Run Lola Run

Run Lola Run is a German film with has an absolutely amazing concept and almost lives up to it. Essentially the titular character has 20 minutes to make one hundred thousand marks. Unfortunately she is without a car or really any method of transport and has to you know, run to places. The reason she has to do this is her boyfriend lost all the money from a heist he helped pull, and now the crime boss wants his money, or the guy dies. It's a fairly compelling if generic motivation, and keeps it simple. The interesting twist is she runs this journey three times, each with slight differences which change the world and outcome around her enormously.

The film-making style is also interesting because to show these changes to the future there are numerous very brief montages showing what happens to the people she interacts with, though only the minor characters, the major characters' plots play out in real-time. Now the first two run-throughs of the film end disastrously, with one of the main character's dead but surprisingly the last ends fine for all involved. I say surprisingly because this is a German film, and they are not known for positive or uplifting endings, but this one is actually a happy ending. The protagonists don't even have to do anything terrible to get the money.

Another point that helps the film is the main character, who is entertaining to watch and is so determined to save her boyfriend that though their are only brief intermissions between the three 20 minute runs which showcase their relationship we understand their devotion. Also look at her hair, it's absolutely gorgeous. Due to her actions in the film and general appearance it is obvious that Faith from Mirror's Edge takes some inspiration, though Lola theoretically has no prior training or experience, and is just a normal girl who really wants to help her boyfriend. Also she weirdly has an almost supernatural ability to scream, which is brought up several times throughout the film.

A final point in the film's advantage is the incredible soundtrack which keeps up the frantic pace and speed of the film incredibly. It has a unique mix of German and English songs, and it complements the action incredibly well. Because of this the film feels like a combination of Crank and something like Falling Down, where an ordinary man is driven to extraordinary deeds  by incredibly unlikely circumstance. Of course it is a good deal more entertaining than Falling Down, though far from perfect.

That's not to say the movie is all good though, as it is periodically punctuated by awful animated segments. The quality of animation on these is just bad and it is questionable why the director put them in given how stylized and well done the normal segments are. The credits is one of these sequences and inspires little confidence for the actual film, despite its quality. The director's interesting style as well can lead to a kind of disjointed feel with all the different segments leaving out and adding parts seemingly at random.

Overall the film carries itself at a good pace, has decent characters with a very believable relationship between the two protagonists, and keeps the plot moving very quickly, though sometimes a little to quick. It is also a tad on the short side which is interesting given how packed with events the film is. Perhaps a little bit more time could have been devoted to the protagonists' lives outside of the twenty minute periods, but overall the pace works well, and it ends up ending right when it should.

Bromovies

One of the most frequent relationship dynamics is that of two dudes who don't get along at first, but they learn to work together; fight crime, make some good jokes, or escape from prison. Of course inevitably they part ways after an argument, but realize they can't accomplish their task on their own, and get back together for an epic conclusion. There are a number of sub-genres, namely Buddy Cop and the more recent annoying guy destroys a competent guy's life. Of course besides films it is also a frequent theme in video-games, especially early video-games, where the two player co-op was very common.

First there are the comedic variants of this, with classics like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with John Candy and Steve Martin standing out as exemplary examples, but there are many others which are still good, but not quite as good. It's actually incredibly easy to identify these types of movies. Look at the poster, does it have two guys, one with a comical expression? Probably a buddy comedy movie, with the same plot twists you've seen a million times, but maybe some decent comedy. Some opt for hyperbole like the Blues Brothers, though that does not follow the standard formula, as there is no conflict between the characters, creating a very different dynamic.

As stated these are simple movies, with a simple purpose, comedy. Even movies like Clerks follow this same dynamic, with two dudes who hang out together eventually having some huge event that tears them apart, but they get together before the finale. Of course in Clerks there is no real plot, so the conclusion is not exactly action packed or truly decisive, but it still works along the same formula. This has resulted in many brilliant comedies, and many lackluster impersonations. This two man dynamic is relatively easy to right and difficult to screw up, but it is the quality of the comedy and writing that makes it a good or bad movie, so that is why there is such a variance.

Now the second very popular variant is the buddy cop movie, something which has died down in recent days, but still has some appeal as shown by recent films like The Other Guys or 21 Jump Street. Classics like Rush Hour where the main proponents of this type of film, and again it uses the easy and entertaining dynamic to create a decent film. Even something like Bad Boys was still a decent watch, because the main actors work well together. Typically these types of films also have explosive finales which area  visual treat, again helping to create the basis for a very decent film, albeit nothing truly amazing.

