Movie Review: Undiscovered

Undiscovered (2005) 

Directed by Meiert Avis 

Written by John Galt 

Starring Pell James, Steven Strait, Kip Pardue, Shannyn Sossamon, Carrie Fisher

Release Date August 25th, 2005 

Published August 26th, 2005 

I have a theory about this ridiculous slump business at the box office. It is not merely that Hollywood is not making films that people want to see. Rather it is Hollywood releasing films so unwatchable that they poison the theaters that show them with a toxin that drives audiences to their homes in fear of ever returning to a movie theater.

Consider the evidence; Are We There Yet?, The Pacifier, Deuce Bigelow 2. Just typing those titles raised the bile from my stomach. Now in theaters is a film that is far worse than any of the films I mentioned. An abysmal teen rock romance called Undiscovered that should have remained Un-released.

Steven Strait's earnest pronouncements of love and heartbreak are so pathetic that realistically he would be more inclined toward a restraining order than for true love. The one-two punch of Mr. Strait's uninspired delivery and the script's stultifying dialogue is just brutal. I am told that  Strait performed all of his own music in the film and given our current music culture, his music will fit in nicely next to all of the atrocious examples of mainstream pop rock that overflows from most top 40 radio stations.

A music critic friend told me recently that modern rockers have started to go away from writing complex lyrics. Supposedly they want the focus on musicianship, but as the recent MTV Video Music Awards show, it's about projecting rock star image more than having anything to genuinely do with music. By that standard Mr. Strait, a former model, should fit right in. How unfortunate, however, that as his character is written, he's supposed to be a great songwriter. Yeah... not quite.

For her part Ms. James is-- cute. That is honestly the kindest thing I can say about her performance.  James may actually be the victim of having to carry Mr. Strait's D.O.A performance. As the more experienced of the pair she carries most of the dramatic weight, were that there was any to carry in such an airheaded film. Pell James is also saddled with carrying the supporting performance of pop star Ashlee Simpson who at the very least is more interesting to watch than our main character.

Steven Strait stars in Undiscovered as, I kid you not, Luke Falcon. Luke is a wannabe rocker on his way to L.A to make it to the big time. As he is getting off the subway with his brother Euan (Kip Pardue), on his last day in New York City, Luke has a cute encounter with Breier (Pell James). He drops his glove on the train and instead of retrieving it he tossed Breier the other glove just before the train doors closed. Remarking that he met the girl of his dreams on his last day in the city, Luke hops his flight for Los Angeles. What are the odds that Breier will soon be there as well?  It's no long shot, I assure you.

Breier is a model with dreams of becoming an actress, a confession she makes to her modeling agent played by the desperately slumming Carrie Fisher. Soon Breier is off to LA and the cutthroat world of "model slash actresses". It is through her acting class that she meets Clea (Ashlee Simpson) who happens to know Luke (He lets her sing with him at a dive bar). Luke and Breier meet cute once again but Breier cannot hook up as she has a rock star boyfriend who she knows is a cheating, lying bastard.... but she loves him. Ahh true love.

Luke and Breier stay friends and eventually she and Clea help Luke get a following at the club and the attention of a slimy record exec played by the oily Fisher Stevens. Soon Luke has his own model girlfriend played by Shannyn Sossamon, but the life of a rock star is too much for the earnest Luke who longs for the solitude of the songwriter.

No points for guessing that despite all of these roadblocks, Breier and Luke are meant for each other. This is, afterall, a teen romance. What is shocking, though, is how woefully inept the film is even from the limited expectations of its genre. Strait and James are embarrassingly hard to watch as they fumble the film's central romance like teenagers in a first time groping session.

The regrettable script, credited to first time writer John Galt is a meandering, overlong mess of typical romantic roadblocks and dialogue that would make the kids on TV's "One Tree Hill" roll their eyes. If you can somehow fight your way through the longest 93 minutes of your filmgoing life you will see the film end with the kind of Deus Ex Machina that even the lamest of screenwriting books make fun of. The ending involves a cameo by former RoboCop star Peter Weller that sounds as if he were channeling Christopher Walken, only a far less entertaining version of the man.

