We Hurl So That You Don’t Have To

Welcome to flicksthatmakemesick, a website that dares to expose the stomach-churning threat of movies that are filmed by indie director/sadists with hand-held cameras who believe their artistic vision is more important than the tooth enamel of the people who pay to see their films.

Ironman 3

I like my action heroes with a little angst. I have to believe that if you’re going to blow up buildings and take out innocent civilians while attempting to save the world, you’re going to earn a little PTSD along with all the kudos. It shows you have a heart, or in the case of Ironman’s Tony Stark, at least an electromagnetic cup with a bunch of shrapnel in it.

Ironman 3 came roaring into theatres last weekend, setting off a chain reaction of summer flicks that will continue well into cicada season. Last summer we had The Avengers, where Ironman joined up with Thor, Captain America, the Hulk and a few other superhero types in really tight outfits. The big climax culminated in an all out battle to save the world from aliens and other Loki-driven demons that happened over the skies of NYC. Although the day was saved, the experience was traumatic enough for Tony Stark that he starts twitching if anyone even mentions the words “New York.”

Back in his modernistic, cliff side workshop, Tony has given up on sleep and spends his days and nights creating a variety of Ironman suits that will reassemble in midair like a magnetic K9 playing fetch with various limb-shaped frisbees. The plot gets complicated quickly, involving flashbacks and terrorists and lots of things blowing up, but it is the wildness in Tony Stark’s eyes as he tries to do anything he can to keep from having to talk about wormholes and that guy with the big hammer that makes this Ironman stand out from the others. Robert Downey Jr. has always been perfectly cast as the egocentric millionaire genius, but in this film, he shows the cracks that begin to appear in the iron facade as he tries to deal with the bang from that gang of other superheroes.

The film is fast and funny, with a stand out performance by Ben Kingsley as the bin Laden-like villain The Mandarin. Mustering all the gravitas of Ghandi mixed with the cold-bloodedness of a Hans Gruber, Kingsley speaks in a Gene Hackman-like accent that is both weird and totally appropriate. I wish The Mandarin had a few more scenes, as he is one of the truly original movie villains to come along in a while.

The film jumps from location to plot point without too much regard for continuity, but no one really expects a well-ordered outline in a comic book movie. There is a great rescue sequence that takes place in midair as Ironman tries to save multiple people falling out of an airplane all at the same time, which he dubs the Barrel of Monkeys scenario. I like my movie stunts with a side of humor and this one is a classic.

My favorite scene in the whole film barely lasts two minutes, and I have not seen it mentioned in any reviews, which I find a-Pallying. Tony breaks into a TV truck to try to download some information and is discovered by a star-struck technician who bears a very strong resemblance to Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I actually thought it was him until I heard the actor speak and realized it was Max from Happy Endings! (which if you’re unaware of, you’ve probably already killed it because they’re going to cancel it for low ratings and how come you never watched the funniest show on TV?) Gary the technician actually has a tattoo of Tony Stark on his arm (which Tony thinks is Scott Baio) and is clearly writing fanfic in his basement involving Tony and Bruce Banner. We never see Gary again which is a real shame, because I would watch an entire movie where Adam Pally just stalks Robert Downey Jr.

No shaky-cam problems to report, as Hollywood seems to have abandoned this technique in favor of extremely expensive 3D explosions. Your stomach will be fine, although your eyeballs might catch on fire because at 2 hours and 20 minutes, this a pretty long time to wear the 3D specs.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but just in case you’re an idiot, do not leave the theater until you have read all 10,478 names in the credits involved in this production. It will be well worth your time.

Barf Bag Rating: ZERO BAGS

Roger Ebert: 1942-2013

flicksthatmakemesick has been offline for a few weeks while I focus on some Real Life Stuff that can’t be ignored no matter how much I try. But I wanted to come back for a brief moment and pay tribute to Roger Ebert, one of the all time great Chicago writers.

