Lettergrade: D-
The trailer for Black Dynamite might be the funniest two minutes I've seen recently. The movie itself is about 10 times funnier... and by that I mean that it's funny for around 20 minutes. After that, the road gets a little rough and patchy, and after that still, the car veers off the road entirely and bursts into flames.
The flick is a parody of early 70s Blaxploitation films, and I don't mean the more respectable ones like the Shaft movies. Instead, Dynamite draws inspiration from the likes of Rudy Ray Moore's no budget Dolemite movies, with a strong allusion or two to other classics like The Mack, Coffey, and Superfly. The result is a crazy - and at times intentionally incoherent - farce in the style of the "Fist Full Of Yen" segment from The Kentucky Fried Movie. I cannot really recommend it to anybody, even to people who usually like this sort of thing, in spite of a handful of really big laughs.
I sought out a lot of the pictures that Dynamite mocks myself while in high school, and my reaction to each of them was almost always the same: I would initially laugh at all the cheesy 70s stuff and at the questionable filmmaking: the highly dated music, the grade Z art direction, the lousy camera work, the crappy editing, and of course the repetitive as hell dialogue that manages to be dazzlingly free of subtlety. Black Dynamite works hard to recreate pretty much every one of those elements, up to and including the moment about 1/3 of the way into the movie where it dawned on me that these curious cultural artifacts, while mildly amusing, really aren't worth the time it takes to watch them.
Michael Jai White co-wrote the script and plays the title role. He's had a number of small parts in big movies, and large roles in flicks that went directly to video. In spite of the fact that I can't really recommend the movie, White impressed the hell out of me, both with his charisma and comedic chops, but also with excellent martial arts skills. I'm glad he got to show off his talents in this movie, and I'm hoping it won't be too long before he's given the opportunity to do so again in a much better one.
Like the Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse, the film is fatally concerned with recreating a particular look. Deep down, I suspect that most audiences get little pleasure from films that are made to appear intentionally crude and crappy like this. I'm sure that even casual film goers get the idea, but there's a big "so what?" factor that comes into play after only a few minutes. Compare Dynamite's approach with that of another staple of my youth, Keenen Ivory Wayans' far superior I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, a picture which parodies the same source material to wonderful effect, but rarely targets the technical shoddiness. I think people tend to remember what movies were about and how they made them feel rather than what the film stock was like.
Another big assumption the Dynamite script seems to make is that the 70s Blaxploitation movies existed without much of a point, and that's not entirely true. Although there's plenty to laugh at in those movies, it is important to note that they were also some of the first movies made by the black community, featuring actual black actors who weren't appearing as thugs, or as waiters and butlers, or as dumb comic relief.
And by and large, they _did_ have a point. The lead characters, often wrapped up in some kind of detective / crime plot, were usually strong symbols of black empowerment. They were smart, tough, and knew how to outsmart the bigoted white guys who were trying to push them around. The story-lines frequently had them attempting to do good for the local community and fighting for some kind of worthy cause... trying to help orphans or attempting to rid the neighborhood of crack (or in the case of Black Dynamite, both: He's trying to help orphans who are addicted to crack!). In spite of the moral shadiness that existed in most 70s cinema of the day, they were still strong protagonists unlike most of cinema's African American characters that had come before.
The ethics, however, were always a little questionable: Drugs in the neighborhood were usually no-go, but being a pimp and having thriving prostitution business seemed to be a-ok. These pictures were clearly made with a buck in mind (let's not forget that it is called Blaxploitation for a good reason), but they were also about more than that on a social level.
Dynamite's aim is to celebrate the cheesiness of those movies, and perhaps aspects of African American culture, both from then and today, which whiteys like myself just might not be equipped to appreciate or understand. Nevertheless, I'm attempting to evaluate it purely as a movie on its own merits, and by that standard, I must say that I get the feeling that this is one of those films that was thought up while a bunch of friends sat around drinking and watching TV one night. Everyone involved seems to have had a great time, but the finished film, which knocked around for a year or two before finally getting distribution, tries to sustain itself on a series of bizarre jokes that I suspect are too insular for most people to get, and do not even come close to adding up to satisfying movie.
October 21, 2009
October 18, 2009
Where The Wild Things Are (10/18/2009)
Lettergrade: complicated.
Where The Wild Things Are is one of those movies that I have a ton of respect for, but did not especially enjoy watching. The look, feel, and style evokes a magical kind of retro 70s nostalgia which in many ways perfectly captures the emotional spectrum of what its like to be a kid who feels neglected and lonely. My issue is that the movie is almost all about feeling with very little story. I want to acknowledge that the approach that director Spike Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggers took in adapting Maurice Sendak's beloved children's book is wholly appropriate and perfectly valid, but I guess I just need a little more from a movie myself for it to really take off.
My sister tells me that my grandmother had a well-worn copy of Sendak's book, originally published in the 60s, and read it to us often while we were growing up. Of that I have virtually no memory, and therefore I cannot really comment on how faithful Jonze was in making his adaptation. As I understand it, the basic story is the same, only with a few more illustrative incidents which were inserted to flesh out the characters more thouroughly. Another change, apparently, is that the wild things are named in this version and have more distinctive personalities which seemingly mirror Max's life and emotional spectrum more closely.
