Blogging Flashback: The Boy in Striped Pajamas (2008)

PG-13, 1 hr. 33 min. Directed by: Mark Herman. Release Date: Nov 07, 2008. DVD Release Date: Mar 10, 2009.

Beautiful and terrible, full of joy and sorrow, this movie serves as a warning that innocence shouldn't always be protected... because sometimes knowledge that isn't so pretty can save your life.  It's been a few years since I streamed this on Netflix, and I'm still not sure whether to love the story of friendship or abhor what ultimately happens, so I'm probably going to do both.

I got pointed to this film by one of my readers, and I have to say that she hit all the good points when she described it. I don't know how accurate this movie is in a historical sense, but it made me think (and refamiliarizing myself with the process the Nazis followed during the Holocaust). The movie is a roller-coaster of emotions, all well-foreshadowed so I found myself wishing what I thought was going to happen wouldn't happen. It's a film of many parts, a World War II movie in which no shots were fired, a coming of age story in which the involved parties were forced to come of age before their times, a story of the sacrifices made during friendship and the damage done by deceit, even to protect the young. As a holocaust film, this is relatively gentle, certainly Schindler's List was more direct and to the point, but the idea here is to get us in to the heads of two young boys: one the son of an SS officer, the other a Jew, living in a work camp that is being fitted to serve as a death camp.

There wasn't much about this that I didn't like, but what I especially liked was this discussed the social damage and the rifts that came from the creation and continuation of the Third Reich. It's not apologist by any means, and I would say that the guilty pay the highest price for their beliefs, but we are able to see how families were ripped apart by politics and fear, and how many Germans may have felt the prejudice that helped Hitler's control, but not so many were in agreement with the way things were handled. Scenes with the tutors were also an excellent way to see how Hitler's propaganda machine was taught to the young, and should serve that the only difference between "history" and "propaganda" is who tells the story.

I hated the opening scenes where the boys are running through… I can't remember the German city except that it wasn't Berlin, playing a game where they're fighters or bombers. It was too long and there wasn't enough dialogue (direct or otherwise) to keep my interest for a few minutes.  If I'd been in a different mood, or hadn't gotten that recommendation, I might have looked for something a little easier to handle.

The final scenes are horrible, not in the way they are crafted, but in what they present to the audience. I loved this movie, but I'm not sure I'd want to watch the ending again.  I'd recommend this cautiously to folks.  You might respect the message, but this isn't a movie to be enjoyed.

He Ain't Your Old Buddy Ted (2012)

R, 1 hr. 55 min.  Directed By:  Seth MacFarlane.  Release Date:  Jun 29, 2012.

I have something that I recite every once in a while that I call my Pessimist's Creedo:  when you're a pessimist, people never disappoint you and only rarely surprise you.  Think about that, just for a minute.  You know I'm right.

So when I say, I wasn't disappointment, but I was surprised, realize how much I liked this movie.  Particularly I was surprised by the lead players in this piece:  Mark Wahlberg had me in palpatations because not only do I worry about his range on stage,  he's never, ever funny.  Even when he's supposed to be.  I still suspect he's the primary reason I hated Date Night.  Mila Kunis is a mixed bag, although I think she basically proves the adage practice makes perfect.  While I rarely see her not playing a variant of this role, she's done it so frequently now that she's getting really good.

The two of them are really good together, even those he's clearly like twice her age.  But, I actually thought this was a great assembly of the Family Guy cast with a few additions and now I think Wahlberg should join them on occasion, possibly as a talking teddy bear that gets up to some shit with Brian and/or Stewie.

There are a few things that weren't great:  in many ways, I kind of felt like this was just another episode of Family Guy.  The only big player from the show not in this movie was Seth Green.  They pulled out all the stops, mostly in folks I didn't know by name, but I recognized by voice after years of hearing them do voice overs.  So, if you like MacFarlane's shows, you'll like this movie.  The humor is basically identical.  

Also, it would have been awesome if they could have thrown us a curve.  The story is so obvious that it's like being on the freeway where signs are indicating that you're going to have fewer lanes up ahead.  Me and a ouija board could have predicted the last half of the movie with little effort.  

That being said, I have every intention of adding this to my collection.  I'm not averse to comedy of the absurd so long as it isn't over the top, and this isn't.  But, I'm left with one final question:  which is more absurd, the teddy bear swearing or Patrick Stewart swearing...? 

If Only You Could Be People Like Us (2012)

PG-13, 1 hr. 55 min.  Directed By:  Alex Kurtzman.  Release Date:  Jun 29, 2012.

Two years ago, almost to the day, we had the funeral for my dad.  Well, not my dad in the sperm donor sense, but my stepdad.  He was the guy who raised me, who got me through school, who taught me to shave after I'd had enough of the peach fuzz on my lip and slashed through so much it looked like I had a harelip.  He was basically my male parent that I can't remember not being there in the exact opposite way that I can't remember my biodad being there.  In some ways, my mom and I were the other family.  I'm not going to air a tremendous amount of family laundry here, but there were enough parallels to my own life that I felt compelled to talk about them.  We weren't secret, and it was frequently complicated, and I had met my stepsisters long before my parents married.  Hell, I'm even from Los Angeles, and I can probably make a good guess as to which neighborhood in LA Frankie and her son lived in.

Because of this, I had a personal connection to People Like Us.  But that's not the only reason that I thought this was a decent movie.  The relationship, and resulting implosion between Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks felt genuine, although I do think Banks' Frankie is perhaps the queen of overreaction.  But the interaction between Frankie and her son whose name I cannot remember even a little bit, was so real it was touching (and I had to laugh when the women sitting next to me lost their damned minds at the, um, "romantic" scene between Frankie and Pine's Sam).  

I really dug the cast.  I've been hit or miss on Chris Pine, but I thought he was great here.  Elizabeth Banks I never remember from one role to the other until I look her up later thinking "who the hell is that?"  I always like her, and this is no exception.  The rest of the cast was exceptional, to include the young actor playing the boy on the poster.  

