They Live

Okay, I’ll say it.  I submit that John Carpenter's They Live is not a very good movie.  It’s not a disaster: it features a great premise, a tight screenplay, and a stable of solid supporting actors. 

But those laudable elements can’t help They Live conform to anything like a pattern for a good movie.  It has low production values, a cheap synth soundtrack that will put you to sleep, a simplistic political viewpoint requiring next to no thought, and a wooden lead performer.

Everyone may love star Roddy Piper in Hell Comes to Frogtown, but I didn’t buy him here.  He comes across like an amateur, desperate to remember his lines and hit his marks, and I never once believed that his character was an actual human.

Yet, They Live really does get the most out of its premise.  It features great monster design, some iconic imagery, and more than enough chuckles to keep things light as you watch TV.  I don’t know how much media you consume; even though They Live isn’t very good, however, you may want to put this one on the menu.

Captain America: Civil War, The Heat, The Nice Guys, Sicario

Friends, I've been taking a break from flying to work on a special project.  No flying = fewer nights in hotel rooms, pecking away at my keyboard.  Still, here are some short notes on some films I've seen these last few weeks.

Captain America: Civil War

Captain America: Civil War features a battle between different factions of The Avengers, the team of superheroes we in the audience have come to root for over the course of Marvel’s films.  It marks the first time I’ve ever felt conflicted watching one of these superfights, and that is a remarkable achievement.  In this fight, nobody’s evil; nobody wants to kill anybody; everyone just wants it to stop.

It's heartbreaking.

“Heartbreaking” isn’t a word I’d ever expected to write in regards to a superhero movie, but there it is.  Civil War presents us with an “everyone’s right” scenario that forces noble people into a conflict they don’t want and that can’t be resolved with a simple, “Old Man Withers is the real villain here” reveal.  That’s the stuff of heartbreak.  Well done.

The Heat

The Heat is a simple buddy-cop comedy elevated by sharp writing and the significant talents of Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock.  It’s laugh-out-loud funny, moves right along, and practically begs for a sequel.  Sign me up.

The Nice Guys

Shane Black can do no wrong.

Sicario

Sicario stars Emily Blunt as an FBI agent with PTSD.  She’s in the middle of a major counter-drug operation, however, so she doesn’t have time to deal with it.  This leaves her accruing more and more damage as the film progresses, lending a harrowing shading to an otherwise unremarkable film about ultraviolent cartels and the agencies who combat them.

Odds and Ends

The Bounty

The Bounty tells the story of H.M.S. BOUNTY, Captain Bligh, and the mutiny led by Fletcher Christian.  It features a delightful, Vangelis synth score, magnificent overacting by a young Mel Gibson, and a glacial pace.  If that sounds like your cup of coconut water, have at it.

Ricki and the Flash

Ricki and the Flash tells the story of an aging would-be rock star in a San Fernando Valley cover band, the ex-husband and children she left behind to pursue her dreams, and the year when the chickens come home to roost.  It’s solid material, anchored by a powerhouse Meryl Streep performance, some subtle work from Kevin Kline, and even a solid turn by Rick Springfield in a supporting role as Ricki’s lead guitarist and love interest.

This is the kind of character study that depends utterly on its star, and it will surprise no one to find that Ms. Streep is entirely up to the task.  She makes us want to watch her even when we don’t like her, and want to watch her even more as or perceptions begin to change.  Truly, this actress Can Do No Wrong.

The Salvation

Hey, do you like Westerns?  Do you like Mads Mikkelsen and Jonathan Pryce?  Me too, but I’m sorry to report that not even Mssrs. Mikkelsen & Pryce can save this Western.

The Salvation is your basic revenge tale, with Mikkelsen going after the thugs who do away with a couple of barely sketched out characters named, I think, “Wife” and “Son.”  Things spin out of control, there’s a showdown, blah blah blah.  The movie looks cheap, the villain lacks complexity, and the whole thing is a drag.  If you’re really in the mood for a Western, go watch Open Range again, instead.

Let Me In

Let The Right One In is a brilliant, Swedish take on the modern vampire story.  Let Me In, the American remake starring Chloe Grace Moretz, lacks the beauty and subtlety of the original and exchanges it for ugliness and plodding literalism.  Stay outside.

The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book is a triumph of storytelling and technical filmmaking.  It’s beautiful, engaging, age-appropriately scary, and entirely convincing.  We loved it.

Trouble with the Curve

“Hey, Alex.  Whatcha watchin’?”

