The Crazie Spiel: The Crazies (2010) Review

Think, I should start with a listing of the positives to offset the rest of the review. This has me racking my brain. Even something akin to what Ellen DeGeneres said about an "American Idol" contestant's shoes being nice, seems hard. Ok, so maybe the scene where the wife discovers that people who had been separated were also ruthlessly killed to contain the disease, in some way might actually be illustrating that evil might be a necessity in the bigger picture. Maybe also the movie says there is not much fairness in the world. Even if it wasn't the town people's fault, no one can protect them from or compensate them for the destruction. Maybe, but I doubt it. Even a prefunctory nod at these issues could have redeemed the producers to an extent. However, that could have been if they hadn't been expending all their energy trying to resurrrect or replay every cliche ever seen in a disaster/gore/ slasher/ zombie movie. There is the courageous Sheriff trying to save his equally courageous wife, who is also the town doctor, and (completing the loving potrait with a flourish) their unborn child. The hero also has a loyal sidekick, his deputy, who is made to eventually succumb to the disease and martyr himself to save the Sheriff. The events are liberally embellished with images, the berseck saw, the screech of a rake against the floor, mutilated corpses, scarlet eyes, all of which would have evoked violent fear if they had not been borrowed from previous gore fests that we have been over-exposed to. The whole time I was watching, I was hoping for one instance that would not be how I could listlessly predict it to be. But that would take courage and personality. And who ever said zombies had either?

P.S: This is suppossedly a remake of the 1973 movie of the same name. Even just the synopsis of the older movie has more bite and potency than the almost 2 hrs of this one.

The Ghost Writer: Review

Pretty recently, I read, that the most exciting thing about new movies by auteurs is that each release does not stand just for itself but also charts the personal trajectory of the auteurs art. Having watched just one previous movie by Roman Polanski, "Rosemary's Baby", I couldn't have traced any evolutionary arc. However, I could still recognize in it, the elegance, finesse and effortlessness that stems from the cumulative experience of creating everything before.

The movie starts with a young writer being commissioned to be the ghost-writer for an autobiography of a former British Prime-minister. Though initially reluctant, having no political background and also given the fact that his predecessor on the job supossedly committed suicide, the deal is lucrative enough for him to make his way from England to a remote location in the US of A where the former PM now stays with a small number of aides. On his arrival, a political scandal breaks loose. The PM is trying to salvage his image and escape a conviction. His marraige is strained and his wife makes you uncomfortable. In the midst, through a series of convenient, almost naively constructed, circumstances, the writer uncovers secrets his predecessor had found. The movie barely conceals its inspiration: Tony Blair and his wide-eyed acceptance of US tenets. And it also spells out the current world view, where the suppossed perpetrators of all political under-dealings have changed hemishpheres.

Parts of the story, the PM's scandal, the uproar and the possibility of having to stay away from parts of the world in fear of being imprisoned, almost miror Polanski's own drama. And it makes you wonder about coincidence and fate. The movie is the most alive in its carefully crafted grey lansdcape. Everything else, its plots points and its characters, seem incidental in comparison. The beating rain, the fog, the wild sea, the cold sandwiches, the concrete house, the relentless wind, futile attempts at raking leaves. Despite, minimilistic strokes in colors and expression, the landscape makes each frame surge with with story and atmosphere. Each shot is stylized, up to the ending, which though seems to have been created specifically for punch, achieves its objective beautifully. Sheets of flying paper, across a grey urban roadscape. The movie seems made by a master: it is fluent but just a tad careless.