The Wolf of Wall Street

Given:  Martin Scorsese ranks among the greatest filmmakers of all time.  Given:  Leonardo DiCaprio ranks among his generation’s finest actors.  Question: together, can they make The Wolf of Wall Street worth watching?

“What?” you may be asking.  “Why is this even a question?”

It’s a question because The Wolf of Wall Street tells the story of absolutely terrible human beings.  The film knows they’re terrible.  They characters know they’re terrible.  How does one invest in the stories of a bunch of people who, if they were all incinerated in a nuclear inferno at the end of the second act, would leave the viewer thinking, “Serves ‘em right?”

One invests because Martin Scorsese is an undisputed master of the art form of motion picture creation, and Leonardo DiCaprio is an absolutely brilliant actor and movie star who can find something compelling in even the most loathsome of characters.

The film traces the rise and fall of DiCaprio’s salesman, stockbroker, and felon as he learns to the keys to amassing enormous amounts of wealth through means illegal, unethical, and, well, just plain evil.  It’s a cry of rage against an industry that crashed the American economy in 2008, costing untold numbers of people their jobs, their savings, and their homes while its executives reaped ever-larger bonuses.  The film doesn’t go into the specifics of 2008 – in fact, it ties DiCaprio and his cohort into other shenanigans.  But the rage is the same.

So why watch two+ hours of rage?  Because Scorsese knows who to frame a scene, how to build tension, how to craft a narrative in such a way as to keep us on the hook.  And DiCaprio, man, this guy is amazing.  He gives a charismatic, snakelike, evil performance that is absolutely riveting.  Even when he’s at his most evil, duping some unsuspecting schmuck out of his money and, quite possibly, jeopardizing the guy’s marriage, you can’t help but watch him.  This is an actor at the height of his powers, and you must respect the craft.

Does all this mean that you have to see The Wolf of Wall Street?  I don’t know – I’m not here to sell you anything.  All I know is that this film brings together serious talents and presents a compelling narrative.  If that’s your thing, and you don’t mind a little rage, have at it.

The Croods; Rush; A Most Wanted Man

The Croods

The Croods is fine.  It’s pretty, it tells a nice story, and its voice cast includes personal favorites Nicholas Cage, Emma Stone, and Cloris Leachman.

That’s about all I can say for it, however.  I didn’t laugh.  I didn’t cry.  I just sorta rocked along pleasantly for an hour and half.  That ain’t bad.  It ain’t great, either.  It’s fine.  No, really.  It’s fine.

Rush

I spent the first hour or so of Rush not enjoying the movie.  Like Amadeus, the film sets up a conflict between a natural talent (Chris Hemsworth, a British Formula One driver) and a grinder (Daniel Brühl, his Austrian nemesis (the actor also appears in A Most Wanted Man, discussed below)).   Thing is, I identified with the grinder. Hemsworth’s character put my teeth on edge.

Then the movie took an unexpected turn, went in an entirely different direction than I’d expected, and made me hold my breath, tense in sympathy to the action onscreen, and hang on every twist and turn of the competitors’ races.

I feel like I started out with Days of Thunder and finished with something wonderful.  Rush is the most surprising movie I’ve seen this year. 

A Most Wanted Man

Some deaths get to you, even if you never really knew the person in question.  I still miss Phil Hartman.  I miss Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In A Most Wanted Man, Hoffman plays the Hamburg chief of a small German intelligence organization occupied with hunting terrorists.  The film, based on a John le Carré novel, occupies itself not with fast cars and gadgets, but with the nondescript, dedicated, and frequently exhausted people who actually make the intelligence community go.  Hoffman, overweight, disheveled, and brilliant, is a perfect match for this world.  His character belongs in dimly lit bars, crafting plans and making deals, and I believed in him every step of the way.

The plot?  Well, it’s a le Carré story, so it features twists and surprises and a kind of mundane weariness that feels all the more immediate because we can imagine it happening right in the next booth over.

