Interstellar, Dark Shadows, and others

Interstellar

I’m a father who loves his children.  I’m a pilot who spends an enormous amount of time on the road.  I still own the copy of ­Black Holes and Warped Spacetime I ordered from the Science Fiction Book Club in 1982.  Interstellar could not have been more calibrated to my sensibilities if it had been coded to my DNA.

Here’s the setup: Earth is fast becoming uninhabitable.  In the first act, scientist Michael Caine tells hero Matthew McConaghey that his children will be the last generation to live to old age.  The solution?  A journey to another solar system, via wormhole, to find a habitable planet.

That’s a great setup for any number of films.  You could go thriller, horror, hamhanded political screed, religious allegory – you name it.  Interstellar blends aspects of exploration adventure and introspective head trip to create a film that evokes Kubrick’s 2001 while maintaining a sense of desperate tension.  All that, and it provides the best exploration of time dilation in popular science fiction since Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War.  There’s even a snappy android played by Sesame Street’s Mister Noodle.

Really, what more could you ask for?

Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows has all the elements of a solid horror-comedy: a classic vampire, a vampy villain, ghosts, and werewolves.  However, it never quite comes together.  Its hero is a genuine monster, making it hard to root for him.  Its villain has clear motivations that make no sense, its plot is muddled, and its climax says “to heck with it” and departs even from the rules of its own fantasy world.

And on and on and on.

One gets the feeling that some producer decided to exploit his or her rights to a nominally familiar horror franchise, called Tim Burton, and handed him a sack of cash.  Burton did his thing, complete with a real live Corpse Bride, but the movie spent too much time in production and not enough time in the word processor.

Ah, well.

My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady combines a fairly risible story (once you think about it) with one catchy production number after another.

I like catchy production numbers.  I’m still humming “Ascot Opening Day.”  I’ll watch this any time it comes on.

The World’s End

The World’s End is lovely.  While hampered by a rocky first act, the picture gets to swinging once the world actually begins to end.  It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, and it’s a winner.

Much Ado About Nothing

Meh.  There ain’t no Beatrice and Benedick like Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh’s Beatrice and Benedick.

The Heroic Trio

Oh, what an abomination.  Stupidly plotted, poorly choreographed, badly shot, and amateurishly dubbed, The Heroic Trio is a sad waste of the talents of Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, and Anita Mui.  Give it a pass.

Mrs. Miniver

Mrs. Miniver is a propaganda film, pure and simple.  Its prologue reads, “This story of an average English middle-class family begins with the summer of 1939; when the sun shone down on a happy, careless people, who worked and played, reared their children and tended their gardens in that happy, easy-going England that was so soon to be fighting desperately for her way of life and for life itself.”  Its epilogue:  “AMERICA NEEDS YOUR MONEY BUY DEFENSE BONDS AND STAMPS EVERY PAY DAY.”  (Source: IMDb)  

The film (directed by William Wyler) introduces us to The Minivers, the aforementioned average middle class family.  It tells us that they’re an average middle-class family, but it lies.  They’re well above average.  In fact, I’d call them rich.  They live in a beautiful home and have servants.  Their oldest son is away at Oxford, and he woos the granddaughter of the local noblewoman.  Mr. Miniver owns a yacht, Mrs. Miniver splashes out on ridiculously expensive hats, and the couple drives a car that’d cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $75,000 today.

Over the course of the film, we see the Minivers overcome adversity, do their duty, spread joy, and generally be happy.  When the Blitz wreaks havoc on their cozy village, we in the audience are supposed to feel compelled to buy war bonds to –what?  Help these nice rich people keep being nice and rich?  To preserve an ideal of an England that never was?

I’m not quite sure, but here’s the kicker: it works.  I liked the Minivers.  As played by Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver is a saint – and a pretty one, to boot.  Mr. Miniver does his part at Dunkirk and helps to bring the boys home.  Young Oxford Miniver, despite his intellectual pretensions, grows into a fine fellow and just the man for the noblewoman’s practical and intelligent granddaughter.  I laughed.  I cried.  I noticed a subplot brazenly plagiarized by ‘Downtown Abbey’ decades later.

So, yes, Mrs. Miniver is a propaganda film.  That’s not the point.  The point is, it’s a good propaganda film.  Now, where can I go to buy some bonds?

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I am the target demographic for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  I still have a 35-year-old copy of the source novel that has followed me from move to move.  I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I bought the extended editions of all three of those films on DVD.  Heck, I even loved the generally unappreciated first ‘Hobbit’ film, An Unexpected Journey.

Desolation of Smaug is different.  I fell asleep during the climax.

By the time the film got our titular hobbit to the treasure-laden lair of the dragon Smaug, it had taken so many detours that I’d lost interest.  A love triangle featuring two elves and a dwarf?  That idea never should have escaped the world of slash fiction.  A tedious backstory about a heroic ferryman and his family’s legacy of dragonfighting?  Meh.  Gandalf and Radagast investigating the possible appearance of the villain from The Lord of the Rings?  At least it wasn’t trade negotiations. 

And on and on and on and on.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug felt so bloated and meandering that it failed to generate any propulsive energy.  I began the film caring about our Hobbit’s quest to find Smaug’s mountain, but by the time the last MacGuffin showed up (some kind of glowing gem that the dwarves want), I’d lost interest and felt the need to rest my eyes.

All this means that The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, failed in its core mission: entertaining its audience.  I didn’t actively hate it, but I grew so bored I don’t even know whether I’ll queue up its final sequel, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  It’ll take one heck of a critical reception to make me change my mind.

After Life

After Life is unlike any movie I’d ever seen before.  Watching it suffused me with happiness, and I’m taking a lesson from it.

The film, by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda, is set in a way station between this life and the next.  The souls of the newly-dead file in to a reception area, give their names, and take seats in a waiting room.  When called, a friendly and efficient counselor tells them they’ll be staying at the way station (which looks an awful lot like a college dormitory the production company rented) for five days.  They’ll have three days to review their lives and choose one memory they’d like to carry into the next world.  On the fourth day, the staff will recreate that memory and film it.  On the fifth, the souls will see their films and depart, off to spend the rest of eternity in moments of their choosing.  The staff, it seems, gets one day off and one day to prep for the next batch.