One thing I will heap tons of praise on the filmmakers for is the decision to have the Jim Henson Creature Shop design suits for real people to wear on the set, rather than do the monsters as all-computer generated entities. For one, it probably helped 12 year old Max Records achieve the excellent performance he turned in, but on another level, seeing actual, tangible things running wild through the forest instead of having been pasted in via computer added to the soul of the picture immeasurably. The faces are digital, however, and are expressive and emotive in ways that would be tough for any puppet to match. I think Jonze understood the value of both technologies perfectly and made the best possible use of each.
My father-in-law observed that the tantrum-prone Carol, the monster that James Gandolfini voices, has a number of interesting parallels to Tony Soprano, not the least of which is his penchant for taking out his anger violently and without much thought of the consequences. Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara, and Forest Whitaker provide the voices for the other creatures, although to be honest with you, I had a tough time identifying any of them before I saw their names in the closing credits.
Where The Wild Things Are is one of those movies that I have a ton of respect for, but did not especially enjoy watching. The look, feel, and style evokes a magical kind of retro 70s nostalgia which in many ways perfectly captures the emotional spectrum of what its like to be a kid who feels neglected and lonely. My issue is that the movie is almost all about feeling with very little story. I want to acknowledge that the approach that director Spike Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggers took in adapting Maurice Sendak's beloved children's book is wholly appropriate and perfectly valid, but I guess I just need a little more from a movie myself for it to really take off.
My sister tells me that my grandmother had a well-worn copy of Sendak's book, originally published in the 60s, and read it to us often while we were growing up. Of that I have virtually no memory, and therefore I cannot really comment on how faithful Jonze was in making his adaptation. As I understand it, the basic story is the same, only with a few more illustrative incidents which were inserted to flesh out the characters more thouroughly. Another change, apparently, is that the wild things are named in this version and have more distinctive personalities which seemingly mirror Max's life and emotional spectrum more closely.
One thing I will heap tons of praise on the filmmakers for is the decision to have the Jim Henson Creature Shop design suits for real people to wear on the set, rather than do the monsters as all-computer generated entities. For one, it probably helped 12 year old Max Records achieve the excellent performance he turned in, but on another level, seeing actual, tangible things running wild through the forest instead of having been pasted in via computer added to the soul of the picture immeasurably. The faces are digital, however, and are expressive and emotive in ways that would be tough for any puppet to match. I think Jonze understood the value of both technologies perfectly and made the best possible use of each.
My father-in-law observed that the tantrum-prone Carol, the monster that James Gandolfini voices, has a number of interesting parallels to Tony Soprano, not the least of which is his penchant for taking out his anger violently and without much thought of the consequences. Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara, and Forest Whitaker provide the voices for the other creatures, although to be honest with you, I had a tough time identifying any of them before I saw their names in the closing credits.
Jonze actually shot his first version of the picture in 2007, but Warner Bros. freaked at the dark, impressionistic nature of the story and threatened not to release it all. After some extensive and recutting both Jonze and WB wound up with a picture they felt honored the book and calmed the nerves of the twitchy executives.
I don't have much else to say about the picture, frankly, but want to take a moment to acknowledge that the film's theatrical trailer is probably among the best I've seen. The use of the Arcade Fire song set against the beautiful design of the monsters and the tactile pleasure of seeing them all romp around the forest, simply combined into something almost breath-taking for me. With a trailer so good, perhaps it was only inevitable that the film itself wouldn't pack the same punch. Nevertheless, although it is a picture I didn't feel much for myself, I recognize that there's a lot of great stuff happening here, and I think the current state of family movies is better off with a movie like this around than without.
October 4, 2009
Toy Story 1 & 2 in 3D (10/04/09)
Lettergrade: A (for both movies, but not really for the 3D)
It's rare that I pass up the chance to see a re-release of a beloved older movie, and that's doubly true when we're talking about movies that are as much fun as much as the two Toy Storys. Disney / Pixar decided to convert the pictures for the recently resurgent 3D craze and have put them back into theaters for two weeks only, ending October 16th. The occasion, says Disney, is for the 15th anniversary of the first film, although some simple math reveals that the 1995 picture is only 14 years old presently (Toy Story 2 is celebrating 10 years, though). The real reason likely has more to do with the fact that Toy Story 3 is due out next June, and a release like this is probably a big boost to public interest and merchandise sales. Whatever the motives, it's a treat to get to see the movies in a big theater and with an audience again.
Now that Pixar has released ten theatrical features - each, it seems, more visually sophisticated than the last - it is interesting to open the time capsule, re-experience the first and third movies they made (A Bug's Life fell between them), and examine the spark that kicked off this monstrous computer animation wildfire that has dominated children's features for most of the last decade.
Ah, 1995... Tim Allen's comedic talent seemed limitless, Tom Hanks had just won back-to-back Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, and only the year before The Lion King marked the high point of Disney's traditional animation renaissance of the 1990s (arguably) and eclipsed Aladdin and Snow White And The Seven Dwarves as the highest earning animated film (a title it still holds!). What in the world was this all-computer-animated movie that this semi-obscure San Francisco company was putting out?
