Friday the 13th - Review

I realize it's not easy to get anyone to feel sorry for movie critics. We work from home in our pajamas, see all the movies early and for free, and spend most of our free time bitching to you about what terrible taste you have in cinema. But keep in mind we often get stuck seeing movies we would never, ever see on our own-- and I don't just mean bad stuff like Confessions of a Shopaholic, or tawdry genre stuff like Underworld.

I mean stuff like Friday the 13th, a movie I hated, moment for moment, more than any I've seen this year. I scare easily, and have no fond childhood memories of Freddy or Jason or any supernatural killer targeting teens. I have no idea what appeal anyone can find in this tired formula, especially when it's used so poorly here, 13 years after Scream parodied it so brilliantly.

But the people in the theater with me screamed at all the right moments, and even got in a few unintended laughs, so Friday the 13th seems to have a few things going for it. Even so, there are enough needless musical cues, fake scares, and suspense-free moments for even gigantic horror wimps like me to see through it for the trash it is. Whether or not it's good, entertaining trash probably depends on how much you grew up fearing Jason's hockey mask, but fans looking for that same horror jolt they got from the first film 19 years ago will probably find themselves too old for this shit.

It's not much that the movie traffics gleefully in the genre cliches-- hot dumb teenagers trapped by a killer in the woods-- but that it doles it all out so haphazardly. The movie opens powerfully by recreating the end of the first movie, the final surviving camp counselor (attractive female, of course) chopping off Mrs. Vorhees' head. Then there's a second prologue that theoretically distills everything you're looking for into 10 minutes, but drags on even longer than you'd think possible for something so content-free. There's sex and drugs, but when it comes time for the gore, director Marcus Nispel has no idea how to pace things to create any kind of suspense. By the time they bite it you're ready, not so much for entertainment but just to finally move on to the real story.

When we do, we're "rewarded" with the most obnoxious group of teens this side of The Hills, a handful of bleached blond dudes complemented by some girls in tight T-shirts and the token minorities, an Asian guy (Aaron Yoo) and a black guy (Arlen Escarpeta) who obviously aren't allowed their own love interests. The gang has piled into the summer home belonging to Trent (Travis Van Winkle) and his parents, and we learn that we're supposed to hate Trent both because he's a jerk to his girlfriend and to kindly strangers, and because he's obsessed with keeping the house clean. Meanwhile his pretty, virginal girlfriend Jenna (Danielle Panabaker) is sympathetic when they run into Clay (Jared Padalecki), a soulful guy looking for his missing sister Whitney (Amanda Righetti), who just happens to be one of the victims we saw Jason slice and dice at the beginning of the film.

Or did we? As soon as we meet Clay it's pretty obvious that Whitney is alive somewhere, just as it's obvious in which order the stupid teens will die, and how. Jason shows up to dispatch them all in various creative ways, including a truly surprising arrow to the head in one scene and later, a disappointingly generic tire-gauge-to-the-throat. Since this is a franchise reboot, rather than a sequel, Jason doesn't feel the pressure to top his previous antics, and the screenplay follows suit by failing, at every turn, to add anything new to the formula. The flawless production values and rock and roll songs are great, sure, but a reason to care about the characters or even a hint of wit could have gone a long way toward validating this movie's reason to exist.

But as I said at the beginning, I'm an automatic hater-- it takes a lot for me to enjoy any slasher movie, which I admit makes me a less-than-objective critic. Whatever you loved about the original movies, be it the blood and guts or the blatantly obvious sound cues that SOMETHING SCARY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!, you'll find it here in full force. But mostly Friday the 13th is proof that horror movies haven't progressed at all since Jason first emerged from Crystal Lake, and bothering with the new stuff is mostly going to be exercise in gruesome disappointment.

Rocket Science - Review

What is so difficult about rocket science? It’s merely the combination of complex scientific systems such as aerodynamics, propulsion, control engineering, materials science and electronics. Alright, so the subjects might be a tad over most of our heads, but those problems pale in comparison to the multitude of life questions and quandaries we all deal with on a daily basis, and that’s exactly the point the aptly named Rocket Science makes.

Born from the brain behind the 2002 documentary Spellbound, which followed middle schoolers working toward spelling bee greatness, Rocket Science is film that is obviously close to writer and director Jeffrey Blitz’s heart. Blitz’ fondness for his home-grown story is good and bad as we follow Hal Hefner, a high school student whose disabling stutter isn’t enough to stop him from joining the debate team in hopes of winning the heart of the fast-talking girl who recruited him. Although the genre has changed to indie comedy, the setting and a few themes aren’t that far off from Blitz’s previous documentary work. Spellbound subtly wove themes of isolation and a loss of childhood through its story, and Rocket Science expands on those ideas through Hefner’s first lost love.

But Rocket Science is far from subtle. From Hal’s ironic last name (he’s not the greatest ladies man) to his stutter-plagued debate arguing the importance of abstinence taught in public schools, the themes of losing one’s childhood innocence through the first romantic relationship are painfully obvious. Perhaps no more so than the scene where Hal looks at his love’s bedroom window, pounding down a bottle of brandy like there’s no tomorrow, while his two friends play cowboy and Indians behind him. Despite all the transparent symbolism, there is a lining of honesty and humor. We’ve all been in Hal’s position at one time or another. The difference is that while his childhood is literally behind him, he gets up and throws a cello through the window of his beloved’s home. How many heart-broken lovers have ever wanted to do that? You can all put your hands down.

The straight-played ridiculousness of the film rings true because of how we relate to it. We’ve all wanted to throw that cello, and we cheer for Hal when he does. Much of the honesty and humor credit is due to Reece Thompson’s performance and Blitz’s direction. Hal’s sympathetic trump card is his stutter, which could have been a cinematic disaster. Blitz, however, handles it with the delicacy of first-hand knowledge, knowing when to make it painful, when to make it funny and when to make it meaningful – like when Hal bumbles through the line, “I want to do this for love… or revenge. Love or revenge.”

Unfortunately, that same finesse doesn’t spill into the rest of Blitz’s aesthetics. While the film isn’t a pretentious indie comedy, or “dramity,” it does have a fixation on quirky music, like an a capella version of The Blob’s pulpy theme song and a piano and cello duet of the Violet Femme’s “Raisin in the Sun,” causing Rocket Science to come off stylistically like a poor man’s Wes Anderson film. Even the voice over seems like practice takes from The Royal Tenenbaums. While Anderson wears his French and Italian influences on his sleeve while injecting his own stile, Blitz’s filmmaking feels like a documentary filmmaker lost on a dramatic palette. Yet, Blitz’s inability to define his directorial voice is what keeps Rocket Science from standing out of the indie crowed, but its honesty and humor hold promises of great films from Blitz.