the jaded viewer

Ink

Ink (2009)

Directed by Jamin Winans

Terry Gilliam and David Lynch would be impressed by Ink.

In the world of indie cinema, most films go into generic period pieces of romantic dramedies. Rarely do you see a film that boldly attempts to be ambitiously creative and visually stimulating. It's always the big studios that go ga ga and make movies with CGI porn and non existent plots.

But Jamin Winan's Ink is a movie that defies the stereotype of independent cinema. The Denver based director has made an adult fairy tale that paints surrealism and story on a canvas of dreams.

It has everything you would like to see in a movie. A deeply thought out story, very honest and interesting characters, top notch CGI, a look and feel like no other other movie I've ever seen. Would you not pay to see this?

Well, it seems last week nobody was actually paying for it as Ink became one of the most downloaded movies on BitTorrent. I can't stop you from d-loading it but I can tell you why it's been getting the praise and the downloads.

After watching Ink, I'll say straight out, it's one of the best indie movies I've ever seen.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

As the light fades and the city goes to sleep, two forces emerge. They are invisible except for the power they exert over us in our sleep, battling for our souls through dreams. One force delivers hope and strength through good dreams; the other infuses the subconscious with desperation through nightmares.

John (Chris Kelly) and Emma (Quinn Hunchar), Father and Daughter are wrenched into this fantastical dream world battle, forced to fight for John's soul and to save Emma from an eternal nightmare. Separate in their journey, they encounter unusual characters that exist only in their subconscious. Or do they?

Ink is a high-concept visual thriller that weaves seamlessly between the conscious and the subconscious. Ink has been hailed as the new "it" movie.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

The filmmakers have compared that film to Alex Proyas's Dark City, Kelly's Donnie Darko and Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. It mostly resembles Pan's in its surreal world of light vs dark. I like to think it has a comparison to Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen as well. But honestly, I can try to think of other movies it feels like, but Ink feels like well....Ink.

We've always been told in story or fairy tale that there is a world between sleep and wake. This is Ink. Winan has created a mythos where "Storytellers", beings who create our good dreams battle Incubuses (who grin evily, wear large glasses and have window shaped TV paintings in front of their face) who give us nightmares. Oh it seems Legion-ish yes, but the parallel is all Lifetime Movie of the Week (in a good way) where a father John tries to connect back with his daughter Emma.

So what the hell is this about you may be asking?

In the middle of a suburban night, a mysterious dream scavenger named Ink (who wears a patchwork cloak and has a large nose) kidnaps Emma's dream soul (she is in a coma in real life) to bring to the Incubi so he can join their nightmare clan. In a very jamtastic opening battle, Emma is protected by the Storytellers or dream angels (who look like young 20 somethings from Hot Topic).

The battles play out invisible to the real world. And in this aspect I was impressed. Kicks and punch, kung fu madness destroy the settings they are in. A house's tables, cabinets and windows are all destroyed during the battle but reintegrated and fixed in milliseconds. I gotta admit, it is an impressive visual, done a little Matrixy but done super duper well.

Ink, now with Emma in tow takes her on a journey into this styilized universe of dreams and nightmares. The visuals are a surrealistic journey into metaphors and subconscious nightmares. Sort of like Eraserhead and Tetsuo but slightly calmer and in enhanced HD. The dreamworld we see is like your TV with the brightness at 100.

Later they are joined by another Storyteller who is taken prisoner and soon plays friend to young Emma. Ink soon realizes he has to find 2 codes in the dreamworld to gain access to complete his mission, deliver Emma to the Incubus to become one of them.

In the parallel story is John, Emma's father. He has become a hardnosed businessman who lost custody of Emma to her grandparents after his wife died. We see his life become all about his work and a very uber emoticon scene has John confront his father in law who he blames her his loss (for both his wife and daughter).

John's journey is told in quick glimpsey flashbacks, as we see good times with his wife and the aftermath of her death. However, John is helped by the band of 3 storytellers and a Pathfinder who try to keep the Incubi (who've manipulated John to keep to his current fate) away from him. The storytellers objective is simple. Help John and Emma reconnect and save two souls.

Got all that?

Well, once you watch the movie it all becomes very clear and non ambigious as I just described. There are alot of different things all happening at the same time which is why the movie clocks in at 140 minutes.

