This century is only 12 years old, but we already have several additions to the pantheon of capital G great science fiction films: Children Of Men. District 9. Moon. Eternal Sunshine. And now, we can add Looper.
First of all, this movie is set in the future. Actually, it’s set in two futures: 30 years from now future, and 60 years from now future. 60 years from now future has developed time travel, and criminals there send the guys they don’t like back to 30 years from now future to be killed. The people who do the killing are called Loopers. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is one of them. Jeff Daniels is his boss. Daniels was a criminal in 60 years from now future, but now runs the show in 30 years from now future.
All is well, until Gordon-Leavitt discovers that he grew up to be Bruce Willis. That isn’t quite as awesome as it sounds, as Gordon-Leavitt is expected to kill his older self. This proves to be pretty difficult, because Bruce Willis.
This all sounds quite convoluted, but actually it’s pretty simple; At it’s heart, this is a movie about family. What makes up a family? Is it blood? Luck? Good intentions?
A little bit of all three, it turns out. Though it doesn’t seem to be on pace to doing even a fraction of the box office of something like Inception, the heart & soul that beats at the centre of this film is going to guarantee that this movie keeps going as a cult classic for years to come. There is plenty of time travel trickery, guns, and bang for those of us who like that sort of thing. But for those of us who need a rock solid emotional core in our science fiction, Looper is a revelation. Rarely does an action movie convince us care so much about it’s characters. Bruce Willis in particular rolls out his best work in a decade, with a visceral desperation so tangible that we can almost smell the despair coming off of him.
This is a man who has lost everything: His life, his love, and possibly even his past. And he will do absolutely anything to get them back. Gordon-Leavitt puts in a fine performance
Bruce Willis is holding himself hostage. Not a euphemism for masturbation.
as well, showing a range that proves that his recent foray into leading man roles is justified. But it might be Emily Blunt who steals the show, continuing her quiet, steady quest to being recognized as one of the most talented actresses of her generation.
Looper a bold film, and Johnson isn’t afraid to try to use bombastic sci-fi trappings to tell a smaller, more personal story. It’s a fantastically well-written script, with as much attention paid to personal resonance as there is to resolving plot holes (though there are a few). Johnson really has crafted a bit of a populist masterpiece here. Arthouse snobs will find enough existential hand wringing to delight even the most douchey of Commercial Drive baristas, and for Ed Hardy models from Surrey, there are boobies and guns.
At this point, we needed another film adaptation of the Spider-Man story about as much as we needed a movie that showed the secret stripper origin of Channing Tatum. Alas, this summer we somehow ended up with both.
The story is this: Peter Parker (played by Andrew Garfield, whose seems to think that he was actually rebooting Sleeper, since his entire performance here is a tribute to early 70′s Woody Allen) is a really good-looking white kid from a middle class family who happens to be the second best science student at a high school that actually has science in its name. And so he gets crowned president of the school, and spends the rest of the film being carryed around on the backs of his fellow pupils. Oh wait, no. He actually gets picked on by the other kids, which is a little like Noam Chomsky being teased at an Occupy Wall Street Rally for being a little too far to the left .
That joke was originally a sports metaphor, but then I realized that no one would believe that I knew anything about LeBron James. Which is true.
But I digress. Parker lives with Martin Sheen and Sally Field, who have been taking care of him ever since his family abandoned him for a plot device to be named later. He happens to find some formulas (forumulae? Forumulets?) left by his dad, which leads him to look up his famous scientist father on Google for the first time ever. Or was it Bing? Or Yelp. Maybe ChristianMingle. One of those. So he tracks down his father’s science buddy, gets bitten by a irradiated spider, and then proceeds to gain spider powers. There’s also a talking lizard, and a love interest that’s actually somewhat believable, and Uncle Ben dies. Or was it Uncle Ben dies ? Damn spoiler buttons.
Anyways, here’s what I liked:
The relationship between Peter Parker & Gwen Stacey. I put this first, as it’s the best part of the movie, and the strongest case Sony (and Webb) have for convincing me that this project needed to exist. Emma Stone & Andrew Garfield have a sexual charisma that is not only rare for this type of film, but is actually so palpable that one finds himself hoping that Sony realizes these two should have been remaking 9 1/2 Weeks instead. In every scene they’re in, they look like they can’t wait for the camera to turn off so that they can screw like bunnies.
Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, 5 minutes before making Peter Parker a man in the Midtown High bathrooms.
Secondly…Umm…I just realized that was the only thing I really liked about the movie.
It’s not that there is anything “wrong” about this piece. It’s fine, really. But if you are going to “reboot” a franchise in which the last film only hit theatres 5 years ago, you better have a pretty great reason for doing so. Sony has about 750,000,000 great reasons for doing so, but none of them matter very much to me. And it’s not as if I have fond memories of Sam Raimi’s bombastic trilogy either. There was plenty of fromage in all 3 instalments (though slightly less in the second, to be sure), with the last one being one of the worst superhero films ever made. There’s less that’s “wrong” here, and I think a strong case could be argued that the tighter dialogue, and stronger cast, definitely made this a slightly more accessible offering than Raimi’s films.
