I'll admit, I was one of the many swept up in the original Paranormal Activity social media frenzy back in 2009. From The Blair Witch Project to Cloverfield, this hesitant horror film fan has always appreciated the clever narratological approaches taken by the so-called "found footage" genre. After seeing the sequel last year, I once again stepped up to the plate to defend the franchise and the increasingly exploited plot conventions that had permeated the grander horror classification in the interim. Success breeds imitation, and what Paranormal Activity 2 did well, it did better than its copycats.
Which brings us to this year's iteration, which despite generally favorable reviews is drawing comparisons to the Saw franchise in film and (among the geeky) the Call of Duty franchise for simply putting a new coat of paint on that same old Buick we've taken around the block a few times. This is a fair criticism-much of what happens in the third film of the incredibly successful franchise we've seen before. This demon, we learn, hasn't really invented any new tricks.
Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman of Catfish fame seem loath to mess with Oren Peli's polished premise in any way. Once again, we are introduced to an almost fetishistic (and, in one scene, this classification becomes more literal than families attending the film may appreciate-but then again, if you're making a family trip to the cineplex to see Paranormal Activity 3, you probably have a few skeletons in the closet of your own) videophile male whose desire to document the strange occurrences in his home draws the ire of his live-in lover. The fresh coat of paint here is a nice pastel white--we're in the year 1988, in all its lovely Magnavox glory. The couple in question is Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) and Julie (Lauren Bittner), mother of the sisters who have become the central possessed entities of the series thus far.
Paranormal Activity 3 serves as a serviceable prequel. There is less exposition at the beginning and throughout the film than perhaps this generation of agitated cinema-goers will allow (this reviewer included), and the ending of the film is clearly geared toward the extenuation of the series for a fourth installment around this time in 2012 (predictions of world catastrophe notwithstanding). As we head toward this inevitably inconclusive conclusion, the filmmakers tread an already well-worn narrative path-tension builds, creepier stuff starts happening, and what started out as innocent conversations between a young girl and her imaginary friend turns horrifically violent.
Which is, of course, the most inexcusable of Paranormal Activity 3's transgressions. The series has not yet reached a point where it has become a parody of itself (though a self-referential "jump" joke from a babysitter--I know, another innocent babysitter is pulled into the fray, surprise!--comes agonizingly close to doing so), but the move is flirting with taking the satirical plunge. It may have been the noisy theater I was in for the screening, or the need for audience members to ease the tension with nervous laughter, but from my experience it seems as though audiences are becoming increasingly cognizant of this threat. There was much more laughter and restlessness during Paranormal Activity 3 than I witnessed in the other entries in the series.
The one shining addition to the series is a cinematic choice by the directors that plays off the technical limitations of the 1980s. Lacking the ability to film the entire downstairs because of the limitations of the widths of lenses, Dennis decides to mount a camera on top of an oscillating fan in the downstairs living room/kitchen area that causes the camera to move agonizingly slow from one end of the room to the other. The directors use this for three specific scares that increase in intensity, but one can't help but feel that the trick was under-utilized just a little bit. The clever tactic becomes subsumed by tricks we've already seen before-flying furniture, human beings, and unexplainable auditory cues.
This happens in the conclusion of the film as well. The final 15 minutes, which are advertised to "mess you up for life," recycle the first-person camera techniques of The Blair Witch Project and, in a much more recent example and to a greater effect, Paranormal Activity 2. Yes, some messed up stuff happens. And you probably won't want to think about it as you fall into listless sleep after watching the film (damn noisy water pipes). But to say that the film does anything extraordinary in the last 15 minutes is a misnomer at best and dubious advertising at worst.
The mark of a desperate horror franchise might be to ratchet up the intensity in succeeding installments in the last few moments to make up for the diminished quality of the film that proceeds it. In Paranormal Activity 3's sense, the opposite may be true. The family unit of Julie, Dennis and the girls may be the most believable and sympathetic of the series yet, and certainly the introduction of the imagination of children allows the film to explore some themes that were absent from the other films. But the denoument (or lack therof) in Paranormal Activity 3 left me unsatisfied...even as I was prying my fingers from those poor armrests in the cinema.
