Film review: PROMETHEUS (spoilers)

Poster by BLT Communications

Just in case you missed it right up there in the blog post title, this will be a SPOILER filled review of Ridley Scott's Prometheus. 
That covered, we can move on. 

And yes, hello. Welcome back. It's nice to come back and write about movies again and what better one to kick back in with than the highly anticipated prequel/side-quel/whatever to Alien? Lets get down to it shall we? Brass tacks as it were. Prometheus, celebrated director Sir Ridley Scott's return to the petered out Alien franchise, is really rather stupid. 

Yep. Stupid. For a film nominally about the search for the beginnings of human life, helmed by one of the smartest and visually interesting directors still working, Prometheus is monumentally bone-headed. The script, by Damon Lindelof from a draft by Jon Spaihts, is riddled with plot-holes and peopled by barely sketched and needlessly contradictory characters who blunder about and occasionally find themselves running into barely explored themes.

I barely even know where to start with talking about this. Before I saw Prometheus, I'd heard chatter that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. But still, I went in with my high hopes. Slightly dampened, but still. C'mon, right? This was Ridley Scott returning to Alien territory. Alien is still the best all of the various Alien films and sequels; much like the horrific xenomorph that stalks the corridors and ducts of the Nostromo it's a sleek, fierce and deadly film. There's no fat on Alien's bones and it is still a remarkable, frightening film. Prometheus has no idea what it is. It tries for drama, dread, thrills, deep questions and more and comes up short on all accounts.

Let's start with the characters. The ship Prometheus is peopled with a huge array of extraneous barely seen characters who are summarily beaten and chewed and killed to absolutely zero effect. They're barely there as cannon fodder. Our main characters fare little better. Noomi Rapace's Elizabeth Shaw is a barely defined muddle of a generic "scientist". At various points she is an archaeologist, astronomer, xenobiologist and more. Oh, and she's also vaguely religious too. 'Cos science and religion y'know, man? Woah. Her partner/husband is even less well defined, seemingly only to serve to get infected with the space-worms they find and then knock up Rapace with an alien space baby. Yeah. Sure. Okay. Whatever.

Similarly wasted are Rafe Spall and Sean Harris as a stupid biologist and oh-he's-a-geologist? respectively. Spall is a nerdy biologist who, at his first sight of a (dead) alien body decides he wants to scarper back to the ship. But, after he and Harris get lost (again, stupid stupid plot-hole. Harris is the geologist for fuck's sake! Not to mention there's a big ol' holographic map back on the ship detailing all of the explored caves and where everyone is. And they all have nifty gadgets on their suits that provide them with co-ordinates. It is unforgivably bad writing that they get lost) and they find some mutated-alien goo worms that look exactly like penis eels with vaginas for faces, Spall wants to give it a cuddle. Freaked out by a long-dead alien but totally ok with a living alien creature.

Coming out slightly better off are Charlize Theron as the calculating boss, Meredith Vickers and Idris Elba as the charming, working-class pilot Janek. But they're not really given enough to do and the film would have benefited from focussing on them more. In fact, I would have much rather followed Theron's icy corporate type than Rapace's poorly defined scientist; she's a better character and Theron is a markedly better actor. Oh, right - and Guy Pearce shows up in old-man make-up as an elderly Peter Weyland 'cos... there are no old actors in Hollywood? And he's Theron's dad - which is just thrown out there arbitrarily and entirely un-revelatory.

It's Michael Fassbender, as the android David, who really comes out the best. Fassbender's performance is great from beginning to end; some of the best stuff is in the first 20 minutes and is just David hanging out, shooting hoops, watching (and cos-playing as) Lawrence of Arabia during the crew's cryo-sleep. He's fascinating to watch and you get the feeling Fassbender has been tricked into thinking he's in a much better film than he actually is.

Almost ironically, David is the most human of all of the characters. He really is more relatable than any of these other dunderheads. Upon discovering alien life - honest-to-gods proof or alien life and civilisations, not to mention being the things they had set out to find in the first place - there is almost uniformity in how the crew reacts: meh. Dead or not, this marks the most significant discovery in human history and no-one really gives a shit. Because Scott wants to hurry up and get to trying to scare you.

This seems like a lot of bitching, and a lot of bitching at surface details at that. Apologies but it's just, the more I've been thinking about it, the more pissed off and disappointed it's making me.  This could have been, and really should have been, something more. Something larger than any of the Alien films, grappling as it does with the very beginnings of mankind. There was the chance for Prometheus to be an elegant, moving science-fiction film with some great terror thrown in. But  Scott obviously no longer even cares about things like story, characters and themes. He's all about the visuals. And, to bring in some positivity, the visuals in Prometheus are suitably staggering. They are images of strange, otherworldy beauty; vast alien landscapes (some right here on Earth) that stretch to the stars. But now, much like his brother Tony, Sir Scott only seems to give a damn about how it all looks. 

It just, aaggh! It's all so monumentally stupid. The second scene of the film has Rapace and her partner man finding a series of cave paintings on the Isle of Skye in Scotland - except the cave paintings are lifted directly from the Chauvet cave already and recently explored by Werner Herzog in Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Sure, your average movie-goer will probably skip right over that but to me it is a perfect example of the lack of ambition inherent to the film. Scott and Lindelof aren't interested in exploring questions any further than just asking the questions. And by asking the questions, I mean they have characters, at various times, asking these questions directly.

Prometheus is a visual marvel, I cannot call attention away from that. It looks absolutely phenomenal - quite possibly the best looking film of the year. But there's nothing really going on underneath that. The film is all surface, desperately pretending to have hidden depths but failing to engage in any meaningful way. It doesn't hold a candle to the original beast and Alien still stands tall as the greatest of them all. 

As a bonus: I think I've solved the riddle of Prometheus. In the film, the Engineer's (the space jockey creators of human life) are killed off some 2,000 years ago, just before they're readying to wipe out life on earth. And the question is asked (often but, again, barely explored): why? I think I have the answer. What happened 2,000 odd years ago in human history? Why, Jesus Christ of course. The Engineers got wind of this and that's where the decision came from. King of the Jews? Can't be having with that! The Engineers are inter-galactic anti-Semites. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Film review: THE HUNGER GAMES

Poster design by Ignition Print

Suzanne Collins' trilogy of YA novels have been called the new Twilight but they are much, much better than that. Where Twilight had an insipid young woman unable to define herself past the men (a sparkly vampire and shirtless werewolf) in her life, the heroine of The Hunger Games is a flinty, mature and ass-kicking young woman.

