Asphyxiate

Now that midterms are over and spring break is upon me, I will hopefully become a reviewing machine over the next week or so. I have lots of things on my list: soul-killing movies, remake movies done by the same guy who did them in the first place, Xbox 360 ports of Japanese arcade fighting games, albums made by local people that are supposed to make me laugh, and maybe even a guest review from one of my coworkers. All of this crap and more. But first, I decided I'd start with a movie that I really wanted to see in theaters but only saw today for the first time.

Choke (2008) is based on a book written by one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk. Choke was optioned to be a film after the success of his other film adaptation of Fight Club. Considering the film-rights were sold back in 2001, before the book was even published, they have had a hell of a long time to work on it and hopefully it paid off in the form of one badass dark comedy. It is atypical for me to have such high hopes as I am usually disappointed--this time especially since so many movies suck recently and Choke being one of my favorite books in high school. However, with the omnipresent exception caused by my critical outlook I have on every movie, book, album, video game, and person, the movie has lived up to a lot of what I expected from it.

Directed by actor Clark Gregg, this was another directorial debut from an actor. I have literally seen him in nothing, despite having over fifty films to his credit, except for Choke in which he plays a minor character. The main character is played by Sam Rockwell, who you probably remember best from being the crazy pedophile from The Green Mile whose throat you justed wanted to slit Solid Snake style. In Choke, Rockwell plays the part of Victor Mancini, still a sex addict, but this time does it with consenting adults, except for in the "poodle" scene, but that was one of my favorite scenes in the book so its okay. He is a historical interpreter (read: tour guide) at one of those colonial places you find all over New England and Virginia and the like. He takes care of his institutionalized mother as played by Anjelica Huston with money he makes from forcing himself to choke in restaurants and be saved by rich people who then, after saving his life, take an interest in his life and problems and send him money to make sure the life they saved is still being saved through their actions. Genius plan, if you think about it. He attends sex addict meetings with his best friend Denny and constantly gets laid after sneaking off to the bathroom with the girl he is supposed to be sponsoring through her own sexual addiction. Not a bad way to get laid, either.

If you couldn't tell, there is a lot of sex in this movie. A lot is describing it conservatively. Pretty much every female character with the exception of Vincent's mother is shown topless at some point--a wonderful job of the otherwise bland directing on Clark Gregg's part in which nearly every woman that Vincent sees is shown in a flash of what he imagines they look like naked or a shot of him actually eating them out or taking them from behind--even the ones you wish you didn't.

The rest of the directing was all very samey and the flashes of white to the flashbacks get the point across but still lack something in the creative mind that should be present in such a film. Gregg's adaptation of the script was not bad, with my one glaring exception of the nursing home women all standing around clapping and laughing as Vincent's telling them off, and the directing was adequate but didn't quite capture all the film should have presented of the film. The narration at the beginning was dead-on, but was used to infrequently afterwards. The choices the writers and editors made to make this film rated R as opposed to anything else--as I'm sure the MPAA was damn close to not letting it be released at all--were good ones. It had all the dark humor it should have had, even with the add of the drama, and pulled it off nicely, I feel.

The acting was pretty top-knotch. Despite having always envisioned Vincent as a more of a Taylor Nichols looking-character and I still uphold he would have played the role well, Rockwell's Vincent was about as close to the picture as I could have imagined. Huston's Ida Mancini was quite good as well, and she was goddamn brilliant in the flashback scenes opposite Jonah Bobo as her pre-teen son. Brad William Henke who played Vince's best friend Denny played the part of a reformed sex addict pretty well, and even played off the uncaring I-just-got-fired/wtf kind of moments in style.

Being the Special Jury winner at Sundance is nothing to cough at. Or jerk off at, depending on which movie-relevant metaphor I want to use. If In Bruges hadn't come out last year, this would have been in contention for my personal best film of 2008. It's a shame Rockwell isn't more popular as an actor, appearing mostly in cult-favorites and sleeper hits, but I'm sure that will change after he's in Iron Man II as Justin Hammer.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor