O'Grady Film

My Reaction to Tonight’s Episode of The Walking Dead: A Flash Fiction

Milton’s bedroom. Bathed in darkness. Illuminated only by the faint moonlight that slants through the blinds. Slowly, the door creaks open. A shadow falls across Milton’s bed. Six dull cracks pierce the silence, and six bullets tear into the lump beneath the sheets, sending up a shower of… feathers?

Suddenly, the light flickers on, illuminating The Governor, a smoking pistol in his hand. He turns. Across the room, reclining casually against the wall, stands Milton. A cigarette dangles from his left hand, the wisps of smoke it gives off curling toward the light bulb. His right hand clutches a silenced Walther PPK.

“That’s a Smith & Wesson, Philip,” he says, his voice as smooth as the tattered silk bed sheets and as cold as the ice in the gin on the bedside table, “and you’ve had your six.”

Three muffled shots strike Philip center mass as he dives for cover. Milton stamps out his cigarette against the bottom of his shoe and approaches his former employer, now writhing pathetically in a pool of his own rapidly cooling blood.

The dethroned Governor gurgles out a few feeble last words: “My men will avenge me.” The thought comforts him as the remaining four rounds crash through his skull.

He dies unaware that his loyal followers have already succumbed to their arsenic-laced pre-mission drinks.

[Full credit to Ian Fleming and Eon Productions.]

Recently Viewed: A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

Len Wiseman can now sleep a bit more easily, secure in the knowledge that he is no longer responsible for the worst Die Hard movie ever made. Thanks to John Moore, the director who turned the blockbuster video game Max Payne into a vehicle for a particularly whiny Marky Mark, this undead franchise has reached a new low point.

Let me be perfectly clear: I think the series still has a bit of life left in it. True, the “Wrong Place at the Wrong Time” angle has grown both stale absurdly implausible after five adventures, but as a character, John McClane has enough charm and charisma to sustain the franchise for as long as Bruce Willis can shoot guns and spout one-liners. But if McClane is to remain as relevant as James Bond, or even Mission: Impossible’s Ethan Hunt, he’ll need the guidance of a filmmaker with a clear cinematic vision and immense storytelling prowess—qualities that Moore sorely lacks.

For evidence of Moore’s stylistic shortcomings, one needn’t look any further than the overly ambitious car chase that kickstarts the plot. This travesty of a set piece redefines visual incoherence, featuring such shaky camerawork and disjointed editing that it is difficult to keep track of which characters are in what vehicles and impossible to determine where they all are in relation to one another. Unlike Christopher Nolan—hell, even Michael Bay—Moore lacks patience, sacrificing narrative context in his rush to get to the crashes and explosions.

This attitude permeates the entire film. In the original Die Hard, director John McTiernan took the time to establish who McClane was—his personality, his desires, his flaws—earning the audience’s emotional investment. Moore, on the other hand, haphazardly tosses John and Jack into a volatile situation and forces them to sprint forward, providing minimal exposition and characterization (it is telling, I think, that the movie’s longest sustained shot—an image of a breathtakingly beautiful hotel ballroom, adorned with stained glass skylights and crystalline chandeliers—exists only to set up a scene of wanton destruction). Willis and series newcomer Jai Courtney have strong onscreen chemistry, but even they can’t elevate the thinly-written father-son relationship, which more often than not feels like a halfhearted retread of the odd couple/buddy cop conflict between McClane and Samuel L. Jackson in Die Hard with a Vengeance (and considering the fact that the bond between parent and child ends up becoming a major theme, that’s a huge problem). What unforgivable crime did John commit to so alienate the sweet, adorable little boy we glimpsed in previous installments? The screenplay (by Skip Woods, also responsible for Hitman and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) foregoes concrete explanations in favor of increasingly limp banter (actual examples: “I’m supposed to be on vacation!” “I’m up for Father of the Year.” And so on), diminishing the emotional stakes and destroying any semblance of suspense.

A Good Day to Die Hard is an entertaining enough diversion, but it lacks the humanity and authenticity that made its predecessors so special. Hack directors like Wiseman and Moore have turned the franchise into a series of cliched action flicks—and, sadly, transformed the fallible, vulnerable John McClane into yet another generic, indestructible action hero.

The Poetry of Violence: The Anatomy of an Action Scene

A good action scene does not exist for its own sake; rather, it is the culmination of the screenwriter’s meticulously-laid groundwork. Shootouts, fistfights, and car chases represent the ultimate payoff, the thundering crescendo that releases the viewer’s pent-up tension; if one of these stock story beats ever falls flat or feels boring, it is because the film lacks adequate buildup—without tension to alleviate, there can be no genuine stakes, no emotional investment.

