Vanilla Sky

USA, 2001

Director: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell, Jason Lee, Tilda Swinton
IMDB: 6.9

Hollywood remakes of foreign films often suck - they take a great film, dumb it down, take out the good bits, and apply the usual Hollywood formula to excrete a pale imitation of the original.

The film that Vanilla Sky is based on, Alejandro Amenabar's Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) is one of my all-time favourite films. And amazingly, so is this. Cameron Crowe took the opportunity to not only remake the movie, but to enhance it as well.

What Crowe brings to the table (aside from translating it from the original Spanish into English) is markedly improved visuals, a killer soundtrack, a large ensemble cast, and a further layering of the plot's surreal aspects. The only downside to this version, in my opinion, is the casting of Tom Cruise in the lead role, whose acting is less realistic than that of Eduardo Noriega in the original. However, as his character is rich, superficial, and arrogant - it's a character-type that Cruise plays well. (Like he did in Magnolia)



When this film was made, complex twisted plots were enjoying huge popularity (Eg: Fight Club, Mulholland Drive, Donnie Darko, Memento). Vanilla Sky very much fits into this style of film-making, being a film with an intelligent science fiction plot, and a density of ideas that only multiple viewings fully reveal.

It also has a distinctly surreal and dream-like atmosphere, which absolutely fits the script once you realise what the film is actually about (which for most viewers would be towards the end of the film).



Being a remake, Crowe can't take credit for the plot, but the main storyline is an incredibly unique and original idea, and in my opinion one of the best sci-fi scripts in recent times.

David Aames (Cruise) is a good looking rich kid who has inherited his father's company and breezes through life with the kind of nonchalance that fabulous wealth affords. Of course he has no trouble with the ladies, and is currently banging his fuck buddy, Julie Gianni (Diaz), not realising that she's taking it much more seriously than he is.



"You fucked me four times last night David. You've been inside me, I've swallowed your cum. That means something!", she shrieks upon discovering that he now has a new infatuation - the free-spirited and down-to-earth, Sofia (Penelope Cruz).

David is immediately smitten and falls head over heels for her. Cruz here is extremely charming, and makes the love-at-first-sight angle totally believable. It beats me why she gets such a bad rap from some critics. The movie briefly enters romance territory here, which helps explain the motivations for David's later actions.



What happens next is a twisted love triangle between Cruise, Cruz and Diaz - which has terrible consequences for the rich boy ... consequences that he tries to buy his way out of.

How he does this however, is not revealed until the end of the film, at which point the viewer realises that at least half of the film was not what it appeared to be. (Although you can have fun on repeat watches spotting the clues).




Without giving too much away, David begins hallucinating to the point where we can never be sure exactly what his reality truly is, and by extension what the film's reality is. This results in an awesomely twisted sex scene involving himself Julie and Sofia, a romantic entanglement more metaphysical than physical, but all the more poignant for it. And lets be honest here, if you're going to hallucinate, sharing your bed with Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz is not a bad way to go!

As mentioned, the supporting cast is impressive. Tilda Swinton, Jason Lee, Timothy Spall, and Noah Taylor all have small but memorable appearances. Kurt Russell is also excellent here, and gets one of the most jaw-dropping scenes when he realises that he's not at all who he thought he was. That scene just blows my mind every time.



As readers of this blog will note, I am a huge fan of movies with great soundtracks, and considering that Cameron Crowe is an ex-Rolling Stone journalist with a long history in the music industry - its not at all surprising that he's pulled together an excellent and diverse group of songs that are both meaningful and sonically excellent.

Any director that finds a way to include the little known gem from The Rolling Stones 'Tattoo You' album (Heaven) has really got their musical shit sorted as far as I'm concerned. But additionally there are choice cuts from Sigur Ros, Radiohead, REM, Thievery Corporation, Underworld, The Chemical Bros, Bob Dylan, U2 and more.

Even the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in the penultimate scene provides an unexpectedly well-suited atmosphere as Cruise desperately calls for "Tech Support !!!!!!". Another killer scene in a movie that has quite a few.

Undoubtedly Crowe labored long and hard over the soundtrack - its not just the song selection, but the way they've been used which is impressive.

The critics were divided over this film, but its IMDB rating has been slowly creeping up as it reaches the kind of moviegoer who will appreciate it. It's certainly not the kind of film that your average (popcorn) Cruise fan will expect, and perhaps that was part of the problem. I also suspect that many viewers who would really like this film were put off by his involvement.

