The Machinist (2004)

Add this film to your list of summer movies to watch (it's so easy with netflix!)

"The Machinist" follows the life of a blue collar man named Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) who hasn't slept in over a year and is beginning to notice the side effects of his insomnia and sleep deprivation, including extreme weight loss slight deterioration of his flesh and weakness among the physical effects, while the mental effects are much deeper and lead Trevor down a disturbing path of violence and confusion.  Lets just say that it's a combination of "Fight Club," "Memento," with a little bit of "Black Swan."

This doesn't really seem like a typical role for Christian Bale at first because Reznik is an almost cowardly, skinny man with seemingly no aspirations to achieve something greater in life.  As the plot progresses and Reznik begins to hallucinate and the effects of his sleep deprivation become apparent the seemingly introverted Reznik shows the classic Christian Bale anger full of shouting and wide eyes that we expect from his other movies.  Either the makeup department for "The Machinist" really spent a lot of time making Bale look like a starving, skinny, pale, lower-class-man, or Bale really put himself inside of his role and did some serious role research to look the disgusting and disturbing way that he does.  His condition is only augmented by the color palette of the entire film, which is all drab and dreary with very few accenting colors and a plethora of shades of white, grey, and black.  The only color that really stands out a lot is the few points in the film where blood is present.  But this whole setup makes for a very disturbing and almost depressing movie.  Don't watch this alone while you're mulling over the idea that nobody in the world cares for you....not saying that I did that or anything....Anyways, "The Machinist" gets a 4/5.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Wow! It's been a long time since I've posted anything here!  So, here you go!

I've been going through a phase of Japanese movies lately, and Japanese media in general.  In addition to the movie that this post is about ("Tokyo Gore Police"), I've also become hopelessly enamored with the anime show "Bleach", as well the movie "Ghost In The Shell" and the original "Gojira."  I've been kind of obsessed with the whole Japanese culture and much of that comes from the media that they produce.  But enough of that, on to the review!

What can I say about "Tokyo Gore Police" other than it's AWESOME!  It's definitely the Japanese B movie genre at it's finest!  It takes place in the future when the Tokyo police force has been privatized to deal with the growing crime level.  The plot centers around an officer of the law named Ruka (Eihi Shiina, who also stars in the extremely disturbing film "Audition" (1999) who has the job of hunting down criminals known as "engineers" who have subjected their bodies to a virus that causes any injury they sustain to mutate into bizarre weapons.  For example; a criminal gets his arm cut off in the first scene by Ruka's sword and from the wound he sprouts a chainsaw (awesome right?).  The main bad guy that Ruka is pursuing is a man known as the "key master" who created the virus in the first place.  The plot thickens when Ruka realizes that the man she is hunting down had a hand in killing her father when she was a young girl.

I see so many American influences is this movie!  There is a lot of David Cronenberg in the area of special effects and overall look of the movie.  It's very similar to "Scanners" (1981) "Videodrome" (1983) in the elevation of certain body parts into extraordinary weapons and in the combination of human flesh and machinery.  There is also a lot of the Bruce Campbell influence, as well as influences from classic Japanese martial arts movies like "Seven Samurai" (later to be seen in the Tarantino's Kill Bill series) and even the Korean film "Oldboy" (2003) in some of the panning fight scenes.  This is sort of in line with another Japanese film released in the same year called "The Machine Girl" which chronicles a girl avenging her brothers death with kung-fu and a machine gun arm ("Planet Terror" much?).  There

Bottom line, if you enjoy the above mentioned films, you would most likely not hate "Tokyo Gore Police", but you may not necessarily enjoy it.  "Tokyo Gore Police" gets a 4/5, because I like the references :).

The Quiet Earth (1985)

The Quiet Earth fits into a genre that has been explored through numerous avenues of film making.  It is based the book The Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison and explores the life of a man named Zac (Bruno Lawrence) after a catastrophic science project causes the entire universe to become unstable and on the verge of collapse.  This life-changing event causes every person on Earth to disappear except for Zac himself.  He copes with his lonely in stages of going crazy and submitting to his alternate personality, but regains his sanity in time to meet one other person that was left on the Earth, Joanne (Alison Routledge).  Eventually they meet another man, Api (Pete Smith), before the sun begins it's rapid decline into collapsing and taking the entire galaxy with it.

Now, as you can imagine, this plot line has been explored many times using different devices and these films never focus very much on the physical plot, rather the psyche of the different characters and group dynamics are analyzed as the characters are brought to terms with their own mortality.  Zombie movies continuously and frequently explore this mindset of being the last real human being on the planet as characterized by the original Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later (and sort of I Am Legend even though it's not quite a zombie movie).  However, what sets The Quiet Earth apart from these other movies is two emanating themes of existentialism and altered states of consciousness.  Zac brings forth the idea that nobody on Earth disappeared except for him and that Joanne and Api are manifestations of his subconscious mind in an attempt to cope with what is left of his own quasi-reality.  In addition to the constant question of whether they are actually alive, all three characters have had a near-death experience in which they were "drawn towards the light."  Since the solar system is so unstable, many strange mind-warping events happen that distort reality in unusual ways and disorients the three survivors.  The question that the viewer is left with by the end of the film is whether or not the whole experience was death, or whether the event really happened, or whether they were simply experiencing an altered state of mind induced by the science experiment, their near-death experiences, or something else entirely.  The Quiet Earth gets 4.5 out of 5.  

Black Swan (2010)

Over the past few years I have come to respect and enjoy the work of Darren Aronofsky; from his little known "Life of Pi" to his more recent "The Fountain."  He has a very characteristic film making style and "Black Swan" is no different.  This film follows the rise to fame of Nina (Natalie Portman) in the ballet world with her appearance in Tchiakovsky's Swan Lake.  Nina's story becomes a parallel of the story of Swan lake on a voyage of self-discovery and the quest to find her true voice in her passion, until she finally looses herself in the role and becomes a metaphorical representation of the the Swan Queen.

Every single aspect of this movie is tied together in a beautiful way with Nina's life descending into the darkness of the black swan after making her debut as the beautiful and technically perfect white swan.  Portman's portrayal of this role was spellbinding in her transformation from the good girl to the bad girl, which is backed up by textbook foreshadowing and symbolism.  Aronofsky uses color traits (white and black) to specifically represent Nina's dark side as she begins to rebel against an obsessive mother and against everything she traditionally thought ballet was supposed to be.

Supporting actress Mila Kunis makes a point of representing everything associated with the dark side that Nina doesn't tap into until the end of the movie.  He transformation is aided in the role of Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the slightly sleezy director of the ballet company who brings out the wild side of Nina.  "Black Swan" is a must see for any Darren Aronofsky fan, and for most other viewers who enjoy his characteristic psychological mystery thriller genre.  "Black Swan" gets 4.5/5.