The effect?  Well, mostly sadness.  Sadness for the characters in the story, but particular sadness for the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of our generation’s great actors and a talent that I’m sure to miss for a long time to come.

Back to the Future

Last week, my wife and I screened Back to the Future for our three boys.  It was a fun idea.  In the film, young Marty McFly travels 30 years into the past and meets his parents when they were his age.  Back to the Future, of course, was released 30 years ago, both my wife and I saw it then, and now here we were, playing the parents, sharing it with our kids.

Call it time travel on a budget.

Seeing it again after all these years, I’ve noticed a few things that may have escaped me the first time around.  #1, Christopher Lloyd absolutely runs away with this movie, pulling faces and injecting every line with a delightful combination of zaniness and earnestness.  There is not a moment he’s onscreen when he is not the animating force of the film.  #2, Michael J. Fox is an incredibly gifted comic actor.  His Marty McFly brings to the story just the right combination of desperation, exasperation, coolness, and kindness to make him the character whom we not only root for, but whom we actively want to be.  #3, Crispin Glover is a remarkably strange person.  Even when he’s playing “cool dad” at the end of the film, there’s just not getting around how odd he is.  #4.  Biff Tannen killed Tom Wilson’s career.  The character is so evil, as opposed to comic-evil, that he seems airlifted in from another movie.  He’s not just a cartoonish thug, a foil for the good guys.  He’s a drunk driver, a rapist, a sadist, and a serious threat to the well-being of those around him.  In fact, he’s so scary that I felt compelled to stop the movie for a few minutes and show my children Wilson’s YouTube video of his “Questions” song.  Sure, they knew that Biff was only a character in a movie, but I thought they needed to see the actor cracking jokes to help them internalize the fact that it’s really just make believe (Note to Iwan Rheon, who plays Ramsay Snow on HBO’s "Game of Thrones:" you need to make some silly YouTube videos before it’s too late and nobody wants to see you in anything other than “Iwan Rheon gets his face smashed in.”).

It’s that last bit, the characterization of Biff, that actually tarnishes the film for me.  He’s just too evil for a light comedy about time travel and how one plucky suburban youth basically invented modern American pop culture.  It throws off the film’s balance, though Christopher Lloyd does everything he can to counter it with heaping helpings of manic whimsy.

But still, hey, it’s Back to the Future.  I’m still glad we showed it to our kids.  Perhaps we’ll revisit it when we show it to their kids 30 years from now.  After all, it’s the closest to time travel we’re ever going to come.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road is an unqualified masterpiece.  It’s the kind of movie that makes you laugh, not in scorn or even amusement, but in wonder at the filmmakers’ audacity and vision.  It’s the best new release I’ve seen this year.

Here’s the setup: Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, and you owe it to yourself to see Locke), our supposed protagonist, is mad.  Not angry, but nuts.  Loopy.  Maintaining a tenuous grasp on reality.  He starts the movie by getting captured by post-apocalyptic tribesmen and-

Well, at this point, we cut away from him entirely.  We transfer our attention to Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron.  A war chieftan of the tribe, she leads a crack team from behind the wheel of her big-rig battle truck.  When first we meet her, we see her face.  Then, she turns and walks away from the (static) camera and into the story. 

I’ve been to the movies before.  I know what comes next.  As she walks away from the camera, her entire figure will come into view.  They camera's gaze will linger, and those who are so inclined will admire her tukkas.

But here comes the first of many of this film’s subversions of my expectations.  The camera watches her for only (maybe) three seconds, cutting at just the moment the lower edge of the screen hits her waistband.  And here’s the genius of the cut: until that moment, I hadn’t even realized that I was expecting to stare at this particular character’s backside.  I hadn’t realized that the language of film that I’ve come to “speak” has made me think of this particular kind of objectification as normal.