I often disagreed with Roger’s movie reviews. All the way back to Sneak Previews, I was far more likely to nod my head at Gene Siskel’s assessment than Roger’s critique. But I kept on reading his stuff and watching his program and realized that even though my opinion frequently veered in a different direction than his, his writing was still very interesing. You had to admire his emotional investment in every movie he watched and his unabashed cheerleading for the practice of filmmaking in general.

When I first started researching motion sickness in hand-held films, the best article I came across was written by Roger Ebert. He actually gave definition to the churning sensation in my gut every time I watched a movie made with a shaky cam – he called it The Vomiting Point.

“While two seconds is a short shot, remember that an ASL is obtained by averaging in all of the shots, long and short, that there are 24 frames of film to a second, and that the human eye can actually perceive one frame (as with the Satanic face in The Exorcist). What is crucial (the “vomiting point,” we could call it) is apparently when a film doesn’t vary its pace, but is largely made of short hand-held shots, edited together by quick cuts that ignore spatial continuity.”

Roger Ebert

I read Ebert’s autobiography a few years ago (Life Itself) and it dawned on me why his point of view was so familiar. He grew up in Urbana and went to my alma mater, the University of Illinois and moved to Chicago after graduating. His writing was straightforward, enthusiatic and as midwestern as Prairie style architechture. His later books and web entries showed not only a vast knowledge of film but an unwavering point of view that grew stronger with every health crisis he faced. Plus, he wrote this:

“A downstate Illinois boy loves the Steak ’n Shake as a Puerto Rican loves rice and beans, an Egyptian loves falafel, a Brit loves banger and mash, an Indian loves tikki ki chaat, a Swede loves herring, a Finn loves reindeer jerky, and a Canadian loves bran muffins,” he wrote. “These matters do not involve taste. They involve a deep-seated conviction that a food is absolutely right, and always has been, and always will be.”

From one downstate Illinoisian to another, I salute you, Roger. I hope there is a Steak ’n Shake wherever you’ve gone, and that you can finally taste that steakburger again.

Flight/Life of Pi

Now that the year of the snake is upon us, I feel that it is timely to turn to the zodiac to answer all our questions about the remaining nominated films before the Academy Awards are presented. (Also, I watched Anaconda this weekend – best snake movie ever!)

The four elements that organize the zodiac signs are Air, Fire, Earth and Water. We will combine the first two, Air and Fire, because that is essentially what the movie Flight is about – the plane starts out in the Air and ends up in a field on Fire (hey, I guess that covers Earth, too!) The crash sequence guarantees that this film will not be shown on your next United cross-country trip. This is what an emergency landing looks like in your nightmares. All but six people survive, and that is due to the skill and grace under pressure of the pilot, the fabulous Whip Whitaker.

Except that he’s not so fabulous, having been on a binge the night before and needing a few lines of coke to wake himself up before he heads to the flight deck, then mixing himself a screwdriver as he talks to the cabin full of passengers. The plane crash is due to mechanical error and the pilot is lauded as a hero, until it comes out that he was stoned out of his mind.

Denzel Washington is amazing in the role of the junkie pilot, ricocheting between complete despair as he realizes what he has done to his career to the utterly confident arrogance that the drugs give him. No one does cocky like Denzel, and it was wonderful to watch him in this performance. The film is more about facing down your demons than the actual plane crash and turns into an interesting ethical situation as the lawyers try to save his career.

The plane crash sequence is not only terrifying but nausea-inducing as Whip turns the plane upside down in order to pull it out of a dive. It doesn’t last very long, but the after effects will leave you jittery far into the film. Maybe mix a nice vodka and orange juice to calm your nerves.

From there we move fluidly into Water and the Life of Pi, which takes place almost exclusively on an ocean. In a rowboat. With a tiger. This film comes from a book that has been around for a while but was considered unfilmable because it takes place … well, see above. But director Ang Lee was able to take the seemingly impossible and create one of the most magical films I have ever seen. The CGI technology has progressed to the point that you truly believed that there was a sopping wet, extremely angry and horrifyingly seasick tiger in that rowboat.

