Stealers Wheel

Words are funny (and I don’t necessarily mean ha ha funny). Let me explain by way of an example: if I were to say, select the highest number between 5 and 8 – half of you would likely say 8, while some others would choose 7 (or 7.9), depending on how you perceive the word between. I use the word perceive, because perception is equally as fickle. Three people witnessing an automobile accident can sometimes see three very different things. Words and perception are used in clever fashion to exhume bloody humour in the 2010 comedy/horror flick Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Co-writer/director Eli Craig (as well as second co-scribe Morgan Jurgenson) flip our perception of what ‘should be’ from the very beginning. Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are two, for lack of a better word, hillbillies. . . but not those of horror past who enjoy slaughtering local travellers.

Three weeks ago today, I reviewed Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, a 1989 film directed by Pedro Almodóvar that starred Antonio Banderas. I said that in some ways it was similar to another motion picture that features the iconic director and actor – 2011's The Skin I Live In, which will be reviewed here today. Feeling like a modern take on the Frankenstein story (or perhaps Bride of Frankenstein), Banderas plays Robert Ledgard, a plastic surgeon and scientist at the forefront of his field. He has been successful in developing a type of artificial skin that is resistant to burns as well as insect bites. Controversial in the scientific community, he claims to have only tested it on mice – though when he hints that he has used it on a human being, he is strictly prohibited from continuing his research.

There are certain actors that have the ‘cool’ factor. Not the easiest thing to define, there is just something about their larger than life personas that attract us to them. One such actor is Steve McQueen. It seems that each role he chose further expanded his reign as a cool cat, with films like The Great Escape and Bullitt helping fuse together his characters with the real person – creating an image of a man’s man whose tall lean frame drove muscle cars through San Francisco during the week while escaping from Nazi concentration camps on the weekend. Another motion picture that epitomizes his persona is the 1973 prison drama Papillon. Based on the autobiography by French convict Henri Charrière, director Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton/Planet of the Apes) takes us on an epic ride as Charrière, whose moniker is Papillon (McQueen), as he has a vivid tattoo of a butterfly that can be found on the middle of his chest, is placed on a ship departing from France.

As of this past week, I have officially finished viewing all of last years Oscar Best Picture nominees. The sole one that slipped through my grasp prior to the Academy Awards was Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s epic The Revenant. Snagging Best Achievement in Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Best Director (for Iñárritu), the filmmaker transports us to the year 1823, placing us in the heart of the wilderness – more specifically, a piece of pre-government structured territory in the United States located close to the Dakotas.

Dealing with the moral quandary of a drone strike, Eye in the Sky captures the complex nature of pulling the trigger when you’re thousands of miles away from your target. Written by Guy Hibbert and directed by Gavin Hood, the story demonstrates the interconnectedness of military decision making in the twenty-first century. Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is running a complicated capture mission from a military base in England. She is attempting to seize high value targets from a terrorist group, including Susan Danford (Lex King) – a British citizen turned terrorist (on the top-ten most wanted list). After many long years, Colonel Powell finally has a bead on the elusive militants – who are making a stop in a safehouse in Nairobi.