Ahoy, squirts! Quint here taking a day off of SXSW... Well, taking a day off of the films. I did an interview at Noon with the director of ROCK SCHOOL, Don Argott and am now catching up on my reviews, so I guess I wouldn't say it's a day off.
Anyway, right now I'm gonna review two flicks. I'm gonna start with PROMEDIO ROJO, directed by newcomer Nicolas Lopez and then give my opinion on the horror sequel, RING TWO.
PROMEDIO ROJO
I have to issue a warning to Guillermo del Toro. Nicolas Lopez may be your long lost brother. Either that or he's your clone. If he's your brother, he may be your evil twin and if he's your clone then he may want to eliminate you and reign in your absence. Either one is bad news, so start arming yourself, gordo!
I say this only because Nicolas Lopez's sense of humor, way of speaking and the way he wears his geek heart on his sleeve reminds me totally of how Guillermo is like in person. If anyone reading this has ever seen Guillermo speak at Comic-Con or a screening... you'll understand what I'm talking about.
Let me give you an example... You probably read about his offer to let anyone in the audience who didn't like the movie spit on him after the credits rolled in Harry's review (I think he mentioned the condition that if one must spit on him, they'd have to spit on his balls... but didn't mention the request to have a little tongue thrown in). After the film, during the Q&A, Lopez was talking about being a filmmaker. He said that if you're a filmmaker you're instantly gay. He also warned of ever going to Latin America, saying it was too dangerous. He actually said that if any of us in the audience were to go to Latin America we would either be killed or raped... by gay filmmakers.
That's his humor, which, had me rolling.
His film had me laughing just as much as his intro and Q&A afterwards did. You know what his style reminds me of? It's like he mixed the sweet sentimentality of some of Alex de la Iglesia's work (specifically 800 BALAS) with the whacky characters you'd find in an Pedro Almodovar or Kevin Smith flick with a touch of outlandish realism in a crazy environment that Guillermo del Toro did so well in THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE. Throw in some John Hughes and you're close to getting a feel for what this film is.
Ariel Levy plays Roberto Rodriguez (guess who that's named after?), a lonely socially inept boy trying to survive high school. He's a comic book nerd. He's a geek in every respect. His body is squishy, his glasses are thick, his hair a mess, his friends either borderline retarded or prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. They're all outcasts that get pummeled and beaten by the jocks and pretty people. Sounds familiar to a lot of you, I'm sure. I know I can check more than a few of those off my personal checklist.
Then, one day, a vision of beauty and wholesomeness walks into his classroom in the form of Cristina, a hot hot hot girl. She's sat next to him and while he tries to hide his awkwardness he inadvertently makes a connection with her. He tries to bury his nose in a comic book to keep from gawking at her. She recognizes the book and starts talking about the story. He's dumbfounded! How could this angel have this geeky knowledge? He hands her the comic and their fingers touch. He's in love. Just in time for the resident smooth-talking jock asshole, Fele, to woo her with his boyish good looks.
The whole movie is Roberto's journey to break up that unholy union, to save his virginal angel from the devil in sheepskin that is Fele. Along the way, he gets help from his totally horny wheelchair-bound grandpa. His grandfather rules the earth, playing the Obi-Wan role (if Obi-Wan was a horny old man whose story of meeting your grandmother involved either oral sex or a hand job)... He actually plays the Obi-Wan role literally in the film. I have to give props to any film that can pull off a blatant STAR WARS parody and still actually be funny.
Anyway, while the film has that traditional teen comedy aspect to it, it goes places you won't expect. It gets downright dark and the ending... I won't spoil, but I will say you may think you'll have it figured out in the first 15 minutes, but you'd be wrong. Oh, and I'll never look at a big stalk of celery the same again after watching this film.
If you can see it, do. This is made for us geeks by one of our own. See this if you can. I wanted to shake the director's hand after the screening, but I had to run off to...
RING TWO
Weirdly enough this screening was the least packed of any film I've seen this year at SXSW. It was mostly full, don't get me wrong, but I just expected the screening to be a madhouse.
I went into the film really hoping it'd be great. I love the remake of the original done by Gore Verbinski. I think the original Japanese film was creepier, but Verbinksi pulled off a great remake in terms of the way he told the story. Here original director Hideo Nakata takes over. Unfortunately, like Takashi Shimizu, who directed the American remake of his original THE GRUDGE, Nakata's English work doesn't come close to matching up to his own past work or even the American remake that he's sequeling.
The movie's pacing just plain doesn't work. It's a slow build to a weak ending. There is no payoff for staying with the film. It looks pretty, Naomi Watts tries her best, Sissy Spacek is great for the 2 1/2 minutes she's in the movie and the CG is weak.
I lay most of the blame of this movie on Ehren Kruger's shoulders. I know that people who follow closely will think I've got something against the man after that statement and the shredding I did to his godawful and disrespectful assraping of THE TALISMAN he wrote. Thank God that version of the King and Straub adaptation is in the trash, where it belongs. I can be honest and say that I don't like most of his stuff, but I actually liked ARLINGTON ROAD quite a bit and the script for THE RING remake was solid.
I hope he hits it out of the park with THE BROTHERS GRIMM (directed by Terry Gilliam) and he better not fuck up JOHN CARTER OF MARS. In short, I don't have a vendetta against him, unlike a certain German director I could name, I just wish he was more consistent with his stuff. IMPOSTER, REINDEER GAMES, SCREAM 3... He's gotta level the playing field a bit and make more quality flicks to counteract the stuff that didn't work.
Anyway, without the structure of the original like he had on THE RING, Kruger struggles to keep things interesting. Samara is trying to find Rachel and Aidan. She saw something in their relationship in the first film. She craves the love Rachel has for her son, so of course... she somehow plans to possess the boy. I swear to god at one point Naomi Watts has to say this line, "She wants to be him. She wants to live... for real, this time." FOR REAL THIS TIME? For real? Wassup, biotch? For real? Naw! Holla! Really?
Unfortunately, during the whole process of Aidan getting possessed nothing really scary goes on. When she's got a hold of the boy, there is no threat. There's one scene involving a needle, but you don't see her exert her power at any other point from the half-way point with the exception of the very end.
The much loved well chase from the original RING TWO is replicated in this film, but done so much quicker and less scary. Maybe it's because I've already seen this scene done in the original, but it just seemed comical the way Samara was using her legs to crawl up the well. I don't know...
The movie is a lot like DARK WATER to me, except not shot as well and with much less interesting characters. It's a slow build to something that really doesn't pay off at all. DARK WATER is a great, deliberately paced film with a weak ending. RING TWO is a mediocre, slow film with a weak ending.
Bottom line... it's not offensively bad (HOUSE OF THE DEAD level), but I wouldn't recommend rushing out to see it. Rental is a good call.
That's it for me on this one... I'm gonna hit the sack. Be back later with some more reviews and those interviews I've been promising! Until then, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
