Emelie and 100 feet –a review.

Quite often I see movies that have an interesting concept at their base but somehow –to me- fall short of their potential. Emelie and 100 feet are two examples of those.

Basically these are ‘bad’ reviews of me condemning these movies. But -the way I am- I hardly ever (only once uptil now: Norbit) truly hate a movie with a vengeance. There are always little diamonds in the rough to be explored. So, even though these reviews might sound a bit negative, I can say, without pretense that these movies are entertaining – but they could have been so much more and that's darn frustrating.

Emelie - What story were they trying to tell?

The story: Emelie is a movie about a psychotic babysitter who ‘sits’ for an oblivious family. Naturally terrors are unleashed once the dear sitter is in charge.

Has Emelie been completely rewritten during the movie shoot? Basically the story is about a psychotic babysitter. The hand that rocks the cradle with a face lift if you will. But something about this movie doesn't sit right with me. It feels like this movie was originally intended to go into a completely different direction.

I'll start into what I generally liked about the movie and then I'll go into my questions.

The good

What the movie does right is the buildup. For such a short movie (1h.22m. -which is often a bad sign from the get go) it takes its time for us to invest in the main characters. The acting is perfectly fine. The kids act their asses off while being overtaken by the effective tranquil Emelie character. In short: Nothing really outstanding but definitely not bad, even for child actors. The tension part, however, is lacking, which brings me to my questions;

The questions

My main question/ feeling is that this movie was originally intended to be something different. My evidence for this:

The son's friend.

The first character you focus your camera on becomes an important character. So in this case the African-American boy. The camera follows him around. But then -the minute he throws his backpack in the tree house- the focus shifts to the white boy. The African-American boy is then completely forgotten for the rest of the movie. You could just as easily erase the character.

The axe.

Another short example is the axe in the garage. Early on in the movie Emilie picks up this axe before deciding on a screwdriver. Now, if you show the audience a Chechov's gun you'd better use it later on. The movie doesn't. But maybe this was an attempt to make Emelie more scary before she goes full out crazy.

The son's moral compass.

Alright the boy is eleven and probably a bit rebellious at that age. But let's be honest: a babysitter that lets you paint all over walls and wants to feed a hamster to your pet snake. The alarm bells should have gone off inside his head a heck of a lot sooner. It's like the editing-process changed some scenes around.

Why do all that?

Basically all the weird stuff the babysitter does is unmotivated. What was the crazy motivation behind the toilet, the video and pictures? For a second there I feared a very dark route (also because the parents were discussing 'the talk'). When that didn't happen I sighed a breath of relieve but then I started thinking: Why put all those things in in the first place?

The accomplice.

From the opening scene we've got two main criminals. Immediately I was thinking about a possible kidnapping/blackmail scenario. Who knows mom or dad have to do something or else. Instead the movie went the 'old I lost-a-baby-I-want-a-baby'-route. Why this accomplice then? His character is totally unneeded.

The parents.

I'm a bit biased here. I liked how the movie focused on the parents and their relationship as part of the buildup. But basically all the talking they did had nothing to do with the plot.

The real babysitter.

Okay, the big problem with 'children in peril'-movies is that the children are hardly ever truly in danger. There are only a few movies in which the moviemakers dared to harm a child on screen. So what movies often do is create cannon fodder. Adults who die early on to show how dangerous the villain is. So the original babysitter dies off screen (I liked the touch of the blood drip on the shoe). And halfway through the movie shoehorns in a second babysitter to die quickly after.

And this is how it felt, shoehorned. Moreover the final fight scene between Emilie and the babysitter felt like it was trying hard not the show the face of the 'good' babysitter. Somehow, to me, it felt like this was a completely different actress. Or at the very least; like this scene was shot long after principal photography.

To summarize.

I can't help but think this movie was originally intended to follow a different kind of story instead the one we finally got. It has all the elements of a blackmail/'do this or your children get hurt'-story. Which would give the parents and the accomplice something to do.

And on the other hand with all the sex-stuff put in - well I'm rather glad they didn't take that route thank you very much. Still it’s a fun movie for a lazy evening. But it could have been far better.

100 feet standard?

The story: 100 feet is a movie about a woman who, after years of physical abuse, murdered her husband. As a plea-bargain she is allowed to return to her former home. But, the court decided, she’s to wear an ankle bracelet that prevents her from moving  hundred feet from the sensor. All is well until the ghost of her aggressive husband returns to haunt her. 

100 feet is a strange movie. Mainly because it cannot really decide to follow the standardized Hollywood path or the more acquired taste path. Let me try to explain:

Looking down at the audience

At first glance this movie honestly expects the audience to be deaf and dumb. And -it is my experience- those movies who treat their audience like toddlers usually causes them to lose interest and check their cell phones. In a sense: ‘If the movie doesn't expect me to pay attention - why should I bother?‘ Two beautiful examples of this:

#1. Frightening dialogue

One bit of dialogue goes something like this: 

(the main woman on the phone) "So when does the man come by? What Monday? That means that I'll spent the entire weekend without electricity. Ow damn!"

