Russians hate throats.............

Well, the people have spoken, the poll is closed and the next DAA marathon will be......................a tie:

Offensive/Creepy Movies
&
Here's why Nicholas Cage Sucks

I can do that.

In the mean-time, here's a new review................

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Eastern Promises

2007
Directed by David Cronenberg

I created this blog only a month ago, so I missed the opportunity to review this movie when it was first in theaters early this year. But it's coming to DVD this Christmas, and so I figured I'd give my thoughts and persuade those who haven't seen it to definitely give it a rental/buy.

As I was walking out of the theater for Eastern Promises, I went straight to where I always go to think about a great movie. The bathroom. Mostly because I have the bladder of a 5-year-old girl, but also because of the whole thinking thing. Anyway, as I was taking a piss, the guy at the urinal next to me was having a discussion about the movie with his friend at the sink. He said something to the effect of, "Man, it was okay but Cronenberg has lost his edge. He's gone mainstream."

Well I couldn't disagree more, guy I just made up for dramatic purposes. If "mainstream" means creepy Russian mob movies with 14-year-old rape victims and homo-erotic undertones, then I'm kinda worried to know what your idea of a cult movie is. No........what we're witnessing isn't a merging into the mainstream. It's a truly demented director attempting to become a truly masterful one, which is a hell of a lot more disturbing if you think about it. He's always been good with the edge, but now there's actual characterization and cool-filter cinematography and meaty stories that we care about. You just know he'll find a way to use all those things for evil. My, what big teeth you have now, grandma. All the better to scar you for life with.

The bare bones of this flick is that a London mid-wife (Naomi Watts) finds the diary of an unidentified Russian woman who she just watched die while giving birth. The newborn baby is now an orphan, and so she figures the best thing to do is to get the diary translated so she can find any surviving relatives. But she soon finds out that what's in the diary may be more dangerous than she thought. Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) is a driver for the local Russian mob boss, charged with the task of retrieving the diary at any cost.

That's all you need to know for now.

Although this wasn't one of my top favorites of the year, I was extremely impressed by Cronenberg's choices. In this film, he shows a newfound deftness for taking every single scene, no matter how small, and bringing out the complex fears and intentions inside each individual in the frame. I would go so far as to say that a majority of the drama in this film is not in the dialogue, but in reactions and mood, which is not an easy thing to achieve. And likewise for the storyline, Cronenberg's discipline is commendable. He's smart enough to allow so much of the action to happen off screen, and not be literally shown or spelled out to the audience like we spent the first half of the movie staring at a urinal cake. This material could have easily been turned into a 2 and a half hour gangster epic, but Cronenberg doesn't indulge. And on the same token, when it comes to the kind of caricatured Russian gangster stereotypes we see in most American films, in any other director's hands this might have easily just been Law and Order: Brighton Beach. While some of the cliches are still there, they are mostly handled with a much more authentic touch than usual.

For a minute, I thought this was a remake
of Blood In, Blood Out. MILKWEED!!

As for the question of whether or not he's lost his "edge", all you have to do is watch the movie to see otherwise. You will see things in Eastern Promises that I'm pretty sure you've never seen in any other film. At least not with so much.........clarity. Enough time has passed since it's release for just about everyone to hear about the infamous bath-house brawl scene. Simply calling it "graphic" would be doing a disservice to anyone who's ever died a horrible death. Gruesome and painful to watch is more like it.

Anyone who keeps up with movies will know that this was Cronenberg's second collaboration with Viggo Mortensen. The other was 2005's History of Violence, a movie that was praised by critics and movie-goers, but not by me. I thought the acting was mediocre and the story was pretty underdeveloped. But this time, everything clicks, and that's mostly because of Mortensen himself. I really think this is a career building role for him. Maybe not as far as audiences are concerned, but just industry-wise, I'm sure a lot more scripts will be sent his way that don't involve him being told to suck Demi Moore's dick. He's incredibly good here, and obviously I don't have to point out that the same is true for Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel, two actors who always jump out of the screen.

Is this a perfect film? Far from it. Like I said, it's probably not going to be on my top ten of the year list (not really sure yet). There are a couple twists that are supposed to be shocking, but I don't think they are even necessary at all, and the ending is too forced in some aspects. But the performances and the direction are brilliant, and wherever the logic may lag, the suspense still keeps you tangled up in the spectacle. Eastern Promises is a gripping gangster flick without a single gunshot, that will surely go down as a benchmark in the careers of both the director and the lead actor. And if I'm not as excited as I could be for the finished product, what I am excited for is the possibilities in Cronenberg's next 10 films. The guy is only 64. He has plenty of time to gross us the fuck out some more.