Daily Archives: March 15, 2008

South Park: Imaginationland

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Launched in 1997 and having just kicked off its 12th season on Comedy Central, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s South Park remains perhaps the most freewheeling, irreverent and consistently anarchic half-hour of comedy on the small screen, certainly since the dissolution of Chappelle’s Show. While other series (Queer Duck, for instance) may be more outré in their conception or framing, South Park comes by its outrageousness more legitimately, if that makes sense. The entire raison d’etre of the series is the slaughter of sacred cows. (Well, that and the dissemination of scatological jokes.) If further proof is required, one only need submit to Imaginationland — originally presented last season as part of a three-episode arc, and now available as a feature-length, uncensored DVD with all-new material added in.



Imaginationland opens with all the South Park kids trying to capture a leprechaun that Cartman swears he has seen. In fact, Cartman has a $10 bet with Kyle that if said leprechaun does exist, Kyle then has to suck Cartman’s balls. Everyone is astonished when it turns out not to be another case of Cartman’s exaggeration or lying. The leprechaun escapes, though, and some of the boys of South Park are transported to the magical realm of Imaginationland, where all the characters of fiction cavort in a brightly colored gumdrop heaven. Circumstances are dire, though — Stan, Kyle, Jimmy, Kenny and Butters find themselves in Imaginationland just as terrorists launch an attack that unleashes all of mankind’s most evil characters — a legion of nasty, bloodthirsty villains that includes Darth Maul, storm troopers, the Big Bad Wolf, a marauding Alien, Jason Voorhies, Freddy Krueger, Frankenstein, etcetera.

With the world’s imaginations spinning out of control, the government prepares to nuke Imaginationland — and thus put an end to all imagination — in an effort to quell the chaos. Racing against time to prevent total nuclear annihilation, the citizens of Imaginationland realize their only hope of salvation lies with the unlikeliest of heroes: Butters. Cartman, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about the impending apocalypse; he just wants his balls sucked. After seeking a court order to uphold the legitimacy of his signed contract bet with Kyle, Cartman sets out on a Jack Bauer-style quest of tunnel-visioned justice and retribution, following Kyle — who, along with Stan, has been detained by the government in an attempt to help contact Butters — to extreme lengths to impose the terms of their agreement.

The show’s spoof of the questing-hero plot machinations of dramatic serials like 24 and Battlestar Galactica is airtight, and as with the more politically trenchant South Park episodes, the notion that terrorists most win only when we cede them permanent space in our heads is a worthy, if debatable, leaping off point for satirical exploration. Likewise, the single-mindedness of Cartman’s efforts at subjugating Kyle is a brilliantly lewd (if perhaps off-putting, to some) encapsulation of certainly his ego-centric, maniacal personality, as well as to a certain extent the entire macho world of testosteronized adolescence.

Housed in a white Amray case with a giant, text-free portrait of a rampaging Manbearpig (more on this in a moment) on the back cover and an open-front cardboard slipcover, Imaginationland is presented in full screen. A pair of two-minute, black-and-white storyboards chart the progress of the episode’s animation, and executive producers Parker and Stone also sit for an audio commentary track that’s a much deeper and more substantive offering than their typical episodic mini-commentaries on the seasonal DVD sets of the series. While they joke around some, indicating that the show’s bumper music will play whenever lawyers deem it necessary to block out defamatory content for which Comedy Central could be sued, the pair also talk (semi-) seriously about the issues at the core of the show, and admit that they strongly considered using the idea as the basis for a second South Park feature film. They also talk about the front-loaded production value and work schedule (the first episode got a lot of extra time and attention), and point out some of the dialogue content trims in the project dictated by television, including a portion in which some of the villains talk about raping children in front of their parents.

Also included on the disc are two bonus episodes from past seasons whose characters play an active role in Imaginationland — “Manbearpig,” about Al Gore’s “super-serial” obsession with the so-named mythical creature, and the scathingly hilarious “Woodland Critter Christmas,” an earnestly narrated tale in which Stan stumbles upon a group of chipper forest animals and
helps them build a manger for
their savior child, only to discover that the critters are actually Satanists, and he
just paved the way for 10,000 years of darkness and the return of the
(woodland) Antichrist. These are nice inclusions, but the release undeniably does feel a bit thin, especially for those who might already have the seasonal DVD sets containing the two bonus episodes. Still, it’s hard to push for supplemental extras that simply don’t exist for an episodic creation like this. To purchase the DVD, click here. A- (Show) B (Disc)

Doomsday

Film Reviews

As devoid of narrative ambition as it is of accomplishment, post-viral action flick Doomsday artlessly cobbles together its many apocalyptic influences, and offers itself up as reformulated genre pap, plain and simple. Written and directed by Neil Marshall, though, it’s atrociously staged, full of baffling incongruities, and not much fun to boot.