Yes the dialog is as atrocious as it sounds. And all this 'informing the audience that she's talking to the power company'- becomes useless because in the very next scene she's lighting candles. An average audience is in no way stupid; they can connect the dots perfectly well. Now we got boring dialog that over explains the plot.

And then there are the scenes that just don't really work. Not because they are badly acted or anything but because they feel like they were part of some bigger –or discarded- plot. For instance the sister scene is utterly unneeded. The Halloween scene; has potential but none of it is used (I mean,  the combination of a ghost story and Halloween – and the movie doesn’t do anything with it).

#2. Visual underlining

The main woman has discovered a hidey hole under the floorboards. Two scenes later somebody drops dead in that very same room and she needs to hide the body. Now, you actually see her remove the floorboards; and still the camera decides, a few moments later, to dive down under the floor to show the audience where the main woman has hidden the body.

It’s one of those head scratching moments where you moan: 'We know! Get on with it!'

Now I can understand that the director wants to try his hand at some Scorsese or Tarratino cinema but don't do it if you don't need to.

Five minutes  of fun, a hour and twenty minutes of boredom.

When you look at this movie objectively 100 feet is rather cliché after cliché. Character motivation - or why somebody would do anything- is so out of tune that it actually becomes hilarious in this movie.

Like the brilliant headscratching moment in which the main character throws her wedding ring in a food grinder only to, then, put their hand in to retrieve it. I mean, she knew full well about the angry ghost in the house.

But that brings me to the only redeeming scene in the entire movie. So redeeming in fact that I honestly believe that the director only wanted to do this scene. The rest of the movie is just filler to get there. That the original ideas for this movie were far darker and grotesque (aquired taste) but that some kind of bargain was struck that allowed the director could keep this scene if he toned down the rest of the movie.

I’m talking about the moment when the ghost kills for the very first time. Because that moment is bloody bloody. Suddenly the movie shifts in gear from laidback haunted house fare to all out Hostel blood against the ceiling fare. And it is an amazing scene to watch. For starters because you’re not expecting something THAT explicit. And, for seconds, because suddenly the tension rises to an acceptable dramatic level. But this bugs me. Why not work on the script enough to get the entirety of the film on that level?

After this brilliant moment the movie immediately starts tumbling down again like a house of cards.

I think that the biggest letdown of this movie is, in fact, the ghost himself. He is vile and evil and that's all we ever learn from him. There is no moment of letting go, no comeuppance. There is no twist at the end. And in a genre wherein hero dies or hero survives are both suitable acceptable endings 100 Feet actually managed to find that one singular unsatisfactory ending -Amazing, like the movie was really trying.

I think what sold this movie to producers was the interesting premise: Woman can’t leave the house, house is haunted. But what 100 feet turned out to be is a movie focused on that one particular scene of a ghost killing a guy and not even the selling point (gimmick) to begin with.

In short 100 feet is entertaining but very very uneven.

Stranger Things -a review

Let’s start with a confession: I’m a generation Y kid (or a millennial if you wish). So I'm a big fan of the movies from the eighties. The Goonies, Die Hard, E.T., Close Encounters, Poltergeist, you name ‘em, I love ‘em.

But when, a few years back, J.J. Abrahams made Super 8 –and everybody was tumbling over each other in nostalgic glee- I must admit, I hated it.

That movie got the style and the tone of those eighties movies right but totally failed on a logical story. Terrible; a film feeding on your nostalgia without offering you something to sink your teeth in.

Which brings me to the good news: Stranger Things, to me, is how Super 8 should have turned out. It’s got the style and everything right but it also has interesting characters, great music, and –lo and behold- a rather clever, intriguing story at its core.

You could call it a post-modernistic (or post-post modernistic) series as it happily takes a page out of Quentin Tarantino’s textbook and ‘borrows’ various elements from different movies (you could also call it homage or stealing – I prefer borrowing). 
The first episode alone has plot points from E.T., Twin Peaks, Close encounters and even directly refers to Stephen King and Poltergeist.

Now I shouldn’t praise the story too much – it’s pretty basic. But it’s the characters and the clever use of flashbacks that elevate the tale.

The story

But what can I say about Stranger Things without giving everything away? I don’t think I should share more than what I already knew going in.

Four friends (Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Will) find their lives turned upside down when strange things start to happen in their hometown. One of which is the arrival of a young girl who needs help.

That’s all I can say.