How serious was Lions Gate about making a real hit movie out of Undiscovered? The producers actually rewrote the picture and retitled the film for a pop song by Ms. Simpson that is naturally on the film's soundtrack. Ms. Simpson's father is credited as a producer on the film and there are two scenes with Simpson onstage that seem to stretch into eternity.

Much of the film is in fact filled out by musical performances from Strait and Simpson. Cut back on the music and Undiscovered might clock in closer to 70 minutes. That is still way too long, though, believe me. The fact is that Undiscovered is the kind of film that usually goes directly to video stores and yet somehow ended up on the big screen as a ninety three minute commercial for its abysmal soundtrack. For anyone who thought Lions Gate's template for success was Miramax, well it's actually something closer to MTV Films.

In what is clearly one of the worst years for cinema in recent history in term of film quality, the box office is doing just fine despite the slump talk.  Undiscovered ranks right near the top of the list of the worst films of the year. As Mr. Ebert famously said in the title of his book about bad movies, I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, this movie.

Movie Review One Missed Call

One Missed Call (2008) 

Directed by Eric Valette 

Written by Andrew Klavan

Starring Shannyn Sossamon, Ed Burns, Ray Wise, Azura Skye

Release Date January 4th, 2008 

Published January 4th, 2008

The movie One Missed Call starring Shannyn Sossamon and Ed Burns is brought to you by the good folks at Boost Mobile. Ok, admittedly, I can't prove that the tiny offshoot of Sprint and Nextel actually sponsored the making of this pale imitation of Japanese horror cliches but they are no doubt tacit endorsers. Boost is mentioned and their logo shown so often the company could apply for a SAG card. Of course, bitching about the soulless schilling behind this little horror movie is really just my way of dodging the ennui that this movie brought about within me. Indeed, I care so little about this film I can barely bring the strength to dislike it.

Shannyn Sossamon, so cute in 40 Days and 40 Nights and so tragic in Rules of Engagement, stars here as a listless college student whose friends keep dying. You may be quick to blame her, but no. In reality, the deaths are related to their cellphones. Each of Shannyn's college pals have received a phone call with a message depicting their mode of death and the exact time that death will take place. By the way, Boost Mobile, if you are considering this as a feature, please stop. Naturally, when Shannyn takes her concerns to the police only the most handsome and single of the cops is willing to take her seriously.

Ed Burns plays the cop in typically Ed Burns fashion, disinterested handsomeness. Burns was once a flavor of the month writer-director boy genius. His natural rhythms as a writer served to cover up his ineptitude as an actor. Burns is a sieve as an actor with lines that roll off his tongue with the thud of a 2 by 4 to the head. That said, with material less than the sum of his acting, you barely notice his usual oafishness. As it turns out, the fetching cop's sister died after receiving one the death messages on her phone. There's also a bit about red hard candy and child abuse but by the time the film got around to them I was busy doing my taxes, difficult in the dark of a theater but I had nothing better to do.

I was going to delve into the film's ill logic and discuss universe theory, the thing where I say if a movie can establish a universe for its own goofy logic then even the most outlandish plot can be logical in its own way. I was going to go into those things but One Missed Call is simply too forgettable for such conversation. It was adapted from a Japanese horror film by the same title, in Japanese, by French director Eric Valette. Working in America for the first time, Valette shows an obvious talent for pointing his camera AT his actors. It's getting those actors to do something worth filming that is the problem here.

I had once thought that former model Shannyn Sossamon was going to be quite a star. She was terrific as Heath Ledger's inspiration in A Knight's Tale and cute as a button opposite Josh Hartnett in 40 Days and 40 Nights. Unfortunately, like so many pretty faces before her, she just never found the right roles and has now been relegated to the B-movie squad. At the very least, I don't think the failure of One Missed Call is entirely her fault. I'm guessing no one told her that they were using her audition takes, before she actually knew her lines. Wait.... what? Those were real takes? My bad.