Paranormal Activity 3 does what it needs to do. It moves the series along and provides just enough fright to keep the audience's faith in the filmmakers going. The characters, while fitting into roles already established in the franchise, allow for some inspired performances from another cast of talented non-superstars. The scares, while also derivative, at times (and especially in the final few moments) break out of the expected mold and produce some organic and original horrifying moments. But one gets the feeling that the found footage genre, and the wonderful installment in this series that revitalized it two years ago, is walking a thin line of irrelevancy.
Verdict: 3/5 stars
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Review-Moneyball
*I would like to apologize for the lack of updates in the Shallow End recently. My grad studies have migrated my blogging vigor to misplacedjayhawkreporter. Expect a few more frequent updates when my editing/reporting duties die down next semester.*
So says Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) at a pivotal moment of the denouement in Bennett Miller's "Moneyball." Writ large, we might say the director and film have a hard time not being Romantic about American individualism.
Like Michael Lewis' book that inspired the film, baseball is merely a narrative overhang in Moneyball, a kind of distraction for the sports crowd while more subversive plot threads are un-spooled within. At the center of this narrative web is Beane himself, who is presented as a fractured former player whose impulse to be smarter than the game is endeared emotionally to the audience in a series of biographical flashbacks. This produces the effect of a biopic without an emphasis on the bio, and provides the framework for a climactic merging of timelines that underscores the metaphoric significance of the film as a whole.
Pitt embodies Beane with such perfection that even the tired clubhouse tirades become matters of high drama. Pitt's Beane broods, but Bennett deftly unfolds a narrative that makes this brooding palatable. Voices early in the season about the failure of the A's inundate both the audience and Beane on-screen, exacerbating the "us against hte world" mentality that is established in the opening moments of the film. Actual footage of the 2001 American League Divisional Series dances across the screen, devoid of any type of sociopolitical slant aside from the flashing of the respective payrolls of the two teams before the game's final out. The Yankees, who would eventually lose the World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks, triumph over the A's in a scene that has the potential to be tasteless in its disregard for post-9/11 sensitivities until it flashes the smiling mug of Rudolph Giuliani. Beane still smashes a transistor radio into tiny bits, and the frame of Moneyball is born.
The other half of the "us against the world" mentality is filled in (literally, the character Peter Brand is merely an amalgamation of several associates Billy Beane worked with at the A's in the early 2000s) by Jonah Hill. Hill plays the part with his usual pathetic charm and naivety, which is entirely called for in his depiction of 25-year-old statistics expert Brand. As the film progresses, a clear rapport develops between Hill and Pitt that keeps the heartfelt moments between them from becoming melodramatic. In particular, a scene near the end of the reel has Beane and Brand reviewing film of a game with Brand's intent to show Billy just how important what he's done to the game of baseball is. Aaron Sorkin is incredibly evident in this scene, as Brand's admission that the game film they have just watched is a "a metaphor" astutely deflects the schmaltzy weight of the scene. Sorkin's writing never lets you forget that this is a sports film, just as "The West Wing" was a show about White House politics, "A Few Good Men" was a courtroom drama and "The Social Networks was "the Facebook movie."
As teased above, though, Moneyball is about much more than the game of baseball. It's equal parts biopic, conventional sports story and Ben Franklin-esque American autobiography. In no scene is this more apparent than when they all come crashing together at the end of the A's record-breaking winning streak in September of 2002. I had a very real moment of cognitive dissonance watching my beloved Kansas City Royals attempt to figuratively destroy the dream of a process they themselves probably should have been employing at the time (don't forget which green pasture Johnny Damon left first, movie-goers), but the importance of this sequence was in no way diminished by my boyhood biases. As Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt) rounds the bases after a walk-off home run to win the A's 20th consecutive game, images from Beane's distant and recent past flicker across the screen in a very Roy Hobbs-eseque moment. The success of a man has translated to the success of a team and, by extension, an idea.