With many of these genres the film-makers are so constrained by convention that they can't make anything truly genre-defining or defying, because often the financiers refuse to do these kind of risky projects, as they know what works and don't know what won't. This is applicable to a number of genres, but some like Horror and Sci-Fi can still put out interesting and inventive films, whereas some others like buddy and Rom-coms really can't. Genres generally constrain instead of enhance, and in many cases categorizations don't help with the best films, like Pulp Fiction or Donnie Darko. Films are an expansive and all-encompassing media, and we need to shy away from these constrictions and embrace free-form film, especially int he lower budget market.

The Worst Worst Movie

Let's talk about bad movie. I love them, honestly a truly terrible movie is something to behold, something that transcends boundaries and becomes entertainment despite all points towards the contrary. There are a number of films which fit under this category of so bad it's good, including the infamous Trolls 2 which was featured in the movie the Best Worst movie. There are in fact a number of bad movies that I would watch rather than watching what may be considered a 'good' film, and I'd watch just about all of them and be more entertained than any number of average films. I'll go over a few of the most famous ones and explain what makes them good, bad, and ugly.

The first film that people like to talk about is the Room, a cult classic from the early 2000's written, directed, financed, and starred in by one guy named Tommy Wiseau. He is a vaguely European fan of unidentifiable origins, who made his money through a number of endeavors which were probably illegal, the most reputable being selling Korean made jackets. The film itself is a drama, a self-styled Citizen Kane by the director. It is often called the Kane of bad movies, because it manages to get everything wrong. The script is awful, the best actor is the mother because she's so overly dramatic, and side-plots appear and disappear with alarming regularity.

An entire essay could be written about what is wrong with the film, because it plays like a textbook on how not to make a film. There is also a strange obsession with playing football, including one scene where everyone is in Tuxes for no discernible reason. That is also a scene where one character disappears, never to be mentioned again. One of the strangest elements is a number of badly green-screened scenes on a rooftop, not only does it look bad but the budget of the film was 6 million dollars, most of which must have been used when Mr. Wiseau fired the entire cast and crew, twice. What makes it great is nothing goes right, it's the best kind of disaster. It's the same for a lot of these kind of films, but each one has something that is unique.

In this case it is the director and main actor. He is completely and utterly insane, both in character and out, including interviews and midnight screenings. He also overdubs some of his interviews, and lines in the movie, with terrible synching, and even more nonsensical responses than his original lines. Sometimes it is the creator of these movies that make them so unique, like the case of Manos: The Hands of Fate. Made on a bet by a dirt farmer he had no equipment, no actors, and no money, but still set out to make a movie because 'how hard can it be?'. It turns out it can be pretty damn difficult.

Manos was an unmitigated disaster, so much so that the cast and crew were laughed out of the first screening. The camera they had could only record 30 or so seconds of footage, and only video or sound, not both, meaning every line was overdubbed. One of the actors they hired also broke her leg during filming, and threatened to sue if she wasn't in the film, so throughout the film there are several scenes of her and guy in a car, making out. They never meet the main cast, excluding a few police officers, and never have any impact on just about anything.

Also of note is the opening ten or so minutes are simply the main characters driving, with very little dialogue or explanation. There would have been opening credits, but it turns out editing is tough as well so there are actually no credits anywhere. After this boring stretch we're introduced to Torgo, one of the main antagonists and one who's actor was on acid throughout the filming process. This leads to very strange behavior and movement from him, not entirely intentionally. But none of these elements by themselves would make it a good bad film, it's the combination of everything, from the low production values to a nonsensical script that make it great.

The film has so much heart behind it, so many unique elements mostly out of ignorance. The film is also completely public domain because no copyright was ever filed, enabling anyone to make a remake or a parody or what have you, leading to limitless possibilities to retell the honestly kind of original story. The actor playing the villain also got the part because he had his own costume, what production values, they are terrific. Honestly the movie as a whole can be watched over and over because of how many mistakes and errors were made. I've done quite a bit on just these two films so I'll stop for tonight, but remember don't just consider good films for any given film watching occasion, consider the truly shit of the shit for they can be amazing as well.

Cleavleand Screamer

Let's look at the Scream series.

Created by the master of horror Wes Craven it restarted a dying genre by doing something unique, which everyone promptly forgot when the dozens of imitators popped up. The original Scream did something that was already tried in the financially failed but critically successful New Nightmare, the final Nightmare on Elm Street movie. It was meta, it referred to genre traditions and stereotypes and played with them while still embracing them. That's what made the first two films great.