The counsellors are kind and patient.  One helps a teenager dig more deeply after the latter goes with a trip to Disneyland, presumably the first thing that popped into her mind.  Another helps a man who argues that life is pain and best forgotten.  This is a narrative film, so there is a plot, but the plot seems beside the point.

The point, I think, is to inspire viewers to browse their own memories as they ask themselves which one they’d take with them.  The effect: roughly ninety minutes of reviewing one’s personal highlight reel.  While watching this film, I found myself beginning at my earliest memories and reliving those moments in which I felt the most loved, or in love, or triumphant, or elated, or joyous, or content.  Whenever I thought I’d settled on an answer, another memory would crowd in to take its place.

This was a powerful experience. 

I tend not to dwell on the past.  When I see old friends, I steer the conversation away from reminiscence.  When people refer to some shared experience from long ago, I often smile and nod, having forgotten the moment to which they’re referring.  I didn’t have a particularly traumatic childhood.  I’m just more interested in what’s happening right now.

This film, however, taught me that my past is a rich trove of memories, one worthy of attention and reflection.  It reminded me how very fortunate I am to love and be loved, to be an adventurer, to have achieved some modicum of professional success and fulfillment.

This film taught me to look back and choose what matters.  And if the end came right now, the choice would be clear.  My most cherished memory may seem mundane, but it’s precious to me: hanging out on the couch with my wife and children, doing nothing in particular, living in love.

Ender's Game

Ender’s Game tanked in its theatrical release.  I’m not sure why.

The film, about a boy at a space-military academy for exceptional children, has engaging characters, an interesting story, and beautiful special effects.  What went wrong?

Perhaps it was the subject matter: children forced to fight both an alien menace and one another.  In a world in which we teach our children to stop bullying by reporting incidents to the nearest authority figure, Ender’s Game posits that the best way to stop a bully is to knock him down, then kick him in the ribs until his bones crack.

Perhaps it was the premise: adults manipulating children into becoming merciless, unstoppable, alien-killing prodigies.  It’s one thing to wield a magic wand against Ralph Fiennes.  It’s quite another to commit genocide.

Perhaps it was the subtext of that premise: adults are not to be trusted.  Since adults form critical consensi and make purchasing decisions, perhaps Ender’s Game antagonized the wrong demographic.

Whatever the reasons, all I can say is that Ender’s Game worked for me.  I cared about its hero, I enjoyed its action set-pieces, and I even got my socks folded.

Perhaps it’ll fare better on video.

Gravity

If Thor: The Dark World is a film to watch while folding socks, Gravity is one that rewards the viewer’s full attention.  Gravity is beautiful, awe inspiring, and captivating.  It’s the kind of movie that’ll make you spring for the biggest, best 3-D TV you can afford, then hope for an IMAX revival run.

The film begins in orbit, with first-time astronaut Sandra Bullock trying to fix a malfunctioning circuit board outside the Hubble Space Telescope; while salty spacewalker George Clooney enjoys the moment.  As the trailers indicate, this routine mission comes to a catastrophic end when remnants of a destroyed Russian satellite collide with the Telescope and the astronauts’ space shuttle.

So begins a tense, exhilarating survival tale.  One is hard-pressed to imagine a more unforgiving environment than space, but these characters are smart, capable, resourceful professionals.  What a pleasure to watch a film not about screaming morons, but about adults dealing with stresses that push them to their breaking points.

I don’t want to say more about the story for fear of giving away plot points, so I’ll write that director Alfonso Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (working, of course, with a huge team) have created the most beautiful film I’ve seen since Aronofsky’s The Fountain.  In addition to the virtuoso opening sequence, Gravity offers moments (such as that featured in the photo) of remarkable beauty coupled with thematic resonance.  This is wonderful stuff, the very epitome of mainstream filmmaking.

In other words, Gravity is a masterpiece.  I only wish I’d seen it in IMAX 3D.

Thor: The Dark World

I didn’t care for Thor (see my review).  It was a movie about people I didn’t care about fighting for stakes that didn’t matter.

I’m pleased to report that Thor: The Dark World fixes its predecessor’s faults.  This time around, the titular Thor is an interesting guy fighting a threatening villain over something worthy of the effort.  Both hero Chris Hemsworth and nemesis Tom Hiddleston have found their groove.  Villain of the Week Christopher Eccleston seems a credible threat to the universe in general and Earth in particular.  Even previously misused Natalie Portman comes across as competent and capable, as opposed to just another Pauline.  The action sequences pop, the jokes land, and everything hangs together.

I admit, I watched most of Thor: The Dark World while troubleshooting a technical issue with one of my gadgets, but that’s ok.  This is light action entertainment, perfectly fine to play in the background while folding socks or debugging code.  Let’s just forget the first outing even existed.

Shame

Shame brings to mind Leaving Las Vegas.  They’re both about addiction, and neither are about redemption.  They’re both about addicts who have lost all inhibition, all control over their addictions.  They’re about people who’ve burrowed into their addictions, feeding their needs far past satiety, past loathing.  They wrap themselves in shame.  They are their addictions.

With Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, it’s alcohol.  With Michel Fassbender in Shame, it’s orgasm.  And while these addictions are terrible and destructive, they aren’t, ipso facto, particularly compelling.  Humanity is compelling.  In Leaving Las Vegas, humanity comes in the guise of Elisabeth Shue as a prostitute who recognizes the man inside the addiction.  In Shame, it’s Carey Mulligan as a sister so damaged she forces the man to look beyond his.

Cage, of course, won an Academy Award for Leaving Las Vegas.  Fassbender deserved one for Shame, delivering a performance breathtaking in its fearlessness and competence.  His character begins the film a slave to his compulsions, yet he seems to have found some kind of a workable life balance.  When Mulligan’s character enters the scene, however, he’s forced to see himself.  His dawning realization, his reaction to that realization, and his subsequent evolution (or lack thereof) is absolutely magnificent to behold.

