Before Midnight

In 1995 audiences were besotted with "Before Sunrise" the story of a chance encounter between Jesse and Celine, two attractive young tourists. They meet on a train, spend a night together, make love, and separate, vowing in classic movie fashion to meet again at the same spot in six months. It was endearing because people love stories about chance encounters between kindred spirits, love and first sight, a brief shining moment where passion trumps practicality, etc. The Linklater Delpy Hawke team reunited nine years later, with "Before Sunset" when the lovers met again in Europe and spent another few hours together, this time deciding to jettison their respective partners and stay together for good this time. That was endearing because people like things to be resolved, with a happily ever after for the lovers we've gotten to know.

Less endearing, although more realistic, is the nitty gritty of what happily ever after entails. In "Before Midnight" they're middle aged, with kids, returning to Europe for a family vacation. While still affectionate, the novelty has worn off. They've got neuroses where their joie de vive once was. And the same time constraints which once lent an ardency and honesty to their conversations, are now cause for the sort of quarrels familiar to anyone who has ever gone on a family vacation. It comes up several times in the trailer (so we can assume it's a major theme of the movie) that question of whether their love has lost it's luster. The European scenery brings up memories of how they met, and at one point she questions whether he'd still be compelled to to approach her on a train if they met today. This series is a straight forward and simple hearted reflection of one relationship, so any questions about the relationship is also a question about the movies. So when Jesse and Celine ask each other if the magic is gone, the audience is invited to ask whether the magic of "Before Sunrise" still thrives in "Before Midnight". And considering how difficult it is to keep the spark of first love alive in a long term relationship, the odds are not in this movie's favor.

Disconnect

Disconnect looks like one of those ensemble dramas where a group of strangers' disparate stories are linked by a common theme, the theme in this case being the internet and its particular, unprecedented ability to destroy lives. It's a three pronged warning:

1) That the very technologies which connect us to those who are far away in turn disconnect us from those who are close by (as in a family dinner where everyone is on their respective smart phones and ignoring each other).
2) That the internet provides a new terrain for predators of all kinds to exploit the vulnerable, the desperate, and the naive.
3) That these technologies are so new and advancing so rapidly that even the exploiters can't control the impact of their actions. When it comes to the internet, everyone is naive, and that makes everyone a potential victim.

Generally speaking, this format is not my favorite. I find that when a bunch of subplots are molded into a single sermon, character development is sacrificed for the sake of the message, and no one gets the amount of attention they deserve. That said any dark fables about the dangers of trusting the internet  get a thumbs up in my book. It's called the "web" for a damn reason, and we've spent the last two decades tangling ourselves in it so tightly that we're shit out of luck if a spider comes along. As the generation raised with the internet hits adulthood, the more "worst case scenario" media the better, and one successful movie can stir up a  bigger panic than a dozen preachy Newsweek headlines. If Disconnect can do for sharing your secrets online what Deliverance did for canoeing through the Georgia wilderness, more power to it.

The Purge

The idea behind "The Purge" is one of those ideas that sounds perfect for about three seconds before you start actually thinking about how it would work: in America, for one night a year, nothing is illegal (the tagline is "one night a year all crime is legal" but that's like saying "one night a year all water is dry" if you're going to split hairs and I am ALWAYS going to split hairs). In the world of The Purge, this annual twelve hours of mass catharsis is enough to make the rest of the year peaceful and crime free. Because if there's one thing we know about criminals, it's that after one big crime they are typically all crimed-out and won't really be up for another crime for another year or so. Unemployment is at 1% which also makes sense because the reason the unemployment rate is so high today is because criminals are too busy obtaining money illegally just for the hell of it. 

The airtight logic continues: the main characters are a rich family in an idyllic suburban neighborhood who, because their lives are already perfect, have no interest in taking advantage in a nation-wide crime-spree. Instead, they put their house on high-security lockdown transforming it into one giant panic room where they go about their business and wait for the morning when they'll wake up and every city in America will NOT be burned to the ground, but rather everything will be back to normal. They'll simply clean the legal graffiti of their house, mow their legally peed on lawn, and move on. But no. Everything goes amiss when their son, refusing to accept his parents callous 1 percent-iness, sees a man in the street screaming for help and let's him in. Some terrifying masked killers (who, remember, are just normal law-abiding citizens ANY OTHER DAY) arrive at the house and explain that if they don't let them kill this man, they'll kill everyone. Because they can. 