I know it sounds like I hated this movie but believe me, hating this movie would take far more effort than I am willing to offer here. So, I will say, One Missed Call is a movie to watch while you do other things. Get a haircut, read a book, play video games, smoke weed. Trust me, you'll barely even notice the movie is there.

Movie Review Rules of Attraction

Rules of Attraction (2002) 

Directed by Roger Avary 

Written by Roger Avary

Starring James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Kip Pardue, Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth, Ian Somerhalder, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Faye Dunaway

Release Date October 11th, 2002 

Published October 11th, 2002 

From the twisted mind of Bret Easton Ellis comes The Rules of Attraction, a dyspeptic look at college life that is as bleak as Van Wilder was ridiculous. Ellis was the mind behind American Psycho, which became a movie starring Christian Bale. Not surprisingly the movie was a pale imitation of the book, but then to truly adapt American Psycho for the screen would be to garner the hardest NC-17 rating ever. The same could be said of The Rules of Attraction, a pale imitation of the book that also is unlikely to ever reach a true screen adaptation.

The film stars James Van Der Beek as Sean Bateman. If the name sounds familiar it should be Sean is the brother of Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. Sean Bateman isn’t the nutball his brother is but he has his moments, he’s a drug dealer who sells cocaine to classmates for twice what it’s worth. Bateman has a growing obsession with a classmate named Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon). Lauren on the other hand is obsessed with Victor (Kip Pardue, a long way away from Remember The Titans) who has no idea who she is. Victor has spent the past semester in Europe, and upon his return is screwing Lauren’s slutty roommate Lara (Jessica Biel). Rounding out the cast is a predatory gay man named Paul (Ian Somerhalder). Paul has a thing for straight guys and turns his sights on Bateman.

Each character is introduced in flashback, at a party. We begin with Lauren losing her virginity to some loser while the guy she had intended on being with filmed it. Rewind to months earlier and Lauren is doing all she can to keep from having sex including staring at pictures of people with venereal diseases. Sean meanwhile is in trouble with his drug supplier Rupert (Clifton Collins Jr.) for some money he owes.

The plot description is a waste of time, as there didn’t seem to be a plot. What we really have is a collection of scenes intended to shock the audience with audacious visuals and over the top characters. However, the scenes aren’t shocking, they are well visualized but without any context or point of view.

Despite what you may have heard about James Van Der Beek shedding his Dawson persona, the film clearly trades on Van Der Beek’s image. This is especially obvious in a scene between Van Der Beek and Fred Savage that is supposed to be funny because it’s Dawson and the kid from Wonder Years working out details of a drug deal. There are also scenes in which Bateman is seen masturbating which seem to wink at the audience and to say you would never see Dawson do that. In all honesty I don’t mean to rip Van Der Beek, his performance is strong, however it is undercut by Director Roger Avary’s desperate attempts at irony.

The film does have its strengths including a very cool montage of Victor’s trip to Europe. With cool European techno backing him up, Kip Pardue’s narration consists of his character screwing his way across Europe, slurping whatever drugs he can find and judging his destinations by the quality of women he could sleep with. The scenes shot on DV are edited to the killer techno beat, which gives the narration a beat poetry vibe. Very cool.

Though at times the film's visuals are self consciously arty, such as close up of a water faucet that is dripping water into a bathtub full of blood, they are, for the most part, visually exciting and by far the film’s greatest strength. If only the story and the characters were as exciting and interesting as the visuals, Rules Of Attraction could have been great. As it is the film is a mean spirited picture about unlikable characters that looks good on the outside but is entirely hollow.

