The Sitter
I'm not going to say that The Sitter was any good. It was ok. Pretty entertaining at times, at other times it was absolutely grating- taking that raunchy/sweet gig to an annoying level. I will say this though: there was something refreshing about the movie. The filmmakers didn't feel the need to tie up all the loose ends. The characters run amok with very few consequences. Whether Noah- the titular babysitter played by Jonah Hill- and the brat pack he's left to babysit actually get away with all the madness they create is left hanging. Which is good. The movie is absurd. To try and tie things up would be far too serious a step for such a ridiculous movie. Will Noah get away with everything that's happened? Who cares. He did for the span of the movie and that's all that's important.
Now this may all seem hypocritical. I don't recall whether I've taken the 2x4 to other movies for not tying up all the plot strands. I may have and I'll stand by it. Usually this type of thing bothers me more in movies that try to tidy everything up and fail to do so. But The Sitter isn't concerned with trying to make a good movie where everything makes sense and represents at least a parallel world to real life, no director David Gordon Green and crew are interested in making a fun movie where a whole bunch of shit happens and everything somehow ends up ok. Does Noah lose a stash of stolen drugs? Yep. Do both a diamond store and fancy restaurant's bathroom get blown up? Yep. Does a car and some Bat Mitzvah money get stolen? Yep. Do they main characters suffer any real, long-term consequences? Nope. And you know what? That's ok. It's actually fine for filmmakers not to take their movie so seriously.
Again, just because I liked that aspect of the film doesn't mean I think it was good. Like I said, it was ok at best. And at worst it was kind of shitty. But I enjoyed it- on some level- for the most part. Mostly, it offered some cheap laughs. Most courtesy of Jonah Hill. He doesn't blaze a new trail for himself as an actor here. He's the usual crass, all-bark-no-bite, semi-loser who doesn't know how uncool he is, but still has a heart of gold under that jackass facade. The caliber of jokes he's charged with pulling off come easily for Hill- the motormouthed stream of put downs and geeky brashness. So in other words, if you liked Hill's character in... say... Funny People or Superbad, then you'll probably find him at least somewhat entertaining here. But, as it often happens in these types of movies, there's little beyond Hill to keep this thing afloat. The only other one who gives a great turn is Sam Rockwell as the likely gay drug lord from whom one of Noah's charges steals a dinosaur egg's worth of blow (the egg is his idea of high-end packaging). Beyond that, the movie doesn't have a lot going for it.
I should say this though, at least the child actors they recruited did have some acting talent. Far too often, filmmakers in a movie of this caliber opt for looks over talent. These three kids could act... too bad they were given such uninspired material.
Actually pretty much everyone was given uninspired material to work with. This is a typical shit constantly hitting the fan movie. The gimmick that is supposed to be the comedic hook is that someone of Hill's typical character profile is left to interact with smarter-than-their-years tykes. Sure, Noah's in charge...riiiiight. It does net a few laughs, but just when things work up to their madcap best, the filmmakers decide they should add a heaping help of neo-Full House to the story. Blithe (a scene-stealing Landry Bender) is obsessed with the famous-for-being-famous crowd an aspires to be nothing more than the next Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. Slater (Max Records of Where the Wild Things Are fame) is a gay kid who doesn't want to be gay and, as such, is overcome with anxiety. And then there's Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), the family's adopted South American son. He likes to run away and blow things up. In turn, Noah helps each of these youngsters get to the root of their issues and help them understand that it's ok to be just who they are. Hell, Noah is even out to help his absolute bitch of a girlfriend (Joey Lauren Adams clone, Ari Graynor) come to grips with who she is. Nice work, Danny Tanner. Barf. Could have done without all the contrived heart and good feeling. The movie is at it's best when shit gets destroyed. Everything is out of control. And when Jonah Hill and Sam Rockwell (as an aside, I've never seen a movie in which Rockwell phones it in. Ever. From little-seen indies such as Box of Moonlight to Oscar-bait such as Frost/Nixon to this idiotic fare, Rockwell always seems to bring his A-game. Kudos, my man, kudos.) are sparring or hugging it out on screen. Beyond that, the movie is lacking. Luckily, there is just enough chaos to make The Sitter watchable. Unfortunately, Green and crew failed to heed the time-honored lesson- too much sugar (or artificial sweetener as this case would have it) can make a dish go bad.
Grade: B-
Monday, December 26, 2011
Movie List 2011: 54.) Immortals
Immortals
If you like sword-and-sandal epics where British-accented Greeks run around bloviating about gods and honor while engaging a battle against some neighboring city-state for some really unknown reason, Immortals is the movie for you. It has all that and more! Artsy blood splatters! Gods dressed in ridiculous outfits! Action sequences! A nearly-naked Henry Cavil (for the females)! A pretty damn naked Frieda Pinto (for the males)! It's everything and more that a standard Greeks-and-Gods movie is supposed to be. Including inherently shitty.
I can't think of too many of these movies that I actually liked. 300 comes to mind. But I loved the over-stylized, graphic-novel feel of the movie. The 1981-vintage Clash of the Titans was more of a guilty-pleasure sort of thing. And I'm not sure it was so pleasurable either. I think I like the idea of it more than the movie. One of those I remember as being so awful it's good in a perverse way. Only it probably actually sucks. Badly. And then there was....? Hmm. The new Clash of the Titans? No. Not so hot. Fairly entertaining on some levels I suppose. Spartacus? Ben-Hur? A.) I've never seen either of them (blog-cred drops) and B.) Those were not- to my knowledge- standard sword-and-sandal affairs. Definitely not Greek epics (Romans, both), and they were more historical fiction than mythology. Soooo... yeah. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but I think most of these movies generally suck. And Immortals carries that torch brilliantly.
As with most of these types of movies, Immortals' sole reason for being is to showcase fairly good looking people in less than generous amounts of clothing kicking-ass and defending honor. In this case, Henry Cavil's Theseus is sort-of tapped by the gods (see, the gods vow not to interfere in the affairs of humans, lest they lose faith in their own abilities) to help prevent the evil King Hyperion for unleashing the Titans on all of existence. Who are the Titans? Less worthy gods. See, the gods had an epic battle royal with the Titans eons ago and, well, the gods won and trapped the Titans in some mountain. Hyperion (Mickey Rourke, not giving a damn that these types of movies almost require an attempt at a British accent. No, he plays prototypical American enemy. All mugging and faux-intimidation. Think of it as his character in Iron Man 2...without the Russian accent...which might have been welcome here. Really along with Stephen Dorff's riverboat gambler take on the Greek thief, Stavros, these two stick out in a sea of pompous Brits... and not in a good way. After all, when in Rome...er... Greece do as the Grecians do. Don a British accent!) for reasons either I've forgotten, were inadequately explained, or didn't really exist, wants to unleash the Titans on humanity...I think it's so his tribe can rule the world or something. I'm thinking though that the Titans really are only going to care about snagging a rematch with the gods and if they survive that will lay waste to everything and everyone. This all sort of plays out.
Ok, so maybe it is a bit more involved than that. Theseus is a bastard peasant shunned by his own people.... and an incredible warrior. He ends up joining with Dorff's thief-with-heart-of-gold Stavros, as well as a mute priest, and Pinto's virgin oracle. She sees visions...valuable visions... so long as she doesn't get down with anyone. And here I need to make a point... I suppose I should issue a spoiler alert. Ok, so here's the deal with Pinto's Phaedra. She has to remain a virgin to keep having these visions. For much of the story, these visions are crucial. Only these visions will lead Hyperion to the mystical bow that will allow him to unleash the Titans. Hyperion needs Phaedra... and he needs her virginal. See, this particular iteration of the Greek world knows what a powerful weapon Phaedra could be. So these priests ban together to protect her and in so doing provide her with three faux-oracles. The idea being that you never know which one is the true oracle. It's a lot harder to capture four than one, eh? And if you just grab one at random, you have a 25% chance of hitting the vision jackpot. Ah, so, Hyperion's baddies find the monastery where the oracle and her faux friends are being kept and they lay waste to most of the priests and capture the oracles. They also have Theseus and his motley band. (I'm getting to my point...sorry). At one stop, they manage a daring escape, and to ensure that their precious vision-seer can escape with Theseus and the boys, her oracle-lite sisters nobly decide to stay behind and face the consequences of not being an oracle with Hyperion's crew. You can probably guess how this plays out. Hyperion finds out that there is one missing, guesses that it's the true oracle, and decides to torture her sisters in an attempt to get them to weasel Phaedra out. Not such a hot prospect for the sisters. And pretty much by-the-book for such stories. So what's the problem? Oh, not long after Theseus and company escape, Phaedra decides that a.) Theseus is freakin' hot (and he thinks likewise of her) and that her visions aren't really a gift, but more of a curse... sooo... she beds the dude. Yep. Virgin no more, visions no more. Don't worry, Hyperion finds the bow anyway...well...actually Theseus does... that's not what I'm getting at. So her three sisters submitted to torture...and yep....they died...so they could keep her alive and keep her valuable gift intact. And not even a couple of days after her sisters sacrifice themselves to save her because she has this gift, she decides that eh, it's an inconvenience and Henry Cavil... I mean Theseus... is luscious. Anyone else see anything wrong with this? Pretty much makes her one of the most deplorable "heroes" I've seen in a while. Consider the following: these three women were enlisted, implored to give up their lives for the sole purpose of offering this other woman protection...and maybe companionship... but mostly for protection. They then decided themselves to submit to capture and torture to keep Hyperion off her scent for a while. Why? Because she is such a super gal? No. Because she has these valuable visions and they don't want them falling into the wrong hands. So these three women give up everything... including their lives... for Phaedra. Her thanks? She sexes away her gift make their sacrifice irrelevant on a broader scale. They've now sacrificed themselves so some admittedly gorgeous women can traipse about with a standard issue stud. Pretty damn selfish. Did the filmmakers realize that they were creating a horribly selfish character? Probably not. They likely didn't play any of their story-elements forward. Actually this is all pretty clear. They crafted the story on what looked, sounded, or felt good in that moment and failed to connect all the dots. What does that amount to? A really, really up and down story featuring plot holes and inconsistencies. And it also seems particularly empty and substance-less... even for a popcorn flick.
When you add to all that one of the hokiest, corniest, most cringe worthy final sequences (gods and Theseus battling Titans in the sky... they look blatantly super-imposed in the sky...and as though they are fightingeach other in the zero-gravity room at space camp...it's beyond silly and firmly in the dumb range) and you have the makings of an awful movie. Which, actually on the surface is hardly surprising. What is more surprising is how awful the story is. After all, it should be hard to screw this up. Stick to the formula: hero is shunned by is people, hero is tapped to rise above and deliver his people a victory, hero falters a bit, hero has huge showdown with ultimate bad guy, hero defeats bad guy...narrowly, hero score the girl and lives happily ever after. They have all the basic elements of the story but they do nothing to hide the fact that they are attacking the form as though it were a series of checkboxes to be checked. And check they do. Of course they also try to add wrinkles to the formula... and those wrinkles eventually become cracks that sink an already bad movie even further into the shit pot. Ah, but the famed Tarsem Singh and his ability to create a visual carnival is what will save this movie! Or so the thought was. Problem is that a.) Tarsem is probably overrated and b.) he either proves this by giving his best effort and it comes off as an unoriginal, visually unimpressive ... at best flick or by phoning it in and providing the same result... and if he feels he can just skate by and people will drool at his mastery...well... then... he's overrated. You just can't coast, man. Bring me something fresh. Been there and done that? That's a waste of time... which is probably the best way to describe Immortals on the whole.
Grade: D
If you like sword-and-sandal epics where British-accented Greeks run around bloviating about gods and honor while engaging a battle against some neighboring city-state for some really unknown reason, Immortals is the movie for you. It has all that and more! Artsy blood splatters! Gods dressed in ridiculous outfits! Action sequences! A nearly-naked Henry Cavil (for the females)! A pretty damn naked Frieda Pinto (for the males)! It's everything and more that a standard Greeks-and-Gods movie is supposed to be. Including inherently shitty.
I can't think of too many of these movies that I actually liked. 300 comes to mind. But I loved the over-stylized, graphic-novel feel of the movie. The 1981-vintage Clash of the Titans was more of a guilty-pleasure sort of thing. And I'm not sure it was so pleasurable either. I think I like the idea of it more than the movie. One of those I remember as being so awful it's good in a perverse way. Only it probably actually sucks. Badly. And then there was....? Hmm. The new Clash of the Titans? No. Not so hot. Fairly entertaining on some levels I suppose. Spartacus? Ben-Hur? A.) I've never seen either of them (blog-cred drops) and B.) Those were not- to my knowledge- standard sword-and-sandal affairs. Definitely not Greek epics (Romans, both), and they were more historical fiction than mythology. Soooo... yeah. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but I think most of these movies generally suck. And Immortals carries that torch brilliantly.
As with most of these types of movies, Immortals' sole reason for being is to showcase fairly good looking people in less than generous amounts of clothing kicking-ass and defending honor. In this case, Henry Cavil's Theseus is sort-of tapped by the gods (see, the gods vow not to interfere in the affairs of humans, lest they lose faith in their own abilities) to help prevent the evil King Hyperion for unleashing the Titans on all of existence. Who are the Titans? Less worthy gods. See, the gods had an epic battle royal with the Titans eons ago and, well, the gods won and trapped the Titans in some mountain. Hyperion (Mickey Rourke, not giving a damn that these types of movies almost require an attempt at a British accent. No, he plays prototypical American enemy. All mugging and faux-intimidation. Think of it as his character in Iron Man 2...without the Russian accent...which might have been welcome here. Really along with Stephen Dorff's riverboat gambler take on the Greek thief, Stavros, these two stick out in a sea of pompous Brits... and not in a good way. After all, when in Rome...er... Greece do as the Grecians do. Don a British accent!) for reasons either I've forgotten, were inadequately explained, or didn't really exist, wants to unleash the Titans on humanity...I think it's so his tribe can rule the world or something. I'm thinking though that the Titans really are only going to care about snagging a rematch with the gods and if they survive that will lay waste to everything and everyone. This all sort of plays out.
Ok, so maybe it is a bit more involved than that. Theseus is a bastard peasant shunned by his own people.... and an incredible warrior. He ends up joining with Dorff's thief-with-heart-of-gold Stavros, as well as a mute priest, and Pinto's virgin oracle. She sees visions...valuable visions... so long as she doesn't get down with anyone. And here I need to make a point... I suppose I should issue a spoiler alert. Ok, so here's the deal with Pinto's Phaedra. She has to remain a virgin to keep having these visions. For much of the story, these visions are crucial. Only these visions will lead Hyperion to the mystical bow that will allow him to unleash the Titans. Hyperion needs Phaedra... and he needs her virginal. See, this particular iteration of the Greek world knows what a powerful weapon Phaedra could be. So these priests ban together to protect her and in so doing provide her with three faux-oracles. The idea being that you never know which one is the true oracle. It's a lot harder to capture four than one, eh? And if you just grab one at random, you have a 25% chance of hitting the vision jackpot. Ah, so, Hyperion's baddies find the monastery where the oracle and her faux friends are being kept and they lay waste to most of the priests and capture the oracles. They also have Theseus and his motley band. (I'm getting to my point...sorry). At one stop, they manage a daring escape, and to ensure that their precious vision-seer can escape with Theseus and the boys, her oracle-lite sisters nobly decide to stay behind and face the consequences of not being an oracle with Hyperion's crew. You can probably guess how this plays out. Hyperion finds out that there is one missing, guesses that it's the true oracle, and decides to torture her sisters in an attempt to get them to weasel Phaedra out. Not such a hot prospect for the sisters. And pretty much by-the-book for such stories. So what's the problem? Oh, not long after Theseus and company escape, Phaedra decides that a.) Theseus is freakin' hot (and he thinks likewise of her) and that her visions aren't really a gift, but more of a curse... sooo... she beds the dude. Yep. Virgin no more, visions no more. Don't worry, Hyperion finds the bow anyway...well...actually Theseus does... that's not what I'm getting at. So her three sisters submitted to torture...and yep....they died...so they could keep her alive and keep her valuable gift intact. And not even a couple of days after her sisters sacrifice themselves to save her because she has this gift, she decides that eh, it's an inconvenience and Henry Cavil... I mean Theseus... is luscious. Anyone else see anything wrong with this? Pretty much makes her one of the most deplorable "heroes" I've seen in a while. Consider the following: these three women were enlisted, implored to give up their lives for the sole purpose of offering this other woman protection...and maybe companionship... but mostly for protection. They then decided themselves to submit to capture and torture to keep Hyperion off her scent for a while. Why? Because she is such a super gal? No. Because she has these valuable visions and they don't want them falling into the wrong hands. So these three women give up everything... including their lives... for Phaedra. Her thanks? She sexes away her gift make their sacrifice irrelevant on a broader scale. They've now sacrificed themselves so some admittedly gorgeous women can traipse about with a standard issue stud. Pretty damn selfish. Did the filmmakers realize that they were creating a horribly selfish character? Probably not. They likely didn't play any of their story-elements forward. Actually this is all pretty clear. They crafted the story on what looked, sounded, or felt good in that moment and failed to connect all the dots. What does that amount to? A really, really up and down story featuring plot holes and inconsistencies. And it also seems particularly empty and substance-less... even for a popcorn flick.
When you add to all that one of the hokiest, corniest, most cringe worthy final sequences (gods and Theseus battling Titans in the sky... they look blatantly super-imposed in the sky...and as though they are fightingeach other in the zero-gravity room at space camp...it's beyond silly and firmly in the dumb range) and you have the makings of an awful movie. Which, actually on the surface is hardly surprising. What is more surprising is how awful the story is. After all, it should be hard to screw this up. Stick to the formula: hero is shunned by is people, hero is tapped to rise above and deliver his people a victory, hero falters a bit, hero has huge showdown with ultimate bad guy, hero defeats bad guy...narrowly, hero score the girl and lives happily ever after. They have all the basic elements of the story but they do nothing to hide the fact that they are attacking the form as though it were a series of checkboxes to be checked. And check they do. Of course they also try to add wrinkles to the formula... and those wrinkles eventually become cracks that sink an already bad movie even further into the shit pot. Ah, but the famed Tarsem Singh and his ability to create a visual carnival is what will save this movie! Or so the thought was. Problem is that a.) Tarsem is probably overrated and b.) he either proves this by giving his best effort and it comes off as an unoriginal, visually unimpressive ... at best flick or by phoning it in and providing the same result... and if he feels he can just skate by and people will drool at his mastery...well... then... he's overrated. You just can't coast, man. Bring me something fresh. Been there and done that? That's a waste of time... which is probably the best way to describe Immortals on the whole.