Now, does this movie have a few problems?  It does.  It drags through the middle like someone's attached an anchor to it.  It's a bit high on the melodrama, easily exceeding the FDA recommended dosage.  Can I live with all that?  This time, I can.  You probably can too.

Blogging Flashbacks: Grandma's Boy (2006)

R. Directed by: Nick Goossen.  Release Date: Jan 06, 2006. DVD Release Date: May 09, 2006.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH NEW COMMENTS/EDITS****

Generation-spanning and outrageously funny, this is a new look at some very familiar faces.  Most of them have NEVER been funnier than what we see here.

Saying a Happy Madison Production film is funny is a bit like saying the Titanic was a small boating incident.  Well, if you're talking about the Happy Madison Production films made before say 2000 you're golden, otherwise it's a total craps shoot.  Grandma’s Boy kind of underlines that. There’s little here that I don’t find hysterical, especially in light of the fact that the movie uses two sets of stereotypes in order to be funny: it provides a very Generation X portrayal of the oldest living American generation, those folks who were born between World War I and the start of World War II. It’s all very funny, especially once the three elderly ladies start drinking weed tea and boozing it up with bikers. Then, it has a very different perspective and paints it across the characters in their 20s and 30s: lazy, un-ambitious, promiscuous, and drug and alcohol abusing people who goof around and belittle their elders. 

The movie is fun and goofy in an uncomplicated fashion and depicts a common enough thing… at least common enough since the 1990s: adult children who either don’t leave home, or come back after a few years on their own. While most of the adaptation is blown out of proportion just to be funny, it all seems to work. The cast is an ensemble array of comedians that span decades that manage to create great chemistry even in some compromising positions.

If the movie has a problem, it’s the very stereotypes that make the movie funny. Certainly, not all elderly folks are people who spend their days in front of their television sets in various stages of dementia, addicted to prescription medications,and are completely out of touch with the modern world. Just as not all twenty- and thirty-somethings are lazy and shiftless, spending their time between highs in a series of loser jobs. But, it all seems to work and I have a hard time finding anything offensive here.

It's The End of the World As I Know It And I'm Seeking a Friend (2012)

R, 1 hr. 40 min.  Directed By:  Lorene Scafaria.  Release Date:  Jun 22, 2012.

I’ve written in the pages of this blog that I suffer from dysthymia, a chronic form of depression in which the low moods appear and last for years.  My ongoing record is seven years and counting.  Seven years in which I’ve struggled to put a smile on my face and just survive.   Five years ago, a very unhelpful shrink threw another Greco-ish word in my face:  anhedonia an inability to feel pleasure.  I took moderate, but passing, um, hedonia, in dropping his ass.  Now, I kind of dispute his diagnosis.  On daily basis, joy has disappeared from my life, but I look forward to occasional moments, usually very far apart.  A few minutes of happiness that don’t last, but I look forward to them.  Am I just a mopey person?  Possibly, although I think Kristen Stewart has me beat.  I can at least pretend that everything’s okay. What I’m mostly doing is painting a picture for you, to give you a comparison.

I do this so when I saw this was one of the most depressing movies ever, believe me that I have a measuring stick with which to draw comparison.  It’s not depressing because of the subject matter, but only because the dialogue is so terrible.  Seeking a Friend For the End of the World has these wonderful moments that are sprinkled across the run time, almost as if someone used a RonCo flavor injector on the movie, but it didn’t disperse the flavor throughout the film.  Those RonCoed moments are funny, charming, or brilliant.  Sometimes they highlight the human being at its very best (like the scene on the beach) and sometimes they remind me why I shouldn’t have children (the whole first 25 minutes or so and anything involving Lance Corporal Speck – sorry, but the guy’s a total douchenugget).  However, when stuff isn’t actually happening and Penny (Knightley) and Dodge (Carell) start talking amongst themselves, I wished it was me who had a meteor hurtling at them. 

There are parts of this movie that are worth watching, and if you’re going to watch a movie that involves the Earth getting bitch slapped by a meteor, pick this one.  But, the sort of odd-couple romance that blooms here feels off, and we’ve seen both of the leads play variants on this theme before.  Once upon a time, both Knightley and Carell were box office draws for me, but this might be the death of that ardor. 

In some ways, you could consider Seeking a character study of humanity: and in that, I think, it merits a little more attention.  In the face of adversity, what are people really like?  Can we lower the socially and culturally-created shields that separate us from the people around us?  This movie leaned toward the positive approach, and even cynical me is inclined to agree, although the agreement is hopeful rather than practical.  These apocalyptic movies always suggest that my cynicism and lack of faith in humanity might be an act, because each of them has that moment, where it’s clear this is happening and I feel a sense of something akin to… loss, maybe?  Can I say the end is nigh if I’m all mopey and soul-searching after the end of a mediocre and predictable movie? 

Oh, did anyone else feel like this was a bit too much like the scene from Titanic.  Also, if anyone knows who painted the painting in Steve Carell’s living room in this movie, I want a print of it, so please let me know.

Checkmate in Two: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

R, 2 hr. 8 min.  Directed By:  Tomas Alfredson.  Release Date:  Dec 9, 2011.  DVD Release Date:  Mar 20, 2012.

An early line stuck out in this movie.  I don’t remember who said it, but basically the line suggested that the American intelligence machine, back in those days spearheaded, I think, by the OSS, considered our British allies to be a “leaky ship.”  No freaking wonder.  These guys are running around blabbing their secrets absolutely everywhere:  hotels, coffee shops, schools, it didn’t matter if two or more of the trenchcoats got together.  They were way to careful to trust their own, and I don’t wonder that they managed to find a mole or two in their organization.  I’m not a master spy, nor have I played one anywhere, but common sense being what it is, these guys did everything they could to broadcast what it was they were doing.  It’s good to know that this wasn’t based on real life, or we’d all be speaking Russian. 

In many ways, this is a wonderful parable for the paranoia and suspicion that marked the early days of the Cold War.  Not that I’d know firsthand, because by the time I came along, the Cold War was mostly a joke and the Soviets were laughing into their hand about how they suckered us into the Arms Race.  But, in some ways, this almost pokes fun at the stereotypes of Cold War espionage, with its passcodes, ciphers, and (as was said in The Living Daylights) its “stiff-assed Brits.”  Truth, the only way this could have been a moodier way to portray a spy game in London back in the day would have been for the city to be shrouded in fog the whole time.  It would also have been awesome to have someone die by having a knife slipped between their ribs, a knife that forms out of shadow and darkness. 