For those unfamiliar with the source material (or the numerous reviews and marketing materials spelling out the set-up): in a far, far future the remains of North America are constituted in the new country of Panem. Panem is made up of the Capitol and 12 outlying Districts, with each District providing some much needed service to the Capitol. The Districts that lie closer to the Capitol, such as 1 and 2, share some of their wealth while those outlying Districts, such as 11 and 12, are poverty stricken and all but forgotten. To punish the Districts for daring to rebel against the Capitol 74 years previous, each of the 12 Districts must put forth a young man and a young woman to compete in the annual Hunger Games - a televised fight-to-the-death where teenagers compete against one another (and the Game-makers) to survive.

It is into this hard life in District 12 that Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen finds herself - with a dead coal-miner of a father, an emotionally crippled mother and a younger sister, Prim, who Katniss loves more than anything and would do anything to protect. Katniss and her best friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) supplement their meagre food rations by illegally hunting game in the wild - something that will come in handy for Katniss. It is Prim's first time in the ballot for the annual Reaping - the ceremony that randomly selects Tributes - and, of course, it is her name chosen as the female Tribute for District 12. Willing to do anything, Katniss instead volunteers herself in her sister's place. And so she finds herself questioning how far she'll go to survive and what it will cost her to get home.

As premises go, it's hardly an original one, with the novel and film sharing DNA with a number of sources/influences; everything from Lord of the Flies to The Running Man to Death Race 2000 to, yes, Battle Royale and Winter's Bone. But, quite frankly, that is nothing to hold against it. The Hunger Games is not a direct rip-off of anything in particular, but merely uses similar situations and setting to explore its own ideas and themes.

Gary Ross, the director of Pleasantville and Seabiscuit, is not the first choice one would assume for a big sci-fi franchise starter. But it was an incredibly astute choice: his previous films have a focus on character and means his is a more subtle touch. He is comfortable allowing a look or a small action to stand in for a long, expository and didactic speech. I'm not so sure about the choice of using shakey-cam throughout the film. The style has begun to grate with me lately; instead of the intended affect of making me feel closer to the action, it in fact just draws attention to itself. The introduction to the world of District 12 is especially choppy, Ross constantly careening the camera around and cutting before we can get more than a glimpse of anything. It does settle down, thankfully, and allows the film to work its way into you.

The anchor for the whole film, the character and actress it all hangs around is Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen. She was astounding in her debut in Winter's Bone and in The Hunger Games she amps it up further. There's a lot beneath the surface of the character of Katniss, a lot that is left unsaid. But it's all there in Lawrence's performance. Whether it be as the provider for her family, the person who desperately volunteers as tribute to save her sister from the barbarity of the Games, the tough country girl attempting to preen for the cameras or the girl who finds herself, moments before the Games begin, shaking with a fear she cannot quite control.

For those of us that have read the novels, there are some revisions and additions to the text of the novel as there should be in any decent adaptation. And they all serve the story, as they should do with any decent adaptation. The Hunger Games is a serious minded science-fiction film, with a compelling lead character and a fair few interesting ideas hidden beneath the young faces and genre trappings.

Also, as a final note: The Hunger Games is not, as has been "hilariously" tweeted and retweeted "Battle Royale with cheese". I love Battle Royale but, godsdammit, it was not the first film to pit kids against one another and it CERTAINLY wasn't the first time audiences were entertained by death-matches. Did you catch all the very Roman names in The Hunger Games? Yeah, there's a reason for that. Sorry. It just feels like a lot of people being very lazy with their criticism towards The Hunger Games, with more than a whiff of the "Hunger Games are so lame 'cos I remember when I saw that cult foreign film that one time". Yes, there are similarities but it really wouldn't be the first time this has ever happened in the history of fiction. 

Film review: JOHN CARTER

From Mondo Tees, by JC Richard:
vastly superior to any of the official work

John Carter is a big-budget science-fiction adventure film, from a celebrated animation director branching out into live-action and based on a popular series of pulp novels first published over 100 years ago. And to top it all of, the series of novels have been so influential on pop culture over that last century or so, almost every beat of the story and every character detail has been re-appropriated by other filmmakers.

Andrew Stanton, director of Pixar classics Finding Nemo and WALL.E, had his work cut for himself then, bringing this long gestating passion project to the big screen. But as Brad Bird recently proved with Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, animation directors can make the successful leap to live-action. And so, despite a lacklustre marketing campaign and numerous critics condemning before it had even been released, I was looking forward to John Carter; especially to see if this proto-science-fiction tale stacked up.

The story finds ex-Confederate soldier John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) on the run from, well, damn near everyone. He's a complex man of conflicting characteristics:  a man weary of war who doesn't shy away from throwing himself into a fight. He is quickly established as a hurt, ornery man with a crafty intelligence and, while taking refuge in a cave lined with gold, finds himself miraculously and quite accidentally transported to Mars. The planet is known as Barsoom by it's, largely humanoid, inhabitants who are themselves all caught up in a planet-wide civil war: the evil, resource devouring Zodangans fighting the last outpost of Helium. Caught up on the sidelines are the Tharks - a harsher, more primitive race of 8-feet tall green-skinned, be-tusked, four-armed aliens.

It is a tribe of Tharks, and their leader the kinder, more thoughtful Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe), who first discover Carter on Mars. And thanks to the lower gravity on Mars/Barsoom Carter is gifted with vastly increased strength, able to leap huge distances in a single bound - he is very much a proto-Superman.

The leader of the Zodangans, Sab Than (Dominic West) is gifted with an ultimate weapon by the shady and manipulative Matai Shang (Mark Strong) - a member of an incredibly powerful godlike beings. He decimates the Heliumite forces, but offers to cease all hostilities if the Princess of Helium, Deja Thoris (Lynn Collins) consents to marry him. She runs and Carter (very literally) leaps to her rescue. Carter is a wrinkle in the plans of Matai Shang and finds himself becoming more and more involved with the world and war of Barsoom.

Yes, there is a lot of heavy plot mechanics and silly sci-fi names going on here. But there is also a fully conceived and constructed world. Obviously there is a vast amount of original material that Stanton and fellow script-writers Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon have been able to pull from to create this world. But it was these details, these constructions, that made me happy to go along for the ride; I never felt like the filmmakers were talking down to their audience.

