Wes Craven's New Nightmare

By the time Wes Craven’s New Nightmare came around, the character of Freddy Kruger had turned from antagonist to protagonist.  Yes, the later Nightmare on Elm Street films still had a formula of a dreamer battling Freddy to keep him from killing and sending him to the grave, but that is not what people went to the theatre to see.  They wanted to see the bad guy.  Freddy had turned into the attraction, the spectacle, and the whole show.  He now had a vocabulary that centred around funny quips, and audience members would cheer for the son of a hundred (or a thousand… I can’t remember this part of the overly done mythology) psychos.

Craven showed a daring ambition to turn him once again into the villain, and returned to the matchup, and relationship, between Freddy and Nancy.  It used the real life actors Heather Langencamp and Robert England to portray themselves in a story where Wes Craven was writing a new script, one that was mirroring reality as was no longer kept at bay from the dark tales of horror.

Craven’s genius came through in the script, and the manifestation of this was in the interaction between Langencamp and England, Nancy and Freddy.  Yes, she had only been the central character in one of the films, but she was the quintessential opposite force to the demented Kruger.  It was through subtleties in the first film that their relationship was established as one of the best horror duos of all time.  It is this relationship, and that of Langencamp and her vulnerable son (whom Kruger looks to mess with) that the weight of the story is held.

It looks in many ways to return Freddy Kruger back into the dark villain, and even pokes fun at his comical reception from audiences within the film.  Craven aims to show that he is not the star, that the evil is what we should root against, and that it is the good that we should identify.  If anything, this movie just proves the fact that any Nightmare on Elmstreet movie without Nancy is impotent at best.  That she is the forgotten force in a film that needs balance, and that through Langencamps acting, the invincible Freddy Kruger has a mortal foil.

The Breakdown of Wes Craven Podcast

For myself, hearing the news that film maker Wes Craven had passed away at the end of August was a big emotional gut punch.  The man had horrified me as a youth, and that was without having even seen one of his films. I remember my sister returning from a slumber party and telling me about a movie she saw called A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Once she told me the premise, my life changed.  Falling asleep was difficult and scary for a good long time, and I would get shivers every time my parents were driving and the car crossed paths with Elm Street.

It was the beauty of the premise that was so powerful.  Being attacked in your dreams, a place where you should be at rest.  Sleep is something that everyone needs, something that cannot be escaped, and to view that activity as death row was so simple yet so innovative.  Craven created a foe who could get you where nobody could save you.  Not the police, not your parents, and not even yourself.

But it was not just the horror that I was cursed with from the movie that made it so vital to me.  When I finally saw the movie, I was amazed at the quality of story telling involved.  The protagonist, Nancy (played by Heather Langenkamp), was a break from the horror scream queens.  She was not just a female who survived until the end, continually running, screaming, and wearing tight clothes.  She was the girl next door, normal and relatable.  She was scared but also brave, searching to learn more about the evil Freddy Kruger, willing to confront him.

It was inevitably the relationship between an ultimate protagonist and ultimate villain that added the appeal of the film.  It was layered and had a message of how the mistakes we make in the past can come back to haunt us.  Yes, it freaked me out when I was young, but it mesmerized me when I was older.  A classic tale that was vivid and psychological at the same time.

In order to give Wes Craven a proper send off, my podcasting partner in crime, Christopher Spicer, and I thought it appropriate to dedicate an entire podcast to the man who had affected both our love of film and story telling.  The podcast to a master of horror can be found here.  And, if you're willing, watch A Nightmare on Elm Street.  You will see one of the best female protagonists of all time rising to the challenge in a sturdy and gripping tale.

United Passions

Receiving a love letter is such a wonderful experience (unless the sign off consists of, 'I'm watching you').  It has been many years since I have received one, but the emotions that came from it are still present.  There was much gratification and warmth written in the words of the lady that would become my wife, and, to use the cliche, I felt like a million bucks.  Love letters, however, are much less sincere when you write them to yourself.

That is essentially what United Passions is.  It is the glorious and heroic tale of how FIFA came to existence and its rise to global financial awesomeness.  It is also funded mainly by FIFA (approximately ninety percent of its budget was covered by FIFA).  Interesting, no?  The source of the funding would indicate why watching this mess feels like sitting through an hour and fifty minutes of propaganda.

The timing of its release was fatefully appropriate, only a few weeks after the United States issued inditements for many top FIFA brass and a week after re-elected president Sepp Blatter claimed he was the president of everybody.  This helps shine a light on many of the misguided attempts throughout the film to show how this football association was all about the game.

Being 'all about the game,' the narrative focuses mostly about the goal to secure money.  While I am sure the business-minded backers at FIFA equate financial gain with success, the viewing audience who sees FIFA as a corrupt organization can't help but laugh at many of the scenes.  One of my favourite lines in the film, which shows such a lack of awareness from FIFA, is a representative from Uruguay mentioning how there is no limit to their resources, and that 'you (FIFA) need the money, we need the world championship.'

