Cabin in the Woods [Some Non-Spoilery Thoughts]

You don't want me to tell you all about Cabin In the Woods, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's long-awaited (and long-delayed) big screen project. If I did, that would just ruin it. See, one of the absolute joys of this movie is that it takes you away with the power of a story whose ending you can't see coming from a mile away - and you don't need to.

Above all else, Cabin is a smart movie that treats its audience as being intelligent as well. As a fan of horror (and of movies in general), this is incredibly refreshing. I was constantly engaged with the film on multiple levels. The structure of the film presents questions on top of questions - and the answers are thoroughly satisfying.

You've probably heard that Cabin  is a movie with a "twist". This is true. But this "twist" is no Shayamalan-style attention grab. In other words, the movie is not all about trying to blow your mind with insane twists for the sake of twists. The twists and turns are natural to the story, and so only serve to make it better.

To say much more than that Cabin In the Woods is about 5 college kids who go to an isolated cabin in the woods (who woulda thunk it, right?) and get much more than they bargained for out of the trip would be letting myself become a spoiler monkey. And I hate spoiler monkeys. What I can tell you is this: calling Cabin nothing more than a 'horror' movie or a film with a 'twist' is selling it far, far short. This is a movie with a strong, intelligent script; a wide-ranging and talented cast; and a wildly inventive and self-aware premise. In short, its a rarity in Hollywood these days, and well worth the price of a ticket. Don't read spoilery reviews. Don't watch clips online - don't even watch trailers. Just go see it, and bring your friends.

The Hunger Games, banned books, and Bully

The Hunger Games, banned books, and the documentary Bully: what ties these three things together? Quite a bit more than you might think at first. To begin, for those not up on the latest book and movie news, here’s a quick tutorial.

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games is a young adult novel centering around a girl named Katniss Everdeen and the post-apocalyptic world she lives in. At the center of this world is a totalitarian government that exerts complete control over its 12 Districts. Each year, as a method of keeping the Districts in line, the Hunger Games are held. 2 children from each District are randomly selected to compete in these “games”, wherein the 24 ‘tributes’ are placed into an arena from which only 1 may emerge alive – and only after all the other tributes have been killed. In this year’s Games, Katniss’ younger sister is selected, and Katniss volunteers to enter the Games to save her sister from almost certain death. The book has been challenged or banned many times since its publication for various reasons, including supposedly overt sexuality, violence and unsuitability for the age group it is aimed at. For the past few years, it has appeared on top-ten banned books lists across the country.

Bully is a documentary, produced by the Weinstein company, that’s about exactly what you think it is: bullying in schools and the very real and devastating effects it has on American youth. The movie might have been just another small documentary film – until the MPAA (movie ratings board) hit the film with an R rating for language, which many correctly argue would prohibit the age group that the film is about from seeing it. Harvey Weinstein, head of The Weinstein Company, distributor for the film, argued vocally and very publically for the rating to be overturned. Mr. Weinstein is no stranger to spats with the MPAA. He has publically challenged them in the past regarding ratings on some of his studio’s other projects, such as Blue Valentine and The King’s Speech. Consequently, some have attacked Weinstein’s efforts as being nothing more than a publicity campaign for another one of his films. But Weinstein says, ““I am not being Harvey Weinstein, showman…I am not using the ratings system for publicity. Yes, I’ve done it in the past. Mea culpa for that.” But, in the unique case of Bully, “this is completely out of passion.”

What brings these two projects and issues together is simple. The controversy each faces is symptomatic of different sides of the misdirected efforts to ‘protect our children’, while policing literature and other forms of entertainment, that is so popular in today’s culture. The Hunger Games and Bully are two sides of the same wrongly rejected coin. Hunger Games is a book that some argue can do harm to the children and young adults who read it. Those who make such claims may be well-intentioned, but they are wrong.

