In the first on this new blog, I'm going to list my top 5 psychological thriller films. These don't pertain to the type of psychological thrillers like Rear Window or Memento, but ones that contain some type of attachment to a lover or a family member, in an altered universe or some other ethereal existence. Some are heartbreaking, some are heartwarming, but all leave me with a feeling that I've just witnessed something great, and that anything is possible. If you don't understand what I mean quite yet, you will once I list the films. The ones on this particular list represent my wife's favorite genre of movie. They represent my second, just behind the historical (I list my top 15 historicals on my other blog).
Vanilla Sky is actually a remake of a Spanish film called Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). In both, Penelope Cruz plays the same character, which makes the American version starring Tom Cruise even more unique. Basically, a publishing mogul in New York dies and leaves the business to his son, David Aames. He has a plush life, always late for important meetings simply because he can be. Not even his best buddy, Brian (Jason Lee), can talk him into being a more responsible person. He has a friends with benefits relationship with a jealous Julianna Gianni (Cameron Diaz), and a fast car with a live fast-die young-leave a good-looking corpse-sort of mentality. But when he finally falls in love with Sofia Serrano, the two staying up all night to trade banter and sketch pictures of one another, jealousy rears its ugly head, and a crazy in love Julianna crashes her car with both her and David in it, killing her and disfiguring him. We wears a mask to hide his face as he sees Sofia's affections plummet, probably more due to the fact that David drowns his sorrow in booze than because of his rearranged looks. One night after the three meet in the city, David passes out in the street and Brian walks Sofia home. The following morning, David is woken by Sofia, who in turn walks him home. But just as soon as David receives surgery on his face, repairing it completely, things get cloudy and strange. Cameron Diaz starts showing up and calling herself Sofia. Cryonic freezing and lucid dreams play a very large role in the finale of the film. The end is classic, as David reunites with Sofia over the beautiful sounds of Icelandic band Sigur Ros. The film is dominated by great music, including some of my personal favorites - Jeff Buckley, Sigur Ros, and Freur. I believe this was the first film I had seen in this psycholigical thriller genre, and it changed the way in viewed movies. I've never been a fan of Tom Cruise, but he was great in this one. It also helps that the script was written by Cameron Crowe, who also wrote and directed another personal favorite of mine, Say Anything.
4. The Lazarus Project
When I first watched this one, I was expecting a lot less than what was delivered to me. Sure, Paul Walker makes a lot of terrible movies, but he delivered a phenomenal performance in Running Scared, so there was potential for this movie to be a decent one. Turns out, it was good enough to make it to number 4 on my list. This was such a great idea, I wish I had thought of it. Paul Walker played Ben Garvey, a husband to Lisa (Piper Perabo) and a father to Katie, down on his luck and attempting to rehabilitate himself after serving time in prison. When his convict brother comes around to offer Ben another crack at the criminal life, he turns it down with a passion, as he's attempting to turn his life around - that is, until he's fired from his job due to a background check. He therefore calls up his brother and tells him the new heist is a go. This of course goes horribly wrong, resulting in deaths. Ben didn't kill anyone, but I guess this was his third strike because he heads back to prison, receiving the death penalty by lethal injection. But as died (?) in Texas, he awakens a groundskeeper in Oregon for a local psychiatric ward. As Ben is greeted by some friendly faces in Julie, a counselor, and Robbie, a patient, he's also plagued by mysterious and menacing ones in the seemingly demented patient William and a man who forbids Ben from straying from his new life, touting himself as an angel. On the flip side of heavenly guardians, he also sees demons and repair men who he believes are watching him. Ben secretly pines for his wife and daughter, constantly contructing coal drawings of them to place on the walls of his shack in the woods. But Ben is being deceived, and he eventually comes to this realization as he finds the truth of his mysterious new life. The movie never made it to theatres, which is why I was a bit skeptical of watching it. But I did, and I enjoyed it very much. Paul Walker is a good actor, I don't what The Fast and Furious has to say about it.