If you have not seen this film yet, do yourself a favour and check it out. Don't be put off by the film's poster/cover art which in my opinion was an epic fail. It doesn't convey the quality, the intelligence, nor the type of film it is at all, and certainly won't attract the audience who would best appreciate it.

I'm a total sucker for mindfuck movies with killer soundtracks, so my rating is ...

10/10. No question.

PS: Also, check out the original, Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes).

The Gene Generation

USA, 2008

Director: Pearry Teo
Starring: Bai Ling, Alec Newman, Parry Shen
IMDB: 4.6

It's not easy being a fan of futuristic science fiction movies as they're so rarely done well. But as its one of my favourite genres, I can't help but be excited when something interesting is on the horizon. And this one has been on the horizon for a long time!

The trailers have been doing the rounds for well over a year now, featuring a grimy dystopian aesthetic, a story involving genetic manipulation, a pumping hard rock soundtrack, and not least a leather-clad ass-kicking Bai Ling in the title role. Expectations were high.

Michelle (Bai Ling) is a contract killer, eliminating DNA Hackers who the government wants rid of. Handy with a wide range of weapons, she's also a formidable martial artist, which is even the more amazing considering she's dressed in tight leather most of the time. Not that this guy is complaining. At all.

Unfortunately she's saddled with a shithook of a brother whose gambling problems and general lack of smarts gets them into trouble with the wrong people. When burglarising a neighbour he unwittingly steals a one-of-a-kind genetic manipulation device - and this lands them in the middle of a bad situation.

Despite the interesting cyberpunk premise of the film, the movie pretty much plays out like an action movie. Which is a lost opportunity in my opinion, because the cyberpunk genre has a lot of interesting ideas to draw upon. The Gene Generation is basically an action movie with a razor thin veneer of science to support the plot.

First time director Pearry Teo definitely has his heart in the right place, but maybe not quite the experience or the budget to pull such an ambitious idea off. The dialogue, acting, and special effects are at times pretty darn woeful, and at others surprisingly good.

A consistently good performance was given by the inimitable Bai Ling (who always brings something special to her roles), and Alec Newman was good as the genetic scientist Christian. However Parry Shen as Michelle's brother and pretty much all of the support characters really dragged the film down, not helped by some fairly inane dialogue. Giving a few of them cheap and nasty effects on their voices does nothing except add a C-movie vibe. Bad idea.

What really holds the movie together is the presence of Bai Ling. She features prominently on the cover art, and I'd say most people checking this out will be there for the ass-kicking hot asian chick factor. Well, I was anyway. And she fills that role perfectly with her tall, lithe figure and edgy looks. She has some great kill scenes, gets covered in blood (and has to take a shower to clean it off), and kicks multiple bad-guy ass with her martial arts moves.

In summary, the movie has some great scenes and ideas but also a number of factors that drag it firmly down into B-movie territory (in the bad sense of the word) and spoil what could've been a really great movie. I still enjoyed it though, and fans of Bai Ling should definitely check it out. Hopefully Mr Teo's next project will have a better budget to more fully realise some great ideas.

Rating: 5.5/10

Screenshots - click to enlarge

Trailer

Southland Tales (2008)

Director: Richard Kelly
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Bai Ling, Sean William Scott, Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore
IMDB: 6.4

After the success of 2001's Donnie Darko, it took director Richard Kelly 5 years to complete this his next movie, and another couple of years for it to finally be released. It's been a long wait.

Based in an apocalyptic alternate future, this is at its core a sci-fi movie... but so much more. This is a world that we all can relate to, as its our own extrapolated a few years into the future: resource wars, alternate energy sources, reality chat shows hosted by pornstars, and real-time non-stop information overload ...




It's this last theme that the movie itself is presented within - a world awash in information, much of it redundant and inane. (Eg: The reality-show pornstars debating the ramifications of taking a morning-after pill while crossing the international dateline). Obviously this is a direct reflection on today's media landscape ... Kelly simply exaggerates it for emphasis.

Many reviewers have criticised the movie for being jumbled and a mess. And while its true that it covers a wide range of ideas and concepts within its runtime, any plot utilising parallel dimensions is by its very nature going to be somewhat more difficult than average. The fact that Kelly even attempts to address so many issues relevant to the current zeitgeist is more than most films have done this year. If not everything gels as perfectly as it could, then so be it. I'll take an ambitious failure over a conservative success any day.