And Lynn Collins' Deja Thoris - the Princess of Mars of the original story's title - is the strongest female character in science-fiction since Princess Leia and Ellen Ripley. In fact, it isn't difficult to see how much the character influenced Lucas' creation of Leia. Deja Thoris is strong, smart (she's not only a scientist but the lead scientist), an ass-kicking warrior who throws herself into the fray and who carries herself with an effortless sex appeal. Collins absolutely invests herself in the role, delivering even the most ridiculous sounding sci-fi dialogue with heart. She is a true bright spot in the film; offering heart, smarts and sex appeal.

Stanton proves himself no slouch in the action department. One scene in particular is a remarkable stand-out; Carter throws himself into a rampaging band of Tharks and becomes a one-man rampage. Stanton uses the scene to reveal the broken heart of the character and not just as an excuse to show-off some cool lookin' shit.

John Carter is hardly a revelation of a film or even a break-away hit; it has it's shaky moments, when you feel like it hasn't quite been carried off. But it certainly isn't the boring stinker a lot of people are proclaiming it to be. There's crazy aliens, a genuinely cute six-legged dog sidekick, a beautiful princess, a reticent hero and delicate solar powered ships that sail through the sky. The plot workings get a bit intricate and complicated but John Carter, overall, works. 

Film review: CHRONICLE

I think it would be safe to say that the gimmick of "found footage" films are quickly wearing thin for me. Sure, it's been an interesting approach to make in a couple of horror films but, along with shakey-cam, I'm pretty much over the poorly framed, jerky, hard-to-watch camera-work. Not to mention the suspension of disbelief you have to enter into with each new found footage film; we're supposed to buy into the fact that someone is going to keep filming while a bunch of crazy-ass stuff is going-on around them and, more often that not, their friends are dying. Not to mention that each of the camera-wielding characters are preternaturally gifted at framing, lighting and recording amazing sound with shitty camera mikes.

It's a technique that has primarily been exposed in horror, with The Blair Witch Project famously kicking it all off back in '99 (though found footage films had been around for awhile before then). Each year seems to bring a new entry, from the Paranormal Activity and [REC] series to one-off films such as Diary of the Dead and The Devil Inside and any number of lesser known, low budget shit-fests. And, like I said, the gimmick is getting tired.

Then again... then again... There have been attempts in recent years to expand the "found footage" movie out of the horror genre where it has found itself trapped recently. Cloverfield gave us a found footage monster movie, while Troll Hunter was a fantasy-monster-adventure-horror flick. And now Chronicle is the found footage superhero movie.

Andrew initially begins recording his life because his mother is sick and dying, while his father is out of work on a disability benefit and often drunk and abusive. He wants to, I dunno, chronicle his sad little life and the abuse he gets from his father. Andrew's best (and, in fact, only friend) is his cousin Matt. Matt is on the opposite side of the spectrum to Andrew; where Andrew is socially awkward, withdrawn and suffers bullying, Matt thinks himself too smart and cool to be bothered with being smart and cool. Andrew is dragged along to a party by Matt in attempt to help bring him out of his shell. Instead, they and popular jock & all-round nice guy Steve discover a weird hole in the ground. This hole leads to a cave, which leads to a weird glowing crystal that zaps them and grants them all superpowers - telekinesis.

The three boys begin to learn how to use and control their newfound powers and find themselves getting stronger and closer to one another. They are all, somehow, connected. The movie never makes any big bones about this or tries to offer up an explanation for it, or any other aspects of their powers - which is a refreshing change from the over-explanation given in most modern blockbusters. These moments of discovery are easily the best moments in the film - when the trio learn to fly, they speed, loop and holler with joy through the clouds. This is also when the found footage conceit really works best, when there are moments captured you feel like you would actually capture yourself. The fact, too, that these guys enjoy their powers and have a blast using them - whether its flying or pulling pranks on unsuspecting folks - it feels far more real and honest than, well, any other reaction in other superhero films. I know if I ever gained superpowers and was able to fly around I would fucking love it.

Things begin to take a turn for the worse as Andrew, a confused boy filled with anger at the world and suffering abuse at home, begins to abuse his powers. In one of the creepier moments in the film, he uses his powers to dangle a spider in mid-air, before torturing and killing it. It's a powerful character moment and says more than any explosive demonstration could. Not even a sudden leap in popularity, helped along by Steve, does him any good. It all culminates in a massive psychic slugfest in downtown Seattle as Matt and Andrew go at it. It's a fairly knock-down, no-holds barred affair with the team making the most of their limited budget. It's a final battle that works as more than just pyrotechnics and noise, as there has been strong character work done by screenwriter Max Landis and the actors to bring us here.

However, as with the majority of these found footage films, is there some sort of unwritten rule that these characters have to be annoying dickbags? Andrew, the main character/villain/camera operator is a snivelling, friendless and largely charisma-free character. There are strongly established reasons for all of this, and Dane DeHaan is fairly fearless in the way he embraces the worst aspects of this character, but it really wore me down. I don't have to agree or like a protagonist but there has to be something there; some sort of reason as to why I should follow this person through the story. 

The found footage film is one that ultimately brings attention to itself, by having to explain why everything is being filmed and by having the characters continually address the audience, through the camera. You also have to believe in the innate and flawless skills of these (mostly first-time) camera-men. And in Chronicle the conceit is used fairly loosely - are we really supposed to believe that Andrew's dad wouldn't just simply smash the camera? One character is introduced simply for there to be another camera recording things when Andrew isn't around. Not to mention the fact that the entire conceit gets defenestrated come the final confrontation.

Chronicle is an interesting, intelligent and refreshing examination of the old superhero nuggets of power and responsibility but it never quite reaches as high as I was expecting. Part of that is down to the found footage aesthetic; perhaps if it had only been used sparingly and at certain moments I would have bought it more. 

IN APPRECIATION OF... ROBOCOP

"Come quietly or there will be... trouble."

I love RoboCop. No, that's not quite right. I unashamedly and unreservedly fuckin' love everything about the film RoboCop. I love the violence, the humour, Peter Weller, the 80's futurism, its subversiveness, RoboCop's MASSIVE gun, Miguel Ferrer, ED-209, ED-209 squealing, exploding Emil, Kurtwood Smith, Paul Verhoeven's balls, RoboCOP POV, "I'd buy that for a dollar!" and just damned everything.