Alright one more thing I already knew going in; Matthew Modine plays the villain. Yes! (*that’s me punching the air in a happy motion*). After years playing the goto-good guy in movies like Married to the Mob, Cutthroat Island and Pacific Heights he finally puts on a suit to play the silent big bad government guy. And he’s great at it.

His character, to me, strikes a perfect balance between caring and sociopath –which is obviously a contradiction. So it’s great to see an actor sink his teeth into such a character.  

And that’s the main point I can make about the show: The story might be straightforward but all the character are well written, well rounded and well acted. Two examples:

Logic rules

Stranger Things is a supernatural series. Yet, every single character keeps on making the one logical deduction after the other. So somewhere along the way characters need to shift gear from rational to supernatural and that's done very slowly and believably. The Lucas character -for instance- is quite the voice of reason for a long time before even he cannot deny the strange things going on around town.

Having said that, other characters –without trying to give too much away here- tend to embrace the situation a bit too willingly. I mean: 'going monster hunting with dad's gun' isn't the wisest thing to do. But that’s just an old writing trick of: ‘adults don't believe me anyway’ with a bit of teenage stupidity sprinkled on top. Just like in the ‘80s movie The Goonies or E.T.. A sort of nostalgia in the storytelling.

Should you force me to nitpick I would say that only a handful of characters don’t really work for me. For instance, the older sister character’s storyline, which takes a while to get going. Or het overreacting (bad) boyfriend who has rather cardboard cutout evil friends.

Especially his female friends who are fascinating utter witches. Everybody has this colleague that spreads vile gossips all over the place -now I know what they were like in high school.

But in the grand scheme of things that’s just nitpicking.

Oh, and one more thing: Yes! Taking pictures of half naked girls without their consent is wrong - no matter how difficult your puberty is.

Cleverness rules

The second thing I wish to point out here is how clever each and every character is. Winona Rider’s character, for instance, is delicious to watch as she goes crazy at first and then uses one heck of a smart trick to come to terms with the supernatural and start reasoning normally again. She’s also a tour the force that underlines the saying: ‘Don't get between a mother and her cub’.

But all the characters are clever. The police officer, the main children, the cook from the diner. Each are written as great individual characters that might get frightened a bit by the stranger things going around but are smart enough to go looking for answers.

Toothless (Dustin), to me, was hilarious. All I would ever want in a son.  And why didn’t I have Mr. Clark for a science teacher?

Oh, and kids swear in this movie - thank God they swear. Finally kid characters on TV are acting normal again.

Nostalgia all over the place

Writing

But there’s a reason why this series takes place in the ‘80s. For the writing part it allows to ‘homage’ various movies and (popular in the ‘80s) plot elements like: teenage stupidity, bad parenting (parents not knowing where their kids are half the time), evil government-suits and the supernatural events.

Due to this you, the viewer, find yourself on a comfortable seesaw balancing between ‘seen this before’ and ’cool how they handled that known trope’. And that’s a tricky balance to strike because I honestly believe that Super 8 failed in that department. Stranger Things however passes with flying colors.

Directing

For the directing part it also allows ‘homage’. This movie doesn’t pull off any Alfonso Cuaron camera trickery or tries to reinvent the wheel too much. Instead it uses classic framing of shots. Wherein certain shots seem to be lifted directly from classics. 

I for one believe that ‘the ambulance’-crane shot in the final episode is a direct reference to Die Hard. But I must admit, without confirmation, I cannot state this for a fact. The same basically goes for things like backlighting (Poltergeist), a dolly shot of characters sitting (The breakfast club) and obligatory spinning bike wheel (the Goonies, E.T.). All these cinematic tricks ‘feel’ as if they were used to emphasize the ‘80s vibe.

Set design

But the most fun of Stranger Things has to be in the set design. The production team went full tilt with ‘80s products. Just to name a few:  Dungeons and dragons, The dark crystal, the thing, Poltergeist, Jaws, E.T., Rambo, Stephen King, (obligatory) Rubrics cube, waffles and the fantastic Pink dress plus eighties white socks combo.

Everything down to the title fonts is coated deeply in eighties nostalgia and that makes it one heck of a fun ride. Because you can actually re-watch it just to find all those little Easter eggs hidden in the background.

Music

And then of course there’s the music. If you set a story at a certain time you’d better insert some music from that time. And I must admit, to my surprise, I found out that I’m actually quite knowledgeable about ‘80s music. But Stranger Things already stole my heart when they played this song. 

I always connected that song with this (favorite) animated short. Now that I have a reason to post it, I might as well.

Nitpicks

Are there nitpicks? Sure, some. But there’s a side note here: when I’m bench watching a series I tend to become a bit critical around the sixth episode. So it could be me, or I could be right, when I say that the sixth episode is the weaker of the bunch.