3. Stay
Stay seems like more of an independent film in feel, but I caught it at my local theatre back in Charleston. No one else I saw it with seemed to like it, but I did. It stars Ryan Gosling as Henry Letham, a college student and aspiring artist who comes to see psychiatrist Sam Foster (Ewan MacGregor) because he's depressed and paranoid. In the opening scene, we see Henry sitting next to a burning car wreck on the Brooklyn Bridge, so we assume his depression is directly connected to this. He tells Sam that on Saturday at midnight, he'll kill himself. Then he disappears. Sam and his girlfriend, Lila (Naomi Watts), survivor of a suicide attempt, tries to assist Sam in any way she can. But first, the two have to find Henry, who has since fallen in love with a local waitress and aspiring actor in Athena. Sam and Lila check into Henry's favorite local bookstore, where one of his paitings in on display and where they find books on Henry favorite painter, Tristan Reveur (Tristan meaning sad, and Reveur meaning dreamer). Reveur had killed himself on the Brooklyn Bridge on his 21st birthday - Henry's intentions exactly, emulating the artist. Sam and Lila, the burning car, and Henry's intentions all come to a head in the end, which is a heartbreakingly beautiful one. The cinematography is amazing, a pair of headlights at the end of one scene turning into overhead lights in the next. Like all the other films on this list, Stay leaves you to try and interpret all the details on the drive home from the theatre.
2. The JacketIn all the movie previews, The Jacket looked like a horror film. I wasn't yet an Adrien Brody fan, so I didn't see it when it hit theatres. I eventually picked it up on DVD, and though the film is set in icy, snowy Vermont, the film left me with a warm feeling inside after it was over. Jack Stark (Adrien Brody), a Gulf War-vet, is walking along an icy highway when picked up by a man he later finds out is a criminal - when the guy shoots a cop who's stopped them. Knocked unconscious and left next to the gun that killed the officer, Jack is framed for the murder. His case goes to trial and he's deemed crazy although perfectly sane, reprimanded to a psychiatric ward. There, he endures the ravings a truly crazy people, with one man constantly going off about how he's a spy for the Organization for the Organized. Jack is treated in a methodical, maniacal way, wrapped up inside a straitjacket and placed inside a coroner's drawer for hours at a time in an attempt to help curb his madness. There, inside the drawer, his mind sends him 14 years into the future, where he meets Jackie Price (Kiera Knightly) before discovering that he is to die by head trauma at the ward in four days. Being that he is continually forced against his will into the drawer, Jack is almost sure that his death will come at the hands of Dr. Becker (Kris Kristofferson). As more time in the drawer means more time to piece together the clues of his death, it also means more time with Jackie, whom he's quickly falling in love with. He finds that Jackie's mother is dead, having fallen asleep smoking a cigarette, burning herself to death. When Jack in 1993 gets away from the hospital, thanks to the trusting assistance of Dr. Lorenson (Jennifer Jason Leigh), he tracks down child Jackie and her mother, Jean (Kelly Lynch), forming a bond with Jackie and writing a letter to Jean. He tells her things he wouldn't know had he not met future Jackie, and he tells her that her decisions (smoking in bed) drastically affects the future, and drastically affects Jackie as a person. Together, Jack and Dr. Lorenson discover the truth of his death, and dying Jack is placed back in the drawer to reunited with future Jackie, who's life is much better because of the letter he wrote to Jean, although she doesn't recongize him. The soundtrack is performed by Brian Eno, and a pretty little tune, an idee fixe, never fails to show up while Jack and Jackie are together, further strengthening their bond. This movie was expertly done, and it's one of mine and my wife's favorite overall films.
One of the reasons I like this movie so much is because it reminds me of the first short story I ever wrote, just after high school. Thirteen years later, I decided to take the story and turn it into my third crime novel, which was slightly inpired by The Invisible. The film follows Nick Powell, a high school senior who wants to take a writing workshop in London against his mother's wishes. On the night he plans to leave, he's attacked by Annie Newton and her gang, who threaten people at school with a knife when they don't pay up for the use of the gang's stolen goods. She's eventually busted, and she suspects Nick's best friend, Pete, as the rat. When confronted, Pete, knowing that his friend is on his way out of town, tells Annie that Nick ratted on her. Nick is discovered walking home from a party and beaten to the very verge of death by Annie and her gang. Nick then gets up the next morning and walks to school. When he answers a question in his Lit class, he's completely ignored, and comes to find out that he's now invisible to the world. On the verge of dying, his spirit has left his body to try to get Annie to confess to her crime and tell the police where his body is. He follows her around, witnessing firsthand the stress of her homelife and the guilt she harbors for the crime committed against him. He eventually comes to like her, following her as she breaks into his house to find out more about him and to lay on his bed. Some scenes are very powerful. Nick's mother (Marcia Gay Harden) finally breaks down and sobs agonizingly for her missing son. Very touching. The occasions in which Nick and Annie share the scene as remorseful criminal and ghost are really good too, especially when they're forming a bond without even knowing it. My wife saw this movie before I did, and she told me it seems like something I would have written. That's quite a compliment, considering it's such a unique, heartwarming film that exemplifies the idea behind this blog.
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