Captain America: Civil War (PG-13)
"A House of M divided against itself cannot stand"
After surviving the Age of Ultron, Captain America must now find and keep his friend from being hunted down and killed as the rest of the world's bureaucracies are cracking down on unfettered Superheros (aided by the one and only Iron Man) in the Russo brother's newest follow up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Russo brothers proved themselves with CA:Winter Soldier. That film had pure, clean action and lots of it, all seen through it's hero and his friends against a worldwide conspiracy that threatened the democracy and freedom they love. Seeing these two movies back to back is a whiplash of culture shock. Civil war instead has high instances of shaky cameras, action scenes that for all the world look unplanned and formed instead in the edit room, grandiose cameos from other parts of the MCU just to sell future films, and just an overall inability to focus on the narrative and draw the necessary lines in the dirt to justify it's own title. These are the ying and yang of Captain America films.
First off the aesthetic and production design is fantastic, the fleetingness of the world hopping almost feels Bond-ish (though perhaps unneeded, almost like they were chasing tax credits and filming wherever was most glamorously least expensive). New addition to the MCU Black Panther is not only wonderfully realized and portrayed, he looks cool and is a harbinger of good things to come from the FilmHouse of M. The special effects are solid and features the Russo's return to the franchise after their strongest MCU film to date, so what could go wrong?
Mostly it's wrong in calling it a Captain America film, it's primarily an Ironman film, and slightly an Avengers film. The return of Robert Downey Jr., his recruitment of the new Spider-man, his turn towards becoming a tool of the state are all allowed to overshadow Chris Evan's Captain's single-minded and strictly illegal devotion to a comrade come hell or high water. It's the Ironman show, he gets the best lines, the most gravitas, he's the bigger star (which isn't shocking when you consider RDJr's Ironman first launched the MCU). The movie feels motivated towards easy profits instead of cutting edge story. But the movie is called Captain America, and features this figure running around Europe breaking all manner of international laws which must be said would be somewhat against his character. There is a prevailing sense of Marvel not being willing to paint either hero in a bad light, especially RDJr, and it is a sign of the MCU's possible slow descent into suit-funded mediocrity (or at least the slump they've had going, especially with large cast blockbusters). It all leaves the center encounter, Cap vs Ironman, oddly empty and devoid of the passions needed to pull it off a Civil War.
Speaking of villain, the ones here are not only again wholly expendable, they are depressingly unmotivated and with master plan plot holes the size of Tony's ego. And if this movie stops and makes you ask "why would he?" and "why doesn't he...?," then the whole house of cards about the purpose of this movie falls hard. It becomes what some critics have described, an unmemorable cookie cutter "betcha can't wait to watch the next movies we make" money factory instead of the rock-solid best action movie that you could take your kid brother to go see, as American as apple pie and the stars and stripes.
6.5 Gi-Ant Man out of 10 (GOOD)
Showing posts with label LetDown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LetDown. Show all posts
Everybody Wants Some (2016)
Everybody Wants Some!! (R)
"Some, why not all?"
A group of freshman college baseball players settle into their new life of stiff competition, stiff drinking, loose girls and acting all grown up in Texas in Richard Linklater's comedy Everybody Wants Some!!.
Sold as the spiritual sequel to Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), EWS follows a group of freshman baseball players trying to fit into their new lives, trying to out perform the older players, and trying to stay as stoned and laid as possible. It's now the 1980s, and boy was it a different time. As a study of how America has changed in just a few short decades (which Linklater's films often revel in) Everybody Wants Some succeeds, but as a pure form of visual entertainment it sadly falls on it's own cleats.
Maybe it's the lack of "loss of innocence" plot line or pungent stench of post-pubescent ambition, but Everybody Wants Some!! leaves you wanting a bit more and less. There's no issues with the comedy which is humorous, the acting which is naturalistic, the directing which is approachable. However all together these testosterone fueled Jocks in a Frat house will only appeal to a certain audience, if it was your Father or favorite Uncle telling these tall tales of chopping baseballs with axes or the night they got kicked out of the disco after meeting your mother inbetween gulps of Shiner Bock then you'd have a sincere reason to listen. Told to a modern audience it falls flat, a rude boy story/brag bereft of the nostalgia and hope that shone from Dazed and Confused. Instead it concentrates on the potential for success (or failure) for these near-men, friends, odd balls and sexual dynamos that only a small group of modern individuals could really relate too, or more importantly, really laugh at.
6.5 Still Not as Boring as Boyhood, But Not High Art Either out of 10 (GOOD)
"Some, why not all?"
A group of freshman college baseball players settle into their new life of stiff competition, stiff drinking, loose girls and acting all grown up in Texas in Richard Linklater's comedy Everybody Wants Some!!.
Sold as the spiritual sequel to Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), EWS follows a group of freshman baseball players trying to fit into their new lives, trying to out perform the older players, and trying to stay as stoned and laid as possible. It's now the 1980s, and boy was it a different time. As a study of how America has changed in just a few short decades (which Linklater's films often revel in) Everybody Wants Some succeeds, but as a pure form of visual entertainment it sadly falls on it's own cleats.
Maybe it's the lack of "loss of innocence" plot line or pungent stench of post-pubescent ambition, but Everybody Wants Some!! leaves you wanting a bit more and less. There's no issues with the comedy which is humorous, the acting which is naturalistic, the directing which is approachable. However all together these testosterone fueled Jocks in a Frat house will only appeal to a certain audience, if it was your Father or favorite Uncle telling these tall tales of chopping baseballs with axes or the night they got kicked out of the disco after meeting your mother inbetween gulps of Shiner Bock then you'd have a sincere reason to listen. Told to a modern audience it falls flat, a rude boy story/brag bereft of the nostalgia and hope that shone from Dazed and Confused. Instead it concentrates on the potential for success (or failure) for these near-men, friends, odd balls and sexual dynamos that only a small group of modern individuals could really relate too, or more importantly, really laugh at.
6.5 Still Not as Boring as Boyhood, But Not High Art Either out of 10 (GOOD)
The Revenant (2015)
The Revenant (R)
A man on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear and wronged by his companions, crawls his way back to civilization and survival by sheer will and the lust for revenge in director Alejandro Inarratu's followup to 2014's Best Picture "Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)".
Based very loosely on the widely told tale of professional trail scout Hugh Glass (played with baby face and big bearded Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)), a man so wronged even his own exposed ribs nor 200 miles full of blood thirsty natives will keep him from his vengeance. Leo plays him as the quiet type, surrounded by the vast blanketed mountains or picking his way through the tree studded fields he doesn't say much (having one's throat shredded by a momma grizzly may have helped). When asked why he fled civilized parts of the world, Leo's Glass mutters something about "Liking it where it's quiet". These are his best moments, but DiCaprio cannot so easily shed his Mega-star image and face beneath a bearhide and buckskins, and too often (despite his truly best efforts and solid acting ability), we are forced to admit that no, Leo does not resemble a wild Mountain-man of the frontier age, a man so hardy and full of spirit that he could survive the cold and wounds and misfortune. He looks, much as he did in The Aviator, like Leo DiCaprio.
Tom Hardy (Bronson), on the other hand, once again completely transforms himself for a role. As Glass' trapping partner Fitzgerald he is bitter, racist, self-serving and sports a plotting, devious mind. His country Texas twang feels great, every time the film gives him something to do he is riveting and completely steals the show from DiCaprio, there is a self confidence present that stands it's ground as an authentic Western ideology. Perhaps he wasn't as electric as Mad Max since he could not truly make the role singularly his own, but in Revenant he fits into Fitzgerald perfectly and is fantastic antagonist.
It is only too bad the film strays from what makes it good so often. The cinema, the wide open wild places look terrific while at the same time the CGI wild animals populating it detract. The long takes, now famous from these filmmakers, feel more constructed and sewn together with twine when done in nature than the smooth seamless backstage views. The compositing is distracting, mostly during the action sequences, there is a reliance on technology way out there in wilds of nature that simply clashes with the aesthetic being sold to us. As is some of the audio design, for instance the Natives all are dubbed strangely and out of sync, the words literally put into their mouths in post. More power to Inarratu for braving the forces of nature to capture this stuff with natural light and freezing actors and crew, but if Dances with Wolves had just had a herd of CGI buffalo that too would have stuck out like a sore thumb too. However there are shots here of such sublime beauty as to be in a Terrance Mallick film (in fact much can be seen as homage to T.M.), but unfortunately many do not help along the blood thirsty narrative. A man done so wrong would not sleep so placidly or have such a spiritual dream journey. And, like the many Hollywood epics before it, the script of the Revenant takes an amazing true life story of determination and grit and gussies it up with more drama for modern audiences, rehashing a classic trend that itself should be mauled and buried. A man did do this, crawled that great long way, survive a bear attack and had maggots eat his gangrenous flesh, there is no need to gussy it up and "humanize" it more. Revenge does not only come from blood, motivation not just from love and close ups of eye's leaking, the real story of Glass was already about how strong and hardy a human being could be, and diluting it with modern cinematic tricks really wounds it to the quick.
Much like its protagonist Glass, Revenant is ritualistically real. The snow, dirt and blood and environments is under his feet and nails and stains his clothes (costume). And yet mixed in equal parts is fabrication, with an empty spirituality, preachy modern morality and technological shortcuts. Where it gets it right, the opening Bear horror, the closing showdown with the fantastic Hardy, the rest is a barren cold wasteland of misspent ideals. All in a film just as lengthy as Hateful Eight yet without the constant, cartoonishly fired from the hip Western-fried delights. Greatness lurks beneath a thick ground fog of modern necessity, and instead of a tall tale we get a long one.
By the end, worn out by tiresome long camera takes, you stumble out of the theater on benumbed legs like a snow blind trapper with nothing to show for your journey except a deep yearning for hearth and home.
7 Historical Showdowns that never actually happened out of 10 (GOOD)
A man on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear and wronged by his companions, crawls his way back to civilization and survival by sheer will and the lust for revenge in director Alejandro Inarratu's followup to 2014's Best Picture "Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)".
Based very loosely on the widely told tale of professional trail scout Hugh Glass (played with baby face and big bearded Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)), a man so wronged even his own exposed ribs nor 200 miles full of blood thirsty natives will keep him from his vengeance. Leo plays him as the quiet type, surrounded by the vast blanketed mountains or picking his way through the tree studded fields he doesn't say much (having one's throat shredded by a momma grizzly may have helped). When asked why he fled civilized parts of the world, Leo's Glass mutters something about "Liking it where it's quiet". These are his best moments, but DiCaprio cannot so easily shed his Mega-star image and face beneath a bearhide and buckskins, and too often (despite his truly best efforts and solid acting ability), we are forced to admit that no, Leo does not resemble a wild Mountain-man of the frontier age, a man so hardy and full of spirit that he could survive the cold and wounds and misfortune. He looks, much as he did in The Aviator, like Leo DiCaprio.
Tom Hardy (Bronson), on the other hand, once again completely transforms himself for a role. As Glass' trapping partner Fitzgerald he is bitter, racist, self-serving and sports a plotting, devious mind. His country Texas twang feels great, every time the film gives him something to do he is riveting and completely steals the show from DiCaprio, there is a self confidence present that stands it's ground as an authentic Western ideology. Perhaps he wasn't as electric as Mad Max since he could not truly make the role singularly his own, but in Revenant he fits into Fitzgerald perfectly and is fantastic antagonist.
It is only too bad the film strays from what makes it good so often. The cinema, the wide open wild places look terrific while at the same time the CGI wild animals populating it detract. The long takes, now famous from these filmmakers, feel more constructed and sewn together with twine when done in nature than the smooth seamless backstage views. The compositing is distracting, mostly during the action sequences, there is a reliance on technology way out there in wilds of nature that simply clashes with the aesthetic being sold to us. As is some of the audio design, for instance the Natives all are dubbed strangely and out of sync, the words literally put into their mouths in post. More power to Inarratu for braving the forces of nature to capture this stuff with natural light and freezing actors and crew, but if Dances with Wolves had just had a herd of CGI buffalo that too would have stuck out like a sore thumb too. However there are shots here of such sublime beauty as to be in a Terrance Mallick film (in fact much can be seen as homage to T.M.), but unfortunately many do not help along the blood thirsty narrative. A man done so wrong would not sleep so placidly or have such a spiritual dream journey. And, like the many Hollywood epics before it, the script of the Revenant takes an amazing true life story of determination and grit and gussies it up with more drama for modern audiences, rehashing a classic trend that itself should be mauled and buried. A man did do this, crawled that great long way, survive a bear attack and had maggots eat his gangrenous flesh, there is no need to gussy it up and "humanize" it more. Revenge does not only come from blood, motivation not just from love and close ups of eye's leaking, the real story of Glass was already about how strong and hardy a human being could be, and diluting it with modern cinematic tricks really wounds it to the quick.