My tastes in film run toward the upbeat low- to middlebrow.  A movie like Shame, like Leaving Las Vegas, generally isn’t my thing.  But sometimes, a film is so good, so well made, so compelling, that it defies those tastes and becomes something I recommend to all my friends.  Leaving Las Vegas is such a film.  So is Shame.

Silver Linings Playbook

Oh, good God.  An hour and a half spent with people who yell at one another as a form of communication.  If I wanted that, I’d go home for Christmas.

The Hunter

In The Hunter, Willem Dafoe plays a world-class game hunter who has accepted a contract to kill the world’s last surviving Tasmanian tiger.  He’s a quiet man in a quiet setting.  He walks the Tasmanian wilderness, sets traps, and tries to pick up the trail of a lonely, elusive creature.  Things get complicated because this is, after all, narrative film.  However, one gets the sense that the plot is secondary.  The film recalls the pacing and tone of Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, and it is a film very much more about the pacing than the destination.

The pacing is .. deliberate.  We don't get to know Dafoe's hunter with an intro and a quip.  Rather, we get know him as he (re?)discovers an aspect of himself slowly, carefully.  There are few actors who can pull this off, and Dafoe is one of them.  However, The Hunter moves so slowly, so carefully, that I found it difficult to remain engaged.  The Hunter is a film for someone ready to meditate.  I, however, saw it on a computer in an airport lounge while keeping an eye on the "Delayed Departures" board.  I may be the target audience for this film, but I was not the target headspace.

So, see The Hunter if you love Dafoe.  See it if you love Australia.  But skip it if you have something else on your mind.  The Hunter is for meditation, not distraction.

Django Unchained

Django Unchained is a revenge fantasy set in the pre-Civil War American South. It doesn't have any vampires.

It heroes are Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz, neither of whom slay vampires. Its villains include Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson, and Bruce Dern, none of whom are vampires. Its Designated Damsel is Kerry Washington, who does not kill a slaveholding vampire with a silver crucifix shot from a Spencer 1860 carbine.

In short, Django Unchained is a slavery revenge fantasy that is not Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter. This is too bad. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a great movie, while Django Unchained is merely good. While AHVH is fun and creative and downright wicked in its portrayal of the Slaveholding South as an undead empire and Jefferson Davis as its knowing stooge, Django goes the more obvious route of painting its villains simply as venal, stupid, cruel, or some combination of the three.

The result? A perfectly serviceable revenge fantasy populated with world-class actors, aided by Quentin Tarantino's dialogue and unique eye, and made with every bit of goodwill all hands could muster. I chuckled. I grooved. I was entertained. But it was no AbrahamLincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Kick-Ass 2

I saw Kick-Ass 2 a couple of weeks ago. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. The film's tone shifts so often, sometimes within a scene, that it kept me off balance for nearly its entire running time. Sometimes, it's a comedy. Sometimes, it's an action adventure. Sometimes, it's a gruesome and tragic horror show.

Here's the setup: it's a year or two after the events of the original Kick-Ass (which I quite liked.  See my review at the link). Our hero has hung up his costume, and second (but more interesting) lead Hit Girl has done the same. But it's boring in the real world, and someone's gotta take on evildoers. Soon enough, our leads are back in harness: and just in time. Evil has a plan.

With a setup like that, a film can go anywhere. Kick-Ass 2 goes everywhere. It's an adolescent comedy, a superhero teamup movie, and a horror movie all at the same time. Do you like vomit gags? Kick-Ass 2 has 'em. Do you like that shot in which the team walks, slo-mo, abreast toward the camera? Oh, yeah. How are you with graphic torture and murder? Sexual assault? An underage girl using a pair of pliers to rip off a man's penis? Yeah, me neither.

The film has another strange feature: its title character isn't particularly interesting. Aaron-Taylor Johnson plays Dave Lizewski (aka Kick-Ass) as a bland nobody, someone who comes fully alive only when in costume. While Lizewski (who made a fine lead in Godzilla) does the job, he has a real handicap: he's cast opposite Chloë Grace Moretz, who's a genuine movie star. Not only does she have the more interesting character (a 9th-grader so damaged that she's only happy when killing), but she's a better actor; she brings a maturity and sophistication to her performance that reminds me of a young Jodie Foster.

So, toss together a number of dissonant elements, put your best performer in a supporting role, and bake until strange. If that sounds like a good recipe to you, you just might enjoy Kick-Ass 2.

R.I.P.D.

I liked Men in Black. I liked Ghostbusters. I like Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, and Kevin Bacon. R.I.P.D. is a mashup up of Ghostbusters and Men in Black starring Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, and Kevin Bacon. All the movie had to do to get me on its side was not screw up.

R.I.P.D. did not screw up.

Here's the setup: Ryan Reynolds, a Boston cop of questionable moral character, gets killed and assigned to the Police Department of the Dead. A rookie on this new force, he gets partnered with Western lawman Jeff Bridges (riffing on his True Grit character) and is off to save the world.

From there, it's one gag after another as the two cops face off against a panoply of poorly-rendered CGI undead monsters. Wait – don't go away. The poor rendering is a feature, not a bug. This is a lighthearted comedy-horror-action picture, and the monsters' artificiality creates sufficient distance to keep them more amusing than scary. I smiled, I chuckled, I nodded along happily as I watched people I like fight neat monsters in a movie that entertained me from beginning to end.

All this, and James Hong to boot. What more could you ask for in your light summer entertainment?

Argo

Argo is funny and gripping and altogether successful.

Ben Affleck directed and starred in the thriller, a (reasonably) true story about the spiriting of six American diplomats out of Iran in the wake of the 1979 revolution.  It seems like the man hasn't taken a misstep since Hollywoodland, and his is becoming a name I increasingly associate with quality filmmaking.  With Argo, he assembles a top-notch cast and production team, hands them a solid screenplay, and polishes their work with the collaboration of editor William Goldenberg.