As the endeavor seemed risky at the time, the Pixar folks latched onto the growing trend of getting well-known celebrities to lend their voices to animated characters, only on a much bigger scale than had been done previously. Not only did Toy Story count on Hanks' and Allen's popularity to drum up audience interest, but it also recruited highly popular voices like those of John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, and famed insult comic Don Rickles in order to both attract wide demographics and to give the very plastic-looking screen characters some built-in life and personality. Another unusual selection was that of Randy Newman to write the film's songs and score. In addition to his rock albums, he had only scored eight films at that time and nearly all of them were dramas. He had never written songs aimed at a younger audience prior to that, nor had he had a scoring assignment that required him to write busy, punctuational music the likes of which a picture like Toy Story needed -- attributes which have both come to define his career in the years since.
Watching the first Toy Story again for the first time in years, I was struck by the emotional complexity of the writing. Just in case you you're new to the movies, the idea is that when children turn their backs or leave the room, their toys come to life: They talk shop, complain about the job (sometimes), and they freak whenever a birthday or holiday rolls around as it means that new toys will be heading to the toy chest and might replace one of them. That's what happens to Woody (Hanks) who is pushed from his role as Andy's favorite and the leader of the toy family when the pompous and deluded Buzz Lightyear (Allen) arrives. After suffering indignity upon indignity, Woody's jealousy leads him to attempt to push Buzz out an open window, but a series of events winds up getting them both lost out in the real world.
While the picture as a whole is still undeniably solid, the first part felt a little unsure of itself to me this time, almost like the filmmakers had introduced too many celebrity toys and then didn't quite know how to balance them all. A curious thing I was reminded of is that Rex repeats several of Cripin Glover's lines from Back To The Future for no clear reason. Perhaps they attempted to get Glover to do the voice himself at one point, but in any case the final performance was done by The Princess Bride's Wallace Shawn. Also, I was struck by what a dick Mr. Potato Head is pretty much throughout the picture, but hey, it's Rickles.
During the first section, there are many rapid-fire jokes that wink at the camera a bit and feel like the product of a writer's room rather than an organic screenplay. The story really begins to work when Woody and Buzz get left behind at the gas station, go to to Pizza Planet, and then on to Sid's Room, a den of horrors for lost and mangled toys. The visual style seems a bit crude by today's standards, but there are still some stand-out sequences, like the whole rocket chase toward the end of the picture.
As good as the first picture is, 1999's Toy Story 2 manages to top it in nearly every category, above all, story. The jokes this time brim with originality and confidence, and the some sequences, like Jessie's song, are still as good as any the company has done. Although Pixar has since made pictures that have lapped it several times over in terms of visual beauty and sound design, I will maintain that they've never matched it in terms of content.
2 finds Woody having nightmares about becoming old and unwanted after a rip in his arm causes Andy to go to cowboy camp without him. Through a series of events, Woody winds up in the penthouse apartment of a toy collector with some other toys inspired by the same 50s TV show: Jessie The Yodelin' Cowgirl (the brilliant Joan Cusack), Stinky Pete (voiced by Kelsey Grammar, rehashing his Sideshow Bob persona a bit), and Bullseye The Horse, who does not talk. Each represents a different way of dealing with hurt and neglect. Bullseye goes after affection like a needy puppy, Jessie, having been owned and discarded by a girl in the 70s, is wounded and cautious about letting anyone else in again, while Stinky Pete, having been trapped inside his packaging for the whole of his existence and never played with at all, seethes with an unctuous rage that erupts in a startling way during the picture's third act.
Thematically, the picture quickly becomes a very philosophical look at the ideas of aging and, I guess, death. Will Woody choose to stay with the collector's items and have immortality behind a glass case in a Japanese museum, or will he decide to fill the purpose for which he was made, and risk being damaged or discarded someday? Pretty heavy stuff for an animated film for children: Let's see one of those crappy Shrek sequels try to get anywhere close. While Woody rediscovers his roots and lets his value go to his head, the other toys from Andy's room, led by Buzz, stage a rescue mission to go out into the world, Dirty Dozen style, and bring Woody back.
So many scenes in this movie are pure brilliance... Buzz encounters another Buzz toy in Al's Toy Barn who, like him in the first movie, has yet to realize that it's not the _actual_ Buzz Lightyear but a mere action figure. The movie further exploits the notion that the Lightyear toy line is a shameless knock-off of various Star Trek and Star Wars standards by introducing a maniacal Emperor Zurg toy who has a climactic face-off with both Buzzs late in the picture ala The Empire Strikes Back. Several sequences like the scenes where the toys cross the street under traffic cones, where Woody attempts to retrieve his detached arm from the sleeping toy collector, and the whole chase scene at the end, also still rank among the best that Pixar has done.
During the screening, I was thinking that there isn't anything especially enlightening about seeing the two movies back to back like this, and I believe that's true, but the comparison does highlight the advancements between the two like the much more thoughtful use of sound, and the more confident handling of the story material. By Toy Story 2 they really had the "secret world" formula down: A formula that they attempted one too many times in 2001's Monsters, Inc., which still holds the title of my least favorite Pixar flick, and awkwardly tried to modify again for 2006's Cars, although the sort-of twist in that one is that cars existed in the place of humans, ala Planet Of The Apes.
As I've written about previously, I'm very much _not_ a fan of 3D, particularly with older movies like these two which were not produced with the effect in mind. I find the 3D effect to be minimal and almost non-existent, and therefore the glasses only serve to make the picture dimmer and less-clear, and the colors less vibrant and effective. That opinion remains pretty much unchanged by this, although the opening of part 2 did kick five kinds of ass in 3D. Still, if given the choice, I'd rather see the movie in 2D, looking bright and crisp.