The first twenty minutes of the film are too long and less successful than the book, as young Pi searches for God and tries to understand the world. His family is local zoo keepers who are forced to relocate, and it is their ship full of animals that goes down, leaving him and a few other unfortunate beasts in the lone lifeboat that survives.

The sequences on the water are spectacular and hallucinatory in 3D, as Pi tries to figure out how to survive on a tiny boat that also has a tiger in it. The imagery is gorgeous and I would have enjoyed a lot more of it if I hadn’t had my eyes closed tightly and my fist shoved in my mouth.

Life has been fairly uneventful here at flicksthatmakemesick for the last year – handheld cameras seem to have gone out of vogue and Hollywood has been a much steadier place than it used to be. Life of Pi isn’t handheld, but most of it takes place on water — water that goes up and down, up and down, until the tiger isn’t the only one who’s feeling a little queasy and so nauseous that it makes you want to bite the head off the hyena sitting next to you. The end of the film is surprising and leaves you with something to think about, although mostly I wanted a couple of Advil and some ginger ale. To appreciate the full effect, make sure you see this one in 3D, and bring some Visine with you as well.

Barf Bag Rating for Flight: THREE BAGS for the crash sequence.
Barf Bag Rating for Life of Pi: FOUR BAGS for the middle section on water.

Coming Next: The final two Best Movie nominees and a downloadable flicksthatmakemesick Academy Award ballot!

Django Unchained

It’s not like I didn’t know what to expect.

Just the name Tarantino is usually enough to let you know what you’re in for. His name has practically become an adjective. (“The tarantino effect was in full force as the spatters of red wine reached every corner of the kitchen.”) Since he burst onto the scene in 1992 with the extremely bloody Reservoir Dogs, his films have become synonymous with over-the-top violence. He stays pretty true to form in his latest, Django Unchained.

The movie follows the adventures of a bounty hunter named King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) who teams up with a slave (Jamie Foxx). King buys Django and frees him, and together they hunt down a variety of criminals, all the while looking for Django’s wife, Broomhilde, who was sold to another plantation. Tarantino likes to mix up his styles, so the film pays homage to spaghetti westerns with a number of anachronistic, contemporary touches thrown in as well. I’m not sure if “homage” is the right word here, because to me if seemed like a really violent remake of Blazing Saddles. With the duo of Foxx/Waltz as a stand-in for Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, the mixed race duo encounter overt racism and over-the-top bad guys. Even the comedy is slapstick, as a group of KKK members ride to lynch Django but have to abort the mission because they can’t see out of the eye holes of their hoods. I would have sworn that the voice coming out of one of the masked Klansman was Slim Pickens, who was in Blazing Saddles but died about 30 years ago. Broomhilde even speaks German, a plot point that figures into her rescue, although at no point is she as tired as Madeline Kahn.

There are differences between the two buddy flicks, of course. Blazing Saddles has show tunes, racism, and ten minutes of farting around a camp fire. Django Unchained has whippings, racism, a man torn apart by dogs and a body count higher than the number of time they use the n-word. (which is 110).

There has been a lot of talk lately about violence in films and video games and whether or not it influences the general public, particularly the 18-24 year old male audience it’s geared toward. Personally, I don’t see how there cannot be a connection, but I’m sure there are studies that will argue it either way. It’s the old question “Does art imitate life or is it the other way around?” I think the whole thing is starting to blur into one big, bloody mess, because when I watched the last third of the Django Unchained climactic revenge scene, with bodies nearly cut in half and blood spurting high in the air and covering nearly every surface, a thought flashed into my head that was pretty horrifying: I wondered if that’s what the classroom at the Sandy Hook Elementary School looked like after the massacre? I didn’t really care much about the end of the film at that point – I just wanted to get out of the theatre. My son said that he had a similar reaction to Zero Dark Thirty – the non-stop machine gun fire made him extremely tense because he kept imagining someone coming into the theatre and repeating the scene that happened in Aurora. Will constant real-life violence eventually influence filmmakers to go in a different direction, or will they simply keep trying to top themselves, as Tarantino does, until we are all so numb to the carnage that we don’t even notice it anymore?