But there’s nothing here that screams out “I NEEDED TO BE MADE” here, and nothing that wouldn’t have fit in (with some tweaking, to be sure) as the fourth film in an existing franchise. It’s a slightly fresher take on the origin, but not so fresh as to convince me that Webb’s vision is so different from Raimi’s (As Nolan’s on Batman was from Burton’s, for example) that this film needed to be made.
That really doesn’t matter though. What matters is this: Does this movie stand on its own two legs as a credible adventure movie? The answer is sure. Barely, but sure. As stated, the characters have a depth to them that allows me to forgive the inexcusably bad CG (Seriously. How Sony can justify CG this terrible in 2012 is beyond me. I know Webb is a character guy first, but there’s really no excuse for the poor rendering, and choppy action sequences).
And the nice tweaks to the Uncle Ben sub-plot (The only absolutely indispensable part of any Spider-Man origin), as well as the very strong motivations for Peter post spider-bite, make up for the hackneyed “LET”S DESTROY EVERYONE JUST CAUSE ARGH!!” motivations of the villain. Rhys Ifans, Emma Stone, and Martin Sheen are the bedrock of a solid cast, and a decent script and some nice direction from Webb made this a fairly well-rounded summer action movie. It’s just not one you need to see. The action scenes don’t have much action in them, and there’s never any real sense of danger to any of the cast, even for the ones that actually die. In fact, it’s only when this action movie stops pretending to be an action movie, that it works on any level at all.
It’s not really fair to be mad at filmmakers for making a movie, but it’s the position I find myself in here. Not because Cabin in The Woods is a bad film, but because it’s a movie that’s almost impossible to review without spoiling pretty much every reason why you should go see it.
I’ll give it a shot. 5 generic college students go visit a cabin in the woods, and then…Nope…I can’t do it. Although it’s fairly obvious from the trailers that this isn’t the generic teen horror movie it appears to be at first glance, it’s also a film that deserves to have its secrets experienced, not spoiled.
Things I can tell you:
This is a good script. This is a very good script. In fact, this is a script that anyone who loves American horror movies needs to study. Because like all of the best tributes, this is a script truly in love with its source material. This film isn’t mocking the mindless tropes of horror films, it’s honouring them. Not only that, but Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s strip does such a nice job of slowly dolling out tiny pieces of information through the entire film, that when it comes time for the lengthy “Here’s what in the Harper is actually going on” scene, it’s almost needless. We’ve figured it out, but just need a little bit of clarifying, which is then done quickly, with little wasted time.
These are good characters. They verge on stereotype, with good reason. Horror is a genre that lends itself to stereotype incredibly well. We know that we need a goofball to keep the tone light. We know that we need a brainiac to help us figure out what’s going on. And we know that we need an innocent to rail against the forces of darkness. Not only does Cabin give us those clichés, it gives us a great reason as to WHY we need them….and it turns out we need them pretty badly.
This is a fantastic premise. Unfortunately it’s a premise that I can’t tell you anything about. But it’s really good. It’s so good that you’ll kick yourself for not thinking of it first. It’s so strong, and so well-thought out, that’s it’s going to be hard to enjoy another film in the “cabin-in-the-woods” genre ever again.
Anything I didn’t like? Sure. This was a genre juggle, and while I normally like that in my storytelling, I found the lack of pure horror to be somewhat anti-climactic. It’s a horror movie, but it’s rarely truly scary. And it’s also a comedy, though it’s rarely truly funny. It still combines both genres better than most films do, and as such is eminently watchable, despite the lack of real chills. Still, I found that I appreciated it more from a technical perspective than I did as a film that’s truly emotionally engaging. A quibble, but a quibble worth discussing.
Cabin In the Wood is that rare scary movie that is smart, but also extremely accessible. It’s a fun horror film on its surface, with a terrifying secret at its centre that only enhances your enjoyment of the whole thing.
That’s a common description, but one that’s filled with as much derision as it is praise. Certain movie genres are considered so detestable that no manner of skill or talent could possibly transcend them. You’re praising, but apologizing at the same time…and movies you have to apologize for probably weren’t worth watching in the first place.
The Raid: Redemption is worth watching, I’m happy to report. And by “worth watching” I mean “Get your lazy ass down to the theatre right now and watch one of the very best pure action movies of the last decade.” Please.
Our hero here is Rama (played ably by Iwo Uwais, a martial artist and actor so monstrously talented that my wife took as many opportunities as she could during the movie to inform me that he is now her secret boyfriend), a member of an Indonesian SWAT team sent to arrest a crime lord holed up in a tenement infested with criminals, drug addicts, and other tawdry assundries.
The team finds out almost immediately that things are NOT the way they seem on the surface, and Rama spends the rest of the movie kicking, punching, stabbing, and shooting dozens upon dozens of criminals just to keep his team alive.