In that moment, Charlize Theron’s body becomes the least interesting thing about her very interesting character.  Mad Max: Fury Road humanizes her not by telling me that she's more than the sum of her parts, but by showing me through its refusal to dwell upon said parts.

Maybe twenty minutes later, after Furiosa has rescued a group of the villain’s childbearing slaves, it pulls a similar trick with one of the actresses playing an escapee.  It caught me again.  It’s the first time I’ve ever sat in a major motion picture and thought, “I’m complicit in the villain’s objectification of his captives.”

Holy smokes.  I was not expecting this in a Mad Max picture.  I just came to watch stuff blow up real good.

Don’t get me wrong: lots of stuff blows up real good.  In fact, this movie has some of the best set pieces I’ve ever seen.  But Mad Max: Fury Road has something more, something that takes it to an entirely different level of excellence.  It has an agenda, and not a B.S. “hero gives a speech, earns a slow clap, and goes home and nails the love interest” agenda.  It’s crafty, and thoughtful, and genuinely thought provoking in a way to which most “message” movies can only aspire.

All this, plus a set, prop, costume, and makeup design that’s not only a joy to behold, but surprises the audience time and again with new ideas, new angles, and new visions.  This film introduces at least five different cultures among the wastelanders, each with their own look, their own vision, their own unique identities.  From loving riffs on Star Wars' Sand People to an entire culture of stilt-walkers, this film delights time and again.

But wait – there’s more.  Mad Max: Fury Road is fun!  It has a simple, effective story; interesting and engaging characters; an excellent mix of serious and humorous beats; and a grasp of its geography and politics that never waivers and ensures the viewer never scratches his or her head in confusion.

In short, I loved Mad Max: Fury Road.  I loved everything about it.  It’s exciting, it’s dazzling, it’s complex, and it’s thought provoking.  In short, it is absolutely wonderful in every way.

I thought I was getting too old for this kind of thing, but writer/director George Miller has shown me that I was wrong.  I’m simply getting too old for mediocrity.  Mad Max: Fury Road is anything but.  What a lovely film.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has nothing much to say, but it takes an awfully long time to say it.

This, the conclusion of the three Hobbit films, tells us, once again, that a cursed object can turn everyday greed into  megalomania.  It tells us that love triangles are a cheap way to generate dramatic tension.  It tells us that somewhere between The Lord of the Rings: The Returnof the King and today, Peter Jackson forgot how to present massive battles in a way that made geographical, military, character, and thematic sense.

Either that, or I really am getting too old for this stuff.

Avengers: The Age of Ultron

It’s probably not a good sign when you’re sitting in Avengers: Age of Ultron and thinking, “Y’know what was a really good Marvel movie?  Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Where’s Robert Redford when you need him?”

Some background: I took my two older boys, ages 15 & 8, to see this movie.  I really wanted to see Mad Max: Fury Road, but fatherhood isn’t about getting what you want.  So, there we sat, popcorn and soda in hand, ready for some Whedon-y goodness.

[On further reflection, it probably wasn’t a good idea to let my 8-yr-old get the medium root beer, which would be a large in any sane world and contained roughly a metric ton of corn syrup.  After about fifteen minutes, he started to squirm, after 30, he was all over the place.  In thirty minute intervals thereafter, he left the (mostly empty) theater to run to the bathroom – probably more for the running than the actual bathroom.]

In the story, Tony Stark is basically Victor Frankenstein and the android Ultron his mad creation.  Unlike Frankenstein, Ultron doesn’t start out innocent and misunderstood.  It starts out evil, a fanatic who sees mass murder as a perfectly acceptable expedient enroute to utopia.  
And then there’s a lot of punching, plus a guy with a bow and arrow saying, “What am I doing here?  I’m just a guy with a bow and arrow!”  And people get hurt, and innocents get killed, and there’s a lot of angst, and it’s all so miserable that I thought I was in a DC movie.  In fact, it’s so miserable that, at the end of the movie, several characters just quit the team.  