The cast is remarkable in this movie.  Oldham is clearly a master of his craft.  Not spycraft mind you, but the acting craft.  In the world of make believe, that man is the king.  But, he’s not alone.  There are a number of outstanding performances, and some of the people involved I only know by face, not by name.  There are scenes that are nail-biters, scenes that made me wonder about the real identity of the mole, and then when the identity is revealed, I spent some time trying to fact check to see if it could be true.  I was hoping it would be one of the other culprits that I won’t name.  Tinker Tailor also had scenes that made me laugh.  There’s a scene with Mark Strong where a white bird comes down a chimney and catches fire in the fireplace before exploding in to a classroom.  I’m still wondering if that was some sort of criticism of Harry Potter.  The bird MIGHT have been a gull, but in the brief flash of the bird’s trek to death, it kind of looked like Hedwig.

If you’re used to espionage thrillers in the style of James Bond, this might be a little disappointing.  There are few gunfights, no chase scenes, no gadgets and no explosions.  Tinker Tailor is the chess match of espionage movies, it’s a thinking man’s movie, and I have to admit, there are times when I wish they’d just start shooting.  Otherwise, I thought this was a moody bit of old-fashioned spy thriller, and definitely worth checking out.

100 Classic Movies #60: Freaks (1932)

Unrated, 1 hr. 4 min.  Directed By:  Tod Browning.  Release Date:  Feb 20, 1932.  DVD Release Date:  Aug 10, 2004.

I’m not sure what I expected when I sat down to watch Freaks:  certainly, I expected the eponymous men and women that used to be a part of circus and carnival life.  I realized belatedly that in the 30s, this probably would have scared the hell out of its audience, and not just because of some of the people in the movie had real deformities, but because of the whole, you know, murder bit.  That aspect of the movie didn’t hold up so well with the passing of time, and once I realized that Hans in this movie also represented the Lollipop Guild, I’m not sure that this movie ever stood a ghost of a chance.

Now, there’s plenty about this movie that gave me the heebie jeebies.  Unfortunately, mostly those heebie jeebies came from the assorted freaks and I was concerned that this movie was intended as exploitation.  They certainly played up the reaction the audience would already have, and in the movie’s opening scenes, the differences between the freaks and the handful of “normal” people are marked.

It took me a little time to realize that as painful as it was to watch some of these poor people (and know that they were real people and not actors wearing makeup or using special effects to make themselves seem “other”), I realized that they weren’t the real horrors.  Watching Cleo and Hercules plot the murder of someone I initially thought was a child with a throat disorder was the real problem.  They were the real monsters, and the folks that attracted my attention so easily were the distraction.  I got suckered in to it like just about everyone else who has watched Freaks.  

But the movie has some problems for me:  I had a hard time understanding nearly everyone in the cast.  Some had thick accents, some speech impediments, and some communicated with pseudo-speech.  It was an echo of English, but you had to work to get through it.  I also thought the story could have been a little stronger.  It was too much like someone had just passed their first English composition class and was aching to try out the steps of the story line for their very own.  The filmmakers here get props for doing something a little different, but different doesn’t always make up for problems in structure.

100 Classic Movies #59: High and Low (1963)

Unrated, 2 hr. 23 min.  Directed By:  Akira Kurosawa.  Release Date:  Nov 26, 1963.  DVD  Release Date:  Oct 13, 1998.

I haven’t thought about One Week by the Barenaked Ladies (or whatever they were called) in a billion years.  Well, not a billion, but certainly a significant portion of my life time, say a third of it, and no I’m not going to discuss how many years that is.  Nor am I estimating in dog years so it sounds better.  This week, I’ve thought about it twice:  once after seeing Abraham Lincoln: The Vampire Slayer… oh wait, that was Buffy, and now that I’ve watched this truly awesome movie directed by Kurosawa (okay I don’t make films, but if I did they’d have a samurai). 

Something nagged at me throughout this movie.  It’s certainly Japanese enough, but the whole time it felt… inspired by Western cop dramas of the period.  I later realized that this is the adaptation of a crime novel by Ed McBain, so the light dawned.  At the time, I couldn’t figure it out, but in many ways these guys would have fit right in to any movie scene of the same period with few exceptions, mostly Mrs. Gondo, but wouldn’t The Apartment have been awesome if Shirley Maclaine was all geishaed up? 

I can’t tell if the unsettling thing about this movie was that these people seemed so similar to American actors (and people) of the day, or if the Japanese actors were merely attempt to “simulate” Americanness.  The latter is certainly possible, and there are a few moments where the characters behave in ways that would probably not be one of the seven habits of highly effective folks in Japan.  After the sock hop scene, I was more inclined to think the latter, and if that’s the case, the Japanese did a remarkable job of emulating Western way of life.  Usually when you see that, it’s not done too well, and this was done so well it was distracting to the story.  There's even a scene that makes me understand the line from Archer where Woodhouse talks about it being "an itchy weekend" after Mallory and Archer steal his stash to use on Cyril.

So, I dug this as a culture study OF a culture study.  As a cop drama, this was amazing, and I don't even LIKE cop dramas.  The cast was great, and the story was lock solid.  I can't find anything to gripe about except that they haven't made a remake yet... although I may have just jinxed that.  If you haven't seen High and Low, you need to.  Now.

Blogging Flashback: Mission Impossible Trilogy (1996 - 2006)

PG-13, 1 hr. 50 min. Directed by: Brian DePalma. Release Date: May 22, 1996. DVD Release Date: Jan 17, 1998.  

PG-13, 124 min. Directed by: John Woo. Release Date: Dec 31, 2000. DVD Release Date: Nov 07, 2000.

