Movie Review: “The Lazarus Effect”
Posted by David Medsker (02/26/2015 @ 12:00 pm)
Olivia Wilde, Mark Duplass, Evan Peters, Donald Glover, Sarah Bolger
David Gelb
A group of scientists are working on a serum that, combined with the right stimuli, can bring someone back from the dead. Their argument for creating this is that it would enable doctors to have a little more time to find a cure for whatever is ailing someone. That is a terrible, terrible idea, and the rationale for the idea is even worse. But here’s the worst part: “The Lazarus Effect” actually has some interesting bits mixed in with all of the stupid ones, and the ending is kind of fantastic. To get there, though, we have to slog through a bunch of home video and security camera footage (this looks like it started life as a found footage movie, which makes sense considering the film’s producers also worked on the “Paranormal Activity” films) and an ungodly number of faulty light fixtures. The only thing it was missing was a cat.
Frank (Mark Duplass), his fiancé Zoe (Olivia Wilde), and their assistants Clay (Evan Peters) and Neko (Donald Glover), are working in a basement lab at a school in Berkeley to perfect their Lazarus serum. They bring in student Eva (Sarah Bolger) to document their work on video. They test the process on a dog, and it works, though the dog doesn’t really act like a dog once alive, and there are numerous medical red flags that suggest the dog could become extremely aggressive at any moment. Soon after their success in resurrecting someone, which is only known to those five, the lab is raided by a pharmaceutical company that, according to the terms of the grant that was funding Frank and Zoe’s research, owns all intellectual property in the event the terms of the grant are broken, which happened once they started testing on animals.
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SXSW Film Fest 2012: Day Four
Posted by Jason Zingale (03/13/2012 @ 12:22 pm)
This is my third year down in Austin for the South by Southwest film festival, and I think that I’ve finally figured out the science to covering the event all on my lonesome. Instead of past years, where I’ve done a mix of both full-length and shorter movie reviews, this time around, I’m going to be doing daily blogs with even shorter, capsule-style reviews of the films that I saw the previous day. I’m hoping this will make me more productive than usual, but as my schedule is constantly in flux, please bear with me. And if you can’t wait for my daily posts, be sure to follow me on Twitter @JasonZingale for more.
“The Do-Deca-Pentathlon”
Completed way back in 2008 before the Duplass brothers put it on the back burner in order to focus their attention on “Cyrus,” “The Do-Deca-Penthathlon” harkens back to the days before the directing duo was working with A-list talent like John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill. It’s a far more unpolished mumblecore dramedy reminiscent of “The Puffy Chair” that stars unknowns Steve Zissis and Mark Kelly as a pair of ultra-competitive brothers who participate in a homemade Olympics in order to prove once and for all which one is the better sibling. Like many of the Duplass brothers’ films, “Do-Deca” is an incredibly lo-fi production shot with handheld cameras and mostly improvised by the actors. But that’s the problem; it’s almost too much like their other movies. While the setup is ripe with comedic potential and the film doesn’t shy away from getting a bit dark at times, it still doesn’t compare to their studio films. In fact, for as much as fans of Mark and Jay Duplass will enjoy the movie, the one thing that kept running through my head while watching it was just how much better it would have been with more talented actors.
“Small Apartments”
Continuing in the spirit of this year’s festival, “Small Apartments” is yet another case of a great ensemble cast wasted in a movie that is both tonally and narratively unfocused. Based on a novella written by Chris Millis (who also adapted the screenplay), Matt Lucas of “Little Britain” fame plays an eccentric shut-in named Franklin Franklin who has just killed his seedy landlord (Peter Stormare), although whether it was on purpose or by accident is unknown. As he tries to clean up the mess by making it look like a suicide, police detective Burt Walnut (Billy Crystal) is called in to investigate the death, crossing paths with a number of Franklin’s equally eccentric neighbors along the way. Unfortunately, while the story is populated by an entire apartment complex of wacky characters, none of them are given enough depth to validate their existence. It’s great to see Crystal back on the big screen again, and Johnny Knoxville actually delivers one of the film’s better performances, but there’s nothing about the story (or how it’s been executed by director Jonas Åkerlund) that explains why so much talent would be attracted to the project. “Small Apartments” is just weird for the sake of being weird, and it never really translates to many laughs.