Don’t get me wrong: the effects are great, the leads are likeable, and Linda Cardellini and Paul Bettany both shine in supporting roles.  But after two and a half hours, I wanted a little less recycled Shelly and little more Spider-Man learning to swing, or Star Lord disco-ing through space-ruins, or Robert Redford opening his fridge to find a bottle of Newman’s Own salad dressing on the top shelf.  I wanted some fun.  I wanted some laughs.  I wanted some moustache-twirling.  All I got were meditations on mortality, morality, and the use of denouments as leveraging tools in contract negotiations.

But, hey, my boys liked it.  As for me, I am honestly beginning to suspect that I’m getting too old for this stuff.

Saving Mr. Banks

 

Saving Mr. Banks has a fundamental structural flaw that keeps it from being more than half of a good movie.

The film tells the story of one P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson, and you owe it to yourself to queue up Wit right away), author of the ‘Mary Poppins’ book series.  Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) flies her to California to convince her to sell him the film rights, but she’s having none of it. 

This is a recipe for a good movie.  Thompson and Hanks (and Paul Giamatti, in a small supporting role) rank among the best actors of their generation; I love Mary Poppins and I’m interested in the “making of;” and "unstoppable force meets immovable object” is a great recipe for drama. 

There’s a problem, however.  The film tells a parallel story, that of young Ginty (Miss Travers), her father (Colin Farrell, and you really, really should see the Fright Night remake), and their family’s attempt to make it in the banking business somewhere in the Australian outback.  Not only did not I not particularly care about Ginty and her dad, but I felt the time spent showing us Ms. Travers’s deep backstory killed the momentum of the Thompson/Hanks conflict.  What the film could have told us through a few lines of dialogue, a photo on a mantelpiece, and Thompson’s extraordinary talent, it instead delivers through a plodding, predictable, depressing series of flashbacks.

An hour-long Saving Mr. Banks, with most of the Ginty material excised, would make for a film I’d happily recommend.  As it stands, however, I suggest you see this one with your thumb on the fast forward button.

This Gun for Hire

I’m not a Veronica Lake guy.  A human charisma sump who nearly torpedoed Sullivan’s Travels, this hairstyle with a mannequin under it sleepwalks through This Gun for Hire as if she’s on gin, or quaaludes, or both.  Pair her with Alan Ladd as an antihero with absolutely zero redeeming qualities, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately, This Gun for Hire features Robert Preston as the police lieutenant out to catch the evil Ladd and save Ms. Lake.  Even though the great actor’s forced to recite lines like “I want you to darn my socks for me.  To wash my floors and make my corned beef and cabbage,” and even though he’s forced to act like he’s attracted to Lake, there’s no denying his irrepressible charisma.  For every moment Lake brings the film to a halt, Preston fires it right back up again and keeps us in the game.

The story?  Oh, some noirish nonsense about men in fedoras and doublecrosses and spies and poison gas.  It clicks along ok, enlivened by excellent character work from the aforementioned Preston, Marc Lawrence as a henchman who takes particular pride in his work, Laird Cregar as an amorous nightclub owner, and Tully Marshall as the mastermind of the aforementioned spies and poison gas storyline.

One could imagine this movie with Barbara Stanwyck or Lana Turner – what a joy that would have been.  Unfortunately, with Veronica Lake front and center, it doesn't quite work.  How did this woman get a career, anyway?

The Green Berets

The Green Berets is a Vietnam War movie that feels like a WWII movie.

Most movies about the Vietnam War, from Go Tell the Spartans to Apocalypse Now to Platoon, speak to the war with cynicism, sorrow, or some combination of the two.  The Green Berets, however, seems almost triumphalist in comparison.  It’s really two stories: one a “men holding out against impossible odds” tale and the other a “men on a mission” yarn, connected only by the fact that both stories feature some of the same characters.  Neither story focuses on what Green Berets actually do, which mostly revolves around the training and professionalization of the partner nations’ military forces.