Much like its protagonist Glass, Revenant is ritualistically real. The snow, dirt and blood and environments is under his feet and nails and stains his clothes (costume). And yet mixed in equal parts is fabrication, with an empty spirituality, preachy modern morality and technological shortcuts. Where it gets it right, the opening Bear horror, the closing showdown with the fantastic Hardy, the rest is a barren cold wasteland of misspent ideals. All in a film just as lengthy as Hateful Eight yet without the constant, cartoonishly fired from the hip Western-fried delights. Greatness lurks beneath a thick ground fog of modern necessity, and instead of a tall tale we get a long one.
By the end, worn out by tiresome long camera takes, you stumble out of the theater on benumbed legs like a snow blind trapper with nothing to show for your journey except a deep yearning for hearth and home.
7 Historical Showdowns that never actually happened out of 10 (GOOD)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (PG-13)
"I've got a bad feeling about this." - Every Han Solo
"The Force! Man, that's your answer to everything." - Clerks
"Millennium Falcon? More like Millennium Pandering." - Me.
Sitting in a darkened theater with a dawning internal awareness that you might be the only one twisting in your seat, uncomfortable with the low-risk plot, the awkward references and dismal acting. The popcorn is gone, the soda dull, and in your head rings the awful words "It's just an another modern remake, they spent all that time and effort just to remake it, and its a bad counterfeit Picasso, a copy, a fake" while everyone else claps and thanks god for George Lucas' non-involvement. The trailers were a bill of goods, sold by the aggressively pandering suits at Disney Corp., pap made by a director who's made a career of swerving from expectations, and it's as well made as it is creatively bankrupt, a soulless zombie in an expensive knock-off Armani shambling forever towards higher returns. At least those terrible prequels TRIED to do something new and failed spectacularly. Awakens just regurgitates what worked before with a wet, money hungry plop.
Meanwhile Awakens looks like it was wholly constructed in the edit suite, scenes come and go at a breakneck pace just so they happen and not in anyway conductive to the pacing. A scene will end abruptly, cross wipe to a completely different part of the universe, then back to the first without rhyme or reason except for story reasons the 2nd had to be put somewhere. It doesn't feel thought out or meticulously planned unlike real SWs, it feels cobbled together good enough, and considering the plot is just "girls and guys with force and cute droids and xwings and star destroyers and deathstars again" there very little excuse for it. And there are soooo many conveniences of illogic, the new crew just stumbling upon the abandoned Falcon being the most egregious and unnecessary, apparently the Force can and will do that kind of thing now.
So it's a remake, let's treat it as such. The scope and feel, the "Lawrence of Arabia in Space" tone of Star Wars is completely missing from Awakens. There are few calm, slow moments of world building here; even the obligatory scene-wipes seem somehow forced and overly fast; you don't inhabit this world only glimpse it. The only exposition we get is from the fanfictiony text crawl and one very stilted and strangely unemotional conversation between a craggled Han Solo and a stone faced General Leia Organa (who looks for all the world like they tightened her girdle so much she can't move let alone act). Between her strange head tilting and his half hearted swagger it more resembles the cringey "I love you" scene from CrystalSkull than the one from Empire Strikes Back, instead of a stroke of genius its an actual figurative cinematic stroke. It's all punctuated by that "it's mysterious because we are keeping you out of the loop" thing that is the oldest of JJ Abrams' tricks, and we need more answers than action. Why would the Republic be in this ramshackle state, never mind the mention in the opening or the reams of comics Disney has put out, the underdog yet again? This is a movie, explain it! And John Williams, where are you? The only time the music is noticed is when it was once again rehashing the themes from the first trilogy, there is no new piece that stands out and marches around the theater announcing it's greatness. Then there is all the fan service, the god damned fan service. Capt. Phasma is a marketing dream and fanboy joke. The "No look shot" is as bad as Greedo shooting first, and you want your new bad-ass Jedi girl, who can do all these things without training cuz you say so, to inherit the beloved fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy? Then earn it guys, because otherwise its just another lame fan wish-fulfillment without the politically incorrect metal bikini. Awakens suffers from the worst case of big budget sequelitis ever seen, literally Jump22's ethos of "People want you to do the same thing, Again. Just a bit bigger. Same lines, same jokes, same action, everything."
It's not all rehash. JJ does some new things with the camera (but why god, why keep does he keep using the lens flares, it must be an injoke?). There are some fun ideas, new uses of the Force that seem a bit questionable, but the reformed Stormtrooper story idea is the best of the bunch (but who's character is involved in countless bumbly spoken word comic relief just enough to ruin it). He doesn't say "Yeah that's what I'm talking about!" once, but they probably did do a take and it's laying on the cutting room floor after checking TVTropes for relevancy and deciding against running it. Yet some of the attempts of new stuff are as bad as any prequel, Solo's side business is simply just busy work, eating up screen time and adding nothing to the affair but bad jokes and a lot of CG monsters. There is just enough practical effects thrown in to kill the "curse of the prequels" stink list for the fans, but the rest is all remake-orama, and none of it improves on the original. The fighter pilots all look wrong, and besides main ace Poe (well played by Oscar Issac, star of Inside Llewyn Davis), the Resistance seems to be staffed by fanboys-and-girls pulled from the ranks of Deviantart who don't yet have drivers licenses let alone a pilot's one. The bad guy is no Vader, he is a twink with a temper tantrum, the Emperor has been replaced with a pale CGI creature who looks like should be spitting out "GOLLUM GOLLUM". The Nazi Youth has taken over the Empire from the elder British statesmen because... box office? Old Men no longer start Star Wars it seems. The Rebels don't meticulously plan how to blow up the DeathStar 3.0, or send a crack team of top commandos and their entire fleet and barely scrape out a victory. No, they stand around a readout of the plans point at a spot and say "we blow this up, right?" and then Han Solo winks and says "I got this, you don't wanna know how" because his plan is stupidly self sacrificing; instead of bringing the Army he just flies over to infiltrate the planet with 3 people (2 he just met) and of course saves the day, obviously! There is no sense of urgency, the big kill-weapon has to charge up for like a day, but the Rebellion is so confident in Han getting the shields down (AGAIN!) that they don't even bother EVACUATING the planet that will eventually be blown up, maybe, "waiting to be killed, waiting to be killed".
In the end big things get exploded good, people hug, and yet it still doesn't end. The final oddity, the mapquest montage, the overdone out of place LOTR spinning helicopter shot with a stupid nospeak Skywalker cliffhanger, cementing that SWTFA seems more inclined to be the New Harry Potter YA film franchise than a true new Star Wars film in a finite universe.
Star Wars, we meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.
4 Chubby C3P0's Unexplained Self-Referential Red Arms out of 10 (BAD)
PS - Kids will never understand the sweet tension build and release of the 20th Century Fox fanfare, LucasFilm Logo, and sudden burst of StarField and music on the silver screen. Sad.
PPS - Alternative Title: SW - An Old Hype
"I've got a bad feeling about this." - Every Han Solo
"The Force! Man, that's your answer to everything." - Clerks
"Millennium Falcon? More like Millennium Pandering." - Me.
Sitting in a darkened theater with a dawning internal awareness that you might be the only one twisting in your seat, uncomfortable with the low-risk plot, the awkward references and dismal acting. The popcorn is gone, the soda dull, and in your head rings the awful words "It's just an another modern remake, they spent all that time and effort just to remake it, and its a bad counterfeit Picasso, a copy, a fake" while everyone else claps and thanks god for George Lucas' non-involvement. The trailers were a bill of goods, sold by the aggressively pandering suits at Disney Corp., pap made by a director who's made a career of swerving from expectations, and it's as well made as it is creatively bankrupt, a soulless zombie in an expensive knock-off Armani shambling forever towards higher returns. At least those terrible prequels TRIED to do something new and failed spectacularly. Awakens just regurgitates what worked before with a wet, money hungry plop.
Meanwhile Awakens looks like it was wholly constructed in the edit suite, scenes come and go at a breakneck pace just so they happen and not in anyway conductive to the pacing. A scene will end abruptly, cross wipe to a completely different part of the universe, then back to the first without rhyme or reason except for story reasons the 2nd had to be put somewhere. It doesn't feel thought out or meticulously planned unlike real SWs, it feels cobbled together good enough, and considering the plot is just "girls and guys with force and cute droids and xwings and star destroyers and deathstars again" there very little excuse for it. And there are soooo many conveniences of illogic, the new crew just stumbling upon the abandoned Falcon being the most egregious and unnecessary, apparently the Force can and will do that kind of thing now.
So it's a remake, let's treat it as such. The scope and feel, the "Lawrence of Arabia in Space" tone of Star Wars is completely missing from Awakens. There are few calm, slow moments of world building here; even the obligatory scene-wipes seem somehow forced and overly fast; you don't inhabit this world only glimpse it. The only exposition we get is from the fanfictiony text crawl and one very stilted and strangely unemotional conversation between a craggled Han Solo and a stone faced General Leia Organa (who looks for all the world like they tightened her girdle so much she can't move let alone act). Between her strange head tilting and his half hearted swagger it more resembles the cringey "I love you" scene from CrystalSkull than the one from Empire Strikes Back, instead of a stroke of genius its an actual figurative cinematic stroke. It's all punctuated by that "it's mysterious because we are keeping you out of the loop" thing that is the oldest of JJ Abrams' tricks, and we need more answers than action. Why would the Republic be in this ramshackle state, never mind the mention in the opening or the reams of comics Disney has put out, the underdog yet again? This is a movie, explain it! And John Williams, where are you? The only time the music is noticed is when it was once again rehashing the themes from the first trilogy, there is no new piece that stands out and marches around the theater announcing it's greatness. Then there is all the fan service, the god damned fan service. Capt. Phasma is a marketing dream and fanboy joke. The "No look shot" is as bad as Greedo shooting first, and you want your new bad-ass Jedi girl, who can do all these things without training cuz you say so, to inherit the beloved fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy? Then earn it guys, because otherwise its just another lame fan wish-fulfillment without the politically incorrect metal bikini. Awakens suffers from the worst case of big budget sequelitis ever seen, literally Jump22's ethos of "People want you to do the same thing, Again. Just a bit bigger. Same lines, same jokes, same action, everything."
It's not all rehash. JJ does some new things with the camera (but why god, why keep does he keep using the lens flares, it must be an injoke?). There are some fun ideas, new uses of the Force that seem a bit questionable, but the reformed Stormtrooper story idea is the best of the bunch (but who's character is involved in countless bumbly spoken word comic relief just enough to ruin it). He doesn't say "Yeah that's what I'm talking about!" once, but they probably did do a take and it's laying on the cutting room floor after checking TVTropes for relevancy and deciding against running it. Yet some of the attempts of new stuff are as bad as any prequel, Solo's side business is simply just busy work, eating up screen time and adding nothing to the affair but bad jokes and a lot of CG monsters. There is just enough practical effects thrown in to kill the "curse of the prequels" stink list for the fans, but the rest is all remake-orama, and none of it improves on the original. The fighter pilots all look wrong, and besides main ace Poe (well played by Oscar Issac, star of Inside Llewyn Davis), the Resistance seems to be staffed by fanboys-and-girls pulled from the ranks of Deviantart who don't yet have drivers licenses let alone a pilot's one. The bad guy is no Vader, he is a twink with a temper tantrum, the Emperor has been replaced with a pale CGI creature who looks like should be spitting out "GOLLUM GOLLUM". The Nazi Youth has taken over the Empire from the elder British statesmen because... box office? Old Men no longer start Star Wars it seems. The Rebels don't meticulously plan how to blow up the DeathStar 3.0, or send a crack team of top commandos and their entire fleet and barely scrape out a victory. No, they stand around a readout of the plans point at a spot and say "we blow this up, right?" and then Han Solo winks and says "I got this, you don't wanna know how" because his plan is stupidly self sacrificing; instead of bringing the Army he just flies over to infiltrate the planet with 3 people (2 he just met) and of course saves the day, obviously! There is no sense of urgency, the big kill-weapon has to charge up for like a day, but the Rebellion is so confident in Han getting the shields down (AGAIN!) that they don't even bother EVACUATING the planet that will eventually be blown up, maybe, "waiting to be killed, waiting to be killed".