The two Toy Storys represent classy, expertly done CG animation at its best -- before everyone and his uncle starting making them en masse, junking the genre up with such disposable trash as the Ice Age trilogy, Space Chimps and pretty much every CG picture that Dreamworks Animation has put out (with the exception of Shrek 2 and Kung Fu Panda). In a way, Toy Story 2 ends so perfectly that I'm dreading the third picture's release. Regardless, however, these movies are a wonderful part of recent film history and getting out to see them in a theater is a lot of fun and a trip worth making.
My review of Up
My review of Monsters Vs. Aliens
My review of Kung Fu Panda
My review of Shrek The Third
It's rare that I pass up the chance to see a re-release of a beloved older movie, and that's doubly true when we're talking about movies that are as much fun as much as the two Toy Storys. Disney / Pixar decided to convert the pictures for the recently resurgent 3D craze and have put them back into theaters for two weeks only, ending October 16th. The occasion, says Disney, is for the 15th anniversary of the first film, although some simple math reveals that the 1995 picture is only 14 years old presently (Toy Story 2 is celebrating 10 years, though). The real reason likely has more to do with the fact that Toy Story 3 is due out next June, and a release like this is probably a big boost to public interest and merchandise sales. Whatever the motives, it's a treat to get to see the movies in a big theater and with an audience again.
Now that Pixar has released ten theatrical features - each, it seems, more visually sophisticated than the last - it is interesting to open the time capsule, re-experience the first and third movies they made (A Bug's Life fell between them), and examine the spark that kicked off this monstrous computer animation wildfire that has dominated children's features for most of the last decade.
Ah, 1995... Tim Allen's comedic talent seemed limitless, Tom Hanks had just won back-to-back Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, and only the year before The Lion King marked the high point of Disney's traditional animation renaissance of the 1990s (arguably) and eclipsed Aladdin and Snow White And The Seven Dwarves as the highest earning animated film (a title it still holds!). What in the world was this all-computer-animated movie that this semi-obscure San Francisco company was putting out?
As the endeavor seemed risky at the time, the Pixar folks latched onto the growing trend of getting well-known celebrities to lend their voices to animated characters, only on a much bigger scale than had been done previously. Not only did Toy Story count on Hanks' and Allen's popularity to drum up audience interest, but it also recruited highly popular voices like those of John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, and famed insult comic Don Rickles in order to both attract wide demographics and to give the very plastic-looking screen characters some built-in life and personality. Another unusual selection was that of Randy Newman to write the film's songs and score. In addition to his rock albums, he had only scored eight films at that time and nearly all of them were dramas. He had never written songs aimed at a younger audience prior to that, nor had he had a scoring assignment that required him to write busy, punctuational music the likes of which a picture like Toy Story needed -- attributes which have both come to define his career in the years since.
Watching the first Toy Story again for the first time in years, I was struck by the emotional complexity of the writing. Just in case you you're new to the movies, the idea is that when children turn their backs or leave the room, their toys come to life: They talk shop, complain about the job (sometimes), and they freak whenever a birthday or holiday rolls around as it means that new toys will be heading to the toy chest and might replace one of them. That's what happens to Woody (Hanks) who is pushed from his role as Andy's favorite and the leader of the toy family when the pompous and deluded Buzz Lightyear (Allen) arrives. After suffering indignity upon indignity, Woody's jealousy leads him to attempt to push Buzz out an open window, but a series of events winds up getting them both lost out in the real world.
While the picture as a whole is still undeniably solid, the first part felt a little unsure of itself to me this time, almost like the filmmakers had introduced too many celebrity toys and then didn't quite know how to balance them all. A curious thing I was reminded of is that Rex repeats several of Cripin Glover's lines from Back To The Future for no clear reason. Perhaps they attempted to get Glover to do the voice himself at one point, but in any case the final performance was done by The Princess Bride's Wallace Shawn. Also, I was struck by what a dick Mr. Potato Head is pretty much throughout the picture, but hey, it's Rickles.
During the first section, there are many rapid-fire jokes that wink at the camera a bit and feel like the product of a writer's room rather than an organic screenplay. The story really begins to work when Woody and Buzz get left behind at the gas station, go to to Pizza Planet, and then on to Sid's Room, a den of horrors for lost and mangled toys. The visual style seems a bit crude by today's standards, but there are still some stand-out sequences, like the whole rocket chase toward the end of the picture.
As good as the first picture is, 1999's Toy Story 2 manages to top it in nearly every category, above all, story. The jokes this time brim with originality and confidence, and the some sequences, like Jessie's song, are still as good as any the company has done. Although Pixar has since made pictures that have lapped it several times over in terms of visual beauty and sound design, I will maintain that they've never matched it in terms of content.
2 finds Woody having nightmares about becoming old and unwanted after a rip in his arm causes Andy to go to cowboy camp without him. Through a series of events, Woody winds up in the penthouse apartment of a toy collector with some other toys inspired by the same 50s TV show: Jessie The Yodelin' Cowgirl (the brilliant Joan Cusack), Stinky Pete (voiced by Kelsey Grammar, rehashing his Sideshow Bob persona a bit), and Bullseye The Horse, who does not talk. Each represents a different way of dealing with hurt and neglect. Bullseye goes after affection like a needy puppy, Jessie, having been owned and discarded by a girl in the 70s, is wounded and cautious about letting anyone else in again, while Stinky Pete, having been trapped inside his packaging for the whole of his existence and never played with at all, seethes with an unctuous rage that erupts in a startling way during the picture's third act.