They used the humor elements from later Nightmare movies while still keeping the horror because the humor was mostly ironic or in separate scenes from the main villain. It also established Ghostface as a credible threat, a faceless entity who could appear and disappear seemingly at will. It also had a great twist at the end which was not just a jump scare. Because the killer was unknown for so much of the movie it became kind of a murder mystery or who done it which added to the appeal.

The final selling point was casting known and popular actors instead of the no-names traditionally cast. This helped make the film seem current and unlike most attempts by movies to seem hip it actually worked because of director Craven's knowledge of both horror and pop culture. So with all these elements the franchise started off a revival of the classic slasher genre, but what movies did it actually inspire?

The list of good slasher, or hell, horror films from the 2000's is shockingly low, especially if you restrict it to just American made pictures. The late 90's had films like I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequels which did relatively well at box office but failed to impress critics, and that was one of the better ones. Most of the shitty ripoffs have faded into obscurity, and though it also brought back some classic villains with the likes of H20 and Jason X nothing really very good come out of it.

The problem with many of the slashers was they didn't have an identifiable villain. The reason we remember Halloween was because of Michael Myers, who started off a trend that also brought Jason and Freddy as well as bringing to the forefront older villains like Leatherface and Pinhead. These icons were what defined horror of the late 70's and 80's, and the 90's simply didn't have it. Ghostface was the only memorable face, excluding things like Chucky which were not so much imposing as stupid.

So the Scream series started a so called 'revival' but in the end it floundered again until horror was brought up again with torture porn like the Saw franchise, at least in the States. The first two Scream films showed a ray of hope on what had been a dying genre, but like all villains it kept coming back, even after it should have settled in for a final death. Slasher movies simply can't be made anymore, as the remakes to old franchises show audiences don't appreciate it as much and critics still don't like them. For now I think Slashers should lay dormant, resting on the laurels of the past instead of shitting on them with countless sequels and remakes.

The Woman in Black

     The woman in black is a fucking bitch. Seriously she just keeps killing kids for almost no reason, and even after her son is brought to rest she doesn't stop, though she does pretend to just to troll everyone. With a soulless villain like that you have the beginnings of a decent film. What makes this a decent film is firstly it wasn't made in the Noughties, which produced very few to non decent horror films, and secondly it tries to evoke a more gothic type of horror, which can be very effective when coupled with a decent director and actors, and besides Daniel Radcliffe they are.

     Now with Harry Potter as the lead actor it is a little bit strange, but it works alright after maybe 10 or 15 minutes, you even sort of forget that Daniel is the lead actor. As a character he is kind of a blank slate, but he does have a driving motivation of his son, so he has like maybe 2-dimensions, which is not bad for a horror protagonist. Our villain is a fairly standard ghost, bringing back other ghosts, though they don't seem to affect anything physically, just mentally scarring the townsfolk. The people themselves are standard cliches, fearful of foreigners and ominous about the location of the film.

     The location of the film is great for a horror film, a mansion in the middle of nowhere, with rolling banks of fog, a path which disappears when it is convenient to the plot, and even a dark forest if you need that. The house itself is a great example of a Victorian haunted mansion, with lots of candles, hallways, staircases, and creepy children's bedrooms. Apparently the toys of the era where absolutely terrifying, with the whole range of creepy, clowns, monkeys, the blank stares of dolls, and good old fashioned self rocking chairs. The whole gamut really.

     The main question of any horror film is of course is it scary, which I can answer with a resounding probably. It's got some good images, a fairly scary lady ghost, and a good amount of creepy children, with a array of different murder methods. There is also a good sense of desolation with Harry being the sole person in the house for much of the film, including just about all of the actual horror stuff. There are a few cheap jump scares, but overall it is mostly atmosphere, and fairly well done at that. Admittadely they could have done more with the environment, and probably should have given its roots, but you take what you can get.

     There are a few things that don't work, such as the downer ending not really making too much sense. They could have had a nice simple ending, ghost defeated and all that, but no it is a horror film so has to have a shocking ending. Also they forget about the dog that was in the house which was kind of weird. They made a point to include it, then just kind of, forgot. Also Harry's acting is a little bit okay, I mean he's never been great, and it's on show here as he has to do a good 80% of the acting. Overall though it's a decent horror, with a few scares, and an actual decent finale, an issue that many horrors have a lot of trouble with.