In the end big things get exploded good, people hug, and yet it still doesn't end. The final oddity, the mapquest montage, the overdone out of place LOTR spinning helicopter shot with a stupid nospeak Skywalker cliffhanger, cementing that SWTFA seems more inclined to be the New Harry Potter YA film franchise than a true new Star Wars film in a finite universe.
Star Wars, we meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.
4 Chubby C3P0's Unexplained Self-Referential Red Arms out of 10 (BAD)
PS - Kids will never understand the sweet tension build and release of the 20th Century Fox fanfare, LucasFilm Logo, and sudden burst of StarField and music on the silver screen. Sad.
PPS - Alternative Title: SW - An Old Hype
Sicario (2015)
Sicario (R)
"Traffic Jam"
FBI Agent Kate (Emily Blunt) makes a grisly discovery during a raid on an Arizona suburban home believed to be holding hostages. The deadly results lead her into the path of working with CIA officer Graver (Josh Brolin) and his adviser Alejandro (Benicio del Torro, as grim as ever) in drug pushing Mexico to find the real bad guys responsible. What they find south of the border and the Vietnam-ish mess of cause and effect in the Norther hemisphere results in a brooding yet overstated hot button issue that is the literal militarization of the Police-state that is Sicario's core message, brought to us by Director Denis Villenueve (Prisoners).
Sicario is a dark film, about the dark circumstances and business/political practices surrounding the U.S.'s southern border. The lens is once again artfully wielded by Cinematographer superstar Roger Deakins (who also worked on Prisoners), but unfortunately in Sicario there are very few moments of clarity or calamity to bask in the beauty. And where Prisoners got away with some of it's more convenient leaps in logic and plot due to it's very high tension and the rush of Hugh Jackman's parental instincts, Blunt's Kate is often left confused yet capable. Emily does an admirable job, but the character as written barely accomplishes anything, merely allowing herself to be swept along into the further escalation like Hamlet in Afghanistan. Sure the script gives her the option of backing out, but her character for some unspoken reason must heroically go through with it despite all the implied torture/rape/murder that could (and already almost did) befall her. The film makers want a "bad ass female lead" but give her nothing to do but pout and be a damsel in distress most of the movie being led around by the nose by Brolen's CIA jerk (he plays a good jerk FYI). Benicio's silent but deadly hit man plays to his strengths but gives him nothing new or challenging, except not enough screen time. Meanwhile Kate is front and center with nothing but a confused gape as she is told and shown things without context or exposition (we know how you feel Kate). At least with Savages or Traffic or (god forbid The Counselor) there wasn't a feeling of "welp, thats the way it is gringos" *shrug*.
Sicario knows what it wants to say (guns guns guns and drugs) and who it wants to say it about (love and fear thy southern/northern neighbor), it just does it in a disingenuous "how bleak is the future huh?" fashion tinged with backhanded misogyny that it leaves a bad aftertaste. Stick with the Taco Bell instead, it's better for you (just not as much atmosphere).
4.5 Never Trust the Latino Advisor in a White Suit out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Traffic Jam"
FBI Agent Kate (Emily Blunt) makes a grisly discovery during a raid on an Arizona suburban home believed to be holding hostages. The deadly results lead her into the path of working with CIA officer Graver (Josh Brolin) and his adviser Alejandro (Benicio del Torro, as grim as ever) in drug pushing Mexico to find the real bad guys responsible. What they find south of the border and the Vietnam-ish mess of cause and effect in the Norther hemisphere results in a brooding yet overstated hot button issue that is the literal militarization of the Police-state that is Sicario's core message, brought to us by Director Denis Villenueve (Prisoners).
Sicario is a dark film, about the dark circumstances and business/political practices surrounding the U.S.'s southern border. The lens is once again artfully wielded by Cinematographer superstar Roger Deakins (who also worked on Prisoners), but unfortunately in Sicario there are very few moments of clarity or calamity to bask in the beauty. And where Prisoners got away with some of it's more convenient leaps in logic and plot due to it's very high tension and the rush of Hugh Jackman's parental instincts, Blunt's Kate is often left confused yet capable. Emily does an admirable job, but the character as written barely accomplishes anything, merely allowing herself to be swept along into the further escalation like Hamlet in Afghanistan. Sure the script gives her the option of backing out, but her character for some unspoken reason must heroically go through with it despite all the implied torture/rape/murder that could (and already almost did) befall her. The film makers want a "bad ass female lead" but give her nothing to do but pout and be a damsel in distress most of the movie being led around by the nose by Brolen's CIA jerk (he plays a good jerk FYI). Benicio's silent but deadly hit man plays to his strengths but gives him nothing new or challenging, except not enough screen time. Meanwhile Kate is front and center with nothing but a confused gape as she is told and shown things without context or exposition (we know how you feel Kate). At least with Savages or Traffic or (god forbid The Counselor) there wasn't a feeling of "welp, thats the way it is gringos" *shrug*.
Sicario knows what it wants to say (guns guns guns and drugs) and who it wants to say it about (love and fear thy southern/northern neighbor), it just does it in a disingenuous "how bleak is the future huh?" fashion tinged with backhanded misogyny that it leaves a bad aftertaste. Stick with the Taco Bell instead, it's better for you (just not as much atmosphere).
4.5 Never Trust the Latino Advisor in a White Suit out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Dope (2015)
Dope (R)
"Slippery Slope N(word)"
From the slums of Englewood comes the story of Malcolm, a geeky straight A student trying to get into Harvard. At times joyfully refreshingly new, others painfully derivative, Dope is at the least an interesting new voice supplied by a new actor in a landscape of bland dull remakes of whitewashed Hollywood entertainment.
Dope begins with a 90s HipHop nostalgia, a groovy kind of energy that introduces us to Malcolm's world of the hood, a place where you can get shot for no reason but also most people don't. It's not a gloomy, trash ridden cess pit, it's a place where real people live and eat food and kids form punk bands and dream of escaping. Where not every household is broken (though quite a few are), and not every car is a low rider (just some), not every black man is a thug (but watch your backpack). Malcolm is not your average black kid either. Played with geeky-awkward-perfection by new comer Shameik Moore, Malcolm like many of his peers, must at some point give up his Yo MTV Raps childhood and make some tough life decisions. This is of course the point of the film, but is also where it loses much of it's fun.
Imagine if SuperBad stopped goofing and laughing about halfway though because it was time for "the point," and you have the toughest selling point of Dope. Now, there is no contention that a kid in Malcolm's hood, his age with his situation wouldn't run afoul of some hard choices. However the way it is handled is a bit nonsensical and confusing, and is quite a shock going from a happy-go-lucky "myfriendsarecoolbutIwantagirlfriend&nevermetmydad" to drug dealing bitcoin memes stand ins. The motivations to do so are unclear, and the tacked on romantic angle is exactly that, tacked on because every film has that. On the other hand, there really isn't another film like this, with this strong of an African-American voice and music and fashion, that is respectful and realistic and un exaggerated. And yet it also dips into amateurish tropes (the cliche white guy hacker/stoner, the dropped subplots loss of focus, the aformentioned romantic subplot, the sometimes dippy dialogue of the other characters) muddles the message and also sometimes fumbles the humor. However the acid washed sunsets and dayglo sneaker design of the production and a solid cinematographic base lend much to it's Indy cred. Like Do The Right Thing the preachiness that, yes, preaches the ending must be allowed since a young man like Malcolm so infrequently allowed a soapbox to kick it from.
7 Gotta Say it was a Good Day out of 10 (GOOD)
"Slippery Slope N(word)"
From the slums of Englewood comes the story of Malcolm, a geeky straight A student trying to get into Harvard. At times joyfully refreshingly new, others painfully derivative, Dope is at the least an interesting new voice supplied by a new actor in a landscape of bland dull remakes of whitewashed Hollywood entertainment.
Dope begins with a 90s HipHop nostalgia, a groovy kind of energy that introduces us to Malcolm's world of the hood, a place where you can get shot for no reason but also most people don't. It's not a gloomy, trash ridden cess pit, it's a place where real people live and eat food and kids form punk bands and dream of escaping. Where not every household is broken (though quite a few are), and not every car is a low rider (just some), not every black man is a thug (but watch your backpack). Malcolm is not your average black kid either. Played with geeky-awkward-perfection by new comer Shameik Moore, Malcolm like many of his peers, must at some point give up his Yo MTV Raps childhood and make some tough life decisions. This is of course the point of the film, but is also where it loses much of it's fun.
Imagine if SuperBad stopped goofing and laughing about halfway though because it was time for "the point," and you have the toughest selling point of Dope. Now, there is no contention that a kid in Malcolm's hood, his age with his situation wouldn't run afoul of some hard choices. However the way it is handled is a bit nonsensical and confusing, and is quite a shock going from a happy-go-lucky "myfriendsarecoolbutIwantagirlfriend&nevermetmydad" to drug dealing bitcoin memes stand ins. The motivations to do so are unclear, and the tacked on romantic angle is exactly that, tacked on because every film has that. On the other hand, there really isn't another film like this, with this strong of an African-American voice and music and fashion, that is respectful and realistic and un exaggerated. And yet it also dips into amateurish tropes (the cliche white guy hacker/stoner, the dropped subplots loss of focus, the aformentioned romantic subplot, the sometimes dippy dialogue of the other characters) muddles the message and also sometimes fumbles the humor. However the acid washed sunsets and dayglo sneaker design of the production and a solid cinematographic base lend much to it's Indy cred. Like Do The Right Thing the preachiness that, yes, preaches the ending must be allowed since a young man like Malcolm so infrequently allowed a soapbox to kick it from.
7 Gotta Say it was a Good Day out of 10 (GOOD)
Inherent Vice (2015)
Inherent Vice (R) - Noir Review
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"
Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970. A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.
Firstly, the acting is stupendous. The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora. His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas. Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd. But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold. We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think? The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed. This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells. However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company. This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them. This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.
The book? As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose. PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it. The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief. The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is. For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time. The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet. Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll. Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master. Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.
And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic). The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries. Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires. Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial. It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon. It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one. They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does. And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet. Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo* But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch). Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.
7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"
Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970. A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.
Firstly, the acting is stupendous. The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora. His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas. Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd. But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold. We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think? The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed. This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells. However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company. This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them. This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.
The book? As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose. PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it. The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief. The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is. For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time. The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet. Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll. Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master. Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.
And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic). The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries. Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires. Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial. It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon. It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one. They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does. And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet. Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo* But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch). Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.
7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)
Boyhood (2014)
Boyhood (R) - Review
"Years pass like seconds, minutes like hours"
A boy and his family grow up, through thick and thin, through 12 years of life in Texas in Director Richard Linklater's newest experimental film in long-distance filmmaking, the first real time coming of age picture
Actually spanning these years, watching an actor grow from childhood to adulthood onscreen in accelerated real-time as his family also grows and morphs, is a fascinating exercise in spatial filmmaking; joining up year after year (the music and styles and car-fads are the only clue what year the characters are living in at the moment, which zoom forward without provocation). It's a video diary of a generation, the post 9-11 children and their families, ups and downs, divorces and new found loves zipping by as the hairstyles go from mullets/Biebers/Emo/to Hipsters.
However, the necessarily amateur acting detracts from the believability, having child actors that grow into adult actors that can never quite act hurts the suspension of crucial disbelief. The start of the film has some tense moments with a drunk stepdad or family fights, but about half-way through the film all the characters settle down into this tepid groove of suburban life that, while may be real, is not very absorbing. The boy of the title, Mason, is the kind of sullen eyed aimless kid who won't tear himself away from a game screen for half a second to say hello, the kind of child we've all met and felt a little slighted by. His sister is a charming goof, his dad (Ethan Hawk) is a tousled hair loser, his mom a caring overstressed hen (Patricia Arquette). The family dynamic itself is interesting, yet they all surround a kid who is very unrelateable and, dare we say, almost unlikable? And at nearly 3 hours, Boyhood may invoke a feeling of family just at it's sheer length of exposure you are inflicted to, like a distant relative whose opinion is ignored off hand: "No Mason, why would you gauge your ears, do you know what you'd look like when you're 80?" He shrugs, digs out cereal bowl.