Yes, Hunger Games is a dark, dystopian novel. Yes, there is violence in its pages, and some elements that aren’t appropriate for younger kids. That does not make it a dangerous book. Nor does it make it a book that should be removed from library shelves. Should parents consider talking to their kids about the content of The Hunger Games and books like it? Absolutely. Should they, like the Goffstown, NH, mother who said the book gave her 11 year old nightmares, try to have the book removed from libraries? Absolutely not.

Violence and the other controversial subject matters of The Hunger Games are not unfamiliar to teenagers. We, and they, live in a world where violence in particular is spectacularly prevalent, even among our youth. This last is something that Bully does its best to address. In showing the prevalence of violent bullying in schools and the victimization of innocents, the movie is trying very hard to do something good – and the fact that many in our country can’t reconcile this idea with their preconceived  notions of what it means to protect children is a real problem.

Bully received an R rating for language. Weinstein says that he was told by the MPAA that the rating would not change unless “a crucial scene in which obscenities are hurled at a young victim on a school bus was changed – something he and Mr. Hirsh [the director] were unwilling to do.” I applaud that decision. Just because violence or profanity isn’t used onscreen does not mean it isn’t real, and trying to pretend otherwise is just foolish. Let’s be honest, in our world, most kids hear (and some see) worse things in and out of school on a daily basis than they’ll ever see on the movie screen while watching something like Bully.

            This whole debate hits close to home for me on a few different levels. I was never bullied as a kid, and I’m very thankful for that. But I was that kid who hung out reading a book at recess because I didn’t quite fit in with most of the other kids – and because I was too shy to talk to them even if I had somehow fit in. I wasn’t the only one, either. There were a few of us who just didn’t quite fit the mold, and that’s no different today. There are, and will always be, kids for whom books are a sanctuary, that place to go when there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. Books are an escape unlike any other, and for some kids, they are the only escape from tough situations. Books made my middle school years (and beyond) great, and I don’t want to think about what it might have done to have them taken away from me based on someone else’s erroneous judgment.

I think it is safe to say that the kind of kids who read books like the Hunger Games often do it to escape a world in which they’re attacked or judged for being themselves, which the film ‘Bully’ documents. Now is the time for parents to take a moment and think about what the best way to protect their children and others like them is. Is it to fight to keep books out of their hands, or is it to advocate for something good instead – like the documentary Bully, the message it imparts, and the challenge it leaves us with? 

TV Review: Don't Trust the B- in Apartment 23

It's that time of year in TV land...failed freshman shows are settling into their graves, and the networks are busy airing replacement fare to fill timeslots until summer. Don't Trust the B- in Apartment 23 is one of those replacement shows - and judging from the first two episodes, you'll be hard pressed to find a worse comedy on television for the rest of the season.

I'll be honest: I downloaded the first two episodes of the series off of iTunes for free. What interested me about the show's premise was simple. James Van Der Beek, of Dawson's Creek fame, plays a version of himself as a friend of Chloe (the title B-). I've got nothing against this recent trend of actors playing themselves (see Wil Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory for a prime example of how one plays a version of oneself to perfection). I think it's an original and fun concept, especially for actors who have found themselves pigeonholed by one role in the past. In the case of Don't Trust the B-, it is also the only thing that even comes close to working.

On paper, the driving concept of the show sounds like it could be fun (if you can get past the unnecessarily profane title): June, a straight-laced young woman, moves to New York and winds up roommates with another woman, Chloe, who, it turns out, makes money off of finding roommates, collecting their security deposits, and then driving them out with her deliberately heinous behavior. Unfortunately, that part of the plot is tied off in a neat little bow before the end of the pilot...at which point we descend into sitcom anarchy.

