, Shutter Island is a welcome and dominating force in cinema’s darkest creative months. Set in a post-war America haunted by the harsh realities of shattering dreams, it stars DiCaprio as a U.S. Marshal investigating the unsettling mystery of a sea-locked mental facility. Built as an Alcatraz for crazies off the coast of Boston Bay, Shutter Island is a heavily guarded, heavily haunted catch-all for the criminally insane…and DiCaprio’s Teddy Daniels is the latest caught in its trap.
Under the guise of the investigation of a missing patient, Teddy and his partner Chuck (the always reliable Mark Ruffalo) dig in to the island, uncovering mystery after mystery in their effort to understand what makes it tick. But the further Teddy’s pulled in, the deeper his investigation goes, the darker the island becomes.

It all plays out like LOST as a haunted house, with Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow as the island know-alls, pulling the strings as the surface investigation (i.e. the plot) gives way to the true exploration – the inquisition of the soul.

But it’s Scorsese who’s really in charge, and he makes sure we know it from the opening moments. Shutter Island is as much a movie as an art gallery, a historical allusion to the works of the past manifested as an audience assault. Marty is the ultimate nerd, a grade A student of his craft capable of pulling from his influences with such class and respect that you can’t call it stealing. If Tarantino is the class outlaw, Scorsese is the valedictorian.

As a student NYU, Scorsese made what may be the most famous undergrad film in history, in which a man cuts himself shaving, repeatedly, till there is no more blood to give. It’s horrific and threatening, and under the surface an allegory for Vietnam. Some 40 years later, Shutter Island is the closest he’s come in tone and style to that film. Though this is his first foray into horror, it feels like the familiar work of a master, like Hitchcock or Stephen King at the top of their game.

And everyone involved rises to the challenge. The story, pulled from a Dennis Lehane novel by Laeta Kalogridis (Alexander, 2004), provides an excellent source material, pulling us through its many twists and dark turns with the utmost confidence. This is heavy material – heavier than you might think, and certainly more than the traditional Hollywood fare.

Then, of course, there’s DiCaprio, steadfast and committed. Kingsley and Ruffalo are both great, as are Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer and Jackie Earle Haley in their brief but impactful roles. But it’s DiCaprio who plunges into the depths, whole heartedly and with faith that Marty will guide him through. Why not? They’ve done it before. They’ll do it again. What we’re witnessing here is one of the great collaborations in our cinematic history. It’s something to be appreciated.

And we can start by watching Shutter Island a second time through. It’s one of those films that rewards multiple viewings with layers of dedicated storytelling, where 10 things are playing out at 10 angles in any given scene, it’s characters themselves at times only aware of a few of them. It’s heady stuff, but never at the cost of being entertaining. Scorsese’s film rewards you, weather in your request for thrills and chills, or in your understanding of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). It operates on multiple levels, but never forgets its mission to be, like the films it emulates, a no-nonsense genre movie – enjoyed, and at its best, inspired.