Quick Thoughts - Before Midnight (2013)

12/12/13: Nine years is a long time to wait for an update on a pair of beloved characters, but then again, so was the eight years between the first two films. In all fairness, my opinion might be skewed by my having come in on the second film in the series, Before Sunset, which I consider nearly perfect. Waiting nine years for the next installment in the lives of these characters is a tall order, and may have proved too much, possibly due to unrealistic expectations. Before Midnight takes a long time to settle in on its primary characters, the ones we've been caring about about for 10-20 years, depending on when you came in. The first act highlights a whole group of characters who, while terribly interesting, just were not what I was tuning in to see. Fortunately, the last hour of the film gets back to what made this series the brilliant character study that it is, and shows us the next stage in the relationship of Celeste and Jesse... And it's as poignant and heart-wrenching as ever. ***1/2

Brooklyn's Finest - Zero Stars

Brooklyn's Finest is a film that allows for the emotional detachment necessary to experience just how bad movies can be. The only thing I took away from it was the assurance that most of the movies that I hate are probably not as bad as I thought they were. It fails on some of the most fundamental levels; there were very few moments when I had any idea of what was going on, why it was going on, what it meant, or what it was intended to mean, who the characters were, what they were trying to do, what the consequences would be if they didn't do it, who I was supposed to care about, or if I was even supposed to care about someone at all, because I didn't care about any of them.

It takes place in a world where actions have no consequences, alcoholics don't drink, where there's a police raid every day, and every character speaks like he's rehearsing lines for an audition for a TNT original. Has a real cop ever said "The media's shoveling shit on our badges?" I hope not. It's an action film with no action, and it's two hours and eighteen minutes long. Bad movies are not allowed to be self-indulgent.

The film follows three characters who are cops, or scumbags, or scumbag cops. It opens with some pseudo-philosophical bullshit about "the righter and the wronger." Then some other stuff happens, guys pull guns on each other, act tough, wear doo-rags, and put their guns away. The film is devoid of any entertainment whatsoever, and there is no real drama in any of the three stories, which never converge at any point to make any sort of statement or observation about what it is to be a cop, a criminal, a resident of Brooklyn, an eater of pizza, anything. Nothing. There's nothing there. At all. Seriously.

Daybreakers - **

It is a new decade and I am full of hope. Hope that this film caps off this bullshit cinematic vampire infestation we've been sitting through for the last year or two. Hope that this is the last movie soaked in that somber blue Underworld Trilogy/Tim Burton in the 2000s color tone. Hope that this is the last time I have to sit through an Ethan Hawke film wondering how the hell one of the best actors around gets stuck in trash like Daybreakers.

The film follows Hawke's vampire scientist as he tries to find a cure for vampirism and bring mankin---oh, who the fuck cares? You've already seen it a thousand times. This incarnation is a horror film, or a suspense thriller, vampire drama, silly cartoonish comedy, apocalyptic vision of the future, or something else entirely. It succeeds intermittently in some of these categories, mostly in the silliness, though I think that is unintentional. The scariest part: watching a weird homeless vampire sneak up on a rich vampire couple and creep them out. The funniest part: also that weird homeless vampire. The goofiest/most tragic part: that Willem Dafoe, another respectable actor, plays the "They call me Elvis"-human-turned-vampire-turned-back-human-again-through-a-bizarre-coincidence-that-he-and-Hawke-try-to-replicate-for-the-rest-of-the-film character. While he almost makes it work, it is just so outrageous and silly for a film that wants to be so somber, with its Sleepy Hollow blue tone look and its reluctant, do-gooder vampires stuck in a corrupt, blood-thirsty (haha) world. The result is just kind of lifeless (haha, vampires are dead).

It's not my intention to simply complain about a good cast in a moronic film, but how can I not? Watching Daybreakers is watching these fine actors (Sam Neill is also dragged into this mess) waste their talent in a film directed by guys who would rather spend time animating their eyes yellow than develop their characters. Silly flourishes like these are abundant in this film, like showing a banner with Uncle Sam wanting you... to capture humans, or vampires taking blood in their coffee instead of cream and sugar. These things could have been interesting, or at least entertaining had they been used with any subtlety. But instead we get shots of the sub-walk, which has replaced the subway system (vampires cannot be exposed to daylight).

So why did I not totally hate this film? Maybe it's because there was enough silliness and cheap thrills to get me through, like a cartoonish exploding head or cars decked out with light-resistant panels and cameras on top so that vampires can drive during the day; maybe it's because I snuck into The Blind Side directly after and saw how bad films can really be; or maybe it's because I am filled with more hopes, like the hope that Sam Neill will go back to doing genre films with masters like Steven Spielberg or John Carpenter, instead of the Sperig Brothers.