Obviously pitched at fans of the popular Resident Evil series and 28 Days/Weeks Later films, the film — which opened yesterday without screening for critics — should have a short but decent Stateside theatrical window with young males, courtesy of a slick, effective, turn-out-the-base advertising campaign and lack of direct genre competition. Aiding international totals will be in particular the foreign embrace of Marshall’s 2006 sci-fi spelunking thriller The Descent, which rang up $57 million worldwide, $31 million of that overseas. Overall, though, poor to middling word-of-mouth should dent theatrical earnings. The DVD marketplace will be kinder, with the film’s splat-and-squib work being more able to be appreciated in piecemeal fashion.

A narrated, seven-minute prologue, set in the present day, opens Doomsday, detailing the spread of the highly infectious “Reaper” virus. Having decimated the population of Scotland, the decision is made to halve England via a 30-foot-high wall of reinforced steel just south of Newcastle. More than 25 years later, with a new strain of the virus now threatening an overcrowded London, Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra, above) is drafted by her boss (Bob Hoskins) to head to the infected zone and suss out a cure from survivors that the government has been keeping secret. Upon arrival, she finds herself confronted by a population gone wild, descended into utter savagery and cannibalism.

On some level Marshall obviously wants Doomsday to be “timely,” and assay governmental conspiracy, but his script addresses this in only the most perfunctory and purposeless way, through an ineffectual prime minister (Alexander Siddig) under the spell of a scheming second-in-command (David O’Hara). The Reaper virus survivors, meanwhile, are weirdly divided into a medieval constituency, headed up by disaffected former doctor Kane (Malcolm McDowell), and the more outlandishly roguish, Road Warrior-type thugs under the sway of his mohawked son, Sol (Craig Conway). It’s as if crucial story points were based on what costumes were most readily available.

Marshall doesn’t have the imagination to scratch beyond the surface of his conceit, let alone explain why and how post-apocalyptic survivors have the time and inclination to style their hair into purple mohawks. Other narrative decisions (including Eden having a removable eyeball that she can use as a portable DVR, as well as a messianic rave/human cook-out set to… the Fine Young Cannibals’ 1989 pop hit “Good Thing”?) are merely odd, or come across as parody, definitely out of step with the rest of the movie. Most plainly damning, though, is the fact that Marshall simply cannot firmly establish any sense of space within his action scenes, leaving audiences awash in nonsensical cross-cuts and jump-cuts. For the full, slightly longer original review, from Screen International, click here. (Rogue, R, 105 minutes)

A Glance Back at The Big Lebowski

Ephemera, Interviews, Musings

I’ve linked some of my adventures in punditry previously, and I recently submitted to an interview regarding the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski, which ran this past week as part of a 10th anniversary retrospective cover story by Roger Yale in the Weekly Surge, the preeminent free weekly entertainment paper in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My Blogcast software isn’t feeling a direct link, so if interested in taking a spin click here, and select from “Looking Back at Lebowski” from the drop-down “Main Story Archives” tab.

It’s an interesting and amusing piece, and I was especially heartened that it got into a bit why the film has spawned eponymous bowling festivals and the like. My take? “Each generation goes through a period of ‘creative loafing,’ where
you have your interests, [but] the real world is starting to encroach on
you with responsibilities and obligations, demands on your time. So you’re trying to find out… how much of
these interests and enjoyment you can hold onto. You want to carry it
all, but how much can you realistically take with you? For that
reason, The Dude remains a really appealing character and always will,
hence, ‘The Dude abides.’ The phrase is simple but it’s shorthand for a
character that is a little bit older and [yet still] free from a lot of these
responsibilities.” Again, for more click here.

Steep

Blu-ray/DVD Reviews

Very much reminiscent and of a piece with fellow non-fiction extreme-skiing flick First Descent, director Mark Obenhaus’ Steep is an engaging documentary look at thrill-seeking slope masters and legends. Powered by legitimately breathtaking cinematography, this streamlined flick serves as an ample, exhilarating showcase for the world’s best freestyle skiers, who go beyond their dreams in conquering some of the craziest, near-vertical runs ever faced.