The first time I ever watched Paul Verhoeven's muscular vision of a dystopian future, RoboCop, was on VHS, recorded off the telly. It was a, somewhat random, double-feature with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and those two films were my introduction to cinematic violence. While I was perhaps too young for RoboCop (the memory of my exact age has become dimmed with increasing age) I thrilled to it. The violence, while not disturbing me as much as the heart extraction in Temple of Doom, was certainly extreme. And I was far too young and immature to fully grasp the larger themes that Verhoeven was interested in. But something of them trickled through; something of the twisted humour, the rather anti-authoritarian and anti-corporate stance.

In the years since I have become a fan of Paul Verhoeven. The man has had his fair share of Hollywood stinkers - Hollow Man, Showgirls - but his standout films - Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Black Book - have been works of demented, uncompromising genius. 1987's RoboCop was the director's first major Hollywood work and is typical of his style and carries many of his cinematic quirks and obsessions; a propensity for gruesome violence, distrustful of corporate/government institutions and greed, science-fiction and a frank openness to sex and sexuality. Don't forget, this is a man who grew up in the Netherlands during the time of Nazi occupation and was surrounded by destruction and death for some of his most formative years.

But he melds, combines, synthesis these ideas and themes with a thrilling cinematic action-film. It has been stated that Verhoeven saw the character of RoboCop as a Christ-like figure; the shotgun blasts to officer Murphy's hands and arms representing the stigmata, while the shot to the head represents the Crown of Thorns. Murphy is then, of course, reborn. I love that a Verhoeven vision of Christ is a cyborg law enforcer carrying a massive Beretta in his leg. Or, more specifically, Verhoeven's vision of an American Christ - when words and turning the other cheek fails... BLAM! BLAM! BOOM!

Let's not forget that RoboCop is not solely a creation of Paul Verhoeven. In point of fact he initially rejected the script by Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner. Neither of them have written anything particularly decent since (Neumeier also wrote Verhoeven's hilarious and splattery Starship Troopers) but with RoboCop they managed to capture something of the zeitgeist.

In fact, I very much doubt if a film like RoboCop as it currently exists would be able to be made in today's Hollywood system. Past the surface details of the explosions and production design, RoboCop is a film brimming with ideas, subtext and thematic explorations. It's the kind of intelligent, yet still thrilling popcorn-entertainment, science-fiction that Hollywood doesn't really do anymore. That ground seems to be covered by lower budget films like Primer, District 9 and Monsters. 2010's Inception probably came the closest to a big-budget but still intelligent science-fiction film in recent years. But compare Nolan's dry, well-constructed intelligence and entertainment to Verhoeven's gory, funny, pop-infused, slyly subversive ride. To me, there's no contest. I know which film I'd prefer to watch over and over again.

From RoboCop, there have been any number of other works spinning out from the original film; a couple of sequels, a TV series, cartoons, video-games and  comic-books. He's faced off against Aliens, the Terminator and probably Rocky Balbooa. I'm quite happy to say I've not seen, read or played any of these. RoboCop remains, to me, a singular experience. Even if RoboCop 3 promised a RoboCop with a jetpack. The design of RoboCop, for all the arguments and near-fisticuffs that went into it, is iconic. The man behind the creation of that suit, the Rick Baker trained Rob Bottin, and Verhoeven by all reports clashed constantly, at one point almost coming to blows. Of course, none of that really matters; the proof of their work is up there on screen: RoboCop. A character so iconic, there was a movement to erect a statue to him in Detroit and who, bestride a unicorn with a very strong back, became a popular internet meme in 2008.

There is, as there always is, talk of a remake floating around. It's talk that has been in the ether for a number of years now. At one point it looked increasingly likely that Darren Arronofsky was going to be the one to bring it on home. And he would have been one of the few directors I actually would have trusted to do something interesting with the material. Like him or not, Aronofsky always has something to say in his films. However, he walked and it seemed as if RoboCop 2.0 would either fall by the wayside or be picked up by some hacky hack with nothing interesting to say like McG, Scott Derrickson or Len Wiseman. Instead, the current man attached is Brazilian director Jose Padilha. After seeing his Elite Squad II: The Enemy Within I'm a little happier about the remake. Elite Squad II was a solidly entertaining genre film, with a lot to say and an effective way of saying it. Could RoboCop be Padilha's RoboCop? Padilha has stated his film will explore more of what it means to be a man turned into a machine; Padilha is aiming for something more philosophical and less political it seems.

Approaching RoboCop as an overtly political film and statement is an interesting exercise and the comparisons to Neumeier and Verhoeven's Starship Troopers are readily apparent. Both men are on the political left; both liberals, yet both of these films can be seen as fascist and right-leaning. I instead see them as poking fun at these sorts of ideas, approaching them in a tongue-and-cheek manner. It's a delicate balancing act and Neumeier and Verhoeven just manage it. The use of fake news broadcasts, commercials (the 6000 SUX and Nuke 'Em boardgame) serve to set-up the wider world in amongst some truly absurd humour. Essentially, they're setting up an incorporated, fascist world and undercutting it at the same time.

But let's not forget: RoboCop is fun. A hell of a lot of fun in fact. When I watch it nowadays, I'm more aware of the ideas and themes going on in the film - RoboCop as a Christ-like figure or as a man struggling to regain his humanity; the send up of the "greed is good" mentality; the film even serves as a template for the modern superhero origin story. But there's a part of me that will always be that boy thrilling to the imperfect, B-movie, iconic, violent, funny, low-brow and deliriously glorious RoboCop. I hope to experience it on the big screen one day.

Part man. Part machine. All cop. Yer damn right.

Further watching:

RoboKid - the cutest little cyborg-crimefighter around. With a signed photo from RoboCop himself, Peter Weller.

Total Recall - Verhoeven's adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short-story We Can Remeber it For You Wholesale starring Arnie, Sharon Stone and a chick with three tits. Another insane & pulpy sci-fi ride with some larger questions lurking just below the surface. "Get your ass to Mars!"

Starship Troopers - the first Verhoeven film I saw in a cinema and one that is hilarious, explosive and fantastically bone-headed at times. Casper van Dien and Denise Richards are no great thespians but Neil Patrick Harris and Michael Ironside are a lot fun. "D'you wanna live forever?!"

