The MacGuffin

The Sundance Film Festival has a reputation for being a launching pad for filmmakers. This is becoming more challenging, as increasingly lately it seems to be a premiere spot for the indie branches of film studios to screen their latest projects. Still, every year, a few true indies seem to break out…and Martha Marcy May Marlene should be one of those films. Produced by indie über-producer Ted Hope and picked up by Fox Searchlight, this has the potential to be a star-making film.

When the tagline of your film is “Was Shakespeare a fraud?,” you’re immediately courting controversy. Then, when your film proposes the idea that someone besides Shakespeare really wrote all his plays, and the man himself was simply an opportunistic actor who took advantage of a situation, you immediately put the reviewers of your film in a precarious position. One that teeters between critiquing the film in its challenging, historical context, and simply as the film itself, set apart from its accusations and presuppositions—which is exactly what writer John Orloff and director Roland Emmerich have done with Anonymous. By the time the film hits theaters and this review is published, there will already be a bevy of articles debating this very “what if?,” most of them doing their best to discredit any legitimacy the film may hold on its claim.

A lot of mediocre and bad movies seem to follow the same formula when it comes to dealing with estranged parent/child relationships: parent and child meet or reconnect, there is resistance from one or both of them, they are forced together by circumstances beyond their control, bonding events occur, they reconcile in the end. Every once in awhile, a good movie will use this same formula and manage to avoid most of the sentimental pitfalls a reconciliation movie is prone to. Janie Jones is one of the good ones. It’s not a great movie, but certainly good enough not to make me regret attending the press screening on a rare warm October day in Seattle.

It’s a Thursday afternoon in 2008. A nameless investment firm on Wall Street is going through what looks to be just the latest round of layoffs. But this round is particularly brutal and ends up ejecting a significant portion of their workforce. One of the people laid off, Eric Dale, played by Stanley Tucci, has been working on something fairly important in the company’s risk management department. On his way out the door he tosses a zip drive with his research on it to one of the young analysts who is staying with the company played by Zachary Quinto. He also gives the dire warning: “Be Careful.” This simple act sets off a long night of corporate trouble that ends up being the beginning of the collapse of the American economy.

Shark Swarm starts with a group of fisherman dumping barrels of what I assume is something toxic into the ocean/bay. The fish are eating this toxic stuff and then a shark swims up and eat the contaminated fish. Flash to an awful montage of CGI sharks eating the fish, then a larger shark eating that shark, and so on (while the opening credits are flashing on the screen). Ridiculous start to the film.

By Guest Columnist Steven Sheehan, writer for FilmScope:

The horror scene finds itself in a similar situation to that of the late ’90s, where the originality factor was low and far too many repetitive stories were hitting the screens, making the outlook for the ’00s look pretty grim. Far too many serial killers had flattened the audience’s interest in spending their money at the cinema, and it took films like The Blair Witch Project and 28 Days Later to offer a new alternative, where the film’s power surprisingly came from its realism. Alongside the rise and fall of torture porn, the zombie subgenre has powered on full steam ahead, and whether it is ’80s parodies or serious attempts like the TV show The Walking Dead, a dead end is fast approaching. Pontypool quietly arrived on the scene a few years ago and offered a fresh approach, and whilst obviously restricted by its smaller budget, like all good films, it maximized the effect due to that very reason.

Let me just say this upfront: the new “prelude” to John Carpenter’s movie The Thing (hereafter known as The Thing (JC)) is not an abomination. The Thing, also the name of the new movie, is an adequate bug hunt movie. If you have never seen The Thing (JC) and you liked Aliens, and you don’t like movies with subtext, then you might enjoy this. It has lots of explosions, monsters jumping out at people, tons of CGI gore, and fire. The plot proceeds logically and somewhat makes sense. There is a place for this kind of movie, and what it severely lacks in originality, it kind of makes up for by being competently directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. If you have seen The Thing (JC), then you will realize that this is a middle-of-the-road remake (of a remake) that is pretending not to be one. It’s not offensively bad, but it is completely mediocre and you would be better off just watching The Thing (JC) again.

Brandi Sperry: There are some remake projects that just won’t die, no matter what the obstacles, and the new version of Footloose was one of them. We’ve been hearing about this since Zac Efron was supposed to star in it back in 2007 (and hey, he did seem a logical choice, if someone was insisting on making this movie). Now, four years and a few potential stars and directors later, Footloose has arrived. Craig Brewer, best known for writing and directing Hustle & Flow (2005), took the reigns, and dancer Kenny Wormald takes on the role of Ren McCormack, the one that solidified Kevin Bacon as a star 27 years ago.

I will admit to having a small weakness for David Hyde Pierce. I never really got into Frasier, but I’d occasionally watch to get a little Niles action. And, although I thought he was great in Wet Hot American Summer and other films, I’ve always been curious to see how he would do with a more substantial role. He gets his chance to show a wider range in The Perfect Host, and he doesn’t squander it. It’s an uneven, twisty little film that benefits greatly from his performance, as well as that of fellow actor Clayne Crawford. The two are so enjoyable to watch, we overlook some of the (giant) holes in the script.

Ryan Gosling plays a rising star in Democratic Party politics in the new thriller The Ides of March. Gosling’s character Stephen Meyers has been around the block a few times. But while working on the campaign of Presidential hopeful Governor Mike Norris (engagingly played by George Clooney), he sidles his way into a potential political firestorm. At the beginning he is a true believer; he’s “drunk the Kool-aid” and actually believes in Governor Norris. But being courted by Paul Giamatti as the opposing candidate’s campaign manager leads him into a world of conflict of interest and scandal. The core of the story centers on Meyers’s eventual disillusionment about the process to which he’s dedicated himself.