The plot is so utterly straight-forward that it makes “See Spot Run” look like Inception: Guy with pregnant wife fights bad guys to get back to pregnant wife. That level of simplicity would usually deter me from fully enjoying something like this. But in the case of The Raid the efficiency of the story, as well as the earnestness and baldly straight-forward nature of the character motivations, served only to accentuate the brutal nature of the violence that we’re watching.
And violent it is. This my friends, is a big, overflowing bucket of ass-kickery. Since Rama is a cop, the movie starts out as a traditional shoot-em up, with Rama attempting to use weapons as well as his surroundings to get out. And then he runs out of bullets. And so the punching commences. Good lord, the punching.
Gareth Evans seems to know what his audiences have come for, and so has artfully put together a series of wildly disparate action scenes, each taking full advantage of that fight’s surroundings. Not only that, but Evans also takes the time to build JUST enough depth into his characters to make us truly care about what’s happening to them.
Don’t get me wrong. This is “just” a simple action movie, with nothing much more than “punch the bad guys till they stop” going for it. But it’s one the best simple action movies you’ll ever see, and I would go as far as to say that it’s one of the very best martial arts films of this new millennium.
Rating: A-
The Hunger Games directed by Gary Ross
Odds are that by now you are familiar with the media-gasm known as The Hunger Games. It’s a movie based on the first book in a trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins, and while a month ago you had never heard of it, by now you either have seen it, or have been properly castigated by the media for not having seen it, or your name is Rick Santorum.
But is it actually any good?
Sure. It’s a solid adventure movie. But it’s hardly perfect, and while it’s nice to see the movie industry do well, this should be a wake up call to studios. Hunger Games didn’t do $155 million in three days because it’s a great movie, though it’s watchable of course. It did $155 million in three days because every single media outlet in the world told every single person in the world that if they didn’t see it, then they were about one rung lower than George Zimmerman in the pecking order of society.
Our story revolves around Katniss, a young girl just struggling to provide for her family in a dystopian future where 12 colonies struggle to pay tribute to the Capital that conquered them decades before. Her young sister has just been randomly chosen to be her village’s annual cannon fodder in the gladiator-style games that this society takes part of, and Katniss volunteers to go in her place.
One of the best compliments I could give to Hunger Games is to compare it to 1984, saying that like Orwell’s seminal masterpiece it plays across all ideological spectrums, letting the reader take from it what they will. And it’s kind of true. Conservatives will say that this is the society you get when a central authority overreaches over the satellite states it’s supposed to manage, and will use it as an example as to why “provincial autonomy” (or “states rights”, if you’re one of my friends to the south) should be considered sacrosanct. Liberals will say that it’s a cautionary tale about the rich taking advantage of the poor, and will use it to rail against the financial tyranny of the “1 %”.
And most will just enjoy it as a moderately entertaining adventure story. Because that’s what it really is. It lacks the visceral danger that seeps out of every poor from books like The Long Walk or Battle Royale (just 2 of the many novels that come to mind when watching this), and there isn’t a single minute where you truly worry about whether or not Katniss will survive this “epic” battle to the death.
Gary Ross does a fairly nice job of world building here, but as a warning against possible futures to come The Hunger Games is relatively toothless. Which is probably why it’s so popular. It’s so far removed from our own reality that it’s easy to project your own politics or worldview onto the characters, and it’s so tame and watered down as to really remove any actual “hunger” that one should find in such a dire scenario. As a moderately entertaining adventure movie this works, but when compared to other works in the “dystopian” genre like Brazil, or Clockwork Orange, or V For Vendetta, or 12 Monkeys, or even Sleeper, it fails miserably.
When discussing the most anticipated geek-friendly films of 2012, there’s some pretty obvious talking points: Dark Knight Rises, Avengers, Spidey, Prometheus, etc. And while I’m definitely excited about all of those, there’s one more on the list that I’ve been looking forward to as much, if not more, than the rest: John Carter.
Why? Because in a lot of ways, a strong case could be argued that without Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom books, those other films might not even exist. While H.G. Wells and Mary Shelley preceded Burrough’s novels by decades, the influence of A Princess Of Mars is still keenly obvious in modern works like works like Avatar, or Star Wars. In a lot of ways, Princess (written in 1912) was the first science fiction epic.
And now, a century later, its a gazillion dollar movie made by the guy that directed Finding Nemo and Wall-E. Anticipation high, yes?
John Carter (played by B.C. actor Taylor Kitsch, who I had never heard of before but have been informed by my wife that he starred in Friday Night Lights, which apparently is a TV show about football that isn’t as horrible as it sounds like it would be) is a retired Civil War infantryman, just trying to make his fortune. The guy from Breaking Bad tries to get him back into the Confederate army, but Carter isn’t having any of it. He escapes, ends up in the desert, finds a magic amulet, gets transported to Mars, and discovers that while he’s there that he has gained the super power of being able to magically repel clothing from his body, since he spends the rest of the movie half-naked. He also has super strength and can jump pretty high.