Black Book - Verhoeven's first film back in his native Netherlands since his move to Hollywood. An epic, moving and just downright stunning film about one Jewish woman's attempts to survive during the Nazi occupation.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - the Peter Weller starring cult classic that really is quite mad. Description doesn't really quite do it justice. "I've been ionized, but I'm okay now."

Elite Squad and Elite Squad II: The Enemy Within - RoboCop remake director Jose Padilha's first two feature films; excellent action films with a political message of their own. 

24.10: REAL STEEL

From Warrior to Real Steel... both ostensibly sports films, but both very, very different approaches. Where Warrior strove for a more grounded (though still heightened) world, Real Steel features boxing robots. However, in a further congruence both films have a surprisingly effective emotional core and both feature broken families, with an emphasis on flawed father figures.

In Real Steel that flawed father is Hugh Jackman's washed up boxer, Charlie Kenton. Back when boxing was still featuring human boxers, he was an up-and-coming star. With the advent of robot boxing though, his star quickly fades and he finds himself dragging a rusting old robot around the fringes of the sport, constantly trying to stay a few steps ahead of his creditors. This ragged existence of his is interrupted when his ex-girlfriend dies and Charlie has to take some sort of responsibility for his son - a son he doesn't know or want.

The extent to which the film goes to make Jackman's Charlie a complete asshole of a dad is actually really stunning and brave, especially in a Disney family film. Charlie Kenton is not only a guy who has had nothing to do with his 11 year-old son Max but who actively sells the kid to his ex-girlfriend's sister. Charlie needs money, the kid's aunt's husband has money and so Charlie brokers a deal. I mean, this guy is an asshole. But, y'know, at the same time he's Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman, a man with a very high charisma quotient. So Charlie still scrapes by as a charming sonuvabitch. The child-trading aside, Charlie has one summer to spend with his son before the smart-ass tyke goes to live with his aunt. So Charlie, not wanting some annoying kid slowing him up, tries to dump the kid with another ex. But Max is too smart for that; he's big in to robot boxing and wants to spend some time on the road with his dad learning about it. They're both incredibly clear-eyed about the father-son relationship - Max tumbles to his dad's selling of him fairly quickly - but the two of them come to know, appreciate and love one another.

Yep, Real Steel is not just a movie about robots pounding seven shades of crap out of each other (helloooooo Transformers 3!) but features an emotional "A" story about an estranged father and son bonding. And director Shawn Levy - the man behind such classic "comedies" as Cheaper by the Dozen and Just Married  - manages to not club the audience over the head with enforced pathos and obvious emotional manipulation. It seems when he isn't troubling over the "comedy", Levy can get some emotional honesty from a film. Or, the fact that screenwriter John Gatins is no stranger to uplifting sports movies - Coach Carter, Dreamer, Hardball - could also have helped, even if none of them ever really caught on. In fact, it seems like Gatins has only written sports films; know your niche I guess. Through whatever thrice-damned alchemy they used, they crucially never overstep into the overwrought or cloying sentimentality that could have otherwise crippled the film. 

As Max's bot Atom - old, clunky, can take a beating but can't dish it out - progresses successfully through bout after bout, the plucky trio catch the eye of the robot boxing big leagues. Max is a smart and fired up kid - he won't sell Atom and he won't quit. He's a little bit of a jerk, but understandably so - his father did walk out on him and then try to sell him. He's also smart - smarter than his dad, as is constantly shown throughout the film - but he's also still just a goofy kid; he's fascinated by the robots because, c'mon! What kid wouldn't be? The connection Max makes to this old sparring bot he digs up is realistically childlike and unforced. A lot of this is down to Dakota Goyo's portrayal of Max and the easy rapport he has going on with Jackman. As someone who is more accustomed to the annoying kid characters that are so obviously designed to try and fit a "cool, hip and outsider" mold and just don't, Max is something of a relief.

Real Steel is far from perfect; I wouldn't call it a great piece of cinema and it makes no pretense of striving for that. I would, however, say that the film and it's makers are upfront and honest about what it is and what it's goals are. Much like one of Charlie's robots, Real Steel is a pieced together machine of other films. But the machine works so well, with a plucky trio at the heart of it all, you barely notice the gears. 

19.09: ATTACK THE BLOCK

Alternate poster by Deadlydelmundo via the
Posterocalypse tumblr

Joe Cornish's Attack the Block is a film I have been reading a lot about over the course of the year - it has been playing many film festivals overseas, enjoying a gradual release across the United States and had great word of mouth spread through the blogosphere. When I was recently in the States, I was lucky enough to catch it for myself (as it doesn't open in NZ on general release until March next year). If you have not heard of Attack the Block until just right now, it's an alien invasion flick set in a London block of council/low-rent flats with a young gang of "hoodies" as the heroes. It's well good. 

Comparisons have been made to Edgar Wright's debut feature, Shaun of the Dead, and it's easy to see why: Cornish has taken a typically big budget American genre (in this case alien invasion) and transplanted it successfully to a very British setting; Cornish and Wright are mates and both worked on the script for Tintin and have been working on an Ant-Man script for Marvel (Wright is also a producer for Attack the Block); both have performances from Nick Frost. But that's where the comparisons between the two end. Oh, except for Attack the Block also being really, really good. 

Cornish quickly sets up our band of hoodlums and associated block dwellers: Sam (Jodie Whittaker) is a young nurse, recently moved to the area and one night when on her way home she is accosted and mugged by the hooded and bandana clad gang. It's at this point something crashes down from the sky; the kids investigate and eventually chase and kill it. The gang is led by the badass Moses (John Boyega) and though we're introduced to the rest of this motley crew (none really as tough as they project) Moses is the heart and soul of the film. Sam is also a presence throughout the film and the relationship that unfolds between her and these kids is central to the film and the underlying themes; yes, this is a genre film that has something more to say. It's an interesting, potentially offputting, decision by Cornish to have a gang of kids rather than the typical sweet faced moppets (see Super 8) fronting up to the alien invasion. But then, Attack the Block is not your typical film. But Cornish gets the audience involved with these kids, who they are and what they're about. They might be little hooded shits, but they aren't without sympathy. As such, when things eventually get vicious and characters start dropping left, right and centre you actually give a damn about it - these aren't just disposable bodies there for the cheap thrills.

