…AND 2 TO SEE ON HOME VIDEO
With all the hype for the Oscar© nominated films, it’s helpful to be reminded of how hard it is to make a good movie. No one sets out to make a bad one, but never the less, they sure do get made. There’s no explanation for the diversity in our movie tastes, but the disappointment of being subjected to a truly bad one is excruciating. Here then, for the sake of discussion, and in no particular order, is my list of the ten worst films of 2012. There were so many from which to choose.
JOHN CARTER: A gargantuan Martian abortion midwifed by team Disney. ROCK OF AGES: Unintentionally grim big hair 80’s karaoke “musical” with Tom Cruise as a rock god. THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN: A fungal condition goes untreated. THAT’S MY BOY: Adam Sandler’s crass inner idiocy finally offends everyone. PIRANHA 3DD: Not even titillating. ALEX CROSS: Tyler Perry goes noir — embarrasses self. And us. BATTLESHIP: A bored game. DARK SHADOWS: Sadly devoid of the cheap camp of the TV soap. MIRROR MIRROR: A thudding lump of glossy crapola. LINCOLN: Bloated self-important talkfest skews history.
NEW ON HOME VIDEO
COMPLIANCE
This relentlessly gripping and deeply unsettling little gem from gifted writer/director Craig Zobel is based on a series of real incidents. Ann Dowd plays a middle-aged fast food manager and Dreama Walker is a teen employee who needs the job. When a police officer calls Dowd, already overwhelmed with work issues, and accuses Dreama of stealing, the teen vigorously denies it. But even so, Dowd and Dreama are snared into voluntarily submitting to a series of invasive and relentlessly humiliating acts demanded by the disembodied, but authoritarian voice on the phone.
Some critics have pointed out this film is about sadomasochism in the American workplace. But it is more concerned about our apparent inability to question authority. Writer/director Zobel has fashioned a superb, edgy, supremely discomforting drama that brilliantly captures the reality of how far we will go to please someone we think has power over us — in spite of what we feel to be wrong. Think you would never comply in a similar situation? Zobel based his movie on studies that were done in the 60s that showed students willingly inflicting apparently excruciating electrical shocks to other students when told to do so by instructors in lab coats with clipboards. Specifically, COMPLIANCE is based on more than 70 criminal complaints of similar incidents. Ann Dowd is as memorable a character as Tony Perkins in PSYCHO. Dreama Walker perfectly captures the resigned horror of capitulating to the imprisonment of her vulnerability. Filmmaker Zobel is a huge talent with an assured future. He knocks this one out of the park and into orbit. A perfect movie. Tragic and terrifying.
A THOUSAND CUTS
Playwright and filmmaker Charles Evered’s much discussed movie finally makes it’s home video debut this Tuesday. The hugely relevant story centers on the hot button topic of movie violence and the influence it may have on the viewer — stable or not. Academy Award© nominee Michael O’Keefe co stars as an angry, grieving father who holds hostage a hot young director (Michael Newcomer) who made a splatter film a killer used as a model for the murder of his daughter.
This intense psychological drama, scripted by Evered, Marty James and Eric Barr, delivers a fierce, ferocious conversation about the ripple effects of the extreme violence that passes for entertainment. What if there’s a moral debt for the creators of dehumanizing on-screen portrayals? And what happens when that debt comes due?
For me, after watching this film, I could not help thinking about the most fundamental questions regarding the very nature of story itself — and the various ways it can be conveyed by different media. And more importantly, is there such a thing as responsibility in art. Big questions indeed swirl around the core of this drama.
In some ways, the poster and video box art imply the sub-genre of violence porn that the film actually rails against. Don’t be misled, this is not a gore or torture fest. And make no mistake; this is no message movie but rather a carefully crafted argument about our never-satiated craving for evermore-vivid action and entertainment. Are we prisoners of our desires? There’s a clever balancing act here as we are seduced into considering both sides of the argument.
But best of all, and the real test of any movie, this is the kind of story that lingers long in the mind after final fade out. RobinESimmons@aol.com