Grade: D
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Movie List 2011: 53.) J. Edgar
J. Edgar
Nothing like a little lunch hour blogging to get you back on track. I'm currently two movies behind on my reviews here. Best get to work. This will probably be a short one... after all, a dude's gotta eat.
Anyway, here we have J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood's latest directorial effort, a biopic of the life and times of one J. Edgar Hoover. To put it simply, the movie was pretty darn boring. Laborious even... I mean to sit through. Staying awake does take effort. I suppose there was some interesting angles to drive the movie forward, but the problem was that all interest was overwhelmed by a slow plodding plot and a yawn-inducing color palette. (The whole movie seemed to have a gray aura hanging over it.) I think it's about time I admitted to myself that standard biopics are just not for me. I can't think of a single one that I haven't found boring or overindulgent. Far too often, it comes off as though the filmmakers are following one of two routes: deification or iconoclasm. I think the iconoclasts have had their way with Hoover sufficiently enough to that he seems to be regarded as at least flawed- terribly flawed- if not batshit crazy. Eastwood (and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black) aren't treading new ground there. Instead, here, they seem to deify the self-deification of Hoover. An interesting route to take, but still- in execution- ultimately boring.
Ok, so maybe I'm not being particularly fair. Black and Eastwood do take pains to show that Hoover was a very complex cat. You couldn't pigeonhole him entirely as a dude with mommy issues or a closeted gay man who seemed to hate the fact that he was gay or a paranoid champion of some extreme sense of law and order. No, Hoover was more than that...or.. rather all of that mixed into one along with healthy doses of a guy just struggling to find himself and matter in the world. The most interesting thing about the movie is how the tale of Hoover unfolds. Hoover's story unfurls through flashbacks as he dictates his memoirs to a series of FBI-agent authors (the idea being that the paranoid Hoover just couldn't settle on one) during the 1960s. So you have Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) telling the story of his own rise to prominence in the FBI. And how Hoover recalls it is how its seen on screen. ... Oh, there are also pieces of the past that don't make it into the memoirs that the audience is allowed to see- particularly moments involving his more tender times with his trusted aide and would-be lover Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer)- these are seen as Hoover's recollections of the past. Unmentioned to his cascade of authors but not unconsidered by the man himself. So, we see it all: the paranoia, the Communist and gangster hunter, the cross-dressing, the homosexual leanings, the powerful, scheming dictator of the bureau and the insecure momma's boy. They're all there on the screen to behold. And all I could do was yawn.
On the surface, this should have all been interesting to me. I love the idea of trying to get into the heads of complex characters. I can only point to the slow, plodding way everything unfolds, the drab way everything looks, and perhaps the punchless conclusion that seems to want say both that everything you've heard about him is more or less true, but the reasons why- though if you noodle through it you can probably imagine them- are not as simple. Even the question of whose story did we see in the flashbacks, Hoover's authentic story or the one born of his self-aggrandizing imagination is more or less neatly answered. This seems to be a trend in Eastwood's movies: replace subtle teasing with outright clarification... I think playing up the whose story was it anyway angle... without answering it so clearly...would have been a more engaging route to take... or better yet, why not tell Hoover's story through the eyes of multiple people- perhaps including his own- who had to interact with him... who learned to love or loathe him... people who knew him on the surface and people who knew him intimately... then allow all those views to circulate in the viewers' mind and allow them to come to the conclusion on exactly who Hoover was... that might have been the way to go... because it seems as though Hoover was different things to different people, but Eastwood seems more preoccupied with who Hoover was to himself and also why.
A couple of other points here. The performances were generally good. You do, after all, have good actors and actresses working for a respected (if- COUGH- rapidlyloosingthouch-COUGH) director. You'd expect them to bring their A-games for Clint. And they do. DiCaprio makes a somewhat compelling Hoover. He works tirelessly at making him look and sound right, which at times actually makes his performance come off as more of a Hoover impersonation than Leo-as-Hoover. I don't think this is entirely his fault- I think this is where Eastwood is pushing him. He does bring great intensity to the role, but he's just never allowed to disappear into it. Armie Hammer makes for a charming and easy-going Tolson. Naomi Watts completes the Holy Hoover Trinity by giving a game but uncomplicated portrayal of Hoover's trusted assistant Helen Gandy. The real problems with the performances? Particularly Hammer's and Watts'? They're overpowered by some pretty horrific age-ifying makeup. I read all the criticisms of the pretty awful makeup effort on the film. A lot of it seemed to be directed at DiCaprio as Hoover. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how he looked as he aged. It actually blended pretty well. I didn't notice anything other than that it was DiCaprio under all that makeup. I actually think Brad Pitt as older (younger) Ben Button looked far more ridiculous than Leo Hoover. Hammer's older Tolson and Watts' older Gandy on the other hand looked like the work of a hack job. Particularly Hammer. The older Tolson is actually kept off screen for much of the movie but when he makes his appearance you begin to wonder if they used 1960s era makeup to complete his 1960s era look. It just doesn't look right. I've seen better makeup used in kids' Halloween costumes. (What really gives the look away are the eyes. Hammer's look way too young and fresh under the makeup. Or... maybe its the fact that the makeup around his eyes seems to be melting off that makes his eyes pop more... whatever the reason, Hammer's older Tolson looks like a zombie who harvested the fresh young eyes of a teenager. So unnatural). Hammer's young eyes burning through the old-age makeup are about the only thing that popped out of the drab atmosphere. They shouldn't have been a distraction... but with little else to attract my attention...well... that's what I had.
Grade: C-
Nothing like a little lunch hour blogging to get you back on track. I'm currently two movies behind on my reviews here. Best get to work. This will probably be a short one... after all, a dude's gotta eat.
Anyway, here we have J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood's latest directorial effort, a biopic of the life and times of one J. Edgar Hoover. To put it simply, the movie was pretty darn boring. Laborious even... I mean to sit through. Staying awake does take effort. I suppose there was some interesting angles to drive the movie forward, but the problem was that all interest was overwhelmed by a slow plodding plot and a yawn-inducing color palette. (The whole movie seemed to have a gray aura hanging over it.) I think it's about time I admitted to myself that standard biopics are just not for me. I can't think of a single one that I haven't found boring or overindulgent. Far too often, it comes off as though the filmmakers are following one of two routes: deification or iconoclasm. I think the iconoclasts have had their way with Hoover sufficiently enough to that he seems to be regarded as at least flawed- terribly flawed- if not batshit crazy. Eastwood (and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black) aren't treading new ground there. Instead, here, they seem to deify the self-deification of Hoover. An interesting route to take, but still- in execution- ultimately boring.
Ok, so maybe I'm not being particularly fair. Black and Eastwood do take pains to show that Hoover was a very complex cat. You couldn't pigeonhole him entirely as a dude with mommy issues or a closeted gay man who seemed to hate the fact that he was gay or a paranoid champion of some extreme sense of law and order. No, Hoover was more than that...or.. rather all of that mixed into one along with healthy doses of a guy just struggling to find himself and matter in the world. The most interesting thing about the movie is how the tale of Hoover unfolds. Hoover's story unfurls through flashbacks as he dictates his memoirs to a series of FBI-agent authors (the idea being that the paranoid Hoover just couldn't settle on one) during the 1960s. So you have Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) telling the story of his own rise to prominence in the FBI. And how Hoover recalls it is how its seen on screen. ... Oh, there are also pieces of the past that don't make it into the memoirs that the audience is allowed to see- particularly moments involving his more tender times with his trusted aide and would-be lover Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer)- these are seen as Hoover's recollections of the past. Unmentioned to his cascade of authors but not unconsidered by the man himself. So, we see it all: the paranoia, the Communist and gangster hunter, the cross-dressing, the homosexual leanings, the powerful, scheming dictator of the bureau and the insecure momma's boy. They're all there on the screen to behold. And all I could do was yawn.
On the surface, this should have all been interesting to me. I love the idea of trying to get into the heads of complex characters. I can only point to the slow, plodding way everything unfolds, the drab way everything looks, and perhaps the punchless conclusion that seems to want say both that everything you've heard about him is more or less true, but the reasons why- though if you noodle through it you can probably imagine them- are not as simple. Even the question of whose story did we see in the flashbacks, Hoover's authentic story or the one born of his self-aggrandizing imagination is more or less neatly answered. This seems to be a trend in Eastwood's movies: replace subtle teasing with outright clarification... I think playing up the whose story was it anyway angle... without answering it so clearly...would have been a more engaging route to take... or better yet, why not tell Hoover's story through the eyes of multiple people- perhaps including his own- who had to interact with him... who learned to love or loathe him... people who knew him on the surface and people who knew him intimately... then allow all those views to circulate in the viewers' mind and allow them to come to the conclusion on exactly who Hoover was... that might have been the way to go... because it seems as though Hoover was different things to different people, but Eastwood seems more preoccupied with who Hoover was to himself and also why.
A couple of other points here. The performances were generally good. You do, after all, have good actors and actresses working for a respected (if- COUGH- rapidlyloosingthouch-COUGH) director. You'd expect them to bring their A-games for Clint. And they do. DiCaprio makes a somewhat compelling Hoover. He works tirelessly at making him look and sound right, which at times actually makes his performance come off as more of a Hoover impersonation than Leo-as-Hoover. I don't think this is entirely his fault- I think this is where Eastwood is pushing him. He does bring great intensity to the role, but he's just never allowed to disappear into it. Armie Hammer makes for a charming and easy-going Tolson. Naomi Watts completes the Holy Hoover Trinity by giving a game but uncomplicated portrayal of Hoover's trusted assistant Helen Gandy. The real problems with the performances? Particularly Hammer's and Watts'? They're overpowered by some pretty horrific age-ifying makeup. I read all the criticisms of the pretty awful makeup effort on the film. A lot of it seemed to be directed at DiCaprio as Hoover. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how he looked as he aged. It actually blended pretty well. I didn't notice anything other than that it was DiCaprio under all that makeup. I actually think Brad Pitt as older (younger) Ben Button looked far more ridiculous than Leo Hoover. Hammer's older Tolson and Watts' older Gandy on the other hand looked like the work of a hack job. Particularly Hammer. The older Tolson is actually kept off screen for much of the movie but when he makes his appearance you begin to wonder if they used 1960s era makeup to complete his 1960s era look. It just doesn't look right. I've seen better makeup used in kids' Halloween costumes. (What really gives the look away are the eyes. Hammer's look way too young and fresh under the makeup. Or... maybe its the fact that the makeup around his eyes seems to be melting off that makes his eyes pop more... whatever the reason, Hammer's older Tolson looks like a zombie who harvested the fresh young eyes of a teenager. So unnatural). Hammer's young eyes burning through the old-age makeup are about the only thing that popped out of the drab atmosphere. They shouldn't have been a distraction... but with little else to attract my attention...well... that's what I had.
Grade: C-
Monday, December 12, 2011
Movie List 2011: 52.) My Week With Marilyn
My Week With Marilyn
So good I saw it twice. Ok, that's not true. I mean... I did see it twice, but only because the power went out at the theater twice during my first viewing and each time the film kicked back in, it did so sans sound. Felt like I was missing something, so I re-viewed. That said, it was good enough to see twice in my mind. It just was a good movie. A mostly light-hearted movie, but a good movie nonetheless.
Yeah, actually, if I was going to describe it concisely (not sure why I would... there's perfectly good internet space to waste right here) I would say it was a charming flick. It was just hard for me not to like it. The story was interesting and the characters were compelling... oh, yeah, and the performances were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Lots to like, in other words.
The story follows the adventures of one, Colin Clark, a self-described self made man who nonetheless milks his parents connections (along with his easy-going nature and general eagerness) to snag a job with Laurence Olivier Productions. His first job? Working as the third assistant director on the Olivier Directed/Produced The Prince and the Showgirl. It also happens to be the flagging (or so he seems to think) Olivier's attempt to stay relevant by working with the incomparable (and incorrigible) Marilyn Monroe. Of course, where ever Marilyn goes a tempest of anxiety, fame, brown-nosers, well-wishers, and controllers follows. The production turns into something of a circus with no master, and Colin and Marilyn eventually fall together into something short of love but- at least to him- more than mere admiration. I should probably point out that all this is based on a "true" story: Colin Clark's on-set diary which was later published as The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me. Of course, exactly how "true" all the events recounted therein are is up for interpretation. Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of her time; wouldn't you maybe tweak a few details to seem more in her orbit? I might, especially if it meant the successful sale of not one, but two books based on that one precious week. To clarify: I have little doubt that the basic framework presented here is true enough, but did Colin really hold the influence he says he did? Who knows, it's not as though many of the principals are still kicking around. Colin seems to think that while he definitely fell for Marilyn, Marilyn- on some level- returned the favor. Seen through the lens of Director Simon Curtis and Screenwriter Adrian Hodges, though, I think there may be some doubt. Did Marilyn really just use Colin for his earnest companionship? Did he satisfy a need for the moment? If we take Colin at his word, no, it was deeper than that. Curtis and Hodges- whether intentionally or not- muddy the waters. So, I guess, whether intentionally or not, Curtis and Hodges have come up with a compelling story, one that basically asks the viewer: who was Marilyn Monroe? Was she what she was? (or rather portrayed herself as). The filmmakers offer tempting clues, but- at least as far as I can tell no concrete answers.
And why is that? Because it's better that way, for one. But also I think it'd be hard to offer concrete answers on Marilyn when the story runs through Colin. That's actually one of the biggest criticisms that I've read regarding the movie. With Michelle Williams giving such an extraordinary performance as Marilyn Monroe... and, hell with Kenneth Branagh nearly matching her as Olivier, doesn't making Eddie Redmayne's Colin the focal point limit the film? I dunno. Maybe. But I don't think it limits it as much as makes it stronger. With such out-sized, brilliant personas as Monroe and Olivier on display, isn't better to view them through a lens or indirectly. Viewing them full on might be too overpowering, especially Williams' incredible turn. I like to think of it this way, you can't really appreciated the full beauty of the sun by staring directly at it- it'll blind (literally). Sometimes you need to appreciate it by looking at where it shines. So too with Williams performance. (And Branagh's) Too much of either might have cast the film in a different light. Not a better one either. Having both disappear from the screen, live their lives off it, then reappear worked better. Plus too much of a good thing can make things go bad. Williams, in particular, had a tremendous challenge on her hands. How do you portray one of the most distinctive and famous women of all time without falling into the realm of caricature, mimicry, or impersonation? How do you inhabit such a role, make it yours, but stay true to the subject? It couldn't have been easy. But Williams knocks it out of the part with apparent ease. Try looking elsewhere. It's damn near impossible.
All that said, it really isn't Clark's show. It's Marilyn's. All the action revolves around her. All the people want to get in her head (at least...if not also her bed). Everyone on screen wants to just be in her orbit, feel her star power, watch her do her thing, watch her be Marilyn Monroe. You can see what a toll that could take on such a fragile persona as hers. And the film shows her that way. She is manipulated and manipulative (even if she harbors good intentions), she's innocent and damaged. She's a complicated person. Can you ever really get in her head? Can you ever really change her? Make her better? Does she need to be better at all? These are questions the film leaves you grappling with without giving you any outright answers. Oh sure, they give you Colin's take (a lot), they give you her publicist Arthur Jacobs' take (a delightfully sleazy Toby Jones), they give you Olivier's often exasperated take, and her husband Arthur Miller's take to name a few. But the real greatness of the film is that the folks behind it refuse to give you a heavy-handed verdict. You're just left thinking about it, about Marilyn Monroe who she was, what she meant, what could have been, what ultimately was, and with Williams bringing her back to life, you're all too glad to engage these thoughts.
Grade: A
So good I saw it twice. Ok, that's not true. I mean... I did see it twice, but only because the power went out at the theater twice during my first viewing and each time the film kicked back in, it did so sans sound. Felt like I was missing something, so I re-viewed. That said, it was good enough to see twice in my mind. It just was a good movie. A mostly light-hearted movie, but a good movie nonetheless.
Yeah, actually, if I was going to describe it concisely (not sure why I would... there's perfectly good internet space to waste right here) I would say it was a charming flick. It was just hard for me not to like it. The story was interesting and the characters were compelling... oh, yeah, and the performances were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Lots to like, in other words.
The story follows the adventures of one, Colin Clark, a self-described self made man who nonetheless milks his parents connections (along with his easy-going nature and general eagerness) to snag a job with Laurence Olivier Productions. His first job? Working as the third assistant director on the Olivier Directed/Produced The Prince and the Showgirl. It also happens to be the flagging (or so he seems to think) Olivier's attempt to stay relevant by working with the incomparable (and incorrigible) Marilyn Monroe. Of course, where ever Marilyn goes a tempest of anxiety, fame, brown-nosers, well-wishers, and controllers follows. The production turns into something of a circus with no master, and Colin and Marilyn eventually fall together into something short of love but- at least to him- more than mere admiration. I should probably point out that all this is based on a "true" story: Colin Clark's on-set diary which was later published as The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me. Of course, exactly how "true" all the events recounted therein are is up for interpretation. Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of her time; wouldn't you maybe tweak a few details to seem more in her orbit? I might, especially if it meant the successful sale of not one, but two books based on that one precious week. To clarify: I have little doubt that the basic framework presented here is true enough, but did Colin really hold the influence he says he did? Who knows, it's not as though many of the principals are still kicking around. Colin seems to think that while he definitely fell for Marilyn, Marilyn- on some level- returned the favor. Seen through the lens of Director Simon Curtis and Screenwriter Adrian Hodges, though, I think there may be some doubt. Did Marilyn really just use Colin for his earnest companionship? Did he satisfy a need for the moment? If we take Colin at his word, no, it was deeper than that. Curtis and Hodges- whether intentionally or not- muddy the waters. So, I guess, whether intentionally or not, Curtis and Hodges have come up with a compelling story, one that basically asks the viewer: who was Marilyn Monroe? Was she what she was? (or rather portrayed herself as). The filmmakers offer tempting clues, but- at least as far as I can tell no concrete answers.