PG-13, 2 hrs. 6 min.  Directed by: J.J. Abrams. Release Date: May 05, 2006. DVD Release Date: Oct 30, 2006.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH NEW COMMENTS/EDITS****

Action-packed, high-tech spy thrillers provide an explosive, if unbelievable viewing experience... at least on average.  Like my review of the Indiana Jones and Scream trilogies, I decided to clump these together because my three separate reviews would be remarkably similar, although I do have a decided preference within these first three Mission Impossible movies.  My concern was that the reviews might be so similar in nature, with most of the same praise and complaints, that I could be accused of abusing copy and paste. 

The special effects, by which I mostly mean the pyrotechnics) are great in all three of these movies, and I think they get better with each release in the trilogy. While some of that is obviously improved technology, I think it was a major force in the filmmakers’ plan as this story evolved. They wanted the trilogy to get more visually appealing with every film that was added to the series. I also dug the vast majority of the spy technology and “craft” that I saw used. Granted, they had a few of the same “stroke” technologies that we saw in the 007 franchise, but the it all worked as we get further into the game.

Story-wise, I think all of these suffered from some of the same short-sightedness that seems to plague the entire spy flick genre. All of these fought to be topical, and brought us settings and problems that felt real because of events of the day, but add topical realism to a mess of crazy action sequences and lucky breaks that would have killed any real person, and you get something that doesn’t shine as brightly as it might have if they’d provided us with a location or issue that was a bit more fantastic.

But my real criticism is that with the arguable exception of the first Mission Impossible release, Tom Cruise was not exactly a spring chicken. While I’m not ready to start shoveling dirt on his grave, I thought he was a bit too old to reasonably bounce back from most of the shenanigans we watch him go through, and half the time, we watch Ethan Hunt shrug off impacts that would likely have killed a real person.  Hunt won't be the first spy to disregard the ravages of age.  Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan both had moments where you wonder how they didn't need a nap, too.

Going Ape$hit: The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

PG-13, 2 hr.  Directed By:  Rupert Wyatt.  Release Date:  Aug 5, 2011.  DVD Release Date:  Dec 13, 2011.

Good science fiction has a basis in good science.  How many times have I written those words?  I’m fair to middling sure I’ve, um, appropriated them from another source, but damned if I know what the source is now.  Whether or not the words are mine, the spirit is.  It’s something that I fully believe:  any good science fiction will base its technology in existing science, or find a way to explain why known science no longer applies.  Heisenberg compensators anyone? 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is generally based on good science.  I have a few complaints, primarily, I’m not sure even the great apes have the larynx and other related organs for speech.  Do I think they’re smart enough to understand speech?  Sure, even without monkey super soldier serum.  I have concerns about how quickly the various species of “ape” banded together, since all great apes, to include Homo sapiens have very definite mental (and cultural) lines that form “us” and “them.”  It’s a hard line to cross. 

There are some really good reminders here:  chimpanzees are already known to make use of tools in the wild.  The adaptation to spears is an easy one, given the suspension of disbelief required for the serum that makes them better than human smart.  Your average chimpanzee has a hand strength in the neighborhood of 50x greater than their human counterparts.  Orangutans and gorillas would be stronger still.  If push comes to shove in physical combat, humans are dust. 

The CGI in this movie is phenomenal, and gives the already expressive faces of great apes even more humanity.  I was prepared for this, and this is one place where the movie met its own hype. 

But there were other places where I was less convinced.  One of my concerns is that this couldn’t explain an Earth dominated by an intelligent apes… so it makes any future movies along the same rebooted thread less.  I say this because of two little words:  genetic bottleneck.  Unless the monkeys we see in other variants of The Planet of the Apes world are like the Hatfields and the McCoys (and there’s no sign of that) surely what we see couldn’t spawn a massive genetically feasible society.  Maybe they do recruiting drives of something in the interim?

I did like this, but ultimately think it had too many flaws in the construction of its story for me not to pick at.  It’s not like I’m all that forgiving, but I am bummed that I didn’t see this on the big screen.  I suddenly wish I knew of one of those theaters that didn’t show new releases, but randomly played other movies, because I’d keep my eyes peeled for this one.  I'd also say, hesitantly, that this was one of the best pro... well, pro-monkey movie since Gorillas in the Mist.  There's a message about how we treat the other creatures that share this world with us, and provided us with consequences for that arrogance.  I do love a good moral to a story.

Blogging Flashback: Alice In Wonderland (2010)

PG, 1 hr. 49 min. Directed by: Tim Burton. Release Date: Mar 05, 2010.  DVD Release Date:  Jun 01, 2010.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH NEW COMMENTS AND EDITS****

A fanciful and adequate translation of Carroll's works, if not necessarily a faithful one.  Since the beginning, I thought this Disneyfied version reflects a rather more thorough glance at Through the Looking Glass than Alice's Adventure in Wonderland.  That's not terrible, but I have to be honest, when I first saw they were making this, I was expecting something a little closer in story to the animated version of this movie.

Helena Bonham Carter steals the show as the piece's villain, the Red Queen; this was a masterwork of reinvention. We've seen the Red Queen several times over the years, and generally, we see her as a woman who is eaten apart by her rage. This Red Queen was just a bit insane, and I found the approach appealing. Also fortunate is that Ms. Bonham Carter spends a lot of time on-camera, which has been an unusual thing in the last year of big-cast movies like Alice.

The set design is outstanding, and for me was the single best thing about this movie; a trait which it shares with only Dick Tracy, and for the same reason (the limited color scheme). It should be noted that I saw this 2D, and think everything I saw would have been more amazing in 3D or IMAX. I have to say that the reimaging Disney and Burton went with here was good.  Everything from the set to the costuming felt modern and a bit… off-kilter, which fits in nicely with the spirit of Carroll's original works, even if the message was been somewhat overcome by events. What I particularly like is that this doesn't seem to be such a traditional Burton work.  It has dark, edgy moments, but it has bright and cheerful ones as well.  If it wasn't for the appearance of both Bonham Carter and Depp, I might have missed that Burton was responsible for this.

The creative license here was nice, but I did enjoy how subtle nuances from Disney's animated version of this film made it through the final editing process. The dragonflies and rocking horseflies were amazing bits of creature features, although not quite up to the Avatar bar.