Cornish has an excellent handle on pace and storytelling. He effortlessly sets up moments in the beginning that will payoff later and economically providing background and motivation to the various characters. Each character gets at least one moment, one moment where Cornish provides some reason for us to care about them. The script is incredibly tight, again reminiscent of Shaun of the Dead as there isn't a wasted moment of screentime. The action sequences, as things intensify, are well planned and executed. They are tense, exciting and always have a payoff; they are about as far from "cool shit thrown at the screen to see what sticks" filmmaking as it is possible to get. The design of the aliens, however, is indeed some cool shit. These aliens are true beasts; like hybrid dog/gorillas with fur blacker than shadows in the night, no eyes and luminescent razor sharp teeth. They are a phenomenal design and the fact that, for the most part, they seem to be very physical presences rather than CGI creations makes them even scarier and downright badass. No ridiculous skin-bags around here, thankyouverymuch Mr. Abrams. 

Attack the Block is yet more proof that the indie sci-fi is in good health (better health, in fact than it's loud, brash big brother the Hollywood sci-fi). The script is tight as a drum, the tone switching from comedy to horror to action to gritty and dark and back round to comedy again. While not an out-and-out comedy like Shaun of the Dead, it's still a damned funny film. If you're one of the folks lucky enough to be going to the 24 Hour Movie Marathon next month in Auckland, you'll be in for a treat with this. As for myself, I can't wait to see it again when it finally gets a general release here in NZ. Allow it. 

04.09: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Up until last year I had only ever seen the original Planet of the Apes, and I had seen that years ago. The pre-eminent thing I’d heard of the Apes series had been how the budget had been slashed and slashed and slashed for the subsequent sequels. As such, I didn’t really expect much from it. Then, last year, my partner and I sat and watched the entire series of films (on VHS no less!). I was actually astounded at how good they (mostly) were, and how they all strove to say something about our society as humans then and now. It iss a bonkers series, no doubt about it – the second film ends with the entire planet blowing up after a nuclear warhead is set off by a bunch of religious nutters who worship it (hmmm...) – but there is some serious intelligent thought behind it all. Planet of the Apes is a stone-cold cinematic classic and my favourite of the sequels is easily Conquest of the Planet of the Apes – where the slave apes, led by the hyper-intelligent Caesar, throw off the shackles of slavery and revolt against their human masters. There is some barmy sci-fi in there, but the film is really aiming to say something and seems to carry a real anger inside it.

The news that Fox were, once again, aiming to restart the Apes franchise filled me with more than a little trepidation. But then I began to hear great things about the script and how they were using Conquest as a jumping off point (rather than throwing out the baby, bathwater and logic as Tim Burton did). The end result; with a fairly great cast, astonishing performance capture from WETA and honest intelligence, is really very, very good.

The film begins in the jungle, as a family of chimpanzees are hunted and captured. I think it’s important to note here that no real apes or people in ape costumes were used for the entirety of the film. Every single ape is a performance captured digital creature and they look astonishing. Though some of the other visual effects come across a little hokey, the money has been spent in the right place with the apes. These captured apes are brought to San Francisco where they are used for medical drug trials – in this case, a possible cure for Alzheimer’s developed by brilliant bio-chemist James Franco. One female ape, “Bright Eyes”, shows particular promise with the drug not only working but enhancing her cognitive functions too. However, she rampages through the facility and Franco’s experiment is shut down. It is only afterwards they discover Bright Eyes was only trying to protect her child – a child Franco takes home. Franco and his father, once a pianist now deteriorating with Alzheimer’s himself (Jon Lithgow), name the baby ape Caesar and Franco raises him as his own son. Caesar grows into an intelligent, active young ape confused about his place in the world.

It is only when the adult Caesar, in the act of protecting Lithgow, attacks a neighbour and is placed in an animal shelter that the film really gets going. The shelter is run as more of a prison by Bryan Cox and his evil twerp of a son, Draco Malfoy. It is here that the majority of Caesar’s arc takes place, as he experiences firsthand the cruelty and callousness of humans towards apes – as he feels abandoned by Franco and as he witnesses fellow apes being carted off to the biotech lab where Franco works. Caesar first takes control of the apes, and then plans the breakout and ensuing revolution.

Director Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist, this being only his second feature film) keeps the pace up and helps to really make Caesar the star. There’s a reason I haven’t named any of the human characters – because I can’t remember their names and they barely matter anyway. To a studio flick aimed at restarting a franchise, Wyatt brings a number of deft, intelligent touches – the leaves falling as the apes move through the trees and the cutting across large swathes of time. There are some holes in the story (and considering the number of hands the script went through, it’s not a big surprise) but they only become apparent afterwards, if you really think about them. For the rest of the film, you are fully engaged in this smart story of a young revolutionary who helps raise his people up against their callous and fearful oppressors. He just happens to be an ape.

FANTASTIC FEST: DAY SIX

The storm clouds a-gather.

Fuck yes. After my two film day yesterday, today was packed with awesomeness. PACKED. I got to one of my most anticipated films at the Fest: Nacho Vigalondo's Extraterrestrial! HUZZAH! I have spent the entire day watching movies. I am exhausted, a little sickly, sore and I feel fuckin' FANTASTIC. Let's kick this shit off. 

The first film of my packed day was the night-club set French thriller Sleepless Night. It's a tight film, chronicling one corrupt cop's fight to rescue his son from drug dealers he stole from. Things are kept taut throughout, as the corrupt cop has to deal with the drug dealer and his crew, the buyer, his equally corrupt partner, an Internal Affairs investigator and one honest cop. They all collide in a massive and packed nightclub over the course of one night. It's an economical thriller that sets up a goal for the protagonist and then goes about placing obstructions and complications in front of him - and keeps on throwing them at him. It manages to make you feel some sympathy towards this corrupt jerk of a cop - mainly due to the unbelievable amount of violence and pain he has to go through to get his son back.