The very best cinematic storytellers know exactly how to wind the watch tighter and tighter, straining the springs until they inevitably, satisfyingly explode. Quentin Tarantino has perfected the formula in recent years: collectively, his past two films play as a thesis statement on how to construct a suspenseful game of verbal cat-and-mouse. In Inglorious Basterds, Michael Fassbender’s cool, cultured Archie Hicox, undercover behind enemy lines, finds himself caught up in a silent battle of wills between a shrewd, suspicious SS officer and Til Schweiger’s insatiable Nazi slayer. Similarly, the two protagonists of 2012’s Django Unchained (the eponymous freed slave and his German companion/mentor, Dr. King Schultz) must match wits with sadistic slaveowner Calvin Candie—whose casual cruelty (of particular note: feeding a would-be escapee to a pack of ravenous dogs) makes it increasingly difficult for the bounty hunters (especially the kindhearted Schultz) to keep up the charade. Both scenarios can only result in a sudden eruption of violence—and each and every gunshot and blood spurt only amplifies the viewer’s sense of catharsis.

South Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon (The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, I Saw the Devil), too, excels at this delicate art. In The Last Stand, his English-language debut (and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s big comeback vehicle), the director deftly juggles several disparate narrative threads—a bloodthirsty drug kingpin races toward the Mexican border in a souped-up Corvette, a beleaguered FBI agent desperately tries to cut off his escape route, a small-town sheriff (and retired badass—this is Arnold, after all) rallies his troops for the impending battle—as they gradually converge on an explosive climatic showdown in the sleepy streets of Sommerton Junction. And the sight of the former Governor of California mowing down dozens of mercenaries from the back of a moving school bus is hardly the only moment of triumph the movie has to offer; the film’s most effective sequence, by far, is the first encounter between our ragtag band of heroes and the villain’s nefarious henchmen. Two woefully inexperienced sheriff’s deputies (Zach Gilford and Jaimie Alexander) find themselves pinned down by gunfire after inadvertently stumbling across the villain’s super-secret bridge construction project. A garbled voice on the other end of the radio promises that backup is on the way, but any comfort that those words might provide quickly fades when the bad guys kill the work lights, slip on night vision goggles, and advance with guns ablaze. We unconsciously slide to the edge of our seats: previous scenes devoted a lot of precious screen time to establishing these characters’ goals and ambitions and dreams, and while those beats felt somewhat slow and unnecessary in the moment, they served their purpose—they got us to care. So when Arnold rides in like a knight on his noble steed, firing his shotgun one-handed and splattering mooks across his windshield like so many mosquitoes, the audience is compelled the cheer: this is the emotional release we’ve been craving since the first muzzle flash, and it is glorious. 

Kim Jee-Woon understands. Tarantino understands. The Coens, Beat Takeshi, and Takashi Miike all understand: action scenes work best when used as punctuation. After all, exclamation points are meaningless unless they appear at the end of a properly structured sentence.

Recently Viewed: The Last Stand (2013)

In 2008, South Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon directed The Good, the Bad, and the Weird a stylish, postmodern “Kimchee Western” featuring some of the most energetic, inventive, and utterly insane shootouts ever committed to celluloid. It remains his most popular work in the West—and a personal favorite of mine. How appropriate, then, that he should revisit the genre for his first English-language feature, this time putting modern-day spin on the classic High Noon/Rio Bravo scenario—and casting a recently un-retired Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role for good measure.

Sadly, The Last Stand isn’t nearly as effortless or elegant as the director’s previous efforts (which include A Tale of Two Sisters and the brilliantly demented I Saw the Devil). Like many foreign artists, he struggles to adapt his vision to an unfamiliar system—and an unfamiliar language. Early scenes plod along at a sluggish pace, laden with a somewhat over-bloated ensemble cast and long stretches of unwieldy dialogue.

But the action scenes… The action scenes are every bit as wild and imaginative and crazy as the very best bits of The Good, the Bad, and the Weird. And such variety to boot: a tense, gorgeously choreographed high-speed car chase through a field of corn; an agonizingly suspenseful firefight in the pitch dark desert between a pair of outgunned sheriff’s deputies and a small army of mercenaries equipped with night vision goggles; and an explosive climactic showdown in the streets of Sommerton Junction (the quintessential small town), which starts with a rocket-propelled grenade blowing a parked vehicle sky-high and just keeps on escalating from there.

The Last Stand is far from perfect, but it’s still an exciting American debut from one of Asian cinema’s most unique creative voices—and a thoroughly satisfying return to form by one of the industry’s most beloved action movie icons.

