Smashed (2012)

Here's film i read about ages ago but never got around to seeing. It's the story of a young woman (i'd guess nearing 30) named Kate who is a functioning alcoholic, but as she realizes her drinking is becoming a problem decides to get help. Unlike her husband who continues to drink heavily.

I'm not usually a fan of movies about alcoholics, due to my own upbringing they tend to be a little depressing and sometimes woefully inaccurate - one of the things i dislike about them. However, this is not one of those movies. Both Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Death Proof, Scott Pilgrim, Die Hard 4) and Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) are fantastic at playing alcoholics and craft sympathetic and likable characters. And Kate would have been an awesome 1st grade teacher to have. Except for the whole vomiting in class thing.

But as good as Paul is (though he isn't given all that much to work with) the lion's share of credit needs to go to Winstead who is a revelation. She's not an actress i ever paid attention to, she'd show up in movies and i'd nod and say 'she was okay'. Nothing i'd had ever seen her in indicated she could do this. She's funny, charming, sad and completely without the Hollywood pretense that i expected. I wish she had been nominated for an Oscar, it's a powerful performance and one that didn't deserve to go under the radar. Actually, this is one of the best performances I've seen by an actress for sometime (yes, i am including Jennifer Lawrence), she completely becomes this character and doesn't go over the top like some actresses could have. She's just gained herself a fan and I can't wait to see her movie (currently in pre-production) Faults.

The supporting roles are filled by wonderful actors Megan Mullally (Will and Grace), Ron Swanson Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) and Octavia Spencer (The Help). While they aren't given roles as meaty as Winstead or Paul they do their jobs well and Nick Offerman is so far removed from Ron Swanson that it will certainly surprise some people. One complaint is that Mullally's Principal Barnes is turned into something of a caricature by the end of the film, it's hardly Mullally's fault but it was a little jarring.

The film makes use of very natural lighting, giving a great sense of realism, and director James Ponsoldt will hopefully have great things ahead of him. His direction of actors is particularly worthy of praise.

This is a solid and engaging movie that generally to avoid the cliche's associated with 'movie-alcoholism' as i tend to call it. Winstead and Paul play the roles of alcoholics very well and without a hint of glamorization. Worthy of a rental and even buy.

It’s Time to Rethink Remakes

“Remake or original, making a movie still comes down to good old fashioned hard work.” - John Carpenter, director of Halloween (1978), The Thing (1982) and your other nightmares.

As a movie fan I know I am supposed to be opposed to remakes. Most of the time I am, especially if the movie didn’t need ‘updating’ in the first place, the upcoming Robocop remake for example. I recall balking at the idea of remaking Total Recall, honestly, who remakes a Paul Verehoevan movie? Apparently everyone, since he made Robocop as well. But in spite of my inherent disdain for remaking things that were just fine to begin with, there is something to remakes that we overlook: some of them have actually become great films in their own right.

Let’s look at Martin Scorsese’s Oscar winning film The Departed. It’s a remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs. Both are worth the watch and deciding which one is better is a task that depends entirely on personal taste – personally I’m on the fence. It’s difficult for me to convince people The Departed is a remake due to that word being associated with unoriginality, but it’s true. Same story, same plot points, even some of the same dialogue. Now that you know it’s a remake does that lessen your opinion of it? I hope not, because it’s still a cracking good movie.

Another film that proves remakes aren’t so bad is Let Me In, an American version of Let The Right One In, a Swedish film. Let the Right One In is generally considered to be the stronger movie (despite one scene involving truly cringe worthy CGI), but that’s not to discount Let Me In – one of the best American produced vampire movies of the last decade. Of course due to the sad, sad, SAD, romanticizing of vampires this isn’t exactly difficult to achieve. Let Me In captures the spirit of adolescence and how horrible it can be while also displaying the wonder and naiveté of it. Thanks to it’s leads Kodi Smit-Mcphee and Chloe Grace Moretz it’s not only a good vampire film, it’s also a great coming of age story. With blood and violence. Obviously.

Allow me to tell you a tale of how I beat my remake-a-phobia (totally a real thing): The Evil Dead is one of my favourite movies of all time, the same goes for it’s two sequels (Evil Dead 2 and Army Of Darkness). So when I read of the impending remake I was sure that someone actually had read from the Necronomicon and had sent demons rampant through Hollywood, culminating in this travesty. Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell producing it did nothing to set my mind at ease despite my respect for the two. Add on to that a director I had never heard of and I had a distinct feeling of: ‘this is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake all over again.’ The cast didn’t give me hope, the girl from Suburgatory who kind of reminded me of Emma Stone but was totally not Emma Stone?

Not Emma Stone

But a few fantastic things happened: the trailer, the reviews and seeing it. Sure it was still a remake of the 80s horror classic that made Bruce Campbell the cult king of awesome. But damn it, i enjoyed so much i didn't care. There are a lot of nods to the original series – and rightly so, it’s horrible when a remake ignores it’s roots entirely – but it doesn’t get wrapped up in them, it gives you a reason to stick a round and watch THIS story, not a story that played out over 30 years ago. It doesn’t make you think to yourself: “hey you know what I could be watching right now? The first Evil Dead!” It’s a great example of homage without slavery to the source, of horror over fun, of fun over horror. That’s right those two last ones cancel each other out, but it’s Evil Dead you see, and nothing pertaining to it can or should make sense. In short: this remake is a worthy addition to the canon and if we can have a crossover between it and the original, well, count me in.

Jane Levy! Her name is Jane Levy. She’s pretty good in Evil Dead by the way, no need to panic.

What about the bad remakes? Things like 2012’s Total Recall, Neil Labute’s The Wicker Man (“not the bees!!”) or Gus Van Sant’s Psycho? You read that last one right, Van Sant did some sick experiment where he remade Psycho shot for shot with a cast consisting of Anne Heche and Vince Vaughn. But let me explain something before you start hitting me over the heads with the remake of The Pink Panther screaming at me to notice this terrible piece of filmmaking. Bad movies come out every year. Every month. Maybe everyday. Chances are someone out there is making a really bad movie right now, it could be a remake, it could be a rip off of Jaws (people still do that), it could be an adaptation. It could also be an original idea but don’t get your hopes up. It doesn’t matter what kind of movie it is, it could have the greatest actor of all time in it, fantastic production values and hold Bridget Fonda’s return to acting (you don’t think that would be awesome? Is my life a lie?) But it could still be a flop of Waterworld proportions.

Remakes aren’t the only movie related things that turn out badly; M Night Shyamalan released After Earth recently, a blockbuster with no discernible remake status. It’s getting a critical lashing. I can’t elaborate anymore for fear of making you lose faith in Will Smith’s career choices (as if you haven’t already). All I’m saying is that remakes aren’t all as bad as you think, some great films are remakes and some remakes are great films.