by Jackie Richard

From the opening scene, Eden forces the audience to travel inside a dark world few of us ever willingly go. Eden is loosely based on the true life experiences of a teenage girl plucked from a seedy bar and held captive for over two years in the early 90s, long before human trafficking was openly acknowledged as a real epidemic. The more time goes by, the more she is forced to build relationships with her captors, both as a day-to-day survival mechanism and as a strategy to plan her escape. While she does eventually outsmart her oppressors, her harrowing experiences will forever leave her scarred.

The film stars former ‘Real World: San Diego’ reality star turned aspiring thespian Jamie Chung, Matt O’Leary, and Beau Bridges. Director Megan Griffiths was rightfully awarded the SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award for her smart and delicate approach to such a seedy subject matter. Her main objective was to make a watchable film so that the audience danced just up to the line of grotesque but not obscene, where they could feel deep sadness and compassion for the protagonist without feeling like the film was borderline pornographic.

I was pleasantly surprised with the daring performances, especially newcomer Jamie Chung, who was awarded a Special Jury Recognition for her gripping portrayal of Eden.

What a privilege it was for the audience to meet the “real life” Eden, who bravely joined the cast and crew onstage for the Q&A. Judging from her emotional reaction to watching the film, the filmmakers did justice to her story, although she did remark “the script was quite watered down; I wish I had it as easy as Eden did..” (which to the audience did not look the least bit easy).

Griffiths and her scriptwriter made some really wise decisions by keeping the plot steadily moving along without dwelling too much on the graphic nature of the story. This also leads to a handful of climatic encounters where you have no clue how Eden will react or what decision she will make when pushed to the brink, leading you to question “what would I have done differently than Eden?” To which my gut tells me, probably nothing.

BERNIE is the latest film from Richard Linklater, starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine. The film is a true story about… well, it’s about Bernie. Bernie (Jack Black) is a mortician from a small, red-neck town in Texas. He becomes good friends with a wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) after he conducts the funeral service for her husband. The relationship between Bernie and the (unnamed) widow becomes unbearable by both parties and Bernie ends up killing her. Bernie then attempts to cover it up by making the rest of the community believe she is still alive. This not a spoiler as this is basically what the whole film revolves around. It’s “Weekend with Bernie” in reverse. This time Bernie does the killing. Not really, but kind of.

It was weird seeing this film in Texas. Mostly because it got a HUGE reaction to every Texas joke, most of them seemed undeserved. Richard Linklater is from Austin and is pretty much responsible for the booming film scene here, and even partially responsible for SXSW altogether (as Janet Pierson noted in the Q&A). Linklater, much like Soderbergh, is a filmmaker that has earned his stripes and is not afraid to diversify and explore various different genres. Going into this film I didn’t quite know what to expect, just that it had a fairly good cast, was a Linklater film, was based off a true story, and was a dark comedy. However, that was more than enough for me to be interested.

The film is told in a mockumentary style that is at first amusing, but quickly becomes annoying. It’s like the whole time you’re waiting for the film to start. At times it feels like you are primarily just watching a series of fake interviews. The casting and acting wasn’t the problem, it was more the structure. The continuous interviews with town folk is monotonous and boring and you just want to get back to the story.

BERNIE has its funny moments, including many of the one-liners in the interviews, and Jack Black’s performance is well-rounded and well-executed, but it just felt like the film ended before it ever really started, and not in a good way. The actual true story of BERNIE is fascinating and darkly comical. Unfortunately, it just never felt like the film really found its tone. It felt very disconnected from its audience despite the Texas crowd roaring in laughter every time there was a joke referencing Texas, or McConaughey (known Texan) popped up in a scene. It seemed like Linklater just made this film real quick on his 0ff-time and got a couple of his buddies together (that he had previously worked with in other films) and said “let’s do this!” I was underwhelmed and had hoped for more, even though I came in with zero expectations.

In this episode: John and Titus discuss the polarizing similarities between “The Tree of Life” and “Melancholia”… but that’s where the similarities end.

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In this episode: Titus, Jared, and John discuss their Top 10 lists of 2011 and debate about what they think are the worthy, and unworthy, picks.

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by Ray Velez

Let’s get this out of the way first: “The Thing” (2011) is a good monster movie. It has the scary jump moments, the CGI creature effects, the gore…pretty much everything that would make it a good monster movie. The problem is that, in making it a prequel to an awesome film (John Carpenter’s ”The Thing”), you have asked me to at least expect your film to play by a particular set of rules. Rules that were set up in the 1982 film.

Like I said, this is a good monster movie. But what made the 1982 film so good was that it wasn’t necessarily a monster movie. It was a film that played with paranoia, and when the monster did appear, the practical effects (which will ALWAYS be better than CGI, in my opinion) made you cringe with disgust. This monster was really there. But again, the monster only appeared out of necessity! It wanted to survive, and the best way for that to happen was to lay low until it was called out by Kurt Russell’s magnificent beard! Which I hear can cure cancer, but that’s neither here nor there. In the prequel (or reboot or whatever they are calling it), the monster is almost predatory, spending most of the film giving itself away, hunting most of the crew in its monster form. One of the scenes is reminiscent of the raptors-in-the-kitchen scene in “Jurassic Park”, which is NOT what “The Thing” should be! The people behind this film had an opportunity to make a film on par with the John Carpenter version, dealing with claustrophobia and paranoia. Instead, they just turned it into a loud affair, with very little subtlety.

All that said, the movie was nice to look at. The cinematography by Michel Abramowicz was beautiful, the direction by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. was visually appealing, the script by Eric Heisserer was strong, and the actors were all very good. Mary Elizabeth Winstead takes the lead, with Joel Edgerton as the helicopter pilot, minus any sort of epic beard. The rest of the cast, filled with what I assume are popular Swedish/Danish/Norwegian actors, were all very good, and believable in their roles. The lack of any real stars made it less obvious who was going to perish. And bonus points to the director and writers for having a good portion of the film in Norwegian with subtitles.

The score evoked John Carpenter’s film in some of its score, but again, most of the time just turned into a loud mess. The CGI effects of the monster were good, but the 1982 film still holds up today because of its practical effects. Sadly, this film’s special effects will be outdated in a few years. There were a few questions that I did have throughout this film that kind of bugged me. When Mary Elizabeth Winstead discovers for the first time what the cells of the creature are actually doing, she doesn’t tell anyone except her friend. Why!? Call me crazy, but you would have caught me blaring it over the loud speaker, writing the message in the snow with my own urine, and leaving post-it notes for everyone to find! Also, if this is a Norwegian base, why are most of the items in the background in English?

All in all, “The Thing” (2011) is a good, effective monster movie. I just wish they would have played with more of the elements that made the John Carpenter film such a classic. And though they left the film open to a sequel, I highly doubt we’ll get the opportunity to see it due to this film’s low box office numbers. Sad really, given that when the new Twilight film comes out in a month, it will more than likely break records… I miss the horror films of the 80’s.