Otto-Maddox Reviews

S. Darko (2009)

I Doubt Chris Fisher's Commitment to Sparkle Motion...

[2/10 · 8 May 2009]

S. Darko is one of many sequels that has no reason to have been created at all. But even if one puts the original film out-of-mind, and only look at the sequel on it's own merits, the movie still falls completely flat.

The film picks up 7 years after the original left off, Samantha Darko and her friend Corey are on a cross-country trip heading for Los Angeles. When car problems leave them stuck in a little town by the name of Conejo Springs (which is populated by a community of horribly written character's), the girls are forced to mingle with the townies, and Corey finds herself at home with the boozy losers, while Samantha, still in pain over the death of her brother (Donnie), finds herself drawn to the Outsider by the name of Iraq Jack, a disturbed Gulf War vet who has learned through bizarre visions that the world is coming to an end on July 4th, 1995.

It seems that Nathan Atkins is a fan of Richard Kelly's work (including Southland Tales because the character of Iraq Jack seems similar to the character 'Pilot Abilene' & the end of the world date being on 'July 4th') But Atkins can't write believable dialogue to save his life. And the director 'Chris Fisher' doesn't seem to understand what made the original film so good, which was the feeling of being able to connect with the characters going through something this crazy. And if the audience doesn't care about the characters on-screen it becomes very hard for them to feel any effect of the narrative structure.

S. Darko is a hollow cash-grab by producers who must have never understood what Kelly was going for, but they now control the rights to the Darko universe, and they're hoping to collect any profit from this wannabe Donnie Darko replica.

Southland Tales (2006)

Anything-goes media-scape of contemporary America

[10/10 · 9 January 2008]

At its heart, Southland Tales is a strange work that combines comedy, paranoia,sprawling melodrama, sharp social commentary and even a few musical numbers, which makes for a final product that is liable to split audiences between those who embrace it as visionary masterpiece and those who dismiss it as a pretentious disaster.

The film, which takes place over July 4th weekend of 2008 right before the all-important primary election, involves an enormous number of characters and subplots. There is Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson), an action-film superstar who is married to Madeline Frost (Mandy Moore), the daughter of Senator Bobby Frost (Holmes Osborne) and wife Nana Mae (Miranda Richardson), who hopes to use their development of the USIDent programs Bobby's ticket to the White House as the Republican vice-presidential candidate. A couple of days earlier, Boxer disappeared into the desert and while he is known to have returned to the area, no one knows where he currently is nor how he was able to cross the state lines without being checked in. It transpires that Boxer, now with a case of amnesia, is currently holed up with Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) a porn star-cum-pundit with whom he has co-written a screenplay about the end of the world that appears to have eerie parallels with what is actually going on in the (so-called) real world.

Kelly takes his cues from other great films such as: Godard's 'La Chinoise', Aldrich's 'Kiss Me Deadly', Cox's 'Repo Man', Gilliam's 'Brazil' and many more... And while Southland Tales assaults us with more data than we can reasonably assimilate, Kelly's film ties this sense of information overload specifically to the mass media whose dulling assault on our sensibilities, which he simultaneously approximates and critiques.

So when your in a "anything-goes media-scape of contemporary America, that mimics it's very own over-saturation with its gleefully energetic, crazily layered storytelling and rush of images", one can't help but bravely flirt with incoherence, luckily it doesn't succumb to it.

There is a method to Kelly's Madness.

Sunshine (2007)

Like the Icarus II mission, Sunshine proves that with sufficient chutzpah, even the most outrageous plan can succeed.

[7/10 · 11 June 2007]

Taking a premise based on scientific fact, filmmaker Danny Boyle has created a wonderfully visual sci-fi thriller... In the year 2057, the Sun is dying and mankind faces extinction. The last hope of Earth lies with the Icarus II, a spacecraft with a crew of eight men and women led by Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada). Their mission, put simply, is to deliver a nuclear device designed to re-ignite our fading sun.

Deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, the crew hears a distress beacon from the Icarus I, the spacecraft that had disappeared on the same mission seven years earlier. A terrible accident throws the new mission into jeopardy. Soon, the crew members find themselves fighting not only for their lives and their sanity, but also for the future of all mankind.

Sure, you can complain about the science. Both Boyle(director) and Garland(writer) acknowledge that some of the practical issues may not stand up to scrutiny, but did we need to see circuit diagrams of 2001's HAL, or understand the breeding cycles of Ridley Scott's Alien? Sunshine asks for a leap of faith, but it remains true to its own internal logic, which is essentially that of a class-A B-movie that nods respectfully towards Tarkovsky's Solyaris.

In the trade off between science and fiction, it's the latter that takes precedence here, but if you're prepared to get with the programme, this is a brilliantly designed thriller by a writer and director re-introducing awe to the genre. Like the Icarus II mission, Sunshine proves that with sufficient chutzpah, even the most outrageous plan can succeed.

The Fountain (2006)

It's all done except the last chapter. I want you to help me. FINISH IT...

[9/10 · 22 November 2006]

"TheFountain" is a story tackling three different time periods. Tomas (Hugh Jackman) is a 16th century Conquistador on a bloody hunt though a hidden Mayan temple to retrieve sap from the mythical Tree of Life for his queen (Rachel Weisz), who is desperate for immortality. In 2005, Tom (Jackman) is a doctor frenetically searching for the cure to cancer to save the life of his wife Izzi (Weisz), who is in the final throes of her battle with death. Five hundred years later, Tom travels through space on a quest to reach the place of tranquility that Izzi spoke fondly of, using the Tree as a device to get him to the answers he needs to rest his weary mind....

In performances that can only be described as exquisite, Jackman and Weisz assist their director in opening up this knotty story through their soulful and romantic interpretations of desperation and peace. Essentially playing one lost soul, Jackman foams with remarkable anguish as he performs three separate interpretations of duty, handing in career-defining work. Weisz is the face of love in "The Fountain," lending the film a flowering emotional core of the film.

The Fountain" is masterful on so many unique levels, presenting a demanding filmgoing experience that should elicit a grand sense of awe on an emotional and spiritual level unlike anything you've seen this year.

Aronofsky has out done himself again....