There are a wide range of characters and cameo appearances ... Sean William Scott (better known as Stiffler from American Pie) plays two roles and does a surprisingly good job. Bai Ling brings her unique brand of sass to the role of Serpentine, and I never get tired of watching her perform.

Sarah Michelle Gellar breaks the mold as pornstar Krysta Now ('if you wanna fuck me, you can fuck me NOW'), and delivers some of the movies funniest moments. Even Justin Timberlake as a drugged-up Iraq veteran lip-syncing a hallucinated song and dance sequence (to the Killers 'All these things that I've done') is a standout.




Like Donnie Darko, music plays a big part in Southland Tales ... songs by The Pixies, Muse, Janes Addiction, The Killers and more play a central role. The rest of the soundtrack was created by Moby. This is a movie that needs to be played loud :)

In summary, this film is intelligent, funny, sexy, and surreal - rich with ideas, and backed with excellent music.  In my opinion this is the best movie out of Hollywood in quite some time. For some reason it speaks to me on a personal level that few movies do.

My rating: 10/10

Screenshots

 

Trailer

I.K.U

Japan, 2000
Director: Shu Lea Cheang
Starring: Maria Yumeno, Aja, Akira, Miho Ariga, Mash
IMDB: 3.9

Watching this movie, I was in two minds about whether it was porn masquerading as art, or art with a big dose of porn. The truth is that it defies description... its both ... lets call it cyberporn/art.

And that really is the whole idea.

As the movie explains;

"Established in 2016, Genom Corporation started out in the business of recycling retired replicants that worked in outer space. The replicants were recycled as nursing robots at first. But when replicants with cosmetic surgery appeared as porn actresses in a 24-hour live porn show on Internet TV, it created a mega-hit, which lead the company to become the world's greatest digital enterprise for sexual pleasure."



Note the word replicant is not coincidental ... the opening scene features an origami unicorn - an obvious reference to Bladerunner. In fact, director Shu Lea Cheang explains that IKU takes up where Bladerunner left off. But where Bladerunner features no sex, only love... IKU features no love, only sex.

 

Righto. The basic premise is that Genom corp are creating an IKU System - a system facilitating sexual pleasure by providing audio/visual data directly to the brain, allowing customers to reach orgasm without actual genital contact. However, this requires a vast amount of sexual data to be collected, and special replicants are tasked with this job.

Specifically Reiko, who has the ability to assume 7 different bodies (and I guess a cunning idea to introduce 7 different actresses to the story, as each gets a sex scene). Also Tokyo Rose, who is a virus, and so gets to infect a few different people (read: multiple sex scenes).

 

Like I said ... its porn AND its art. While the movie sure feels like a porn movie with a story wrapped around it, the story is anything but flimsy. In fact, there are many companies who have been working to create an IKU type system for quite some time. Sex is one of the most popular uses of any new technology, so the ideas involved are valid science fiction/cyberpunk.

Also, the director is actually a woman. Not that that precludes her from making porn, far from it - but it does go some way to explaining the aesthetic. What's more, the film is obviously artistic. The director gathered a hip, creative crowd of Japanese performers, artists, and pornstars in making this movie.

 

Which brings us to the sex ... mostly its softcore, although there were a few explicit moments, and there was a lot of oral sex that may or may not have been real. We also get all manner of sexual combinations and fetishes ... orgies, bondage, lesbians, gays, transgenders, threesomes ... even one scene where a couple is having sex in a room full of headless sex dolls. There's probably some symbolism in that!

Anyway, its all presented in multi-hued interesting locations, often with psychedelic lighting and camera movements. It's all quite trippy actually.

 

And while its not porn in the traditional sense, it is certainly erotic and the actresses are very attractive.

In summary, I liked it. After all, I love sex AND cyberpunk AND art. Where it falls down is that you wouldn't watch it as a porn movie, and you wouldn't watch it as a cyberpunk movie. It slips uncomfortably between genres, and can only be appreciated as a unique, erotic performance-art experience on film.

Twisted rating: 6.5/10

If you want to know more, there is a full back-story and futher information on the film's website, remarkably still online, at www.i-k-u.com.



Click any image to enlarge

Trailer