My only complaint is Johnny Depp's portrayal of the Mad Hatter. The insanity was there, but I found the character way too similar to Willy Wonka and Captain Jack Sparrow. But, you know, I have that complaint about Depp's ever-increasing waves of strange, effeminate roles; making for an off-putting, but not un-enjoyable situation.

Totally Ninja: Brave (2012)

PG, 1 hr. 33 min.  Directed By:  Brenda Chapman, Mark Andrews.  Release Date:  Jun 22, 2012.

Before I went to see this movie, I did something I never do:  I read what the critics are saying, and for some reason, they’re almost universally not-panning the movie.  No one’s raving about it, and everyone seems to have taken that pill so that they can basically say that this isn’t Pixar’s best work.  In my mind, this is one of their better movies.  By a wide stretch. 

This might be the first time in a long time that I’ve seen a female character in a children’s animated movie be so… aggressive.  There are folks making some comparisons to Beauty and the Beast in terms of story line.  I’d argue that the comparison is cheap and only in a few minor details:  both lead characters are dreamy girls who long for freedom they can’t have, and both have a bestial “monster” of sorts.  Belle didn’t stand her ground against the Beast after watching the Beast walk over half an army like it was a hillock.  The two have widely different moral values as a part of their “fairy tale” value systems and they aren’t that similar. 

Merida is the character Belle would have been if Disney wasn’t busy whitewashing existing fairy tale literature.  She is brave, although I tend to agree with the critics, there wasn’t much about this movie that lives up to its title in terms of content.  There are good lessons to be learned for the kids who take you to this, and if you read my blog regularly, you know I demand a decent moral for the kids.  There are actually several that I like:  don’t shortcut your way to the solution of a problem, be careful what you wish for, and don’t talk to strangers.  I also like that through the running of this story, Merida learns that there are consequences for every action, or as one of my favorite authors has written a lot, “everything has a price.”  She takes responsibility for her actions in the movie, and that is a GREAT thing.  There are way too many kids out there that don’t seem to realize that their actions actually mean something.  This, too, is a common theme when I write about kids’ movies.  One day, I’m hoping that last lesson will stick.

As I generally expect from Pixar, the animation was beautiful, and also on a running theme, I liked the setting and background art MUCH better than the characters and their animation.  There is some lightweight whitewashing of fairy tale literature, and it comes in the form of the will o’ wisps.  It’s my understanding that those little buggers aren’t actually considered to be helpful spirits in the stories you find them in.  Here, they’re plot drivers, but they probably should have been doing stuff like leading Merida into mire or something like that.

Anyways, I had a blast in this movie, even with the jackass next to me texting through the last half of the movie.  I laughed; often and clearly at the intention of the film writers.  The end is a little sappy, but otherwise this is one of the better movies I’ve seen this year.

It's Blade! It's Buffy! No Wait It's: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (2012)

R, 1 hr. 45 min.  Directed By:  Timur Bekmambetov.   Release Date:  Jun 22, 2012.

I’ve been hesitantly optimistic about this movie, a trend that’s been popping up throughout the summer blockbusters.  On the one hand, I do love historical epics, on the other I generally love vampire movies, so long as those vampires don’t sparkle.  This should have been a shoo-in, but even at the early trailers, I wasn’t quite convinced.  It comes off a little strongly as something like those cats with eyes of different colors: as I dimly recall from high school bio, that represents a single egg being fertilized by two or more sperm cells.  In this case, Abraham is a bit like Lizzie Borden being the mother and involved in an embarrassing situation where Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tim Burton are allowed to co-father the same child.

I never got the convincing I needed to really be a part of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  I saw one person writing about “endless action without substance” and I couldn’t disagree more.  The action ended frequently, and left with a cast not quite up to the depth of discussion my nation’s most politically and socially turbulent era.  Some of them clearly didn’t understand the depth of agony that should have been their characters’ own feelings, because the closest America has come to being that divided is in the last five years or so, and it’s a distant, distant second.   At the end of the day, some pretty sweet fight scenes just could not support the rest of the story line.  It was too much, and the director tired (and occasionally failed) to make us take this story too history, almost as if he wanted this “what if” tale to be seen as historical fact.  While much about Lincoln’s public and personal life is being called in to question these days, I think we can all agree he didn’t spend his nights hunting down the undead.

What I will say is that the action sequences involving Lincoln’s axe, either alone or with one of the many in Lincoln’s life that now lead some of the bitchier historians to question Lincoln’s sexuality are pretty sweet, obviously taking inspiration from Kurusawa and other “spurt” directors in the handling of blood and fight choreography.  Bekmambetov and Burton managed a mad film, but it didn’t have a samurai.

I also appreciated the visual effects in this movie.  It LOOKED fantastic, and I think a lot of people are being wowed by the background and scenery.  The opening scenes showing Washington D.C. might be one of the better bits of movie magic I’ve seen yet in my movie watching career.  It’s almost breathtaking, as is the train scene.  Well, the fighting parts and the conclusion.

But, Abe won’t be going on my “must buy” list.  It’s a short list right now… I think three movies released since May are on it.  I’m hoping that July gives me more of that kind of movie love.  If you are going to see this, see it in the big screen.  I think only a few scenes are worth the 3D ticket prices, so make that call on your own. 

C for Effort... Kind of: Five Star Day (2010)

Unrated, 1 hr. 34 min.  Directed By:  Danny Buday.  Release Date:  Nov 4, 2011.  DVD Release Date:  Feb 21, 2012

Maybe we ask the wrong questions.  It says so in Five Star Day.  Cam Gigandet’s question is why we believe in things that can’t possibly be true (although he asks the question after he’s proven that the three other people who share his astrological “fate” had similar paths).  My question?  It’s pretty simple.  

Someone, anyone, please explain what the hell ethics and astrology have to do with each other?  Since ole Cam’s presentation had all the cerebral organization of Adam Sandler’s “essay” answer in Billy Madison, I found it to be a bit of a reach.  If he'd talked about the ethical predation on the average Joe by folks claiming to be "astrologers," I might have sat up and took notice, but what I heard was rambling and nonsensical.