Movie Review: 30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night (2002) 

Directed by Michael Lehmann 

Written by Robert Perez 

Starring Josh Hartnett, Shannyn Sossamon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Vinessa Shaw, Griffin Dunne, Paulo Costanzo 

Release Date March 1st, 2002 

Published March 1st, 2002 

I'm really beginning to dislike the horror genre. Though regular readers and horror fans might argue that I have always hated horror movies, that is not true. I loved Freddy and Jason as a kid. As an adult, I find the Saw films to be utterly ingenious. My issue with modern horror films is the growing, ugly nihilism of the genre. More and more this genre that once exposed our humanity and capacity for bravery and compassion, now comes to exploit our humanity and compassion.

The latest film to trade on our humanity, depicting violent death with style, wit and impoverished morals is the vampire movie 30 Days of Night. Josh Hartnett stars in 30 Days of Night as Eban Oleson the sheriff of Barrow Alaska. Settled on the uppermost point of the United States, Barrow is home to only the most hardy winter lovers. For 30 days of every year Barrow goes into darkness. Many citizens cannot handle the lack of sun and take off. The 150 or so people who stay behind find something they never could have imagined.

A stranger (Ben Foster) arrives in town. He murders all the sled dogs. He steals and burns all of the cell phones. After he is caught by sheriff Oleson, he warns that 'they' are coming. Who are they? The stranger won't say but once citizens begin getting their heads ripped from their bodies, it's clear that 'they' have indeed arrived. Now, the sheriff with his ex-wife Stella (Melissa George) and a ragtag band of survivors must find a way to survive for 30 days when the sun returns and 'they' go back from where they came.

Based on the 2004 graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 Days of Night is stylish, darkly humorous and undeniably cool. And therein lies the problem. Like much of modern horror 30 Days of Night exploits our humanity and compassion to get us to invest in these characters and then destroys them in the most eye catching and gory fashion.

I am conflicted about this because I cannot deny the artistry with which director David Slade delivers this carnage. However, the style, the cool, dehumanizes the characters and takes pleasure in their misery. This brings an ugliness, a pseudo-nihilism to the proceedings that frankly makes me ill. I've grown weary of the stylish presentation of the destruction of humanity.

I get that it's a vampire movie and realism is not a question. And yes; you can argue that the style employed only serves to further distance the characters from reality. My point is however, that the danger that these characters find is meant to earn our sympathy and care and thanks to the talented performances of Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, they do.

We are invested emotionally, engaged by these characters. When these characters, not necessarily Hartnett or George, are violently dissected by vampires, the fillmmakers are taking advantage of that sympathy, exploiting it. For what purpose? Why are our sympathies engaged and then violently and bloodily turned against us?

In the Saw films, James Wan, Leigh Whannell and Darren Lynn Bousman engage us similarly but with a point and a purpose. There is a philosophy behind the carnage, a lesson to be imparted about the gift that is life, the gift that is forgiveness and the possibility of redemption. What lesson do we learn from 30 Days of Night other than fake blood looks cool when splashed on white snow.

Josh Hartnett is one of my very favorite actors. Wearing his vulnerabilty on his sleeve and his wit as well, Hartnett has a talent for characters that win us over from the moment we meet them. His sheriff in 30 Days of Night wins us over from his first scene as he stares into the horizon, an undeclared sadness plagues him as the last sunset for 30 days begins to fall.

Melissa George matches Hartnett in her appeal to our sympathies. Also carrying the burden of memory her Stella just wanted to get in and out of town without Eben knowing she was there. The sadness they share over the end of their marriage is never openly discussed but it is written in their every glance and gesture toward and away from one another. In another movie, one with a depth of feeling for these characters beyond finding unique ways for them to kill vampires or to die violently, Hartnett and George could really make something lasting and beautiful. That is something that the creators of 30 Days of Night are incapable of providing.

What is the point of 30 Days of Night. What are we supposed to take away from it? What is it that we find so exhilarating or exciting about the destruction of humanity. There is no subtext, there are no lessons imparted, this film is merely an exercise in the stylish presentation of hardcore violence. Maybe it's because I'm getting older but I just don't get it anymore.