He then gets kidnapped by Ewoks (in this movie Ewoks are green, 9 feet tall, and have 4 arms. But they’re Ewoks nonetheless), and then stumbles into the middle of a huge Martian civil war; and by stumbles I mean he lets his dick lead him around for the rest of the film in as he chases after a Martian princess who seems to be as clothing-averse as he is, and who gets kidnapped a lot.
There’s a lot to recommend about this movie, but I can’t say that it’s the fantasy masterpiece that Stanton was obviously going for. It’s fun, with a solid script, and a decent cast. It’s got some great special effects, and the CGI is relatively clean. It’s also quite clunky, and tries to cram about 4 hours of plot into half that time. As a result, the film feels extremely rushed, and we never really get to learn much about any of the characters other than: Bad Guy or Good Guy. Now, that’s in keeping with the tone of the original novel. Not a lot of character subtlety going on there. But because we’re not given a lot of background on these Martians, it’s hard for us to figure out why John Carter ends up caring so much about them (other than the obvious answer that he really wants to plow the Martian crap out of one of them.)
But it’s entertaining as hell, with some amazing action scenes, and an easily accessible story. It’s a fun space fantasy a la Avatar, but it a) doesn’t take itself as nearly as that film did, and as a result, b) ends up being twice as fun.
Rating: B+
Pina directed by Wim Wenders
I know as much about modern dance as Republican women seem to know about trans-vaginal ultrasounds. But just like their ignorance about the basics of the human body doesn’t get in the way of their trying to regulate what medical procedures be done in the name of religion, my lack of knowledge about the intricacies of the world of modern dance didn’t get in the way of me enjoying this captivating tribute to the works of the famed choreographer and dancer, Pina Bausch.
Usually one’s interest in a documentary rests and falls on one’s passion for the thing that movie is about. It’s a rare documentary that transcends its subject matter, and that makes you care deeply about something you barely knew existed 5 minutes before the movie began. Pina is one such documentary. And that’s probably because it’s not really a documentary at all.
It’s a collection of dance pieces, planned well ahead of Bauch’s untimely death in 2009. The film cuts between said pieces, and the recollections of her dancers, reminiscing about their years with her troupe. These interviews aren’t so much about imparting information as they are about imparting emotional response, and those that are looking for a Behind The Music-style dish session should look elsewhere. This isn’t gossip, it’s creators missing a collaborator.
But it’s the dance pieces themselves that are the real story here, and Wenders manages to one-up Werner Hertzog’s beautiful Cave Of ForgottenDreams with how effortlessly he uses 3D to capture the dancers performance. He’s not filming a dance performance here; this is a fully realized film, and his camera use and judicious editing manage to create something new out of already beautiful pieces of work.
If it sounds like I’m gushing a bit, it’s because I am. Pina is a truly beautiful movie, and one that must be watched by anyone interested in where 3D technology is taking film. But it’s also a loving tribute to a true artist, one that left her medium a better place than than when she found it.
The nature thriller is a bit of a lost movie genre these days, and it’s a throwback to an era where we didn’t actually have the technology to depict what it would be like for giant robots to fight giant lizards in accurate manner. Since we do, a simple concept like “Plane crashes in Alaska, survivors struggle to remain as such”, can seem a little pedestrian.
Thankfully, The Grey is anything but. It’s an extremely effective drama first, action thriller second, but there’s enough suspense and tension to placate even the most jaded of modern audiences. Neeson plays John Ottway, a man who’s hit a bit of a rough patch in his personal life. He’s working as a sniper keeping wolves away from an oil rig team, which is a job I had never heard of before now, but now want desperately. When the plane they’re all on crashes in Alaska (in reality Smithers B.C., doing a nice job of pretending to be somewhere you’d actually like to visit) , it’s up to him to try to keep them safe from themselves, from the elements, and of course, a large pack of gigantic, ravenously hungry timber wolves. Of course.
Liam Neeson: Wolf Puncher
This film exceeded pretty much all of my expectations, as the last thing I was anticipating was for The Grey to essentially be a 2 hour lesson in secular humanism. Neeson’s character knows that the only thing that really matters in life is the relationships we forge in it, and so he fights, and he fights, and he fights, with very little thought to the sheer hopelessness of his situation. Doing the right thing by his team isn’t even a choice for him, it’s the only option; this, despite the fact that he really doesn’t have much to live for, makes Ottway a humanist hero the likes of which we rarely see in films today.
I’m pleased to see Joe Carnahan has finally made a movie worthy of the potential he showed a decade ago when he made Narc. It’s not just that The Grey is entertaining…it is, tremendously so. But it also channels pure emotion the way that only film can. You care about these characters so much, that every injury and accident almost seems like a personal slight against the viewer. The script is so meticulously crafted that although slight, it conveys such a large amount of information about each character that we’re all old friends by the time the first wolf shows up.
