The 2011 Summer Movie Season: Final Chapter

What a great summer movie season we've had!  With a few notable exceptions (stinking "Pirates"), the filmmakers from both Hollywood and Independentville have kept me highly entertained.  Here's my final, lengthy wrap-up of Summer 2011, brought to you in bite-sized chunks, and ending with my favorite movie of the summer-


Troll Hunter

Shot in the "found footage" style of "The Blair Witch Project" and it's many ripoffs, "Troll Hunter" tells the more fantasy-oriented tale of a government employee who's occupation involves tracking down and killing trolls who've wandered out of their hidden "troll preserves" in rural Norway.  He lets a trio of curious Norwegian film students tape his exploits, merely because he's sick of the low-paying, high-stress job and wants the government-suppressed truth about the existence of trolls exposed once and for all.  While it's somewhat limited by the whole shakey-cam "found footage" conceit, it also manages to play with the cliches, creating a funhouse atmosphere of laughs, scares, and wonder.  The special effects are fantastic, the scenery is gorgeous (I want to go to Norway, now), and the mythology is interesting and humorous, and yet manages to feel "real".  I would have preferred a more traditional narrative movie rather the the whole "Blair Witch"-y thing, but this is still one of my favorite movies of the summer.

Fright Night

The original 1985 "Fright Night" is one of my favorite horror-comedies of all time, so I wasn't at all looking forward to seeing a remake.  As it turns out, it's not bad.  But not as good as the original, either.  Charlie Brewster lives in a suburban enclave just outside of Las Vegas.  He has a new neighbor named Jerry.  Jerry is vampire, and he suspects that Charlie knows.  Now Charlie must go face-to-fang with his neighborly nemesis, and must recruit a famous Vegas magician named Peter Vincent to help him.  Laughs, scares, it's a fun movie about vampire killin'.  The cast is great, especially Colin Farrell as Jerry the vampire, sleazeballing it to the hilt.  David Tennant (my favorite "Doctor Who" of all) plays a great "jerk-who-eventually-grows-on-you", going from A-hole to loyal sidekick with hammy aplomb.  The original Jerry from 1985, Chris Sarandon, even makes a fun appearance.  While there are some major plot contrivances at play here, and the 3-D was mostly useless (90% of the movie takes place in dark environments), it's worth a look.

30 Minutes or Less

A couple of slack-jawed jerks need money to hire a hitman to kill their jerk father.  So they force a jerk pizza delivery kid to to rob a bank and bring them the money.  Jerk pizza delivery kid gets his best friend involved in the heist (he's not much of a jerk).  It turns out that the slack-jawed jerks are getting played by the jerky hitman and his jerky stripper girlfriend.  In a summer full of great R-rated comedies, well, they couldn't all be winners.  This one bored me.  And pissed me off, because it's from the director of "Zombieland", one of my favorite movies of 2009.  Is it because most of the characters are unlikeable, uninteresting jerks who scream most of their dialogue?  Is it because the plot is too complicated for its own good, shooting itself in the metaphorical foot?  Is it because most of the jokes are funnier in the 3-minute trailer than they are within the context of the actual movie?  All of the above.  A snoozefest.

Attack the Block

In London, after a gang of urban street punks kill a nasty little critter that emerges from a meteorite impact, a dozen more creatures rain down on the rundown streets and attack, forcing all of the residents of the block, upstanding citizens and drug dealers alike, to band together to fend off the vicious space beasties.  Alright, I must confess - I saw this movie last weekend, but since it was released in most other cities during the summertime months, I'm counting it as a summer movie.  And, as a summer movie, it's real good.  Essentially a classic monster movie at heart, it has some real characterizations and lots of laughs and scares.  From the producers of "Shaun of the Dead", it treats its villains with 100% seriousness - when they attack, it's vicious and scary.  And the monster design is rather original - bear/wolf critters covered blacker-than-black fur with a mouthful of sharp, neon-green teeth.  Sounds silly, but it works.  Although there were many times that I could've used some subtitles (darn London street slang), I didn't mind.  It's great monster movie fun.  And I think Mayhem and Props should get their own spinoff movie.

Rubber

A car tire with psychokinetic abilities becomes obsessed with a lovely French lady and stalks her.  Meanwhile, a group of people out in the desert watch the proceedings through binoculars, commenting on everything that happens.  This is, by far, the weirdest movie of the year.  And I like it.  Although it sometimes feels like a student film stretched out to feature length, at least it's a damn good student film.  This movie is a mix of David Lynch, Richard ("Donnie Darko") Kelly, and Terry Gilliam, with a dash of Fellini for good measure.  It's crazy, and runs the fine line between pretentiousness and good fun, thankfully never crossing the line into pretentiousness and never taking itself seriously.  After watching movie after movie with the same exact general screenplay structure (courtesy of screenwriting guru Syd Field), this movie comes as a breath of fresh air.  With an inventive musical score, a cast full of cult film actors (the tire acting is also wonderful), a great sense of "the visual", and an overwhelmingly welcome atmosphere of weird, I recommend this movie to anyone who's looking for something different.  It's not perfect, but it'll do nicely