But wait - how can a movie about getting six Americans out of Iran be funny?  It's all in the writing.  While Argo is a thriller first, Screenwriter Chris Terrio wrote snappy, sharp dialogue for its Hollywood-based characters.  A cast including Alan Arkin and John Goodman bring that dialogue to life, and Affleck and editor Goldenberg make it pop with perfectly arranged compositions, perfectly timed reaction shots, and a sense of momentum that allows levity while keeping the audience keyed in on the seriousness of the situation [Side note: Goldenberg won the 2013 Academy Award for editing for his work on Argo.  Learning stuff like that while conducting basic research is part of the fun of writing this blog.].

That editing is also what makes the movie gripping.  How do you make watching a phone ring interesting?  By cutting footage of a lonesome phone in an empty room with footage of the man making the call, of the men racing to answer to the call, and the people whose lives depend on the outcome of that call.  Argo is filled with this kind of stuff, taking the mundane aspects of the operation at hand and lending them urgency through top-notch editing.

In short, Argo is a testament to the value of craft, to polishing a script and casting the right people and getting the hair and makeup just so and editing the footage with a perfect blade.  The result?  Another winner for Ben Affleck.  May he bring us many more.

Pain & Gain

I've never been a fan of Michael Bay's movies, but I've never thought of him as a bad person.

Until now.

Pain and Gain is a bad movie made by a bad person who operates under the assumption that his audience is full of bad people who enjoy laughing at other bad people.

Pain and Gain is a bad movie because it's a thuddingly unfunny comedy. Not one funny thing happens during its entire run time, and I didn't so much as grin from the opening credits to the close. Pain and Gain was made by a bad person because only a bad person thinks that a true story of kidnapping, torture, and multiple murder can be played for laughs. This bad person assumes that his audience is full of bad people because it is, simply, wrong to laugh at stupid people for being stupid: they can't help it.

Here's the story: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie are stupid bodybuilders who, motivated by a stupid get-rich-quick schemer, go in on a stupid plan to kidnap and torture a rich guy until he gives them his money.

Yes, there's some commentary on materialism and confusion between wealth and happiness, but it's slight. Mostly, the film serves as an opportunity for its audience to spend ninety minutes feeling superior to a bunch of morons.

You know who finds that entertaining? Bad people. I regret reneging on my resolution never to see another Michael Bay movie. Bad decision.

Guardians of the Galaxy

After a brief prologue, Guardians of the Galaxy kicks off with likable star Chris Pratt basically re-creating the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark while boogieing to '70s soft rock. So far, so good. Then, Michael Rooker shows up as a blue-faced alien scoundrel. This you must know: while the presence of Michael Rooker is not a guarantee of quality, it is a guarantee of awesomeness. Boom. I'm in.

Soon enough, here comes Zoe Saldana, reigning queen of the big-budget science fiction adventure, put into immediate conflict with Doctor Who's Karen Gillan. We are cooking.

Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't squander its early goodwill. It takes its simple MacGuffin chase of a plot and layers it with yet more endearing characters; clever homages to films as diverse as Pulp Fiction, Slither, Footloose, and Howard the Duck; and loads and loads of well-played banter. All of this adds up to a light, fun, and exciting space opera that had my whole family laughing out loud and rocking along for a solid two hours.

As I write about it, however, I find that I'm having trouble sinking my teeth into it.  It's bouncy.  It's fun.  I'll enjoy seeing it again when it hits Netflix.  But it doesn't give me much to think about.  It's the cotton candy of movies.

That said, I like cotton candy.  Guardians of the Galaxy worked for me.

Robot & Frank

When someone goes out of his way to recommend a film to me, I hesitate to see it. What if I think it stinks and I hurt that person's feelings?

Someone went out of his way to recommend Robot & Frank to me. 

Here's the story: it's the near future. Dracula (Frank Langella) has given up his vampirism and is now a sad, lonely old man with dementia. The highlight of his week is walk to the local library, where he flirts with librarian Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon). Oh, to be young and living in a castle again!

Anyway, Langella's son (James Marsden) worries about him, so he buys him a semi-anthropomorphic robot to help out around the house. Langella regains his vigor and decides to reembark on a previous career (with the robot's help): high-end jewel thief.

That's about the time I fell asleep. When I woke up, the third act was getting started. I gutted it out, but I never got into the film.

I fell asleep because Robot & Frank never gave me a reason to care about Frank, beside the fact that he was played by an actor who had once delivered one of cinema's greatest Transylvanian counts. Since I didn't care about him, I didn't care about what happened to him. When I returned to the film after my short doze, nothing happened to change that fact.

Sorry, buddy. I wish had liked it.

Seven Psychopaths

Seven Psychopaths is violent, funny, and a great time at the movies.

Here's the setup: screenwriter Colin Farrell has a deadline and no screenplay. I know – this sounds like every bad Creative Writing assignment that begins with “The writer sat at his desk, staring at the clock and wiping flop sweat from his brow.” But what if the next paragraph read, “Then Sam Rockwell turned up. He was the writer's best friend, and he ran a Hollywood dognapping operation with small-time crook Christopher Walken. They had a problem?”

Your reaction to that last sentence was predicated on your appreciation for Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken, both of whom Can Do No Wrong (CDNW). Each of these guys are usually the best thing about whichever movie they're in, and they're both great here. That said, Seven Psychopaths is really the “How Awesome is Sam Rockwell?” movie, so Walken only dials it up to ten in this one. This is one of Seven Psychopaths' many smart moves: by giving Rockwell space to do his thing, it actually makes us appreciate Walken more. Further, Seven Psychopaths makes Farrell a straight man in service to Rockwell's over-the-top performance, and the former shows a remarkable gift for subtle comic timing.

[Aside: It has taken me a while to warm up to Farrell. He was fine in a pretty straightforward role in the odious Tigerland, then someone in Hollywood decided he was going to be the Next Big Thing and got him cast in travesties like Daredevil. He disappeared for a while, then came back strong with InBruges, Fright Night, and Seven Psychopaths. The man has a long way to go to claim CDNW status, but he's back on my radar.]

Of course, this is a film called Seven Psychopaths; so psychopaths do turn up, operatic volumes of blood do get spilled, and a good time is had by all. All this, plus a clever script, terrific performances, and laugh-out-loud moments make Seven Psychopaths my biggest and most pleasant surprise of the summer.

