the film starts mtv style, with quick edits of faux self-made clips set to the tune of rap songs. this is followed by a nail-biting urban guerrilla action scene that is in many ways, even though it comes right at the beginning, the psychological heart of this movie (it’s the scene of the trauma). then we are back in texas, where we follow the back-home post-traumatic adventures of three soldiers, played by ryan philippe, joseph gordon-levitt, and channing tatum. (more…)

Into The Wild, directed by Sean Penn and based on the book by Jon Krakauer, tells the true story (though elements are fictionalized) of Christopher McCandless. Escaping a dire home situation after graduation from college, McCandless, who goes by the name of Alexander Supertramp, embarks on more than two years of wandering across the United States, seeking more and more remote wilderness, until he ends up in Alaska where he, essentially, starves to death.

The closest analogue is probably Grizzly Man, and I have to admit that I watched this prepared to dislike it intensely. As with Grizzly Man, the lead distains human companionship (McCandless was befriended and helped by a number of apparently fine people who cared deeply for him), and believes that only in the wildest, most rugged parts of nature can he find himself. His death is, in a sense, inevitable. But the movie is actually very touching (with the occasional mis-step from Penn) and ultimately powerful. You can read it as a critique of McCandless’ if you like, in that his human companions — played almost uniformly superbly by Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Hal Holbrook and others — demonstrate the importance of social relationships.

But the film works ultimately because it, and the country and scenery, are simply gorgeous. The Colorado river, Salton Sea and mountains of Alaska are the stars, and just occasionally you can see why McCandless gave his life to get closer to them.

There’s something about apocalyptic sci-fi that can amp up the pleasures of genre. Even pea-brained exercises like Reign of Fire (dragons ride again!), Doomsday (’80s b-movies ride again!), and Le Dernier Combat (Luc Besson’s only good movie!) have an infectious energy, and when directors syncopate the thrumming backbeat of social commentary (in Romero’s zombieworlds and the recent 28 reiterations, George Miller’s Max-world, or the delirious The Bed-Sitting Room) . . . it’s sheer delight.

But give a director with some recently-earned auteurial cred a chance to find his or her deeply-satirical vision of the world to come, and you get thudding shite like Zardoz, Quintet, and now Southland Tales.

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Great white-knuckle nail-biter. Unlike the recent crop of horror films, Ils eschews the gore and simply ratchets up anxiety — with excellent steady editing, a shrewd use of shots and lighting, freaky sound. It opens cold, with a mother and irritating teen daughter crashing their car and finding themselves confronted by hidden antagonists. Then, switch gears to the real protagonists, we watch a French teacher and her husband in their country home find themselves subject to the same unexplained, merciless taunting and attack.

I gotta say, I loved it. At about 75 minutes, it’s deliberately paced but sleek and shorn of fat. Freaked me out something wonderful…

And I think the two directors are people to watch. Opening credits roll over a montage of the teacher’s car driving home. All of the shots are from above, composed with precision to follow the red vehicle along a straight line of highway, diagonally ‘up’ the shot through a neighborhood, around a curve. It’s a beautiful scene, disconnected from the story, but the imagery–this small motion, along precise geometrical lines–is both beautiful and a sly nod to the narrative structure, the cold hard precision of this kind of horror film.

Boom chicka chicka, boom chicka chicka, boom chicka chicka, boom. Ta dum dum, Boom chicka chicka, boom chicka chicka, boom chicka chicka, boom.

Ta dum dum.