CLOVERFIELD

The movie attached to the enigmatic trailers depicting the going away party in Manhattan that is interrupted rudely by loud, thunderous sounds has finally made it to theaters under the name Cloverfield.  It opens with television color-bars from a Department of Defense feed, purporting to show a videotape recovered from "the area formerly known as Central Park."  The rest of the movie is the videotape.

This was done first (as far as I know) in The Blair Witch Project to great effect.  As a cinematography device, it is very effective in building tension and underscoring drama.  However, the "shaky" effect and the limited range of view for the moviegoer make it a concept that must be done with an expert hand or else the movie will become unwatchable.  Unfortunately, I believe that Cloverfield has ventured into the unwatchable category.

You will need to take Dramamine before watching this film.  I would venture to guess that 90% of the footage involves the person holding the camera running or moving in terror, which results in swinging the camera back and forth so fast that the viewer cannot see anything but blurred images.  Some of that is effective for identifying with the terror of the character, but its overuse in this film makes it nauseating.  I literally could not watch the entire film.  I was forced to close my eyes for long stretches because of the wobbly/shaky camera work and had a splitting headache hours afterward.  Maybe I am just too old to view this type of thing.

All of which is incredibly tragic because the film works beautifully as a straight-up monster flick had J.J. Abrams decided to just make a film in the usual manner.  The monster is awesome, the story is solid, and the actors (all unknowns, at least to me) are lacking charisma but deliver serviceable performances.  The effects are really good, but we are limited to mere quick glimpses of the most amazing scenes because of the videotape trick.  It is frustrating.  Plus, since we know that the movie will end if no one is using the camera to film, some of the scenes are too contrived because no sane person would continue filming through some of the scenes (they would simply drop the camera and run).

In the end, I left the theater with motion-sickness and a headache, feeling like I just sat through a terrific movie---only one that should have been made by someone else.

Some movies simply must be viewed on the big screen.  Sunshine is such a movie.  I highly recommend that you top off your summer with this film, directed by Danny Boyle and starring...well, no big name actors, but some faces you will probably recognize.

The cast delivers surprisingly good performances all-around in a passable psychological thriller set in deep space, but the star of the film is...the Sun.  Not the pleasant, warm Sun that gently cascades your cheek with warm rays on a summer day, but the huge, menacing Sun that burns violently away everything with six-digit heat.   

In Sunshine, it seems that fifty years in the future the Sun is dying.  Man's only hope is to deliver a super-massive nuclear device to the Sun itself in an attempt to trigger re-ignition.  The scenes of the burning Sun as the massive spaceship travels closer to it are spectacular.  The ship is so close to the Sun that if any part of it ventures outside the shadow of the huge shield mounted in front of the ship, it is incinerated immediately.  This looming danger sets the tension tone throughout the movie.  The scenes in space are just incredible because the filmmakers were able to capture the scope and scale of the ship in relation to the Sun and make it work in the mind of the viewer.  There is also a scene where the ship passes Mercury on the way to the Sun and it is just amazing on the big screen.  

As the ship approaches the burning Sun, the psychological pressure of such a mission takes its toll on the crew and some bad things happen on the journey.  I will not spoil any of the crises encountered by the crew, other than to say that they encounter both natural and man-made dangers.  

But the thing that makes this movie work is the combination of a good, tight story with the stunning visual effects.  In my opinion, Sunshine is a standout in the summer box-office fare.  Next on my agenda is The Bourne Ultimatum, but do yourself a favor and do not wait to see Sunshine on video or DVD.  It is a true big-screen flick.

Every now and then a movie comes along that restores one's faith in the capricious art of film making; and reminds us that interesting characters, carefully plotted themes, and old-fashioned imagination can be infinitely more moving to the movie-goer than car chases, computer-generated special effects, and formulaic scripts.  Director Guillermo del Toro had previously generated the adequate, if uninspired, Mimic and Hellboy, neither of which could have given us a glimpse of his capabilities to write and direct the moving film El Laberinto del Fauno, released in America under the name Pan's Labyrinth.

I had been hearing a lot of buzz about this movie and finally went to see it when I was in Denver about a week and a half ago.  I saw it at The Mayan, which is an art-house cinema where I had seen David Lynch's Lost Highway several years before.  The Mayan is somewhat gritty and I moaned when the film began and I realized it was all in Spanish and that I would be forced to watch it with subtitles.  Thankfully, this film is so powerful and well-done that I was glad, in the end, that I was able to view it in the original language.

The story centers around a twelve-year-old girl named Ofelia who must accompany her very pregnant and ill mother, Carmen, over the Spanish countryside in 1944 to meet Carmen's new husband, Captain Vidal.  Vidal is a particularly fastidious and punctual commander of a fascist military battery trying to protect a mill from revolutionaries.  He insists on having his child born at his side and thus Carmen and Ofelia at the beginning of the film are traveling to his command post, a journey that makes Carmen's problem pregnancy even worse, in addition to the friction created when Carmen implores Ofelia to refer to Vidal as "father" which causes conflict in emotions in Ofelia because her real father had died.