One of the most impressive scenes has got to be the "chain reaction" created by the Pathfinder which ultimately helps John find his daughter. Winans connects scenes that occur on a city block, random occurrences all blending together to accomplish a car crash. Simply a fantastic scene that pushes the plot and turned out genius in design.

Ink is full of humor, action, drama and pure mesmerizing visual candy. The performance by Chris Kelly is stellar. Playing John's downfall and redemption is striking to watch and by the end, he'll surprise you with his other role. Newcomer Quinn Hunchar's Emma was Dora the Explorer uber fun.

The only gripe is it's fragmented structure and John's narrative being a little over done. It's a little con in a near perfect film. Many of our mythological beings are also not made clear, but when you attempt to watch something that's intellectually stimulating as well as artistically challenging, that's bound to happen.

Ink is the sleeper hit of 2009. I had posted the trailer in February and it intrigued me then. After having watched it I can only say I am not doing it justice in my review. It stands alone as something you have to experience for yourself. So stop downloading Zombieland and buy, rent or Netflix Ink.

Because when you watch Ink, you may forget if your awake or sleeping.

WTF moment

Who is Ink?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Please don't torrent this. It's now available via Amazon.com DVD and comes out on Blu Ray on November 24th. It's also on Netflix and iTunes as well.

The DVD is full good stuff too. Special features include a Behind the Scenes featurette and a very cute interview between Chris and Quinn.

Head over to the official site as well for some uber awesome Ink goodies as well as the Facebook and Twitter pages.

Rating:

1/2

jaded viewer related linkage:
Ink (Trailer)
Ink Screening

Tags:
ink, ink review , ink trailer , indie movie 2009, surreal movies, independent cinema blog, ink torrent

Labels: independent cinema, ink, ink torrent, ink trailer, Jamin Winans, pan's labyrinth

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

The Local

The Local (2008)

Directed by Dan Eberle

"You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics."


As a born and raised New Yorker, I've become accustomed to the feel and real of the city. When you walk these streets and live and work in the canyon of skyscrapers, you can easily separate the tourists from the tried and true.

Somehow, Dan Eberle has pulled off the impossible. He's made an indie film that takes the seedy side of the glamour of the city and actually makes it glamourous. What does that actually mean?

With The Local, Eberle tells the story of the commoner, the people who don't visit the city for a week but who live here, work here and have to survive here when they have nothing. There are alot of people who fit this description in NYC. The average joes, the joey bronx, the johnny brooklyns and the nonames. It's fitting that Eberle plays the character Noname. You just feel like you know a guy like him, his troubles, the shit he's been through and that's why The Local works.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

The Local follows Noname, an enigmatic man running from a tortured past. He is trapped in a violent Brooklyn underworld as the lowly drug runner for a gang of crazed veterans. There, Noname is approached by a wealthy out-of-towner who offers him a large sum of money to "rescue" the man's heroin-addicted daughter from his employer's drug lair. Noname soon realizes that saving the girl is more than a payday. It will grant him a way out of his purgatory after a lifetime of wrongdoing, and open a path toward personal redemption.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Dan Eberle who stars as Noname also wrote and directed The Local. Originally written as a novel after Eberle read The Post Office by Charles Bukowski, it has many of the Bukowski-isms but also has some notable differences. You can see the similarities of a Hank Chinaski in Noname but whereas Chinaski barflies, Noname is clean.

I love Bukowski's novels, poems and writings. So The Local naturally felt right. It was like watching Factotum or a Bukowski poem in filmatic motion. The movie is indeed a slow burn even for its 90 min runtime. Most of the early scenes are Noname GTA-ing on a variety of drug dealing missions, meeting his clients and getting his ass kicked by the local kingpins of the Brooklyn underground.

What makes The Local a step above the indie film is its docu-style of NYC. Whereas big budget productions would "clean up" NYC, The Local keeps it gritty, uncouth and real. Walks through cinematic wastelands, subway rides on above and below ground trains and safehouse drug dens that would make Claude from GTA 3 squeamish.

I can't help but smile when I see a movie that is shot in this way. The streets of Brooklyn are almost a character in itself and it's like your watching a different world from the one you've seen via Hollywood.