But that’s ok, really.  Why?  Well, first, because it stars John Wayne, who may be the greatest star the medium has yet to produce.  Second, because both stories get told rather well.  I understood the geography, motivations, and tactical situations of both stories, I got where the characters were coming from, and I invested in their journeys about as much as I do with any action picture.

And that’s what this is: a straight-up war movie.  Not much to chew on, but well put together and a fine Saturday afternoon on the couch.

The Interview

Vulgar, irreverent, and hilarious, The Interview works from start to finish.

Here’s the setup:  James Franco plays the host of a celebrity talk & gossip show like ‘Entertainment Tonight.’  Seth Rogen plays his director.  The show’s successful, both guys are making good money, and everyone’s happy.  Everyone, that is, except for Franco and Rogen, who want something more than money and fame: they want respect.

Their opportunity comes in the form of an invitation to interview Randall Park as Kim Jong Un.  Kim, as it happens, is a big fan.  They jump at the chance, and the CIA jumps at the chance to recruit them to assassinate the North Korean dictator.  Hijinks ensue.

I’ve been hard on Franco for performances such as the one he gave in Oz the Great and Powerful.  Here, however, he’s spot on.  He plays his character as a charming, well-meaning idiot, and there’s something so genuine about the performance that it makes for a comically sympathetic character.  Rogen’s the straight man, the smart guy who sees the angles and spends most of the film in shock at just how screwed he and his partner are.  It’s a fine comic pairing, and helps to keep the tension high even as the pile one on top of the other.

And the gags?  They work.  They work because we buy Franco and Rogen’s chemistry, we buy the film’s exaggerated artificiality, and we buy Park’s performance as a man who only seems a fool because he’s so clever.

This is just a very well made comedy, one that deserves to be seen.  I loved The Interview.

Locke

Wait, what?  Tom Hardy is an actor?  I mean, sure, he was terrific in Bronson, but his character was so over the top that he seemed kind of easy to play.  Locke, however, is a movie about a concrete engineer driving to London in a car.  That’s it.  We never leave the car.  We never see any other actors.  Hardy barely even moves – he just has one cell phone conversation after another as his life crumbles around his ears.

But oh man, does Hardy sell it.  We come to admire his character’s professionalism, feel aghast at his mistakes, and completely engage in his problems.  No voice over, no scenery, just a guy and a phone and a crisis.  It’s brilliant, masterful stuff (written and directed by Steven Knight), and it puts Hardy in an entirely different league.  This is the kind of movie that lands an action star in prestige pictures.
And that screenplay – wow.  It fills in the story like a painter adding layers, each layer expanding and deepening the picture.  I want to read it.

This is a brilliant film.  I’m so glad I saw it.

Top Five

Chris Rock’s Top Five is heartfelt and funny and a great time at the movies.

Here’s the setup: Rock’s character is a former comedian and comic actor whose attempts at dramatic film have fallen flat.  Now, on the eve of the opening of his latest film (a misconceived epic about the Haitian Slave Revolt of 1791), he’s juggling a ‘New York Times’ interview, promotion duties for his film, and his upcoming celebrity wedding extravaganza.  Oh, and he’s trying to stay sober.

The ‘New York Times’ reporter is Rosario Dawson, which robs the celebrity wedding storyline of much of its urgency, but that’s ok.  This isn’t a film about dramatic tension: it’s a film about one day in a man’s life, a crossroads day in which nothing blows up and nobody gets shot, but in which everything changes.

Watching it, I found myself comparing Top Five to Birdman, another film about an actor in crisis.  Both films feature a style of heightened dialogue in that everyone’s funny in the former and everyone’s overwrought in the latter.  But there’s a key difference: Top Five’s characters feel like real people saying real things, even when they’re clearly speaking for comic effect.  That naturalism draws us into the story, and it makes the jokes land.  This film may have a serious premise, but it’s also very much a laugh – out - loud comedy written by a genius.  It’s just wonderful.