For starters episode six has some bad acting. Both kids and adults. Not really bad, per se; but scenes that would have worked better if the camera focused a bit more on the receiving end of a dialog instead of letting the actor play it all out in one take. It stresses the performance a bit too much- it makes it ‘stage like’.

The best way to explain it is the 'are you talking to me'-speech in Taxi driver. Seeing it out of context and only this scene makes it very difficult for a actor to perform it believably.

Luckily DeNiro did just that in that movie. But more than enough amateur actors fail. A trick of solving this reliance on the performance would be to intercut the scene a bit with shots of the receiving end (in the case of Taxi driver the mirror). But that wasn't really needed in the Taxi driver example. It was sometimes needed in episode six. But as I said, it’s nitpicking.

Then there’s the over explaining that happens in a later episodes. I didn’t really see any need for that. But, to be critical about myself too, I might have seen a bit too many movies.

Anyway, these are all nitpicks in a well crafted (horror) series. 

Where to go from here?

The series ends slightly open ended (not much though). So on the one hand I truly, really want a sequel - on the other it's already a rather great series as a one off. So I’ll leave that for Netflix to decide.

All I can say is that this is the show to watch in the eight days before Christmas. Enjoy one heck of a ride and dive headfirst in the fascinating time of the ‘80s and the stories we used to tell. 

Random musings 2.

How I love Pokemon Go!

In two weeks time the appearance of people on the street has completely changed.

Remember that time when somebody talking in him/herself was considered a bit kaka? Nowadays you can bet your bottom dollar that person is calling somebody.

In two weeks time suddenly all kinds of (often) youngsters -who wouldn’t leave their game console if their life depended on it- venture outside. Often in pairs you’ll find them walking along, their eyes glued to their smart phone. And, apart from the occasional traffic accident, I am loving this new hype. Let me explain why.

I’m a runner, a jogger, a ten miles three times a week type of guy. And I like doing it. It clears my mind and makes me a bit more healthy. But, the whole reason why I started running in the first place had nothing to with me keeping my health up.

I’m a pretty healthy guy to begin with. But being stuck behind a computer at all hours isn’t the wisest thing to do. So I ventured out occasionally. Luckily I’m the kind of person who likes to take walks. But this is where the problem happens. Because single guys walking are, to other people, anything BUT a single guy walking! For example:

Walk somewhere remote and people will wonder what I’m doing there –or what I just did (hidden a body or something). Go to some forest and people wonder where I left my girlfriend and her Nordic walking sticks (apparently you are only allowed to take in nature in pairs). Heck, I’ve already caused two bicycle accidents because the people on the bike were franticly looking where I left the dog I was supposedly walking and missed their turn.

So I started wearing running clothes and sped up my walking speed and suddenly people didn’t look at me like I was crazy or out of place. People no longer wondered what I was doing in a forest on my own.

And this is why I love Pokemon Go. Now I can walk anywhere and all I have to do is look at my phone from time to time. I don’t even need to bring the phone, all I need is the cover. Great! No more wondering glances. No more accidents. Whenever people find me somewhere where a singular guy appears to be out of place I’ll just pretend that I’m looking for Pokemons; problem solved.

The glory of finding solutions to computer programs online. 

We all know those little anecdotes in which a person calls the helpdesk because he doesn’t have any Internet only to be referred to the website.

However, the Internet has –honestly- created an artform of this. So after an lengthy search for a solution of one tiny computer issue I became so fed up that I created this little flowchart below. It’s just an attempt at humor and me venting my frustration.
(https://postimg.org/image/9ksze6bpd/)

Ducktales - Oh no!

I’ve never been much of a hardcore Ghostbusters fan. So even though I considered myself highly critical when I saw the first (very badly made) trailer of the movie I didn’t care enough about the original to write any kind of article about it (plus I wanted to keep myself out of all the fighting going on online).

I, however, do care about Ducktales. I care a great deal about Ducktales.

So when a year ago Disney announceds new episodes I (and the rest of the internet) were a bit worried if those new episodes would be in terrible 3D. But, Disney reassured us: the new Ducktales would be in good old fashioned 2D. *sighs a breath of relief*

But now I feel slightly bamboozled (there is a harsher term to use here) because this is the first preview we’ve gotten. And to be honest it looks rather horrendous. Straight from the computer like those new Mickey Mouse cartoons (which, I must admit, I don't like either). Like Disney is actually trying to make the new cartoon look terrible

Which kinda brings me to something I noticed for quite a while now: Why do I have to watch Nickleodeon’s Avatar to get Disney style animation but when I turn on the Disney channel I get all kinds of cubes and triangles (Phineas and Ferb) and subpar animations. Great humor and script, mind you, but terrible animation.

I mean, Disney is getting back on track in his movie outings. Why not fix the televisions outings as well?
Because there is a gigantic style difference between this and this and I don't really like it!