From the sheer cliffs of Grand Teton and the treachery of Chamonix France to the untouched Alaskan peaks of Valdez, these hardcore skiers sacrifice their lives for a thrill, but what a thrill it is. Legends Jean-Marc Boivin, Pierre Tardivel, Anselme Baud and Patrick Vallencant, among others, are all captured in stunning period footage, and a well-communicated historical overview of freestyle, downhill extreme skiing highlights both just how much of a personal endeavor this pastime was before it evolved into something more approaching a sport. The big sell here, though, is of course just the imagery on display, and the fantastically beautiful photography of some of the most magnificent mountain peaks on the globe — along with the requisite devastating avalanches and fatal spills — deliver plenty of gape-mouthed drama. There’s also a slight environmental bent to the picture, as several of the skiers talk about how climate change conditions have rendered Chamonix impossible to ski nowadays.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Steep comes presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 audio track, and optional English and French subtitles. Bonus features kick off with an audio commentary track with director Obenhaus and skiers Andrew McLean and Ingrid Backstrom. There’s also a 13-minute Q&A session from the movie’s 2007 AFI Fest presentation, where McLean fields a question and talks about skiing on all seven continents. The best bonus feature, though, is a lean yet still superb 17-minute making-of featurette which assays the astonishing means by which Obenhaus and his crew captured some of the skiing footage. For back-country work, this meant laying in cable-cams with ridge-to-ridge wire, a process captured with base-camp shots from helicopters, which were also used to freight in all the production infrastructure. Wrapping things up are two-and-a-half minutes of photo montages, plus a March 2006 interview with Doug Coombs from La Grave, France. Also included are preview trailers for My Kid Could Paint That, The Natural, Across the Universe, Persepolis, Talladega Nights and five other Sony DVD releases. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B (Disc)

Funny Games

Film Reviews

In 1997, Radiohead famously, if quietly, described the process of producing their album OK Computer as an act of deconstruction and defiance — necessarily destroying the more comfortable parameters of radio-friendly rock ‘n’ roll, and the distinction afforded them by the success of their previous album, The Bends, in order to “save themselves.”

For 66-year-old French writer-director Michael Haneke, film is a similar medium of confrontational statement more than corporate-vetted entertainment. Many of his movies are, in whole or part, sociocultural critiques foremost — labyrinthine morality tales, goosing psychological inquiries and jabs to the solar plexus that just happen to unfold on celluloid.



A painstaking recreation of his own 1997 film, Haneke’s Funny Games, starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, is at once buttoned-up and brutal, a provocative drama of domestic kidnap and torture in which an idyllic holiday turns nightmarish for a well-off married couple. Ann (Watts) and George (Roth) arrive at their vacation home with their young son (Devon Gearheart) in tow, and notice that their neighbors are acting strangely. They soon find out why when they’re visited by a faux-simpleton (Brady Corbet, above right) and his friend/possible brother (Michael Pitt, above center), who are dressed in preppy tennis-whites and alternately address one another by names actual and fictional (e.g., Peter, Paul, Tom, Tubby). A feigned dust-up, over dropped eggs and perceived discourteousness, gives way to a stand-off, with the boys’ sing-song politeness belying their true psychopathic nature.

Spiked with a few dark streaks of morbid humor, Funny Games is chiefly powered by lingering menace, both out of frame (that the family dog is going to meet a bad end is a queasy certainty, especially when one character borrows a golf club to try out) and especially on screen (most notably in an excructiatingly long take in which a bound, beaten Watts eventually tries to wriggle free from her awful predicament). Just don’t call it a psychological “thriller.”

Haneke likes aerial and topographical framing, which early on gives the movie the cool, detached sheen of a high-end linens catalogue, with its discrete shots of unviolated domesticity (shoes, a staircase, the refrigerator and the like). As the nasty chess game between captors and captives unfolds, though, the film becomes a series of isolated single- and two-shots.

There are any number of examples of siege films that Funny Games recalls, from Straw Dogs and Bruce Willis’ Hostage to a throwaway thriller like Unlawful Entry and, believe it or not, 1994’s underrated The Ref — all if mostly in formal antecedent rather than execution. Yet to try to comparatively experience or air-quote enjoy the film on this level is to miss Haneke’s point. To him, the story itself here is almost incidental. The story serves as an elongated exercise in demasculinization — George is forced to watch as his child is imperiled, his wife forced to strip, etcetera — and a case could be made that the movie is partly about the folly of denying an animalistic side to humanity. But Funny Games is mostly about the consumption of violence for entertainment’s sake, its commodification, and how in turn this warps our expectations of it, and relationship with it in the real world.

Haneke addresses this by breaking down the fourth wall in a few moments, not in a radical, Ferris Bueller-type of way, but rather with an unnerving, offhand line or two from our psychopathic ringmasters (“You’re on their side, aren’t you?”). For Haneke, violence is undeniably a virus, as it moves here quite literally from one house to another. Without any of the normal sort of shock, gore or jump-scares lurking in the camera movements, though, a new type of grim uneasiness develops: that of the nasty and brutish reality of violence as it exists off the edges of the screen. Funny Games posits that we are a persuadable lot, humanity — willing to accept almost anything in the name of entertainment.

That the movie is being sold in furtive, mock-thriller clips set to the “William Tell Overture” (a classical tune popularized as the theme of The Lone Ranger) only reinforces and highlights the irony on display here. A button-pushing, master-class example of manipulation, the designed-to-divide Funny Games is a fascinating indictment of what a lot of film has become. It feeds on audience discomfort, and even, to a certain level, distaste. That it’s getting a theatrical release at all, let alone from a major studio (albeit via its boutique label), is a strange thing indeed. (Warner Independent, R, 108 minutes)