Next up was an interesting Korean take on individuals with superpowers, Haunters. It's a much smaller film than I initially thought it would be, focusing on two individuals with extra-normal abilities who are as opposite as is possible. the one-legged Cho-In has had a brutal childhood, moreso after his parents discover his freakish ability to control anyone he can see. His father tries to kill him but instead ends up dead himself and Cho-In on his own. 20 years later, he's alone and living from hotel to hotel and taking money from loan offices to live. Kyu-Nam works at a scrap-metal yard with his two best friends, Bubba from Ghana and Al from Turkey. After miraculously surviving being hit by a truck, he's fired from his job but gains employment at a loan office. And that's when Cho-In and Kyu-Nam come into conflict; Kyu-Nam is the only person that Cho-In cannot control. This is the set up for the rest of the film as Kyu-Nam takes it upon himself to stop Cho-In and their conflict escalates further and further with Kyu-Nam's amazing ability to heal and Cho-In's ruthless control of people. It works, for the most part, although the tone veers wildly from serious & creepy to cheesy and humorous.

After Haunters, and Day Six of the Fest, I was really feeling the fatigue. I felt like I'd hit a wall - my brain was sludgey and sparking off in random directions, my limbs felt heavy and I just wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep. But I've got three films to go! Also, it rained briefly. I love the smell of rain on hot concrete. I loaded up on caffeine and sugar and headed into my next screening.

Director Nacho Vigalondo answers questions
from Ain't it Cool News honcho (and Fantastic
Fest co-founder) Harry Knowles

Finally. This is one of the films I have been hanging out for all Fest and could not be happier I was getting into: Nacho Vigalondo's Extraterrestrial. This is the follow-up film to his debut Timecrimes, which blew me away a little bit when I caught it at the NZIFF a couple of years ago. But Extraterrestrial is an entirely different film to that, while still feeling like a Nacho Vigalondo film. Where Timecrimes was very serious and complex, Extraterrestrial is a rom-com... that just happens to unfold while a giant UFO hovers over Madrid. It pretty much all takes place in and around one apartment as Julio and Julia wake-up after a particularly drunken one-night stand together. They've been passed out for the entire day and soon notice something's wrong: there's no-one around anywhere and all cellphone and TV reception is cut off. Oh hey, that's why - there's a ruddy great flying saucer hanging out over downtown! Things become even more complicated for Julio and Julia when Angel, Julia's neighbour who carries an obsessive torch for her, and Carlos, Julia's boyfriend, show up. There are lies and fast-talking in an effort to cover things up and they spiral out of control, just like in a typical rom-com. The film is carried largely by it's charm, both from director Vigalondo and the two leads: Michelle Jenner as Julia and Julian Villagran as Julio (he also took out Best Actor at the Fantastic Fest Awards). Extraterrestrial is a very different film to Timecrimes but still not what you'd expect. I'm looking forward to seeing it again and what Vigalondo brings out next.

Actor, producer & Elijah Wood ass-kicker Dominic
Monaghan chats to Hitfix.com's Drew McWeeny

Careening straight from the Q&A with Nacho and Knowles I headed straight into the Dominic Monaghan starring (and produced) post-apocalyptic film The Day. Another film set almost entirely in one location, The Day finds five survivors of the unnamed apocalypse holed up in an abandoned farmhouse. However, all is not as it seems and they're soon under attack by bloodthirsty (quite literally) cannibals. It's a very low budget affair, and it unfortunately shows in some pretty terrible digital blood FX. I kind of hope this type of thing is in an "unfinished" stage and with the film having been recently picked up for distribution by WWE (yes, the wrestling guys) they can go back and touch this stuff up. The Day is ok, everyone involved obviously believing in the project in one way or another though the script could have perhaps been tighter, with some pretty obvious attempts at increasing the tension standing out. Although I appreciated that we are all but dropped into this post-apocalyptic landscape with no explanation given as to the mass-extinction event that led us here; for these types of films, I don't believe the reason behind the existing world is necessary or all that important. They're about survival and what people are ultimately willing to do to survive. The ass-kicking Ashley Bell is the odd-one-out in this otherwise tight group, carrying around a history she'd rather not reveal or revisit. It's a noble effort, especially with such a low budget and for being shot in 13 days, but it needed a little more tightening and cleaning up to really hit home.

After The Day I'm feeling a little post-apocalyptic myself. I'm definitely getting sick. I can feel it - exhaustion, throat closing up... but dammit! I'm not going to let a little thing like that stop me! No, I've still got the midnight show of Zombie Ass to go! Noboru Iguchi's Zombie Ass is exactly the type of film I would only expect to find at Fantastic Fest. This is a bizarre horror sci-fi comedy fetish film about five young people coming across a village infested with zombie-alien-parasite-butt-worms. Heroine Megumi lost her younger sister Ai when she committed suicide after being bullied at school; since then Megumi has studied karate continuously and is still getting over her guilt. Heading off on a camping trip with a bizarre collection of friends in an effort to out-run her guilt, they stumble upon the weirdest zombie infestation ever filmed. Iguchi indulges his obvious love for the female bottom (as he put it: "I love ass") and poop and fart jokes. This is a schlock Japanese exploitation flick, with Iguchi championing his own fetishes and wicked sense of humour, carried through with a crazy digital score and outrageous over-the-top, well, everything. I have to say, I enjoyed Zombie Ass, just for the fact that it is so out there and very much for a particular audience. A singular film.

FANTASTIC FEST: DAY TWO

From Mondo Tees: Fantasticness

Oh boy, I did NOT want to wake up this morning. I've been having a little trouble sleeping (I, once again, blame the heat) and so picked up some sleeping pills yesterday to help knock me out. They did at that, but damn if they weren't still in effect when I had to wake up 5-and-a-half hours later. Anyway, fighting past the grogginess I was logged on to the Fantastic Fest ticket website in time to miss getting tickets for A Boy and His Samurai, Sennentuntschi and Extraterrestrial (all films on my list to bloody well see). But that's the great thing about Fantastic Fest - there just other awesome films to see! A Boy and His Samurai and The Yellow Sea were both sold out for the first lot of screenings today, meaning Milocrorze, A Love Story was all but empty; which is a damned shame as it is a candy-coloured pop explosion head-trip on your eyeballs. I don't even know where to begin... Well, ok. Ovreneli Vreneligare is a bright-orange haired moppet, with pink tartan pants and a green argyle sweater. One day while in the park he meets the Great Milocrorze and falls hopelessly in love. When she abandons him, he has to cover the hole in his heart with a pot lid. And then we move swiftly on to Besson Kumagai, a misogynistic Male Youth Counsellor, prone to breaking out into dance. The tale of one-eyed samurai Tamon and his search for his kidnapped love is the last, and longest, of the three. Milocrorze is a weird, heady concoction and is one of those films that only comes along every once in a while.