“Trouble with the Curve.  Clint Eastwood plays a salty old baseball scout whose eyesight is going.  Amy Adams is his daughter.  She works for an uptight law firm, has issues with her dad, and has a boyfriend who is clearly The Wrong Guy.  Justin Timberlake just showed up; he’s going to be her new love interest and win her heart from The Wrong Guy.  I’m not sure whether it’ll be before or after she works things out with Clint and quits her job at the firm.”

“Oh.  How far along are you?”

“About ten minutes.  I know where the movie’s going, but that’s ok.  A movie like this, it’s all in the execution.”

And I’m happy to report that Trouble with the Curve executes very nicely.  Featuring a supporting cast led by John Goodman and some of the best character actors in the business (Ed Lauter, George Wyner, Bob Gunton, Matthew Lillard, Robert Patrick, etc.), this by-the-numbers family drama succeeds on the basis of its unobtrusive direction, solid production values, and excellent performances.  It isn’t flashy, but it looks nice, covers the bases, and gives us an excuse to spend ninety minutes or so with a bunch of good people who are trying to do the right thing.  Heck, it even features a “roadhouse” scene in which Adams and Timberlake try to convince us that they can’t really dance.  

This film played out just as I thought it would, but it did so with satisfying professionalism.  If you’re tired of watching computer animations of demigods punching one another, you can’t go wrong with Trouble with the Curve.

Wild

Wild tells the true-ish story of  Cheryl Strayed, a troubled woman who sets out to through-hike the Pacific Crest Trail and, in a sense, wipe her personal slate clean.  It’s wonderful, not just for the effective and deft way it tells Strayed’s internal story, but for its depiction of the experience of backpacking the PCT.

As it happens, I grew up in town just off the PCT, a trail that runs all the way from California’s Mexican border to Washington’s Canada border.  Every spring, through-hikers would descend on my town, standing in line to pick up packages at the post office, hitching rides to the store, and generally catching their breath before heading on up the trail.  I, personally, have logged more miles than I can remember on the trail, both backpacking and working on maintenance projects as part of various Eagle Scout projects.  In other words, like Wings of the Navy, Wild tells a story about my personal world.

And it nails it.  When she begins her journey, Strayed has no idea what she’s doing.  She makes all the rookie mistakes: she overpacks, she fails to field-test her gear before starting out, she buys the wrong boots, and so on.  As a guy who has also made all of those rookie mistakes, the first act played (for me) like a horror movie: what disaster would this character bring upon herself next?  But slowly, across the miles and with a little help along the way, Strayed figures it out.  She sheds all the crap that isn’t doing her any good.  She learns how to take care of herself.  She finds her strength.  The film goes from horror-show to powerful character study, and before we know it we aren’t watching a movie about a woman walking in the woods, but about a woman walking out of her past.

This is powerful stuff, aided by a keen eye for technical detail, a genuine affection for the PCT and its through-hikers, and sure knowledge of what it’s about.  Wild is worth the trip.

Wings of the Navy; Kung Fu Panda 2

Wings of the Navy

Wings of the Navy is an odd duck.  Narratively, it isn’t particularly interesting: young flight student earns his Wings of Gold.  Historically, however, it’s the best.  Filmed in 1939, Wings of the Navy features extensive sequences shot aboard NAS Pensacola, FL, and NAS North Island, CA.

So what?  Well, the film spoke to me.  As a naval aviator who has spent a significant amount of time both in Pensacola and North Island, I loved seeing how the bases have changed, and how much they’ve remained the same, over the years.  The sea walls?  Still there.  North Island’s blimp hangar?  Still there.  Many of Pensacola’s buildings and hangars?  Yep, still going strong.  Further, Wings of the Navy features many, many scenes of Grumman F3Fs and Consolidated PBY Catalinas in flight.  What a wonderful historical document!

So, is Wings of the Navy a great film qua film?  Nope.  If you’re interested in aviation history, however, it’s a must-see.  I am, it was, and I’m glad I did.

Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda 2 is every bit as colorful, touching, and exciting as its predecessor.  I loved it.

Catching Up

I've been clobbered at work, so I've been putting blogging on that back burner.  That said, here are a few things I've seen over last several weeks.

Big

It’s funny how time changes one’s perspective.  The first time I saw Big, I was 20.  I sympathized with the Tom Hanks (CDNW) character.  The last time, I was 47.  I sympathized with his mother, traumatized over the loss of her missing son.  And so it goes.

Deadpool

Deadpool won me over in the opening credits, when it named the writers as “The Real Heroes” and the director as “Some Overpaid Jerk.”  The film irreverently kept the laughs coming for 89 more minutes after that, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Spectre

It has been a month or so since I saw Spectre.  I barely remember it.