And why is that? Because it's better that way, for one. But also I think it'd be hard to offer concrete answers on Marilyn when the story runs through Colin. That's actually one of the biggest criticisms that I've read regarding the movie. With Michelle Williams giving such an extraordinary performance as Marilyn Monroe... and, hell with Kenneth Branagh nearly matching her as Olivier, doesn't making Eddie Redmayne's Colin the focal point limit the film? I dunno. Maybe. But I don't think it limits it as much as makes it stronger. With such out-sized, brilliant personas as Monroe and Olivier on display, isn't better to view them through a lens or indirectly. Viewing them full on might be too overpowering, especially Williams' incredible turn. I like to think of it this way, you can't really appreciated the full beauty of the sun by staring directly at it- it'll blind (literally). Sometimes you need to appreciate it by looking at where it shines. So too with Williams performance. (And Branagh's) Too much of either might have cast the film in a different light. Not a better one either. Having both disappear from the screen, live their lives off it, then reappear worked better. Plus too much of a good thing can make things go bad. Williams, in particular, had a tremendous challenge on her hands. How do you portray one of the most distinctive and famous women of all time without falling into the realm of caricature, mimicry, or impersonation? How do you inhabit such a role, make it yours, but stay true to the subject? It couldn't have been easy. But Williams knocks it out of the part with apparent ease. Try looking elsewhere. It's damn near impossible.
All that said, it really isn't Clark's show. It's Marilyn's. All the action revolves around her. All the people want to get in her head (at least...if not also her bed). Everyone on screen wants to just be in her orbit, feel her star power, watch her do her thing, watch her be Marilyn Monroe. You can see what a toll that could take on such a fragile persona as hers. And the film shows her that way. She is manipulated and manipulative (even if she harbors good intentions), she's innocent and damaged. She's a complicated person. Can you ever really get in her head? Can you ever really change her? Make her better? Does she need to be better at all? These are questions the film leaves you grappling with without giving you any outright answers. Oh sure, they give you Colin's take (a lot), they give you her publicist Arthur Jacobs' take (a delightfully sleazy Toby Jones), they give you Olivier's often exasperated take, and her husband Arthur Miller's take to name a few. But the real greatness of the film is that the folks behind it refuse to give you a heavy-handed verdict. You're just left thinking about it, about Marilyn Monroe who she was, what she meant, what could have been, what ultimately was, and with Williams bringing her back to life, you're all too glad to engage these thoughts.
Grade: A
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Movie List 2011: 51.) The Descendants
The Descendants
The Descendants might be about the most perfect movie I've seen this year. It boasts an incredibly compelling story, transcendent performances by a great cast, gorgeous camera work... it has it all. In fact, it might be the best movie I've seen in the last three years. Of course, I could very well be getting ahead of myself. But still, you get the point. It's a movie that is absolutely worth seeing. No doubt about it.
The story follows the emotional roller coaster ride of Goerge Clooney's Matt King- a Hawaiian workaholic attorney. Why the roller coaster? King's wife was involved in a boating accident that has left her in a coma that she likely will not recover from. This alone would be horrific enough, but he also later learns that his wife had been cheating on him; something he was completely unaware of. Adding to all this tumult is the weight of a particularly heavy decision that must be made soon: King is the sole trustee in charge of deciding the fate of a massive chunk of pristine Hawaiian land. The state is forcing the dissolution of the trust preserving the land and the impending sale- if that's the route King follows- stands to have incredibly lucrative consequences for he and his cousins. Of course, there's also the chance that King won't sell the land off to some resort-developer at all- a decision that would please the vast majority of Hawaiians, especially native Hawaiians. So, King has a lot on his mind, including how he's going to manage being a responsible parent to his two young daughters, Alexandra (a magnificent Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (similarly great Amara Miller). King is, after all, a workaholic "back-up parent", how can he manage to take over full-time? Heck, how can he manage to even get through the next several days with all this rolling around his head?
King's journey to find an answer to that question resides at the center of the movie. How can he do it all? And what is he going to do? And while there aren't many surprises, I'm not going to say much more about the plot. It's best to just watch unfold before you. Or rather, it's just better to allow yourself to get sucked in by the riveting tale. There are no frills here. No special effects. No twists and turns. It's just exceptional storytelling and acting at its very best. And you- if you're like me- will hardly be able to pull yourself away from the screen. This is in large part due to the acting clinic delivered by George Clooney. He absolutely inhabits the role of King; disappearing into the tumultuous sea of emotions completely. Clooney is to some, the last true movie star; at least in the sense of Hollywood's Golden Era of the 1950s and 60s. It would seem that it would be difficult for George to completely melt away into Matt, especially since King isn't much more than a regular guy- albeit an extremely wealthy one. But Clooney fades away and the complete character of Matt King emerges, and with that, an emotional, heartfelt, and for lack of a better word, real story ensues.
The reality of it may be the most compelling part of the film. It forces you to empathize, particularly if you've ever been anywhere near any of these situations. It forces the audience to grapple with the complex situations on hand. King isn't saying this is how you handle your life falling to pieces around you, he's saying, this is how I'm doing it, for better or worse. And through the process you see a character come into sharper view. Actually growth is evident through most characters- especially Woodley's Alexandra. I should point out that while the reality of it is nice, it wasn't too real. Not in the sense that it was- say- a documentary. There were just enough fictional situations included to allow you to realize that you were watching a story. But still, the emotions were real, and the characters were realistic.
There's not much more I can say. My only wish was that they either downplayed or took a little of the edge off of Nick Krause's Sid character (Alexandra's best friend... boyfriend?). He may be a bit too crass, a bit too idiotic. But otherwise, I can't find any flaws with the movie. It was a great experience, a once-every-few-years type of movie. Kudos, Alexander Payne, while I thought your film, Sideways, was overrated and About Schmidt was pretty good but not great, this may prove to be your masterpiece. And a hell of a masterpiece it is.
Grade: A+
The Descendants might be about the most perfect movie I've seen this year. It boasts an incredibly compelling story, transcendent performances by a great cast, gorgeous camera work... it has it all. In fact, it might be the best movie I've seen in the last three years. Of course, I could very well be getting ahead of myself. But still, you get the point. It's a movie that is absolutely worth seeing. No doubt about it.
The story follows the emotional roller coaster ride of Goerge Clooney's Matt King- a Hawaiian workaholic attorney. Why the roller coaster? King's wife was involved in a boating accident that has left her in a coma that she likely will not recover from. This alone would be horrific enough, but he also later learns that his wife had been cheating on him; something he was completely unaware of. Adding to all this tumult is the weight of a particularly heavy decision that must be made soon: King is the sole trustee in charge of deciding the fate of a massive chunk of pristine Hawaiian land. The state is forcing the dissolution of the trust preserving the land and the impending sale- if that's the route King follows- stands to have incredibly lucrative consequences for he and his cousins. Of course, there's also the chance that King won't sell the land off to some resort-developer at all- a decision that would please the vast majority of Hawaiians, especially native Hawaiians. So, King has a lot on his mind, including how he's going to manage being a responsible parent to his two young daughters, Alexandra (a magnificent Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (similarly great Amara Miller). King is, after all, a workaholic "back-up parent", how can he manage to take over full-time? Heck, how can he manage to even get through the next several days with all this rolling around his head?
King's journey to find an answer to that question resides at the center of the movie. How can he do it all? And what is he going to do? And while there aren't many surprises, I'm not going to say much more about the plot. It's best to just watch unfold before you. Or rather, it's just better to allow yourself to get sucked in by the riveting tale. There are no frills here. No special effects. No twists and turns. It's just exceptional storytelling and acting at its very best. And you- if you're like me- will hardly be able to pull yourself away from the screen. This is in large part due to the acting clinic delivered by George Clooney. He absolutely inhabits the role of King; disappearing into the tumultuous sea of emotions completely. Clooney is to some, the last true movie star; at least in the sense of Hollywood's Golden Era of the 1950s and 60s. It would seem that it would be difficult for George to completely melt away into Matt, especially since King isn't much more than a regular guy- albeit an extremely wealthy one. But Clooney fades away and the complete character of Matt King emerges, and with that, an emotional, heartfelt, and for lack of a better word, real story ensues.
The reality of it may be the most compelling part of the film. It forces you to empathize, particularly if you've ever been anywhere near any of these situations. It forces the audience to grapple with the complex situations on hand. King isn't saying this is how you handle your life falling to pieces around you, he's saying, this is how I'm doing it, for better or worse. And through the process you see a character come into sharper view. Actually growth is evident through most characters- especially Woodley's Alexandra. I should point out that while the reality of it is nice, it wasn't too real. Not in the sense that it was- say- a documentary. There were just enough fictional situations included to allow you to realize that you were watching a story. But still, the emotions were real, and the characters were realistic.
There's not much more I can say. My only wish was that they either downplayed or took a little of the edge off of Nick Krause's Sid character (Alexandra's best friend... boyfriend?). He may be a bit too crass, a bit too idiotic. But otherwise, I can't find any flaws with the movie. It was a great experience, a once-every-few-years type of movie. Kudos, Alexander Payne, while I thought your film, Sideways, was overrated and About Schmidt was pretty good but not great, this may prove to be your masterpiece. And a hell of a masterpiece it is.
Grade: A+
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Movie List 2011: 50.) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1
Breaking Dawn, Part 1
Ok, let's get something out of the way straight off: I've always liked Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart... and furthermore I've read and enjoyed all four books in the Twilight Series. So, consequently, I'm less likely to be overly hard on the movies, unless they do truly suck. I'm also just as likely not to launch into irrational hatred of the series: sorry to disappoint there. I don't think the series is inherently bad. No, the books may not be masterpieces of writing, but the story was compelling enough to get me to read. Yes, the movies haven't been great as a whole, but I'm going to chalk that up to directors trying to achieve a "Twilight feel" that needed to be seriously revamped after the first installment. No, I do not think that Bella (or Kristen Stewart, for that matter) is a horrible role model. She's just not. She actually shouldn't be considered a role model- good or bad- at all because she's a fictional creation. That said, people look for inspiration in a number of places: Twilight's Forks, WA included. But even if young girls are looking to model their lives after Bella, I think this is a fairly harmless endeavor. What does she do that is so bad? Marries at 18? Yep. That's about it. Sure she is stuck in a love triangle with two supernatural beings- both of whom claim to want to take care of and look after her. What's so wrong with that? The series' author, Stephanie Meyers was writing these books for tween girls. Finding a boyfriend or "boyfriend" at that age is a perfectly rational thing to do. Finding some dreamboat to look after you is rational as well. Actually, I think that's rational at any age- so long as "look after you" equates more to "helping you get through the journey that is life" than "do everything for you and completely strip you of your individuality, voice, and personality". Which approach does Meyers push in the series? The former. The wolf and vampire like Bella because she is who she is- even if the author at times neglects to fully develop that character. They like her flaws and all. And for what it's worth, Bella is constantly railing against the two of them having to take care of her- in a protection sense- from the get go- it's one of the many reasons she uses to argue why she should be changed to a vampire. She got herself into the mess, now she wants to take care of herself so others won't have to. But we all need a traveling companion, right? Twilight also pushes such ideas as accepting folks despite their differences, that important decisions are indeed weighty matters that need to be well-thought, the consequences of NOT thinking through important decisions (you might end up preggers with a half-vampire baby), and the value of love and companionship. Among others. Look, if you hate the idea of Twilight, you're going to disagree with me completely. If you love the idea of Twilight, you're going to think I left off or oversimplified issues to a great degree. I like the series, but nothing more. Is it the greatest bit of teen fiction, worthy of such obsession? Well, I suppose so, if you're one of the obsessed and you have a healthy obsession with it. Why not? It's- again- fairly harmless. Why not get excited about it all? But, it is not- and I believe this wholeheartedly- even in the discussion of worst things to ever happen to this country. What may bother me more is that it appears as though a lot of the hatred seems to be based on how popular the series is. Folks who like more higher-brow works or cult-type literature rail against this because this is what's popular at the expense of classics or should-be-classics. Come on. I doubt that any of you want to let the unwashed masses into your tidy cliques anyway. Or would you rather have it that a bunch of Hunter Thompson obsessives (and no, this is not an appropriate example, but if I started naming legit examples, I'm sure I'd wade in far over my head) showed up to the premiere of the Rum Diary dressed as Gonzo maestro himself? No, I imagine you wouldn't. But all of that is neither here nor there. Why you like or dislike something is inevitably only a tangential issue- that you like or dislike it takes center stage. In the end, we could very well leave it at "to each his own" but that would discourage some really interesting conversations. Just as long as it doesn't devolve into- I just think it and everyone who likes/dislikes it is dumb.
So how about the movie itself. If you're familiar with the series, you know where we're at. Bella and her vampire boyfriend get married, get it on during the honeymoon, and Bella ends up with a nasty lil bun in her oven. Drama ensues. But that's the long and short of it there. It is- as with Harry Potter's final chapter- one book split into two. This makes this episode mostly lead-up and that bothers me to a degree. What else can I give such a movie other than an I for incomplete? Well, actually, I think it would have made a neat story in and of itself. Particularly if they leave it where they left it (SPOILER ALERT and all that nonsense) Bella becoming a vampire to save her life... or something along those lines (after all, she is then essentially dead). If we were left to wonder what kind of vampire Bella would be, what would become of her child, etc., etc. I think that would be a great, if not classic, open-ending. They would need to add a few more hints to get the creative juices flowing, but still... So as it's own story, it's not bad, but considering there is a conclusion in the offing, it's lead-up.
Either way, the way the story is carried out does leave a bit to be desired. It's just ok, at best. By now the framework should be familiar. Wooden-ish acting, melodrama galore, and a borderline-trendy soundtrack. And if you look forward to these aspects, Breaking Dawn 1 won't disappoint. For me, it did disappoint. I really do believe that Stewart and Pattinson (though probably not Taylor Luatner) can and have given better efforts on the Silver Screen. It seems that the films' directors (in this case Bill Condon) are afraid of upsetting the extremely lucrative apple cart... in way that the folks helming the Harry Potter franchise weren't. It do do with a bit of a more substantive overhaul. This films-again- featured the same soap opera-style staging and acting. They added what was- in my mind- a completely unbalanced soundtrack. In that I mean, the soundtrack was way too loud for the movie. By that I don't mean the style or songs, but I mean the audible level of the music was out of balance, out of proportion with the sounds- including the dialog- of the movie. It was almost as though the soundtrack dominated the movie... which of course lent it more of a soap opera feel. This is a bit of a shame considering they brought back elements of the original movie's score- including Bella's Lullaby (as I believe it was called) which seemed to fit the mood of the series just perfectly. But keep it in its proper place.
Again, I think by now, Summit Entertainment has found the formula that works and they aren't about to endanger that. So, on the whole it's much in keeping with the first few Twilight movies. I can say this though, with the exception of a few pretty hokey special effect sequences, the series has never looked better. The vampires and werewolves, and even the regular folks all look more the part. The essential special effects blend in fairly well, and the backdrop of the Pacific Northwest and a few more exotic locales look gorgeous. But other than improving on the look, the film holds the status quo of the series. Personally, I think the story is more compelling than some of the others in the series. So it also has that going for it. It also has Billy Burke bucking the wooden-actor trend in his role as Bella's father, Charlie- always a wry delight. (I really do wish they would let Pattinson and Stewart shine more- Stewart in particular. She was awesome in Into the Wild, Adventureland, and, to a lesser extent, The Runaways. I wish she'd be allowed to showcase her talent more.)
What's more troublesome is the incessant nitpicking-as-criticism going on with this film. I've read a number of articles panning this movie for a lack of realism and believability. There's no way Edward could impregnate Bella. The birth scene is completely unrealistic. There's no way she could bring that baby to term so quickly. There's no way Edward could even have sex with Bella. And so on and so forth. I consider this all a second level of analysis that is completely unnecessary. After all, Stephanie Meyers, Bill Condon, and company have created the baseline of reality with such characters as vampires and werewolves. Vampires and werewolves. Hmmm. Also fortune-telling, mood-influencing, and mind-reading powers. Do we really need to go further there. I've also said the author/filmmaker are responsible in laying out a firm baseline such that the audience knows where exactly to draw the line in terms of their suspension of disbelief. In Meyers/Condon's world of Twilgiht, vampires can have sex, and- although the characters didn't know it at the time, vampires can impregnate humans. And the gestation period flies by. You can't apply real-world standards to this fictional account. No more than you can to other series. Does Spider-Man suck because there's no way a bite from a radioactive spider could turn a nerd into a superhero? Does... Dr. Who suck because scientists have recently pretty much declared time travel to be impossible. Some of these people come off sounding like Brodie's character in Mallrats. They're just thinking it through too much. Like when he offers that Superman could either only have sex with Wonder Woman or be forced to where a kryptonite condom. Otherwise the force of his blowing his super load would fire right through the lucky chick. Don't think too hard on it. In Meyers world, this all works. Does the movie stay true to this? Yeah, mostly. Is the whole world kind of absurd? Well, that question is more on point. And for my part I don't think it is. For the most part.
Just like- for the most part, I don't think this is such a horrible movie. It may not be perfect, but it doesn't even approach the debacles that were Transformers and anything Adam Sandler has been in this year. Those are true shit-cinema at its worst. This? Eh... ok.
Grade: B
Ok, let's get something out of the way straight off: I've always liked Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart... and furthermore I've read and enjoyed all four books in the Twilight Series. So, consequently, I'm less likely to be overly hard on the movies, unless they do truly suck. I'm also just as likely not to launch into irrational hatred of the series: sorry to disappoint there. I don't think the series is inherently bad. No, the books may not be masterpieces of writing, but the story was compelling enough to get me to read. Yes, the movies haven't been great as a whole, but I'm going to chalk that up to directors trying to achieve a "Twilight feel" that needed to be seriously revamped after the first installment. No, I do not think that Bella (or Kristen Stewart, for that matter) is a horrible role model. She's just not. She actually shouldn't be considered a role model- good or bad- at all because she's a fictional creation. That said, people look for inspiration in a number of places: Twilight's Forks, WA included. But even if young girls are looking to model their lives after Bella, I think this is a fairly harmless endeavor. What does she do that is so bad? Marries at 18? Yep. That's about it. Sure she is stuck in a love triangle with two supernatural beings- both of whom claim to want to take care of and look after her. What's so wrong with that? The series' author, Stephanie Meyers was writing these books for tween girls. Finding a boyfriend or "boyfriend" at that age is a perfectly rational thing to do. Finding some dreamboat to look after you is rational as well. Actually, I think that's rational at any age- so long as "look after you" equates more to "helping you get through the journey that is life" than "do everything for you and completely strip you of your individuality, voice, and personality". Which approach does Meyers push in the series? The former. The wolf and vampire like Bella because she is who she is- even if the author at times neglects to fully develop that character. They like her flaws and all. And for what it's worth, Bella is constantly railing against the two of them having to take care of her- in a protection sense- from the get go- it's one of the many reasons she uses to argue why she should be changed to a vampire. She got herself into the mess, now she wants to take care of herself so others won't have to. But we all need a traveling companion, right? Twilight also pushes such ideas as accepting folks despite their differences, that important decisions are indeed weighty matters that need to be well-thought, the consequences of NOT thinking through important decisions (you might end up preggers with a half-vampire baby), and the value of love and companionship. Among others. Look, if you hate the idea of Twilight, you're going to disagree with me completely. If you love the idea of Twilight, you're going to think I left off or oversimplified issues to a great degree. I like the series, but nothing more. Is it the greatest bit of teen fiction, worthy of such obsession? Well, I suppose so, if you're one of the obsessed and you have a healthy obsession with it. Why not? It's- again- fairly harmless. Why not get excited about it all? But, it is not- and I believe this wholeheartedly- even in the discussion of worst things to ever happen to this country. What may bother me more is that it appears as though a lot of the hatred seems to be based on how popular the series is. Folks who like more higher-brow works or cult-type literature rail against this because this is what's popular at the expense of classics or should-be-classics. Come on. I doubt that any of you want to let the unwashed masses into your tidy cliques anyway. Or would you rather have it that a bunch of Hunter Thompson obsessives (and no, this is not an appropriate example, but if I started naming legit examples, I'm sure I'd wade in far over my head) showed up to the premiere of the Rum Diary dressed as Gonzo maestro himself? No, I imagine you wouldn't. But all of that is neither here nor there. Why you like or dislike something is inevitably only a tangential issue- that you like or dislike it takes center stage. In the end, we could very well leave it at "to each his own" but that would discourage some really interesting conversations. Just as long as it doesn't devolve into- I just think it and everyone who likes/dislikes it is dumb.
