Herr Machine Presents! Classic Reviews: Twister

If I'm just being honest, I can't help but think that's a pretty damn cool poster. It's dark and spooky, the color palette calling to mind more supernatural thrillers. The text is more than appropriate and you can't help but wonder if this movie is going to be played as more of a horror film.

But this isn't a review of the poster, this is a review of the movie, Twister.

The story goes like this: Professional Storm Puncher Bill Harding (the ever-boring Bill Paxton) is all done with excitement. He wants to sell out (?) and become a weather man. He needs to get his divorce with fellow Storm Puncher Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) finalized so that he can marry some lady whose name I don't remember. Through a series of wacky shenanigans, Bill and Jo end up on the trail of a bunch of tornadoes on Tornado Day, trying to launch a bunch of science balls into the tornado in the hope of getting long lists of science on their 45-pound laptops.

But wait, there's more! Jo had a traumatic event in her childhood. The F5 Tornado (the most powerful kind of tornado there is), showed up at her house as a child and killed her retarded father, which is okay because he basically ran into the tornado, a trait his daughter shares. We're happy to have a gene pool free from people who run straight at tornadoes with their arms in the air, screaming nonsense in an attempt to scare them off.

But what this means for Jo is she has a personal stake in their battle against the F5, and the F5 has unfinished business with Jo.

But wait, it gets stupider! Since a natural disaster aptly dubbed "the finger of god" wasn't enough of an antagonist, they hired master thespian Cary Elwes to portray villain Jonas. Jonas is a rival Storm Puncher who got himself a bunch of corporate sponsorships so that he could, get this, have state of the art technology to aid him in his quest to learn more about tornadoes! Doesn't it just make you want to vomit? How villainous of him. So basically they paint him as an arrogant prick who's in the Storm Punching business so that he can get piles of money and women will worship the ground he works on, because women fucking love scientists. And men that are Cary Elwes.

For the most part, though, this film is incredibly run-of-the-mill. It's as if they took an action-thriller script, crossed out every time they had written "terrorist" or "Russian" and replaced it with "tornado". Which led to a few interesting shootouts being filmed.

And speaking of the action and excitement, the action and excitement is pretty lame. Well, some of it is all right, but I just couldn't get over one scene. Driving over a lake, Bill and Jo are surrounded by not one, not two, but THREE motherfucking tornadoes. These badass motherfuckers are kicking cows to each other like hackysacks, but when all three converge on their car, they do little more than rock the car back and forth, like someone with above-average lung power is blowing on their car. Oooh, real scary, Jan de Bont. You may as well have called this Gentle Breeze: The Movie.

All the actors (including a pre-fame Phillip Seymour Hoffman being typically the best part of the movie and Jeremy Davies, one of my favorite underused actors) seem to be acting on their lunch break, but I do have something nice to say about Helen Hunt. Every time there's a strong female role, the woman is essentially written as a man (think Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2). For once, there's a female character that's strong and resilient and all that, but retains feminine qualities and can even come off as attractive at times. I think that's more Helen Hunt than the way the character is written, though, because I feel the same way about her in As Good As It Gets. It's nice to see a female character in an action movie that isn't being boned by James Bond and doesn't have a ballsack.

That said, her character IS an idiot, as she aptly demonstrates every time she sees a tornado and tries to get close enough to have a conversation with it.

Whose idea was this movie? I can't decide if it was a brilliant idea that paid off brilliantly, or a stupid idea that the idiots in charge bumbled their way through and ended up with piles of money that they probably spent on ice cream. They try to make a strong case for the movie's importance and dedication to the art of storm chasing, but it's just a hilarious failed attempt at manipulation, with sad piano music and sad families standing by the side of the road, crying because they're sad that the mean tornado kicked their litter of kittens to death. And then there's the scene where Jo's aunt is attacked by the F5, which was preceded by a deleted scene where the tornadoes powwow on top of Mount Olympus and start chanting "Attack her heart! Attack her heart!". It all reeks of that effect that big-budget movies try to have on the popular imagination, where immediately after they see a movie where they make storm chasing to be a thrill-a-minute science-aganza where you save old ladies from their collapsing houses and chase off F5s, everyone is excited about tornadoes and all the little kids buy tornado lunchboxes and tornado action figures.

I can't recommend this movie to anyone outside of stroke victims, but I had a good time watching it with a friend of mine. If this is your kind of thing, you probably know it already, and if it's not, then it's not. It's a mid-90's blockbuster, and those never aged very well, this being no exception.

3/10

An Open Letter to Lost

Dear Lost,

Thanks for all the great times. You've not always been perfect, I know. I famously promised myself I would give you up during the god-awful first half of the second season, and I gave you one more episode to prove that you weren't suffering from Arrested Development Syndrome, and you proved it to me. Since then we've been on an upward swing. No, you'll never top the glory of the first season, but that's because the best part of the show is never the answer, but the question. It's great to see you knock the pins down, but watching you set them up is fucking magical.

But that's not what we're here to talk about. In the fifth season, you killed off about 99% of the cast, including my favorite character. Fuck you. The only thing I want out of the sixth and final season is for Daniel Faraday to rise from the grave. I'm not terribly interested in having all my questions answered, because the payoff is backwards. All I want is more goddamn Jeremy Davies. Did I mention fuck you? Fuck you.

To be honest, this was a great season. Maybe even the best since the first. You haven't ran laps around us this effectively since the brilliant second half of the second season. But if you keep killing off characters with this much enthusiasm, by the third episode of the sixth season we'll get fixed shots around Skullfuck Island for an hour every week.

Also, fire Josh Holloway. The man has two expressions. You gave one of the best characters to that asshole? I don't care if you get a fat black man (that's a good inside joke, Oliver) to play him as long as he's a good actor, but you're wasting a great part on that dipshit.