Four Brief Takes

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Hey do you like movies which invite you to spend 90 minutes laughing at (rather than with) their characters? Me neither. Unfortunately, that's The Incredible Burt Wonderstone in a nutshell. Despite a real knowledge of and fondness for magicians and their craft, the film can't overcome its fundamental mean-spiritedness.

Incredibly, Burt Wonderstone couldn't pull so much as a chuckle out of thin air. I should have cleaned out my house's raingutters, instead.

Elysium

Elysium is Matt Damon's shot at a Big Concept, Big Budget science-fiction adventure. Unfortunately, the Big Concept is that Rich People are Bad, which is laughable coming from a studio owned and run by rich people.

Sanctimony, however, isn't Elysium's greatest flaw. That honor gets divided between dullness and ugliness. Elysium is dull because its hero takes so long to get from “self-absorbed jerk” to “hero” that we've lost empathy by the time he's made the transition. It's dull because its villains are so villainous that they aren't even interesting. It's dull because its internal contradictions glare so brightly that they keep the audience from suspending disbelief. And it's dull just because it drags. Elysium is ugly because – heck, I don't know, maybe director Neil Blomkamp (of the remarkable District 9) just likes ugliness.

This is a tedious, dull, annoying, ugly film.  Pass it by.

The Wolverine

I saw The Wolverine about a week ago, and I've already forgotten nearly everything about it other than a ridiculous hand-to-hand battle with a cyborg samurai.  It's as if the movie had never even existed.

Taken 2

If you liked Taken, you'll like Taken 2. It's an unapologetic rehash of the first film, set this time in Istanbul. Hey, I liked Taken. I like Istanbul. I got my money's worth.

The Bridges at Toko-Ri

The Bridges at Toko-Ri is the best movie I've seen this summer.

Adapted from the novel by WWII Sailor James Michener, The Bridges of Toko-Ri tells the story of LT Harry Brubaker, a Reservist called to active duty to fly and flight in the Korean war. It's a serious film, one that grapples with the realities of family separation, mortal peril, and profound loyalty that are the weft and warp of naval aviation. The Navy cooperated in its production, granting access to USS ORISKANY and USS KEARSARGE, as well as extensive opportunities to film its mighty F9F-2 Panthers in flight. Its star, William Holden, had a personal link to the material: his late brother, a naval aviator, had given his life in the Pacific.

Pedigrees, however, don't guarantee a great film. The Bridges of Toko-Ri succeeds not because of its authenticity, but because it's a thrilling and gripping tale. It begins in the best possible way, with a helo bubba (played by Mickey Rooney) pulling a jet bubba (Holden) out of the water following an ejection. As a former Navy helo bubba, I could have spent the next ninety minutes watching Rooney rescue people. That's not the way the world works, however: the world cares about jet bubbas.

This particular jet bubba has a beautiful wife (Grace Kelly), two charming daughters, and every reason to get home alive. The Bridges at Toko-Ri is built around the early warning, planning, execution, and aftermath of a mission that puts that eventuality very much in doubt: an airstrike on a cluster of North Korean bridges deemed vital to the war effort. Because the film walks us through all the steps in the runup to and execution of this mission, we in the audience get time to bond with its characters both at sea and ashore. Because the film takes pains to achieve maximum authenticity in its depiction of life afloat and airborne, we get to live vicariously in another world at another time. Because the mission itself is so hazardous, and filmed so well, we get to spend the last half-hour of the film on the edges of our collective seats, rooting for Holden's character to make it back to Grace and the girls.

This is a great film. It's close enough to real life to stand in for historical footage (though the F9F-2 wasn't flown in the Korean War – the filmmakers had to work with what they had). Its characters are compelling enough to make us care about them. Its story is tight enough to keep us on the hook for two hours and reel us in at the climax. The Bridges at Toko-Ri belongs at the top of your queue.

Chef

Funny and kind, Chef is a feel-good movie that sent me home with a smile on my face.

In the film, John Favreau plays a workaholic chef. He's divorced. He doesn't spend enough time with his son. He works for a restaurateur who's a businessman first and an epicurean second. He's miserable. When he loses his job and must start anew with a dilapidated food truck, things seem about as bad as they can get.

And then he remembers how much he loves cooking good food for people who appreciate it. Oh, and he bonds with his son, finds happiness, and so forth (That last sentence isn't a spoiler unless you've never been to the movies before.).

Think of Chef as cinematic comfort food, the motion picture equivalent of a grilled-cheese sandwich. Now, a grilled-cheese sandwich can be Velveeta on Wonder Bread hot off the Foreman Grill, or it can be a carefully chosen mix of cheeses on fresh-baked bread and grilled -just so- on a hot skittle with hand-drawn butter. Chef is the latter. It's genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny not just in its acting, but in its composition and editing. It boasts characters of depth and heart, people you'd be happy to call your friends. It photographs food and the process of its preparation with delight. It's just a joy, and it's putting a smile on my face even now, as I write about it days later.

See Chef and be happy.

RED 2; Oblivion

RED 2

I enjoyed RED, the movie about Dame Helen Mirren machine-gunning baddies while wearing a slinky white evening gown.

RED 2 is more of the same, but it suffers from its lack of novelty. There are new baddies and a new evening gown, but the entire film basically exists to showcase older actors shooting younger ones while tossing off one-liners that make us worry more for their mental health than their physical safety. It's still fun, but it's not much of a surprise this time around. You may want to give this one a pass.

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Oblivion

Oblivion is a beautifully crafted, high-concept sci-fi action picture – the kind of thing I usually go for.

In the film, Tom Cruise plays a drone repairman in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. By night, he lives in a beautiful, modern outpost. By day, he braves the wilderness to find downed (alien-hunting) drones, fix them, and sic them on any Morlock-like aliens they should happen to find.