Thematically, the picture quickly becomes a very philosophical look at the ideas of aging and, I guess, death. Will Woody choose to stay with the collector's items and have immortality behind a glass case in a Japanese museum, or will he decide to fill the purpose for which he was made, and risk being damaged or discarded someday? Pretty heavy stuff for an animated film for children: Let's see one of those crappy Shrek sequels try to get anywhere close. While Woody rediscovers his roots and lets his value go to his head, the other toys from Andy's room, led by Buzz, stage a rescue mission to go out into the world, Dirty Dozen style, and bring Woody back.
So many scenes in this movie are pure brilliance... Buzz encounters another Buzz toy in Al's Toy Barn who, like him in the first movie, has yet to realize that it's not the _actual_ Buzz Lightyear but a mere action figure. The movie further exploits the notion that the Lightyear toy line is a shameless knock-off of various Star Trek and Star Wars standards by introducing a maniacal Emperor Zurg toy who has a climactic face-off with both Buzzs late in the picture ala The Empire Strikes Back. Several sequences like the scenes where the toys cross the street under traffic cones, where Woody attempts to retrieve his detached arm from the sleeping toy collector, and the whole chase scene at the end, also still rank among the best that Pixar has done.
During the screening, I was thinking that there isn't anything especially enlightening about seeing the two movies back to back like this, and I believe that's true, but the comparison does highlight the advancements between the two like the much more thoughtful use of sound, and the more confident handling of the story material. By Toy Story 2 they really had the "secret world" formula down: A formula that they attempted one too many times in 2001's Monsters, Inc., which still holds the title of my least favorite Pixar flick, and awkwardly tried to modify again for 2006's Cars, although the sort-of twist in that one is that cars existed in the place of humans, ala Planet Of The Apes.
As I've written about previously, I'm very much _not_ a fan of 3D, particularly with older movies like these two which were not produced with the effect in mind. I find the 3D effect to be minimal and almost non-existent, and therefore the glasses only serve to make the picture dimmer and less-clear, and the colors less vibrant and effective. That opinion remains pretty much unchanged by this, although the opening of part 2 did kick five kinds of ass in 3D. Still, if given the choice, I'd rather see the movie in 2D, looking bright and crisp.
The two Toy Storys represent classy, expertly done CG animation at its best -- before everyone and his uncle starting making them en masse, junking the genre up with such disposable trash as the Ice Age trilogy, Space Chimps and pretty much every CG picture that Dreamworks Animation has put out (with the exception of Shrek 2 and Kung Fu Panda). In a way, Toy Story 2 ends so perfectly that I'm dreading the third picture's release. Regardless, however, these movies are a wonderful part of recent film history and getting out to see them in a theater is a lot of fun and a trip worth making.
My review of Up
My review of Monsters Vs. Aliens
My review of Kung Fu Panda
My review of Shrek The Third
October 2, 2009
A Serious Man (10/02/09)
Lettergrade: B+
A running motif in Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man is the long winded morality tale that ultimately has a puzzling, unclear meaning. In fact, that's kind of what the film itself is too. Although the dark blend of comedy and tragedy set in 1967 Minnesota is extremely entertaining, I'm not sure I've got much more than a long-shot suspicion about what, if anything, I'm supposed to take from it.
The movie centers around Larry Gopnik, a meek math professor who's life begins to unravel a few weeks before his son is to be bar mitzvahed. His wife announces that she's leaving him for another man, his brother (played by character actor Richard Kind - one of the few actors in the picture, along with Coen alum Michael Lerner and Spaceballs' George Wyner - that I actually recognized) has been living on their TV room sofa for months with no signs of departing, and a failed bribery scheme by one of Larry's disgruntled students is threatening his tenure.
Larry's response to much of this is pure inaction, a running theme in several Coen movies, but particularly reminiscent of Billy Bob Thorton's character in The Man Who Wasn't There. The morality tale motif pops up often throughout the picture as Larry tries to make sense of life's many turns of fortune, and what, if anything, God has in mind for us. He seeks the advice of all three Rabbis at his temple, but gets little more than complex metaphors that don't seem particularly enlightening.
Special attention in the film is given to Larry's son Danny, who is about the same age in '67 as Joel Coen would have been. He's not quite the main character, and the Coens claim that very little about the film is biographical, apart from its setting, but nevertheless his scenes preparing for the bar mitzvah, bored out of his mind in shuhl, and smoking dope with his friends seem to make up the driving center of the movie. Many a filmmaker, from Martin Scorsese to George Lucas to Rob Reiner, gets around to making a picture that captures the texture of their youth at some point, and this might be as close as the Coens will get.
As it's a Coen movie, the film is populated with a wide array of bizarre characters and odd looking people with deep eccentricities. The picture is impeccably well shot and has particularly amazing sound design, even by their standards.
A large point of controversy will likely be the film's conclusion, which rivals No Country For Old Men in terms of its abruptness and lack of closure. I must admit that I don't really find it all that satisfying myself. Would I have liked an ending that offered a bit more of a clue as to what the last two hours were supposed to add up to? Sure. An odd thing about Coen movies, though, is that even when they're a little antagonizing and difficult to access, as I found The Big Lebowski in particular to be when it was first released, I wouldn't trade the pleasure that I often have in watching them, and in watching them again.
