plus 3, MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Crazies’ taps into America’s fear of infection - Gwinnett Daily Post

MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Crazies’ taps into America’s fear of infection - Gwinnett Daily Post
Movie News & Gossip - YAHOO!
Movie Review: ‘The Crazies’ achieves genuine chills, but nothing ... - State Journal-Register
Movie review: `Yellow Handkerchief' strains for tears despite fine ... - Washington Examiner

MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Crazies’ taps into America’s fear of infection - Gwinnett Daily Post

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 04:03 PM PST

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Crazies
(R)
3 out of 4 stars

Breck Eisner's insane-in-the-membrane update of the George A. Romero cult horror movie "The Crazies" opens with a brief shot of fire, devastation and small-town apocalypse, followed by a title card that takes us back to the same Iowa farm community two days earlier.

We see white-picket fences, clapboard houses and good neighbors, and hear birds warbling and Johnny Cash singing "We'll Meet Again," a song whose title hints at the nature of the alarming events about to transpire. When these Middle American folks do meet again, those pitchforks they're carrying won't be intended for bales of hay.

Romero sandwiched his 1973 "Crazies" in between his more celebrated zombie movies, "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead," both of which have been remade, too, with varying results.

While "The Crazies" isn't a zombie movie per se, it derives much of its horror from the same fear — the enemy lurks both within and without you. There's a very real chance you might turn into a monster.

Eisner's remake maintains the dynamic of that unease, while Scott Kosar and Ray Wright's screenplay gives the audience a rooting interest by whittling down the political subtext and making the movie more of a survival story.

It helps, too, that Eisner's budget probably exceeds that of all of Romero's movies combined. Eisner puts the money to good use, delivering a beautifully shot film that contains equal measures of style and gore.

We first sense something might not be right in Ogden Marsh when Rory (Mike Hickman) wanders into the middle of the high school baseball field during a game. He's carrying a shotgun and wearing a faraway look in his eyes. The town sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) assumes he's drunk and tries to talk Rory down. He doesn't succeed.

After that, locals begin trickling into the office of the beautiful doctor (Radha Mitchell), complaining of fevers and being tired and not feeling "right." Germs seem to be spreading — and so is the news. Soon, we see Ogden Marsh from satellite, with the words: "Initiate containment protocol." Uh-oh.

Romero made his mark during the Vietnam and post-Vietnam era, and, as he went along, his anti-military broadsides became bolder and more pointed. He split his "Crazies" evenly between the military containment forces and the infected townspeople. Heroes were in short supply.

Eisner narrows the focus to the farm folk, while holding onto the idea of a federal government that will stop at nothing to cover its tracks. Interpret that as you like.

What "The Crazies" really taps into is our pervasive unease over disease, that moment when the person sitting next to you on the subway or airplane or, yes, the movie theater sneezes or breaks into a coughing fit and you realize you're unarmed. Never mind the pitchfork. Just don't leave the hand sanitizer at home.

(Overture Films)

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Posted: 23 Feb 2010 10:38 PM PST

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Sleepers come seemingly out of nowhere. They are the little films that confound expectations, attracting enthusiastic audiences that happily spread the word. Sometimes they come from the studio system, produced almost as an afterthought, but mostly they're produced well off the radar. On occasion, they upend the established order by opening at No. 1 at the boxoffice. But more typically they start small, building over time, hanging on in theaters as more heralded movies come and go. Often the filmmakers involved meet with initial rejection before wildly triumphing in the end. And in the process, they expose the limitations of Hollywood's conventional thinking about what makes a hit. Sleepers, when everyone wakes up to their potential, tend to be wildly successful, resulting in boxoffice returns that dwarf their modest budgets. And so, top sleepers of the past decade, take another bow.

10. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (Sony Pictures Classics, 2000)
Budget: $17 million
Domestic gross: $128 million

Except for a handful of martial arts fans, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was indeed hidden from sight during its production. Most Westerners weren't familiar with stars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh . Taiwanese director Ang Lee , coming off the commercial failure of "Ride With the Devil," wasn't exactly known for burning up the boxoffice, either. Even its rollout was uneventful: "Tiger" was first shown out of competition at the Festival de Cannes and made its U.S. premiere at the Hawaii International Film Festival. But after an Oscar-qualifying run in December 2000, it opened wide Jan. 12, 2001, to $8.6 million. And then, the subtitled movie became a sensation. While it never made more than $10.5 million during a single boxoffice weekend, it clawed its way to a $128 million domestic cume. It became the highest-grossing foreign-language film in U.S. history, won the Oscar for best foreign-language film, made an international star of Zhang Ziyi and ushered in an Asian movie revival in the West.

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Movie Review: ‘The Crazies’ achieves genuine chills, but nothing ... - State Journal-Register

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 08:57 PM PST

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The two stupidest words in the history of horror movies?