But none of this matters to you, does it? I imagine the show was written without an ending in mind, so you could set up the pieces with impunity. That's okay, though. You've crafted a brilliant show, one of the best of all time, and you could chalk all the mysterious goings-on to alien farts and we'd be cool with that.

I care that the sixth season holds up the standard set by the last, and I care that you stop killing off everyone. How many shootouts can you get into on a dessert island? Really, it's a writer's crutch. I know the Lost writers are all very powerful beings that walk around the office using their giant, exposed brains to make things float around, so why do they have to solve every situation in this show with someone getting pistol-whipped? I love violence as much as the next guy, hell, I'm something of an action movie enthusiast, but your story does not require this level of violence. It's incredibly out of place.

On occasion, though, the violence in this show has been appropriately shocking, powerful and, best of all, mysterious. Examples include Ben calling Jack on a payphone, soaking wet and covered in blood.

After all this, though, it may seem like I have it in for the show. Just the opposite, in fact. This is the best show on television. Period. It's not perfect, but it's incredibly dense, so I'll forgive some errors in logic. It's beautifully shot, incredibly well-written and acted by people who have every right to be huge stars (I'm looking at you, Terry O'Quinn).

But please, Lost. Stop doing all those things I said not to do. And also, because I forgot, have characters actually ask questions. If I were walking around with Ben Linus all the time, I'd be asking him some fucking questions about smoke monsters and giant feet and shit. None of the characters seem particularly interested in this shit anymore, like it's all a day at the fucking office, right up there with doctors and physicists firing two pistols while jumping through the air.

Heterosexually yours,
Oliver

P.S. - There were spoilers in this post.

Johnny Depp Wears a Hat: The Motion Picture

I'm almost totally ashamed that I've seen so few of Michael Mann's films. Ever since I lost my Netflix account I've been falling behind on these things, but I positively love Collateral, Heat and Last of the Mohicans. I've heard nothing but good things about Thief and The Insider. Collateral appeals to so many of my own favorite themes and aesthetic choices: two protagonists, a narrative unfolding over one night, blah blah blah. In addition, Jaime Foxx and Tom Cruise give performances that are, quite possibly, the best of their careers. Similarly, Heat was the last jolt of life in the floundering careers of Pacino and De Niro (although Pacino would get Insomnia a few years later), and has what very well may be the greatest action sequence of the 90's.

So, as I'm sure you can imagine, I was wetting myself in anticipation for this movie. Did it live up to my expectations? Yes. Yes, it politely met my expectations. Shook their hand and was on its way. It couldn't have been politer about it. At no point did this film exceed my expectations or go beyond the call of duty. But that's okay. My expectations for this film were reasonably high, and I'm very happy that my expectations were met at all.

Public Enemies weaves the tale of John Dillinger, notorious Indiana bank robber who essentially ruled the fantasies of Depression-era America and his cat-and-mouse game with the original FBI G-Man Melvin Pruvis.

I don't know how true-to-life this movie is, but Melvin Purvis shot himself in 1960, and if we're going by the movie's characterization of him, I imagine that the only reason he did that was so that he could personally punch Satan in the balls. After Satan fell over on the ground and started crying, Melvin Purvis tore off his wings like a kid playing with a fly and strapped them to his back. According to my research, Melvin Purvis then became Satan and created the modern vision of Hell, basing it on his recurring nightmare of bears that can read.

Christian Bale is a much better actor than people tend to give him credit for these days, and while that's pretty understandable after his incredibly static, black hole of a performance in Terminator Salvation, he seems inclined to become cinema's new whipping boy. He isn't about to blow audiences away in Public Enemies, but he does remind us why his slow drawl and steely gaze make him such a brilliant leading man. But Jesus Christ, according to this movie, Melvin Purvis was single-handedly responsible for taking down every bank robber in the world, ending the Great Depression and winning World War III.

Johnny Depp, similarly, is more energetic and charismatic, making him a great Dillinger and an even better foil for Bale. In fact, they're really a perfect match-up and is a great example of how great casting can improve the drama of a film. He's a very good Dillinger, but he doesn't set the world on fire. It's probably the straightest Depp has played a role since Finding Neverland. That doesn't make it a lesser performance, it just means that it lacks all the exciting ticks and quirks that make Johnny Depp one of the premiere actors of his generation.

And I'd comment on Marion Cotillard, but I'm pretty sure the fact that I'm in love with her makes me biased.

But let's shoot the elephant in the room: the cinematography. It wasn't as jarring as I thought it would be most of the time. The opening scene is very rock-and-roll and the clarity of the digital photography is almost other-worldly. The dialogue scenes and action scenes looked fine for the most part, but tracking shots really brought out the motion blur-free effect that is the most noticeably ugly aspect of the process.

There's a trade off, though. The night scenes look beautiful, and the digital cameras capture muzzle flashes like nothing I've ever seen before. I simply wish the day scenes would be dressed up to look like traditional film or shot on traditional film like Mann did in Collateral. When I could tell it was digital, it was because it looked ugly.

But none of that matters because this film contains what may be the greatest action scene of the summer in a shootout that takes place in a cabin. I immediately wanted to watch the entire film again just to see that scene for a second time. Further proof that Michael Mann can blow my mind without even trying, and it bears his distinctive fingerprints.

Ultimately, it's a bit of a sterile experience, but it's got some interesting experimentation, a trio of very good performances at its center and the best action of the summer, and that's good enough to justify my $7. No one is doing the best work of their career, but when you have a group of artists this talented, they don't have to be doing the best work of their career to outshine most other things out there. It was fun and interesting at the same time, which is something that more summer movies should aspire to be.

8/10