The Local is unsanitized cinema, full of brutal hard truths learned one punch in the face at a time.

Noname (Eberle), who looks like a cross between Mickey Rourke and John "You can't see me" Cena is classically the anti-hero who you can't help but sympathize with. The circle he rolls with are very colorful. From a hipster turned dealer Blueboy (Beau Allulli) to the king of kingpins Big Black (Paul Bowen) and his lieutenants, they are there to either help our Johnny Local or beat the living crap out of him.

The movie can't help that the first 30-40 min is following downtrodden Noname as he lives his very fucked up life. Some will say its a slow burn, boring to a point. But I've been accustomed to that as a Bukowski fan. You need walk in those metaphorical shoes and seeing Noname stumble and crumble gets your empathy gene jacked up. Ironically, Noname is not a local, but somehow becomes one over the course of the movie.

Later, Noname is approached with a deal of a lifetime. Rescue the damsel drugged up daughter (Maya Ferrara) in distress from Big Black and get $5 Gs. The tension and suspense is built up and you really get the feeling all is hopeless as we head down to the last 15 min. Maybe revenge served cold? Guns a blazing? Hmmm. The payoff that's executed is less than stellar but somehow works when the redemption message plays out.

I really liked the film in that I'm a big fan of the works of the Bukowskis and the John Fantes. It's not going to be to everybodys liking but as far as indie crime and grime dramas go, it's pretty solid. Think Taxi Driver lite.

Dan Eberle is a filmmaker to watch out for. Here's hoping he stays true to the scene and themes he created for The Local. Let me leave you with one final Bukowski quote:

“There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.”


Rating:

Labels: independent cinema, nyc movie, the local review

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

No Right Turn

No Right Turn (2009)

Directed by David Noel Bourke

Every now and then we here at the jaded viewer take a break from reviewing the horror and grindhouse and delve into the indie scene. Why? Because indie movies from every country are where filmmakers still bring creativity to cinema.

And the indie spirit is where you can find a movie like No Right Turn, a full fledge fairy tale pulp crime thriller that can only be described as eclectically unique and darkly comedic.

You'll get the feeling somebody's been eating your porridge and sleeping in your bed.

Well this is my first review of a David Bourke movie. I did not see his previous effort Last Exit so I'm coming in fresh on his work. I've never seen anybody blend pulp crimeyness, film noir and fantasy all together. Does this soup of genres work? You better believe it does.

No Right Turn is like a stage play come to life, depicting the seediness of Denmark's underworld and relying on four characters that pull us into the mystery filled with twisty twizzlers and shady betrayal.

What made this work so well? Let's explore.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Nina is the voluptuously alluring girlfriend of Johnny, a charming but delusional crook.
To escape from her weary life she casually sleeps with an old friend, Teddy, but is fed up of her current lifestyle especially the drunken dreams of Johnny. One night after an argument with Johnny, she storms home where she is abducted by a pair of thugs and is fortunately rescued by a timid and guilt-ridden girl, Monella.

Even though they are from two very different worlds, they quickly become close friends and sooth each other lives.

Johnny hearing about Nina's ordeal with the thugs, sadly attempts to win her heart back by going on a crazy revenge spree.This scares Nina off even more. Nina eventually tells Monella of her ploy of escaping from Johnny’s seedy world by conspiring to steal his much talked about hidden stash, stored in a safety deposit box deep in the neon city.

Monella reluctantly agrees to help...

...and we follow each of their dangerously entangled lives until their ultimate and bloody fate.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

No Right Turn slaps your senses right from the start. From the opening scene of Nina pleasuring a character straight out of a Coen Bros. movie Teddy, we're in for a jam packed grimy world that you will feel dirty after viewing. What drives this film in the beginning is the characters and for the first hour we get to explore their characterologies to a level where we have to be comfortable with so that when we get into plot mode (which we finally get to in the last 30 min), we can see the motives all spinning out of control.

First, we get Nina (Laura Bach) a blonde, hot vixen who wants to be an actress. She's multifaceted in more ways than one. More likely than not she is the town whore as we find out later but her ever changing hair colors and lesbian inklings are devishly sexy. It's Uma from Pulp Fiction, but nastier. She's the angel that fell from the heavens but ended up with Johnny.