And away we go. As I said, I enjoy this kind of thing. And I enjoyed it well enough, but something about it seemed rote. Cruise ran away from an explosion. Cruise was forced to choose between improbably beautiful, age-inappropriate women. Cruise saved the world and earned a respectful head-nod from a reluctant ally. You know – the usual. The big concept was the metaphor for American drone wars in a part of the world that's basically a pre-industrial hellscape. And that was it.

I'm not saying that Oblivion was bad. Generally speaking, Tom Cruise doesn't make bad movies. It just seemed limp, uninspired. If you're in the mood for a Tom Cruise science fiction film, go see Edge of Tomorrow again. Now, that's a movie!

Edge of Tomorrow

Funny and exciting, Edge of Tomorrow is a great time at the movies.

Here's the setup: it's basically Groundhog Day in the middle of an alien invasion, with Tom Cruise forced to live the same fate-of-humanity battle over and over again. While Groundhog Day saw Bill Murray's self-absorbed weatherman learn how to be a decent human being, Edge of Tomorrow sees Tom Cruise learning both Decency 101 and how to defeat the alien menace.

So, if you're the kind of moviegoer who saw Groundhog Day and thought, “This movie needs more 'splosions,” then Edge of Tomorrow is the movie for you. I have that thought during nearly every movie I see. I loved it.

What makes Edge of Tomorrow work? Front and center, there's Tom Cruise offering yet another performance to remind us that he's a much better actor than everyone seems to think. His protagonist begins the film as a smooth, self-centered coward, and Cruise sells that characterization while keeping us on his side. Much of the film's second act is comprised of Cruise's character getting killed in a variety of ways, and he sells that with a series of high-pitched yelps, screams, and “Oh, mans” that remind us more of Loony Tunes than Starship Troopers. By the time the third act rolls around and our hero has finally matured into, well, our hero, the film has so won us over that we really don't mind that it's rehashing Pacific Rim.

What else makes it work? First, Emily Blunt offers first-class supporting work as the Angel of Verdun, a war hero from an earlier battle who (because of sci-fi stuff) experienced the same time-loop there that our hero is experiencing here. She becomes his mentor and (age inappropriate) love interest, and the movie has fun with the idea that she's meeting him for the first time nearly every time he resurrects (in some of his cycles, Cruise skips meeting her and attends to other business instead). Second, Bill Paxton is perfection in a uniform as the sergeant major who turns up near the beginning of each new time loop. He's authoritative and commanding, yet somehow goofy enough to maintain the film's light, entertaining tone.

Director Doug Liman keeps the film moving briskly, hits the right character notes, and makes his world seem lived-in and authentic. Perhaps more importantly, he has a great sense of geography. Even during chaotic battle scenes, he gives the audience enough information to never lose track of who is doing what to whom, and where and why. The production values are top-notch, the monster designs excellent, and the whole thing a pleasure.

Bottom line: if you like big-budget sci-fi adventure with a sense of humor and lots of 'splosions, then Edge of Tomorrow is for you. As for me, I loved it. I can't wait to see it with my kids.

Ted

Ted is a hilarious 10-minute sketch crammed into an excruciating 106-minute movie.

Here's the sketch: a lonely boy wishes that his teddy bear would come to life and be his best friend forever. The wish comes true and the boy and his bear grow into two lazy, irresponsible, couch-bound weed monkeys. The bear says and does lots of vulgar stuff, which is funny coming from a teddy bear. That's about it.

This makes for an amusing first act. Mark Wahlberg is game for just about anything as the grown-up slacker, and the animators who created the bear do phenomenal work. The joke wears thin by the second act, however. By the third, we're checking our watches and wondering if we have any socks that need folding.

What's bad about it? First, Wahlberg is horribly miscast as the aforementioned couch-bound weed monkey. While he's a fine actor who's willing to work for a laugh, the fact is that he looks like a bodybuilder. I submit that it's impossible to be both a lazy, irresponsible, couch-bound weed monkey and a bodybuilder. Bodybuilding requires dedication, discipline, and a work ethic. Every time the movie showed me Wahlberg's character sprawled out on the couch, with a beer to one hand and a bong to the other, all I could think was, “Shenanigans. This guy looks like he spends his time drinking protein shakes and doing hammer curls. I'm just not buying it.”

And the love interest? I felt actively sorry for Mila Kunis in this picture. Not only was she trying to play a character wholly in love with an unlovable man, she looked so thin that I wanted to shout, “Hey, Wahlberg, how about sharing one of your protein shakes with this poor woman? She looks like she's about to collapse!”

The score is boring. The cinematography is boring. The direction is lackluster. While watching this film, I felt that I was making a conscious choice to fritter away my precious time on this earth. Yes, I laughed during the first act, and I think Ted's premise would make for a terrific “Funny or Die” short. But as a feature film? Ted is worse than bad: it's boring. I feel cheap just for taking the time to write about it.

Godzilla (2014)

I'm going to preface this review with a little personal background. It'll help if you know where I'm coming from.

Some of my earliest and fondest memories include spending Friday nights with my sister, camped out in our family VW Van in the driveway. Our father would run out a portable tv on an extension cord, and my sister and I would eat popcorn and watch Creature Feature in our own little world. On many of those Friday evenings, the creature of the week was Godzilla, another monster from Toho Studios' stable, or some combination thereof.

When I had kids, I made a family tradition of hanging out on the couch on Friday nights and watching Japanese monster movies. There was something about those artifacts of the '60s and '70s, that combination of giant monsters and visible costume-zippers, that spoke to children. We had a video game for the original X-Box that was basically Mortal Kombat, but with giant Japanese monsters. I can't imagine how many times I've heard an offscreen announcer intone something like, “Space Godzilla versus Mecha Gigan! Monsters, fight!”

When I was a C-130 pilot, I used to travel to Tokyo quite often. I'd always stop by the same toy store near Ueno Park to pick up some Bandai Godzilla dolls. By the time I'd made my last trip, our 3 boys had a collection including nearly every Godzilla monster, as well as quite a few creatures from the Gamera films. These are not carefully preserved collector's items. These are battered and worn everyday toys, the stuff of the imaginations of the next generation of Ellermanns.