It feels like a spoiler to say that they get in to the house at all, but the trailer makes it clear that they do. At which point I don't see what distinguishes The Purge from any other home invasion thriller. Once the masked (why are they masked?!) killers are in the house, what does it add that what they're doing is legal? They're psychopaths, and the homeowners are defending themselves against murderers who broke into their house - that's legal 365 days a year. 

Wild improbability aside, it raises a compelling question. How many crimes are committed simply because they are illegal? How many crimes are NOT committed because they are illegal? Doesn't everyone have something they'd do if there were no possible legal consequences? Still, just like with everything, there are certain individuals bound to spoil the fun for the rest of us. For instance, driving around in a stolen convertible throwing molotov cocktails at office buildings sounds great, but wouldn't one's enjoyment be hindered by the knowledge that any average joe on the street can just up and murder them? I'd probably stay home too. 

Love Sick Love

Oh, thank God. Another movie in which the female desire to ensnare a man into marriage and fatherhood is caricatured to psychotic proportions. The "Desperate Bitch" theme has been thinning out since its "I won't be ignored" heyday, I was concerned that a whole generation of American males might reach sexual maturity un-warned.

Norman is a successful, handsome young stud who is having casual sex with the luscious Dori. He just wants to have fun. But she "thinks she's his girlfriend".

Uh-oh.

Naturally, the next step is to lure him to an isolated cabin in the woods where they will be met by her parents who want to know his intentions and a couple of kids who call him "daddy". I bet you can guess what happens next. That's right. She and her "family" bind and torture Norman while they simulate a years worth of holidays in order to prove her theory that staying together for the holidays is the litmus test for a couple lasting foreeeever and everrrr and evvvveeeeerrrrrr.

Never forget, boys. A pretty girl is all fun and games until her biological clock kicks in. After that she's basically Leatherface.

One final note, by far the most chilling image to come out of this trailer is a trio of mother and children singing carols while wearing bunny masks. The most chilling image to come out of "Fatal Attraction" is the rabbit in the pot. I hesitate to speak for another species, but I bet rabbits are sick and tired of getting dragged into this bullshit genre.

The Brass Teapot

A pretty pair of innocent young marrieds getting rich quick by mutilating themselves and one another. It's a boldly insane premise, and bound to raise a few eyebrows. But the makers of this movie appear to be courting controversy especially with the Holocaust angle and the casting of a lead actress so young she looks more pouty daughter than stoic wife. So the thing which I found most unsettling about the trailer for "The Brass Teapot" was that it was not brassy enough. It begins in the cheekily minor key of a dark comedy, but shifts to uptempo morality. If even the trailer seeks to teach us a lesson, we can expect a full blown lecture from the feature film (and nobody ever wants a lecture). And what exactly are we being warned against here? That obtaining a little money is a gateway drug for desiring a lot of money? That greed can be damaging to our personal relationships and integrity? That materialism can cause us to forget what matters most? Consider us warned. If we have not yet accepted these truths, I doubt a fable as outlandish as this one is going to drive the point home. I am hoping that the trailer is misleading, and that "The Brass Teapot" is in fact the out-and-proud morally bankrupts gorey id-fest it wants to be.

Generation Um...

It’s fun to imagine what moment of supreme laziness that led to “Generation Um…” being the actual title of this movie. Did they ask Keanu Reeves to channel his teen stoner character in “Parenthood” when he thought of it? Was it a working title that they didn’t get around to replacing when it came time to print the posters? The tagline is “To Survive You Must Discover Who You Are, Or Not….” ANOTHER ELIPSIS! This movie cannot stop trailing off in boredom at the thought of itself.

            A two hundred word synopsis of the trailer (and I’d wager the entire movie) would take some embellishing. But basically it looks like Keanu Reeves’ is an aging (method) guy who for some reason is friends with two exquisitely beautiful twenty something women. Probably because he’s handsome enough that it’s fun to tease him but docile enough that he’s not threatening and idle enough that he’s not going to say “fuck this” and storm off to one of the better things he has to do.

            I understand that there is a weak armed attempt at making a statement - the listlessness of youth, the hollowness of excess, the bonds we form in the unlikeliest of places -  here. But ultimately it looks like it has about as much insight as a coked out pretty girl changing outfits in front of a mirror for two hours. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s basically what we’re looking at here.