But other than that, I didn’t have much to complain about.  If, instead of being driven to disprove astrology is crap for an ethics class, Jake had been an aspiring author trying to research a story, I probably would have that this was… remarkably cute.  I actually liked the interplay between these four strangers whose only shared traits were being born in the same place and the same time as well as having had a truly shitty birthday just a few days prior.  I thought Jena Malone’s performance was great, but she may as well have just come out and said what was going to happen at the end of the movie, because it wasn’t ever a surprise.  Not even for a second.  Well, not after she busted up when Gigandet told Caroline Julian from Bones that they should meet up for a little three way action.  That may have been obvious, but I was sure that the final vignette was going to end up as a misperception of sexual preference, because there was nothing I saw that didn’t look like Gigandet was hitting on the guy, and the guy was totally in to it.  Stop, rekkenize and listen indeed.

There are a few other minor problems.  You have to be like a 10^th level Obama and have plus 50 to your charisma to pull off all the crap that we watch Cam Gigandet’s character get away with.  He meets total strangers, two of them women, and manages to charm them sufficiently so that they all end up being buddies after some very stalkerish behavior.  I do love Jena Malone, but not as much here as I do normally.  She is arguably the best part of a moderately bad situation.

This isn’t a terrible movie, but it also isn’t something that I would run out and go see.  If you happen to notice it on your Netflix streaming options (like me) and you have the time and aren’t interested in watching more reruns of Law & Order, Archer, or South Park, check it out.

Ugh.  Clearly my links from Flixster are having issues again.  Unfortunately my personal laptop needs its power jack repaired, so we're going to have to live with this for a few days.  I'm dropping it off at Geek Squad today, and I expect a three-to-seven business day return on that sucka.  I'll come back and repair all the damage later.  

Blogging Flashback: Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

PG, 1 hr. 39 min.  Directed by: Andy Fickman. Release Date: Mar 13, 2009

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH NEW EDITS AND COMMENTS***


I went to see this primarily because the original two films of this franchise: Escape to Witch Mountain and Return from Witch Mountain, were some of my favorite movies as a kid.  I’ve worked to share this series with the kids in my family over the years, and was never more disgusted than when my then eight-year-old cousin started crying and freaking out during the opening credits to Escape to Witch Mountain.  Lame.  I haven’t bothered to share a movie with her since.  Disappointments like that are hard to overcome.

Race to Witch Mountain has some of the same appeal; but lacks a lot of the style. The story does not flow as well, and it seems even the creators knew this, so they filled these spaces with plot devices and cameo appearances.

The powers exhibited by the children was marginally different than the original two, in which the brother and sister shared nearly-identical powers. Both movies have the sister as being the most powerful of the two; the brother in Race had no power to "energize" matter, although the sister did. Despite this, I thought the special affects involving the powers were well done, but uninspired. We've seen floating items and people bouncing moving vehicles off them before, notably in the original movies from the 70s.

But "uninspired" is a word that really describes most of the film. Casting, story, special effects all feel the taint of a lack of inspiration. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, and it's possible that some of my disappointment was self-created hype about a third-installment of the series. I took kids with me, and they enjoyed it. I even thought it was occasionally funny and usually cute. I had fun, so it couldn't have been all bad. But, I do think this is one that could be left for DVD.

In general, Race is fun; kids (probably of all ages) will enjoy this to some.  Tony (Ike Eisenmann) and Tina (Kim Richards) make cameo appearances, although they did not reprise their old roles, which is kind of cool for fans of the original films.  The thing that really struck in my craw was the complete and total lack of originality. The places where it veers from the original movies make contradictions, and that's probably a bad idea, since the original movies were much stronger efforts.

A Very Impolitic Post: We Need to Talk About Kevin (2012)

R, 1 hr. 52 min.  Directed By:  Lynne Ramsay.  Release Date:  Jan 13, 2012.  DVD Release Date:  May 29, 2012.

I know a movie’s good when my reactions are all over the place and I don’t have any complaint about what I saw.  We Need to Talk About Kevin is one of those movies.  I had strong, emotional reactions to this, and my righteous indignation button has been pushed.  I'm not exactly famous for wearing kid gloves, although I do sometimes couch my words in my expectation of response, but here, I'm just going to vent.

My riff is going to be out how the people of the town treat Tilda Swinton’s character.  What in the hell is wrong with people?  Her own son kills everyone in her family before he goes on to massacre students in his school, and the families of Kevin's victims sue her for every cent she's worth.  No matter what anyone thinks she was guilty of, she had clearly suffered enough.  And yet, we’re treated to scene after scene of the small-town yokels assaulting her, vandalizing her ramshackle home, and harassing her in stores, in her home, and on the streets.  I’ve never lived in a town where this kind of thing happened, never known anyone that was impacted by one of these Columbine-like events, but one of the things they seem to have in common is the person in the bell tower has spent their life being bullied by their victims.  I’m not condoning the violence, just noting the pattern.  Adults should be smarter than this.  Hell, kids should be smarter than this, especially since we have more than one terrible, terrible precedent now. 

Truth, I’d have recommended that Eva defend herself.  Probably with a gun.  But then, I live in Texas, where I generally assume I’m the only one not packing heat.  

Other than that, I thought Eva with her unpronounceable last name (Swinton) is probably one of the strongest women in literature.  She endured what her son did and then the harassment that followed.  No complaint, no attempt to fight back.  No attempt to try and rebuild her own life.  She tolerates being shunned by everyone.  Tolerates life without friends or family.  Tolerates the unending blame.  She didn’t lose her mind, or resort to drugs or alcohol.  I don’t understand why she wouldn’t have left town.  Started out somewhere else.   But, admittedly, this wouldn’t be the story (or movie) that this was if she had.

We Need to Talk About Kevin was an awesome piece of film making, but not a fun one.  It talks about a lot of tender subjects:  violence in schools, sociopathy, abuse, bullying, and more.  I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to see this movie and not have a strongly emotional reaction.  Not necessarily mine, but wherever your own personality and beliefs are going to send you.   Definitely add this to your queue, or to your rentals at the next trip to the video store.

