Hell isn't Such a Bad Place...

A nice hell raising story is exactly what Sam Raimi ordered.

"Drag Me to Hell" is the old school Raimi stuff that most have come to know, his ability to bring original horror to the screen with his trademark directing styles. And this is what the his current film delivers—a bit of a fun ride, using the old jump-out-of-your-seat tactics. A good scare to get the blood flowing, heh. And then more.

The story is written by Raimi and his brother Ivan while the film itself is directed by the former. It’s all in the family. But if you look closely, you can see the familiar face of the family: the yellow, beat up 1937 Delta Oldsmobilie. This is Raimi’s very own car. You should be able to find it. It's in all his movies.

The film begins with a Mexican couple fearing for their lives over their child in Pasadena, California in 1969 with a nice introduction to the sorceress Shaun San Dena who makes a bid to fight the demon another day after it drags the boy into the bowels of darkness.

However, in the present time, the central character nicely played by Alison Lohman with the right amount of nativity and gullibility strikes the wrong path with an old gypsy woman with an evil glass eye, uglier than spuds. Lohman refuses to give the elderly wraith a third extension on her mortgage as she struggles to make economic battles. With her eye on the assistant manager position, Lohman gets ambition while putting her foot down.

Everything goes downhill from there.

Lohman’s character has been struck down with a curse. And there is the notion that shadows are jumping at her, lurking around the corners. What’s nice about this film, though rated PG-13, is that it leaves everything to chance, all what you see are shadows and glimpses… perhaps some throwaway glances through windows where the wind shutters. You can to form your own idea of the creature… otherwise, you never see it. Just small burst of it, flashes. And this makes good horror.

Eventually, after the ghostly attacks and the near death experiences, Lohman goes with her college boyfriend played by Justin Long to a fortune teller named Rham Jas. This is where she digs deeper into the realm of the black arts, further down into the depths of a spiritual foreign world… where she learns she will be tormented by demons before she is dragged back to the lonely pit of fire beneath. Hell itself.

If you’re a cat lover, you might want to steer clear of this film. It seems that there is at least one feline casualty in the film and I really hate it when I see a cat go. Cat lovers, beware.

The story gives a rising tide to the finality where Lohman collaborates alongside with the fortune teller and much older Shaun San Dena who form a séance to drive the forces of blackness back to the corners from where it sprang from. There’s plenty of familiar Raimi touches… the ghoul dancing like a hillbilly, the outlandish directing that swivels like a railroad train running off tracks. There’s a nice building up of sheer craziness in a film that must depend on a lot of atmosphere served up with a hot dish of sick humor. Raimi style.

I’m not sure if it is an unconscious effort by Raimi to lift a slight plot from the great old film “Casting the Runes” (1958) starring Dana Andrews and based on a same-titled story by ghost story scribe M.R. James. There’s the same three day lineup. And the atmospheric building up of a creature getting closer, near enough to grapple a victim with its fateful hands by the end of the third day. The old film is a beautiful black and white foray into the depths of horror while it takes a perspective turn with the stubborn-minded scientific view against the antagonistic supernatural world. “Drag Me to Hell” also ends at the train station just as the 1958 counterpart does. Perhaps Raimi was paying tribute to the little known film. He’s done a good job with it.

There’s even the passing on of something owned from one victim to the next. The same thing happens here in “Drag Me to Hell” when Lohman must get rid of something that was taken and returned to her. Just a coat button that seems so minor, trivial. And yet could cost her life.

Even the ending is an anticlimactic one. And makes for great horror stories you don’t get to see anywhere in the movies these days. However, if Lohman was looking for a short cut out of this tight spot, she could have just gone to Bruce Campbell for his help. Then he might have gotten her out of this jiffy fix.

The film pays attention to great details. And rushes in at you with a hurricane of frights while laying down the threads of minor plot points that would later become important. This is a master of horror at work.

If you like gruesome shocks and good scares, this is the movie to see with your first date. Better yet, just go alone and enjoy the fun in the dark when the lights turn out. This is one way of returning to the genre in which made Raimi so loved to this day.

It’s not all in the matter of how popular you are. I’m not sure if he cares about how much money he makes. He just wants to have a good time. And so should you when you see this film. It’ll make you feel like you’re in hell.

Bad Relationships

This is a crushingly beautiful film.

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” took me a very long time to watch. I’m not sure why. Perhaps the long run of bad relationships in my life into my older age has made me skirt about this particular film. That I didn’t want to be reminded of the hurt and heartache that could paint a person’s loneliness.

