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  What a wonderful historical document!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.

A Christmas Carol & The Ox-Bow Incident

A Christmas Carol

This Christmas Eve, the Ellermann family sat down for the animated Disney version of A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman. The film uses the same uncanny valley – courting mocap animation technology as The Polar Express, though a few more years of sophistication have made this outing easier to swallow.

The film itself is a faithful adaptation of the novel, and it doesn't stint on the book's horrific elements. A Christmas Carol isn't a saccharine story, but the tale of a man who's shown the incredible damage he's wreaked upon those around him, as well as the consequences of that damage. By turns sad and scary, it earns its resolution. When Scrooge finally sees the light, we revel with him because the film has shown us just how dark his soul had become.

This version of A Christmas Carol is a winner.

The Ox-Bow Incident

Because I have poor judgment, I fired up The Ox-Bow Incident to kick off my Christmas vacation. Och, what a depressing film.

Here's the setup: Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan are just in from the range, drinking whiskey in a dusty saloon and looking for fun in a Western village with precious little of it on offer. When an angry cowhand rides up with a tale of murder and rustlin', the people of the village whip themselves up into a lynching frenzy which they call a posse. Afraid suspicion might shift to themselves, Fonda and Morgan join up against their own misgivings. All well and good, until the group finds some likely suspects. Then we're in a morality play.

And some play it is. The film, screened in 1943, feels like an angry postwar drama, full of cynicism and hard judgments of hard people. Fonda and Morgan make for fascinating protagonists, men we wouldn't consider entirely good, yet just good enough to sense how things are going and to feel repulsed by it.

This is not light stuff, and The Ox-Bow Incident treats it seriously. I appreciated its mature approach to the subject matter, its challenging position, and its resolution. I just wouldn't choose it as a film to usher in Holiday cheer.

The Dark Knight Rises

I saw The Dark Knight Rises while staying home with a sick child.  Consequently, I saw it in two sessions while my little one slept.  I spent the film’s entire 2.5-hour running time with my finger on the volume control.

The problem, at least with the film’s BluRay release, lies in the sound mixing.  The gunfire and explosions are so loud in comparison with the dialogue that I felt it was giving me a choice between waking my son during the action sequences or understanding the dialogue during the rest.  If you live in an apartment or share space with people who don’t wish their living room to sound like Armageddon, be warned.

On to the movie.  The Dark Knight Rises asks the filmic question: what if the Occupy people get their wish?  Its answer: French Revolution 2.  Despotism.  Kangaroo Courts.  Chaos.  Only the rich, working anonymously and unfettered from the rule of law, can protect the cringing middle class from the depredations of the fickle mob.

I’m not even a hippie, and I could see that message as if it were carefully painted in Sterno on an icy bridge in the middle of the night and set afire because some rich guy thought it would look cool.

Ok, but is the film any good?  Well, it does move along at a speedy clip, the freakishly beautiful Anne Hathaway actually made me forget about Michelle Pfeiffer for a good two hours, the rest of the cast turns in respectable performances in none-too-demanding roles, and lots of stuff blows up real good.  In other words, you get what you paid for.

Just keep your finger on that volume button.

Short Takes

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

I saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy while recovering from surgery.  I was not at my cognitive best, and I remember little about it other than that I enjoyed it.  Sorry, friend.  Not much good to you here.

MY DOG TULIP

My Dog Tulip is the animated memoir of a man who loves his dog about as much as a man can love his dog.  Problem is, the man is a terrible dog owner. 

The dog’s an Alsatian, which should live in a house with a big yard.  The man lives in an apartment and wonders why the neighbors complain about his pet’s barking.  The dog’s out of control, not properly housetrained or taught to heel, and her bad behavior alienates everyone around him.  The man doesn’t clean up his dog’s waste if nobody’s watching, leaving landmines around his neighborhood.  The list goes on.

Somehow, we’re supposed to see man and beast as the man does.  We’re supposed to smile at the dog’s foibles and sympathize with the man’s “human troubles.”  Me, I spent the whole movie waiting for Cesar Milan to show up and set this family right.  90 minutes of anger is not my idea of a good time.

WIN WIN

Win Win, on the other hand, is my idea of a good time.  Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor), here’s a family drama with tension, humor, and pathos.  McCarthy has a great pen and a gift with actors, and it shows.

Judging by the cast he’s assembled, he must also have serious credibility in his profession.  Paul Giamatti (CDNW) stars as a struggling small-time attorney who shares a building with Jeffrey Tambor (CDNW), an accountant and his fellow high school wrestling coach.  He’s helping his best friend (Bobby Cannavale, also of The Station Agent) through a rough divorce.   Giamatti loves his wife, Amy Ryan (of ‘The Wire,’ which is required viewing) and his kids, but he’s swimming upstream and bills are due.  Enter the great Burt Young, who presents him with an opportunity, a burden, and a threat to his entire life construct.

And away we go.

Here’s the thing that makes Win Win special: McCarthy casts legitimately great actors to play these people, and it takes the time to let us get to know them.  Consequently, I felt immersed in their lives.  I laughed when they laughed, cried when they cried, chewed my fingernails when they got worried.  Win Win immersed me, engaged me, and moved me.  I loved it.

The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli is a western – a post apocalyptic western, sure, but a western nonetheless.

Denzel Washington plays a Man With No Name who wanders into a dusty Western town in search of water and supplies.  He carries a MacGuffin, and town honcho Gary Oldman wants it. 

Cue the bloodshed.  It’s as if Sergio Leone directed The Road.  Your enjoyment of this film will hinge on your fondness for Washington, Oldman, and bloodshed.  It also helps if you don’t like cats.  I like Washington, Oldman, and bloodshed, as long as the blood is fake; and I don’t like cats.  I walked away a happy guy.  You might, too.

The Dark Knight

I went into THE DARK KNIGHT skeptically, wondering whether the ballyhoo surrounding Ledger's performance was justified or sentimental. It was justified.

The Joker, as written in this film, is a high wire character. The actor who plays him will either fail or succeed spectacularly, and Ledger succeeds. His Joker is terrifying and sad and sickly funny and wholly compelling, the Joker by which other incarnations of the character will be judged. As for Batman and Gordon and Dent and Dawes, well, they're all fine, but the fact is that I can barely remember them. That Joker, though, he gives me the shivers. And not in a good way. From voice to mannerisms to makeup to worldview, he's a complete character, one who espouses chaos while wreaking it through meticulous planning; one whose backstory shifts and morphs with each retelling; one you can't put your finger on, but who stays with you.

Wow, what a performance. What a movie. I look forward to seeing THE DARK KNIGHT again.

Batman Begins

BATMAN BEGINS in a nutshell:

End of Act 1: Wow! This is as good as big summer blockbusters get!

End of Act 2: Boy, they sure did hire a lot of great actors for supporting roles. Why did the process fail in the casting of Murphy and Holmes, who can't sell their roles? They're a negative, but I'm still enjoying the movie.

End of Act 3: Ugh; two solid thirds hurt by a final third that's just loud and ridiculous. And this movie could have been great.

Bits I liked, overall: Bale, Hauer, Caine, Freeman, Wilkinson, Oldman.
Bits I disliked, overall: Murphy, Holmes. The editing of the fight scenes (Why hire the Equilibrium guy if you aren't going to show us what he can do?). The downgrading of Sgt. Gordon to a goofball.

Verdict: Eh, it was ok.