I do have one caveat.  If you are one of those people for whom time MUST be represented as a linear construct, by which I mean a movie must flow from beginning, to middle, to end, you’re probably going to have a problem here.  Time isn’t exactly a priority, and the movie bounces back and forth within an 18 year old span frequently.

1 Beer. 5 Celebs. Endless Possibilities.

A Meandering Ramble of Thought

 

I’m not sure why, but having a beer with people is something very personal for me.  I don’t do it with people unless I really like them.  If I’m forced to have a beer with people I don’t like or don’t know, I’m always visibly uncomfortable, and usually the evening goes awry, usually in awkward ways.  This is usually one of the last dates before I admit I've gotten serious about a lady in my life, largely because I'm a lightweight and say some stupid shit when I'm drunk.  It's one of the last hurdles in my relationship obstacle course, followed only by a trip to the movies, where if she's a talker, I cut her loose.

So when someone asked me about my general disrespect for the celebrity community, it's because there are very few that feel real.  Mostly what I see is fairly worthless, spoiled people who have more money than common sense.  It's actually the complaint I'm having about increasing numbers of Americans.  A lot of them are basically sluts in need of discipline (men and women both), and I just can't abide that.

The same friend asked me which celebs I like.  Not necessarily in terms of skill, but the ones that feel the most… human to me.  I had to think about it a little, although I could come up with three off the top of my head.  There are others who I think have more talent, but these are the ones I could hang with, and I think these five plus me in a drinking group would be the best night EVER.

I don’t think he’s the world’s greatest actor, but I think he's always enjoyable on screen.  I don’t think he has leading man potential, but I’m hoping that his entire career won’t be limited to big-budget action movies and cheesy, raunchy comedies.  What I do think is that he’s a decent guy.  What I’ve seen of him in interviews suggests that he loves and supports his family, still maintains “real” time with his pre-career friends, and feels approachable in a way that someone making hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not more) for wearing spandex shouldn’t feel.  I think he’s one of those actors who realizes that if it weren’t for the people mobbing him for an autograph, life would be very different.  I’m mostly impressed that he’s an American actor who started working before he was thirty and he’s managed to keep himself out of the tabloids by not doing stuff that might make him look douchey.  Shia LeBoeuf should take notes.


God help me, but I loves me some Quesen Latifah.  She’s involved in some TERRIBLE movies, and I sometimes have trouble forgiving her for them, but there’s an earthy goodness to her that appears on screen, in print, and in television interviews that makes her very attractive.  I basically think that her character in Just Wright was pretty much who she is in real life.  That’s someone that I would love to have on my list of friends, even if she weren’t “rich and famous”.  I also think it's also all kinds of sexy that she's quick to come to her own defense... and the media seems to LOVE to pick on her, although there may be correlation there.

I'd pick him largely for the same reasons I’ve discussed above for Chris Evans.  Our senses of humor are very similar; actually, he seems like a guy I might know in real life, one who has some synergy between his private and public personae, but can still adapt both to fit the situation he’s in.  The most recent interview I saw him in described his reaction to tabloid coverage of his divorce and I was impressed.  Divorce is a hard, private thing, and the fact that the American people (and the media that is driven by public demand) can’t respect that should have earned some nasty reaction.  It isn’t.  He seems to think about it as the crappy thing about his job that he has to put up with.  I can empathize with that.  There are things about my job that I don’t like, but know I have to deal with them if I want to keep my job, and I like my job.  So like Reynolds, I grumble (not so) quietly about the stupid things I have to put up with because I like my job.

One of the few memories I still have of my grandfather is watching The Golden Girls with him and watching him laugh his ass off repeatedly.  Betty White is the last of those funny ladies, and a living tie to those memories with my childhood hero.  I have loved watching her popularity resurgence, and now I have more than one source of entertainment with her in it.  But seriously, can you imagine the shit she’d say when she was drunk?  She’s hysterical sober, I just can’t think of a more fun way to spend an evening.  Hell, I'd actually pay for an experience like that.

I’ve had a thing for Drew for a very long time, and it didn’t fade in the wake of her, um, dark, um, “Green” days.  I have to respect the force of will that it would have taken to grow up in her circumstances, and then make a solid career for yourself while still maintaining the old family legacy.  I’m impressed with her ability to recover from addiction, or at least live with it, depending on your terms and understandings.  I also have it on good authority that she and I share a Zodiac sign and an allergy to coffee.  I’d have a few questions I’d like to ask her about growing up in Hollywood, about ET, and about making her own mark.  All that SHOULD be done with some beers.  It would also be nice to talk to someone who seems to have an unlimited amount of sunshine in their lives to project outwards.  I don’t know many folks like that.

Blogging Flashback: Clash of the Titans (2010)

PG-13, 1 hr. 50 min.  Directed by: Louis Leterrier .  Release Date: Apr 01, 2010.  DVD Release Date:  Jul 27, 2010.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH NEW EDITS AND COMMENTS****

Slow progress through a plodding story line is muddled by fast-paced action scenes and random interest-generating characters.  Those were my initial impressions of this movie, a remake of a movie I loved as a kid.  Even the 1980s original has its faults, but none so grievous as the least of what I found here.

The filmmakers managed to make a few basic improvements to the 1980s (semi)classic film of the same name; mostly around the area of effects, and given the thirty-some odd years between the two movies, I'd have been harsh if they hadn't.  Medusa here looks MUCH better and gets more screen time than her 1980s counterpart.  Ditto for the Witches.

I also have to give props to how the fight scenes were set up and choreographed.  They were all pretty good and were spaced frequently enough during the course of the film to keep me from either walking out or throwing Sweettarts at random theater-goers.

If you care about these things, and I only occasionally notice them, I thought the set design and scenery were well-done and visually impressive enough that they took my attention away from the impeding boredom that seemed to lurk behind every plot twist and turn.  This wasn't the first movie with a basis in Greek mythology to bore the crap out of me in the 2010s, and I'm betting even money it won't be the last.  The "damn the gods" concepts twists the actual story line behind the original film, and not for the better.  The semi-war between man and Olympians was a major snooze-fest.  The basis in Bizzaroverse mythology didn't really help matters, although these days, most of the people watching this movie thinks that Persius is the dude from The Lightning Thief, so I'm guessing the teen set is loving this flick.