Boyhood (which is a bit of a misnomer considering the other characters get almost as much screen time as Mason, or at least are more interesting) feels like some of the other nostalgia pieces of Linklater's, whether it's the Austin Weirdness of Slacker or the High School weed-glow in Dazed and Confused. Some of it seems rewrtitten from these other movies, the underage drinking and drug use are such low hanging fruit that they feel out of place here, not every generation is doomed to repeat the previous' fun and mayhem, and not every kid will take a nip from a flask if asked to. The only difference here is that Richard isn't that personally nostalgic about the Iraq War, or Honda MiniVans or Game Boy Advances, and it shows. Stapling these emotions from his 70s boyhood has a false feeling of disjointedness to the millennial events, and while literally watching a kid grow up from 6 to 18 is a fascinating experience, the film itself, the entertainment value, is the same as watching a strangers home movies without anyone to answer your questions, "Aren't these kids cute but where are they living now, that must be his uncle I guess, when did she start dating him, seriously there is a whole other hour left on the tape???" There are whole 15 minute scenes that seem superfluous, and when your movie is a nearly 3 hour long family drama one could think it's runtime very excessive.
Narrative-wise, fun-wise, script-wise, acting-wise, it's not Linklater's best by a long shot (and he has done great before). Concept wise, it being a literal time-lapse photograph of a human being, like a stretched out youtube vid of the picture a month variety (turned into a scene a year in Boyhood), is fantastic and it's execution remarkable (that Linklater had to leave provisions for the film to be finished in the event of his untimely death speaks volumes about the commitment and energy of all involved). Unfortunately the mundane plot, length per entertainment value and overall distance of emotion left us with a dissenting opinion that unlike our own sunbeam dreanched childhood, this is something we won't be reminiscing about anytime soon.
6 Watching Human Grass Grow out of 10 (GOOD)
"Years pass like seconds, minutes like hours"
A boy and his family grow up, through thick and thin, through 12 years of life in Texas in Director Richard Linklater's newest experimental film in long-distance filmmaking, the first real time coming of age picture
Actually spanning these years, watching an actor grow from childhood to adulthood onscreen in accelerated real-time as his family also grows and morphs, is a fascinating exercise in spatial filmmaking; joining up year after year (the music and styles and car-fads are the only clue what year the characters are living in at the moment, which zoom forward without provocation). It's a video diary of a generation, the post 9-11 children and their families, ups and downs, divorces and new found loves zipping by as the hairstyles go from mullets/Biebers/Emo/to Hipsters.
However, the necessarily amateur acting detracts from the believability, having child actors that grow into adult actors that can never quite act hurts the suspension of crucial disbelief. The start of the film has some tense moments with a drunk stepdad or family fights, but about half-way through the film all the characters settle down into this tepid groove of suburban life that, while may be real, is not very absorbing. The boy of the title, Mason, is the kind of sullen eyed aimless kid who won't tear himself away from a game screen for half a second to say hello, the kind of child we've all met and felt a little slighted by. His sister is a charming goof, his dad (Ethan Hawk) is a tousled hair loser, his mom a caring overstressed hen (Patricia Arquette). The family dynamic itself is interesting, yet they all surround a kid who is very unrelateable and, dare we say, almost unlikable? And at nearly 3 hours, Boyhood may invoke a feeling of family just at it's sheer length of exposure you are inflicted to, like a distant relative whose opinion is ignored off hand: "No Mason, why would you gauge your ears, do you know what you'd look like when you're 80?" He shrugs, digs out cereal bowl.
Boyhood (which is a bit of a misnomer considering the other characters get almost as much screen time as Mason, or at least are more interesting) feels like some of the other nostalgia pieces of Linklater's, whether it's the Austin Weirdness of Slacker or the High School weed-glow in Dazed and Confused. Some of it seems rewrtitten from these other movies, the underage drinking and drug use are such low hanging fruit that they feel out of place here, not every generation is doomed to repeat the previous' fun and mayhem, and not every kid will take a nip from a flask if asked to. The only difference here is that Richard isn't that personally nostalgic about the Iraq War, or Honda MiniVans or Game Boy Advances, and it shows. Stapling these emotions from his 70s boyhood has a false feeling of disjointedness to the millennial events, and while literally watching a kid grow up from 6 to 18 is a fascinating experience, the film itself, the entertainment value, is the same as watching a strangers home movies without anyone to answer your questions, "Aren't these kids cute but where are they living now, that must be his uncle I guess, when did she start dating him, seriously there is a whole other hour left on the tape???" There are whole 15 minute scenes that seem superfluous, and when your movie is a nearly 3 hour long family drama one could think it's runtime very excessive.
Narrative-wise, fun-wise, script-wise, acting-wise, it's not Linklater's best by a long shot (and he has done great before). Concept wise, it being a literal time-lapse photograph of a human being, like a stretched out youtube vid of the picture a month variety (turned into a scene a year in Boyhood), is fantastic and it's execution remarkable (that Linklater had to leave provisions for the film to be finished in the event of his untimely death speaks volumes about the commitment and energy of all involved). Unfortunately the mundane plot, length per entertainment value and overall distance of emotion left us with a dissenting opinion that unlike our own sunbeam dreanched childhood, this is something we won't be reminiscing about anytime soon.
6 Watching Human Grass Grow out of 10 (GOOD)
22 Jump Street (2014)
22 Jump Street (R) - Review
"If your friends jumped from a bridge...?"
The unlikely duo of Shmidt and Jenko are back and doing the same thing all over again in this improvisational sequel to the surprise 2012 hit. Jonah Hill (Wolf of Wall Street) and Channing Tatum (Side Effects) team up under perpetual grump Ice Cube to once again fight drugs, except now in college. Spoofing the cliches and overdone plot points of movie sequels themselves (returning supporting characters, expanded budgets, reworked plots), 22J is a self-referential snark that will make you laugh out loud. Yet some of the liquid gold has leaked from this franchise's Red Solo cup, draining it down to a just above average adult beverage from the overflowing bounty of the original.
"Same thing, again" apparently didn't make its way to the script department, for where the first film eschewed traditional remakes by lampooning characters/plots with outrageous improv comedy and smart twists on High School clique conventions, 22 toes the line of "college movie" tropes, drunk Frat boy jocks and wimpy Art School intellectuals that are standard issue college flick trope since the 1980s. Jenko and Shmidt suffer the 1st sequel blues (on purpose and as predicted right from the start by scruff-machismo-meister Nick Offerman), and the action feels a bit lacking despite the onscreen winks to doubled budgets. Even the original cast member cameo is reduced to a while-credits-roll one liner, and there are a stunning number of laughs locked into that credit sequence, where Hollywood franchises are met with scorn as future inevitable titles are screamed past the audience (23, 33,34,44, etc). Perhaps the pathos of their bromance breakup goes on too long, perhaps the action never lives up to the promised sequelitis of "same but bigger", perhaps the Spring Break sequence should have been expanded into more of a third act focus on skewering Hollywoodized college life instead of just a limited set piece. Jokes like "Art Degree? You won't make much money with that" and a slew of tired Old Jokes (mostly performed by actors who also aren't College age) show off the semi-lazy writing here. This is in stark contrast to the cool freshness of 21, but the charm and fun of Channing and Hill elevate the somewhat average semester, and if you laugh hard enough you'll still be able to get a nice buzz from the contact high.
6.5 Trash Compactors of Sadness out of 10 (GOOD)
"If your friends jumped from a bridge...?"
The unlikely duo of Shmidt and Jenko are back and doing the same thing all over again in this improvisational sequel to the surprise 2012 hit. Jonah Hill (Wolf of Wall Street) and Channing Tatum (Side Effects) team up under perpetual grump Ice Cube to once again fight drugs, except now in college. Spoofing the cliches and overdone plot points of movie sequels themselves (returning supporting characters, expanded budgets, reworked plots), 22J is a self-referential snark that will make you laugh out loud. Yet some of the liquid gold has leaked from this franchise's Red Solo cup, draining it down to a just above average adult beverage from the overflowing bounty of the original.
"Same thing, again" apparently didn't make its way to the script department, for where the first film eschewed traditional remakes by lampooning characters/plots with outrageous improv comedy and smart twists on High School clique conventions, 22 toes the line of "college movie" tropes, drunk Frat boy jocks and wimpy Art School intellectuals that are standard issue college flick trope since the 1980s. Jenko and Shmidt suffer the 1st sequel blues (on purpose and as predicted right from the start by scruff-machismo-meister Nick Offerman), and the action feels a bit lacking despite the onscreen winks to doubled budgets. Even the original cast member cameo is reduced to a while-credits-roll one liner, and there are a stunning number of laughs locked into that credit sequence, where Hollywood franchises are met with scorn as future inevitable titles are screamed past the audience (23, 33,34,44, etc). Perhaps the pathos of their bromance breakup goes on too long, perhaps the action never lives up to the promised sequelitis of "same but bigger", perhaps the Spring Break sequence should have been expanded into more of a third act focus on skewering Hollywoodized college life instead of just a limited set piece. Jokes like "Art Degree? You won't make much money with that" and a slew of tired Old Jokes (mostly performed by actors who also aren't College age) show off the semi-lazy writing here. This is in stark contrast to the cool freshness of 21, but the charm and fun of Channing and Hill elevate the somewhat average semester, and if you laugh hard enough you'll still be able to get a nice buzz from the contact high.
6.5 Trash Compactors of Sadness out of 10 (GOOD)
How To Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)
How To Train Your Dragon 2 (PG)
"Toothless Times Two"
Hiccup and his scaly friends return in Dreamwork's sequel to one of it's most successful films to date (both artistically and financially), but stumbles away from what was new and inventive in the first and falls prey to heavy sequelitis in HTTYD2.
First off, the art has been improved ever so much, so that the small annoying flaws from the first are now gone and so rendering the film gorgeous to behold. The entire voice cast returns, but the entire film has a sense of arrested development. Now that Hiccup has converted his village into a Pro-Dragon land (gee that was easy, but technology often makes such leaps), he is out to convert the world. This return to innocence leads to Hiccups naivety being exploited by the wrong people, a warlord out to enslave all of Dragon-kind for his purposes.
The movie also tries to tie this into the unspoken fate of Hiccup's mother, and here is where the heart goes missing. The mother's disappearance and reappearance does not ring emotionally close to true, even with the great (if overused) Cate Blanchett pouring eccentricity into the role. The Warlord Drago is as one-dimensional as villains come, his lines are growled and shouted and he has absolutely no story beyond "He is evil because that's the way he is". The stupid choices and arrogance displayed by our heroes frustrates, its like the first film never happened and no one learned. And much like other sequels DW has done, anything that worked in the first will work even better in the first! So bit characters that were kind of amusing are front and center now and do too much. Instead of inventing new and interesting characters and scenarios the movie leans on what came before.
As pretty as it is, the movie's tedious retread is in defiance of the first's inventiveness. A more tried and true sequel would have been difficult, but this film reeks of brand control, concession sales and without the care of good story telling and true emotion that so marked the first. Sure the dragons are cute and everyone is 5 years older (and the kids are still not Scottish or lost their now-annoying teenage mannerisms), but when compared to the first HTTYD2 loses more than it's foot this time, and apparently lost due to shooting itself there.
5 Where's The Viking Helmet Bra Continuity out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Toothless Times Two"
Hiccup and his scaly friends return in Dreamwork's sequel to one of it's most successful films to date (both artistically and financially), but stumbles away from what was new and inventive in the first and falls prey to heavy sequelitis in HTTYD2.
First off, the art has been improved ever so much, so that the small annoying flaws from the first are now gone and so rendering the film gorgeous to behold. The entire voice cast returns, but the entire film has a sense of arrested development. Now that Hiccup has converted his village into a Pro-Dragon land (gee that was easy, but technology often makes such leaps), he is out to convert the world. This return to innocence leads to Hiccups naivety being exploited by the wrong people, a warlord out to enslave all of Dragon-kind for his purposes.