So how about the movie itself. If you're familiar with the series, you know where we're at. Bella and her vampire boyfriend get married, get it on during the honeymoon, and Bella ends up with a nasty lil bun in her oven. Drama ensues. But that's the long and short of it there. It is- as with Harry Potter's final chapter- one book split into two. This makes this episode mostly lead-up and that bothers me to a degree. What else can I give such a movie other than an I for incomplete? Well, actually, I think it would have made a neat story in and of itself. Particularly if they leave it where they left it (SPOILER ALERT and all that nonsense) Bella becoming a vampire to save her life... or something along those lines (after all, she is then essentially dead). If we were left to wonder what kind of vampire Bella would be, what would become of her child, etc., etc. I think that would be a great, if not classic, open-ending. They would need to add a few more hints to get the creative juices flowing, but still... So as it's own story, it's not bad, but considering there is a conclusion in the offing, it's lead-up.
Either way, the way the story is carried out does leave a bit to be desired. It's just ok, at best. By now the framework should be familiar. Wooden-ish acting, melodrama galore, and a borderline-trendy soundtrack. And if you look forward to these aspects, Breaking Dawn 1 won't disappoint. For me, it did disappoint. I really do believe that Stewart and Pattinson (though probably not Taylor Luatner) can and have given better efforts on the Silver Screen. It seems that the films' directors (in this case Bill Condon) are afraid of upsetting the extremely lucrative apple cart... in way that the folks helming the Harry Potter franchise weren't. It do do with a bit of a more substantive overhaul. This films-again- featured the same soap opera-style staging and acting. They added what was- in my mind- a completely unbalanced soundtrack. In that I mean, the soundtrack was way too loud for the movie. By that I don't mean the style or songs, but I mean the audible level of the music was out of balance, out of proportion with the sounds- including the dialog- of the movie. It was almost as though the soundtrack dominated the movie... which of course lent it more of a soap opera feel. This is a bit of a shame considering they brought back elements of the original movie's score- including Bella's Lullaby (as I believe it was called) which seemed to fit the mood of the series just perfectly. But keep it in its proper place.
Again, I think by now, Summit Entertainment has found the formula that works and they aren't about to endanger that. So, on the whole it's much in keeping with the first few Twilight movies. I can say this though, with the exception of a few pretty hokey special effect sequences, the series has never looked better. The vampires and werewolves, and even the regular folks all look more the part. The essential special effects blend in fairly well, and the backdrop of the Pacific Northwest and a few more exotic locales look gorgeous. But other than improving on the look, the film holds the status quo of the series. Personally, I think the story is more compelling than some of the others in the series. So it also has that going for it. It also has Billy Burke bucking the wooden-actor trend in his role as Bella's father, Charlie- always a wry delight. (I really do wish they would let Pattinson and Stewart shine more- Stewart in particular. She was awesome in Into the Wild, Adventureland, and, to a lesser extent, The Runaways. I wish she'd be allowed to showcase her talent more.)
What's more troublesome is the incessant nitpicking-as-criticism going on with this film. I've read a number of articles panning this movie for a lack of realism and believability. There's no way Edward could impregnate Bella. The birth scene is completely unrealistic. There's no way she could bring that baby to term so quickly. There's no way Edward could even have sex with Bella. And so on and so forth. I consider this all a second level of analysis that is completely unnecessary. After all, Stephanie Meyers, Bill Condon, and company have created the baseline of reality with such characters as vampires and werewolves. Vampires and werewolves. Hmmm. Also fortune-telling, mood-influencing, and mind-reading powers. Do we really need to go further there. I've also said the author/filmmaker are responsible in laying out a firm baseline such that the audience knows where exactly to draw the line in terms of their suspension of disbelief. In Meyers/Condon's world of Twilgiht, vampires can have sex, and- although the characters didn't know it at the time, vampires can impregnate humans. And the gestation period flies by. You can't apply real-world standards to this fictional account. No more than you can to other series. Does Spider-Man suck because there's no way a bite from a radioactive spider could turn a nerd into a superhero? Does... Dr. Who suck because scientists have recently pretty much declared time travel to be impossible. Some of these people come off sounding like Brodie's character in Mallrats. They're just thinking it through too much. Like when he offers that Superman could either only have sex with Wonder Woman or be forced to where a kryptonite condom. Otherwise the force of his blowing his super load would fire right through the lucky chick. Don't think too hard on it. In Meyers world, this all works. Does the movie stay true to this? Yeah, mostly. Is the whole world kind of absurd? Well, that question is more on point. And for my part I don't think it is. For the most part.
Just like- for the most part, I don't think this is such a horrible movie. It may not be perfect, but it doesn't even approach the debacles that were Transformers and anything Adam Sandler has been in this year. Those are true shit-cinema at its worst. This? Eh... ok.
Grade: B
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Movie List 2011: 49.) Jack and Jill
Jack and Jill
I saw this turd... something like... three weeks ago now. And other than being busy, I just haven't been looking forward to writing about it. Don't get me wrong, I have no one to blame but myself. I willingly went to see it. Granted, I want to get to 58 movies seen this year and I realize I'm going to have to make sacrifices. This was one of them. It may very well be to take the horse that was Adam Sandler to the cinematic version of the glue factory... (Ok, I just wanted to use that metaphor. I have never really thought highly of Sandler. He's always been more ass than horse..right?)
So yeah, the movie... it follows two Sandlers; one Jack Sadelstein, an ad man at a struggling firm and the other, his twin sister whose sole purpose in life is to annoy the hell out of everyone she comes in contact with. Jill (a Bronx "girl") always visits Jack in L.A. for the Thanksgiving holiday. Jack always hates Jill's visit. The difference this year is that their mother had passed away (one too many visits with Jill perhaps) and so Jill is all alone and looking to stay longer than usual- up to and including Jack's family's planned New Years cruise. As you can imagine as this is a typical Sandler flick- bodily function jokes, stupid voices, and all sorts of grade school-caliber "hilarity" ensue. Oh there's also a plot line involving Jack needing Al Pacino (who overplays a one-note, demented version of himself) to do a ridiculous Dunkin Donuts commercial and Pacino needing to bone Jack's sister. This storyline is played to its limit and then some. In the end, a forced, Full House-esque, appealing to families resolution occurs. And we all leave the theater in a daze of depression.
And that may just be it. This movie was so bad, it killed any sense of emphatic reaction I could have. Some movies, like Transformers, are bad enough to rile me up, this one was bad enough to defeat me. The jokes were flat and redundant. The acting was... well... hardly acting. The story was incredibly unoriginal and predictable... even by Sandler's new low of a standard. The movie was just awful. And I knew all this going in. Well, I knew it would suck going in. The only fun I had was trying to figure out what happened to Sandler. He used to appeal to my generation. Look, I know I'm growing up... and it's quite possible that he's regressing (a midst a sea of cash, mind you), but I can't figure out where the transition (for me) from his being mildly amusing to his being enormously annoying occurred. All such pondering occurred solely within the confines of the first few minutes of the movie. The minute Jill opened his/her mouth, all intelligent thought committed suicide in my brain. And then I just sort of sat there, too defeated to do much but just watch. No cringing, no eye-rolling. Just sitting, waiting for it to end, waiting for the house lights to come on so I could meander out of the theater and on with my life. And so it went. And I quickly forgot anything that might possibly qualify as a finer detail to the movie.
I couldn't, however, forget that shrill shriek that served as Jill's speaking (read: whining, b/c that's all she did through the whole damn thing) voice. What Sandler achieved here was a level of annoyance that went beyond grating and into the realm of physical discomfort. I'm actually proud of myself for not walking out given how terrible that voice was to listen to. And I so wanted to. Right from the first word Jill uttered. But then it would have seemed like I went to the movie just so I could walk out of it within the first half hour. Pleasant thought, but then it wouldn't have qualified for this list. So I took one for the team- my team... of one...me- and stayed to the so sweet it's bitter end.
It's possible that Sandler is a veritable Picasso of fart jokes and grade school humor. Well even if he's not in a traditional sense, I'm sure Picasso doodled some stick figures or something every now and again. Yeah, actually maybe that's just it... maybe this was just some pencil sketch-version of a potty-humor master piece! Yeah... well... no.. no. It actually just plain sucked.
Grade: F
I saw this turd... something like... three weeks ago now. And other than being busy, I just haven't been looking forward to writing about it. Don't get me wrong, I have no one to blame but myself. I willingly went to see it. Granted, I want to get to 58 movies seen this year and I realize I'm going to have to make sacrifices. This was one of them. It may very well be to take the horse that was Adam Sandler to the cinematic version of the glue factory... (Ok, I just wanted to use that metaphor. I have never really thought highly of Sandler. He's always been more ass than horse..right?)
So yeah, the movie... it follows two Sandlers; one Jack Sadelstein, an ad man at a struggling firm and the other, his twin sister whose sole purpose in life is to annoy the hell out of everyone she comes in contact with. Jill (a Bronx "girl") always visits Jack in L.A. for the Thanksgiving holiday. Jack always hates Jill's visit. The difference this year is that their mother had passed away (one too many visits with Jill perhaps) and so Jill is all alone and looking to stay longer than usual- up to and including Jack's family's planned New Years cruise. As you can imagine as this is a typical Sandler flick- bodily function jokes, stupid voices, and all sorts of grade school-caliber "hilarity" ensue. Oh there's also a plot line involving Jack needing Al Pacino (who overplays a one-note, demented version of himself) to do a ridiculous Dunkin Donuts commercial and Pacino needing to bone Jack's sister. This storyline is played to its limit and then some. In the end, a forced, Full House-esque, appealing to families resolution occurs. And we all leave the theater in a daze of depression.
And that may just be it. This movie was so bad, it killed any sense of emphatic reaction I could have. Some movies, like Transformers, are bad enough to rile me up, this one was bad enough to defeat me. The jokes were flat and redundant. The acting was... well... hardly acting. The story was incredibly unoriginal and predictable... even by Sandler's new low of a standard. The movie was just awful. And I knew all this going in. Well, I knew it would suck going in. The only fun I had was trying to figure out what happened to Sandler. He used to appeal to my generation. Look, I know I'm growing up... and it's quite possible that he's regressing (a midst a sea of cash, mind you), but I can't figure out where the transition (for me) from his being mildly amusing to his being enormously annoying occurred. All such pondering occurred solely within the confines of the first few minutes of the movie. The minute Jill opened his/her mouth, all intelligent thought committed suicide in my brain. And then I just sort of sat there, too defeated to do much but just watch. No cringing, no eye-rolling. Just sitting, waiting for it to end, waiting for the house lights to come on so I could meander out of the theater and on with my life. And so it went. And I quickly forgot anything that might possibly qualify as a finer detail to the movie.
I couldn't, however, forget that shrill shriek that served as Jill's speaking (read: whining, b/c that's all she did through the whole damn thing) voice. What Sandler achieved here was a level of annoyance that went beyond grating and into the realm of physical discomfort. I'm actually proud of myself for not walking out given how terrible that voice was to listen to. And I so wanted to. Right from the first word Jill uttered. But then it would have seemed like I went to the movie just so I could walk out of it within the first half hour. Pleasant thought, but then it wouldn't have qualified for this list. So I took one for the team- my team... of one...me- and stayed to the so sweet it's bitter end.
It's possible that Sandler is a veritable Picasso of fart jokes and grade school humor. Well even if he's not in a traditional sense, I'm sure Picasso doodled some stick figures or something every now and again. Yeah, actually maybe that's just it... maybe this was just some pencil sketch-version of a potty-humor master piece! Yeah... well... no.. no. It actually just plain sucked.
Grade: F
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Movie List 2011: 48.) Like Crazy
Like Crazy
Like Crazy is a nice movie, but I'm not sure I'd go farther than that with it. The movie is essentially Drake Doremus's visual musings on love- particularly young love- and how people who are right for each other will always find a way back to each other. I have to admit, immediately after seeing the movie, I thought it was awesome and fresh. The more I thought about it, however, the less I thought of it. This isn't to say it's horrible- or even remotely bad, it just has some flaws.
The story is fairly basic: Anna, a Brit, and Jacob, an American, meet and fall hard for each other at an L.A. University. Things get complicated when Anna decides to overstay her student visa and upon trying to return following a brief visit to her homeland is banned from entering the country. The movie explores whether these two who seem destined for each other can overcome a literal ocean as well as an ocean of complications that develop due to the physical ocean between them. They come together and fall off and come together and so on and so forth and we, the viewers, are invited along for a front row seat to the love, the struggles, the roller coaster ride is a long-distance relationship. Do Jacob and Anna have what it takes to make it through such complications as... well... their lives moving on? This is essentially the question at the heart of the movie. A question that I am not sure ever gets answered (not that there's anything wrong with that).
On the surface, the movie has a lot going for it. Writer/director Doremus opts to tell his tale in many places by showing you the story. You see Jacob and Anna fall for each other. The two don't necessarily need to tell you. This is done through heavy usage of montage scenes. Not a horrible way of doing it, but it does- at times- create a feeling that the movie bogs down into what amounts to little more than a string of interconnected music videos. The videos are full of subtle emotion and are generally pleasant to see, but it still feels a bit odd. Not that I'm a fan of filmmakers telling you what is happening at the expense of letting you see it for yourself. I'm not, but I think there has to be a balance between montages and movie scenes, and here the film leans heavily in favor of montage.
This may be because there is little dialog to fall back on. In fact, from what I understand there was very little to no written dialog in the script. Doremus- going for a more authentic feel, I suppose- had his actors largely improvise the dialog, feeding the scenarios and scenes to base their words on. It does make for an interesting movie, though at times the conversations seem to flatten out into awkwardness- if even slightly so. Is this more in keeping with real life? Sure, I suppose... but not in the way that the movie shows it. It seemed at times as though Jacob and Anna had barely known each other at times when they had clearly been intimately involved in each other's lives for a decent amount of time. It left me wondering if they didn't shoot the film out of sequence. Surely, by the end of shooting, Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin would have developed some manner of solid chemistry and I do believe this is on full display for much of the film. I suppose on final analysis, the lack of written dialog isn't necessarily a strike against the film. It does provide what seem to be authentic moments throughout the movie- in fact it allows for many more of these than the peculiarly awkward exchanges.
In the end, I guess where the movie started to lose me was with how immature each of the main characters kind of comes off. I don't think Doremus was aiming to paint his two lovers as something of naive, clueless folks, but in some cases, this is how they end up on screen. Yelchin's Jacob is particularly guilty of this. After college, Jacob begins work as a furniture designer. Sure his work is supposed to have a distinctly American- if not Californian feel to it- but it seems to me that seeing as Anna has rather immaturely ignored the expiration of her student visa and is thus eventually marooned off in the UK, Jacob- if he is as crazy in love with Anna as he claims- could offer to make things work by heading across the pond to ply his trade. This is, in fact, brought up as a suggestion during the story, but Jacob roundly rejects the idea because "it would be really hard" as he put it. Yes, Anna was foolish almost to the point of it being unbelievable to completely ignore the implications of her decision to over stay her visa. She should have known better; after all, she was only initially looking at a three month separation from Jacob- something that hardly seemed worth risking the long term health of the relationship. But the fact that Jacob won't consider trying to go the extra mile for the love of his life simply because setting up shop in England would be too hard is kind of ridiculous. It would be another story completely if Jacob had a job where location mattered more. But he doesn't, and, as such, he kind of comes off as a completely selfish, barely invested boyfriend. It would be different if there were even family considerations hemming Jacob in, but there aren't. He just doesn't want to go through the extra effort of relocating to a new country to create his furniture. I guess even once-in-a-life-time love has its limits.
There are other examples of how these two lovers show their age and/or lack of maturity as well, but I suppose listing all the ways they bugged me in that manner would amount to little more than nitpicking. In truth, the movie has a lot going for it... starting with Yelchin and especially Felicity Jones and Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence- who here plays Jacob's rival love interest- is proving to be a completely mesmerizing talent. She draws you in and forces a sense of empathy with her character. It was pretty cool to see. Jones, a relative newcomer and now festival darling is deserving- in my mind- of the loads of praise being sent her way. Just as Carey Mulligan was in An Education, Jones is an absolute breath of fresh air in this film. Nuanced, affecting, subtle, emotional, balanced- incredible work.
The movie also has the fact that it is an easy story to which to relate going for it as well. Many people have been through long distance relationships. The feelings these characters are experiencing are real. The complications to their relationship are easily based in reality. On that level, the movie isn't particularly hard to "get". And to top that off, it was gorgeously shot as well.
Are any of these enough to compensate for some awkwardness and frustrating character development? Well... yes, actually. In my mind they are. Like I said, at its core it's a nice movie depicting a good story through exceptional performances... it's just lacking in some spots (I really do wish the characters had shown a little more growth/maturity... particularly Jacob.. because I don't think it was Doremus's intention to make him a relatively selfish, moody dude... it's just hard for me to see his not wanting to invest the effort it would take to establish his business in the UK as justification for tossing away what seemed like a great thing for him... a great relationship.... but that's just me). I guess, in the end, it really was a hard movie to dislike, despite its blemishes... kind of like a good relationship, right? Well... yeah.. something like that.