Ex Machina

Ex Machina is one of the best films of its year.  It does everything good science fiction should do, and it provides rich fodder for conversation.  I want to see it again.

Zootopia

I laughed all the way through Zootopia.  Then again, I’m an easy laugh.  Thing is, my kids loved it, too.  So I’m calling it a winner.

Enough Said

Enough Said is a charming romantic comedy anchored by two engaging leads.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus turns in excellent work as the protagonist, and James Gandolfini makes for a surprisingly effective love interest.  Add to this a supporting cast that includes Toni Collette (CDNW) and Katherine Keener, and you get 90 or so minutes with interesting, complex people whom you’re happy to meet.

Louis-Dreyfus plays a remarkably affluent massage therapist, driving from appointment to appointment in her immaculate little Prius and living in the kind of nice little rancher that’s dotted across Los Angeles and Orange counties, and that goes for roughly $600k as of January, 2016.  Gandolfini plays a remarkably affluent archivist, working in a reconditioned warehouse, driving an Audi, and living in another roughly $600k home.  Keener’s a poet who somehow lives in a million dollar mission-style place in Santa Monica, and Collette’s a therapist who actually lives in the kind of home a therapist to the wealthy could conceivably afford.

But enough about the fact that everyone in this movie, apart from Collette, should be living in dumpy apartments in Torrance.  This is a fantasy – a fantasy in which working people get to live like rich people, and that’s ok.  More importantly, this is a romantic comedy, and both Louis-Dreyfus and Gandolfini do fine jobs selling both the romance and the comedy.  They play adults – a little damaged, trying to get along – who find one another.  Complications ensue, as they must, and they’re played with just the right touch.  Consequently, Enough Said delivers just what one could want from such a film.  I smiled; I got a little choked up; I didn’t want it to end.  Really, what more could one want?

About Time

About Time is a romantic comedy that poses the question, “Could you find love if you had unlimited do-overs?”  Here’s the setup: Domhnall Gleeson is an insecure young Briton who learns that he has the ability to travel backward in his own timeline and relive any moment.  Say the wrong thing at a dinner party?  No problem.  Go back and try again.  Twist your knee skiing?  No problem.  Go back and take a different rout next time.  And away we go.

It’s a fine setup for a romantic comedy.  As with any endeavor, however, it’s all in the execution.  And it’s in the execution thatAbout Time stumbles in two key areas:  it fails to give us a reason to fall in love with its leading romantic couple, and it actually focuses on the wrong couple 

Let me explain:  for a romantic comedy to work, the audience must fall in love with the couple at its center.  That’s a tall order – it can’t be easy to craft characters who appeal to (potentially) millions of people.  Still, About Time doesn’t give us much to fall in love with.  The protagonist (Gleeson) isn’t a particularly interesting figure.  He has interesting parents, an interesting sister, and an interesting roommate, but he’s just … some guy.  A well-meaning guy, sure, but there isn’t anything about him that particularly captures the imagination.  The object of Gleeson’s affections, played by Rachel McAdams, is little more than an object.  The film doesn’t work to give me the sense that she’s anything greater than your Mk 1, Mod 0 Dream Girl.  She spends the film being manipulated by a Gleeson character with the ability to manage their every moment.  She has no agency of her own, and the film expects me, as the viewer experiencing the film through the eyes of the male protagonist, to fall in love with her simply because she looks like Rachel McAdams and she seems nice. Buddy, that’s not going to do it.

Gleeson’s parents, however – that’s a different story.  The couple, Bill Nighy & Lindsay Duncan, are delightful.  Yes, Nighy also has the ability to travel backward in his timeline and get the little things right, but one gets the sense that he does so more to savor his time with his family than say and do the right things to keep his wife happy.  Lindsay Duncan, for her part, is a mature, together woman who knows how to make things happen.  These are interesting people, played by fine actors, and I wanted to spend more time with them.

Alas.  We don’t always get what we want.  Perhaps someone can give About Time a do-over.

Boyhood

Boyhood is absolutely remarkable.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

The film follows a boy named Mason, played by Ellar Coltrane.  We meet him at Age 6, the younger of two children in a working-class household headed by single mom Patricia Arquette.  His father (Ethan Hawke) is a dreamer and a flake, but not a bad guy.  And, over the next 12 years, Mason grows up.

That’s it.  He doesn’t solve crimes, or save the planet, or anything like that.  He just … grows up.  This film’s magic lies in its close, sympathetic observance of that process.  He and his older sister deal with their parents’ loves, with moves and schools and teachers and other kids, with sibling rivalry and love and puberty and bullies and beer and joy and all the rest.  There’s beauty in this kind of close observation, in watching Mason and his family navigate the river of life.  It evokes such tenderness, both for our own children and the children we used to be.