My point is that I didn't come to this movie as a casual consumer of summer fare. I came to this movie as a guy who has seen every single Godzilla movie, even the really bad ones. I came to this movie ready to see it as part of a long, long series of sequels, reboots, and reimaginings. I came to this movie ready to be entertained.

I got my money's worth.

The first two major players Godzilla presents are Sally Hawkins (Made in Dagenham, Happy-Go-Lucky) and Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima). Next, we see Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) and Juliette Binoche (Trois couleurs: Bleu). Later, we get Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene) and David Strathairn (Temple Grandin). 'All right,' I thought. 'Even if this movie is terrible, a whole bunch of legitimately excellent actors are getting big, blockbuster paydays out of it. That's a win, right there.' Eventually, we learn that the hero is a Navy EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) lieutenant. 'Hey,' I thought, 'I have a buddy who wrote a book based on his timeas an EOD bubba. This is cool!' Basically, the movie got me onboard pretty early.

Having done that, Godzilla works hard to keep me, the fan, on board. Its secondary monsters (called MUTOs, a marginally more creative moniker than, say Mechagodzilla) leave trails similar to those of the larval giant-moth creatures of Mothra. Godzillla himself gets his first reveal at sea, thoughtlessly making naval vessels bob in the ocean like so many rubber duckies. At one point, our hero rescues a little Japanese boy who looks straight out of Godzilla vs. Megalon. Ken Watanabe gets to pretend he's Takashi Shimura and intone classic Godzilla movie lines like, “Man believes he controls nature, but he is stupid, proud, and wrong. Nature always restores balance.” Jet fighters fly ridiculously low to the ground, only to get swatted out of the sky (as opposed to shooting from a safe altitude and distance). Cities get leveled, flooded, and irradiated. A good time is had by all.

And Godzilla, man, this Godzilla is great. The film retains the classic roar. Godzy dispatches one of his enemies with a move cribbed directly from Godzilla: Final Wars. The reveal of his atomic fire breath is so awesome that it had my now - 14-yr-old son bouncing in his chair with delight. Perhaps best of all, this Godzilla takes a page from the later Showa era, when the King of Monsters served mainly as a defender of the natural order (and, by extension, humanity). I walked into Godzilla expecting a standard rehash of the original Gojira. I got something like that, but with a heaping helping of Invasion of the Astro Monster. What a pleasant surprise.

'All right,' you're thinking, 'this guy likes Godzilla movies. Godzilla is, obviously a Godzilla movie, so he likes it. But will I like it? Is it actually, y'know, good?'

Well, taken in the broader context of contemporary American popular film, Godzilla's just ok. It has a terrible score, wastes the talented Elizabeth Olsen in an underwritten part, and takes a mighty long time to get to the rompin' stompin' giant monster action. Taken in the context of the mostly-terrible (beloved, but terrible) films that preceded it, however, it's marvelous. It looks gorgeous, it respects its unique filmic tradition, and it sets up a world in which we can look forward to continued sequels. It's everything you could ask for from a Godzilla movie.

I (and my progeny) approve.

PS You may enjoy the Godzilla movie reviews I've written since starting this blog in 2006:

Godzilla vs. Megalon

Gojira 

Son of Godzilla 

Godzilla: Final Wars 

Godzilla vs. Gigan 

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 

Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster 

Terror of Mechagodzilla 

Invasion of the Astro-Monster 

Ghidorah:The Three-Headed Monster 

Godzilla 1998 (written by my then – 10-yr-old) 

Godzilla vs. Gigan (written by my then - 11-yr-old) 

Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (written by my then – 12-yr-old) 

Frozen

We were roughly twenty minutes into Frozen, watching the brown-haired sister (voiced by Kristen Bell) sing a duet with her beau, when I realized my kids weren't showing me a movie. They were showing me a Broadway musical disguised as a movie. About ten minutes after that, while watching Idina Menzel's Ice Queen belt out a full-throated (and Oscar-winning) “Let it Go,” I realized they were showing me a particularly good Broadway musical disguised as a movie. They ate it right up, and so did I.

Here's what makes Frozen a particularly good Broadway musical disguised as a movie: the songs, the story, the sets and costuming, and the performances.

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the songs. Between them, they boast 'The Book of Mormon,' 'Avenue Q,' 'The Wonder Pets,' 'Winnie The Pooh,' and 'In Transit.' Robert Lopez has an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. These people know what they're doing, and what they're doing in Frozen is writing show tunes. These songs have great hooks, catchy choruses, and singability written all over them – just try listening to “Fixer Upper,” sung in the movie by a chorus of Scandinavian rock trolls, and not imagining a bunch of 12-year-olds in homemade costumes. I dare you. And if you happen to be one of the few people who still haven't heard Frozen's big anthem, “Let it Go,” well, get ready for an ear worm that'll play in a constant loop for days.

The story has a story of its own.  Re-pitched in the wake of Disney's successful The Little Mermaid, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Ice Queen had been knocking around the Mouse House since 1943. The picture got a green light in 2011, and the story went through multiple iterations involving many people before it got to the version we see today. And that version? It's a near-perfect combination of family tension, romantic interest, villainy, and magic. Best of all, it does unexpected things with those elements. The family tension is about two sisters who love each other so much that it's simultaneously pushing them apart and pulling them together. The romantic interest zigs one way, then zags another, then zigs and zags a few more times, helping the audience mirror the conflicted feelings of the protagonist. The villainy, well, it's wonderful. There's Alan Tudyk (CDNW), voicing a character that's just a perfect weasel. And there's -well, you're going to have to see it for yourself. And the magic? It delights in that it plays more like something from an X-Men movie than a fairy tale. But those are just the elements. Frozen's unique charm springs from the way it lulls the audience with its first act simplicity, setting up all the pieces and archetypes for a pleasant if predicable story, then combines and recombines those pieces in unexpected ways while taking the story in fresh directions. I am used to watching children's movies for execution over story. Frozen offers both.