Grade: B+
Like Crazy is a nice movie, but I'm not sure I'd go farther than that with it. The movie is essentially Drake Doremus's visual musings on love- particularly young love- and how people who are right for each other will always find a way back to each other. I have to admit, immediately after seeing the movie, I thought it was awesome and fresh. The more I thought about it, however, the less I thought of it. This isn't to say it's horrible- or even remotely bad, it just has some flaws.
The story is fairly basic: Anna, a Brit, and Jacob, an American, meet and fall hard for each other at an L.A. University. Things get complicated when Anna decides to overstay her student visa and upon trying to return following a brief visit to her homeland is banned from entering the country. The movie explores whether these two who seem destined for each other can overcome a literal ocean as well as an ocean of complications that develop due to the physical ocean between them. They come together and fall off and come together and so on and so forth and we, the viewers, are invited along for a front row seat to the love, the struggles, the roller coaster ride is a long-distance relationship. Do Jacob and Anna have what it takes to make it through such complications as... well... their lives moving on? This is essentially the question at the heart of the movie. A question that I am not sure ever gets answered (not that there's anything wrong with that).
On the surface, the movie has a lot going for it. Writer/director Doremus opts to tell his tale in many places by showing you the story. You see Jacob and Anna fall for each other. The two don't necessarily need to tell you. This is done through heavy usage of montage scenes. Not a horrible way of doing it, but it does- at times- create a feeling that the movie bogs down into what amounts to little more than a string of interconnected music videos. The videos are full of subtle emotion and are generally pleasant to see, but it still feels a bit odd. Not that I'm a fan of filmmakers telling you what is happening at the expense of letting you see it for yourself. I'm not, but I think there has to be a balance between montages and movie scenes, and here the film leans heavily in favor of montage.
This may be because there is little dialog to fall back on. In fact, from what I understand there was very little to no written dialog in the script. Doremus- going for a more authentic feel, I suppose- had his actors largely improvise the dialog, feeding the scenarios and scenes to base their words on. It does make for an interesting movie, though at times the conversations seem to flatten out into awkwardness- if even slightly so. Is this more in keeping with real life? Sure, I suppose... but not in the way that the movie shows it. It seemed at times as though Jacob and Anna had barely known each other at times when they had clearly been intimately involved in each other's lives for a decent amount of time. It left me wondering if they didn't shoot the film out of sequence. Surely, by the end of shooting, Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin would have developed some manner of solid chemistry and I do believe this is on full display for much of the film. I suppose on final analysis, the lack of written dialog isn't necessarily a strike against the film. It does provide what seem to be authentic moments throughout the movie- in fact it allows for many more of these than the peculiarly awkward exchanges.
In the end, I guess where the movie started to lose me was with how immature each of the main characters kind of comes off. I don't think Doremus was aiming to paint his two lovers as something of naive, clueless folks, but in some cases, this is how they end up on screen. Yelchin's Jacob is particularly guilty of this. After college, Jacob begins work as a furniture designer. Sure his work is supposed to have a distinctly American- if not Californian feel to it- but it seems to me that seeing as Anna has rather immaturely ignored the expiration of her student visa and is thus eventually marooned off in the UK, Jacob- if he is as crazy in love with Anna as he claims- could offer to make things work by heading across the pond to ply his trade. This is, in fact, brought up as a suggestion during the story, but Jacob roundly rejects the idea because "it would be really hard" as he put it. Yes, Anna was foolish almost to the point of it being unbelievable to completely ignore the implications of her decision to over stay her visa. She should have known better; after all, she was only initially looking at a three month separation from Jacob- something that hardly seemed worth risking the long term health of the relationship. But the fact that Jacob won't consider trying to go the extra mile for the love of his life simply because setting up shop in England would be too hard is kind of ridiculous. It would be another story completely if Jacob had a job where location mattered more. But he doesn't, and, as such, he kind of comes off as a completely selfish, barely invested boyfriend. It would be different if there were even family considerations hemming Jacob in, but there aren't. He just doesn't want to go through the extra effort of relocating to a new country to create his furniture. I guess even once-in-a-life-time love has its limits.
There are other examples of how these two lovers show their age and/or lack of maturity as well, but I suppose listing all the ways they bugged me in that manner would amount to little more than nitpicking. In truth, the movie has a lot going for it... starting with Yelchin and especially Felicity Jones and Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence- who here plays Jacob's rival love interest- is proving to be a completely mesmerizing talent. She draws you in and forces a sense of empathy with her character. It was pretty cool to see. Jones, a relative newcomer and now festival darling is deserving- in my mind- of the loads of praise being sent her way. Just as Carey Mulligan was in An Education, Jones is an absolute breath of fresh air in this film. Nuanced, affecting, subtle, emotional, balanced- incredible work.
The movie also has the fact that it is an easy story to which to relate going for it as well. Many people have been through long distance relationships. The feelings these characters are experiencing are real. The complications to their relationship are easily based in reality. On that level, the movie isn't particularly hard to "get". And to top that off, it was gorgeously shot as well.
Are any of these enough to compensate for some awkwardness and frustrating character development? Well... yes, actually. In my mind they are. Like I said, at its core it's a nice movie depicting a good story through exceptional performances... it's just lacking in some spots (I really do wish the characters had shown a little more growth/maturity... particularly Jacob.. because I don't think it was Doremus's intention to make him a relatively selfish, moody dude... it's just hard for me to see his not wanting to invest the effort it would take to establish his business in the UK as justification for tossing away what seemed like a great thing for him... a great relationship.... but that's just me). I guess, in the end, it really was a hard movie to dislike, despite its blemishes... kind of like a good relationship, right? Well... yeah.. something like that.
Grade: B+
Saturday, November 19, 2011
New to Me 2011: 5.) From the Sky Down
From the Sky Down
I've actually gone back and forth for a little while now on whether I should include this. From the Sky Down is the U2 documentary that revolves around the band looking back at their 1991 classic album "Achtung Baby". The movie is included in their extremely pricey, comprehensive boxed-set anniversary release of the album. It also debuted on Showtime. Which is where I caught it, because as much as I'd love to swim in that pool of rarities, archival material, and rough cuts, I just can't see dropping more than $100 on it. But none of that addresses my hesitancy to include a review here. There were two reasons I wasn't going to include it: 1.) I'm not sure it's ever going to be released any wider than those two avenues... thus making it more or less a TV movie and I've never reviewed TV movies before... and 2.) I love U2. LOVE them. They are my all-time favorite band. I've never heard a U2 album or song I didn't at least like. And many I have loved. For awhile, I mistakenly thought the Black Keys had jumped into my top favorite band spot. Then I just happened to pop "All That You Can't Leave Behind" into my car's CD player and I was awakened again. Felt silly for ever doubting them too. I don't know what it is that makes me love them so much, but it just clicks for me. In fact, if I stumbled onto a rough cut of Bono having a bout of diarrhea on the microphone- so long as he also sang and The Edge, Larry Mullen, and Adam Clayton backed him up with sonic delights... I'm pretty sure it would find regular rotation on my iPod. So, with adoration on that level... would it even make any sense for me to try to "analyze" (always in quotes with me) a U2 doc? Um, no, it wouldn't. But I'm going to write about it anyway. You can use the above as a disclaimer.
As you can imagine any U2 concert film or documentary is going to start as an A+ with me and work its way downward if the case should warrant it. And actually, From the Sky Down does have a few chinks in the armor. Most of them are stylistic. I'm not sure if you've heard the members of U2 speak, but they all sound alike- other than Adam Clayton who has a deeper voice and- as his band mates put it- "a posh British accent". During the first... maybe... half of the movie Director Davis Guggenheim has the band speak about their music, about what was driving them apart following their smash success "The Joshua Tree", and about their process of making music as a band. All great insights into the world of U2. But, I think, each perspective would have been made more- or perhaps less- interesting depending on which member of the band is speaking. And there lies the problem. Guggenheim didn't identify- or show- each member as he spoke. It was just words over images. And I had a devil of a time figuring out who was saying what. Some was evident just based on the content of what was being said. Some... well, I could only guess. The real problem here was actually Bono. It sounded like the band had agreed to give interviews on the album right after rehearsing (the movie- as I mentioned- involves the band looking back at the process of making Achtung Baby- their make-or-break album in 1991 [they indicated if the album didn't work for them, they were done as a band]. Their trip down memory lane- in terms of the doc- takes place as they prepare for their first appearance at the Glastonbury Music Festival where they will perform Achtung Baby in its entirety- or at least in heavy doses-during their set), and Bono's voice sounded weirdly distorted... or spent (Bono being notorious for having no concept of "holding back"... in anything I suppose). I can usually pick Bono's voice out pretty easily, but here he seemed to sound like a mix of both Larry and Edge. It made it difficult. Maybe that was Guggenheim's point. Maybe he wanted us to focus on what was being said over who was saying it as a way of stressing the band's mantra that everyone has a voice. But still, I wanted a better idea of whose voice was voicing at the time. This is hardly a fatal blow to the movie but it was irksome.
As was the band's penchant for skimming the surface when talking about their music. Or rather- speaking broadly. Don't get me wrong, it was interesting. Very interesting, but in the end, I felt like I didn't learn anything particularly new. Maybe just had a different spin. This could be because I'm way too big a fan and have read way too much about them. But, I actually think back to the Joshua Tree documentary and remember how in depth that was in terms of their crafting that album. This, again, seemed to talk more broadly about their overall approach to the music, why they chose Germany, how they were feeling after their failed Rattle and Hum movie adventure... but in terms of crafting the music, there wasn't much included. When they did go into, it was incredibly interesting- as when they described how the song "One" just sort of evolved. Awesome stuff. Wish there had been more.
I think part of the reason that it only really skimmed the surface is that Bono has maintained that the surest sign of a band falling apart is when they feel the need to look back. And it's clear that U2 still- in their minds at the very least- has a lot they are working towards. I don't know for certain that the whole band feels that way, but it might explain why Bono wouldn't want to dig deep into the process at that point. It should be noted that the richer detailed Joshua Tree doc- and Rattle and Hum- movie both were filmed right around the time Joshua Tree came out.
In the end, though, as you can imagine, I loved the documentary. I can't get enough of the band talking about their music, their process. It's especially great when they all participate in the action. Usually, Bono and to a lesser extent The Edge are the mouthpieces for the band. My favorite band member- in terms of speaking on camera- is probably drummer, Larry Mullen, Jr. To me, he always has keen insights, he just struggles to actually spit them out. I guess I can just relate to that. In any event, movie had several other gem-worthy tidbits. The Edge singing a stripped-down take on "Love is Blindness" was haunting and beautiful- this alone made the doc watchable. Learning that Rattle and Hum was a failure (I think it's a phenomenal look at a band searching for something bigger and better than themselves, about a group going on a journey to help them grow as musicians- while also hoping to share something with the world... like an information exchange... I guess most everyone at the time saw it strictly as an overly pompous vanity project) and how that both nearly drove the band apart and ultimately made them better at what they do was incredibly interesting. Then- of course- all the archival footage of the band from 20 years ago and the rehearsal takes from their Glastonbury practice sessions were awesome to see. So, for a fan, it definitely had a lot going for it. And for a fan on the level that I'm on it had a whole shit load going for it, namely 90 minutes of U2.
But I wonder from a casual fan's perspective whether it would have amounted to much. A few tidbits here and there maybe? Maybe it would have been 30 minutes too long? I don't know... because I'm nowhere near a casual fan. And despite the few flaws, I thought it was a treat to watch.
Grade: A
I've actually gone back and forth for a little while now on whether I should include this. From the Sky Down is the U2 documentary that revolves around the band looking back at their 1991 classic album "Achtung Baby". The movie is included in their extremely pricey, comprehensive boxed-set anniversary release of the album. It also debuted on Showtime. Which is where I caught it, because as much as I'd love to swim in that pool of rarities, archival material, and rough cuts, I just can't see dropping more than $100 on it. But none of that addresses my hesitancy to include a review here. There were two reasons I wasn't going to include it: 1.) I'm not sure it's ever going to be released any wider than those two avenues... thus making it more or less a TV movie and I've never reviewed TV movies before... and 2.) I love U2. LOVE them. They are my all-time favorite band. I've never heard a U2 album or song I didn't at least like. And many I have loved. For awhile, I mistakenly thought the Black Keys had jumped into my top favorite band spot. Then I just happened to pop "All That You Can't Leave Behind" into my car's CD player and I was awakened again. Felt silly for ever doubting them too. I don't know what it is that makes me love them so much, but it just clicks for me. In fact, if I stumbled onto a rough cut of Bono having a bout of diarrhea on the microphone- so long as he also sang and The Edge, Larry Mullen, and Adam Clayton backed him up with sonic delights... I'm pretty sure it would find regular rotation on my iPod. So, with adoration on that level... would it even make any sense for me to try to "analyze" (always in quotes with me) a U2 doc? Um, no, it wouldn't. But I'm going to write about it anyway. You can use the above as a disclaimer.
As you can imagine any U2 concert film or documentary is going to start as an A+ with me and work its way downward if the case should warrant it. And actually, From the Sky Down does have a few chinks in the armor. Most of them are stylistic. I'm not sure if you've heard the members of U2 speak, but they all sound alike- other than Adam Clayton who has a deeper voice and- as his band mates put it- "a posh British accent". During the first... maybe... half of the movie Director Davis Guggenheim has the band speak about their music, about what was driving them apart following their smash success "The Joshua Tree", and about their process of making music as a band. All great insights into the world of U2. But, I think, each perspective would have been made more- or perhaps less- interesting depending on which member of the band is speaking. And there lies the problem. Guggenheim didn't identify- or show- each member as he spoke. It was just words over images. And I had a devil of a time figuring out who was saying what. Some was evident just based on the content of what was being said. Some... well, I could only guess. The real problem here was actually Bono. It sounded like the band had agreed to give interviews on the album right after rehearsing (the movie- as I mentioned- involves the band looking back at the process of making Achtung Baby- their make-or-break album in 1991 [they indicated if the album didn't work for them, they were done as a band]. Their trip down memory lane- in terms of the doc- takes place as they prepare for their first appearance at the Glastonbury Music Festival where they will perform Achtung Baby in its entirety- or at least in heavy doses-during their set), and Bono's voice sounded weirdly distorted... or spent (Bono being notorious for having no concept of "holding back"... in anything I suppose). I can usually pick Bono's voice out pretty easily, but here he seemed to sound like a mix of both Larry and Edge. It made it difficult. Maybe that was Guggenheim's point. Maybe he wanted us to focus on what was being said over who was saying it as a way of stressing the band's mantra that everyone has a voice. But still, I wanted a better idea of whose voice was voicing at the time. This is hardly a fatal blow to the movie but it was irksome.
As was the band's penchant for skimming the surface when talking about their music. Or rather- speaking broadly. Don't get me wrong, it was interesting. Very interesting, but in the end, I felt like I didn't learn anything particularly new. Maybe just had a different spin. This could be because I'm way too big a fan and have read way too much about them. But, I actually think back to the Joshua Tree documentary and remember how in depth that was in terms of their crafting that album. This, again, seemed to talk more broadly about their overall approach to the music, why they chose Germany, how they were feeling after their failed Rattle and Hum movie adventure... but in terms of crafting the music, there wasn't much included. When they did go into, it was incredibly interesting- as when they described how the song "One" just sort of evolved. Awesome stuff. Wish there had been more.
I think part of the reason that it only really skimmed the surface is that Bono has maintained that the surest sign of a band falling apart is when they feel the need to look back. And it's clear that U2 still- in their minds at the very least- has a lot they are working towards. I don't know for certain that the whole band feels that way, but it might explain why Bono wouldn't want to dig deep into the process at that point. It should be noted that the richer detailed Joshua Tree doc- and Rattle and Hum- movie both were filmed right around the time Joshua Tree came out.
In the end, though, as you can imagine, I loved the documentary. I can't get enough of the band talking about their music, their process. It's especially great when they all participate in the action. Usually, Bono and to a lesser extent The Edge are the mouthpieces for the band. My favorite band member- in terms of speaking on camera- is probably drummer, Larry Mullen, Jr. To me, he always has keen insights, he just struggles to actually spit them out. I guess I can just relate to that. In any event, movie had several other gem-worthy tidbits. The Edge singing a stripped-down take on "Love is Blindness" was haunting and beautiful- this alone made the doc watchable. Learning that Rattle and Hum was a failure (I think it's a phenomenal look at a band searching for something bigger and better than themselves, about a group going on a journey to help them grow as musicians- while also hoping to share something with the world... like an information exchange... I guess most everyone at the time saw it strictly as an overly pompous vanity project) and how that both nearly drove the band apart and ultimately made them better at what they do was incredibly interesting. Then- of course- all the archival footage of the band from 20 years ago and the rehearsal takes from their Glastonbury practice sessions were awesome to see. So, for a fan, it definitely had a lot going for it. And for a fan on the level that I'm on it had a whole shit load going for it, namely 90 minutes of U2.
But I wonder from a casual fan's perspective whether it would have amounted to much. A few tidbits here and there maybe? Maybe it would have been 30 minutes too long? I don't know... because I'm nowhere near a casual fan. And despite the few flaws, I thought it was a treat to watch.
Grade: A
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Movie List 2011: 47.) Tower Heist
Tower Heist
Continuing to play catch up...
So...yeah... here we have Tower Heist. The movie that supposedly was Eddie Murphy's return to edgier/funnier fare. That alone was supposed to make this newsworthy and watchable. And you know what? I was pumped for it. Eddie's coming back! Not even the fact that this is a Ben Stiller movie could dampen my spirits. And I rarely like Ben Stiller movies (Zero Effect is about the only one I really liked). Eddie Freakin' Murphy is back!
Then... I realized... I actually don't know any Eddie other than the Nutty Professor/Dr. Doolittle/Shrek Eddie. Oh, well, Dream Girls Eddie too. So why the hell was I so excited. It was, after all, going to be a Ben Stiller movie first and foremost. I had seen a few minutes of 48 Hours and another few minutes of Coming to America. Don't remember much of either of those movies. Never seen Beverly Hills Cop or anything like that. But, I think it's somewhat safe to say that if this is the return of Eddie Murphy, the Eddie Murphy that everyone older than 9 supposedly loves... well, then, I don't know what the fuss was about in the first place. He wasn't particularly funny here. But, then again, neither was anyone else in the movie. Eddie had his moments, but really he came off sounding like Donkey from Shrek had hit the skids pretty hard, ended up in the ghetto, and adopted that lifestyle. Amusing at times, but not really funny.