While much has been made of the fact that Boyhood took 12 years to film, giving us the real-time maturation of its actors, this film is much more than a “gimmick movie.” Writer/Director Richard Linklater created a story for those actors into which they could grow, and he gave them to us in a way that makes us feel that they’re a part of our family.  So in watching Boyhood, I felt that I was watching my own sons, that I was watching my own, younger self.  I felt that I was watching a testimony of the human (or, at least, the young American male) experience.

It was unique, and fascinating, and touching.  It’s the best movie I’ve seen so far this year.

Maps to the Stars

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” – T.R. Roosevelt

David Cronenberg is a great director.  From essential experiments like  Videodrome and Naked Lunch to mature and gripping crowd pleasers like The Fly, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, the man has created a filmography that constitutes a must-see list for those who engage with film as an art form as serious as it is entertaining.  In short, David Cronenberg isn’t just cranking ‘em out and cashing checks.

So Maps to the Stars doesn’t quite work.  So it’s a bit too elliptical at some points, too on-the-nose at others.  So it’s 111 minutes spent with terrible people doing mean things to one another, with no audience-identification characters and no hint of levity to season the mix.  So it’s a miserable way to spend a couple of hours.

I’d still rather watch it than Ted 2.  Cronenberg’s daring a mighty thing with Maps to the Stars, tackling a tough story peopled with difficult characters and trying to make something of it.  Even if he doesn’t quite pull it off, I’d rather watch one of Cronenberg’s misses than many other filmmakers’ hits. 

Kung Fu Panda 3

Kung Fu Panda was a gorgeous, funny, exciting action-adventure.  Kung Fu Panda 3 is a not-so-gorgeous, reasonably funny action-adventure.

I recall Kung Fu Panda as featuring a bright, vibrant color palette that seemed to make every frame a work of art.  Either it was a fault with my theater’s projection, or Kung Fu Panda 3 used a more muted palette, one that looked nice but didn’t dazzle in the way the first film had.

Palette choices aside, the film felt more like a remake of than a sequel to the original.  Both feature old foes, back from a time in (a) prison, or (b) the afterlife.  Both feature training montages, a climactic battle, and a victory founded in the principle of finding one’s true self.  Both have the power to entertain children, but I found myself growing restless during the second act of the latter entry, making a non-imperative trip to the restroom and taking the time to inspect the “coming attractions” posters on my way to and from.

Still, my kids rolled out of the theater energized, and they happily discussed the film over sundaes afterward.  And hey, if they’re happy, I’m happy.  I just don’t know that I’m going to be in a rush to see Kung Fu Panda 4.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  -- I Corinthians, 13:11

I was 9 or 10 when Star Wars came out.  Like everyone else I knew at that age, I saw the movie multiple times, wore the t-shirt, had the lunchbox, etc.  

But, hey, I grew out of it.  I didn't make a point of showing the movies to my kids, though I did make the 'Clone Wars' cartoons available and even TiVo'd the first few episodes of 'Star Wars: Rebels.'  Star Wars was just another property in the entertainment marketplace.

Walking out of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, then, I was a happy guy.  The movie offered an enjoyable time in the theater with my wife and kids.  It featured a more interesting and entertaining villain's arc than all three prequels put together.  It had lightsaber duels, space-fighters, yet another exploding Death Star, and even a nu-Yoda there at the end.  I didn't expect The Force Awakens to change my life, so I was happy simply to enjoy a derivative, yet entertaining, science fantasy / space opera.

Did it capture my imagination for more than a few minutes after leaving the theater?  No, but that's ok.  I'm a man now.  My children liked, and that's who Stars Wars has always been for, all along.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

I loved The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  This is a fun, frothy movie with fast cars, stunning Mediterranean locations, beautiful people, and loads of stunts; and it’s all served up with an early-60’s lounge-cool vibe that’s just plain irresistible.

Here’s the setup: there are leftover Nazis, and they’re hiding out in Italy.  They’re about to get their hands on a nuclear weapon.  The CIA and KGB put their top agents on the case, forcing them to work together.  In other words, it’s a movie about a couple of ubermenschen who team up to fight Nazis off the Amalfi Coast. 

Now, if that isn’t the setup for a good time at the movies, I don’t know what is.  Ubermenschen Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer make for great spies, and Alicia Vikander more than holds her own as a spy in training.  The movie looks great, the music bops along wonderfully, and everyone seems to be having a great time.  What more could you ask for?