Neeson is a gifted actor, but one whose gifts are often overshadowed by the schlock he peddles. Though the genre tropes of The Grey will probably preclude him from any type of notice come award season, it’s quite easily one of the best performances of his career.
Rating: A-
Chronicle directed by Josh Trank
The “comic book movie” is a genre that’s been given a lot of attention over the past decade, although what people really mean by the reference is “super-hero” movie. We tend to forget that there have been quite a few great films based on comic books that have nothing to do with superheroes (History Of Violence, Road To Perdition, American Splendour, Persepolis, Scott Pilgrim, Ghost World) to name just a couple). What’s truly rare though, is a super-hero movie NOT based on a comic book. And what’s even rarer, is when one of these is actually good. To my mind, there have been exactly two: The Incredibles, and Unbreakable. Funnily enough, they’re also the two best superhero movies ever made.
And now we can add Chronicle to the list.
It’s the story of Andrew, Matt, and Steve: Three high school seniors who discover a secret cave that gives each of them telekinetic abilities. There’s some archetypes here, but the character never veer into cliché: Matt’s the cool high school guy that thinks he’s actually too cool to go there. Steve’s the popular jock (played by Michael B. Jordan, who has the strange distinction of being in both the worst movie of the year so far, as well as one of the best), who makes friends effortlessly. And Andrew (the real star of our story) is the misanthropic loner who is one hoodie away from signing up at Columbine. And so we have our characters.
It’s Andrew who sees the most potential in his abilities, probably because he’s the one with the most to gain. His father is a drunk, and his mother is dying. He has no friends, and very little future to speak of. And so he uses his camera (yes, this is a found footage movie) to not only document the banality of his life, but to also use it as a barrier that shields him from it.
It’s the camera that provides much of the character development in the film, but it’s also the film’s one glaring problem. For a found footage film to work, you have to a) have a really good reason why they don’t put down the camera, and b) have to have someone who compiles all the footage at the end., so that someone else can “find” it. In the case of a), the reason given is a good one, though perhaps not quite as strong as in other similar films. In the case of b), the film makers don’t even try to explain this one, as the “footage” we see is actually compiled from dozens of different cameras, with no explanation as to who the phantom film editor was. Not to mention that the constant intrusion of the camera adds a clunkiness to the dialogue in a few rare scenes, most notably when documenting Andrew’s home and school lives.
As Andrew explores his abilities, his situation at home gets worse. And so he is provided with the motivation he needs (though he didn’t need much) to use his abilities in a way that would make Dr. Doom twirl his mustache in glee. (yes, I know that Dr. Doom doesn’t have a moustache. But the only super villain I could think of that actually has a moustache is the Mandarin, and you have no idea who that is, so I changed it. Sue me.)
This is a superhero origin story that Stan Lee would be proud of. Well-rounded teenage characters? Check. Mundane everyday problems that conflict with the otherworldly nature of their abilities? Check. A truly epic superhero battle that changes both participants for ever? Check. In short, it’s the best X-Men movie never made, and one that easily overshadows most of the crap in that overrated franchise.
If it sounds like I’m raving, it’s because I am, and because this movie deserves it. Like last year’s Attack The Block, Chronicle’s visual premise is based on financial considerations, but also allows Josh Trank to come up with many unique angles and shots never really seen in a movie like this. If Marvel Studios was smart, they would sign this guy up to a lifetime contract tomorrow. And if Trank was smart, he wouldn’t sign it. I can’t wait to see what this guy does next.
Chronicle is not only one of the best superhero movies ever made, it’s a better story than 98% of the superhero comics on the stands right now. It understands that superhero stories work best when emphasizing the humanity of the superhumans they’re telling us about. It’s also that very rare film that makes me clamour for a sequel.
The conventional wisdom is that Red Tails is the worst movie of the year. I think that’s being unkind….to the Gregorian Calendar. No mere civilization-spanning system of time measurement could possibly be big enough to handle the monumental epic awfulness of this piece of cinematic dreck.
Making fun of George Lucas’s skills as a filmmaker these days is about as easy as stealing candy from a baby, or even as easy as stealing candy from an adult with a baby’s head (all due apologies to Newt Gingrich). And so I wanted to explain exactly WHY this movie isn’t just bad, but should actually be arrested and tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity.
The Script:
Almost everything that’s wrong with this thing can be found in the script, although to call it a script would be like calling Rick Santorum a rational, compassionate human being. First of all, there’s no plot, which is a bit of a “must-have” for me. Oh, there’s a group of black WW2 fighter pilots who go on missions….but that’s not a plot. That’s a premise. That’s what gets you in the door, but that shouldn’t be the whole story. In the case of Red Tails, it is. The pilots go on a mission. And then another. And then another. And then the movie is over. There’s no real highs, since the pilots scream and yell almost every time that something happens, and there’s no real lows since Terence Howard scowls with a trembling lip the rest of the time. If the actors don’t know how to react to the farce that they’re reading, how are we supposed to?