The characters:
They're at best one-dimensional caricatures - June, our main character, is the sum total of every dumb blonde joke in history. At worst, they're just plain offensive and gross - see June's neighbor, an admitted 'Peeping Tom' whose only actual companion is a  blow-up doll and who occupies his time by staring through the window into June/Chloe's apartment. I get that characters on TV shows take time to develop, but the problem is, with these stock/vaguely offensive characters, there's nothing to develop. Every single one of them, especially the two leads, are cardboard cutouts of real people, not to mention idiotic stereotypes of 'the straight-laced country girl' and 'the rowdy, moral-less city chick'.

James Van Der Beek as himself is an admittedly dim 'bright spot' on the tarnished metal of this show. At least for the first 5 minutes he's onscreen. After that, you realize that the writers probably just filled a whiteboard with 'Dawson's Creek' jokes, and are going to recycle them in different forms over and over again. By the beginning of episode 2, it's abundantly clear that Van Der Beek's character is as one-note as the rest of the cast, which is a real shame.

The plot:
what little there is scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Within the course of the first two episodes, we're treated to the following things as major plot events:
- Chloe getting hot and heavy with June's fiance to prove to June that he's a cheater.
- Chloe setting June up with a guy who turns out to be her (Chloe's) married father. This is the entire plot of Ep. 2. Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little too.
- After ditching her fiance, June vows to get back on track with the ever-present, ever-cliched 'life plan'. Which, in this context, means looking for a guy to have kids with, mostly because she sees a cute baby in the hallway as the episode begins.
Honorable Mention: Chloe's mother being wheelchair-bound gets milked for laughs so much that it hurts to watch.

What struck me about the show overall is that Don't Trust the B- is a carbon copy of this year's much better 2 Broke Girls. A really, really bad carbon copy. Yes, 2 Broke Girls is raunchy, not-for-everyone comedy. But what it does have going for it is a strong cast whose characters actively defy the stereotypes so egregiously on display here.

If you want quality comedy, the last place to look is Apartment 23.

The odds are in favor of The Hunger Games

DISCLAIMER: Spoilers abound here. Why are you surprised?

DISCLAIMER #2: I read the book first, so this review will in fact be looking at the film through that lens – but it will NOT be dedicated to dissecting and/or complaining about the differences between page and screen. Just FYI.

Ok. So, I finally saw The Hunger Games with my sister last night. I’m still reeling a little bit, for a lot of reasons. First off, let me say this: The Hunger Games is one of the strongest adaptations of a book to the big screen that I have seen in a very long time. The writers, director, and cast could have tried (and probably succeeded) in dumbing down Suzanne Collins’ fine YA novel into the next Twilight Saga (read: a big-budget cash cow with little to no substance under the hood). But they didn’t. The film is, for the most part, an unflinching adaptation of a grim, sometimes very dark, dystopian future  story that is also one of the more original concepts to be put to page in the last few years. Is it perfect? No. But it stands head and shoulders above many other movies in the multiplex.

Let’s jump right in. As I’ve already mentioned, this movie is very faithful to the source material of Suzanne Collins’ YA novel, and that is a very good thing.

 I say that as both a fan of the book and (as my friends will tell you) a notoriously picky film geek. If I think something is poorly written or adapted, I will say so with the fury of a thousand very small, but very angry, suns. This is not the case here. The script is strong, standing solidly both as an adaption and as a film script. The dialogue is tight and believable in almost every instance, and the story kept me fully focused for the entire run time.

[Sidenote: it’s worth pointing out that the Hunger Games has a run time of almost 2 ½ hours, which is a rarity for films in general these days, and especially for movies targeted toward a teenage demographic. The movie never dragged, and almost every minute was well spent.]

           

            The casting director here should be commended. At first, when I heard about some of the names being mentioned, I was a little hesitant. [Sample inner monologue: “Lenny Cravitz? What the what? Who’s idea was that? Isn’t he as singer with an afro or something? Why is he playing Cinna?”] Some of the minor characters, such as the Tributes from District 1 and 2, were unfortunately one-dimensional, portrayed like the nastiest of high-school bullies (but with weapons). That’s not necessarily the fault of the actors, but still, I felt that it took away from what was otherwise a very fresh palate of characters.

