FUNNY GAMES / Michael Haneke (2007)
March 16th, 2008 by Scott Marks
Funny Games (2008)
Re-written & Re-directed by Michael Haneke
Starring: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet and Devon Gearhart
Running Time: 107 min.
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: 
Imitation once again proves the sincerest form of failure, particularly when the bones being raped are still attached to the film’s writer/director.
Filmmakers “rethinking” the works of other has always been commonplace in Hollywood. (Remember, there were two versions of The Maltese Falcon before John Huston got his hands on the bird.) Occasionally directors have gone on to rework their own past projects, hopefully in pursuit of modification or stylistic amplification. Gus Van Sant should forever burn in hell for what he did to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, but is it kosher for a director to trace their own frames?
Hitchcock, who many claim made the same film 53 times, went back and improved upon his British version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. (The Master noted, “the 1934 version was the work of a talented amateur, the 1956 version the work of a professional.”) The same can’t be said of Frank Capra’s Lady for a Day (1933) which, when given an expensive overhaul in 1961 and re-named Pocketful of Miracles, turned out to be little more than a skilled exercise in wheelbarrow economics.
Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a virtual shot-by-shot, word-for-word, ten year anniversary American remake of his German original. Haneke wanted to do an American version because he felt the concept of violence as a form of entertainment more applicable to our culture. He failed to realize that the same message had already been hammered home in Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and countless other unmotivated-psycho slasher films.
The story is as simple as the film is pointless: a pair of facund, well-scrubbed jocks hold a family hostage in their vacation home and proceed to brutally terrorize and sadistically humiliate them for 107 minutes. We first meet the designated victims on an opening credits drive to their Long Island retreat. Junior Georgie (Devon Gearhart) watches from the back seat as mom Ann (Naomi Watts) and dad George (Tim Roth) shuffle CDs and play “guess the classical music piece.” The mellifluous strains are quickly overtaken by heavy metal thunder meant to imply that somehow the media is at fault for what is about to unfold.
In their gleaming white tennis outfits one could hardly confuse Paul (Michael Pitt) and Peter (Brady Corbet) with Freddie and Jason. As their future marks pull over to greet a neighboring family, Ann notices the two boys talking to what amounts to their current prisoners. From a distance they seem to blend in so well that when Peter eventually knocks on the door asking to borrow a neighborly couple of eggs it’s unlikely that Ann would refuse. Peter’s white cotton gloves should have been a giveaway. Only three types of people wear white gloves when not attending a debutante ball: vain septuagenarians, psycho killers not eager to leave fingerprints and those seeking treatment for mysophobia.
Dead family pets always make the perfect calling card for roving lunatics so it’s only logical that Lucky, the meddlesome golden retriever, is the first to die. Initially George refuses to side with his wife. After all, they are well-groomed collegiate types who appear friendly with Fred and Betsy down the road, how bad can they be?
Soon after dad is incapacitated due to wounds suffered from a golf club, mom is forced to strip (her captors have the decency to shield young Georgie’s eyes) and before it ends splattered blood will coat one entire wall of the family’s TV room.
SPOLIER AHEAD!
To add ambiguous baggage to the proceedings, Haneke has one of his characters pick up and click on a remote control to rewind (and rewrite) a murder for the audience. In order to make this third act burst of surrealism pay off, Haneke needed to subtly layer in more than just a dose of thrash metal or the pair of complacent killers zoning out before the TV.
In setting out to remake his own manifesto on violence as entertainment, Michael Haneke only exposed what many have unwittingly confirmed countless times before: violence isn’t entertainment.
Tags: 2007, Film Review, FUNNY GAMES, FUNNY_GAMES_USA, Horror film, Michael Haneke, Naomi Watts, Psycho killer, Remake, SlasherFiled Under Reviews, Theatrical
The San Diego Film Critics Award this year’s top honors
December 18th, 2007 by Scott Marks
Riddle me this: With the hundreds of movies released every year, why is it that come awards time everything hinges on 5 or 10 pictures?
First off, a lot of local critics won’t see some of the more obscure foreign films because their readers are more interested in Shia LeBeouf than Jafar Panahi. Sadly, more and more critics wind up watching screeners instead of trekking to the screening and studios are not likely to send copies of films that even they know don’t stand a chance of winning. Hence Offside and Killer of Sheep, two of my top three films this year, weren’t even considered.
2007 turned out to be one the worst years for movies ever; compiling a 10 best list is virtually impossible. With not much to chose from, the voting went rather quickly. The eleven of us met in a conference room at KPBS and in three hours all votes were argued and tallied.
Well, not exactly argued. You’d be surprised how many critics sit in silence, never so much as offering one word’s defense for any of their choices. They circle their picks before the floor is opened for debate. At least be polite enough to pretend that you’re interested in what your colleagues have to say.
My partner on the Film Club is a royal polemicist, so Beth and I were responsible for a lot of the verbal pyrotechnics. A welcome addition to this year’s vote was City Beat critic Anders Wright. He’s a bright film junkie who knows his stuff and in at least one instance (best score) actually convinced me to change my mind.
As mentioned in an earlier piece, the sole reason the group exists is so we may fill a shelf with screeners come November. With the exception of the annoying Juno’s best original screenplay award, this year’s selections were by no means an embarrassment.
And the winners are…
Best Picture
No Country for Old Men
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood
Best Actress
Julie Christie for Away from Her
Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Ryan for Gone Baby Gone
Best Supporting Actor
Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men
Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody for Juno
Best Adapted Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood
Best Foreign Film
The Diving Bell and the Mermaid
Best Documentary
A tie: Crazy Love and Deep Water
Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille
Best Cinematography
Roger Deakins for No Country for Old Men
Best Production Design
Dante Ferretti for Sweeney Todd
Best Editing
Paul Tothill for Atonement
Best Score
Jonny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood
Best Ensemble Performance
No Country For Old Men
Outstanding Body of Work
Christian Bale for Rescue Dawn, 3:10 to Yuma and I’m Not There
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