I don’t have very high expectations that things will change, as long as there is an audience that will pay to watch any of the Saw movies. But might I suggest an alternate ending? Perhaps, just as things are about to explode at Leo DiCaprio’s plantation, they could all run out in tuxedos and sing:

“Throw out your hands,
stick out your tush!
Hands on your hips,
give them a push!
You’ll be surprised. You’re doing the French mistake. Voila!”

Where is Dom DeLuise when you need him?

Barf Bag Rating: ZERO BAGS for the film, FOUR BAGS for the content

My favorite part of Django was at the very end, after they had killed about hundred or more people, they put up a credit that read “No horses were harmed in the making of this film.”

Also, just FYI, the Django Unchained Action Figures are no longer available, because that was such a good idea in the first place.

Zero Dark Thirty

Certain phrases of military slang already exist in the lexicon; for instance, we have the popular SNAFU or FUBAR, both of which are acronyms for a state of general fucked-up-ness. (As in: Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj have really FUBAR-ed American Idol.) Now we have a new cool phrase that we can all throw around to try to look as badass as Navy Seals about to take down a terrorist—­Zero Dark Thirty. This phrase is also used in my house to describe the time in the dead of night when one of the cats dips her paw in my bedside water-glass and, after drinking her fill, successfully pushes it off the nightstand where it explodes like a bomb on the floor. We call this Zero Dark Thirsty. (rimshot!)

The film is a fascinating look at the CIA’s ten year hunt for Osama Bin Laden as experienced by an agent named Maya. According to director Kathryn Bigelow, although the story is based on first-hand events, the character is actually a composite of several different women who contributed to the search. Bigelow said in an interview that she was amazed to find out that there were more women than men on the team that followed the many leads and hunches that eventually led them to the compound in Pakistan. Maya is played by Jessica Chastain, and she struggles to remain expressionless as she observes a fellow agent torturing and waterboarding a detainee. The strength and toughness and sheer obsessiveness required to do this kind of work is mirrored in her face as the years tick by and one lead after another hits a dead-end. Even when the hunch as to where bin Laden is seems more and more certain, it still requires hours of meetings and untangling of red tape to convince her supervisors that they should act. This film is like one long day at my office.

Eventually the decision to act is given the go-ahead (with the probability of bin Laden actually being there put at “a soft 60%). The attack on the compound is eerily familiar because we have seen news footage of the actual place, and the whole event takes place in the weird greenish glow of night-vision goggles. The tension is ramped up to eleven as we follow the team of Seals into the compound and around each blind corner, with one soldier (Chris Pratt from Parks and Rec) whispering “Usama” like he’s playing a creepy game of hide and seek. I thought it was odd that there were no guards or movement inside the grounds as the soldiers entered, because the element of surprise was kind of lost when they crashed a freakin’ helicopter in the front yard.

The film is remarkable because it shows that wars are not just fought with weapons but with the dedication and intuitiveness of people up to their ears in paperwork and leads that go nowhere and hunches that literally blow up in their faces. There has been some chatter that the Oscar snub against director Bigelow (no nomination for Best Director) is because the film endorses torture, but I think that is ridiculous. It shows the methods used but it’s not like it’s encouraging people to try it at home.

The nomination should have been there, because it’s really tough to take a film that takes place mostly behind desks and computers and turn it into a tension-filled action thriller.

Barf Bag Rating: ZERO BAGS

Lincoln/Argo

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” wrote philosopher George Santayana. (No, those are not the lyrics to “Smooth”; that was a different Santana.) It’s a good thing we have movies to help us remember history, since most students are probably texting in class and completely forgetting what they weren’t paying attention to in the first place. But lest you think that history is boring, might I suggest you shut off your phone and immerse yourself in two different films that will not only educate you but make you stand up and cheer for filmmaking at its’ best.