The sets and costuming are the result of a combination of extensive research, artistic sensibility, and technical brilliance. Animators visited Norway to get a sense of Scandinavian architecture, wilderness, and maritime culture. It's one thing to look at pictures of a fjord; it's quite another to see one for oneself. They traveled to Wyoming to understand how people move in deep snow in a variety of different styles of dress, from ball gowns to traditional Nordic furs. They visited a Canadian ice hotel to see how ice architecture really works. Then, they took all this and combined it with Ice Queen designs from the Disney archives, their own original artwork, and technical tools like Matterhorn, a snow-animation program written specifically for this film. The result? A beautiful, organic, seamless world that enriches its story, adds depth to its characters, and maintains the illusion of reality throughout the film's running time.

Of course, the whole thing breaks down if the performances don't resonate. In addition to the aforementioned Tudyk (CDNW), Idina Menzel provides a speaking voice for the Ice Queen that's both strong and vulnerable. Perhaps more importantly, Menzel (who boasts an impressive Broadway resume) has extraordinary singing pipes. The Frozen soundtrack provides a great example of this by including renditions of “Let it Go” performed by Menzel in the film and the pop singer Demi Lovato for a radio audience. Menzel blows Lovato clean off the record, bringing a clarity and technical proficiency that somehow reminds me of Nat King Cole.  And the rest of the cast? Well, not a single voice or inflection broke the movie's spell. We're talking about top-drawer stuff.

All of this adds up to a little more than a movie, and a little more than a really good Broadway musical disguised as a movie. It adds up to an extraordinary film, both entertaining and beautiful, that I'll be happy to watch again and again. Way to hit one out of the park, Disney.

Men in War

Korea. 1950. North Korean armor and heavy infantry roll down the Peninsula as if the South Korean Army weren't even there. Task Force Smith, pulled from occupation troops fat from the good life in Tokyo, goes to the Peninsula and attacks at Osan. Under-armed, under-trained, and under-supported, they'll soon be pushed back to the Pusan perimeter; there to hang on and await the reinforcements steaming across the Pacific.

This is the world of Men in War, a deceptively simply picture about a lost platoon, a headstrong sergeant, a shell-shocked colonel, and a jeep. The platoon wants to rendezvous with Big Army. The sergeant wants to take care of his colonel. Everyone wants the jeep. And away we go.

Men in War boils down to the conflict between the platoon's lieutenant, an improbably old and grizzled Robert Ryan, and the sergeant whose only goal is to get his near-vegetative colonel to the rear. The lieutenant is the audience's proxy, leading by example, advocating human decency, and reeling in horror at the realities of warfare. The sergeant serves as a foil for the idealistic officer, but his brand of cynical survivalism comes at a price.

The film sells this premise through the performances of Ryan (in real-life, a former USMC drill instructor*) as the lieutenant and Aldo Ray as the sergeant. These guys look dirty and smelly and scared, and I believed every syllable of every line of dialogue they uttered. The rest of the supporting cast all kind of blend into the background, but that's ok. This is a morality play, and too many points of view muddy the waters.

That said, Men in War never loses sight of the fact that this conflict takes place in the context of a larger conflict, and it never stops being a gripping war movie. It orients the audience to the platoon's fatigue level, morale, supply situation, and position relative to Big Army.  It conveys North Korean positions, troop strength, and doctrine without resorting to bland exposition. Most importantly, it keeps the audience dialed in on everything from the overall operational situation to the placement of individual land mines. This enhances the film's verisimilitude, lending urgency to its patrols, skirmishes, and battles.

In other words, here's a film about, well, men in war that appears to have been created by people who actually understand warfare. It makes for an engrossing and challenging viewing experience, one well worth the time of both the military history aficionado and the general-interest film buff. I loved it.




*Thanks for that, Jim!

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is an outstanding example of big-budget Hollywood filmmaking. It offers an engaging story, an outstanding cast, and production design that's second to none.

The story picks up from the first Hunger Games movie, opening with a beautiful shot of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) silhoutted against a sunrise, quiver on ther back and bow in her hand as she scans a nearby riverbank for game. Struggling with PTSD and trying to get back to normal, our heroine is in no condition to enter the whirl of celebrity life as a Hunger Games survivor. Enter it she must, however, and she soon finds herself the nexus of a nascent revolution.

This is just the first act, but it does an outstanding job of reorienting the audience to its world, laying down the story's themes, and setting up the larger conflicts playing behind the scenes of the smaller scale, yet no-less important, conflicts awaiting our heroine as she's thrust back into the world of the games and forced to compete again. In effect, it shifts the focus of the franchise from “Teenager sticks it to the The Man” to “Scrappy rebel comes to grips with her new status as a leader.” It's wonderful, and wonderfully realized. And we haven't even met most of the supporting cast.

Speaking of which, look at that cast: Amanda Plummer (who Can Do No Wrong), Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci (CDNW), Jeffrey Wright (CDNW), Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toby Jones, and Woody Harrelson, just to name a few. Folks, these are the big guns: the top-shelf talent a studio is willing to pay for when it knows it has an almost certain hit. They do not disappoint, and neither does Lawrence (CDNW), once again proving that she's as capable of carrying a major studio sci-fi action franchise as she is anchoring a moving and horrifying modern noir (That last sentence brought to by Winter'sBone, which you should see right away.). That said, I'd like to take a moment to single out the always wonderful Stanley Tucci (What? You haven't seen Big Night? What's wrong with you?). Here, he plays a television personality who's all spray-on tan, ultra-white teeth, silly hair, and bull$#!^. Watch him closely, however. Beneath the veneer, his character is a consummate professional who happens to be extraordinarily good at his job. It's a layered, subtle performance for a character who could easily be nothing but a two-dimensional placeholder. That's what the best can bring.

But wait – there's more. This film's costume, makeup, and set design, as well as its computer-generated animation, is seamless, beautiful, and brilliantly realized. It delivers the spectacle one expects of a major blockbuster combined with the care and artistry required to deliver a convincing, organic, yet slightly alien world. This picture is nothing short of marvelous, and marvelous to behold.

In my review of TheHunger Games, I wrote that I looked forward to the further adventures of Katniss Everdeen. Catching Fire did not let me down. Bring on more sequels!