Elysium: A Latter-Day Metropolis

            Once every generation, a filmmaker looks at the world, ponders trends both technological and social, and extrapolates a dystopian future onto the big screen. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) is a classic example. This year we’re given Elysium, from South African writer/director Neill Blomkamp. This film presents a powerful and rare combination of human emotion and stunning visuals, with a plausible, if alarming, vision of the future.

            Blomkamp’s film takes us to the year 2154, when the rich and powerful live on the clean, green space station of Elysium, while the impoverished working classes subsist on the filthy, barren planet Earth. The rich get fresh air; margaritas served poolside by droids; and top-notch healthcare. The non-rich get squalor, routinely bullied by police droids and safety regulation-free workplaces. In this world, hard-working parolee, Max (Matt Damon) is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation at the factory where he works. Told he has only five days to live, Max’s life-long quest to get to Elysium takes on a new urgency -- there, he knows the radiation damage can easily be repaired.

            The idea of humanity being segregated into two classes is far from new. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) showed the wealthy experiencing lives of leisure atop skyscrapers, while the denizens of the lower floors toiled away hopelessly. Elysium shares more than just a conceptual likeness with Metropolis, though. Both films are insightful works of genius. They are intimately human stories combined with state of the art visual effects; bringing to life a focused, abundantly-textured prophecy.

            Jodie Foster appears in this film as Delacourt, Elysium’s Secretary of Defense, who features prominently in the traitorous circumstances which ultimately bring Max to the idyllic space station. It was odd seeing Ms. Foster playing a villain, which she did with a professional, steely composure. While I’m glad Ms. Foster leant her talents and name to this project, the role was small and shallow for and actress of her caliber. Perhaps Ms. Foster saw this as an arguably important project, and wanted to lend it her name recognition and gravitas? I don’t know, but she did a great job as always in her role.

            Elysium is peppered with terms like “Homeland Security” – Delacourt’s responsibility - as well as “undocumented” and “illegals” in referring to spacecraft carrying refuges from Earth. Hearing these terms was effectively disturbing. I can’t say whether it was Blomkamp’s intention to create a metaphor of America’s immigration issues in his film. I can say, however, that these expressions gave Elysium a sharper allegorical edge.

            There is a romantic subplot in Elysium, involving Frey (Alice Braga), a nurse Max grew up with in an orphanage. When the two were children, he promised her that they would one day go to Elysium. Frey’s daughter has leukemia, and sadly, this complicates both her life and her relationship with Max.

            Children appear often in Elysium, much in the way they featured prominently in Metropolis. It’s easy to fall into sentimentality with children, but Blomkamp kept his perspective, and what might have been a flaw became strength. Perhaps children figure significantly in both pictures because they become the future -- do we really want to imagine our own kids’ great-grandchildren living in this 22^nd century?

            There is a final subtext to Elysium that I believe is worth mentioning. One of the opening scenes shows the Earth after the oceans have risen: most of Africa is submerged, along with Europe and both sea boards of North America. Also, there doesn’t seem to be any trees left on our depleted world. But there is still love for our planet, as shown by a Nun who gives young Max a locket containing a photo of the Earth from space. Elysium, the Nun tells Max, may look very beautiful from here, but the picture in the locket is what we look like to them. Elysium notwithstanding, there is no “Planet B.” We must never forget where we come from.

            Elysium is the best film I’ve seen so far this year. It is a thoughtful and moving social commentary wrapped in science fiction, with seamless special effects and thrilling action set-pieces. Blomkamp’s script does not ignore the humanistic for the money shot, and this, as much as anything else, elevates his picture’s value. In total, Elysium is not only worth seeing, but with today’s cultural climate, it may genuinely need to be seen.

We’re The Millers...The Anti-Christ of Family Films

     It has been a long while since I’ve gone to a movie that had me laughing out loud. We’re The Millers had some great comedic moments. Sadly, the occasional hilarity was not enough to save this RV wreck of a motion picture.