The Dialogue:
Cuba Gooding, about 4 minutes before calling his agent to thank him for getting him a gig in Red Tails
Technically dialogue is part of script, but in this case the dialogue is so horrendous that it really deserves its own category. I’m more than a little saddened that the genius who created The Boondocks had a hand in “writing” this, but I’m convinced that Lucas just paid Aaron McGruder to allow his name to be attached. I just can’t see the man who created Huey Freeman to be behind these hackneyed bon mots:
“From the last plane, to the last bullet, to the last-minute, to the last man, we fight “, or, ”You get us the mission, we’ll light up the board” or, ”The only respect I have is for the uniform.”
Give me strength.
Let me clarify. I have no problem with cliches in filmmaking. There’s a reason why we have cliches, and why we have stereotypes. There is something so satisfyingly familiar about going to a great sports or action movie where you know EXACTLY what’s going to happen. Sometimes it’s not the destination, it’s the ride. But in the case of Red Tails, George Lucas seems committed to actually tossing you off the roller coaster in mid-trip.
Worst of all, Lucas and Anthony Hemingway seemed to think that they were filming a radio play. When someone fires a gun, he says, “I’m shooting a gun!” and when someone takes a drink, he says ‘Man, I need a drink’, and when someone says ‘I really want to shoot Cuba Gooding Jr in the face”, they d…..actually, that’s just wishful thinking on my part. The whole reason why we have movie cameras, is so that we can SEE what’s happening. If you TELL us what’s happening at the same time, it kind of defeats the purpose of making a movie in the first place.
The Acting, and the Characters:
It’s not really fair to criticize the actors too much here, as being expected to polish up this rotting turd would be beyond the skills of even the finest thespians, much less the man who brought you Daddy Day Camp. Gooding is baldly terrible in this, but he almost seems glad to have finally found a movie that he’s not the worst part of. He chews up every scene as feverishly as he does the pipe that accompanies him throughout.
Brian Cranston, about 4 minutes before firing his agent for getting him a gig in Red Tails.
I wouldn’t label his performance as a disappointment though, as it’s hard to be disappointed in someone you never had any confidence in the first place. But Terence Howard? He’s a different story, and it’s sad to see someone who once showed so much promise relegated to trembling and shaking like a vibrating bed at a Motel 6. There are other actors in the film of course (namely half the cast of the Wire), but please don’t judge them too harshly. Like another man who had to undergo a terrible experience once said, “Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do”.
George Lucas said in the promotional build-up to this that no studio would pay for a big budget action movie built around a black cast, and acted as if he had the next District 9 or Reservoir Dogs under his hat. He didn’t. In fact, we’ve discovered that he didn’t have a hat at all. It’s been easy to apologize for Lucas, as he is the man who brought so many of us so many of our fondest childhood moments. But that Lucas is long gone now, and in his place is a sad, shell of a has-been who has no business ever being near a film camera again.
Rating:
To rate this film would be like asking that girl whose bungee cord broke to rate her experience on Trip Advisor.
Haywire directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Steven Soderbergh said that with Haywire, he wanted to make a Pam Grier movie as directed by Alfred Hitchock. It’s a lofty goal, and one that I desperately wish he had been able to pull off.
In this post-Tarantino age, we have an idealized vision of what a B movie is. Nowadays, the B movie has become a hyper-stylized, over the top arthouse conceit. But back in the day? Back in the day the idea of a B movie playing to arthouse audiences would be laughed at. And to his credit, it’s the un-ironic, grimy take on the B movie that Soderbergh decided to make here.
Haywire stars Gina Carano, a charismatic newbie who is apparently a big star in the world of something called “mixed martial-arts”. Apparently that exists. In short, she can beat you up. Yes, even you. In Haywire, she plays a mercenary, who eventually gets hunted down by the very firm that once hired her. It’s a classic action chase film, and one that doesn’t disappoint IF you don’t walk in the door expecting Soderbergh to ply his art house charms on this fairly generic actioner. In short, it’s JUST a moderately well-done, realistic action movie that reminded me of some of Steve McQueens stronger films. But I wanted more. I wanted something hyper-stylized, with a script as smart as the one that Soderbergh wrote for Contagion last year. But that’s not this film.
What this film is, is about watching an extremely talented human being pounding the pulp out of other human beings. Gina Cerano will never be chosen to be in Woody Allen’s newest Parisian romp, but as a martial artist she’s a goddamn poet. Her fight scenes are sporadic, and sadly short, but they’re absolutely brilliant, and they’re what bumps up this film from a decent action movie to a good one.
Martha Marcy May Marlene – Directed by Sean Durkin
It’s Oscar bait time, and right now the front-runner in the “Indie Film That No One Watched But Is Actually Going To Win A Bunch Of Awards” category is Martha Marcy May Marlene, a subversive little psychological thriller by Sean Durkin.
It’s the story of Martha, a listless young woman played by Elizabeth Olsen. She’s been missing for years, and out of the blue she inserts herself into her sister’s life. She’s not very communicative about where she’s been, and it becomes clear that her past can’t be forgotten quite as easily as she had hoped.