Lincoln is an astonishing portrait of the man during a two-month period in the second term of our 16th president; with the end of the bloody Civil War finally in sight, he knows that the chances of abolishing slavery for good hinge on the passage of the 13th Amendment – but it must be done before the peace is achieved. The parallels to our modern politics are astonishing — apparently our present day Congress learned everything they know about lying, bribery and dealing from this group of senators in 1865. The film is a fascinating insight into how laws are passed, most of them notably absent of what might be right or noble but more about who benefits the most.

Daniel Day-Lewis carries the movie as Lincoln, much as Abe carries the burdens of the world on his broad shoulders. This isn’t so much a performance as a channeling of Lincoln’s tormented, depressed spirit as he struggles to do what he knows must be done. Sally Field is Mary Todd Lincoln and for the first time in a long time, disappears into the character to the point that I forgot she was Sally Field. She was that crazy.

This is a really good movie, and Stephen Spielberg’s direction and Tony Kushner’s screenplay both deserve the accolades that are being thrown at them. The ending was classic Steve, as I’ve always thought he can’t resist taking things one step farther than is necessary. I don’t think I need to add a spoiler alert to say that Lincoln dies at the end (duh), but I would have liked the film to close with the triumph of signing the amendment. To take it beyond that moment to the death-bed was like showing the aliens at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind; he just can’t help himself.

Our next history lesson shows up in Argo, a semi-true story based on recently declassified information that shares what happened to the six American employees who escaped the embassy during the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979. I say “semi-true” because apparently there was a lot of poetic license taken with the script, and many of the most exciting scenes are complete fiction. So take the history aspect with a bit of skepticism and just enjoy it as tense action thriller that is also wonderfully bizarre and funny. Alan Arkin and John Goodman completely steal the picture as a Hollywood producer and make-up artist who set up a production team for the totally fake movie “Argo” that becomes the CIA’s cover story to get the Americans out of Iran. The title sets itself up nicely for a little obscene catch phrase that the characters cannot resist saying. I kind of want it on a T-shirt.

Ben Affleck has come a long way as a director and the film is tight with edge of the seat tension, although he still manages to include a totally gratuitous shot of himself with his shirt off. Oh Ben, don’t ever change.

Unlike Lincoln, which is pretty much put the camera in one place and let the actors do the heavy lifting, Argo is all over the place with shaky archival footage of the actual event and choppy editing to create the fast-moving pace. (I guess Spielberg couldn’t get any archival footage). But despite the gut-wrenching effect produced by the hand-held cameras, I am grateful for this movie because it set up one of the best jokes ever on 30Rock :

Liz Lemon: “Because I’m Liz Lemon! My parents spent the money they saved up for my wedding on a PT Cruiser! I have been sure for a long time that this was never gonna happen, and I was fine with it! Ergo, it couldn’t matter!”

Ex-boyfriend: “Ergo, Affleck’s finally going to get that Oscar!”

 

Barf Bag ratings:
Lincoln: ZERO BAGS
Argo: THREE BAGS

flicksthatmakemesick is back!

My apologies to all the filmgoers with weak guts who look to this site for guidance and may have accidentally wandered into the 48 frame per second version of The Hobbit because I wasn’t here to tell them not to. It’s like I’m George Bailey and Clarence was testing me by showing the audience what movies would be like if flicksthatmakemesick never existed. But I’ve realized the error of my ways and I promise I will never again take a two-month hiatus, at least without telling you first. (By the way, this is what I was doing: The Samoan Letters)

Academy Award nominations are coming up soon (January 10), and flicksthatmakemesick will be your guide for the best movies of 2012! I’m a little behind, but coming soon I’ll have reviews for Argo, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and Life of Pi. Hey! It’s snowing! Merry Christmas, you old savings and loan! Zuzu’s petals!