What if we all have regrets we want to get rid of? What if all of us want to dispose of baggage that seems to pile up like unwanted bills in our lives? There’s no real answer to it. Most of us try to make the most of us and continue to live the best we can. There’s no real help to those who have poor relationship problems. There’s no over the counter pill you can pick up at the local Walgreen to make you forget the things you want to leave behind.

But what this film teachers you, however, is that you find the good in all of the bad. You can find the spark of love in all the regrets you have. You try to hang on to that good in the person without trying to bring up anything not worth mentioning. But not everyone is perfect. And this is what the film might be trying to say.

But there’s a little bit of an extra science fiction elements that shifts the emotional center of this film. And these elements make the story progress forward and backwards into its own unique narrative. And it brings a kind of storytelling that sets it apart from many other romantic endeavors.

Jim Carrey in a non-comedy role plays a reclusive, shy man named Joel who lives in a dull New York apartment and meets for the first time a sparky, gusty girl Clementine at a beach party in northern New York… affectionately called Montauk by Clementine. However, he decides to erase all memories of the girl Clementine after he learns that she has erased him from her life.

The double blow for both of these people come into an inner conflict that can become confusion at times during the story, but always refreshing. They go to a place called Laucana that is a business firm going into the business of doing selection memory wipe from people who wish to hire them.

So each and everyone of them wants to get rid of the worst part of their lives. For the star crossed lovers who fell in love with each other, sharing their memories on the beach and eating at local Chinese restaurants, they soon become more enraged at their flaws. Little things. Small habits that become annoying in a solid relationship between couples. So it’s easy for them to say, “I’m going to erase you from my mind. I’m tired of you.”

So the people in this film become empty vessels of emotion. They become cold, hardened shells of nothingness. Carry goes through the entire film with a slight case of depression wiring into his brain. Everyone has their problems. And everyone has a closet filled with memories.

They’re not the only screw-ups in the film. The humanitarian award goes to the jerks who run Lacauna Inc. when two amateur guys played by Mark Ruffalo and Elija Wood gets distracted by swinging girl Kirsten Dunst while they play out their lover’s sparks as they’re erasing Joel’s memories from his life. And their distractions turn into a very close disaster. Wood is far worse as he plays a man who woos Clementine after she gets her mind erased. This guy is a real douchebag.

But why lead a perfect life?

Is that what these people are trying to do? They are trying to get rid of their faults and flaws to create a perfect assembly of life? There is no such thing as a perfect happiness. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship. These things must be worked on, chipped away, and pounded into shape before they could reach the beautiful happiness that so many people look for in this world. And very few people can find.

Joel tries to fight the erasure of memory when he undergoes the procedure created by the Lacauna business. He slips backward into his memories as he tries to hide his Clementine into thoughts that would not be wiped away. He runs through a sea of troubled thoughts as he digs deeper into his life’s worst moments, his humiliation when he is ushered by a group of children to beat a dead bird with a hammer or a masturbation scene where his mother accidently stumbles up on him.

Finally, despite the crumbling memories around him, Joel is left like an unwaking zombie filled with several gaps in his mind. Most of these concerns his girlfriend of two years. But he is still clinging on to his regrets and pains of a past life. And he is skating on thin ice when he plays around with his memories.

Clementine does the same thing. She is wonderfully played by Kate Winslet who is an underrated actress. She’s got a certain beauty about her and slips into a very challenging role here. Not the greatest actress in the world. But it’s admiring to see her play something that could easily be out of her league. But she does it with a powerful dedication to the role.

It’s not a cheerful movie. Far from it. It's a sad moment devised by director Michael Gondry. And you’re left in a loop at the very end of the film where the two lovers decide to start all over again. Perhaps this time leaving in all the mistakes of a relationship. They’ll have to learn to live with it. This is a very saddening movie about people who want to get rid of their memories to lead an otherwise colorless life.

But everyone also have very good memories. Why get rid of those? There are those who should learn to take the good with the bad. And “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” hints at a mind that has no memories… living in eternal bliss without knowing any pain or suffering. But what sort of life is that?

It's nice to see a movie with special effects that doesn't overpower the story, but weaves into it with a perfect mix. It's a science fiction movie without the "boom" in space. George Lucas might learn something from this film.

Perhaps the film is an indicator of many relationships that are going sour in this country and trying to understand the damaged ruins of such. Perhaps shedding a little bit of light in a relationship might be the most healthy response instead of walking away from it in an act of forgetting it all. You’ll never know what you miss if you don’t embrace the possibilities of a good relationship.

Any New Ideas Please?

There’s nothing really wrong with S. Darko: A Donnie Darko tale.

