Soderbergh's Contagion not so contagious

I like Soderbergh; I do. I don't know why. He's awful. I mean his cinematography? Phhbt! He makes documentaries in narrative, barely. But he knows how to get A-list actors to jump on his bandwagon, and surprisingly, although it is for show and publicity, it works. He did it in Ocean's Eleven; he did it in Traffic; and he did it in Out of Sight; he's been doing it forever. And it works. Okay, I'll be honest, I love his two-part biopic Che starring Benicio Del Toro, the one living and currently active actor that makes me proud to be half-Puerto Rican. Martin Scorsese makes me very proud to be half-Italian. But here's the thing: Che was a great film, one of those films that you knew would NEVER get done if not for the driven commitment of a visionary--and that was Soderbergh. Che also proved that his documentary-style can work when the right elements are in place. So he CAN do it; he just needs to understand when it's going to be effective. Contagion was not.

Great performances, by the way. Very even keel. Laurence Fishburne, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kate Winslet. All very professional; all well and good. But so what?! Where is the story, man? It plays the way it reads, like an article in any respectable magazine. Contagion is about what could very well happen if we had another outbreak like SARS or the bird flu blow up into a worldwide pandemic. That's it. It didn't get further developed than that. It started out ominously enough; I thought I was in for something BIG. The momentum built up to a looming crisis of monumental proportions. But then it was like the ending to every Shakespeare play: Soderbergh said, "I give up. I don't know what comes next. All these story arcs, all this character development. Let's just wrap it up with a big bow on top. After all, we don't really want people thinking this will happen." Hmm, come on, man, you've come a long way already in your career. Take a risk. If that's the case I much rather see over-the-top films where everything goes to hell and we're fighting for our dear life against zombies. Because you know what? That's most likely what WILL happen!

BOTTOM LINE: If you want a conscientious thriller wrapped up with a happy ending so you won't go paranoid and buy gallons of hand sanitizer and stock up on canned foods, watch this. But if you missed it, you didn't miss much. Class-act performances for the sake of class-act performances are not enough to give a compartmentalized film replay value.

The Way to our hearts, or simply the way Out

The Way is a film by Emilio Estevez, starring his father Martin Sheen that came out last October.  It's about an old man whose son passes away in a bad storm while on a Christian pilgrimage from the French Pyrenees to Galicia across northwest Spain. The old man assumes the pilgrimage, known as El Camino, to fulfill his son's wish and discovers that in doing so he communes with his deceased son and gets to know him in death like he never had in life. 

You can tell it was shot digital and Estevez doesn’t have much of an eye for camera framing or vistas, which is what I look forward to in films where the protagonists spend most of their time traveling, especially when it’s on foot. But the editing is seemless and the characters so odd, disparate and genuine that I found myself being slowly drawn into the mystique of the film. And I’m glad to have found it has one.

Although the slower pacing is not unfamiliar to those of us who have watched European films, I could see it boring anyone who’s not the staunchest of avid film enthusiasts and that’s truly a shame, because this film is worth watching; yes, maybe even more than once. Estevez does know what he’s doing as he builds on the momentum, not necessarily of the plot but, of the emotions behind these characters during the journey with such sincerity and serenity that I did find myself overwhelmed by my own catharsis at the end of the road. What’s great about films like this that can afford to take their time is that you truly feel that you experienced the journey with the characters.

The European actors were well-cast, too. It reminds me of the days when the French auteurs spoke of mise-en-scene and the Italian directors staunchly believed in using non-actors. They were just natural, themselves. It was refreshing. Along the way, Estevez gives us a plain and true look at the provincial Europeans, which I'm personally familiar with but can see how alien it must look to an American audience. So much talk about history and poetry! So many nuances and an entire underground culture of people like the gypsies.

Most importantly, there is an actual story here. I think we've all forgotten what's that like in the past decade with the bombardment of spectacle, CG effects and comic book recreations on the big screen. We get so used to lunacy bubble-wrapped in THX noise and 3D-o-rama that watching a film with a beginning, middle and end feels jaunting, but in a very good way. Estevez says it himself (and I couldn't agree more) that audiences are telling Hollywood they want fresh, new ideas. Kudos to him for taking that risk with this film. It's certainly one I'd want to see with my family and for kids to see as they're growing up.

BOTTOM LINE: Poignant film about loss and reconnecting with one’s own spirituality. The pace is slow but if you like films where a small group of people become fast friends in a journey of mutual commitment, like me, you’re going to love this one!

The Grey starring Liam Neeson

I watched The Grey with Liam Neeson with only one expectation: that Liam would nail it with his performance. I got a lot more than that. For a long time, probably since Star Wars Episode I (sorry, Jedi enthusiasts), Liam fell into my category of aging actors whose face alone weary me. Then I saw him in Gangs of New York and felt he might still have some merit. Then I saw Taken and realized the new action hero was born! And it’s an old Irish man?! Makes sense. The Irish can be down for the count and come back with a resilience that’s often super human. Yes, I love the Irish, especially Irish women. I love all Celts for they are fierce, passionate and unrelenting.

But back to Liam. Hollywood quickly caught on to the fact that this man had broken new ground for himself. Since Taken, Liam’s been consistently cast as the over-the-hill white man who you simply don’t want to mess with, because he will find you, he will cut you open and he will stop at nothing to achieve his aim. Who doesn’t love that?! In The Grey, Liam is literally thrown into the Sarlacc pit and the film is not about him finding trouble, but climbing out. Also, this time his mortal enemies are not conspiring humans, but a pack of fierce wolves killing all invaders, one by one. I don’t jump during scary movies. I wasn’t shocked as much as creeped out byParanormal Activity and The Last Exorcism, but this film had me literally jumping out of my seat on two occasions.

I absolutely feast on films that rely on visuals to tell a story and where most of the dialogue is not spoken, because things are being experienced that are not easily put into words. This film falls into that category. I also love Nature and cinema shots with scope where you get a visceral feel for the spaces the characters inhabit as if they had a life of their own. Kubrick first conveyed this to me in The Shining. Valhalla Rising achieved it as well, while James Cameron’s Avatar failed to do this, sadly. He missed the whole point of doing a film on such a grand scale. Lost sight of the sense of life a motion camera can give places and the non-living or non-human, as opposed to computer-generated visuals that shock your eyes with color till your nose bleeds. Meanwhile, in The Grey, as the film comes to a close, you realize there’s an important theme playing itself out here--one that’s intimate and full of spirituality. It begins with the recitation of four lines of poetry that encapsulate the theme:

"Once more into the fray.

Into the last good fight I'll ever know.

Live and die on this day.

Live and die on this day."

The film is about the struggle against evil that is inherent on this planet, even within Nature itself, as symbolized by the pack of blood-thirsty wolves. You ask yourself, why would animals go to such an extreme? They went beyond protecting their den. They hunted these men. You sense there's something twisted about them and the director maintains the sense of awe at how mysterious that truth is. We're used to human beings acting evil and degenerate; we can rationalize that. We can't rationalize when Nature turns against man, in this case through the wolves. It's not rabies. It's evil, pure and unadulterated, acting through those beings, human or not, who lend themselves to its control. Pretty creepy stuff. The last time I remember feeling that creeped out was when I read Tolkien's "The New Shadow." In any case, the film is telling you that you can cry out to God for help if it comforts you. In the end you have to find the strength within yourself to confront evil on its own turf and "live and die on this day."