The Game (1997)

I'm not sure why I chose "The Game" other than panic. I'm not a fan of watching movies twice unless they're phenomenal. I was intrigued to see how this held up compared to my teenage memory.

Michael Douglas' plays his character, Nicholas Van Orton, really well. It's easy to buy into the no remorse, businessman persona. One little touch that I appreciated about this movie - the main character actually ate food. It's a little thing, but I think it helps the audience connect with his character.

The interactive experience industry (can't remember the formal name) is growing today and I could only hope Consumer Recreation Services (CRS) exists in real life. I love the concept and that's probably why this movie appealed to me.

The way in which CRS was presented and pulled off their series of events was believable and entertaining to watch. I knew the ending of the movie going into it, but I began to second guess myself as they present the concept of Van Orton losing all his money to this company. I moved from generally disconnected from Van Orton to rooting for him to feeling sorry for him. The directors did a good job of presenting the story in a way where the audience probably has at least a hint of asking themselves, "Is this still the game?"

My main qualm with the movie is why Van Orton follows the waitress (Christine) around for so long. Is he that desperate for adventure, a companion, or something else? I wasn't a fan of the lady who plays Christine. I think that role could have been better cast. The ending was a little too scripted as well - the accuracy of the fall was too much for me. I think they could have come up with something a little more believable.

I'm on the fence between B and B+ because I'd probably watch it again.

Final note: Nicholas Van Orton's 1997 BMW has more tech than my wife's 2010 Honda Fit.

The Cabin in the Woods

Review: Seriously?  It's in the title.
Participants: Phil, Bryan, Jon, Drew, Sean, Bobby, Joe, Shane
Initiator: Phil

“… And I feel fine.”

The Cabin in the Woods is a pretty tough movie to talk about to anyone who hasn't seen it, as it’s definitely a movie you want to go into knowing as little as possible.  The initial setup of the movie is a spoiler if you ask me.  That said, Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon manage to create a schlocky horror movie that keeps us engaged with a clever premise and a surprising payoff while adding no needless fluff to the events which transpire.

Right from the outset, this movie could have gone two distinct directions.  Rather than hiding the big reveal for act 3, Goddard and Whedon actually start us in a sterile quasi-government facility, offering no explanation of what we are about to see or how this organization will affect the titular cabin.  Actually having the control organization a part of the movie from the word go was a fantastic choice in my opinion.  The actual story of the five campers was a boring retread by design.  Goddard and Whedon clearly wanted the campers’ story to feel like the bad horror movies we remember from the 80’s, right down to the cheesy, over-the-top acting.  

This decision puts the viewer in a decidedly different mindset.  Think about what this movie would have been like without knowing about the controllers until an hour in.  Would you have even bothered?  Odds are you would have gotten extremely bored by “another crappy horror movie.”  However, the ever present controllers force you to almost ignore the hacky store of the campers, instead forcing you to spend the bulk of the movie trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.  This really makes the movie dance the line of several genres.  I know it’s classified as a horror, but calling it a suspense thriller is almost as appropriate.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait long to get to the big reveal that was skillfully teased throughout.  Would it have been crazy and entertaining to see everything about the controllers revealed in just the last act?  Probably.  But would you have stuck with Thor & Co for an hour?  Probably not.  There would have been too much to explain at the end, and the method Goddard and Whedon used of explaining what was happening as we went made for a far more enjoyable experience.  Cabin also did a great job of explaining just enough while maintaining a torrid pace to its conclusion.  Do we ever learn why this organization has an obscene amount of hellish creatures?  Sure don’t.  Do we ever learn what these “ancient” creatures are?  Barely.  Shit, I can’t even call the controllers by name because we never even learn the organization’s name.  While the level of explanation was great, it did take away from the large reveal at the end.  The very end was probably the weakest part of the movie as a result. 

What The Cabin in the Woods ends up giving us is a “plausible” explanation for why bad things happen to good people in all the horror movies we’ve seen in the past, right down to the “horror” which befalls them and the abysmal decision-making that comes with being pursued by any sort of horrors.    Initially, the conclusion annoyed me as we didn't learn enough about Dana & Marty to know what they would do in this extreme situation, but keeping it in the frame of mind that we were dealing with a stoner and a girl who had been huffing whatever drugs were getting pumped into that forest, it was at least believable in this movie’s universe. 

Final note: There were some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments in this movie.  Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford practically steal the movie.  The phone conversation with Mordecai and Whitford’s end were some of the funniest moments in any movie in recent memory.

Summary:

+ Great setup and premise

+ Wasted no time

+ Way funnier than it had any right to be

+ “Totally plausible” way to explain why every horror movie ever would happen

- Ending ends up suffering

Final Grade: A-

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Participants: Shane, Bryan, Jon, Drew, Sean, Bobby
Initiator: Shane


First of all, a thousand apologies for picking a 3 hour movie. I might not have picked it had I known it was so long. Though, it really didn’t feel like it was that different in length from The Sea Inside.