A running motif in Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man is the long winded morality tale that ultimately has a puzzling, unclear meaning. In fact, that's kind of what the film itself is too. Although the dark blend of comedy and tragedy set in 1967 Minnesota is extremely entertaining, I'm not sure I've got much more than a long-shot suspicion about what, if anything, I'm supposed to take from it.
The movie centers around Larry Gopnik, a meek math professor who's life begins to unravel a few weeks before his son is to be bar mitzvahed. His wife announces that she's leaving him for another man, his brother (played by character actor Richard Kind - one of the few actors in the picture, along with Coen alum Michael Lerner and Spaceballs' George Wyner - that I actually recognized) has been living on their TV room sofa for months with no signs of departing, and a failed bribery scheme by one of Larry's disgruntled students is threatening his tenure.
Larry's response to much of this is pure inaction, a running theme in several Coen movies, but particularly reminiscent of Billy Bob Thorton's character in The Man Who Wasn't There. The morality tale motif pops up often throughout the picture as Larry tries to make sense of life's many turns of fortune, and what, if anything, God has in mind for us. He seeks the advice of all three Rabbis at his temple, but gets little more than complex metaphors that don't seem particularly enlightening.
Special attention in the film is given to Larry's son Danny, who is about the same age in '67 as Joel Coen would have been. He's not quite the main character, and the Coens claim that very little about the film is biographical, apart from its setting, but nevertheless his scenes preparing for the bar mitzvah, bored out of his mind in shuhl, and smoking dope with his friends seem to make up the driving center of the movie. Many a filmmaker, from Martin Scorsese to George Lucas to Rob Reiner, gets around to making a picture that captures the texture of their youth at some point, and this might be as close as the Coens will get.
As it's a Coen movie, the film is populated with a wide array of bizarre characters and odd looking people with deep eccentricities. The picture is impeccably well shot and has particularly amazing sound design, even by their standards.
A large point of controversy will likely be the film's conclusion, which rivals No Country For Old Men in terms of its abruptness and lack of closure. I must admit that I don't really find it all that satisfying myself. Would I have liked an ending that offered a bit more of a clue as to what the last two hours were supposed to add up to? Sure. An odd thing about Coen movies, though, is that even when they're a little antagonizing and difficult to access, as I found The Big Lebowski in particular to be when it was first released, I wouldn't trade the pleasure that I often have in watching them, and in watching them again.
September 24, 2009
Capitalism: A Love Story (09/24/09)
Lettergrade: B
Capitalism: A Love Story is Michael Moore's screed on corporate greed and white collar crime with a strong emphasis on the mismanagement that led to last year's economic melt-down. Before I get into it, though, I should admit that in spite of the flaws, I'm usually a sucker for Moore's movies. Politically, I tend to agree with a good deal of what he says, and as a humorist, I greatly admire the way in which he goes about saying it. Love or hate him, he has consistently used his celebrity to shine a light on issues that he feels need public attention, and for that I have an endless amount of respect. His last few pictures have felt a little scattershot, ranty, and somewhat slim on tangible solutions, but nevertheless they're important, thought-provoking pictures that often feel like imperative viewing. How many wide-release films have you seen this year that actually try to _do_ something?
Capitalism stimulated two extremes for me: I found myself surprisingly emotional during sections of it (particularly the last part, starting with the story about the sit-in at the window and glass company in Chicago on through to the end), but at the same time I found myself a little atypically annoyed that Moore again seems to undercut his own objective a bit by omitting key points of view and by taking an overly harsh (yet populist) stance against those on the other end of his argument.
This picture opens with a cheesy educational film about the fall of the Roman Empire which details how corruption and tyranny ultimately led the people to rise up and overthrow the established order. If the implication isn't clear enough, Moore inserts quick shots of politicians of the present and recent past. Among the points he argues in this picture is that capitalism as we know it has been distorted and rigged to the point where the upper 1% of the US population controls nearly 95% of the wealth, and that they've conned the rest of us into fighting over the scraps that are left instead of recognizing the inequity. Throughout the film, Moore profiles families that have lost their homes in the mortgage crisis (and companies that prey on the acquisition and resale of them), the Wall Street phenomenon of derivatives and split derivatives (comparing the institution to an insane mega-casino), and makes a persuasive argument for how deregulation, Union-busting, and obscene greed in the 80s and 90s has led to the virtual eradication of America's middle-class.
Moore uses every tool in his arsenal to tug at your heart strings and sense of decency: He includes multiple devastating testimonials and portraits of families who have lost everything, he has the survivors of deceased loved-ones cry on camera, and he flashes to emotionally charged images, such as post Katrina New Orleans, whenever he feels he can get some juice out of them. A number of other Michael Moore classic bits reappear as well, such as having Mike show up at some corporate headquarters with a camera crew, and then act surprised when security promptly covers his lens and shows him the door.
Similar to his previous productions, the approach is designed to aggressively inform, to incite passion, and to get in a good laugh whenever possible in order to make the whole thing palatable to those who might not be inclined to sit through this kind of thing otherwise. As always, the editing is sharp and incisive, and the archival team located some hysterical retro film and music in order to enhance the picture's considerable wit. While it's effective, I also can't deny that it's propaganda in the most pure sense of the term and manipulative as hell.