     We’re The Millers focuses on thirty-something David Clark’s (Jason Sudeikis) mission to smuggle two tons of marijuana from Mexico to Denver, Colorado. To accomplish this, Clark enlists his stripper neighbor, Rose (Jennifer Aniston), a lonely and neglected teen-aged friend Kenny (Will Poulter), and to round out the ensemble, a homeless street-thief girl, Casey (Emma Roberts). Together, this foursome poses as an all-American family in an RV literally stuffed with weed. The conflict begins when Clark discovers that his employer has double-crossed not only him but Pablo Chacon (Tomer Cisley), the rightful owner of the kind green stuff. Additionally, the “Miller Family” is befriended on the road by another traveling family, the Fitzgeralds – Don, Edie & Melissa (Nick Offerman, Katherine Hahn and Molly Quinn, respectively) – an over-friendly, white bread slice of American middle-class monotony. Oh, by the way, Don is a DEA agent on vacation! Uh-oh! Predictably, the “Millers” bond, develop real familial ties and learn the most important lesson of family: you may not always like each other, but in the end, you’re all in it together.

     Saturday Night Live alum Jason Sudeikis tackles his first starring role with the subdued cool of a young Chevy Chase. It is probably safe to say that We’re The Millers owes some genetic material to National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)--in fact, I’d go so far as to say that Clark (?!) Griswold and David Clark almost certainly share a common ancestor...Maybe, Uncle Milty?

     Jennifer Aniston plays stripper-turned-mom, Rose, as smart, strong and no nonsense. Additionally, Aniston proves she’s still the sex symbol that she became on Friends by performing one of the greatest pole dances seen on film since Flashdance(1983). There’s even a Flashdance homage as she soaks herself under an industrial emergency shower!

     Will Poulter and Emma Roberts both turned in convincing performances in this family road trip from hell, but I think I need to single out Poulter’s work for some high praise. He portrays Kenny as pathetically nerdish and naive, yet possessing a big heart and real courage in the face of adversity. Poulter plays this poor kid so well that it is hard to believe his resume includes pictures like Son of Rambow and Chronicles of Narnia. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more from this young man in the future.

We’re The Millers lurches between outrageously hip hilarity and tedious awkwardness -- the kind of awkwardness that makes an audience cringe at a situation, not with it -- and a tedium that comes from forced, hackneyed moments of emotion. I felt forced to watch it. This film failed to commit fully to the irreverent, as much as to the heart. Consequently, the irreverent made the heart seem corny, and the heart made the irreverent seem vulgar. There was never an organic integration of the two, as there was in films like Bad Santa(2003).

     Director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball(2004)) even took that Hail Mary comedy shot of showing supposedly humorous out-takes before the end credits. OK, while the scene where Sudeikis, Poulter and Roberts bust out the theme from Friends is cute, the whole idea of showing out-takes is, in my opinion, the hallmark of a bad director desperate for cheap laughs.

This film’s greatest flaw lies in its basic plot: Weed is legal in Colorado. Medical marijuana has been legal for many years, and last year, we voted to make it totally legal – now, one can own up to an ounce for personal use. There’s no need to import the stuff from Mexico anymore, we grow it here, lots of it, and it’s damn good...I hear.

     The trade-off between comedic gags and painful schmaltz resulted in neither a brilliantly funny, nor completely “feel good” picture. This film seemed to try and play both ends off the middle, consequently becoming underwhelming in its mediocrity. The final scene could easily be a set-up for a sequel (Hmm, They’re The Millers?), but I would be surprised if that ever happens. Yes, I had a few good laughs, but aside from Jennifer Aniston’s pole dance, sitting through We’re The Millers there was only one place I wanted to be...anywhere but the theater I was in.