The movie also tries to tie this into the unspoken fate of Hiccup's mother, and here is where the heart goes missing. The mother's disappearance and reappearance does not ring emotionally close to true, even with the great (if overused) Cate Blanchett pouring eccentricity into the role. The Warlord Drago is as one-dimensional as villains come, his lines are growled and shouted and he has absolutely no story beyond "He is evil because that's the way he is". The stupid choices and arrogance displayed by our heroes frustrates, its like the first film never happened and no one learned. And much like other sequels DW has done, anything that worked in the first will work even better in the first! So bit characters that were kind of amusing are front and center now and do too much. Instead of inventing new and interesting characters and scenarios the movie leans on what came before.
As pretty as it is, the movie's tedious retread is in defiance of the first's inventiveness. A more tried and true sequel would have been difficult, but this film reeks of brand control, concession sales and without the care of good story telling and true emotion that so marked the first. Sure the dragons are cute and everyone is 5 years older (and the kids are still not Scottish or lost their now-annoying teenage mannerisms), but when compared to the first HTTYD2 loses more than it's foot this time, and apparently lost due to shooting itself there.
5 Where's The Viking Helmet Bra Continuity out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
The World's End (2013)
The World's End (R) - Review
"You can never go home again (and drink 12 pints)"
Gary, an unrepentant substance abuser, attempts to relive the single best night of his life by reuniting with his old school chums and reattempting "The Golden Mile", a pub crawl in their old hometown that they were unable to finish over 20 years ago. However the cadre has all drifted apart and (besides Gary) all grown up. This is especially true of Andy, he is still quite angry with his old best friend due to an incident involving his past drug use and moneys owed. Somehow convinced by their old leader Gary to meet and drink like the old days, the crew bounces from pub to pub while reminiscing about the bad old days as sinister outside forces begin to coalesce against the boys.
The third (and weakest) in the "Cornetto Trilogy" by filmmakers Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost (responsible for Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), The World's End has a completely different tone and construction than the other two entries and therefore ends up the black sheep. While certainly humorous in parts and with a good amount of drunken UK kung-fu brawling (which isn't all that convincing), the overall anger and depression seeped into this tale of alcoholics and bad blood between buddies poisons the already tenuous humor of the situation. Throw in the iffy conspiracy movie trope and you end up with a mish-mashy confused film, very unlike its brethren that each had clear cut targets for their lunacy (Zombie flicks and Hollywood Action flicks respectively). The World's End doesn't know whether to choke back emotions or choke down the next beer from scene to scene. While the other entries in the trilogy start off strong and maintain a comedic momentum through their ludicrous pinball-like plots, The World's End starts off with a severely unfunny intro and then takes another 15-20 minutes before the suds start to flow and the comedy starts to show, and by then the movie is certainly crawling through a conspiracy subplot that while the filmmakers have thoroughly interwoven it can never be full accepted as nessecary to the plot.
While Gary (Simon Pegg) definitely becomes more likable and his selfish mannerisms become a tad more endearing by the 6th pint, he is written as a self destructive self centered mildly amusing alcoholic, and as central to the movie as he is the role is removed from the loveable half-slacker or reclusive procedural bad ass he played in the other two films. The darkness inherent to the character bleeds into the humor and relationships, knocking the overall cinematic greatness down quite a few pegs (haha). On top of that bad pun, the filmmakers have thrived on skewering/homaging famous Hollywood genres, and here the Conspiracy source material just isn't ripe enough, doesn't have a cinematic look to ape and doesn't have it's own cliche's or mythologies to mine that it feels very tacked on and quite a bit tacky. The final confrontation, in fact all the confrontations, just seem cheap and almost an afterthought to all the talking, especially in comparison to how razor sharp and beautifully minutiaed the other films were (let's not even talk about how weak the ending is in TWE). The undertow of black depression fights the theme of anti-homogenization of society for which gets in the way of the funny first.
Thankfully, Nick Frost gets the meaty part here as Andy, the wronged former best friend who is seething with rage and unresolved issues. Normally relegated to the off kilter chubby sidekick, once Andy starts downing drinks and WWF Bionic Elbowing the enemy the movie really starts to pick up. He has the best role here, both emotionally and action heroey, and since Pegg's Gary's shadow is so stunted in TWE Frost is finally able to step out of it and become a force to be reckoned with. Single handedly Nick saves The World's End from total oblivion (just as Andy saves his friends), leaving a half and half, black and tan kind of movie where even though its suds are warm and mostly flat, can still be drunk and gotten some kind of buzz from it. Individual tastes may or may not enjoy the resulting hangover.
5.5 Marmalade Sandwiches out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"You can never go home again (and drink 12 pints)"
Gary, an unrepentant substance abuser, attempts to relive the single best night of his life by reuniting with his old school chums and reattempting "The Golden Mile", a pub crawl in their old hometown that they were unable to finish over 20 years ago. However the cadre has all drifted apart and (besides Gary) all grown up. This is especially true of Andy, he is still quite angry with his old best friend due to an incident involving his past drug use and moneys owed. Somehow convinced by their old leader Gary to meet and drink like the old days, the crew bounces from pub to pub while reminiscing about the bad old days as sinister outside forces begin to coalesce against the boys.
The third (and weakest) in the "Cornetto Trilogy" by filmmakers Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost (responsible for Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), The World's End has a completely different tone and construction than the other two entries and therefore ends up the black sheep. While certainly humorous in parts and with a good amount of drunken UK kung-fu brawling (which isn't all that convincing), the overall anger and depression seeped into this tale of alcoholics and bad blood between buddies poisons the already tenuous humor of the situation. Throw in the iffy conspiracy movie trope and you end up with a mish-mashy confused film, very unlike its brethren that each had clear cut targets for their lunacy (Zombie flicks and Hollywood Action flicks respectively). The World's End doesn't know whether to choke back emotions or choke down the next beer from scene to scene. While the other entries in the trilogy start off strong and maintain a comedic momentum through their ludicrous pinball-like plots, The World's End starts off with a severely unfunny intro and then takes another 15-20 minutes before the suds start to flow and the comedy starts to show, and by then the movie is certainly crawling through a conspiracy subplot that while the filmmakers have thoroughly interwoven it can never be full accepted as nessecary to the plot.
While Gary (Simon Pegg) definitely becomes more likable and his selfish mannerisms become a tad more endearing by the 6th pint, he is written as a self destructive self centered mildly amusing alcoholic, and as central to the movie as he is the role is removed from the loveable half-slacker or reclusive procedural bad ass he played in the other two films. The darkness inherent to the character bleeds into the humor and relationships, knocking the overall cinematic greatness down quite a few pegs (haha). On top of that bad pun, the filmmakers have thrived on skewering/homaging famous Hollywood genres, and here the Conspiracy source material just isn't ripe enough, doesn't have a cinematic look to ape and doesn't have it's own cliche's or mythologies to mine that it feels very tacked on and quite a bit tacky. The final confrontation, in fact all the confrontations, just seem cheap and almost an afterthought to all the talking, especially in comparison to how razor sharp and beautifully minutiaed the other films were (let's not even talk about how weak the ending is in TWE). The undertow of black depression fights the theme of anti-homogenization of society for which gets in the way of the funny first.
Thankfully, Nick Frost gets the meaty part here as Andy, the wronged former best friend who is seething with rage and unresolved issues. Normally relegated to the off kilter chubby sidekick, once Andy starts downing drinks and WWF Bionic Elbowing the enemy the movie really starts to pick up. He has the best role here, both emotionally and action heroey, and since Pegg's Gary's shadow is so stunted in TWE Frost is finally able to step out of it and become a force to be reckoned with. Single handedly Nick saves The World's End from total oblivion (just as Andy saves his friends), leaving a half and half, black and tan kind of movie where even though its suds are warm and mostly flat, can still be drunk and gotten some kind of buzz from it. Individual tastes may or may not enjoy the resulting hangover.
5.5 Marmalade Sandwiches out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Elysium (2013)
Elysium (PG-13) - Review
"More Cyber-Junk than Cyber-Punk"
Not content with the Racial equality parable of District 9, director Neill Blomkamp turns his sites on Mexican-American immigration reform for this overwhelmingly underwhelming SciFi snoozer starring Mat Damon as Max, a misunderstood misanthrope in a brown man's world with only days to live and interplanetary habitats to reach and get magically healed by.
Blomkamp sticks with the bluecollar ethos that made D9 so successful, albeit this time with a Hollywood megastar and a bunch of thinly veiled stabs at US foreign policy, immigration policy, Blackwater soldiering and corporational politics. You see everyone up in the Orbital station known as Elysium gets free unlimited magical health care pods (wasn't that also in Prometheus, and what the GOP doesn't want?), and only the richest get to buy a ticket to live there. Everyone on Earth lives and works and gets cancer in Big Mexico (whats left of SoCal), the Elysium people just send down robots and shuttle pods to keep the Have Nots under control. Then comes Max, a former car thief now reformed factory worker who dreams of one day taking the ride up to Elysium but when Max gets filled with radiation at work due to workplace neglicence (Workman's comp apparently also is only available on Elysium) he must now reach the station and maybe change the situations of millions of his Earthbound brethern.
Every on Earth speaks Spanish and English, while everyone in orbit speaks English and French and attends lawn parties all day and don't work. How this economy is sustained, what is the basis of law and order and the constitution, why humans (rich and poor) would totally submit to robotic computer control that can be changed with a couple of lines of C++ are all questions that go unanswered in Elysium. The film is a very thin premise stretched to only an hour and a half, with no big action movie payoffs to stave off the eye rolling shmaltz. Jodie Foster retains the current Queen of SciFi status with her role as Space Margret Thatcher, who explodes refugee boats with impunity and will implement a coup if anyone argues with her strangely over acted weirdly dubbed space accent. She hires Kruger (Sharlto Copley, the hero of District 9) as her blackops monster, and his miscasting in the role is just outright terrible. Sharlto's bad guy wears a exoskeleton, wears fur blankets, sneers and bumbles along waving a samurai sword in the worst kind of SyFy Tv special cliche (use a gun jack hole!). It's not his fault, its the script, written by Blomkamp, which is such a drastic reversal from District 9's hopeful breakout. The story is so filled with holes (like the Spider character however), so many wretchedly nauseating flash backs to the golden years of youth, so many "why would he do that, why would that happen" moments, so much promise of Cyber-punk body modification and human/computer scientific theory so mishandled and without gravitas it feels the scriptwriter doesn't even understand the basics of the genre and also so without the clear clean visuals of D9 that are instead replaced with a shaky action cam so shoddy as to make the late great Tony Scott snort in derision. Mostly the script is so narrow minded, it so sorely lacks a large enough scope, the film's promise so sadly unfulfilled and the entire film such a large step down from his fresh faced freshman film that Blomkamp's Elysium appears to have made the Sophomore mistake of waking up late with a face full of zits, not combing it's hair and blinking for its school picture in comparison (don't expect a nomination for best dressed or most likely to succeed for either of them).
3 Did I Really Believe Lockout's SciFi More? out of 10 (BAD)
"More Cyber-Junk than Cyber-Punk"
Not content with the Racial equality parable of District 9, director Neill Blomkamp turns his sites on Mexican-American immigration reform for this overwhelmingly underwhelming SciFi snoozer starring Mat Damon as Max, a misunderstood misanthrope in a brown man's world with only days to live and interplanetary habitats to reach and get magically healed by.
Blomkamp sticks with the bluecollar ethos that made D9 so successful, albeit this time with a Hollywood megastar and a bunch of thinly veiled stabs at US foreign policy, immigration policy, Blackwater soldiering and corporational politics. You see everyone up in the Orbital station known as Elysium gets free unlimited magical health care pods (wasn't that also in Prometheus, and what the GOP doesn't want?), and only the richest get to buy a ticket to live there. Everyone on Earth lives and works and gets cancer in Big Mexico (whats left of SoCal), the Elysium people just send down robots and shuttle pods to keep the Have Nots under control. Then comes Max, a former car thief now reformed factory worker who dreams of one day taking the ride up to Elysium but when Max gets filled with radiation at work due to workplace neglicence (Workman's comp apparently also is only available on Elysium) he must now reach the station and maybe change the situations of millions of his Earthbound brethern.