Casting was pretty rough here, made from a batch of up-and-comers and old favorites who swore they were retiring back in 1999.  Considering this is the first blockbuster of the season, I would have thought they could have gotten better and bigger-name talents.  There was a lot of gore during the passing of the movie, which I tend to think is a common tool to distract and dazzle the audience when they might be dealing with a crap movie, but other than that, there wasn't much that stood out amid the general badness.

100 Classic Movies #58: Double Indemnity (1944)

Unrated, 1 hr. 47 min.  Directed By:  Billy Wilder.  Release Date:  Sep 6, 1944.  DVD Release Date:  Oct 10, 2000.

This movie starts a little slowly, but picks up steam like that bus from Speed, so that you think that the movie can never calm down sufficiently to come to a conclusion.  It’s also a strangely familiar story, probably because similar things occasionally happen in real life, and in fact, this movie was inspired by true events in… New York, as I recall.  Most recently, I vaguely recall a high school teacher seducing a student and entering into a conspiracy to kill her husband, although I’m willing to believe that might have been some tepid little made-for-TV drama I picked up somewhere.

Basically, I walked in unimpressed by the story line.  It’s been done to death, and while this may have been one of the first such movies, it isn’t the first one I’ve seen.  Despite that, I noticed that I got dragged into the story’s spell pretty quickly, say in the first 20 minutes.  Only part of that was caused by the astonishingly bad wig on Barbara Stanwyck, which I’ve read was selected to point out what a “tacky dame” she was.  And, these are “real” people:  you might know them.  They could be your friends, your neighbors, your (cough) high school teacher.  Anything.  

Double Indemnity does manage to pull off a moderately suspenseful, well-crafted tale, despite what I think of as some problems with originality (that are really more my hang ups than something that’s wrong with the movie).  I’m probably being too harsh, and I recognize that.  Now, there were a few tricks in there that I thought were very nice little additions:  the car trouble at the train tracks, the play of light and shadow throught the blinds, which I believe was first done here, but which I’ve seen countless times in other movies.  I’ve begun to associate that trick with noir, both classic and neo, and it sets a great mood on any scene.

This is an interesting role for Edward G. Robinson, because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him not play the lead, and most of the movies I’ve seen him in predate this, so I’m guessing his star was no longer on the rise at this point.  It’s also the first I’ve ever noticed how tiny he was.  My favorite author talks about him, and references him as being short, and it wasn’t until he stands next to Frank MacMurray that I realized exactly how tiny he was.  I also spent about an hour trying to figure out where I’d seen MacMurray before, and then I realized he was one of the philandering execs from The Apartment.

By the end of the movie, I was definitely intrigued.  I’m thinking most people would be.  You may have seen the story done elsewhere, but you haven’t seen it done this well.

Blogging Flashback: The Watchmen (2009)

Rated R, 2 hrs. 43 min.  Directed by: Zack Snyder. Release Date: Mar 06, 2009.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH ADDITIONAL COMMENTS AND EDITS****

"Who watches the Watchmen?" appears in several parts of the movie, and it seems to be a very relevant question for the movie in general. Like, really, I get that LOTS of people watched this movie, but I can count on one hand with some room left over how many people I know that liked it.  What gives?  For me, this was the superhero movie let down to end all let downs.

The movie is FILLED with problems for us layfolk who have not spent years obsessing over the much-acclaimed comic books and/or graphic novel. The alternate history causes problems all across the board, but does not attempt to explain real world problems they caused. Such as if we won Vietnam, why weren't we more aggressive in Cuba?  Or, how is the presence of superheroes able to violate the laws that a president can sit in the Oval Office for no more than two terms?  In the movie, Nixon presides over matters of the American state for approximately 12 years, and in one point of the "present" story line (1985), there are visible posters with Nixon's face on them declaring "four more years." After some additional research, I learned that in the "present" story line, Nixon was well into his FIFTH term as President of the United States, so I guess that clears up... nothing.

The background information is almost completely gone. The audience receives snatches here and there to help fill in moderate events, but we don't understand how the relationships between any of the characters have formed (for this, I imagine, one would need to read the books). We find our heroes in a legally-enforced disbandment, all attempting to shell out some semblance of a normal life. There is little discussion of how the relationships between Ozimandias, Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan, Night Owl, and Rorshach formed and were maintained in the years since the Watchmen were disbanded. We only know they used to work together and now apparently are friends, or at least friendly.

Super powers: Where are they? Of the entire cast, only Dr. Manhattan has obvious super powers. Arguably Ozimandias is ridiculously fast, not like the Flash, but just in his ability to move out of attacks. The rest of the team just seems to have attitude and ninja skills. Night Owl is a flagrant rip off of Batman, just swap the "bat-erangs" for "owl-erangs".

There is so much plot and counterplot here, some if it involving personality quirks and relationships that were not covered on screen, that it is occasionally difficult to figure out why people are doing what they are doing. There was also the question why Dr. Manhattan couldn't just make everything right, but that goes back to the weak discussion of super powers.

Finally, the last problem I had is with the way the filmmakers exemplified Dr. Manhattan's psychological separation from humanity. While the movie trailers show him wearing both conservative suits and a brownish banana-hammock, but the hard reality is he's generally hanging in the breeze. Literally.  I got what they tried to do here, but being constantly inundated with his nudity was excess (and I'm not even going to talk about the scene that pans out from the guy's sphincter and exits in a rear direction). Dr. Manhattan is not the only nudist in the group: both the second Silk Spectre and Night Owl appear in various states of nudity, so I guess they felt the need to underline the sexually-charged facet of the comic book, although it wasn't really needed for story development.

The good thing about this movie were the fight choreography and the special effects, particularly the use of Dr. Manhattan's powers, were EXCELLENT. Comic booky without being ridiculous, these scenes were all very well done. The fight choreography was a little like the choreography for T.V.'s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so if you liked that, you'll like this.