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

A remake of the cult hit 1970's T.V. movie of the same name, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" follows the plight of a family, the architect father, the new step mom, and the father's disaffected young daughter as they move into a newly renovated century-old mansion.  The daughter soon begins hearing little voices coming from the basement, and after opening up the sealed fireplace at their behest, tiny light-hating creatures begin causing torment and chaos throughout the house.  See, they like to eat the teeth of children, and occasionally they will pull someone down into their world to become one of them and replenish their numbers.  These are they creepiest little critters I've seen on film since those little demon guys in "The Gate" (1987).  Realized extremely well via digital animation, these little monkey spiders love to torment little children and creep out moviegoers by skittering around in the dark.  The theater I saw this movie at had an awesome sound system, so when the little bastards would skitter around behind you or talk to you from all corners of the theater, it seemed like they were all around you in the dark, waiting to strike.  (shiver)  The cast was good, especially the young actress who plays the main character.  And while the plot has a couple of holes that you could drive a semi truck through (the father must be the most stubborn, hardest to convince character in all movie history), the creepy atmosphere (and good jump scares) and the well-realized little critters more than make up for it.  (shiver)

Conan the Barbarian

Ugh.  Like Edgar Rice Burrough's "Tarzan of the Apes", no one can seem to do Robert E. Howard's most famous creation justice.  Sure, the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie from 1981 is a classic, but it wasn't the best adaptation of the source material.  And now, in 2011, we get another attempt.  Fail.  Once again, they tried to give Conan a stereotypical revenge back story.  His family was wiped out by an evil warlord who's ultimate goal is to reunite the pieces of a magical mask which will grant him ultimate power and resurrect his long-dead sorceress wife, who was. . . aw, screw it.  Don't care.  See, Conan is a force of nature, the ultimate barbarian.  In the novels, he has no back story, he just does whatever he feels like.  If he wants riches, he steals a magical artifact.  He wants a woman, he gets one.  If he wants to fight, he starts one.  Often this puts him at odds with the forces of civilization, who want nothing less than to control their surroundings.  Barbarianism versus civilization - that's Robert E. Howard in a nutshell.  Instead, in this movie, we have a crappy revenge story merged with a crappy fantasy story.  It's nice that the filmmakers included some of the locations and races from the novels, as well as bringing back sex and violence to the fantasy genre, but it's all so repetitive and boring.  And the 3-D was lamely done, too.  Jason Momoa, as Conan, plays him as more of a swarthy rogue than an unstoppable slab of beef, and isn't too bad in the role, but the movie lets him, and us, down.  And the musical score is generic and dull.  Oh well, maybe in 20 years or so, they'll try remaking this again.  As least it's better than that lame "Conan the Barbarian" T.V. series.

Final Destination 5

Every generation needs it's grand guignol show.  Grand guignol - it's a back alley stage show (originating in 19th century Paris and spreading worldwide) which features modern retellings of classic stories, reveling in gore and gruesome, over the top deaths, with an undercurrent of dark humor, intended as a cathartic, safe exploration of death, a kind of outlet for dealing with the horrors of modern day life.  Grand guignol moved to the movie screen when film was invented.  My generation's grand guignol was "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street".  Today you have "Saw" and "Final Destination".  People who look down on "gore films" fail to realize that it's a storytelling genre that goes back to the earliest storytelling times, a genre that's as necessary to the human psyche as comedy, romance, heroics, and good old-fashioned horror.  But it can be done badly, too.  "Final Destination 5" does it good.  It's the second best movie in the series after "Final Destination 2".  After a busload of employees survive a terrible bridge collapse thanks to their co-worker's handy psychic premonition, death begins to come for them one by one.  Same old story, but the strength of this series lies in the buildup of tension and in the ultimate, hopefully unexpected, payoff of the inevitable deaths, which are spectacularly done here.  Emma Bell is in this movie (from "Frozen", "The Walking Dead"), as is Tony Todd, reprising his creepy morgue character from "Final Destination" 1 and 2.  The twist ending is a great place to leave the series, and the use of the 3-D in this movie is well done (the director of "Final Destination 5" is a protege of James Cameron).  It's a gory good time.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Here it is, probably my favorite movie of the summer.  While searching for the cure for Alzheimer's disease, Dr. James Franco's experiments lead to the birth of Caesar, a super intelligent chimpanzee.  After going nuts and getting locked away in an ape shelter, Caesar begins to ignite rebellious instincts in his fellow apes.  But when he gets his paws on some canisters of that anti-Alzheimer's drug, whoo-boy, look out - smart apes, coming through.  This movie could have gone very, very wrong, but in the hands of director Rupert Wyatt it goes very, very right.  Everything's solid on this movie.  The casting, the music, the action sequences, the moving drama, the photography, the special effects.  James Franco is quickly becoming this generation's best actor, but it's Andy Serkis (Gollum in "Lord of the Rings", King Kong in the 2005 remake), as Caesar, who steals the show and gives the best acting performance of the year.  While he's playing a digital character, you quickly forget that he's a special effect and just believe that he's real.  It's quite extraordinary.  This is apparently a prequel to the 1967 original (forget that awful 2001 Tim Burton/Mark Wahlberg remake), but it feels more like a reboot.  Either way, doesn't matter.  It's emotional, it's good, it features lots of loving nods to the original movie, and that kid who plays Draco Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" movies gets the comeuppance here he never received in "Deathly Hallows Part 2".  Simply awesome.