Every on Earth speaks Spanish and English, while everyone in orbit speaks English and French and attends lawn parties all day and don't work. How this economy is sustained, what is the basis of law and order and the constitution, why humans (rich and poor) would totally submit to robotic computer control that can be changed with a couple of lines of C++ are all questions that go unanswered in Elysium. The film is a very thin premise stretched to only an hour and a half, with no big action movie payoffs to stave off the eye rolling shmaltz. Jodie Foster retains the current Queen of SciFi status with her role as Space Margret Thatcher, who explodes refugee boats with impunity and will implement a coup if anyone argues with her strangely over acted weirdly dubbed space accent. She hires Kruger (Sharlto Copley, the hero of District 9) as her blackops monster, and his miscasting in the role is just outright terrible. Sharlto's bad guy wears a exoskeleton, wears fur blankets, sneers and bumbles along waving a samurai sword in the worst kind of SyFy Tv special cliche (use a gun jack hole!). It's not his fault, its the script, written by Blomkamp, which is such a drastic reversal from District 9's hopeful breakout. The story is so filled with holes (like the Spider character however), so many wretchedly nauseating flash backs to the golden years of youth, so many "why would he do that, why would that happen" moments, so much promise of Cyber-punk body modification and human/computer scientific theory so mishandled and without gravitas it feels the scriptwriter doesn't even understand the basics of the genre and also so without the clear clean visuals of D9 that are instead replaced with a shaky action cam so shoddy as to make the late great Tony Scott snort in derision. Mostly the script is so narrow minded, it so sorely lacks a large enough scope, the film's promise so sadly unfulfilled and the entire film such a large step down from his fresh faced freshman film that Blomkamp's Elysium appears to have made the Sophomore mistake of waking up late with a face full of zits, not combing it's hair and blinking for its school picture in comparison (don't expect a nomination for best dressed or most likely to succeed for either of them).
3 Did I Really Believe Lockout's SciFi More? out of 10 (BAD)
Snowpiercer (2013)
Snowpiercer (R) - Review
"Goin' off the rails on a Crazy Train!"
Adapted (apparently somewhat loosely) from an obscure early 1980s French graphic novel and directed by acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-Ho (The Host), Snowpiercer is his first English effort and tells the supremely strange tale of a train populated with the last of humanity in a frozen alternate Earth and the struggle of the rear passengers for a better life. Chris Evans (Capt America) and John Hurt (Alien) lead the abject slaves of the rear cars on a revolt against draconian segregation and abysmal living conditions that the trains staff (lead by typecast sourpuss Tilda Swinton) and the train's creator (a malevolent Ed Harris) have forced upon them. How they got there and where they go is Snowpiercer's tale to tell, but overall it may not be worth the ticket to ride.
There is little background to explain the situation of these underprivileged-come-they-represent-us-on-the-train-of-life, just that an experimental form of fighting global warming with chem-trails has left the Earth a lifeless tundra, and that an unstoppable train that runs throughout the entire world contains the sum total of humanity. Preposterous as it sounds (and it remains), the premise is in fact the biggest asset to the film. The emotions are misplaced, CGI is slipshod and cheap, the action sequences oddly misguided, the cartoonishly over the top front cars betray the stark horror and gritty realism of the rear cars. Surprises and great moments await those who wish to board, but the message of the film may have been lost in one of the translations, what with the rightwing/leftwing conspiracy theories and 99%/1% class warfare that has gone from French to Korean to English. What was lost seems to have been a clarity of thought, clearness in action and distilled complexity that is sadly missing from such an intriguingly bizarre unHollywood premise, for the movie often barrels the train into very Hollywood-like territory (perhaps Weinstein was right to call for more editing, if handled well). Still, the uniqueness is omnipresent and there are undeniable moments of greatness, especially for fans of WTF-OLs and sci fi action. There's just not enough of it to toot it's own horn.
6 Slow Motion Fish Axe Moments out of 10 (GOOD)
"Goin' off the rails on a Crazy Train!"
Adapted (apparently somewhat loosely) from an obscure early 1980s French graphic novel and directed by acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-Ho (The Host), Snowpiercer is his first English effort and tells the supremely strange tale of a train populated with the last of humanity in a frozen alternate Earth and the struggle of the rear passengers for a better life. Chris Evans (Capt America) and John Hurt (Alien) lead the abject slaves of the rear cars on a revolt against draconian segregation and abysmal living conditions that the trains staff (lead by typecast sourpuss Tilda Swinton) and the train's creator (a malevolent Ed Harris) have forced upon them. How they got there and where they go is Snowpiercer's tale to tell, but overall it may not be worth the ticket to ride.
There is little background to explain the situation of these underprivileged-come-they-represent-us-on-the-train-of-life, just that an experimental form of fighting global warming with chem-trails has left the Earth a lifeless tundra, and that an unstoppable train that runs throughout the entire world contains the sum total of humanity. Preposterous as it sounds (and it remains), the premise is in fact the biggest asset to the film. The emotions are misplaced, CGI is slipshod and cheap, the action sequences oddly misguided, the cartoonishly over the top front cars betray the stark horror and gritty realism of the rear cars. Surprises and great moments await those who wish to board, but the message of the film may have been lost in one of the translations, what with the rightwing/leftwing conspiracy theories and 99%/1% class warfare that has gone from French to Korean to English. What was lost seems to have been a clarity of thought, clearness in action and distilled complexity that is sadly missing from such an intriguingly bizarre unHollywood premise, for the movie often barrels the train into very Hollywood-like territory (perhaps Weinstein was right to call for more editing, if handled well). Still, the uniqueness is omnipresent and there are undeniable moments of greatness, especially for fans of WTF-OLs and sci fi action. There's just not enough of it to toot it's own horn.
6 Slow Motion Fish Axe Moments out of 10 (GOOD)
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (PG-13)
"Sequel fails to deliver, news at 11"
The Action News Team returns to the dawning of the 80s in this unwise sequel to the strange comedy gold that was the sexy sexist 70s. This time they are joining a new 24hour cycle cable-news network, and Ron finds almost immediate success as an empty-air anchor, doing light breezy humanitarian stories that fill up the hours. Unfortunately the jokes and off-the-cuff humor isn't as successful. Whole plot lines feel like last-minute brain-storms (Ron is racist at dinner, Ron goes blind, Ron works at Seaworld!), and if the jokes landed we'd be more ok with that. The sequel feels more like Ron's solo movie than the comedy team work that was a well-oiled, very odd comedy gold machine last flick. Brick (Steve Carrell) gets a girlfriend, but Champ and Brian are both sidelined. Starts off funny but it soon fades, has very little of the lunatic creativity of the original, put down the scotch and change the channel.
4 Thrown Burritos out of 10 (BAD)
"Sequel fails to deliver, news at 11"
The Action News Team returns to the dawning of the 80s in this unwise sequel to the strange comedy gold that was the sexy sexist 70s. This time they are joining a new 24hour cycle cable-news network, and Ron finds almost immediate success as an empty-air anchor, doing light breezy humanitarian stories that fill up the hours. Unfortunately the jokes and off-the-cuff humor isn't as successful. Whole plot lines feel like last-minute brain-storms (Ron is racist at dinner, Ron goes blind, Ron works at Seaworld!), and if the jokes landed we'd be more ok with that. The sequel feels more like Ron's solo movie than the comedy team work that was a well-oiled, very odd comedy gold machine last flick. Brick (Steve Carrell) gets a girlfriend, but Champ and Brian are both sidelined. Starts off funny but it soon fades, has very little of the lunatic creativity of the original, put down the scotch and change the channel.
4 Thrown Burritos out of 10 (BAD)
42 (2013)
42 (PG-13)
"Did I see Jackie Robinson hit that ball? Not very often..."
The life and times of race pioneer (and home plate stealing) legend Jackie Robinson is brought to the silver screen with a pandering ad-campaign obscuring a well-meaning film that shys away from delving too deep into the issues, social morays or the game of baseball to satisfy many fans.
Jackie was MLB's first black player, and the racism he faced from fans, players and management is front and center, but Jackie the man is not. He is played well, but written without the repressed fire and anger that is widely considered to have prematurely aged the man. Focusing only on his first tenuous record breaking year (shattering both race barriers and league records for the Brooklyn Dodgers), the movie leaves off much of Robinson's later fights for civil rights and ball players. 42 turns Jackie into more of a sketch, crude yet accurate, but without the humanity and rage the real man must have dealt with. His white sponsor, owner Branch Rickey, gets almost as much screen time and steals many scenes as he is played with growling confidence by Harrison Ford who is allowed to be both altruistic and capitalistic as the Dodgers tenacious owner.
There are good moments (Alan Tudyk's racist midgame tirade is a standout in a mostly bland film that feels like its stepping on eggshells), but the film is just too vanilla for such an astonishing life as Robinson's. Even as a baseball movie the film lets us down, the game is barely shown or its innate spirit goes untapped. 42 doesn't try to swing for the bleachers, but it does reach base on a Walk, so it wasn't a completely wasted at-bat.
5 African-American Movie Trailers must contain Hip Hop out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Did I see Jackie Robinson hit that ball? Not very often..."
The life and times of race pioneer (and home plate stealing) legend Jackie Robinson is brought to the silver screen with a pandering ad-campaign obscuring a well-meaning film that shys away from delving too deep into the issues, social morays or the game of baseball to satisfy many fans.
Jackie was MLB's first black player, and the racism he faced from fans, players and management is front and center, but Jackie the man is not. He is played well, but written without the repressed fire and anger that is widely considered to have prematurely aged the man. Focusing only on his first tenuous record breaking year (shattering both race barriers and league records for the Brooklyn Dodgers), the movie leaves off much of Robinson's later fights for civil rights and ball players. 42 turns Jackie into more of a sketch, crude yet accurate, but without the humanity and rage the real man must have dealt with. His white sponsor, owner Branch Rickey, gets almost as much screen time and steals many scenes as he is played with growling confidence by Harrison Ford who is allowed to be both altruistic and capitalistic as the Dodgers tenacious owner.
There are good moments (Alan Tudyk's racist midgame tirade is a standout in a mostly bland film that feels like its stepping on eggshells), but the film is just too vanilla for such an astonishing life as Robinson's. Even as a baseball movie the film lets us down, the game is barely shown or its innate spirit goes untapped. 42 doesn't try to swing for the bleachers, but it does reach base on a Walk, so it wasn't a completely wasted at-bat.
5 African-American Movie Trailers must contain Hip Hop out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
The Great Gatsby (2013)
The Great Gatsby (PG-13)
"Party Hardly"
Still struggling to find another monster hit after a decade following "Moulin Rouge," Australian eccentric Director extraordinaire Baz Lurhmann sets his sites on the great American novel standard The Great Gatsby and generates a film that would have cost Gatsby his great bootlegging fortune, leaving him penniless and heartbroken yet again.
Leo DiCaprio (The Departed) stars as Gatsby, and is perfect in the role as a wealthy mystery man with a savoir fair for parties. He is partnered with Spider-Man's Tobey McGuire as his doe-eyed neighbor Nick, who gains his friendship and cupid's wings regarding his past love (Carey Mulligan). The story is well known, but the roaring 20s are brought to life by stupendous costuming and overzealous set design, while the movie falls flat on its straw hat as the jazz gives way to hip-hop rap stars and becomes overladen with CGI whizbang camera moves. The whole endeavor is devoid of an actual soul, which is particularity troubling considering Fitzgerald's much beloved book is brimming with it and foretells a future where riches and wealth might preclude class and upbringing in society, much like Baz's film becomes completely three-upped by Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street (also starring Leo, speaking to American greed and released the same year). Wolf makes its point with a bigger bang than Gatsby's model T, which goes out with an odorous backfire.
3 Dimensions, I'll stick with 2 out of 10 (BAD)
"Party Hardly"
Still struggling to find another monster hit after a decade following "Moulin Rouge," Australian eccentric Director extraordinaire Baz Lurhmann sets his sites on the great American novel standard The Great Gatsby and generates a film that would have cost Gatsby his great bootlegging fortune, leaving him penniless and heartbroken yet again.
Leo DiCaprio (The Departed) stars as Gatsby, and is perfect in the role as a wealthy mystery man with a savoir fair for parties. He is partnered with Spider-Man's Tobey McGuire as his doe-eyed neighbor Nick, who gains his friendship and cupid's wings regarding his past love (Carey Mulligan). The story is well known, but the roaring 20s are brought to life by stupendous costuming and overzealous set design, while the movie falls flat on its straw hat as the jazz gives way to hip-hop rap stars and becomes overladen with CGI whizbang camera moves. The whole endeavor is devoid of an actual soul, which is particularity troubling considering Fitzgerald's much beloved book is brimming with it and foretells a future where riches and wealth might preclude class and upbringing in society, much like Baz's film becomes completely three-upped by Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street (also starring Leo, speaking to American greed and released the same year). Wolf makes its point with a bigger bang than Gatsby's model T, which goes out with an odorous backfire.