Blackfish Takes Us Beneath The Calm Surface of Orca Captivity

  “Blackfish” is a name given to Orcas, popularly known as “killer whales,” by the First People of the Pacific Northwest. They believed these whales to be departed chiefs, and beings possessing great spiritual power. Today, “Blackfish” is the title of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s eye-opening documentary about the life and controversy surrounding Tilikum, an orca at SeaWorld’s Orlando park. As a cetacean advocate, I was genuinely elated to hear that Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Unlike so many other feature documentaries, this film also succeeded in securing impressive domestic and international distribution deals, meaning this remarkable, even important documentary will most likely be coming to a theater near you.
 Blackfish opens with the recording of a 9-1-1 call, made on February 24th, 2010, after Tilikum attacked and killed Dawn Brancheau, his trainer. From the springboard of this terrifying, tragic event, we are taken behind the scenes of not only the tight-knit marine mammal trainer community, but into the harsh realities of cetacean capture and the captivity industry. 
 Tilikum was captured off the coast of Iceland in 1983, when he was approximately three years old. From the moment he was abducted, Tilikum (“Tilly”) experienced immeasurable trauma and hardship. He was first sent to SeaLand Of The Pacific, a shoddy, now-defunct dockside marine park in Victoria, British Columbia. He was subjected to bullying and injury by the female orcas with whom he was kept. Every night, the orcas were lured into a tiny, dark enclosure called “the module.” Every morning, Tilly would come out with new rake marks (teeth marks from the other whales). One day, his trainer, Keltie Byrne, slipped, and her foot entered the water. According to witnesses, it was Tilikum who grabbed her foot and pulled her into the tank. The female orcas joined him in “playing” with, and eventually killing, Keltie.
 After Byrne’s death, SeaWorld purchased Tilikum for their recently-launched captive breeding program, and he was sent to to Orlando to become a breeding bull.  This marked the second time Tilly was ripped from his surroundings and thrown into an artificial, corporate-organized pod, where orcas from different places, languages and even cultures were forced together. 
 Cetaceans are second only to humans in terms of cognitive capacity. Their anatomical brain features denote a profound intelligence, second only to humans. These self-aware, highly social beings have languages and names for each other; create art; use tools and display cultural diversity. For most captive animals, every attempt is made to replicate their natural habitat. Not so in the case of cetaceans, who are primarily acoustic beings and navigate their world by use of sonar. In concrete tanks, reflected sonar signals are disorienting -- the human equivalent of a funhouse mirror maze. Wild cetaceans may travel 100 miles per day or more. Confining a dolphin or whale in a tank such as those at SeaWorld is the spatial equivalent of locking a human into a bathtub-sized cage for life. In light of the above, it becomes readily clear how these animals become psychologically disturbed, and ultimately feature signs of psychosis. Tilikum killed twice more; the last victim being SeaWorld Orlando’s much loved and respected senior trainer, Dawn Brancheau.
 Naturally, SeaWorld -- the largest and most powerful corporation in the multi-billion dollar captive cetacean industry -- declined to participate or contribute in any way to Blackfish. Company statements are conspicuous by their absence throughout. Surprisingly, however, SeaWorld recently issued a statement directed at film critics, attempting to point out errors in this film’s content. This is fair, I suppose, but I felt condescended to by SeaWorld, who seemed to take the attitude that they had the right to tell me how to feel about this film and how to review it. Also, with a little research, I found it easy to debunk much of the rebuttal statement’s rebukes. For example, in their rebuttal, SeaWorld states that whales: “…express dominance in a variety of ways, including using their teeth to “rake” other whales, in the open ocean as well as in parks.” While superficially accurate, this claim ignores the fact, in the wild, whales can – and do – avoid confrontation, and/or escape in any direction. Further, orca tribes typically don’t mix and families are stable. 
 It’s difficult as a reviewer to judge a project with any real objectivity when its subject matter is so close to one’s own heart. If this film has a weakness, it is that  Cowperthwaite was required to lean heavily on talking head interviews due to limited free-use captive orca footage. Any documentary must achieve a comfortable balance between interviews and engaging cinematic b-roll imagery. Given the engrossing nature of this piece, however, this imbalance is easily overlooked. 
 I was impressed that Cowperthwaite spurned sensationalism and declined to use graphic footage of Tilikum’s assault on Miss Brancheau. In doing so, she honored both a personal ethos and the Brancheau family’s wishes, thereby respecting her memory and preserving her dignity. 
 Blackfish is one of those rare cinematic triumphs: a documentary focusing on a fairly obscure subject that will be seen by a large audience, and significantly impact the issue it addresses. Previous documentaries like Zeitgeist, Bowling for Columbine, or even I Want your Money, dealt with issues we must all confront every day -- modern life, guns and taxes. But Blackfish brings to light the little-known, ongoing international tragedy of cetacean captivity. Please make the effort to find this film and give it your full attention. The film, and the cause, deserve it!