Here's the thing though. I don't think this was anything close to a return to vintage 1980s Eddie Murphy form. For one, this movie was hardly edgy. A little bit of bad language doesn't really qualify for edge anymore. And secondly, there's no way that Eddie could ever return to form starring in a movie with Ben Stiller... unless Eddie kills Stiller's character during the opening credits. Then....well, if that wouldn't qualify as a return to form, it would qualify as a huge favor.
In any event, enough about Eddie Murphy. The fact is, he didn't really even have enough screen time to justify the hype. What this all boils down to is that despite the fact that Brett Ratner was the director, this was a typical Ben Stiller movie. Chuckle-inducing at it's funniest. Cringe-inducing on the whole. The whole thing felt like a sitcom with a preposterous set up. By that I mean the jokes. And the timing and feel. It had that whole "wait for it.... cue laugh track!" feel. And that's just a darn tired approach by now. Nothing is worse than when you can feel that the people in the movie think they're doing awesomely funny stuff. It almost always comes off as overcooked and barely humorous.
Trying to think if the movie had any redeeming factors... Gabourey Sidibe came off as a gimmick... Casey Affleck just didn't seem to fit in... Ben Stiller sucks... hmmm... maybe that it was somewhat timely? I mean the whole Bernie Madoff interest, I would think, is on the slippery slope towards back-of-the-mind-ville. But, you can hardly blame a movie for not being able to keep up on the freshest of the fresh stories in this 24-7 news cycle society in which we live. Movies do, after all, take time to develop and create. I'm also not going to dock it too many points for the absurdity of the plot. No, it isn't believable. In the least. But the movie does establish a baseline of asinine and then it proceeds from there. I'm not, however, willing to be so forgiving on some of the plot inconsistencies. When you have such a simple story, the least you could do is make sure it's at least a little... tidier.
But then... you're not going to check out a Brett Ratner/Ben Stiller collaboration because it features nuanced story-telling and an airtight script. Inevitably, you end up going to see a movie like this for one of a couple reasons: a.) you're bored and nothing else worthwhile is playing b.)Against all odds you like Ben Stiller or c.) you hate yourself. Guess which camp I fall into. I suppose in truth, it's d.) you have a movie pass and sick desire to break your previous movies-seen-in-the-theater-in-a-calendar-year record. Taking one for the team, then, to continue chasing my goal. Oh well, in the end, I only lose out on two hours of my life. I just hope I don't end up dying two hours before I'm really slated to. That would suck... Ben Stiller would get the last laugh... well, at least someone would be laughing because of a Ben Stiller movie... bam.
Alright... a redeeming factor...hmmmm... ok, I have two. One: Matthew Broderick's quirky take on Mr. Fitzhugh, a failed investment banker, was probably the most amusing thing about the movie. Not that any of the scenes were particularly worth stealing, but Broderick stole every one he was in (then subsequently tried to return them, claiming the fact that he had just walked out without paying for them was an innocent mistake). Two: it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen. By a long shot.
So there you have it. I can't say it's even mildly funny. But I also can't say it's soul crushingly bad. It's definitely closer to the latter than the former though. Now I'm just trying to figure out how I can steal two hours of Ben Stiller's life so we can even up the score.
Grade: C-
Continuing to play catch up...
So...yeah... here we have Tower Heist. The movie that supposedly was Eddie Murphy's return to edgier/funnier fare. That alone was supposed to make this newsworthy and watchable. And you know what? I was pumped for it. Eddie's coming back! Not even the fact that this is a Ben Stiller movie could dampen my spirits. And I rarely like Ben Stiller movies (Zero Effect is about the only one I really liked). Eddie Freakin' Murphy is back!
Then... I realized... I actually don't know any Eddie other than the Nutty Professor/Dr. Doolittle/Shrek Eddie. Oh, well, Dream Girls Eddie too. So why the hell was I so excited. It was, after all, going to be a Ben Stiller movie first and foremost. I had seen a few minutes of 48 Hours and another few minutes of Coming to America. Don't remember much of either of those movies. Never seen Beverly Hills Cop or anything like that. But, I think it's somewhat safe to say that if this is the return of Eddie Murphy, the Eddie Murphy that everyone older than 9 supposedly loves... well, then, I don't know what the fuss was about in the first place. He wasn't particularly funny here. But, then again, neither was anyone else in the movie. Eddie had his moments, but really he came off sounding like Donkey from Shrek had hit the skids pretty hard, ended up in the ghetto, and adopted that lifestyle. Amusing at times, but not really funny.
Here's the thing though. I don't think this was anything close to a return to vintage 1980s Eddie Murphy form. For one, this movie was hardly edgy. A little bit of bad language doesn't really qualify for edge anymore. And secondly, there's no way that Eddie could ever return to form starring in a movie with Ben Stiller... unless Eddie kills Stiller's character during the opening credits. Then....well, if that wouldn't qualify as a return to form, it would qualify as a huge favor.
In any event, enough about Eddie Murphy. The fact is, he didn't really even have enough screen time to justify the hype. What this all boils down to is that despite the fact that Brett Ratner was the director, this was a typical Ben Stiller movie. Chuckle-inducing at it's funniest. Cringe-inducing on the whole. The whole thing felt like a sitcom with a preposterous set up. By that I mean the jokes. And the timing and feel. It had that whole "wait for it.... cue laugh track!" feel. And that's just a darn tired approach by now. Nothing is worse than when you can feel that the people in the movie think they're doing awesomely funny stuff. It almost always comes off as overcooked and barely humorous.
Trying to think if the movie had any redeeming factors... Gabourey Sidibe came off as a gimmick... Casey Affleck just didn't seem to fit in... Ben Stiller sucks... hmmm... maybe that it was somewhat timely? I mean the whole Bernie Madoff interest, I would think, is on the slippery slope towards back-of-the-mind-ville. But, you can hardly blame a movie for not being able to keep up on the freshest of the fresh stories in this 24-7 news cycle society in which we live. Movies do, after all, take time to develop and create. I'm also not going to dock it too many points for the absurdity of the plot. No, it isn't believable. In the least. But the movie does establish a baseline of asinine and then it proceeds from there. I'm not, however, willing to be so forgiving on some of the plot inconsistencies. When you have such a simple story, the least you could do is make sure it's at least a little... tidier.
But then... you're not going to check out a Brett Ratner/Ben Stiller collaboration because it features nuanced story-telling and an airtight script. Inevitably, you end up going to see a movie like this for one of a couple reasons: a.) you're bored and nothing else worthwhile is playing b.)Against all odds you like Ben Stiller or c.) you hate yourself. Guess which camp I fall into. I suppose in truth, it's d.) you have a movie pass and sick desire to break your previous movies-seen-in-the-theater-in-a-calendar-year record. Taking one for the team, then, to continue chasing my goal. Oh well, in the end, I only lose out on two hours of my life. I just hope I don't end up dying two hours before I'm really slated to. That would suck... Ben Stiller would get the last laugh... well, at least someone would be laughing because of a Ben Stiller movie... bam.
Alright... a redeeming factor...hmmmm... ok, I have two. One: Matthew Broderick's quirky take on Mr. Fitzhugh, a failed investment banker, was probably the most amusing thing about the movie. Not that any of the scenes were particularly worth stealing, but Broderick stole every one he was in (then subsequently tried to return them, claiming the fact that he had just walked out without paying for them was an innocent mistake). Two: it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen. By a long shot.
So there you have it. I can't say it's even mildly funny. But I also can't say it's soul crushingly bad. It's definitely closer to the latter than the former though. Now I'm just trying to figure out how I can steal two hours of Ben Stiller's life so we can even up the score.
Grade: C-
Movie List 2011: 46.) The Rum Diary
The Rum Diary
Ok... so... I actually saw this one about a week ago. And while I was busy (yes, I know... taking to a blog to complain that while you were too busy to write about the now 47 movies you've seen this year, you did have plenty of time to see them... free of charge. Yes, I believe I will fuck off now, thanks.) I suppose the real reason I haven't gotten around to writing about the movie is that there just wasn't a lot of impetus to do so. Why bother? The Rum Diary is essentially the height of mediocrity. I didn't like it enough to run out here and tell you why it rocked, and it didn't suck enough to get me so riled up I couldn't help but rip it a new asshole. It just sort of was...it happened. And then it was over. Roll credits, get up, leave, and hardly devote a second thought to it the rest of your life. And so it goes. But, for my loyal reader out there, I can't miss a beat. So here I find myself... trying to pound out words to describe the movie- or not- when really a bored sigh would do.
So here you go: *sigh*.
Grade:...
Ok, so, to be fair, a few words. It wasa disappointment. It starred Johnny Depp! As Hunter S. Thompson's doppelganger, "Kemp" (the movie is based on the thinly veiled, semi-autobiographical account of how one journalist's experience in a "wild west..ish" Puerto Rico newspaper grows him from a naive upstart to a fledgling breaker of bastards' balls)! See, I don't honestly know if I'm in the minority, but while I found it- at times- nearly incomprehensible, I actually enjoyed the madcap fun of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It had enough quirky fun to make for a good movie. Depp- of course- delivered a heck of a performance as Thompson doppelganger, Raoul Duke in that flick. Here, he gives us more of the same: staccato, clipped speech, interesting verbal imagery, and an against-the-odds coolness that seems to seep from the character. Only here, he does it all more or less so in the worst way. More staccato-ish speech pattern, less imagery, and a more contrived cool. It's a retread performance. And it might have worked if not for the lack of a quality story. At least there wasn't very much batshit craziness going on. Picking up the antics of Fear and Loathing and dropping them in the more placid environment of 1960 Puerto Rico just would have seemed sad and out of place.
I don't know, it wasn't as though Depp was phoning it in here. It was more that maybe he was trying too hard. And, maybe he really did almost pull it off. I guess as far as passion projects go, not bad.
In the end though, the fatal flaw is that nothing of consequence happens in the movie. Nothing. Hell, nothing inconsequential seems to happen either. Yeah... it's more that nothing seems to happen. Kemp hits Puerto Rico, he sees some stuff he doesn't like, drinks some rum, has some fun, a few things go bad, and he shoves off back to the States to bring the all the bastards down. As it plays out, it all would seem to amount to a bad vacation rather than a life changing event. And this wheel spinning inertia absolutely sinks the film. Nothing manages to get it out of its rut. Not Depp's game/gamey effort. Not Amber Heard's sizzling performance. Not even the few, passing moments of genuine amusement. Nothing budges the movie away from solid mediocrity. Things happen, characters move about the screen, you chuckle, you sigh, and eventually you just go home. Damn it.
Grade: C
Ok... so... I actually saw this one about a week ago. And while I was busy (yes, I know... taking to a blog to complain that while you were too busy to write about the now 47 movies you've seen this year, you did have plenty of time to see them... free of charge. Yes, I believe I will fuck off now, thanks.) I suppose the real reason I haven't gotten around to writing about the movie is that there just wasn't a lot of impetus to do so. Why bother? The Rum Diary is essentially the height of mediocrity. I didn't like it enough to run out here and tell you why it rocked, and it didn't suck enough to get me so riled up I couldn't help but rip it a new asshole. It just sort of was...it happened. And then it was over. Roll credits, get up, leave, and hardly devote a second thought to it the rest of your life. And so it goes. But, for my loyal reader out there, I can't miss a beat. So here I find myself... trying to pound out words to describe the movie- or not- when really a bored sigh would do.
So here you go: *sigh*.
Grade:...
Ok, so, to be fair, a few words. It wasa disappointment. It starred Johnny Depp! As Hunter S. Thompson's doppelganger, "Kemp" (the movie is based on the thinly veiled, semi-autobiographical account of how one journalist's experience in a "wild west..ish" Puerto Rico newspaper grows him from a naive upstart to a fledgling breaker of bastards' balls)! See, I don't honestly know if I'm in the minority, but while I found it- at times- nearly incomprehensible, I actually enjoyed the madcap fun of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It had enough quirky fun to make for a good movie. Depp- of course- delivered a heck of a performance as Thompson doppelganger, Raoul Duke in that flick. Here, he gives us more of the same: staccato, clipped speech, interesting verbal imagery, and an against-the-odds coolness that seems to seep from the character. Only here, he does it all more or less so in the worst way. More staccato-ish speech pattern, less imagery, and a more contrived cool. It's a retread performance. And it might have worked if not for the lack of a quality story. At least there wasn't very much batshit craziness going on. Picking up the antics of Fear and Loathing and dropping them in the more placid environment of 1960 Puerto Rico just would have seemed sad and out of place.
I don't know, it wasn't as though Depp was phoning it in here. It was more that maybe he was trying too hard. And, maybe he really did almost pull it off. I guess as far as passion projects go, not bad.
In the end though, the fatal flaw is that nothing of consequence happens in the movie. Nothing. Hell, nothing inconsequential seems to happen either. Yeah... it's more that nothing seems to happen. Kemp hits Puerto Rico, he sees some stuff he doesn't like, drinks some rum, has some fun, a few things go bad, and he shoves off back to the States to bring the all the bastards down. As it plays out, it all would seem to amount to a bad vacation rather than a life changing event. And this wheel spinning inertia absolutely sinks the film. Nothing manages to get it out of its rut. Not Depp's game/gamey effort. Not Amber Heard's sizzling performance. Not even the few, passing moments of genuine amusement. Nothing budges the movie away from solid mediocrity. Things happen, characters move about the screen, you chuckle, you sigh, and eventually you just go home. Damn it.
Grade: C
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Movie List 2011: 45.) Real Steel
Real Steel
Now here's a bit of a conundrum. Was Real Steel really that good? Or did it just appear to be that good because I expected it to suck and it turned out it didn't? I guess it really doesn't matter. All that really matters is that against all odds (and we're talking months of expecting not to like it) for whatever reason, I actually enjoyed the movie.
This isn't to say it was a spectacular example of film making. I don't think it was. But it was entertaining. And it only really dove into the treacly, almost sickly sweet overtones at the very end of the movie. By that time, I had pretty well bought into the film enough that it really didn't bother me as much as it otherwise would have. (I just kind of hate when they overdo it on the sentimental stuff). I think the biggest reason for my apprehension about the movie was that the trailer played it up in such as way that I was certain it would be a saccharine serving of movie fluff. With robots kicking the shit out of each other, but still, overwhelmed by the father-son angle. And it really wasn't. I'm still not sure how this is possible. All the traps were lying in wait... all it had to do was stumble into them.
I suppose a large part of the reason why it stayed as entertaining as it did was due to Hugh Jackman. He plays, Charlie Keaton, a pseudo-deadbeat, washed up boxer who's knee deep in gambling issues due to his participation as a "trainer" of robot boxers. He always bets on his machines, but doesn't really seem to know how to use them. Jackman actually plays Charlie as a frustrating but ultimately likable character. Not so much a piece of garbage but a perpetually unlucky every dude. Not an overly touchy-feely sort either...except when he's around his childhood friend/budding love interest, Bailey (played by a borderline too eager Evangeline Lilly). Jackman's Charlie, in other words, isn't going to be one to go to pieces just because his estranged 11-year-old son (kid actor Dakota Goyo- surprisingly good... or at least not annoying. I know I'm hard on kid actors. It's not their fault. Studios just always seem to go for a look rather than talent. Here, Goyo is the perfect blend of toughness, the right look, and talent) lands squarely in his lap...that is... until he does develop a soft spot for the kid. And develop the soft spot does... just not as naturally or evenly paced as you'd hope. The point is, Charlie and Max (that'd be his son) don't lunge straight for the heart strings, no they lunge straight for the controls of their robot boxing buddies. In the end, it's actually the hapless looking, outdated, but tough robot boxing contender, Atom, that breaks through to sentimentality.
And... somehow... it all works. Well... it works well enough to be a good show. Entertaining. There is a good deal of ridiculousness, but it all seems ok somehow. As I hinted, the development of Charlie from a lone wolf to sort of willing pop is a bit rushed and jumpy but they made an effort. I suppose the real appeal here is you get to watch some- again- surprisingly good looking robots knock the hell out of each other. It's actually a lot of fun. "Real-life" Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. And that's another thing, the robots- as opposed to that certain threequel featuring robot aliens- looked pretty damn real. They looked conceivable. They, for the most part, didn't exist on too grand a scale, and they're movements seemed fluid and natural. And the rattle of the battles- as I believe it was Roger Ebert pointed out- sounded real. It sounded like... sigh... yes... real steel colliding. Ok, maybe I'm being too hard on Transformers...though I'm not sure that's possible. But any robots on such a large scale are doomed to look kind of ridiculously fake. These were at best 9-10 foot tall machines. They didn't transform, they just brawled. It was fun to see. (As opposed to Transformers's often brain-melting whirl and spasm of robot battles). There were parts where either Charlie or Max interacted with the 'bots and I'll be damned if it didn't seem like those robots were actually right there with them. No green screen, no CGI. It was kind of cool.
In the end it all made for a nice, enjoyable film. Yes, I could have done without all the blatant sentimentality... all the obvious heart string pulls. But still, it didn't ruin the movie. But then, it'd be hard to ruin a movie with all that awesome robot fighting, right?
Well... for me it would. (Easy enough to please aren't I?)
Grade: B+
Now here's a bit of a conundrum. Was Real Steel really that good? Or did it just appear to be that good because I expected it to suck and it turned out it didn't? I guess it really doesn't matter. All that really matters is that against all odds (and we're talking months of expecting not to like it) for whatever reason, I actually enjoyed the movie.
This isn't to say it was a spectacular example of film making. I don't think it was. But it was entertaining. And it only really dove into the treacly, almost sickly sweet overtones at the very end of the movie. By that time, I had pretty well bought into the film enough that it really didn't bother me as much as it otherwise would have. (I just kind of hate when they overdo it on the sentimental stuff). I think the biggest reason for my apprehension about the movie was that the trailer played it up in such as way that I was certain it would be a saccharine serving of movie fluff. With robots kicking the shit out of each other, but still, overwhelmed by the father-son angle. And it really wasn't. I'm still not sure how this is possible. All the traps were lying in wait... all it had to do was stumble into them.