3 Dimensions, I'll stick with 2 out of 10 (BAD)
Evil Dead (2013)
Evil Dead (R) - Review
"JOIN US... (but why?)"
5 young people are trapped in a rural cabin, an evil book has unleashed demonic forces which possess them one by one, leading to dismemberment and torture as the evil spreads. The reformulated plot from the cult classic The Evil Dead (1981) ends up less than the sum of its hacked off parts. It's major failings are actually the well known cliches and conventions of the modern horror film that were so easily lampooned in last years "Cabin In The Woods" that the industry and its fans lauded and yet turned have apparently turned a blind ear to.
While maintaining a heavy torrential downpour of gore and menace, the film completely misses the point of the mindless black hearted fun the original had. Instead of a group of horny kids drinking and carousing in the woods, here the very serious youths are sexless red herrings staging an intervention for their junky female friend (and sister), which I'm sure we all can relate too (right?). So many horror movies have borrowed from the original Evil Dead over the years that when it comes back around now we are left with is a copy of a copy of a copy, suffering terrible generational loss as the standard hohum scares of modern day hollywood flicks such as in "Insidious" are shunted in to take the place of the fresh energy of low budget invention that was present in the original.
What isn't new was done better in the original (or wisely unconceived). The build up to the cabin, the admittedly small bits of characater development, the insanely manic zeal of cast and crew is isntead replaced with an unnecessary and dumb preamble, unwise half-stitched-on heroin subplot, unlikeable characters and professional visuals so muddy and dark and with a narrow depth of field that the special make up effects are often hard to see. The only thing that could have been modernized but wasn't is the sadistic level of violence against women. Even though they tried to take the sting off of it by swapping the gender role of "hero" of the film from Ash to the junky Mia, even that is a copy of other failed remakes (i.e. Night of the Living Dead 1990). The script alone has more egregious errors when compared to the first (which wasn't Shakespeare to begin with), with some baffling and truly embarrassing dialogue (science book?).
When the best bit of acting is a one-liner cameo by Bruce Campbell emoting "GROOVY." after the credits end (which is itself a not a reference or an homage but a straight up LIFT from a better movie), you have a film that is anything but. You can't just throw gore at the problems and expect it to improve, you gotta "Hail to the King" when you clutch the bloody coattails of your betters..
4 Oldsmobile Deltas out of 10 (BAD)
"JOIN US... (but why?)"
5 young people are trapped in a rural cabin, an evil book has unleashed demonic forces which possess them one by one, leading to dismemberment and torture as the evil spreads. The reformulated plot from the cult classic The Evil Dead (1981) ends up less than the sum of its hacked off parts. It's major failings are actually the well known cliches and conventions of the modern horror film that were so easily lampooned in last years "Cabin In The Woods" that the industry and its fans lauded and yet turned have apparently turned a blind ear to.
While maintaining a heavy torrential downpour of gore and menace, the film completely misses the point of the mindless black hearted fun the original had. Instead of a group of horny kids drinking and carousing in the woods, here the very serious youths are sexless red herrings staging an intervention for their junky female friend (and sister), which I'm sure we all can relate too (right?). So many horror movies have borrowed from the original Evil Dead over the years that when it comes back around now we are left with is a copy of a copy of a copy, suffering terrible generational loss as the standard hohum scares of modern day hollywood flicks such as in "Insidious" are shunted in to take the place of the fresh energy of low budget invention that was present in the original.
What isn't new was done better in the original (or wisely unconceived). The build up to the cabin, the admittedly small bits of characater development, the insanely manic zeal of cast and crew is isntead replaced with an unnecessary and dumb preamble, unwise half-stitched-on heroin subplot, unlikeable characters and professional visuals so muddy and dark and with a narrow depth of field that the special make up effects are often hard to see. The only thing that could have been modernized but wasn't is the sadistic level of violence against women. Even though they tried to take the sting off of it by swapping the gender role of "hero" of the film from Ash to the junky Mia, even that is a copy of other failed remakes (i.e. Night of the Living Dead 1990). The script alone has more egregious errors when compared to the first (which wasn't Shakespeare to begin with), with some baffling and truly embarrassing dialogue (science book?).
When the best bit of acting is a one-liner cameo by Bruce Campbell emoting "GROOVY." after the credits end (which is itself a not a reference or an homage but a straight up LIFT from a better movie), you have a film that is anything but. You can't just throw gore at the problems and expect it to improve, you gotta "Hail to the King" when you clutch the bloody coattails of your betters..
4 Oldsmobile Deltas out of 10 (BAD)
Django Unchained (2012)
Django Unchained (R) - Review
"Uncle Quentin's Cabin"
Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) has been cruising lately, making vague clones of film geek genre pictures that were popular popculture fodder from the 70s. He did it in 2003 and 04 with the Kill Bill films (Hong Kong kung fu action films brought back to life). He did it in 2007 with Grindhouse's Death Proof (a quasi HorrorSlasher flick using a car). He did it again in 2009 to critical acclaim with Inglorious Basterds (a WWII exploited squad adventure flick soaked in revenge and intrigue). And now he brings us Django, a throwback to the blaxploitation and the spaghetti westerns of our father's VCR days. Jamie Foxx stars as the former slave hell bent on getting his wife back from villainous plantation owner Leonardo DiCaprio. Django is aided and trained by a sage German Dentist played by Christoph Waltz who's acting antics again tries to both steal the show and head it dangerously towards buffoonery. Racism is unavoidable in Django but that noose is mostly slipped with the movie's only truly great (and highly comedic) scene when the Klux Klan (lead by Don Johnson and Jonah Hill) is arguing about the comfort level and practicality of riding around wearing hoods. Slipped but not forgotten since near the end of the film Sam Jackson shows up as DiCaprio's sinister head house slave and resident Uncle Tom in an interesting but slightly out of place role. Jackson's substandard "MF bombs" are each blows to the balancing act of realism and truth Django's world had been trying to achieve. The final act's stretch and breaking of said worlds rules further frustrated me; better to have the final shoot out be the final shoot out than to try and have me believe a slaver would trustingly hand a former slave a gun which then just lead us back to that same conclusion. These are writing problems, editorial problems, thematic problems and all three just throw Django off from greatness.
In fact, the entire movie as a whole has an off kilter out of placeness to it. For a Tarantino film it has shockingly few dialogue pieces, murky and unexpressed motivations, the soundtrack just didn't sizzle with that funky hipness that usually drives his movies along. And then there are the standard QT film cliches. It is wordy and overlong (2 hours 45 minutes for a silly shootemup western?), it is too flippant about serious race issues and that is always a distraction, the exploitation film conventions of swish pans and zooms feel throw away and tacked on and disingenuous, Quentin's acting (Australian accent, really??!?!) was atrocious as always but that's not to mention the eccentric affectations and scenery chewing performed by his a-list cast. Somewhere in there is supposed to be a romantic tale of a husband saving his wife but honestly Django often seems to forget that fact and when it happens it felt hallow and without power, Quentin was more interested in the blood and bullets than love and racism it impeded.
This still is a master story teller at work and these are some of his strongest visuals yet. His eye for minutia is unmatched, the way a german pours a beer, the welts on a slaves back, the costumes and period locations all are top notch and speak to a high level of preproduction. The single slow motion shot of blood spraying onto a cotton bloom ingeniously summarizes the entire film's narrative and morality, it is unfortunate the rest of the movie is not so quick witted. If it is overlong perhaps it is due to the loss of his beloved editor Sally Menke who had cut all of QTs movies up until her tragic death in 2010. The pace isn't as electric, the seams show a bit more and it wore on me just slightly (15-20 minutes or so less would have elevated it above just pop entertainment). The expected funky groove just didn't bloom.
Django is not a failure, it has enough squibs and brutality and humor to please any audience. I think there are some like me who might be a little let down that he hasn't progressed beyond (nay, he has even sunk further into) his exploitation film roots. QT's Pulp Fiction founded a genre, not followed one. This is the kind of lazy rehash I know Tarantino can bang out on a whim and a weekend, it lacked the obvious signs of deep artistic forethought and the stunning level of writing he at times can produce. This is old hat for Tarantino, and I for one would like to see him try on something new (the 10 gallon variety was a good choice though).
6.5 N words out of 10 (GOOD)
"Uncle Quentin's Cabin"
Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) has been cruising lately, making vague clones of film geek genre pictures that were popular popculture fodder from the 70s. He did it in 2003 and 04 with the Kill Bill films (Hong Kong kung fu action films brought back to life). He did it in 2007 with Grindhouse's Death Proof (a quasi HorrorSlasher flick using a car). He did it again in 2009 to critical acclaim with Inglorious Basterds (a WWII exploited squad adventure flick soaked in revenge and intrigue). And now he brings us Django, a throwback to the blaxploitation and the spaghetti westerns of our father's VCR days. Jamie Foxx stars as the former slave hell bent on getting his wife back from villainous plantation owner Leonardo DiCaprio. Django is aided and trained by a sage German Dentist played by Christoph Waltz who's acting antics again tries to both steal the show and head it dangerously towards buffoonery. Racism is unavoidable in Django but that noose is mostly slipped with the movie's only truly great (and highly comedic) scene when the Klux Klan (lead by Don Johnson and Jonah Hill) is arguing about the comfort level and practicality of riding around wearing hoods. Slipped but not forgotten since near the end of the film Sam Jackson shows up as DiCaprio's sinister head house slave and resident Uncle Tom in an interesting but slightly out of place role. Jackson's substandard "MF bombs" are each blows to the balancing act of realism and truth Django's world had been trying to achieve. The final act's stretch and breaking of said worlds rules further frustrated me; better to have the final shoot out be the final shoot out than to try and have me believe a slaver would trustingly hand a former slave a gun which then just lead us back to that same conclusion. These are writing problems, editorial problems, thematic problems and all three just throw Django off from greatness.
In fact, the entire movie as a whole has an off kilter out of placeness to it. For a Tarantino film it has shockingly few dialogue pieces, murky and unexpressed motivations, the soundtrack just didn't sizzle with that funky hipness that usually drives his movies along. And then there are the standard QT film cliches. It is wordy and overlong (2 hours 45 minutes for a silly shootemup western?), it is too flippant about serious race issues and that is always a distraction, the exploitation film conventions of swish pans and zooms feel throw away and tacked on and disingenuous, Quentin's acting (Australian accent, really??!?!) was atrocious as always but that's not to mention the eccentric affectations and scenery chewing performed by his a-list cast. Somewhere in there is supposed to be a romantic tale of a husband saving his wife but honestly Django often seems to forget that fact and when it happens it felt hallow and without power, Quentin was more interested in the blood and bullets than love and racism it impeded.
This still is a master story teller at work and these are some of his strongest visuals yet. His eye for minutia is unmatched, the way a german pours a beer, the welts on a slaves back, the costumes and period locations all are top notch and speak to a high level of preproduction. The single slow motion shot of blood spraying onto a cotton bloom ingeniously summarizes the entire film's narrative and morality, it is unfortunate the rest of the movie is not so quick witted. If it is overlong perhaps it is due to the loss of his beloved editor Sally Menke who had cut all of QTs movies up until her tragic death in 2010. The pace isn't as electric, the seams show a bit more and it wore on me just slightly (15-20 minutes or so less would have elevated it above just pop entertainment). The expected funky groove just didn't bloom.
Django is not a failure, it has enough squibs and brutality and humor to please any audience. I think there are some like me who might be a little let down that he hasn't progressed beyond (nay, he has even sunk further into) his exploitation film roots. QT's Pulp Fiction founded a genre, not followed one. This is the kind of lazy rehash I know Tarantino can bang out on a whim and a weekend, it lacked the obvious signs of deep artistic forethought and the stunning level of writing he at times can produce. This is old hat for Tarantino, and I for one would like to see him try on something new (the 10 gallon variety was a good choice though).