No kidding: I laughed.  I cried.  I loved Top Five.  I look forward to seeing it again.

Catching Up

AMERICAN SNIPER

American Sniper did absolutely everything it set out to do.  While I doubt it meant to remind me that I never want to go back to that part of the world again, it did that, too.

However, it seemed to tread much of the same ground as The Hurt Locker, with its emphasis on the pull of repeated deployments and the toll they take on both servicemembers and families.  The problem, of course, is that I’ve already seen The Hurt Locker.  What does American Sniper bring to the table?

20 FEET FROM STARDOM

Everyone has a story, including backup singers.  20 Feet from Stardom tells this story, and it does so in a way that not only captured me in the moment, but has made me more aware of the contributions of backup singers to my favorite songs.  

BIRDMAN

At no point while watching Birdman did I feel like I was watching actual people say things in the real world.  Consequently, I never suspended my disbelief and never lost myself in the story.

My theater friends, however, seemed universally to love it.  Since it’s set in a theater, perhaps it spoke to them in a way I just didn’t get.  Regardless, I can only report that Birdman never, not for even a moment, worked for me.

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

I’d like to note that I enjoyed The Magnificent Ambersons, but I don’t have time to give it the writeup it deserves.  Consequently, I’ll leave you with this brief Pauline Kael review.

THE GREAT GATSBY

I don’t know, man.  I love Strictly Ballroom, so I support Baz Luhrmann on general principle (that, and a sense that us guys with two “n”s at the end of our names have got to stick together.).  But some stories are better left on the page.

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ranks among the most depressing action-adventure films I’ve ever seen.  Here’s a movie whose ending is written into the title, so though we may root for the various “good primate” factions to overcome, we know what’s coming.

Because of this, I couldn’t commit to the story.  Instead, I dwelled on the remarkable special effects.  This way this film bring its apes to life is worth the ticket price alone.

OUR IDIOT BROTHER

I loved Our Idiot Brother.

I don’t think I can do the movie justice, however, so I’ll post a link to the Ebert review that so stuck in my mind that, years after reading it, led me to queue up the film.  I hope it works for you, too, because Our Idiot Brother is funny, touching, and crazy smart.

Snowpiercer

Joon-ho Bong is one of the most interesting directors going right now.  With Memories of Murder, The Host, Mother, and now Snowpiercer, he’s building a filmography of subtle, exciting, and thought provoking films.  This is a name that guarantees a spot on my queue.

Snowpiercer, Bong’s first production with a primarily Western cast, stars Captain America’s Chris Evans as the leader of a rebellion on mankind’s last ark in an apocalyptic snowscape.  Supporting cast members include John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, and Alison Pill, as well as previous Bong collaborators Ah-sung Ko of The Host and the great Kang-ho Song of The Thirst.

Why throw all those names at you?  To tell you that Joon-ho Bong is a serious cat.  He’s someone with whom people want to work.

Snowpiercer’s a great example of why.  This is a carefully written, fully realized film that works as an action adventure, a social parable, and even something of a whodunit.  It features memorable performances, brilliant setpieces, and dialogue that provokes thought without ever drawing the viewer out of the film.

This is just a terrific movie, and well worth your time.  Fire up Snowpiercer.

Whiplash

There’s a scene in Whiplash, a film about a young man learning just how dedicated to success he actually is, that spoke to me.  In the scene, the protagonist (a young drummer at a prestigious music conservatory) breaks up with his girlfriend.  He tells her something along the lines of, “I’m more dedicated to music than to you.  This will, inevitably, hurt your feelings.  Let’s break up before things get ugly.”

It reminded me of my time at Cal State, grinding out the work so I could get into the Naval Academy.  I was sitting in the Student Union, studying for an exam, when my (then) girlfriend joined me at the table.  

