Testify: REPO - The Genetic Opera

For over a month, my son has been raving about REPO. I figure Sarah Brightman, Anthony Stewart Head, Alexa Vega, Paris Hilton, director of Saw II-IV... what can go wrong? (OK, those last two it could be a lot). It's been compared to Rocky Horror Picture Show, but that's not even close: Camp isn't what it's about (well, maybe a little). Only a little goth lingerie ties them together. If you really want something similar, think Tommy -- child with health problems, very little spoken, awkward pacing, structurally flawed, and you're there.

First off: Paris Hilton didn't suck at all. You want to see Paris waste space, spin Veronica Mars up on your Netflix queue and get Season 2, Episode 18. Urgh. Poster child for vapid. Here, she was completely appropriate, sang OK, and looked sleazy as she was supposed to be. Perfectly appropriate stunt casting.

I wish the other casting was a little more on-target: Alexa Vega can hit the notes, but there was nothing behind it, no emotion, no acting. For the lead character, she was kind of whiny and weak. The Rotti brothers were awful.

The movie mostly comes down to a confrontation between Paul Sorvino's organ transplant firm CEO and Head's repo man, based on a 17-year grudge over a stolen love. There are some fantastic visuals, most of them around Sarah Brightman's character Blind Mag's replaced eyes which project as well as see.

The music is hit or miss: a few songs such as Zydrate Anatomy work well, but are a little bit on the Broadway hokey side, others are atonal and arrythmic, just moans and grumbles. The story is a bit hard to follow (who poisoned Shiloh?), and the story is held together with comic book panels drawn by the writer/composer/Graverobber (looks like influences by Mignola, and maybe Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!), that would be better with a song.

Will you love it? I didn't, but I don't want my time and money back (hello, "Sex and the City?" -- you've been beaten). See it now on the road show, or in one of the eight (Eight? When crap like Indy IV opened on like 3000?) screens around the US, with a live audience that'll cheer and boo.

Watch Nightwatch Tonight

What a movie!

I haven't been this thrilled watching a movie in ages. From the start, I'm hooked.

Don't believe the hype machine, this isn't this year's Matrix -- The Matrix was a sterile, popcorn movie with one philosophical gimmick about whether the world is real. And dull acting by Keanu.
This is a messy, chaotic whirlwind where it looks like nothing is under control, but it all just hangs together perfectly. The hero is not the one and only hope, he's just another gifted Other -- people with special abilities, either on the Light or Dark side of the eternal struggle, now in a long-term uneasy truce. OK, like Matrix, it makes it possible that you could have another life, a different world out there (this will spawn roleplaying games, video games, etc. almost guaranteed), and that's going to be a big draw for the young moviegoing audience.

This movie is as rich as one of Hayao Miyazaki's fantasies such as Spirited Away, and draws on myths as well as Neil Gaiman, with nods to pop culture (a video game played by one of the villains is intercut into the climax to great effect, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is shown on the TV), and respect for the viewer -- you never feel cheated anywhere.

Little touches: the spider-legged doll, the rose in the crystal ball gearshift knob, a pop diva wearing a dress that seems to defy structural engineering, the psychic surgery methods used by the Light's healer... and did I mention the subtitles?

Yup, it's in Russian, subtitled in English, which adds a dimension to the film rather than just a distraction. A vampire's seduction which manifests in her voice appearing in floating wisps of blood morphs into Come to me..., subtitles during conversations with characters moving through a room may have the words come out from behind the wall the character passes by, and data read by a character off a screen scrolls on like an old computer terminal.

Kudos to Fox Searchlight for bringing this to the US, daring to take Russia's biggest film series (now in their second of three, Daywatch), and not dubbing it with Hollywood stars. The subtitling shows respect for the film - it fits, it works and it entertains.

You're still reading this? Click the link and find where it's playing by you. Take your friends.
And no, they're not paying me for this.

Spicoli gets some respect!

The national film registry listed its annual set of films to be preserved.
Some well-justified items (Cool Hand Luke - it rules!, Giant, Hoop Dreams, French Connection, Miracle on 34th Street, The Sting), but a few surprises.

Rocky Horror Picture Show?!? Yeah, it's a counter-culture icon, and gave us our current King Arthur, but worth preserving? I dunno.

Toy Story is only ten years old, and it's 100% digital. Does it really need preserving?

Fast Times at Ridgemont High - Sean Penn's major debut. Who'dathunk that he'd be Oscar bait, a director, considered this generation's De Niro? It's still shlock, and always will be. How many other films on the Library of Congress' film registry feature bouncing breasts, anyway?

What should be preserved? The 1977 version of Star Wars of course. Greedo didn't freakin' shoot first!