6.5 N words out of 10 (GOOD)
The Master (2012)
The Master (R) Review
"...The Fool or the Fool who follows him?" (Revised 3/20/2013)
PT Anderson's follow up to his last opus, Best Picture contender "There Will Be Blood" stars Juaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell, an unbalanced ex-WWII sailor drifting through the world as a hopeless violent drunk. Phoenix is astonishing, playing Freddie as a stooping maniac with a twisted evil grin, a slave to sex and homemade alcohol, a barely restrained psychotic who is let loose on an unsuspecting public by a no-longer desperate US Navy. Freddie feels real, his foibles and mannerisms adroitly make him uncomfortable to be around and yet sympathetic to the audience, Quell is a manly man and does not dwell on his pathos, he shrugs his shoulders and laughs about them. That is until he chances to meet Lancaster Dodd, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, an enigmatic man who's electric personality and wit have gathered a flock around him, the sproutings of a cult. Dodd proceeds to delve into Quell's mind, to try and cure him through his "proven" methods that he has discovered, of his alcoholism and depravities; most of all he welcomes him unabashedly into his family (his first day among them Freddie attends a Dodd family wedding) and gives him a home. Hoffman plays Dodd with enough panache to really let us understand why people would fawn over him, read his book, believe his abstract teachings, but Phoenix is the star here and has the most screen time, and rightfully so. This story is not about Scientology, does not bash or berate, instead it simply tries to show what it believes, what humans did to each other in the blossoming of the Atomic Age, one side of the coin that was the dawning of the New Age cultism. Humans looking for answers, and finding someone claiming to have them (Dodd). Much to everyone's chagrin, Freddie Quell is more interested in his next drink even as he becomes a sycophant and violent enforcer of Dodd's teachings (which he may or may not even believe in, but they do seem to assist in his quality of life). The film was shot on 65mm, the last film since Branagh's Hamlet in 1996, and the clarity and light are wonderful.
The score, once again by Radiohead's Greenwood who also did There Will Be Blood, is periodic and well done, but surprisingly not a strong character in the movie except at the very beginning. I was shocked to find myself being worn out by the slow pace of it all, of watching a film with such great performances in a story that went nowhere and seemingly had nothing to say. There were shockingly few (unlike PTA's other, I'd say more Masterful, films) moments of poignancy, of energy and life and death. The violence happens behind doors, is discussed in past tense or feels impotent (perhaps PTA is trying to break his own mold but I would say detrimentally). The nervous twitter of Punch Drunk Love or the angry machinations of There Will Be Blood are not present, the cold clarity of Hard Eigth or the youthful zest of Boogie Nights, the random calamity that is Magnolia, all missing. The movie felt very Kubrikian to me, long shots of actors characterizing for the camera, sexual tension and obsession, the framing and the construction of the scenes. Don't get me wrong, this is definately a Anderson film (it greatly resembles There Will Be Blood in beauty and texture), but one without teeth. There is no great story to tell, there is no dynamic way to tell it, no greater subtext or purpose other than "this happened", and at a long 2 hours 15 minutes it feels like a slow tedious happening. I was happy when it ended, and that is no jab at PT, this is a movie about Quell and his post-WW2 PTSD and the film's final frames satisfied me with the character's story arc. The rest of the film may not be enough to get us to that ending, in fact I believe the story is as pointless and drifting as Quell himself, Masterless.
There are many things about The Master that are unforgettable, mesmerizing (literally), and should open a few doors for some typecasted actors (Amy Adams as Dodd's wife is a pleasantly chilling performance), and when the large beauty of the open sea smacks the camera lens it is wonderful. However, I believe the best of this film is probably in the making, the dallies and extra angles and alternate and deleted scenes. Unfortunately I don't think most of that made it onto the screen, that it held itself up enough and as entertainment The Master comes across as an unfortunately dull movie about a fortunately interesting subject, a film that doesn't point fingers where we need it to and is ultimately talking about a subject that no one understands. The whys of existence and the insanity of trying to define it, so what does that say about those who attempt to? In that, The Master succeeds wonderfully, and I won't soon forget it, but will have a hard time recommending it.
*ADDENDUM*
Having rewatched the film and gotten over the shock of PT Anderson teasing his own conventions and then throwing them overboard, there can be no doubt that The Master was the best film made in 2012. PT's vision and the way he thinks around corners is flush on the screen is fascinating, infuriating ways, and while I stand by my review and everything it says, in perspective to the rest of the years choices in film it is the clear stand out. Seeing it at home also has allowed me to absorb the amazing beauty in every single frame of film, the beauty is as hypnotising as Juaquins performance, and as Paul Thomas Anderson's refusal to do what I expect. Braco, and must be watched again to appreciated fully.
8.5 Bread Filtered Cocktails out of 10 (GREAT)
Formerly 6.5 "I'm as Shocked as you are" out of 10 (GOOD)
"...The Fool or the Fool who follows him?" (Revised 3/20/2013)
PT Anderson's follow up to his last opus, Best Picture contender "There Will Be Blood" stars Juaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell, an unbalanced ex-WWII sailor drifting through the world as a hopeless violent drunk. Phoenix is astonishing, playing Freddie as a stooping maniac with a twisted evil grin, a slave to sex and homemade alcohol, a barely restrained psychotic who is let loose on an unsuspecting public by a no-longer desperate US Navy. Freddie feels real, his foibles and mannerisms adroitly make him uncomfortable to be around and yet sympathetic to the audience, Quell is a manly man and does not dwell on his pathos, he shrugs his shoulders and laughs about them. That is until he chances to meet Lancaster Dodd, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, an enigmatic man who's electric personality and wit have gathered a flock around him, the sproutings of a cult. Dodd proceeds to delve into Quell's mind, to try and cure him through his "proven" methods that he has discovered, of his alcoholism and depravities; most of all he welcomes him unabashedly into his family (his first day among them Freddie attends a Dodd family wedding) and gives him a home. Hoffman plays Dodd with enough panache to really let us understand why people would fawn over him, read his book, believe his abstract teachings, but Phoenix is the star here and has the most screen time, and rightfully so. This story is not about Scientology, does not bash or berate, instead it simply tries to show what it believes, what humans did to each other in the blossoming of the Atomic Age, one side of the coin that was the dawning of the New Age cultism. Humans looking for answers, and finding someone claiming to have them (Dodd). Much to everyone's chagrin, Freddie Quell is more interested in his next drink even as he becomes a sycophant and violent enforcer of Dodd's teachings (which he may or may not even believe in, but they do seem to assist in his quality of life). The film was shot on 65mm, the last film since Branagh's Hamlet in 1996, and the clarity and light are wonderful.
The score, once again by Radiohead's Greenwood who also did There Will Be Blood, is periodic and well done, but surprisingly not a strong character in the movie except at the very beginning. I was shocked to find myself being worn out by the slow pace of it all, of watching a film with such great performances in a story that went nowhere and seemingly had nothing to say. There were shockingly few (unlike PTA's other, I'd say more Masterful, films) moments of poignancy, of energy and life and death. The violence happens behind doors, is discussed in past tense or feels impotent (perhaps PTA is trying to break his own mold but I would say detrimentally). The nervous twitter of Punch Drunk Love or the angry machinations of There Will Be Blood are not present, the cold clarity of Hard Eigth or the youthful zest of Boogie Nights, the random calamity that is Magnolia, all missing. The movie felt very Kubrikian to me, long shots of actors characterizing for the camera, sexual tension and obsession, the framing and the construction of the scenes. Don't get me wrong, this is definately a Anderson film (it greatly resembles There Will Be Blood in beauty and texture), but one without teeth. There is no great story to tell, there is no dynamic way to tell it, no greater subtext or purpose other than "this happened", and at a long 2 hours 15 minutes it feels like a slow tedious happening. I was happy when it ended, and that is no jab at PT, this is a movie about Quell and his post-WW2 PTSD and the film's final frames satisfied me with the character's story arc. The rest of the film may not be enough to get us to that ending, in fact I believe the story is as pointless and drifting as Quell himself, Masterless.
There are many things about The Master that are unforgettable, mesmerizing (literally), and should open a few doors for some typecasted actors (Amy Adams as Dodd's wife is a pleasantly chilling performance), and when the large beauty of the open sea smacks the camera lens it is wonderful. However, I believe the best of this film is probably in the making, the dallies and extra angles and alternate and deleted scenes. Unfortunately I don't think most of that made it onto the screen, that it held itself up enough and as entertainment The Master comes across as an unfortunately dull movie about a fortunately interesting subject, a film that doesn't point fingers where we need it to and is ultimately talking about a subject that no one understands. The whys of existence and the insanity of trying to define it, so what does that say about those who attempt to? In that, The Master succeeds wonderfully, and I won't soon forget it, but will have a hard time recommending it.
*ADDENDUM*
Having rewatched the film and gotten over the shock of PT Anderson teasing his own conventions and then throwing them overboard, there can be no doubt that The Master was the best film made in 2012. PT's vision and the way he thinks around corners is flush on the screen is fascinating, infuriating ways, and while I stand by my review and everything it says, in perspective to the rest of the years choices in film it is the clear stand out. Seeing it at home also has allowed me to absorb the amazing beauty in every single frame of film, the beauty is as hypnotising as Juaquins performance, and as Paul Thomas Anderson's refusal to do what I expect. Braco, and must be watched again to appreciated fully.
8.5 Bread Filtered Cocktails out of 10 (GREAT)
Formerly 6.5 "I'm as Shocked as you are" out of 10 (GOOD)
The ABCs of Death (2012)
The ABCs of Death (R) - Review
"W is for Wildly Uneven"
The movie starts with text proclaiming that 26 different directors from around the world created a short 5-6 minute film for each letter of the alphabet for a budget of $5,000 each. They were free to write, produce and edit their shorts as they pleased, resulting in a film sold by its Producers and trailers as an Horror anthology that mostly disappoints (and sometimes embarrasses). Only a few attempted something resembling horror, most were scatological, sexually deviant or had an absurdist humor slant. Those that excelled are few and far between: a man bare knuckle boxing a dog with great music and editing in mostly slo motion, a school janitor haunted by the children he's abused and the deer he's hunted, a claymation about a boy scared of the toilet, a sick sex-torture contest to the death, a man committing seppuku, a woman's blunt attack on her bed ridden husband. For every 1 hit there are 2 absolute misses, ranging from ignorantly shallow to pretentious (or dangerously lazy to overambitious). The rest are mediocre eye rollers (or in the case of the Japanese submissions, head scratchers), it feels as if most directors took the $5k and just made whatever pet project they wanted to and completely disregarded the Death theme or the horror genre. However if you've ever seen a Sick and Twisted film festival (Spike and Mike we miss you), you'll know better what to expect and perhaps enjoy the post-movie conversations about which ones you liked or not and why. The rest of you, expect a cycle of Snore, snore, shock, snore, gasp, repeat. YMMV.
4.5 Dog Fight Club Could be an Feature Length Film out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"W is for Wildly Uneven"
The movie starts with text proclaiming that 26 different directors from around the world created a short 5-6 minute film for each letter of the alphabet for a budget of $5,000 each. They were free to write, produce and edit their shorts as they pleased, resulting in a film sold by its Producers and trailers as an Horror anthology that mostly disappoints (and sometimes embarrasses). Only a few attempted something resembling horror, most were scatological, sexually deviant or had an absurdist humor slant. Those that excelled are few and far between: a man bare knuckle boxing a dog with great music and editing in mostly slo motion, a school janitor haunted by the children he's abused and the deer he's hunted, a claymation about a boy scared of the toilet, a sick sex-torture contest to the death, a man committing seppuku, a woman's blunt attack on her bed ridden husband. For every 1 hit there are 2 absolute misses, ranging from ignorantly shallow to pretentious (or dangerously lazy to overambitious). The rest are mediocre eye rollers (or in the case of the Japanese submissions, head scratchers), it feels as if most directors took the $5k and just made whatever pet project they wanted to and completely disregarded the Death theme or the horror genre. However if you've ever seen a Sick and Twisted film festival (Spike and Mike we miss you), you'll know better what to expect and perhaps enjoy the post-movie conversations about which ones you liked or not and why. The rest of you, expect a cycle of Snore, snore, shock, snore, gasp, repeat. YMMV.
4.5 Dog Fight Club Could be an Feature Length Film out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
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About Me
- Kevin Gasaway via HardDrawn
- Turlock, California, United States
- Media and Reviews by Kevin Gasaway