I suppose a large part of the reason why it stayed as entertaining as it did was due to Hugh Jackman. He plays, Charlie Keaton, a pseudo-deadbeat, washed up boxer who's knee deep in gambling issues due to his participation as a "trainer" of robot boxers. He always bets on his machines, but doesn't really seem to know how to use them. Jackman actually plays Charlie as a frustrating but ultimately likable character. Not so much a piece of garbage but a perpetually unlucky every dude. Not an overly touchy-feely sort either...except when he's around his childhood friend/budding love interest, Bailey (played by a borderline too eager Evangeline Lilly). Jackman's Charlie, in other words, isn't going to be one to go to pieces just because his estranged 11-year-old son (kid actor Dakota Goyo- surprisingly good... or at least not annoying. I know I'm hard on kid actors. It's not their fault. Studios just always seem to go for a look rather than talent. Here, Goyo is the perfect blend of toughness, the right look, and talent) lands squarely in his lap...that is... until he does develop a soft spot for the kid. And develop the soft spot does... just not as naturally or evenly paced as you'd hope. The point is, Charlie and Max (that'd be his son) don't lunge straight for the heart strings, no they lunge straight for the controls of their robot boxing buddies. In the end, it's actually the hapless looking, outdated, but tough robot boxing contender, Atom, that breaks through to sentimentality.
And... somehow... it all works. Well... it works well enough to be a good show. Entertaining. There is a good deal of ridiculousness, but it all seems ok somehow. As I hinted, the development of Charlie from a lone wolf to sort of willing pop is a bit rushed and jumpy but they made an effort. I suppose the real appeal here is you get to watch some- again- surprisingly good looking robots knock the hell out of each other. It's actually a lot of fun. "Real-life" Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. And that's another thing, the robots- as opposed to that certain threequel featuring robot aliens- looked pretty damn real. They looked conceivable. They, for the most part, didn't exist on too grand a scale, and they're movements seemed fluid and natural. And the rattle of the battles- as I believe it was Roger Ebert pointed out- sounded real. It sounded like... sigh... yes... real steel colliding. Ok, maybe I'm being too hard on Transformers...though I'm not sure that's possible. But any robots on such a large scale are doomed to look kind of ridiculously fake. These were at best 9-10 foot tall machines. They didn't transform, they just brawled. It was fun to see. (As opposed to Transformers's often brain-melting whirl and spasm of robot battles). There were parts where either Charlie or Max interacted with the 'bots and I'll be damned if it didn't seem like those robots were actually right there with them. No green screen, no CGI. It was kind of cool.
In the end it all made for a nice, enjoyable film. Yes, I could have done without all the blatant sentimentality... all the obvious heart string pulls. But still, it didn't ruin the movie. But then, it'd be hard to ruin a movie with all that awesome robot fighting, right?
Well... for me it would. (Easy enough to please aren't I?)
Grade: B+
Friday, November 4, 2011
Movie List 2011: 44.) In Time
In Time
It would seem that every movie Justin Timberlake makes turns into a referendum on whether he is a good actor or whether he's just a good entertainer who happens to steal a few scenes... or.. I suppose.. whether he just plain sucks on screen. (I don't think he does. I actually think he has something of a natural and compelling screen presence. When given material suited to him, he can shine; like, say, in The Social Network). Unfortunately, if it does prove that every movie swings the pendulum of opinion in one direction or the other, In Time is going to swing it beyond solid, occasional scene-stealer to non-actor. To be fair, though, if every movie was a referendum on each casts' acting ability, pretty much everyone here would be in danger. I don't think there was a single performance in the movie that could be labeled "good"... or even "ok", "decent", "not horrible". (with the exception of -MAYBE- Johnny Galecki...maybe, but doesn't have enough screen time to qualify as a saving grace... or to excuse the Big Bang Theory [ok, I'm not a TV guy, but I have hated every minute I've seen of the show]).
Then again, it's not as though I can blame the actors. Well, I suppose more invested actors would try to make the movie work even though the dialog is horrendous. Just awful. The things they say... Amanda Seyfried and Olivia Wilde are the only ones who even bother trying to add an extra dimension to their one-note characters. And- with Galecki- the only ones who try to inject any kind of emotion. For the most part, wooden would be the best way to describe everyone's performance. Wooden and monotonous. But then, that's what the dialog encourages.
The basic premise of the movie actually held some potential. In a somewhat distant future, time has replaced money as the only source of currency. People age up to year 25 and then their clock starts ticking. Gifted one additional year of life, all earnings and transactions either add to this amount or take away from it. A bus ride, for instance, may add up to two hours of time. A cup of coffee will cost you a couple of minutes of your life. Once you run out of time/currency, you just keel over and die. It's called "timing out". You can die in more conventional ways...like gun shots to the face, but most people seem to time out, or not. Which makes for some interesting choices the characters face. An extra cuppa joe or life? Seeing how people survive in this scenario strikes me as intrinsically interesting. Adding other wrinkles including segregated time zones: those with longer lifespans can live in nicer areas (those grinding it out "one day at a time" could never have the time to move), time keepers attempting to keep people in their place to avoid the system running amok, and "minute men", gangsters who roam about and steal time from people on a whim (and yes with the label "minute men" you can begin to see where the absurdity starts to come into the picture), only would seem to add to the intrigue. Ah, but it's all in the execution. And here, it all comes off as partially realized, toothless, wooden formality. Oh, and hokey. (When a gangster threatens to clean everyone's clock if they don't give him the information he demands... well... its hard not to want to laugh... even though he's making an earnest threat. Clean their clocks? Come on, man... what's next? Yelling at them to get off your lawn?)
You know, a thought just occurred to me. It's actually pretty darn unoriginal too. It's basically Robin Hood set in a dystopian future. Robin (here: Justin Timberlake's Will Salas) sees inequality and despair dominating the landscape. He decides the only way to right all these ugly wrongs is to steal from the rich (personified here- in the Prince John role- by Vincent Kartheiser's Philippe Weis) and give to the poor. He is hunted down by the Sheriff of Nottingham-esque Time Keeper Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy). And he even has his Maid Marian- a rich brat of the establishment who he eventually wins over/falls for and who ultimately enlists in his cause- in Amanda Seyfried's Sylvia Weis. You can kind of imagine how this all plays out.
Should I be penalizing the movie for tackling the oft-tackled-to-the-point-of-being-universal story? After all, a bundle of movies pretty much can be summed up as being inspired by or knocking off the basic story of Robin Hood. (or bastardizing it, Russel Crowe's Robin Hood!) Yeah, I suppose downgrading it for its lack of originality in light of the number of times this same road has been traveled is probably pretty harsh... but.. then.. so is the movie. Harsh as in harshly bad. Director (and screenwriter) Andrew Niccol and company don't go to any effort to at least attempt to disguise the story cleverly. Or even use it as a thought-provocation device. This strikes me as a potentially- if accidentally- timely movie. But in reality it devolves into a Robin Hood sci-fi action adventure. Emphasis on devolve with little on genuine action. (Oh I forgot to mention, instead of Robin Hood's archery contest, there is a poker game). Getting back to effort, there actually appears to be little exhibited on screen. Other than effort at showing they were trying hard to be edgy and relevant with little thought on how to actually achieve edgy relevance. I'd say you achieve that by not trying so hard to be it, but rather to kind of let it happen. (Ok, that may not make any sense... what I was going for was no one who tries too hard to be cool is actually cool, right? Same principle here). Maybe it does take effort to come off as genuinely intriguing or riveting, but maybe it shouldn't be so noticeable. And maybe the dialog and over all writing should be better. And maybe the director shouldn't be satisfied with emotionless, wooden acting. And maybe they should try to give a traditional story a bit of a twist...
Yeah, maybe they should have just made a better movie.
Grade: D
It would seem that every movie Justin Timberlake makes turns into a referendum on whether he is a good actor or whether he's just a good entertainer who happens to steal a few scenes... or.. I suppose.. whether he just plain sucks on screen. (I don't think he does. I actually think he has something of a natural and compelling screen presence. When given material suited to him, he can shine; like, say, in The Social Network). Unfortunately, if it does prove that every movie swings the pendulum of opinion in one direction or the other, In Time is going to swing it beyond solid, occasional scene-stealer to non-actor. To be fair, though, if every movie was a referendum on each casts' acting ability, pretty much everyone here would be in danger. I don't think there was a single performance in the movie that could be labeled "good"... or even "ok", "decent", "not horrible". (with the exception of -MAYBE- Johnny Galecki...maybe, but doesn't have enough screen time to qualify as a saving grace... or to excuse the Big Bang Theory [ok, I'm not a TV guy, but I have hated every minute I've seen of the show]).
Then again, it's not as though I can blame the actors. Well, I suppose more invested actors would try to make the movie work even though the dialog is horrendous. Just awful. The things they say... Amanda Seyfried and Olivia Wilde are the only ones who even bother trying to add an extra dimension to their one-note characters. And- with Galecki- the only ones who try to inject any kind of emotion. For the most part, wooden would be the best way to describe everyone's performance. Wooden and monotonous. But then, that's what the dialog encourages.
The basic premise of the movie actually held some potential. In a somewhat distant future, time has replaced money as the only source of currency. People age up to year 25 and then their clock starts ticking. Gifted one additional year of life, all earnings and transactions either add to this amount or take away from it. A bus ride, for instance, may add up to two hours of time. A cup of coffee will cost you a couple of minutes of your life. Once you run out of time/currency, you just keel over and die. It's called "timing out". You can die in more conventional ways...like gun shots to the face, but most people seem to time out, or not. Which makes for some interesting choices the characters face. An extra cuppa joe or life? Seeing how people survive in this scenario strikes me as intrinsically interesting. Adding other wrinkles including segregated time zones: those with longer lifespans can live in nicer areas (those grinding it out "one day at a time" could never have the time to move), time keepers attempting to keep people in their place to avoid the system running amok, and "minute men", gangsters who roam about and steal time from people on a whim (and yes with the label "minute men" you can begin to see where the absurdity starts to come into the picture), only would seem to add to the intrigue. Ah, but it's all in the execution. And here, it all comes off as partially realized, toothless, wooden formality. Oh, and hokey. (When a gangster threatens to clean everyone's clock if they don't give him the information he demands... well... its hard not to want to laugh... even though he's making an earnest threat. Clean their clocks? Come on, man... what's next? Yelling at them to get off your lawn?)
You know, a thought just occurred to me. It's actually pretty darn unoriginal too. It's basically Robin Hood set in a dystopian future. Robin (here: Justin Timberlake's Will Salas) sees inequality and despair dominating the landscape. He decides the only way to right all these ugly wrongs is to steal from the rich (personified here- in the Prince John role- by Vincent Kartheiser's Philippe Weis) and give to the poor. He is hunted down by the Sheriff of Nottingham-esque Time Keeper Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy). And he even has his Maid Marian- a rich brat of the establishment who he eventually wins over/falls for and who ultimately enlists in his cause- in Amanda Seyfried's Sylvia Weis. You can kind of imagine how this all plays out.
Should I be penalizing the movie for tackling the oft-tackled-to-the-point-of-being-universal story? After all, a bundle of movies pretty much can be summed up as being inspired by or knocking off the basic story of Robin Hood. (or bastardizing it, Russel Crowe's Robin Hood!) Yeah, I suppose downgrading it for its lack of originality in light of the number of times this same road has been traveled is probably pretty harsh... but.. then.. so is the movie. Harsh as in harshly bad. Director (and screenwriter) Andrew Niccol and company don't go to any effort to at least attempt to disguise the story cleverly. Or even use it as a thought-provocation device. This strikes me as a potentially- if accidentally- timely movie. But in reality it devolves into a Robin Hood sci-fi action adventure. Emphasis on devolve with little on genuine action. (Oh I forgot to mention, instead of Robin Hood's archery contest, there is a poker game). Getting back to effort, there actually appears to be little exhibited on screen. Other than effort at showing they were trying hard to be edgy and relevant with little thought on how to actually achieve edgy relevance. I'd say you achieve that by not trying so hard to be it, but rather to kind of let it happen. (Ok, that may not make any sense... what I was going for was no one who tries too hard to be cool is actually cool, right? Same principle here). Maybe it does take effort to come off as genuinely intriguing or riveting, but maybe it shouldn't be so noticeable. And maybe the dialog and over all writing should be better. And maybe the director shouldn't be satisfied with emotionless, wooden acting. And maybe they should try to give a traditional story a bit of a twist...
Yeah, maybe they should have just made a better movie.
Grade: D
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Movie List 2011: 43.) Contagion
Contagion
I had been wanting to see this one for a while. Thought I had lost the chance, but a relatively slow release schedule to begin Oscar season has kept it in the theaters. Glad I got the opportunity. On the whole it's a gripping story of shit hitting fan. It's also a none-too-subtle commentary on the status of humanity, and a pretty good one at that.
The premise is a familiar... and... I suppose unoriginal one. There is a disaster, in this case a disease, and not only is the American Federal Government unprepared for it, the larger world and ALL the governments therein are similarly caught off guard. This is a cautionary tale on what might happen. And how worst-case scenarios will inevitably bring out the worst-versions of ourselves.
As a gripping government procedural movie, the film works. I certainly was riveted watching it all play out. How will they handle this? How can they handle an epidemic on this scale? How would I react if put in a similar situation (in terms of an ordinary member of society). It is definitely a thought-provoking movie on that level. As a message movie? Ehhh... I'm not really sure what Steven Soderbergh's point was. That the world is unprepared for a completely unknown/unknowable epidemic in the making? That humanity will devolve into a frayed me-first "society" that would make the world of Lord of the Flies enviable? That people will inevitably attempt to profit from this? Well... yes. All these are true. People are inherently selfish. The governments of the world aren't necessarily ready for a Spanish Flu type epidemic despite the cozy trappings of modern science. If something on par with what happened in the movie happens in reality, in all likelihood things will get bad... and people will die. And hysteria will ensue, governments will fumble about, and things in general will look apocalyptic. My question back to Soderbergh: so what? People have always been people. They will- in most cases- act with their own best interest in mind. Just look at everyone who blows red lights. It's a simple act, but a pretty darn selfish one too. You'd rather risk- however small- causing a collision... or even just an inconvenience for others merely so you don't have to wait for the next green. It happens with alarming frequency, and it is a very small sample of a very basic human selfishness. Now, this doesn't mean that everyone in the world is a selfish troll. Just that a lot of people are in basic ways. It's natural. It's a self preservation instinct. So, again, Mr. Soderbergh, so what? Government is unprepared. Yep, and....? In my view, governments would do their best to get to the bottom of things, get vaccines, and preserve as much humanity as possible. We've been down this road before. Yes, it can happen tomorrow, and it may be bad.
But... perhaps I'm taking this the wrong way. Maybe Soderbergh isn't trying to make a point. At least on a broad scale. Maybe all he was trying to do was craft a government/societal procedural thriller. And, as I said, to that end, the movie works. But even there, I think Soderbergh didn't take it far enough. Sure, people were selfish, people tried to profit, governments fumbled. But in my mind, it was all rather tame. I think Soderbergh missed an opportunity here to inject some really intriguing and original viewpoints here. Cultural differences and religious viewpoints were largely ignored here. Why not bring them out more? It'd be an interesting angle, no? I don't know.
I hate to say it, but as gripping as the story was, it seemed to be lacking... something. (Very eloquent, K). I guess what it was lacking was a bit of freshness. Basically, it was a run-of-the-mill realistic disaster story. Generic real world crisis happens. Scores of humans die. Governments hem and haw. People grow restless. The world starts to look pretty damn apocalyptic. Then, depending on the mood/mindset of the individual crafting the story, things get better and lessons are learned... or humanity fails and ultimately dies... or will shortly after the end credits roll. Contagion is very much of this mold. Very much. The fact that it is carried off by an exceptional cast (including Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hawkes, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and especially scene-stealer Jude Law as a slithery blogger with a Messiah/money complex.) is, of course, much to the film's benefit. But still, I wish there had been something more original to it. Perhaps a different angle or as I suggested more intriguing questions. As it stands, the movie was hardly bad. It was quite good. But I really feel as though Soderbergh- who is regarded as an interesting, if not auteur, filmmaker- swung and missed a bit with a great opportunity.
I also question what merits there are in raising societal anxiety for no apparent purpose. As I mentioned before, for all the thought provocation going on, if you play forward the possible real-world analogies here, the end result you would come to... largely... is that yeah we ain't ready and it'd be hard to be. And so we're fucked. Yep. So why even bring it up?...
... Because that's the realm in which the best horror/thriller flicks reside I suppose. Hopeless reality. Nothing scarier than that. And... maybe that was the end Soderbergh was after all along. And, it worked. I've been suffering from persistent allergies for the lastfive years several days and I know I felt uncomfortable sniffling and coughing in the theater. I didn't want my fellow moviegoers to fear me and the plague I held within myself. (did I feel germaphobic? Absolutely not. I even held my ticket stub in my mouth as I fished out my phone...during the end credits. I guess movies just don't effect me that much on that level. Tell you this though, I have NO interest in flying to Hong Kong anytime soon). I could feel the people around me getting uncomfortable. More so, than in any standard ghost/zombie horror movie I've been to. So in that regard, well played Soderbergh, you crafted one hell of a horror movie... and... well, I guess there isn't really anything wrong with that.
Grade: A-
I had been wanting to see this one for a while. Thought I had lost the chance, but a relatively slow release schedule to begin Oscar season has kept it in the theaters. Glad I got the opportunity. On the whole it's a gripping story of shit hitting fan. It's also a none-too-subtle commentary on the status of humanity, and a pretty good one at that.
The premise is a familiar... and... I suppose unoriginal one. There is a disaster, in this case a disease, and not only is the American Federal Government unprepared for it, the larger world and ALL the governments therein are similarly caught off guard. This is a cautionary tale on what might happen. And how worst-case scenarios will inevitably bring out the worst-versions of ourselves.
As a gripping government procedural movie, the film works. I certainly was riveted watching it all play out. How will they handle this? How can they handle an epidemic on this scale? How would I react if put in a similar situation (in terms of an ordinary member of society). It is definitely a thought-provoking movie on that level. As a message movie? Ehhh... I'm not really sure what Steven Soderbergh's point was. That the world is unprepared for a completely unknown/unknowable epidemic in the making? That humanity will devolve into a frayed me-first "society" that would make the world of Lord of the Flies enviable? That people will inevitably attempt to profit from this? Well... yes. All these are true. People are inherently selfish. The governments of the world aren't necessarily ready for a Spanish Flu type epidemic despite the cozy trappings of modern science. If something on par with what happened in the movie happens in reality, in all likelihood things will get bad... and people will die. And hysteria will ensue, governments will fumble about, and things in general will look apocalyptic. My question back to Soderbergh: so what? People have always been people. They will- in most cases- act with their own best interest in mind. Just look at everyone who blows red lights. It's a simple act, but a pretty darn selfish one too. You'd rather risk- however small- causing a collision... or even just an inconvenience for others merely so you don't have to wait for the next green. It happens with alarming frequency, and it is a very small sample of a very basic human selfishness. Now, this doesn't mean that everyone in the world is a selfish troll. Just that a lot of people are in basic ways. It's natural. It's a self preservation instinct. So, again, Mr. Soderbergh, so what? Government is unprepared. Yep, and....? In my view, governments would do their best to get to the bottom of things, get vaccines, and preserve as much humanity as possible. We've been down this road before. Yes, it can happen tomorrow, and it may be bad.