The one performer I was behind from the beginning was Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. I saw her feature debut a few years ago (The atmospheric Winter’s Bone, in which she gave a gripping performance, well worth checking out if you haven’t already) and had been looking forward to more from her ever since. Here, she stands and delivers as Katniss, doing a fine job bringing a young, complex character to life onscreen on every level. I’m also going to take half a second here and laugh in the faces of those critics who attacked Lawrence for looking “too fat” or “well-fed” on screen. Does stupidity know no bounds? Comments like that are ignorant, foolish, and have no place anywhere in the public spectrum, let alone in the film criticism community.

Carrying on! The single major issue I did have with the film was its cinematography. Much of the film was shot with handy-cam, following the trend of recent years. This is the biggest misstep of the entire production. It noticeably diminishes our perspective on the world we’ve been transported into, and that’s not a good thing. Major scenes are meant to introduce us to the world of District 12, where Katniss lives; the Capitol, the grand seat of the tyrannical government that organizes the Games; and the Gaming field itself. Instead, we get treated to tight, shaky camera angles and flashes of imagery that could have been turned into spectacular tracking shots used to show us the world these characters are inhabiting. In my opinion, the style is a real missed opportunity that should not have been overlooked. Doing so diminishes the power of the world we’re being asked to inhabit for 2 ½ hours. I’m torn on the use of handy-cam during the Games themselves, if only because I wonder if the style is meant to help us see the chaos through the characters’ eyes – flashes of movement, battle and blood that they cannot afford to let their eyes linger on, because they need to worry about surviving. If this was the goal, it wasn’t used consistently enough to really make its point, and in any case, it should not have been used in the first hour and a half of the movie, before we entered the actual arena.

A second, admittedly more personal and minor problem I had with the structure was [SPOILERS in case you missed that warning the first time] the added scenes with the Gamemakers. For me, part of what made the novel so engrossing was that, after the Games begin in earnest, we know nothing about what is happening outside of the arena. We are placed in the same situation as Katniss and Peeta, having to watch them rely entirely on their own smarts and skills, in a territory that is as unfamiliar and dangerous to them as it is to us. Here, we’re treated to scenes of the Gamemakers sitting at their digital tables, conjuring up the next challenge for the Tributes. This seriously affects the pacing of the film, and not in a good way. First of all, the audience always knew what was coming before the characters did. This meant that any element of the surprise and dangerous mystery of the arena was taken away. Second, the contrast between the madness of the arena and the calm tranquility of the Gamemakers chamber sounds like a good thematic contrast in theory, but in practice, it was like hitting the emergency brake on a high-speed train every five or ten minutes for what ended up feeling like no good reason.  

Except to look at the Head Gamemaker’s beard.  Total facial hair jealousy. I wish my facial hair grew in wildly badass curlicues like his.  

I spoke to a friend of mine that saw the movie before I did, and one thing that she mentioned was surprise at the fact that the movie only got a PG-13 rating, because of the amount of violence in it. After seeing it for myself, I’d have to agree with her. Not because this is the most violent PG-13 movie I’ve ever seen (far from it) – but because literally all of the violence had to do with children and teens.

My stomach was in knots at points during the movie, especially during the death of Rue (at least partially because she reminded me strikingly of a friend of mine at school). I now understand completely why my mom saw this movie and hated it. As she said, it is not a “mom movie”. Many of the scenes in the Games were extraordinarily tough to watch. Don’t get me wrong. This film is not gratuitous in any sense of the word, but violence is different when it is people your own age or younger killing one another because that’s the only way to stay alive. It really makes you think, and that, more than anything, is the strength of this movie. I left the theater turning the movie over in my head, and I think I’ll be doing the same in the days to come. The Hunger Games has depth, storytelling skill, and top-notch performances that make it well worth your $8 ticket.