Posted in: Entertainment, Movies
Tags: Billy Crystal, Jay Duplass, Johnny Knoxville, Mark Duplass, Matt Lucas, Small Apartments, South By Southwest, SXSW, SXSW 2012, SXSW film, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon
SXSW Film Fest 2012: Day Two
Posted by Jason Zingale (03/12/2012 @ 1:38 am)
This is my third year down in Austin for the South by Southwest film festival, and I think that I’ve finally figured out the science to covering the event all on my lonesome. Instead of past years, where I’ve done a mix of both full-length and shorter movie reviews, this time around, I’m going to be doing daily blogs with even shorter, capsule-style reviews of the films that I saw the previous day. I’m hoping this will make me more productive than usual, but as my schedule is constantly in flux, please bear with me. And if you can’t wait for my daily posts, be sure to follow me on Twitter @JasonZingale for more.
“Nature Calls”
I never got the chance to see director Todd Rohal’s “The Catechism Cataclysm” when it played at SXSW last year, but after watching his new comedy “Nature Calls,” I’m kind of glad that I didn’t. The film stars Patton Oswalt as Randy, an assistant scoutmaster desperately trying to help his father’s deteriorating Boy Scout troop regain its former glory. When the few remaining members ditch their upcoming camping trip in favor of going to a sleepover for the adopted son of Randy’s brother, Kirk (Johnny Knoxville), however, he crashes the party and convinces the kids to go camping with him. What follows is an incredible mess of a movie that tries to pass juvenile stupidity off as comedy, but instead barely registers a laugh due to Knoxville and Rob Riggle’s annoyingly over-the-top performances as idiot man-children. There’s actually a good message straining to be heard amongst all the stupidity, but despite its attempt at balancing vulgarity with heart, “Nature Calls” fails on nearly every level imaginable. It’s a shame that this will go down as Patrice O’Neal’s final film performance, because although it got a good reception from the SXSW crowd, this would never make it onto a theater screen through more conventional means.
“Safety Not Guaranteed”
Colin Trevorrow’s feature film debut is exactly the kind of movie that you go to a film festival hoping to see. Based on a real-life classified ad that was posted by a man seeking a partner to go back in time with, the movie stars Audrey Plaza, Jake Johnson and Karan Soni as a trio of Seattle magazine employees who track down the mystery author hoping it will lead them to a good story. What they don’t realize is that although Kenneth (indie go-to guy Mark Duplass) may be a little eccentric, he honestly believes that he’s solved the riddle to time travel. A character-driven dramedy with equal parts humor and heart, “Safety Not Guaranteed” is a beautiful film about the human spirit that is impossible to ignore. All four actors deliver some incredibly honest and funny performances, but it’s Plaza who shows that she can do a lot more than spit out a witty one-liner and mug for the camera. “Safety Not Guaranteed” is original, humorous, heartfelt and, perhaps most importantly, filled with immense hope. And in a cinematic landscape fueled by cynicism, it’s nice to see a movie that hasn’t given up on the human race, no matter how strange we may be.
“Killer Joe”
William Friedkin hasn’t made a great film in a very long time, and while “Killer Joe” doesn’t exactly remedy that, it’s the best movie that he’s made in a while. Adapted by Tracy Letts from his stage play of the same name, the self-described “totally twisted, deep-fried, Texas redneck trailer park murder story” is one of the most intense and polarizing moviegoing experiences in recent memory. Matthew McConaughey stars as the title character, a Dallas police detective who moonlights as a contract killer. When he’s hired by a young man (Emile Hirsch) in debt to a crime lord to kill his mother and collect on her $50,000 life insurance, Joe takes his younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple) as collateral until he’s paid for his services. But as is usually the case with movies like this, things go horribly wrong, and although the events that transpire will likely divide audiences (particularly a tension-packed final act that gets a bit weird and perverse), it’s as oddly fascinating to watch unravel as it is repulsive. Every single performance is great – from Gina Gerson’s devious stepmom to Thomas Hayden Church’s clueless father – but it’s McConaughey who truly commands the screen with his best role in ages. It’s about time the actor showed off his full potential, and this white trash “Blood Simple” does that and more.
Posted in: Entertainment, Movies
Tags: Aubrey Plaza, Emile Hirsch, Gina Gerson, Jake Johnson, Johnny Knoxville, Juno Temple, Kara Soni, Killer Joe, Mark Duplass, Matthew McConaughey, Nature Calls, Patrice O'Neal, Rob Riggle, Safety Not Guaranteed, South By Southwest, SXSW, SXSW 2012, SXSW film, Thomas Hayden Church, Todd Rohal. Patton Oswalt, William Friedkin