Recently Viewed: Gangster Squad (2012)

In this rollicking, ultra-violent, color-soaked throwback to the golden age of gangster flicks, director Ruben Fleischer paints in very broad strokes. The titular band of heroes (headlined by Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling) are knights in shining fedoras, veterans of World War II who dreamed of finding some peace and quiet in Los Angeles—only to learn that “paradise” is rotten to the core, ruled by the same kind of tyranny they fought overseas. The villainous Mickey Cohen (played by a scenery-chewing Sean Penn), meanwhile, is the sort of brutal, bloodthirsty, Machiavellian thug that only exists in works of fiction—at least, I sincerely hope so (his introductory scene sees him graphically tear a poor bastard messily in half, for God’s sake). It is, in short, a live action cartoon.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While the film reaches the morally questionable conclusion that the end justifies the means, it follows a compelling path to get there, painting a portrait of decent men forced to become the very sort of monsters they oppose for the sake of the “greater good.” And, thankfully, it knows better than to take itself too seriously, emphasizing gunplay and bravado over brooding melodrama (though it doesn’t completely neglect the consequences of it’s protagonists’ bloody crusade against organized crime). Gosling in particular excels at keeping the proceedings light and enjoyable, handling writer Will Beall’s witty dialogue with aplomb and lending genuine humanity to his scenes with the stunning Emma Stone (with whom he shares electric onscreen chemistry).

Gangster Squad may ask difficult ethical questions only to short-change the viewer on satisfying answers (choosing instead to fall back on increasingly chaotic shootouts), but it is an energetic, engaging, and—above all—fun genre picture. I can’t really ask for much more than that.

2012 and the Depiction of Race in Movies

In a previous post, I argued that three of 2012’s biggest blockbusters—Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Avengers—collectively represented the reconstruction of the classic movie hero after years of dark, brooding, morally-ambiguous protagonists:

I find it particularly interesting that these developments occurred in the same year that saw the release of Marvel’s The Avengers, which tackles the concept of super-heroism with a wide-eyed optimism rarely glimpsed since the Silver Age of comic books. If The Dark Knight altered how critics and audiences perceived big blockbusters, then Joss Whedon’s enthusiastic, unapologetic, and (most importantly) monumentally successful celebration of colorful costumes and selfless sacrifice shook things up all over again. Did Nolan/Warner Bros. and Mendes/EON Productions sense change in the air and tailor their core thematic concerns accordingly? And what does this gradual shift toward brighter, more hopeful narratives—tales which emphasize the silver lining rather than the storm cloud—say about the times we’re living in?

Have we (the moviegoers, the cinephiles, society), like Bruce Wayne, finally escaped the cold, oppressive, hellish prison of pessimism and anxiety and bathed in the warm glow of a sun which reassures us that, yes, a few inherently decent human beings do inhabit this scary, hostile, chaotic world?

Recently, as I thought back on the year’s numerous other releases, I noticed a second, subtler trend: a reevaluation of how we depict race relations in popular art.

The epiphany struck me as I reflected on Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and the “controversy” surrounding it. Filmmaker Spike Lee has made no secret of his disdain for the violent revenge thriller, outright stating that he has no desire to see a Spaghetti Western about slavery. And yet… the fact that it is a Spaghetti Western first and foremost makes a powerful statement. The brutality and indignity of slavery is part of the movie’s landscape, but the real focus is on the gunslinging, the bloodletting, the hero’s epic journey—all the elements that comprise a classic genre piece.

It was at that moment that I remembered Red Tails, the George Lucas-produced Tuskegee Airmen project. As in Django Unchained, racial tension and inequality are a necessary prop in the story, but the emphasis is on the genre—an old-fashioned, rollicking war/adventure movie teeming with energetic dogfights.

It’s difficult to judge these things in the moment, but I have to wonder: will future generations of cinephiles view 2012 as the year in which our cinematic storytellers attempted to change how we discuss America’s shameful history of racism by incorporating the delicate subject matter into a more conventional, cathartic narrative framework?

Recently Viewed: Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

I’m a sucker for a good love story.

“Good” being the key word. These days, movie theaters and TV stations are saturated with a glut of formulaic, by-the-numbers glurge—transparently manipulative, emotionally unsatisfying, and infuriatingly financially-successful. I don’t demand that every cinematic love story aspire to be a work of breathtaking originality; I just prefer the ones that have a creative/interesting narrative hook.

