Everyone Has A Price.

Vimeo served up this awesome short film to my inbox today. Take the sixteen minutes out of your day to watch; it's well worth it [NSFW].


Whoa. (c)Keanu

I was really impressed by the sharp editing and stark, fluorescent cinematography. The cast, a nice little Benetton coalition of actors displaying a wide range of emotions, was on point too. Additionally, the atmosphere of the film -- equal parts desperation, hope, and greed -- drew me in almost immediately. I liked the juxtaposition of various visions of pleasure/paradise broadcast by the television screens against the greasy, bloody recordings of the convenience store security camera. The resolution for the two characters bookending the film made me chuckle, too; at least something went right for somebody.

Your Lucky Day [larger version here] asks us what we would do in a similar situation. How would you weigh a share of $156 million against witnessing two murders you had nothing to do with? What would your price be, knowing that your death would likely be the consequence if you didn't agree to the terms?

Are your morals worth your life?

I think that at the moment, my self-preservation instinct would kick in. True, refusing to acquiesce to the robber's demands wouldn't bring the dead back to life. Not really having much of a choice, I would probably have acted in a similar way to the couple. However, I think the guilt would eat me alive. Admittedly, whether or not I'd eventually turn myself in is up in the air.

That I'd even hesitate to do "the right thing" is probably some kind of moral failure. I suspect, however, that I'm not alone.

So, dear reader ... what is your price?

Not All Hope Is Lost. Yet.

This past weekend I was in a dystopian Blade Runner-ish kind of mood (blame all the winter grey outside) and needed a movie to match it. Scrolled through my movies and decided to watch Children Of Men, which I'd been neglecting for a couple of years for some reason or another.

As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices.
- "Miriam"

Well, it definitely fulfilled on all fronts. Children Of Men is set in the not-too-distant future. Women, for reasons unexplained, are no longer able to bear children and (as a result?) global society has largely deteriorated into anarchy and chaos. England is the only remaining "stable" country, having become a brutal police state rounding up immigrants and generally terrorizing its own citizens. There was an omnipresent undercurrent of barely-restrained tension. It was terrific.

The first thing that struck me was how incredibly grimy the environments looked. I have to give it up to Alfonso Cuarón's set designer -- you could've dropped Marcus and Dominic from Gears Of War into this movie and they'd feel right at home. Set design usually serves to set the tone for the movie, but in this case the pieces were characters themselves. The future looks exhausted, repressed and utterly bleak.

[via]

Clive Owen plays a former activist who gets in over his head by agreeing to help smuggle a pregnant woman to the relatively safe confines of The Human Project, an organization devoted to researching why the world has become infertile. However, trust in other people during the journey becomes an increasingly valuable commodity, and things go awry very fast.

Beautifully scored and acted with roles by Michael Caine, Julianne Moore and Clare-Hope Ashitey, Children Of Men is a fascinating blend of violent action, social commentary and chase thriller. It raises interesting questions about how (quickly) we would devolve if we had, literally, nothing left to hope for. These moments of relatively quiet contemplation are interspersed with scenes of despair and sudden violence, which thankfully are never over-the-top or implausible. There are several visually enthralling takes in the film, my favorite being a 6+ minute siege scene in the final third that completely encapsulates the feeling of desperation, fear, dread and hopelessness pervasive to the movie's message.

If you have a couple of hours to devote to a singular movie experience, I'd recommend Children Of Men. It'll stay with you long after the screen goes dark, and might spark an interesting conversation or two. After watching the movie, check out the movie trivia on IMDB, which made me appreciate it even more and warrants subsequent viewings.

We Are Our Own Devil.

Only a few days ago, I'd been blessed by the dark notes of Mezzanine by Massive Attack flowing out of my iPod. It's an album I tend to listen to three or four times a year when that particular mood strikes -- the need to immerse oneself into music that's simultaneously cool, calculating, almost-sinister and absolutely seductive -- you know the feeling. Trip-hop exploded onto the scene at around the same time that I was searching for something new and awesome to fill my brain. Mezzanine poured like a slow, silvery liquid into my ears, and I was immediately taken by how dark and ... sexy it was. This was something I'd never heard before.

And I liked it. I've been a fan ever since.

So it really was a fortuitous coincidence that I received an email from Tristen Gacoscos of Filter asking me to check out Massive Attack's new single "Paradise Circus (feat. Hope Sandoval)" and hooked me up with a link to the video. To be honest, it was ... difficult to pay close attention to the actual music while watching the video for the first time. Hmmm yeah yeah yeah for obvious reasons (as you'll see below), but the spliced-in candid interview with Georgina Spelvin about her experiences in The Devil In Miss Jones made for good listening as well.

But yo. This joint just slithers and slides in a strangely retro kind of way, topped off lovely by Hope Sandoval's breathy vocals. I love the chimes and hand-claps, and the way the strings float in like ghosts near the end. This is something I can throw on at the end of a house party as I navigate chinky-eyed around empty bottles of Sapphire, semi-conscious Asian chicks and low-hanging kush clouds. In other words, hot shit.