During the middle of the picture, after around 45 - 50 minutes of hearing how hopelessly fucked we are economically, I found myself wondering where the film was going, but in the last section Moore shifts gears a bit and profiles a number of small businesses and individuals who act out of a sense a fairness, despite the fact that the law does not require them to do so. Toward the end of the picture, it feels like Moore is actually spending more time with people who go out of their way to do good for other people for a change, and the picture winds up being oddly inspirational in a way that I don't believe any of his other pictures have been.
I guess you can think of each of Moore's recent pictures as a call to arms for liberal causes, and while he's continuously chosen subject material that is very potent and relevant, again I worry that they're becoming increasingly unfocused. Bowling For Columbine had the clear objective of swaying public opinion on gun control, with a few awkward detours into why Americans are a violent lot to begin with. Fahrenheit 9/11, which I didn't much care for, was sort of about the craziness that ensued after the terror attacks, but largely felt like an inartful smear piece. I happened to agree with his main point - that Bush ought not be reelected - but I felt that the way he went about making his case was scattershot, mean-spirited, and somewhat non-persuasive. SiCKO really stokes both sympathy and anger like no other picture he's made has, but after detailing the contours of a very large problem (and the bullshit arguments against implementing some kind of universal coverage), the movie failed to really chart out a clear way in which the problem might start to be remedied. On top of that, Moore was guilty of over-romanticizing socialized health care systems in other countries, all of which, while better than what we have presently, come with their own problems. Overplaying his hand there, as he does somewhat in Capitalism too, gives his critics a convenient way to dismiss the really good points he's making along with the sloppy ones.
Minor bitchings aside, though, I will say that the other week while watching Obama's address on health care reform to congress, I was quite struck that several of the health insurance horror-stories the president recounted would have felt right at home in SiCKO. Now, health care reform might well have been an important agenda for any president at this particular point in time, of course, but I had the feeling that Obama's speech wouldn't have been quite the same had Moore's film never existed. Either Moore was a little ahead of the curve in terms of understanding how big an issue health care reform would shortly become, or it was his willingness to take the material on in the first place that led to more of a national dialogue about where we are and where we need to be. In any case, it's hard to deny that he does have a good bead on many of the critical social-political issues of the day, and even if you find the guy to be an utterly obnoxious, bloviating asshole, it's usually worth listening to what he's got to say about them.
My review of SiCKO
Capitalism: A Love Story is Michael Moore's screed on corporate greed and white collar crime with a strong emphasis on the mismanagement that led to last year's economic melt-down. Before I get into it, though, I should admit that in spite of the flaws, I'm usually a sucker for Moore's movies. Politically, I tend to agree with a good deal of what he says, and as a humorist, I greatly admire the way in which he goes about saying it. Love or hate him, he has consistently used his celebrity to shine a light on issues that he feels need public attention, and for that I have an endless amount of respect. His last few pictures have felt a little scattershot, ranty, and somewhat slim on tangible solutions, but nevertheless they're important, thought-provoking pictures that often feel like imperative viewing. How many wide-release films have you seen this year that actually try to _do_ something?
Capitalism stimulated two extremes for me: I found myself surprisingly emotional during sections of it (particularly the last part, starting with the story about the sit-in at the window and glass company in Chicago on through to the end), but at the same time I found myself a little atypically annoyed that Moore again seems to undercut his own objective a bit by omitting key points of view and by taking an overly harsh (yet populist) stance against those on the other end of his argument.
This picture opens with a cheesy educational film about the fall of the Roman Empire which details how corruption and tyranny ultimately led the people to rise up and overthrow the established order. If the implication isn't clear enough, Moore inserts quick shots of politicians of the present and recent past. Among the points he argues in this picture is that capitalism as we know it has been distorted and rigged to the point where the upper 1% of the US population controls nearly 95% of the wealth, and that they've conned the rest of us into fighting over the scraps that are left instead of recognizing the inequity. Throughout the film, Moore profiles families that have lost their homes in the mortgage crisis (and companies that prey on the acquisition and resale of them), the Wall Street phenomenon of derivatives and split derivatives (comparing the institution to an insane mega-casino), and makes a persuasive argument for how deregulation, Union-busting, and obscene greed in the 80s and 90s has led to the virtual eradication of America's middle-class.
Moore uses every tool in his arsenal to tug at your heart strings and sense of decency: He includes multiple devastating testimonials and portraits of families who have lost everything, he has the survivors of deceased loved-ones cry on camera, and he flashes to emotionally charged images, such as post Katrina New Orleans, whenever he feels he can get some juice out of them. A number of other Michael Moore classic bits reappear as well, such as having Mike show up at some corporate headquarters with a camera crew, and then act surprised when security promptly covers his lens and shows him the door.
Similar to his previous productions, the approach is designed to aggressively inform, to incite passion, and to get in a good laugh whenever possible in order to make the whole thing palatable to those who might not be inclined to sit through this kind of thing otherwise. As always, the editing is sharp and incisive, and the archival team located some hysterical retro film and music in order to enhance the picture's considerable wit. While it's effective, I also can't deny that it's propaganda in the most pure sense of the term and manipulative as hell.