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.  I’m studying for an exam.  It’s in an hour, so I need to focus.  Let’s talk later.”

“Ok.”  pause.  pause. pause. “What’s the exam on?  Do you like the professor?  What do you want to do this weekend?”

“Now’s not a good time.  I really need to focus.  Let’s talk later.”

“Ok.”  pause.  pause.  pause.  “I was talking to X this morning.  She said Y, so I said …”

I put up a hand.  “Stop.  Go away.”  I dug my headphones out of my bag and huddled over my books.  Shocked, she complied.

The relationship didn’t last much longer, but that’s ok.  That’s the point.  When you’re young and ambitious, monomania is practically required.  Whiplash gets this, telling the story of its protagonist’s monomaniacal devotion to his drumming, even in the face of a monstrously abusive teacher.  He practices until his hands bleed, ices them, wraps them, and practices some more.  He withstands torrents of abuse, breaks, then practices some more.  He gets that success only comes through grinding labor, not a montage.

I respected the heck out of this kid.  Because I respected him, I invested in him even though I don’t care about drumming and don’t care about jazz.  And that’s the magic of this movie.  It draws us into a world about which we may be ignorant or uninterested, and it brings it to life and a compelling way.  You should see it.

That is, unless you have work to do.

My Cousin Vinny

My Cousin Vinny is laugh-out-loud funny, warmhearted, and so carefully constructed that it’s like a master class in storytelling.  My Cousin Vinny is a classic.

The film is a fish-out-of-water comedy in which newly-minted lawyer Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) and his fiancée Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei, in an Academy Award winning performance) travel to deepest Alabama to defend Vinny’s cousin in a murder trial.  The cousin (Ralph Maccio) and a friend had been road-tripping through the South on their way to college when a case of mistaken identity landed them in Jail, so it’s up to Vinny to save the day.

This movie could have gone wrong in so many ways.  It could have portrayed the locals as hicks or thugs or any number of offensive stereotypes one could pin on Southerners.  It could have turned Vinny into a crook or a goomba or any number of offensive stereotypes one could pin on New Yorkers.  Instead, it paints the Southerners as decent, honest professionals who are trying to do the right thing.  It paints the New Yorkers as decent (basically) honest hustlers who are trying to do the right thing.  In fact, there’s so much decency and honesty going around that this film has no villain (other than the real killers, who remain helpfully out of frame). 

This lack of a villain grants the film a certain bonhomie, a sense that everything’s going to be ok, even though we know the stakes are high.  This gives us room to laugh, and My Cousin Vinny capitalizes on that room to deliver one gag after another, each rooted in the characters and situation and not simply pulled from the ether.

The film also benefits from its near-perfect construction.  My Cousin Vinny doesn’t have a one wasted shot or line of dialogue.  Everything we see either lays the foundation for something to come later, tells us something about the characters, or sets up a laugh – often, all at the same time.  It’s one of those rare comedies that rewards repeat viewing, as it gives us the opportunity to enjoy seeing all the pieces move into place.

In short, I love this movie.  I see it every few years and, every few years, it delights me.  My most recent viewing was with my 14-year-old.  I’m pleased to report that it delights the next generation, as well.  Movies just don’t get much better than My Cousin Vinny.

PS  Shoutout to costume designer Carol Wood.  This was her last film, and the things she did with Marisa Tomei are simply magnificent.  Brava!

Loose Ends

Man, this whole "job and family thing really gets in the way of blogging.  Here are some short observations about what's been on my screen.

22 Jump  Street 

Don’t make my mistake.  Do not watch 22 Jump Street in a public, yet quiet, place.  I watched it while riding as a passenger in an airplane, and I spent roughly 90 minutes biting my knuckles to keep from guffawing.

This is my kind of comedy.  It’s clever, it’s packed with gags that hit us in rapid succession, and it even blows up a car.  Really, what more could you possibly want?