"Wait here!"

Fortunately, there aren't a lot of "Wait here" moments in "The Crazies," a lean little thriller that doesn't mess around. Adapted from George A. Romero's 1973 zombie movie without zombies, this new "Crazies" brings horror home to the heartland as a small Iowa town copes with an outbreak of homicidal maniacs and the shoot-first military sent there to contain the contagion.

Timothy Olyphant ("Live Free or Die Hard," "Hitman") is Sheriff David Dutton, who keeps the peace in peaceful Ogden Marsh, Iowa. He's the sort of caring lawman you'd hope for in a quiet town. When he has to shoot a deranged "town drunk" who staggers onto the baseball field in the middle of the game, brandishing a shotgun, Dutton suffers genuine remorse.

Radha Mitchell ("Silent Hill") is Dr. Judy Dutton, his wife. She treats a catatonic man in her clinic only to have him wipe out his family when he goes home.

"You know what? We're in trouble!"

Something has triggered this mania. Not everybody's sick, but that's the way the fellows in the black SUVs and black helicopters, and the soldiers in bio-chemical warfare suits treat them. Not only do the Duttons have to worry about which neighbors are murderous monsters and which are worth saving, they must also dodge trigger-happy troopers who are rounding up anyone they don't shoot on sight.

Director Breck Eisner ("Sahara") keeps the focus on the husband and wife, with a deputy and nurse (Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker) brought along for moral (and firepower) support. Chilling set pieces in a car wash and in the high school that's been turned into a triage center pay off with genuine chills. Eisner discovered the spine-tingle of knives and pitchforks dragged along concrete, of a whirring bone-saw clattering across a tile floor. Unlike many horror directors, he tries to put value on the lives that are lost, though he brings nothing else new to this paranoid genre.

The washed-out, "Book of Eli" colorations and stark locations (flat, brown cornfields) heighten the sense of isolation. But after "Zombieland," "The Crazies" struggles to find novelty and laughs, and must battle the overwhelming sense that we've been here, seen this too often and too recently to experience any real surprises.

"The Crazies" is rated R for bloody violence and language. Running time: 100 minutes. Two stars out of four.

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Movie review: `Yellow Handkerchief' strains for tears despite fine ... - Washington Examiner

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 03:13 PM PST

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William Hurt does possibly the best haunted eyes in Hollywood.

His droopy eyeballs are a highlight of "The Yellow Handkerchief," a standard-issue indie drama about hitting the road with strangers in hopes of reconnecting with an intimate from your past.

Hurt infuses ex-convict Brett Hanson with deep, palpable melancholy, yet the story rides on transparent artifice and weepy sentiment that turns to goo by the end.

The movie's main appeal rests with fine performances from Hurt and co-stars Kristen Stewart, Maria Bello and Eddie Redmayne, who lend "The Yellow Handkerchief" far more weight than its meager drama merits.

Produced by Academy Awards heavyweight Arthur Cohn ("Central Station," "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis"), "The Yellow Handkerchief" traces Brett's simple sojourn through post-Katrina Louisiana to reunite with lost love May (Bello).

Just out of prison after six years, Brett catches a lift with awkward teenager Martine (Stewart), who in turn has tagged along with the twitchy Gordy (Redmayne) in hopes of making another boy jealous.

What begins as a short hop across the river becomes a mission for all three as Brett shares his sad life story with his traveling companions, who are transfixed by the tragedies that tore him and May apart and Brett's against-all-odds hope to give it one last chance.

Working from a short story by Pete Hamill, director Udayan Prasad ("My Son the Fanatic") and screenwriter Eric Dignam fashion a narrative that flits clumsily from the present-day road trip — during which little actually happens — and flashbacks laden with emotional resonance between Brett and May.

Hurt and Bello, who co-starred in "A History of Violence" but did not share any scenes in that film, play off each other so well that it's disappointing the flashbacks make up such a relatively small portion of "The Yellow Handkerchief."

Stewart and Redmayne form a nice bond with Hurt and each other, but their characters are thinly developed and the wisp of incipient romance swirling between them feels like filler next to Brett and May's grand passion.

Chris Menges, Oscar-winning cinematographer for "The Killing Fields" and "The Mission," provides some bleak but gorgeous images of bayou country and the detritus left by Katrina.

"The Yellow Handkerchief" has been kicking around since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival two years ago, in Stewart's pre-"Twilight" days.

It arrives now as little more than a curiosity, a featherweight tearjerker featuring a promising young actress before she had Hollywood at her feet.

"The Yellow Handkerchief," a Samuel Goldwyn Films release, is rated PG-13 for sexual content, some violence, language and thematic elements. Running time: 96 minutes. Two stars out of four.

___

Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:

G — General audiences. All ages admitted.

PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.

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