Invasion of Alien Bikini is another film from South Korea but way, way, way down the budget scale - in fact it was reportedly made for less than $5,000.00 USD. But that makes it no less insane and inventive, even if the majority of it takes place in one room. It really just drops you in the middle of everything, not wasting time on explaining a hell of a whole lot (except for some really obvious exposition) when it all kicks off. A man in a bright yellow jacket and wearing a fake mustache has taken it upon himself to patrol the city streets. After hearing a cry for help, he saves a young woman from three attackers and takes her back to his place to recover. There follows lots of talking, some flirting and Jenga. Then things get really weird... It's all played quite knowingly and with a fair amount of talent getting the most out of the measly budget, even if it does drag out with a truly bizarre ending that I'm not sure I understood.

After these two, I had a fair amount of time to kill before my next screening and so headed back to the motel. I have really loved walking down some of these suburban streets - there are some amazing homes, all with their own touch of individuality. Like the place that has, for it's front gate, a front door doorframe and all. Or the many places that have strings of lights on the porch. Or the many squirrels or an opossum. I wouldn't see great stuff like this if I was always driving everywhere.

On the way back to the Alamo, I hit up The Mighty Cone for dinner - another diner trailer, just up from my motel on South Congress. The eponymous cones are like burritos but, well, cones. They don't fry their food but "deep saute" - even the avocado! Anyways YUM. And again, walking back to the Alamo I got to watch an amazing sunset. The sky out here just seems... bigger oddly enough.

The final film for the day was the Belgian farm-noir Bullhead. The centre of the film is Matthias Schoenaerts' Jacky Vanmarsenille. Jacky is a monster of a man, lumbering around pumped full of testosterone and who-knows what other hormones. He's a tragic character though, with a deep trauma in the past that still defines him. The film delves into the illegal use of hormones in the Belgian meat market and makes excellent use of the language barriers within the country (between the French speaking Walloons and the Dutch speaking Flemish). It's a slow film, director Michael Roskam really taking his time setting everything up and playing out. It doesn't build to a slow burn though and perhaps takes too long to play out. But the character of Jacky, as played by Schoenaerts, is a fascinating and quietly devastating one.

FANTASTIC FEST: DAY ONE

Psyched

Seeing as how I've only just wrapped up my last review for the New Zealand International Film Festival (that finished waaaaaay back in August) I thought I'd do the Fantastic Fest day-by-day to start with, focusing more on my experiences at the Fest and then hope to bring you actual write-ups of films as and when I can (I also have a few films I saw in between the two Festivals I'm trying to finish writing up. Terribly behind, I know).

So, how did Day One of Fantastic Fest go? Well, first off, I was incredibly happy to be spending my entire day in an air-conditioned cinema! (have I mentioned it's hot in Austin?) I got to four films in total, and as I've said I'll be writing them up in separate posts as and when I can: 

Blind, a South Korean thriller that, though it has it's own unique tension inherent to the set-up (the only witness to an abduction is a blind ex-police recruit), unfortunately pales in comparison to the other amazing South Korean thrillers I've seen this year (The Yellow Sea, I Saw the Devil). 

Borderline a French comedy about a middle-class married couple who fall into drug dealing. Genuinely hilarious and would easily fit into the larger NZIFF programme. 

Polvora Negra, a Mexican film that was, well, kinda boring. Some kind of crime story, involving variously inter-linked families in a small town. 

Manborg, a cheap-as-chips sci-fi from Winnipeg that fully embraces and celebrates the shoddy video movies of the 80's and early 90's. Shot, as the filmmakers said, almost entirely in their garage and a basement. A heady injection of insanity. This also played with a couple of shorts in front: The Incredibly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon (which I urge you to check out here) and it's sequel Spoon Wars.

Fantastic Fest is, well, kinda fantastic. The place is absolutely filled to the brim with geeks; geeks of all types and persuasions. Generally, but not exclusively, male there are folks big and small, bearded, tatted and in suits. And most people are just downright friendly - it's not hard to just start talking to someone about what they've seen so far and Fantastic Fest in general. It's a really great buzz to the Fest and marks it out as something totally different to the NZIFF. Which is not to knock the NZIFF (because I love it) but I guess it's just what you get with a film festival in one location with a "theme" to it.

And there's a fair amount of downtime between films (most of the time), as each part of the day is divided up into segments and you can only have one ticket per "segment" allowing the Alamo crew to clean the theater before the next lot of patrons begin boarding*. So, for dinner, I went across the road where a collection of three diner trailers sit together - Trey's Cuisine, The Odd Duck and Gourdough's Donuts. Folks sit around at picnic tables, lit by strings of lights, with their own booze and talk home-brew as a red-headed waitress with a large rose tattoo up her entire leg delivers orders. I got a couple of things from The Odd Duck - a trailer serving up wood-fired, organic and local food. It was also fuckin' delicious. Amazing food you'd be thankful to be served in a cafe or restaurant, let alone from a mobile diner.

In fact, that was one of the great highlights of the day - sitting down, eating amazing food, sucking down a root beer (also organic & Fair Trade) as I scribble my notes while watching the sun set and the storm clouds move in. 

And, of course, there was the Opening Night party. The Opening Night film was the don't-really-think-I'll-see-it-thanks-though Human Centipede II and the party was appropriately themed: three poor whole roast pigs lined up, well... yeah. Like, um, that. And a cocktail special called the "Laxatini". It is, however, rather discombobulating for me to go from a film festival where I pretty much know everyone to a festival where I know no-one. Yeah, most people are friendly enough but they're also all busy talking to their own old Fest friend and I'm still a crushingly shy kiwi guy. We'll see how that changes over the next week...


So that was Day One. I stumbled home around 2/2.30am in the morning, my head aching and spinning from cinematic insanity and tiredness. But I feel great. I'm here. I'm in Austin, I'm at freakin' FANTASTIC FEST. Two words sum it up really: FUCK. YEAH.




*OK. The ticketing works thus: with a regular Festival pass you can log on to the website two hours before the first session of the day and reserve your seats. You then head down to the Alamo to pick your tickets up and when you pick them up you're assigned a boarding number - like 75 or 106 - and these then get called up in lots. Seats aren't assigned, it's first in, first seated. Kind of like airplane boarding. Got it? Great.