I'm not going to embed the video here on PM 'cause it's basically porn (let me spell it out for you: EXTREMELY NSFW), but hey, look and listen for yourself.

"We are our own devil." Indeed, Miss Jones, indeed.

Massive Attack's new album, Heligoland, drops 09 February.

War Is A Drug.

... or at least it's what The Hurt Locker would have you believe. This theme bubbles under the surface of the film, which takes place in 2004 Iraq and follows an American EOD squad as they face the dangers of defusing bombs and attempt to get along with each other in the process -- all without getting killed.

Upon viewing, it wasn't hard to see why this was such a critic's darling. Director Kathyrn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days) imbues the movie with a constantly palpable and satisfying tension. It probably didn't hurt that the film was penned by a freelance writer who'd been embedded with an actual bomb squad during the war. I could feel almost everything, from the baked-in heat wafting up from the cracked asphalt, to the drowsy maddening weight of the bomb suits, to the near-frantic anticipation of the inevitable sniper's bullet. It's exhausting and exhilirating at the same time. The moviemakers get Giant Gold Stars for execution; Locker is beautifully made and looks stunning.

Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty, who play the three members of the EOD unit, are simply fantastic in their roles. Each a soldier with his own motivations, they struggle to really mesh as a team and find themselves in a few perilous situations as a result (including one which slightly strained my suspension of disbelief). By the end of the film however, each man finds what he's looking for -- more or less -- and the film's theme becomes more apparent. I finished the movie with a renewed appreciation for our troops overseas, and was thoroughly entertained and pleased.

The Hurt Locker is not your typical war/action film. Yes it takes place in Iraq, but doesn't have any overt political messages. Characters are fully fleshed out which more than makes up for the lack of a grand, overarching plot. The atmosphere is humid, dense and startlingly vivid. I'd recommend this movie if you're in the mood for a gritty, intelligent take on an overlooked aspect of the military effort. I guess it could be considered "eye candy" of sorts with the explosions and gunfire, but it really is a smarter film than that. Press Play on this one.

Torture Porn? Hardly.

This isn't necessarily a movie "review" per se, because I generally like most of the films I end up watching. Plus I don't usually review much of anything save for the occasional music album. I guess this would be more like a reaction to the viewing.

It's been a while since I've dedicated a couple of hours to just sitting and watching a movie. So, feeling the need to make some kind of progress on the movies piling up in my queue, I selected Martyrs, a French horror film released in 2008. I hadn't seen any trailers and knew absolutely nothing about the movie aside from the fact that some people had labeled it "torture porn" like the Saw or Hostel series. (Now don't get it twisted, I like a good scare every now and then, but I don't pick and choose movies just because there's someone getting sliced up or ripped apart in them. I do have some semblance of taste. I think.)


The movie drew me in immediately, with scenes of a screaming, tortured child escaping from her demented captors in a decrepit industrial building and running half-naked down the street. Lucie is institutionalized and ends up befriending Anna, another patient, who eventually becomes a protector of sorts. Lucie is periodically tormented and attacked by a gross-looking demon, which naturally freaks her the hell out, so it's usually up to Anna to calm her down and dress her wounds. Fast-forward fifteen years, and the two are still close friends, but Lucie believes that she has found the couple responsible for her childhood capture and abuse, so she goes to their house with shotgun in hand.

It's hard to post my reaction to the movie without giving away any spoilers, but let's say the first and second thirds of the film conform somewhat to traditional supernatural and physical horror movie standards, with the requisite blood and gore (and there is a lot of blood and gore) and accompanying squishing and crunching sound effects. The second act ends where lesser movies would be happy to end, and it's the third portion of the film that really puts it on another level. Yes, the scenes are drawn-out and physically gruesome -- and had me squirming and cursing under my breath -- but the psychological components were what truly disturbed me. I wouldn't consider it "torture porn," however, because I don't believe any of those scenes were gratuitous (although I'm quite positive that many, many viewers will vehemently disagree with me).

Director Pascal Laugier knew what he was doing. The vast majority of horror movies are content to treat the viewers solely as casual observers, so that there is a slight disconnect between them and the protagonist. Martyrs, before and especially after certain motives are revealed, succeeds in both shell-shocking the audience and immersing them almost fully into the sheer brutality of it all, because there is a reason for it. Call it empathy or at least a deeper understanding of the perverse forces at work within the film, but don't call it "torture porn."

The ending leaves much room for interpretation; I'm still trying to work out an explanation in my head that I'm comfortable with, but in a good way. These are the types of movies that I love -- uncompromising films that present an aspect of the human condition in such a fashion that forces you to come to terms with it through the director's vision, but allows you to make your own take on it after you leave the theater (and make great coffee-table conversations).

Obviously this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I would recommend Martyrs to anyone with a (very) strong stomach -- and a curiosity for just how deep a movie can take you inside your own head.