Moneyball succeeds in remaining neutral on the analytic/Romantic debate about baseball, as we leave Beane choosing loyalty over prosperity and to the strains of his daughter's guitar and lyrics identifying Beane as a "loser." In an analytically cold sense, maybe this is true. But the Romantic story of American ingenuity expertly draped over this sports film is much more satisfying.
Verdict: 4.5/5 stars
"It's hard not to be romantic about baseball."
So says Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) at a pivotal moment of the denouement in Bennett Miller's "Moneyball." Writ large, we might say the director and film have a hard time not being Romantic about American individualism.
Like Michael Lewis' book that inspired the film, baseball is merely a narrative overhang in Moneyball, a kind of distraction for the sports crowd while more subversive plot threads are un-spooled within. At the center of this narrative web is Beane himself, who is presented as a fractured former player whose impulse to be smarter than the game is endeared emotionally to the audience in a series of biographical flashbacks. This produces the effect of a biopic without an emphasis on the bio, and provides the framework for a climactic merging of timelines that underscores the metaphoric significance of the film as a whole.
Pitt embodies Beane with such perfection that even the tired clubhouse tirades become matters of high drama. Pitt's Beane broods, but Bennett deftly unfolds a narrative that makes this brooding palatable. Voices early in the season about the failure of the A's inundate both the audience and Beane on-screen, exacerbating the "us against hte world" mentality that is established in the opening moments of the film. Actual footage of the 2001 American League Divisional Series dances across the screen, devoid of any type of sociopolitical slant aside from the flashing of the respective payrolls of the two teams before the game's final out. The Yankees, who would eventually lose the World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks, triumph over the A's in a scene that has the potential to be tasteless in its disregard for post-9/11 sensitivities until it flashes the smiling mug of Rudolph Giuliani. Beane still smashes a transistor radio into tiny bits, and the frame of Moneyball is born.
The other half of the "us against the world" mentality is filled in (literally, the character Peter Brand is merely an amalgamation of several associates Billy Beane worked with at the A's in the early 2000s) by Jonah Hill. Hill plays the part with his usual pathetic charm and naivety, which is entirely called for in his depiction of 25-year-old statistics expert Brand. As the film progresses, a clear rapport develops between Hill and Pitt that keeps the heartfelt moments between them from becoming melodramatic. In particular, a scene near the end of the reel has Beane and Brand reviewing film of a game with Brand's intent to show Billy just how important what he's done to the game of baseball is. Aaron Sorkin is incredibly evident in this scene, as Brand's admission that the game film they have just watched is a "a metaphor" astutely deflects the schmaltzy weight of the scene. Sorkin's writing never lets you forget that this is a sports film, just as "The West Wing" was a show about White House politics, "A Few Good Men" was a courtroom drama and "The Social Networks was "the Facebook movie."
As teased above, though, Moneyball is about much more than the game of baseball. It's equal parts biopic, conventional sports story and Ben Franklin-esque American autobiography. In no scene is this more apparent than when they all come crashing together at the end of the A's record-breaking winning streak in September of 2002. I had a very real moment of cognitive dissonance watching my beloved Kansas City Royals attempt to figuratively destroy the dream of a process they themselves probably should have been employing at the time (don't forget which green pasture Johnny Damon left first, movie-goers), but the importance of this sequence was in no way diminished by my boyhood biases. As Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt) rounds the bases after a walk-off home run to win the A's 20th consecutive game, images from Beane's distant and recent past flicker across the screen in a very Roy Hobbs-eseque moment. The success of a man has translated to the success of a team and, by extension, an idea.
Moneyball succeeds in remaining neutral on the analytic/Romantic debate about baseball, as we leave Beane choosing loyalty over prosperity and to the strains of his daughter's guitar and lyrics identifying Beane as a "loser." In an analytically cold sense, maybe this is true. But the Romantic story of American ingenuity expertly draped over this sports film is much more satisfying.
Verdict: 4.5/5 stars
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