To begin, I’ve always enjoyed Westerns. It’s definitely one of my favorite genres. Maybe it’s an inherent bias since I was named after a Western-based book. Just wanted to let you know where I’m coming from.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly feels like an incredibly familiar movie. The sounds, the music, the themes and the style have obviously been replicated since its release. I think it’s a testament to how much of an influence this movie had on film-makers that we know today. I had multiple scenes where I felt like I was watching Kill Bill or Pulp Fiction (though the dialogue is quite different). Speaking of familiarity, good God, I’m way less impressed with the creation of Wolverine now. Basically they just took Blondie and gave him claws.

So, first theme I noticed, and it’s one we’ve talked about a bit so far is there’s really no good guy here. Just three flawed guys, almost superhero level, who, to me, represent our base instincts of survival and survival is basically the name of the game in the West.

Blondie might be the closest thing we have to a noble-survivor here. He is good looking and charismatic, but we don’t know anything about him nor does he do anything that is particularly admirable. Hell, he screws over Tuco, kills bandits with no care and ruins everyone’s hats. It isn’t until he blows that bridge up that we see something relatable, and even then he’s doing it mostly so he can get across the river. In the midst of this, though, he does have a line about never seeing such a waste of lives in reference to the war around him. He really only commits to kind acts: (1) Giving the handsome soldier a smoke before he dies and (2) Letting Tuco live with his half of the money, though he did torture him first. This isn’t to say I found him one-dimensional. While we don’t know about his past, with the way his character acts, I think we can learn enough. He’s a sociopath, no doubt. But he still has some humanity left. He doesn’t seem to kill when he doesn’t need it, he has a soft-spot for soldiers, but he’s also dead emotionally. Money and survival are his only motivators, but he’s not willing to achieve those things by totally abandoning integrity.

Tuco actually might be the most likable overall. Like Blondie, he’s a sociopath. Unlike Blondie, dude is pretty funny. Knowing nothing else, you’d think that Tuco was actually the main character. He’s the only guy we get to know as we meet his brother as they hash out some family issues. While we’ve mostly found Tuco despicable up until this point, we do see that he cared about his family and it gives us something to relate to. Tuco, in actions and mannerisms, is like a rat. It’s the voice in our head that is most desperate. He’ll do or say anything to survive. He rambles, he curses, he jokes. While he doesn’t seem so dangerous from looking at him with his random jewelry and his odd way of moving about, he proves that he’s just as dangerous as anyone else in the movie. He’s the ugly because he is the complete lack of dignity or integrity. Tuco is actually the main person in my favorite scene of the movie: Where he has found the cemetery and that badass music comes and we get a dizzying ride with him looking for the right gravestone. I love that he once again is so focused on the money that he loses track of Blondie. There are two types of bad guys: Those who pay attention to Blondie and those who don’t.


Angel Eyes is our third main character and the one we know the least. Again, he’s a sociopath. However, unlike Blondie, he enjoys killing. Like Blondie, though, he has integrity and a code. He’s similar to Tuco in in his sadism when it comes to killing (they both have some intense violence and torture scenes). But unlike Tuco, there’s nothing to like about Angel Eyes outside of his impressive will that he imposes on everybody and his quiet, calm resolve. Really, it isn’t until the 3-way shoot-out that we see even the smallest hint of questioning or worry. He’s just a damn smooth operator. Speaking of, that’s definitely up there for my favorite scene of the movie.

Part of what made some of these scenes so enjoyable was the intense score accompanying them. Oh man. I loved the score. It’s rare that a score can ruin a movie, but a score done so well as this easily increases enjoyment. I could listen to some of those tracks without a movie involved.

Certainly, you can see some differences in what they’re able to do with technology then as compared to now. I loved in the opening scene with the coyote howl that was clearly recorded at night because when it’s played, you can hear the crickets. Or the sounds effects of a hat flying off of a head. I’m willing to give them a pass on some of these things due to the era. Also, it’s amazing how much smoother modern day editing has made movies. One impressive feat that we’d never see today was the battle scene. Those were all legit extras. That’s a ton of people.

Before I get to the flaws, I do want to mention the camera work. There were a lot of interesting angles going on. The down the hallway, man in black in the doorway was a good set-up. The zooming out to catch the entire setting when they were outside gave us some depth to the area. The zooming in on eyes, the POV glimpses, etc. This had to have been a ton of work with the technology they were working with. From what I’ve read about director Sergio Leone, he was a demanding perfectionist, which also reminds me of many modern day directors.


I do have a few issues. There are some incredibly convenient things in the plot. They need explosives, oh hey, we’re sitting next to explosives. Two guys are stalking them in the thoroughfare, boom, random cannon explosion (which actually happened twice in the film). I just found those plot-points a bit too convenient. Also, some scenes did last a bit too long. I know editing was more of a challenge, but some of those were excessive. Also, some of the voice dub overs were distractingly bad. Though, this might be a technology thing, so largely I’ll give it a pass.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. I think the main characters and most of the side characters were well-acted. The plot was enjoyable, though not overly sophisticated. I loved the Blondie/Tuco relationship. Mostly, I enjoyed a lot of the individual scenes, the accompanying score and the intense feeling of the film. This movie is a classic for a reason: A-