Visioneers

Let's get one thing out of the way. I love Zach Galifinakis. And I'm not saying that like someone who has only seen him in The Hangover. I mean it like I've seen his stand-ups (hilarious) and looked through some old movie roles.

Which is what brought me to Visioneers. I saw it under his name on my Netflix, and saw it was available instantly, so one Sunday, I decided to see what it was about.

Wow. That's the first impression. It was categorized under "comedy" on Netflix, and boy is that far from the truth. Further research indicated that it was a "black comedy" which seems to lend more gravitas to the film than it deserves.

The film is a bleak look at a corporate world taken to the extreme. It's Big Brother-ish, but you're not quite sure how serious to take it until later in the film.

Galifinakis plays a mid-level administrator who presides over his cramped, yet spacious room in "Level 3" (of 5, we assume). One of his co-workers recently exploded, as are people all over the place.

Zach finds himself experiencing the symptom of people who have been exploding, namely, dreams.

He also tries to track down a co-worker who he has feelings for, despite having never seen her, and dealing with his wife, who watches boring daytime television all day.

In three paragraphs, I described the extent of almost 45 minutes worth of the movie. Forty-two minutes go by in the movie without a single thing happening, so it's almost a relief when it does.

It is a very visually striking film, everything seems to be placed in the frame to strike an effect, and most shots last long enough (and don't have enough going on) that you can take time to appreciate it.

But thematically, the movie is really weak. I think it tries to make an artistic statement about the banality of modern life, but I'm not sure, and I certainly didn't get it.

It takes the approach that "less is more" and leaves a lot of blank space, which I guess you're supposed to fill with your own awesome, ground-breaking thoughts about modern life, and then transfer them to the movie, therefore thinking that the movie is echoing your thoughts.

Well, my thought's were "When the hell does this movie end?" and I literally counted down almost everyone of the film's 91 minutes.

It is well shot enough to make you think you're watching something artistic and important, but you're just not.

Galifinakis is pretty good, he gets a few laughs, and he fills a whole lot of conversations (especially with women) with silence.

Quite frankly, it's a boring movie, and you keep waiting for something to happen, and though things eventually pick up (slightly) and things get a bit more sinister, the conclusion is extremely unsatisfying, but it fits perfectly with the style of the movie.

High-art people might say "Oh, but you missed the whole point! The movie was boring because it was a statement about how office and modern culture is turning our lives boring!"

Sure, I get that. I also know that "Office Space" said that same thing, only it was actually amusing.

Rating - $2.00

Stop Loss

The armed forces Stop Loss policy has been a source of controversy since the first Persian Gulf War. It is also the topic of Kimberly Peirce’s sophomore effort “Stop-Loss.” It comes almost nine years after “Boys Don’t Cry” a film that put Peirce and many of the film’s actors on the map.

In the beginning, the movie seems to accurately portray life as a soldier in Iraq. Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Philippe) and his men are manning a checkpoint, where boredom alternates with fear, and danger waits in each approaching vehicle.

His troops consist of the testosterone charged Channing Tatum (“Coach Carter”), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“3rd Rock From the Sun) in his first appearance with facial hair.
After a brief firefight, the movie fast forwards to a welcome home parade, in Sgt. King’s hometown, a cliché small Texas town. The returning soldiers are glad to be home, but carry the memories of the horror they have witnessed.

As the welcome home party begins, “Stop-Loss” seems to be emerging as a gritty portrait of the reality faced by veterans when they come home. Characters get drunk and reveal the flaws that will eventually undo them. With every wild night, comes the inevitable hangover the next morning. The remaining 78 minutes is the hangover.

When the phrase “You’ve been stop-lost” is uttered, the movie begins its downward spiral. Philippe pulls a Richard Kimble, his one-armed man being a local senator who will help him avoid jail. Soon he is off on some cross-country journey where the movie completely loses itself. It’s as if the writers were unclear on what to do with Philippe’s screen time, so they cast him into various heroic molds, none of them quite sticking.

The film doesn’t exactly glorify going AWOL, but it comes pretty close to it. Especially since the movie will not let the audience like Tatum’s character, despite (and because of) the fact that he is the only one that considers making the Army part of his future. When he decides to re-enlist, he becomes the closest thing to a bad guy that exists in the film.

Its place in the political spectrum can be gleaned from the fact that Philippe utters the phrase “f@%! the President” and later quotes Sen. John Kerry, calling stop-loss a “backdoor draft.”
The characters follow the story arc of a Shakespearean tragedy, with each character undone by his flaws.

But instead of the Bard’s immortal prose, there are laughable Texas accents and an overabundance of the word ‘ain’t.’ Instead of admirable but flawed characters, there are superficial caricatures of real people.

“Stop-Loss” is blunt enough in its presentation that the audience knows what it’s supposed to feel, but it doesn’t work hard enough to make a deeper impression. It does an admirable job of trying to tackle the complexity of the issue. Ninety-eight minutes is a short amount of time to fit an analysis and verdict on the stop loss policy with deep and dynamic characters. There simply isn’t enough time to create anything more than a passing glance at who these people are.


Rating - $4.00