Johnny (Tao Hildebrand) is Mr. Asshole Junkie. A drug dealer by trade, a junkie by hobby. He's our Mr. to the Mrs. that is Nina. Johnny works for Pedro our big drug czar. For now, Johnny is our "pizza" delivery guy delivering but he's aspiring for bigger things. Johnny's days go like this.

1.) Bang Nina
2.) Drink and smoke
3.) Deliver drugs
4.) Sniff coke
5.) Bang Nina (ever harder)
6.) Drink and smoke
Repeat 5 times.

He's a slimy dimebag of a dude that if you make him mad, he'll fuck you up.

One of Johnny's customers is Teddy, a John Waters looking chap who is a writer and pseudo engineer. Teddy is quirky times infinity, doing his drugs and smoking like a chimney (that's on fire). An odd cat, he's wrapped in secrecy that will be revealed toward the end.

Wrapping up our quartet is Monella. Her introduction is somewhat Irreversible but with a beatdown. After Johnny gives a drunk tirade to a some patrons at his local bar, the patrons decide to go out for some old fashioned raping in a dark alley.

Poor Nina ends up being the victim but is saved by Monella. They then proceed to have a very Wachowski's Bound like relationship. Monella, her mother having past away is a suicidal painter. The two go all Ying and Yang and go all lesbian grunting. Good times.

Like I said, the first hour establishes each of these characters. At times I got bored of seeing repetitive smoking and drinking. It wasn't until we see the Nin-nella relationship did I feel like I got some worthiness of my time. This was best illustrated in a scene where both women are playing darts and Nina tells off a man hitting on her. Cue lesbian love scene.

The plot kicks in on the last 40 or so minutes as Nina's proposed heist with Monella's help ensues. It's filled with twizzler twists to keep you on your toes, even going all fantastical in the last 10. I'm still scratching my head.

What's the goodyness in No Right Turn? The characters are never boring, more so cardboard cutouts of pulp. A junkie drug dealer, a sexy siren, a innocent ordinary and a quirky 50s wannabe writer. The comparisons to Bound are hard to ignore. Nina and Monella's sassy relationship has that same Gina Gerson-Meg Tilly feel with Joey Pants as the Johnny type. NRT can be described as Bound's cousin once removed.

The visuals are shot remarkabely well for an indie. From snowy hills to Johnny and Nina's loft apartment are very top notch. Even the film quality makes this feel IFC-ish.

What's the baddyness in No Right Turn? Well it's the fact that the first 60 minutes has no plot whatsoever. Part of a mystery is to get the audience hooked and I had to wait a whole hour for that.

The first hour was also filled with scenes to promote the soundtrack. It almost looked like a music video. The characters are not doing anything special and after seeing Johnny drink, smoke, snort for the 20th time, I was wondering if anything from the trailer was ever going to happen. The scenes are so disjointed going to character to character. It's almost if you could have skipped the first hour and still understood the movie.

Even with my gripes, I enjoyed No Right Turn for what it was. A fantastical pulpy mixture with a dash of crime gone awry. The fantastical twist in a pulp fiction cocktail is completely different from anything I've seen before. And that's the beauty of independent film. You can do that and let the audience decide if it worked.

Thank goodness it worked.

Gore-ipedia

Some shot off fingers
Bloody nose


Nude-ipedia

Grade B boobies from Nina


WTF moment

The ending ending...I'm still going huh?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

It's a crime fairy tale movie from Denmark! I was able to watch this from DVD screener from Mr. Bourke (thanks!). No Right Turn should be on the festival circuit soon, no word yet on any distribution.

You can check out the official site here. And yes the MySpace page. And yes the Facebook page as well.

Also, a collection of awesome pulp posters were made (like the one from above) which you can check out here.

If you get a chance to see No Right Turn, you won't be disappointed.

Rating:

Check out the trailer.










Tags:
no right turn, no right turn review , pulp crime thriller , denmark movie, gratuitous nudity, crime movie 2009,

Labels: crime thriller, David Noel Bourke, denmark, independent cinema, indie horror, no right turn, no right turn review, pulp

Posted by the jaded viewer at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post