The Ugly Thrills of Realism in SABOTAGE

My reviews are intended for those who have watched the movie already and want to dive a little deeper with me. Consider this the spoiler alert.

Writer/director David Ayer, booted out the door by his parents and into the arms of the U.S. Navy, has a bit of an obsession for capturing "authentic" military/police dialogue in his movies. But naturalism is a strange and subjective beast for viewers. When we talk about natural film dialogue, we're talking about how immersive, efficient, and believable it is. What one person finds natural-sounding can sound staccato and rough to someone else.

I have no experience being chased down by a masked killer, or losing a child, or fighting in a foxhole. We give movies permission to take us to a situation we're wholly unfamiliar with - it's part of the deal. I can't say that the dialogue in SABOTAGE is necessarily unnatural - I'm sure plenty of soldiers actually talk this way - but I found it distracting nonetheless. Heavy cursing can color a movie full of angry people, like in CASINO, or it can make it sound like it was written by 7th grader at a skatepark. It's a gentle dance. In END OF WATCH, the very real chemistry between Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña sold the occasional silliness of the dialogue. Sure, you weren't always in on the joke between these two cops, but you at least believed the joke existed in whatever reality you're watching.

Reclaiming the Reputation of THE EXORCIST 3: LEGION

Horror sequels to beloved franchises usually get a bad wrap, and for good reason. A truly remarkable, original film comes out that changes the dialogue of horror movies. People excited and crave more. Inevitably, ripoffs and cash-ins happen - look in any Redbox for an example. The originals become the mark of excellence and a high point of comparison, and the hangers-on clutch at straws trying to recapture a bit of magic (or just a bit of the money). But you always still have the original Halloween, Psycho, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. to hold on to. It feels almost like a betrayal then when the classics are followed by totally-official, totally-canon, totally-disappointing sequels.

The Halloween franchise is an interesting case in how fan expectations play into horror sequels. Halloween 3 is currently enjoying a reappraisal among horror fans as an ambitious and totally-off-the-fucking-wall effort to expand the franchise in a less-literal way. Sure, it's not scary at all, but it was John Carpenter trying to take the franchise in a different direction. Originally, Carpenter had no plans to continue the Michael Myers character past the first movie, but fans demanded more of the slasher stuff. He wanted each Halloween sequel in the series to be an independent, annual anthological horror entry with a whole new story and cast. The studio forced his hand, and Halloween 2 happened. John Carpenter saw the writing on the wall, and didn't want another cheapo continuation. While not a bad movie, Halloween 2 feels almost like a pornographic, cheap thrill, which is why Carpenter didn't want to direct it. He eventually served as producer, and went behind the director's back to shoot the vicious kills in the movie, which were edited in (The director understandably didn't like this, but forget that guy because he's not John Carpenter). He didn't want to play the studio's game originally, but admirably he played damage control, which greatly improves Halloween 2. It's clearly a flawed movie conceptually, and feels far too literal and small to just have Michael chasing after Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis - House Arrest) all over again. When time for a third one came around, John Carpenter got his wish, and Halloween 3 happened. I'd rate this more as an ambitious failure than a diamond in the rough, but alternative film culture is attempting to reclaim it as the strange movie it is. It's got a killer John Carpenter score (one of his best), Tom Atkins returns with his mustache, and there's a few nonsensical but creepy deaths. The Michael Myers-less concept isn't its weakness; it stands as its sovereign movie. I'm no champion of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (not featuring any witches, though is pretty kickass subtitle as far as those things go). However, I'm all about critical reappraisal, so I'm going to throw down for The Exorcist 3 instead.

Lessons Learned from Bad Horror Movie Endings

As an audience, we put a hell of lot of weight on the final minutes of a movie. It terms of structure, an ending might only last 5 or 10 minutes. However, it's our final engagement to the movie, the end of a conversation. The relative length of an ending doesn't matter, because its prominence guarantees its importance. If we're unsatisfied, we feel betrayed. It's like having a nice conversation with a stranger in a park or a bar. You're laughing, you're bonding with someone, maybe revealing some interests or past history you wouldn't usually. Then, when it's time to go, they start talking about how the Jew-run media is concealing the lizard men's schemes from the public and that's why they don't use banks. The sheer disappointment and confusion of the experience is startling.

Let's look into a few examples of bad horror movie endings in otherwise good (or even great) movies, because its a hell of a lot more interesting. That a piece of cinematic dogshit ends on a poor note is not frustrating or tragic - it's expected. A movie that seems to make all the right steps, then flounders in its final moments demonstrates how difficult the task is of wrapping up the project a filmmaker might have sunk their own money, their professional reputation, and years of their life into. What began as promising might end as bitterly disappointing. Sometimes a simple, clean ending is illusive.

ARNOLD AND THE RUNNING MAN

With Arnold Schwarzenegger currently stumbling through a career resurgence, it's kind of fun to look back at where he got his start, and what better place than RUNNING MAN? It has all the elements of a perfect cult movie: post-apocalyptic trappings, pulpy concept, 80s synth soundtrack, great character actor cast, and a breakneck pacing that ensures that this all makes no sense.

It's funny to see Arnold in "brand building" mode - after making a prison break in Neo-America, his character somehow finds a "World Gym" shirt to wear and smokes a few stogies. There are scenes of him pointlessly showing off that he's muscular despite the fact that he wears sleeveless tees and as audience members, we tend to have eyes. Since this movie, he's also developed into a much better actor, who could deliver campy-ass dialogue with a patina of sincerity that made it work. There's even an "I'll be back" in this.

This is one of those movies where they just launch you into the high concept buggery with a woman doing a stern voiceover over a primitive text screen telling you to shut the fuck up and welcome to dystopia America. Apparently some sort of super-calamity has befallen the world, and everything is just terrible now. Food shortages, high crime, riots, that sort of stuff. No pandemics as far as I can tell, so there's no scene of Arnold punching out a plague victim or anything. All very ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, just not as effortlessly cool.

DAD MOVIES & DEATH WISH 3

Welcome to DEATH WISH 3: WHITE FLIGHT JUST FEELS RIGHT!  This movie will massage all the most paranoid day-dreams of a suburban father, and culminate in a massive gunfight where a white man with a mustache solves the crime problem in New York by just shooting everyone. It's great!

The DEATH WISH series occupies a subgenre I call "Dad movies." White men grew up, had their own kids, bought a house, and began clinging to the TV for local news on crimes in the "big scary city" right down the highway. 

The DIRTY HARRY series occupies this genre as well. Dirty Harry is a through-and-through "Dad movie," and not just because it's got Clint Eastwood being the perfect sort of tough guy that "Hollywood doesn't make anymore." Harry is hard on crime, and hard on those who get in his way. The whole movie is about how the system keeps fucking with him with "bureaucracy" and "the Constitution" that keeps him from shooting up thugs willy-nilly. Pencil-pushers and liberal geeks want to cradle and defend these "creeps" and pat them on the back to go offend decent society once again. It's just this sort of simplified view of the world that the movie loves to coax out of viewers, get them red in the face and calling for blood. It doesn't care about a measured discussion, nor would that be fun to watch - and boy, is the movie fun as hell to watch. We're introduced to Harry pretty early on by being told he once shot a rape suspect in cold blood. Sure, that's not "by the book," but its justice, dammit!