It’s well directed and the performances are very good in it. The story is fair to be honest. And there’s even a number of passing references to the predecessor. However, there’s a feeling that it’s all been done before. Nothing new has been added here.

It’s unfortunate because the story whithers to a typical end of the world story. And you couldn’t help feel a lot of déjà vu leaking into the story itself. You keep thinking, “Haven’t I seen all of this before?”

This is the exact same thing that happened to the remake version of “Life on Mars” that came to our audiences in a short lived stint that tried to capture the original British broadcast. Without much success. It’s better to have left the whole thing alone. And let audiences try to discover the wonderful concept of the original “Life on Mars” without messing with the American treatment.

And I wanted to shoot the guy who came up with the ending for the American "Life on Mars"... with everyone waking up from their dream to be on a passenger ship to the red planet.

Again, same scenario with the film “Donnie Darko.” Why mess with the original film? It’s very good as it is. And there has never been a real hint of a sequel when the first cult classic came out. You could feel the proper teenager alienation in the original film and the cutting off of an individual from the rest of society… feeling the curtains of night falling over the young boy who felt his destiny was somewhere else. Not even in this world. And you even like the evil bunny.

The original film was a great psychological mindset that makes you try to piece together a puzzle, the constant rattling of confusion comes only from the complexities of physics in the film. And even when the film was resolved, you are still left with a mystery you must fend for yourself. You try to understand what has happened to Donnie Darko. Was it caught between words? Did he fall into some limbo place between dimensions? Was he reliving his moments of life during his dying breath? Those issues are never met with any solidity of answers. The original film is merely a masterpiece in loneliness. And we are all alone when he die… that our deaths will be our own personal refuge.

But you don’t find any of it in “S. Darko.” There’s just a redundancy of ideas. You see the representations of the cosmic bunny appearing here in some form or another. That’s been done. You see the end of the world structure going on in the storyline. That’s also been done in the first film. You see future versions of people coming back to haunt you in your sleep. That’s all been done before in the first film.

So why bother?

I’m not saying it’s a terrible film. It’s well made. And I do give much credit to the delightful and vigorous performance of Daveigh Chase who reprises her role as Sam. You can see her in the original film playing the younger sister of the ill-fated Donnie Darko. Chase is very good in her scenes like a soul trapped in wounded pain, her calm exterior hides a boiling anger that nags her. She lives a dull existence so she ends up going on a road trip with her best friend outside the native state of Virginia.

They end up in the middle of Utah territory when there is car trouble. And they find a small town that is rattled by the possibility of strange encounters such as people disappearing, a church being burned down, and some weirdo named Iraq Jack who claims in his biblical fashion that the end of the world is coming soon. You begin to wonder if they have reached a twilight existence that is split between possible time zones.

Richard Kelly, original director of Donnie Darko, has absolutely no involvement with this sequel. He never bothered to read the script. He did the right thing of leaving the first film alone. And others should have followed his example. There’s no real need for another movie to link up with the founding concept of black holes and strange encounters masquerading as teenager in the act of loneliness. There is a world of blurred images and fantasies mixing with reality. Donnie Darko made cult status by being thoroughly original. And bizarre slice of filmmaking.

Leave it up to Chris Fisher to try to come up with a movie that would somehow be an echo of the original. There is only a passing resemblance. Nothing more. And the familiarity of the subject matter is its own worst enemy. And we find ourselves scratching our heads, saying, “Why did they even make the film?”

It’s probably an attempt to build a franchise series. But that’s just simply nuts. There’s nothing about Donnie Darko that could be a great summer splash of blockbuster action. This is an introspective film about people making connections. There are no action heroes in it. Only victims of strange circumstances coming to terms with themselves. Why make a franchise movie when the main character of the series is dead in the first film? And other major characters are dead because of the strange turns of the story that persists in a psychedelic measure. You can’t simply make a franchise out of this kind of movie. It’s just too bizarre.

However, the use of music is beautifully done with songs like "Alive Alone" by The Chemical Brothers and "Black Metallic" by Catherine Wheel.. with a nice use of calm lyrics used against the blinding storm of meteors washing over the skies before crashing to the battered grounds of the earth. The music is nicely placed with gives an almost soothing feeling to the story involved.

However, if someone wanted to do a movie, they should go for the one thing that is missed here: originality.

And this film “S. Darko” might make a good example as to why people shouldn’t try to screw around good ideas. Try something else. I haven’t seen a movie about a transvestite ninja… an idea provided by a creative friend of mine. That might make for something different. But most audiences probably wouldn’t go for that.