But... perhaps I'm taking this the wrong way. Maybe Soderbergh isn't trying to make a point. At least on a broad scale. Maybe all he was trying to do was craft a government/societal procedural thriller. And, as I said, to that end, the movie works. But even there, I think Soderbergh didn't take it far enough. Sure, people were selfish, people tried to profit, governments fumbled. But in my mind, it was all rather tame. I think Soderbergh missed an opportunity here to inject some really intriguing and original viewpoints here. Cultural differences and religious viewpoints were largely ignored here. Why not bring them out more? It'd be an interesting angle, no? I don't know.
I hate to say it, but as gripping as the story was, it seemed to be lacking... something. (Very eloquent, K). I guess what it was lacking was a bit of freshness. Basically, it was a run-of-the-mill realistic disaster story. Generic real world crisis happens. Scores of humans die. Governments hem and haw. People grow restless. The world starts to look pretty damn apocalyptic. Then, depending on the mood/mindset of the individual crafting the story, things get better and lessons are learned... or humanity fails and ultimately dies... or will shortly after the end credits roll. Contagion is very much of this mold. Very much. The fact that it is carried off by an exceptional cast (including Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hawkes, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and especially scene-stealer Jude Law as a slithery blogger with a Messiah/money complex.) is, of course, much to the film's benefit. But still, I wish there had been something more original to it. Perhaps a different angle or as I suggested more intriguing questions. As it stands, the movie was hardly bad. It was quite good. But I really feel as though Soderbergh- who is regarded as an interesting, if not auteur, filmmaker- swung and missed a bit with a great opportunity.
I also question what merits there are in raising societal anxiety for no apparent purpose. As I mentioned before, for all the thought provocation going on, if you play forward the possible real-world analogies here, the end result you would come to... largely... is that yeah we ain't ready and it'd be hard to be. And so we're fucked. Yep. So why even bring it up?...
... Because that's the realm in which the best horror/thriller flicks reside I suppose. Hopeless reality. Nothing scarier than that. And... maybe that was the end Soderbergh was after all along. And, it worked. I've been suffering from persistent allergies for the last
Grade: A-
Monday, October 17, 2011
Movie List 2011: 42.) The Ides of March
The Ides of March
Man it feels good to have Fall Movie Season upon us. I suppose you need the Spring/Summer Season to serve as a sort of palette cleanser... otherwise, you might be jaded by the superior quality of movies. But- holy hell- were there some real awful movies this summer. Honestly, though, with the run of movies I've had...excepting Abduction... it's hard to even remember the summer slop. And Ides of March continues the upward trend... or... I guess... continues along the upward plateau (kind of hard to go up from the A+ of 50/50).
Cutting right to the chase, The Ides of March is a fantastic movie. A political thriller/cautionary tale, it tells the riveting story of a young, hotshot campaign media manager (Ryan Gosling) who gets caught up in the less than glamorous world of a desperate presidential campaign (George Clooney plays Gov. Mike Morris, the hotshot ideologue who is either on the brink of losing the Ohio Democratic Primary or on the cusp of capturing the entire presidential election... because the Republicans haven't got a prayer) where ideology, integrity, loyalty, and even human life are never as important as the campaign itself and should never get in the way of a chance at office. Gosling's Stephen Meyers is a vet of political campaigns, but here he seems to have fallen for the whole Morris package (as schemed, honed, and presented by Morris' campaign manager, Paul Zara, as played by a suitably gruff Philip Seymour Hoffman). Meyers completely buys in: Morris is a candidate of integrity, a candidate who can and will make sweeping changes, and someone who not only should be elected, but needs to be elected. Of course, as the title alludes to, shit hits the fan, things aren't what they seem, and a series of cutthroat political games ensue: the stakes? Morris' chance at office and Meyers' chance at continuing his future as a campaign wunderkind. What it all comes down to is a knock down drag out battle for survival... what- at least in the view of Clooney (the film's director)- is the essence of today's politics.
If even half the stuff that goes down in the movie is true, then not only has the American political system fallen into disrepair, one cam make an argument that American society has failed. Clooney isn't- as far as I can tell- making accusations at any one particular candidate. There are some ripped from the headlines scandals on display here, as well as some vague allusions to very real political candidates, but on the whole, Clooney is merely using these as plot devices. I don't think Clooney is trying to bring anyone in specific down- so to speak- but rather to use the disrepair of the American political system as a backdrop to his engrossing (and believable) thriller. And... the tactic works. Or, at least in my view, it isn't as distracting as it could have been to try and figure out at whom Clooney is pointing. Clooney is proving himself to be a master story-teller as both an actor and a director and, as such, he isn't in any need of such gimmickry to sell the story. I was completely riveted to the screen watching to see- when the dust finally settled- who the winner was going to be... no, not of the Ohio Primary, but of the do-or-die battle of personalities waged from within the campaign as well as from the outside (including both Morris' Democratic foe Senator Pullman [Michael Mantell] and campaign team led by manager Tom Duffy [Paul Giamatti] and the press personified by the scoop-obsessed reporter, Ida Horowicz [Marisa Tomei]). Every character has something to lose here, perhaps even more than they stand to gain should they come out on top. To their credit, Clooney and company aren't very interested in turning this into a twisting/turning whodunit story. No one's hand is kept entirely secret. The treat is watching it all unfold. And a hell of a treat it is.
In the end, with a gripping, intense story, punctuated by a stable of reliably excellent actors and actresses there really isn't much to dislike about the movie. The winking look behind the shimmering idealistic curtain of the American political process revealing the gritty, grimy "glory" of what "actually" can happen as acandidate desperately pursues this country's top office is the cherry on top of the fantastic movie sundae. The only problem the movie had (other than the fleeting sense that maybe it was a bit much for one campaign to experience all that shit hitting the fan) was that it had to end... and that there really isn't any guarantee that there will be others of similar quality to follow in its wake... one can only hope...
Grade: A+
Man it feels good to have Fall Movie Season upon us. I suppose you need the Spring/Summer Season to serve as a sort of palette cleanser... otherwise, you might be jaded by the superior quality of movies. But- holy hell- were there some real awful movies this summer. Honestly, though, with the run of movies I've had...excepting Abduction... it's hard to even remember the summer slop. And Ides of March continues the upward trend... or... I guess... continues along the upward plateau (kind of hard to go up from the A+ of 50/50).
Cutting right to the chase, The Ides of March is a fantastic movie. A political thriller/cautionary tale, it tells the riveting story of a young, hotshot campaign media manager (Ryan Gosling) who gets caught up in the less than glamorous world of a desperate presidential campaign (George Clooney plays Gov. Mike Morris, the hotshot ideologue who is either on the brink of losing the Ohio Democratic Primary or on the cusp of capturing the entire presidential election... because the Republicans haven't got a prayer) where ideology, integrity, loyalty, and even human life are never as important as the campaign itself and should never get in the way of a chance at office. Gosling's Stephen Meyers is a vet of political campaigns, but here he seems to have fallen for the whole Morris package (as schemed, honed, and presented by Morris' campaign manager, Paul Zara, as played by a suitably gruff Philip Seymour Hoffman). Meyers completely buys in: Morris is a candidate of integrity, a candidate who can and will make sweeping changes, and someone who not only should be elected, but needs to be elected. Of course, as the title alludes to, shit hits the fan, things aren't what they seem, and a series of cutthroat political games ensue: the stakes? Morris' chance at office and Meyers' chance at continuing his future as a campaign wunderkind. What it all comes down to is a knock down drag out battle for survival... what- at least in the view of Clooney (the film's director)- is the essence of today's politics.
If even half the stuff that goes down in the movie is true, then not only has the American political system fallen into disrepair, one cam make an argument that American society has failed. Clooney isn't- as far as I can tell- making accusations at any one particular candidate. There are some ripped from the headlines scandals on display here, as well as some vague allusions to very real political candidates, but on the whole, Clooney is merely using these as plot devices. I don't think Clooney is trying to bring anyone in specific down- so to speak- but rather to use the disrepair of the American political system as a backdrop to his engrossing (and believable) thriller. And... the tactic works. Or, at least in my view, it isn't as distracting as it could have been to try and figure out at whom Clooney is pointing. Clooney is proving himself to be a master story-teller as both an actor and a director and, as such, he isn't in any need of such gimmickry to sell the story. I was completely riveted to the screen watching to see- when the dust finally settled- who the winner was going to be... no, not of the Ohio Primary, but of the do-or-die battle of personalities waged from within the campaign as well as from the outside (including both Morris' Democratic foe Senator Pullman [Michael Mantell] and campaign team led by manager Tom Duffy [Paul Giamatti] and the press personified by the scoop-obsessed reporter, Ida Horowicz [Marisa Tomei]). Every character has something to lose here, perhaps even more than they stand to gain should they come out on top. To their credit, Clooney and company aren't very interested in turning this into a twisting/turning whodunit story. No one's hand is kept entirely secret. The treat is watching it all unfold. And a hell of a treat it is.
In the end, with a gripping, intense story, punctuated by a stable of reliably excellent actors and actresses there really isn't much to dislike about the movie. The winking look behind the shimmering idealistic curtain of the American political process revealing the gritty, grimy "glory" of what "actually" can happen as acandidate desperately pursues this country's top office is the cherry on top of the fantastic movie sundae. The only problem the movie had (other than the fleeting sense that maybe it was a bit much for one campaign to experience all that shit hitting the fan) was that it had to end... and that there really isn't any guarantee that there will be others of similar quality to follow in its wake... one can only hope...
Grade: A+
Movie List 2011: 41.) 50/50
50/50
I'm assuming everyone out there knows the premise of this one: the comedy about cancer. Well, that's the thumb-nail sketch version anyway. It's true, it is a comedy about cancer. But to leave it at that would diminish the total package that this film actually is. What it is, is a fantastic movie- perhaps even the best I've ever seen- about what you do when everything falls to shit. Realistically, what happens now? The answer? You deal. This is a movie about how one guy (the never-better Joseph Gordon-Levitt) dealt with the shitty turn his life took. Of course, he's helped (or hindered) along in this dealing process by the world's worst girlfriend, the world's worst best friend, the world's worst doctor, and the world's worst counselor.
Yes, these characters are- on paper- caricatures but they work well within the framework of the movie. You know why? Because while it would be odd for Adam (Gordon-Levitt) to have to experience all these people at the same time, they are all real people. His girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a bit batshit crazy and can't handle his sickness so she cheats on him, his best friend (Seth Rogen) refuses to let Adam play the pity party routine... unless it's to help the two of them score a quick and easy lay, his mother (Anjelica Huston) is a first-class, self-absorbed smotherer, and his illness counselor (Anna Kendrick) is completely unprepared to make that dive from the theory world to the real world as she slowly realizes that in the latter, the case studies talk back. In each case, these are really believable characters. The fact that they don't slip into out-sized caricatures is due to the remarkable effort of each member of the cast and the writer (Will Reiser, fictionalizing his real-life battle with cancer) and director (Jonathan Levine). Each of these folks show remarkable constraint and the actors a fine eye for nuance. They don't force the absurdities here (though some of the more crass humor doesn't always flow the best), they all manage to sit back and let the story happen. By the end, all of the characters revolving around Adam seem normal. And that's the key.
Almost everything flows so naturally that it doesn't always feel like a comedy. It never feels like they're setting up punchlines. Maybe that's because- at its heart- this isn't actually a comedy. It's more of a dramedy. Or just an excellent movie. I think categorizing it is almost a mistake. If you go in expecting a typical Seth Rogen comedy, you'll get bits of it, but may be caught off guard (though hopefully not put off) by the level of sincerity and emotional complexity here. If you go in expecting Hallmark channel sugar and inspirational and explicit messages about beating the odds, you will undoubtedly be put off by the more base aspects of the humor. Adam isn't some pedestal-decoration hero. He's just a guy doing what he can, feeling what he feels as he deals with a particularly scary moment of his life. You will be touched, you will be moved, and if you're like me, you'll laugh. And that amounts to an all-in-all great movie.
I would be remiss, however, if I didn't single out Gordon-Levitt. All of the cast is tremendous. As I mentioned earlier, in lesser and less nuanced hands, this could easily have devolved into a study of absurdity- "with folks like this in his life, is cancer really his biggest worry?". The cast simply wouldn't let it. And leading the charge in this determined effort was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It must have been- by turns- the easiest and most difficult part he's had to play. Easy because the film requires him to be nothing other than a normal every guy. Difficult because he must- in a believable manner- take the audience on a roller coaster ride of emotion. Because, in most instances, that's what would happen if any number of people were in Adam's shoes. It didn't take long before I was completely drawn in to Gordon-Levitt's mesmerizing performance. His take on Adam encourages empathy from the audience. He's out there showing you exactly how Adam feels and what he's going through and the performance feels uncannily real. I'm not sure there are many others in Hollywood today who could have gone from the highs of...well... getting high on medicinal marijuana while watching PBS to the lows of a nervous breakdown on the night before his do-or-die surgery with the nonchalant ease of Gordon-Levitt. His finest, most heart-breaking scene is when he's visiting his parents while getting prepped for his surgery. Just as the attendants are about to wheel him into the operating room, Adam seems to experience his moment of crushing realization. This is, for anyone who's had to deal with a traumatic situation, a common and heart-rending occurrence. While I have not had cancer- or any serious disease- I have lost a parent. And, I can tell you there is hardly a more horrible, desperate feeling than when you experience that moment of crushing realization. I watched it happen in most of my siblings during the wake/funeral process. I experienced the feeling myself... the feeling that- fuck, this shit is real...now what?. Gordon-Levitt displays on screen what I felt and saw. That feeling of being absolutely overwhelmed by the moment... it is a superb scene carried out by an incredible actor giving a subtly amazing performance. And it is every bit, in a nutshell, what this movie is all about.
Grade: A+
I'm assuming everyone out there knows the premise of this one: the comedy about cancer. Well, that's the thumb-nail sketch version anyway. It's true, it is a comedy about cancer. But to leave it at that would diminish the total package that this film actually is. What it is, is a fantastic movie- perhaps even the best I've ever seen- about what you do when everything falls to shit. Realistically, what happens now? The answer? You deal. This is a movie about how one guy (the never-better Joseph Gordon-Levitt) dealt with the shitty turn his life took. Of course, he's helped (or hindered) along in this dealing process by the world's worst girlfriend, the world's worst best friend, the world's worst doctor, and the world's worst counselor.
Yes, these characters are- on paper- caricatures but they work well within the framework of the movie. You know why? Because while it would be odd for Adam (Gordon-Levitt) to have to experience all these people at the same time, they are all real people. His girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a bit batshit crazy and can't handle his sickness so she cheats on him, his best friend (Seth Rogen) refuses to let Adam play the pity party routine... unless it's to help the two of them score a quick and easy lay, his mother (Anjelica Huston) is a first-class, self-absorbed smotherer, and his illness counselor (Anna Kendrick) is completely unprepared to make that dive from the theory world to the real world as she slowly realizes that in the latter, the case studies talk back. In each case, these are really believable characters. The fact that they don't slip into out-sized caricatures is due to the remarkable effort of each member of the cast and the writer (Will Reiser, fictionalizing his real-life battle with cancer) and director (Jonathan Levine). Each of these folks show remarkable constraint and the actors a fine eye for nuance. They don't force the absurdities here (though some of the more crass humor doesn't always flow the best), they all manage to sit back and let the story happen. By the end, all of the characters revolving around Adam seem normal. And that's the key.
Almost everything flows so naturally that it doesn't always feel like a comedy. It never feels like they're setting up punchlines. Maybe that's because- at its heart- this isn't actually a comedy. It's more of a dramedy. Or just an excellent movie. I think categorizing it is almost a mistake. If you go in expecting a typical Seth Rogen comedy, you'll get bits of it, but may be caught off guard (though hopefully not put off) by the level of sincerity and emotional complexity here. If you go in expecting Hallmark channel sugar and inspirational and explicit messages about beating the odds, you will undoubtedly be put off by the more base aspects of the humor. Adam isn't some pedestal-decoration hero. He's just a guy doing what he can, feeling what he feels as he deals with a particularly scary moment of his life. You will be touched, you will be moved, and if you're like me, you'll laugh. And that amounts to an all-in-all great movie.
I would be remiss, however, if I didn't single out Gordon-Levitt. All of the cast is tremendous. As I mentioned earlier, in lesser and less nuanced hands, this could easily have devolved into a study of absurdity- "with folks like this in his life, is cancer really his biggest worry?". The cast simply wouldn't let it. And leading the charge in this determined effort was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It must have been- by turns- the easiest and most difficult part he's had to play. Easy because the film requires him to be nothing other than a normal every guy. Difficult because he must- in a believable manner- take the audience on a roller coaster ride of emotion. Because, in most instances, that's what would happen if any number of people were in Adam's shoes. It didn't take long before I was completely drawn in to Gordon-Levitt's mesmerizing performance. His take on Adam encourages empathy from the audience. He's out there showing you exactly how Adam feels and what he's going through and the performance feels uncannily real. I'm not sure there are many others in Hollywood today who could have gone from the highs of...well... getting high on medicinal marijuana while watching PBS to the lows of a nervous breakdown on the night before his do-or-die surgery with the nonchalant ease of Gordon-Levitt. His finest, most heart-breaking scene is when he's visiting his parents while getting prepped for his surgery. Just as the attendants are about to wheel him into the operating room, Adam seems to experience his moment of crushing realization. This is, for anyone who's had to deal with a traumatic situation, a common and heart-rending occurrence. While I have not had cancer- or any serious disease- I have lost a parent. And, I can tell you there is hardly a more horrible, desperate feeling than when you experience that moment of crushing realization. I watched it happen in most of my siblings during the wake/funeral process. I experienced the feeling myself... the feeling that- fuck, this shit is real...now what?. Gordon-Levitt displays on screen what I felt and saw. That feeling of being absolutely overwhelmed by the moment... it is a superb scene carried out by an incredible actor giving a subtly amazing performance. And it is every bit, in a nutshell, what this movie is all about.
Grade: A+
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