David O. Russell rises to the occasion with Silver Linings Playbook, an enthusiastic, optimistic, and triumphant reconstruction of the old-fashioned romantic comedy (or “dramedy,” in this case). As one would expect of the well-worn genre, the plot is driven by a series of obstacles, misunderstandings, and tearful reconciliations, but Russell eschews the traditional complications (disapproving parents, douchey rival boyfriends) in favor of meaningful, insightful, compassionate characterization. Bradley Cooper’s Pat—recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder—stubbornly clings to the delusion that, through a strict regiment of self-improvement (both physical and spiritual), he will be able to impress his estranged wife enough to salvage their failed marriage; he finds a kindred spirit (though he initially refuses to acknowledge it) in Jennifer Lawrence’s Tiffany, a grieving widow whose crippling depression drives her towards increasingly self-destructive behavior. From this seemingly cynical setup, the Oscar-nominated director weaves a genuine, funny, and heartfelt tale about human beings who refuse to allow mental illness and emotional baggage to define who they are/dictate their future.

Silver Linings Playbook disassembles the classic genre recipe only to deftly, effortlessly put it back together again, and while it offers few true surprises, it always feels fresh, honest, and deeply rewarding.

Recently Viewed: Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Depiction does not automatically equal endorsement. 

It’s an easy rule to remember, yet I’ve noticed lately that several critics and commentators seem to have trouble grasping it. First, that intellectually-bankrupt video on YouTube attempted to expose the “hypocrisy” of “vapid celebrities” by juxtaposing footage of various actors (Jeremy Renner, Jamie Foxx, John Hamm) in a post-Sandy Hook gun control PSA with clips from various movies (including The Town, a gritty crime drama that treats gun violence as a decidedly Bad Thing, and Casa de mi Padre, a blindingly obvious parody of over-the-top Hollywood bloodshed) in which the same actors wield firearms—as though a character’s fictional crimes somehow invalidate the performer’s desire to prevent real-life slaughter.

And then there’s the controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty, Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest cinematic effort. The film’s harshest (and loudest) detractors accuse it of taking a pro-torture stance, simply because it contains multiple scenes of “enhanced interrogation” (in fact, one of the first images we see is of a bruised, battered, and emaciated detainee strung up by his wrists). Personally, I would argue in the exact opposite direction—that Zero Dark Thirty is staunchly, unambiguously anti-torture. I would cite as evidence Jessica Chastain’s performance, which clearly conveys her character’s discomfort with the bloody process: during and after each and every brutal session, she squeezes her eyes shut, pinches the bridge of her nose, clamps a hand over her mouth—body language that paints a portrait of a woman on the verge of physical and emotional collapse. I would also point out that few (if any) instances of onscreen torture produce a viable lead (indeed, the film was originally about the failed manhunt for bin Laden; current events rewrote the plot).

These wildly divergent interpretations suggest that the director’s stance on the ethics of torture is actually relatively neutral. In fact, her detached, naturalistic, documentary-esque shooting style rarely comments on the morality of her characters’ actions, either to condone or condemn (even the climactic raid on bin Laden’s compound is fairly low key). Therefore, in the world of the film, torture is neither entirely good nor entirely bad; it simply is, an undeniable and inescapable piece of the narrative of America’s War on Terror—an ugly truth.

Legendary cineaste Francois Truffaut once wrote that, regardless of the artist’s intent, there is no such thing as an “anti-war” film, because the visual immediacy of the medium inherently glorifies the subject matter—in other words, content will always supersede context. He may have been right, but I don’t believe it’s because of the nature of the art form; rather, it’s the audience that makes it so.

Recently Viewed: V/H/S (2012)

“Found footage horror anthology.” I doubt that any combination of words could possibly inspire less confidence in a film’s success. But by offering up so many delicious flavors of a beloved (if overly familiar) genre (ghosts, demons, plain old serial killers… there’s something here for everybody!)—filtered through a remarkable variety of creative voices and cinematic philosophies—V/H/S manages to transcend its own premise. 

The shot-on-video vignettes are somewhat formulaic (stupid people are punished for their stupidity), and tend to favor thrills/chills/spills over plot and characterization, but they’re generally short enough to get away with it. Each episode gets in, gets the job done, and gets out, and while some impress less than others (the second tale—not counting the narrative frame—falls flat thanks to an abrupt, nonsensical twist), each one has at least one scary, shocking, or otherwise spectacular moment that justifies its inclusion.

Like a summary of all the reasons we love a good campfire story.

Villains That Love Being Bad: Loco, The Great Silence

As played by the incomparable Klaus Kinski, Loco is the definitive Black Hat: cunning as a fox, venomous as a rattlesnake, and dirtier than a rat. And yet… he’s able to play by the same “rules” as director Sergio Corbucci’s protagonist, the titular bounty hunter; in one of the film’s most memorable, suspenseful scenes, the smug villain refuses to even lay a hand on his pistol—eventually removing his gun belt entirely!—unless Silence draws first, knowing that the pragmatic “hero” will only kill if he can plead self-defense. The only difference between these two gunslingers is that Loco is intelligent, crafty, and evil enough to know when to break the rules—a detestable trait which, in a cruel and bitter twist, allows him to win.