This is the central problem of a film overflowing with many problems (including actor Sam Neil not seeming to understand that Brazilians would not speak with a Spanish accent).  The script is one of the most horrendous ones I have encountered, and I have seen Troll 2 and Glen or Glenda.  I will criticize a movie for having expository dialogue and ham-fisted lines if there are, let's say, four to five instances.  That does not sound like a lot, but when there should not be even one, those five lines become eye-rollers and deal breakers.  In United Passions, if one played a drinking game where they had one ounce of beer every time there was expository dialogue or a ham-fisted line the person would be passed out by the time the credits roll.

Technically speaking, there is no merit to this film.  The editing is done in a way that is manipulative and with an agenda.  The music is doubly so.  I suppose there was some attempt at hair and make up, but not enough to season this spoiled and salmonella ridden dish to the point where someone would even want to sniff it.  The box office reflected this, with the film averaging $61 dollars per theatre the one and only weekend it was in release.  If there is a worse film than United Passions this year, I will probably end up crying.  The eyes and the mind can only take so much abuse.

Rating - 0 out of 4 stars

The Martian

Director Ridley Scott has dealt with a series of hit and miss movies over the past few years.  In the last two years he directed critical and box office misses The Counsellor (2013), and Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014).  Both films were poorly reviewed, getting 35% and 27% on Rotten Tomatoes respectively.  I cannot comment on The Counsellor, but I did see Exodus in theatres, and, believe me on this, it was a rather lifeless experience.  The present had been indicating a long and disappointing slide from the skills he showed earlier in his career.

One of the reasons why I love movies so much is that each film is a new opportunity for a talent to show that she or he still has it.  When I sat down to watch The Martian, the first ten minutes had completely convinced me that Scott had returned to pristine story telling and environment crafting form.

If one looks likes to draw comparisons that a film has with its source material, The Martian is a textbook example of it being done right.  What made Andy Weir's novel such an enjoyable and captivating read was the humanizing of the dry-humoured protagonist, Mark Watney (played in the movie by Matt Damon).  The poor lad was stranded on Mars after his team had to evacuate during a horrific storm, and we followed him through sadness, hope, excitement, and depression.  These emotions were mirrored by what the good folks back on earth were journeying through as they followed the story of Watney on Mars.  It was solid, popcorn munching literature that walked us through the spectrum of the human experience.

The film, which was incredibly penned by Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods, Cloverfield) was able to capture all of the beats and flow of the book, executing the humour and isolation of Watney with artistic perfection.  This is exalted by a tremendous cast of characters who all exceeded in nailing their performances.  Each character is written as a unique individual, and are all believable in their motives and actions, something that not every movie can boast.

Normally I balk at movies in 3D, but this is a key aspect in the story telling, much as it was in 2013's Gravity (hey, both movies were about shit hitting the fan in space!).  The depth that is created through this medium shows us just how small and insignificant Watney is when compared to the dangers offered up by the red planet.

Speaking of the red planet, this is somewhere we have been before in numerous movies.  I distinctly remember watching Total Recall with my father and being in awe of Schwarzenegger standing on the crest of a hill on Mars before having a fatal fall.  I had been to many different planets through Star Wars and other sic-fi tales, but Mars stuck out to me.  Probably because it was unimaginative.  It was bleak and dead.  That resonated with me about the reality of what the planet could actually be like, and left me never wanting to visit such a lonely and desolate place.

Well, if I thought it looked cool back then, it looks even more amazing now.  The visuals and construction of what we see of Mars by Ridley Scott absolutely look and feel real, with no hint of computer generated imaging at all.  It falls in line with the gauntlet for world building that Joseph Kosinski laid down when he directed Oblivion (not a great movie, but insane and seamless visuals).  It's one thing for a movie to have neat-o special effects, but it is another to create an environment that actually feels like the movie was shot on location.  The eyes are unable to detect inconsistencies, and the subconscious mind has nothing to grab onto to say this isn't a genuine place.  Scott also seems to shove a boot into the backside of the modern movie making system as this insanely special effect-heavy film brought with it a budget of just over one hundred million dollars.  When films with a reasonable budget look so perfect, there are fewer and fewer excuses for the exorbitant budgeted films.

Was this film created to be the greatest movie ever made?  Hell no.  Was it created to contend for one of the best popcorn munchers of all time?  Hell yes.  Movies don't need to be deep in thematic battles while being backed by Oscar baiting performances.  They need to tell a story that grips the audience and invites them into the experience.  That's all a film needs to do to be successful, and that is exactly what happens with The Martian.  In the theatres laughter will be heard, tears may be shed, and people will leave the screening smiling and talking about what they saw.  That, to me, is what the theatre experience is all about.

Rating - 3.5 out of 4 stars