This is an effective character study, mostly because in Martha we have an effective character, played by an amazing actress. Elizabeth Olsen is a lock for an Oscar nomination here, and she reminds one of what Scarlet Johansson’s career could have been like if she actually had talent. I would go as far as to say that Durkin may be deserving of similar praise. He shifts the scenery from Martha’s present to her recent past so seamlessly, that at times they’re almost indistinguishable from each other, which is kind of the point. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that the Martha’s past (she’s spent the last two years essentially living with a communal cult) is closer to catching up with her than she thinks.
This is a quiet film, and one whose twists and turns are emotional rather than plot-driven. I’m looking forward to seeing what else both Durkin and Olsen are capable of.
Rating: A-
Margin Call – Directed by JC Chandor
Probably the best compliment I could give Margin Call is how much it reminded me of Glen Garry Glen Ross. While it doesn’t have the overwrought verbosity of that Mamet classic, the tone is similar, and it deals with similar subject matter: In both cases, we’re dealing with the end of an era.
Margin Call is the story of a fictional financial firm, the night before that firm’s actions trigger a monumental international financial crisis. The comparisons to the recent 2008 financial crisis are numerous and obvious (this fictional firm is obviously Lehman Brothers), but the decision to make this a fictional story was a smart one, and it gives director JC Chandor more than enough leeway to concentrate on character development and storytelling, and not worry about the minutia one would if they were making a biopic.
This is a phenomenal first film. The top-heavy cast (Stanley Tucci, Zachary Quinto, Kevin Spacey in his best film role in years, Michael Bettany in his best non-albino monk role in years, Penn Badgely, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, and Jeremy Irons playing the role of Gravitas-Laden Master Thespian) is a true ensemble: Everybody gets their moment in the sun, but they’re all working towards the greater good. There are no “stars” in this movie, just extremely talented pieces of a movie making puzzle. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re working with one of the best scripts I’ve heard this year.
There have been some very great movies made about money, or perhaps more accurately, the loss of money. There is a gleeful joy we seem to get when shown very rich people becoming very poor people. And on the surface, Margin Call seems to be a nice postscript to that minor pantheon. But it doesn’t take long for us to realize that the money that Margin Call is discussing, the money that is quickly slipping through this firm’s fingers, is ours.
Rating: A
The Muppets - Directed by James Bobbin
My childhood was devoid of many of the pop-culture trappings prevalent in the psyches of so many people my age. Thanks to my religious upbringing, I seemed to be able to avoid many of the tropes often found in the emotional baggage of people who great up in the late 1970s and 1980s. Except for the Muppet Show. That one stuck.
I loved this show. Loved it like Stephen Harper loves putting poor people in prison. And for a while, The Muppets was one of the few franchises that could successfully cross over into the movies, with at least 4 good-to-great films under their collective belt. But that was a long time ago. People change. Tastes change. We live in a more cynical time now. One where the height of TV sophistication seems to involve watching people of limited intellectual capacity cavort and preen before the cameras in unlikely predetermined situations for our amusement. One where irony and witticism have been replaced with snark and doubt. In a world like the one we’re in, is there still room for the Muppets?
Heck yes. Double heck yes.
The premise is this. Walter and Gary (played by Jason Segel) are brothers. Walter is a Muppet, Gary is not. This is never explained, but does make one want to know a little bit more about the personal life of Walter and Gerry’s mom. Walter is a huge fan of Kermit and the rest of the Muppets, and so he, Gary, and Mary (Gary’s girlfriend of 10 years, played ably by Amy Adams, who dusted off her Amy Adams suit one last time for this one) embark on a trip to the original Muppet Studios in LA (a more cynical person might point out that the original Muppet Show was filmed in London. Alas, I am not that cruel). They find the studio decrepit, derelict, and guarded grumpily by Alan Arkin.
Walter discovers that Chris Cooper is about to destroy the Muppet Studios in order to drill for oil (the very remote probability of discovering an oil well in downtown LA is thankfully never discussed), and so our three heroes try to find Kermit The Frog, to let him know what’s happening to his beloved studio. They convince him of the righteousness of their cause, and then proceed to literally get the band back together.
This movie is what you get when you inject pure joy directly into your brain. I can’t remember another film this year that had me smiling this much. This is a big, old-timey, fun and frivolity-laden, movie musical, and one that deserves your praise. Now, this movie is a nostalgia trip to be sure, but one that never really feels dated, despite the presence of Mickey Rooney. (On a side note: Mickey Rooney’s still alive. Who knew?). This film (like the original Muppet Show) is geared as much toward adults as it is towards children, although only time will tell which group appreciates this version more.
This is a formula movie, but one that reminds us why those formulas exist. We know what will happen in pretty much every frame of the movie, and that doesn’t dilute our enjoyment of it at all, due to the fantastic execution of said formula. And while to say it is a cliché of its own, this really is about as much fun as you’ll have at the movies this year.