The rest of the film weaves Ofelia's fantasy world which she creates out of necessity to deal with the horrors of war and conflict with the actual armed conflict between Vidal's fascist soldiers and the revolutionaries.  This is done in such a way that seems completely logical and expected.  Much of the credit goes to del Toro for directing and writing a story with no contrived scenes and two seemingly unrelated perspectives unfolding and meshing with each other in a seemless, tight, tale that is equal parts fantasy and war drama.  

The cast gives solid performances all around but Ivana Baquero gives a particularly compelling performance as Ofelia, with Sergi Lopez playing Captain Vidal with unsettling discipline and Maribel Verdu playing Vidal's chief servant, Mercedes, an incredibly brave and resourceful woman who figures prominently in the plot as the film unfolds.

Pan's Labyrinth is a film that just "works" on all levels.  Ofelia's fantasy world is as rich and textured as any you are likely to see on film; and it relates to the other parts of the film in subtle and beautiful ways that are conveyed superbly by the actors in each scene.  Note that Pan's Labyrinth is not a film for children.  The content is violent and intense but none of it in a gratuitous manner.  I recommend this film but be warned that Ofelia may stay with you long after you leave the theater. 

Ron Jones (Enid) and I went to Kingfisher last week to conduct a couple of preliminary hearings.  Ron recommended a book titled "Under and Alone" by William Queen.  I bought it that day and thought it was good enough to share.  Queen was a BATF agent who went undercover to infiltrate an outlaw motorcycle gang called The Mongols.  The book is his first-person account of that experience and it is surprisingly good.  There does not appear to be any ghost writer and it shows (too many instances of ending sentences in prepositions) but that fact also makes the book a little more genuine.

Queen informs us that Gov. Jesse "The Body" Ventura was a member of The Mongols back in 1973 after he returned from Vietnam.  Queen also infiltrated the National Alliance, the white-supremacist organization founded and lead by Dr. William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries which the government claimed later to be the blueprint for the Oklahoma City Bombing.  Queen has a copy of The Turner Diaries inscribed by Pierce. 

As you might expect, The Mongols are some very bad dudes, even by outlaw motorcycle club standards.  Queen's undercover assignment lasted over two years and I think he captures some of the emotional tumult that comes with befriending people, even bonding to a certain extent, and then having to betray them.  I know that I could never do that kind of work and I have always been a little suspicious of people who could.  Queen gives some insights into this dynamic that illustrate just how difficult it is.  One example occurred when the woman who raised him (not his mother, but he considered her his mother) passed away and he went back home to mourn and attend the funeral.  When he returned, not one of his co-workers at ATF expressed any sympathy; yet, nearly all of his associates in The Mongols hugged him, said they loved him, and said how sorry they were that his mom died.  These were people he would eventually send to prison.  That is some powerful stuff.

Queen also does a good job of explaining the mechanics of how motorcycle gangs work and how undercover operations are conducted.  The gangs are very tribal and wear insignia called "patches" to signify "full-patch" membership.  Once a person has achieved his patch, he is accepted by members everywhere (even in other states) and is entitled to the full protection of the gang which can be ferocious.  A person who wants to join is called a "prospect" and a person who just likes to hang around bikers is called a "hang-around."  Queen started as a hang-around, went through the trials of being a prospect, and ended up as a full-patch Mongol by the time the investigation concluded.

Queen falters in some areas, delivering some ill-fitting BATF braggadocio as well as federal-law-enforcement-versus-the-bad-guys schmaltz, but for the most part his book seems genuine enough to enjoy and the schmaltz is met later with what seems to be genuine conflict between his role as federal agent and friend to persons in the gang who are extremely loyal and trusting.

One major criticism of mine is the fact that during this two-and-half year undercover operation, Queen apparently never had to use drugs or resort to serious violence against another person.  He comes close many times and explains how he was able to avoid it, but I do not buy his explanations for the most part because it does not seem plausible that he would be able to avoid these things for so long being around persons described in the book as some of the most aggressive, volatile, and paranoid criminals likely to be encountered anywhere.  It seems to me that he simply left those parts out for obvious reasons.  Queen does explain the procedure and standard used by federal law enforcement when they must use illegal drugs undercover, which is something that I had not read before.  But the ease with which he apparently escapes some of these touchy situations seems to contradict his characterization of the Mongols as bad-to-the-bone bikers (and on that point I do not think he is inaccurate).

In the end, I think the reader accepts this artistic license because the trade-off is more than worth it.  The book is paperback, only about 250 pages, and is a quick, entertaining week-end read.  Check it out.

Morgan.  I have not been reading for fun a whole lot lately, but I squeezed this book in last week and it was worth it.  Set in the future, the story centers around Chris Faulkner who works in the "conflict investment" division of a large UK finance firm which means that he basically calculates how to profit from regional conflicts around the globe.  His world is cut-throat and even his co-workers and competitors can file a road challenge to him (or anyone else) and duel in cars on the way to work.  If you win and take the other guy's plastic you might get promoted.  Come with blood on the wheels or don't come.  All the characters are fairly well-drawn and there are many parallels between the ethos of his business and what we do.  You will see what I mean if you read it.  The dialog is smart and sharp.  Morgan doesn't disappoint with a grim, but satisfying ending.  Check it out.