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Eh.  I’m getting too old for this $#!^.

Noah

Noah drags through its first act, then turns on the juice once the rain starts falling.  If you can get past the fact that everyone’s Caucasian and has British accents, then it’s easy to accept lava monsters and ancient industrialized civilizations.  Soon, you can immerse yourself in Aronofsky’s tale of justice and mercy, prophecy and insanity.  Just don’t make it the last film you see on a 9.5 hour flight.  This is not a movie to see when you're punchy.

Cats & Dogs

What a delightful film.  I’ve seen it, with my kids, I don’t know how many times.  It just never gets old.  

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Because I'm a good father, I sat my 14-year-old son down for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure the other day.  Two observations: (1) Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter have excellent comic timing, and (2) this is the 'Doctor Who' adventure that never was.

Regarding the first observation: both my son and I laughed all through this wonderful movie.  This isn't one of those cynical pictures with two levels of humor (one for children and one for their parents).  Rather, it's a picture with simple humor done well.  Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan are funny, sympathetic characters, and everything about their goofy attempts to talk themselves out of trouble (at the beginning) and save the day (at the end) is both winning and hilarious.  Their goofball schtick just never gets old.

Regarding the second: the entire premise is clearly a ripoff of then-defunct British television adventure series 'Doctor Who.'  Instead of the time-travelling Doctor’s iconic English police box, Bill & Ted's time-travelling mentor (George Carlin) uses an American telephone booth.  Instead of Gallifrey, Carlin comes from a future Earth that has found enlightenment through the teachings and music of the titular Bill and Ted.  This makes me happy.  In fact, until further notice, I choose to believe that George Carlin is the 15^th Doctor.

Y’know, I have fond memories of many films from my youth.  Very few hold up, but Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure does.  It’s funny, it’s charming, it’s optimistic, and it’s everything you could want in a time-travel team comedy.  

In short, on a scale of triumphantness, I give Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure the highest rating: most triumphant.

The Grandmaster

The Grandmaster tells the story of influential kung fu master Ip Man.  Ip Man won renown in pre-Invasion China, suffered through the Japanese occupation, and eventually made his way to Hong Kong, where he taught a young Bruce Lee.  His is a fascinating story, told well in the film Ip Man, starring Donnie Yen.

This telling, starring Tony Leung and directed by Wong Kar Wai, misfires.  This surprised me, as Tony Leung (Chiu Wai – there’s also a Tony Leung Kai Fung, who was terrific in DetectiveDee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame) and Wong Kar Wai have, in the past, worked together to make remarkable, moving, and memorable films such as Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, and 2046.

The problem is that The Grandmaster, a kung-fu biography, is better suited to the directorial talents of a Zhang Yimou or Yuen Woo-ping.  Filmed kung fu is dance: extensively choreographed, intensively practiced, and performed by people with years of training.  When photographed in medium- to long takes, it’s one of the most beautiful things one can see onscreen.  While Leung is entirely capable of performing in such takes (see Jet Li’s magnificent Hero), Wai chooses to shoot and edit his battles in a kinetic, quick-cut style of the sort one uses to hide that fact that one’s star doesn’t actually know what he’s doing.

This short changes Leung, as well as the stuntmen and dancers with whom he performs Ip Man’s contests, and draws the viewer out of the film.  Once drawn out, one begins to notice Wai’s other stylistic choices, such as snap closeups to direct the audience’s eye (rather than trusting the audience to notice important elements for themselves) and a frenetic editing style at odds with the calm and self-possession of the film’s title character.

I’m sorry to find this film so disappointing, as I have great respect for Wai, Leung, and co-stars Zhang Ziyi and Chen Chang.  Nevertheless, Wai and Leung have created enough wonderful films that I’m happy to give this one a pass.  Though The Grandmaster disappointed me, I look forward to their next collaboration.