The Artist, directed by Michel Hazanavicius (France)
First of all, I should let you know that The Artist is in black and white. Seco…Hey! Where are you going? Come back! Ok, that’s better. The other thing that I need to tell you is that it’s a silent film, with absolutely no speaki…..Hey! Get back here! Uncultured philistines.
Yes, it’s a black and white movie. And yes, it’s a silent film, with absolutely no dialogue, with only an occasional inter title to help propel the story forward. And it’s absolutely wonderful.
It’s the story of George Valentin, the biggest movie star of the silent era of film. He’s got everything: Wealth, fame, and a beautiful wife. And then? Progress. The talkie is invented, making a silent specialist like George more than a little redundant. He’s bound and determined to prove the experts wrong, and do one last great silent movie. And it bombs. And then the great depression hits. And now he’s done.
This is a melodrama in the truest sense of the word, and as such, eminently predictable. But the genius of the film isn’t what the end result is, it’s how the story unfolds, and how Hazanavicius utilizes the long dead art of inter titles and a stunning score by Ludovic Bource to tell such a simple, yet effective story.
And of course we need to talk about the actors. To pull such a unique film, you need unique players, and we get them in spades in Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. Bejo pulls off a wonderful Clara Bow/Ginger Rogers pastiche that would have stolen the show, if it weren’t for the uber-leading man star power of Dujardin, a man who I’m absolutely convinced was the lost love child of Gene Kelly and Douglas Fairbanks. Not to mention the great John Goodman, who as always makes bad movies good, and good movies great, with a nice little role as the studio boss with a soft heart.
And then there’s the score. Ludovic Bource has created a score so vibrant, and so exciting, that it might as well have been an actor in its own right. Though some of the stylistic choices do sound more than a little post-modern for the 1920′s setting, I’m willing to allow it.
I need to tell you something. This is no simple art house conceit. I’m convinced that not only is there a market for The Artist, but that it’s an Oscar contender. It’s probably the best feel good movie I’ve seen this year (yes, maybe even more so than Midnight In Paris), and I could see this crossing over to multiplex crossover success if handled correctly. If you like smart, entertaining films that don’t make you feel like you’ve been kicked in the junk by Pele, than The Artist is definitely for you.
Benda Bilili! Directed by Renaud Barret & Florent de La Tullaye (France, Congo)
Vancouver’s film festival is past the half way mark, and I’m starting to get just a little tired of the arthouse precociousness that you get with a lot of the films that VIFF presents. We get it, you’re sad, and you’re important. Good for you.
Because of all of the European misery I’ve been subjecting myself to, I was very much looking forward to seeing Benda Bilili! as I knew exactly what I was going to get: A documentary about one of the greatest musical success stories of the last decade.
It’s the story of Ricky Likabu, a paraplegic musician living and working on the streets of Kinshasa, Congo. About six years ago, the film makers meet Ricky while working on another project in the Congo, and fall in love with him, and his music. They decide to try to help him and his group of musicians (Benda Bilili), to make a recording. They also introduce him to Roger Landu, a homeless street urchin from a surrounding village, who at that point was just starting to learn the satongé, a single-stringed instrument of his own devising. From a musical perspective Roger is the last missing ingredient to Benda Bilili’s unique stew of soukous, zouk, African rumba, and funk, but the band still struggles, and the film follows them around as they spend the next five years trying to make their dreams happen.
This is a film full of joy, but it would be a mistake to call this a simple movie about music. What it’s really about, is following your dreams. Both Ricky and the film makers are trying to accomplish completely unrealistic goals, and the film follows both in a fairly straight-forward cinéma vérité style. What I appreciated about Barret & de La Tullaye’s approach was that even though they are a fairly integral part to Bilili’s story, they really kept themselves out of the film, and even minimized the involvement of producer Vincent Kunis in the movie, even though his arrival in Kinshasa really changed the fortunes of the band.
What the film makers do, and do well, is to keep the camera on the band. Half of the members of the group are physically disabled in some way due to polio, and so it’s easy to dismiss them as a simple gimmick group. But as the movie eventually shows when the group makes its inevitable performance debut in France, they’re anything but. I should know, I’m one of the few people in this country that’s been lucky enough to have seen them.
Benda Bilili is a straight-forward rags to riches story. But it’s also a good film. And one that recognizes that Staff Benda Bilili isn’t worth watching because they’re from the Congo, or because they live in a zoo, or because they have polio. They’re worth watching because they are one of the best live bands on the planet right now, and it’s a tragedy that due to visa and passport problems, that this film might be North American audiences only chance to see them. Although the film does have it’s minor problems (a lack of real explanation as to exactly how successful the band becomes, no interviews with any band members other than Landu or Likabu), it’s still a very watchable documentary, and one of the best music films I’ve seen in some time.
This century is only 12 years old, but we already have several additions to the pantheon of capital G great science fiction films: Children Of Men. District 9. Moon. Eternal Sunshine. And now, we can add Looper.