During the middle of the picture, after around 45 - 50 minutes of hearing how hopelessly fucked we are economically, I found myself wondering where the film was going, but in the last section Moore shifts gears a bit and profiles a number of small businesses and individuals who act out of a sense a fairness, despite the fact that the law does not require them to do so. Toward the end of the picture, it feels like Moore is actually spending more time with people who go out of their way to do good for other people for a change, and the picture winds up being oddly inspirational in a way that I don't believe any of his other pictures have been.
I guess you can think of each of Moore's recent pictures as a call to arms for liberal causes, and while he's continuously chosen subject material that is very potent and relevant, again I worry that they're becoming increasingly unfocused. Bowling For Columbine had the clear objective of swaying public opinion on gun control, with a few awkward detours into why Americans are a violent lot to begin with. Fahrenheit 9/11, which I didn't much care for, was sort of about the craziness that ensued after the terror attacks, but largely felt like an inartful smear piece. I happened to agree with his main point - that Bush ought not be reelected - but I felt that the way he went about making his case was scattershot, mean-spirited, and somewhat non-persuasive. SiCKO really stokes both sympathy and anger like no other picture he's made has, but after detailing the contours of a very large problem (and the bullshit arguments against implementing some kind of universal coverage), the movie failed to really chart out a clear way in which the problem might start to be remedied. On top of that, Moore was guilty of over-romanticizing socialized health care systems in other countries, all of which, while better than what we have presently, come with their own problems. Overplaying his hand there, as he does somewhat in Capitalism too, gives his critics a convenient way to dismiss the really good points he's making along with the sloppy ones.
Minor bitchings aside, though, I will say that the other week while watching Obama's address on health care reform to congress, I was quite struck that several of the health insurance horror-stories the president recounted would have felt right at home in SiCKO. Now, health care reform might well have been an important agenda for any president at this particular point in time, of course, but I had the feeling that Obama's speech wouldn't have been quite the same had Moore's film never existed. Either Moore was a little ahead of the curve in terms of understanding how big an issue health care reform would shortly become, or it was his willingness to take the material on in the first place that led to more of a national dialogue about where we are and where we need to be. In any case, it's hard to deny that he does have a good bead on many of the critical social-political issues of the day, and even if you find the guy to be an utterly obnoxious, bloviating asshole, it's usually worth listening to what he's got to say about them.
My review of SiCKO
September 19, 2009
The Informant! (09/19/09)
Lettergrade: F
You know, "hate" is an awfully strong word, but it's the only one that really comes to mind when thinking about Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!. Oh, it's started off well enough: The cast, which includes Matt Damon and Scott Bakula, is fantastic, and the true story of a delusional, dimwitted guy who sold out his agro product company, Archer Daniels Midland, to the FBI for price fixing not realizing that he himself would very likely be implicated in multiple corporate crime and embezzlement charges, sounded like fertile ground for at least a passably entertaining evening at the cinema. Perhaps it would sort of be like a comedic variant on Michael Mann's The Insider?
Ultimately, though, I really feel this movie, while amusing for short bursts, doesn't connect... somewhat because of the writing, but largely due to the way in which it is told. Structure first: The movie has a highly irritating way of keeping the audience on the outside of some key plot points for several scenes before letting you know what, exactly, is happening. I want to make the distinction that this can often be used for good dramatic effect, but that's not what this picture does. The difference is that a movie needs to be somewhat deliberate about what it is being unclear about it. Too often during this one I felt like I had simply missed some critical information, which is when "suspense" turns to "frustration" and then ultimately "apathy."
Building on that escalating sense of apathy was the picture's wafter-thin character material. I found Damon's character neither interesting nor sympathetic nor in any way relatable. Giving him funny hair, a fake nose, and a little extra weight seems to kind of hardwire his screen-time for comedy and comedy alone. A problem with that approach, however, is that it's almost like you're watching a stage clown or a Saturday Night Live character instead of a serious actor giving a dedicated performance. Again, I don't necessarily believe that every movie has to have a character that you like or want to root for, but at least we need to care about what happens to the people we're spending two hours with.
I thought that Damon's crazy internal monologues were really entertaining, and being a long time film-score nerd, I found it interesting that Soderbergh picked music legend Marvin Hamlisch out of retirement to write the jazzy, kitschy score. As the movie ground on, however, both really wore out their welcome fast and only further underlined that this is a project Soderbergh somewhat mishandled.
Other technical gripes are that the picture was largely shot on Red Camcorders instead of film, meaning that the picture, when projected on a large theater screen, was quite fuzzy and soft... almost appearing to be out of focus for large segments. Another byproduct of this format is that bright light sources appeared highly misty, particularly during daylight scenes. During segments of the movie, I found myself wondering if my allergies had returned and were affecting my vision, but when I looked around the theater I realized that everything else was perfectly clear: It was only the movie that was not. Soderbergh has shot most of his own movies since 2000 (under the name Peter Andrews), and it's something he really needs to get away from. Part of the idea behind not having everything be a one-man show is that someone can be there to tap the director on the shoulder every now and again and say, "you know, choosing that lens filter for the camera might not be the best idea." Many other scenes are dark and muddy, and in others still it feels like no one even bothered to point some lights at the actors.
Once upon a time, at least, Soderbergh made pictures that I really liked, but I believe the last time I could say that was in 2000 or so when he was nominated for dual Best Director Oscars for his work on Erin Brockovich and Traffic (the latter for which he won). His first post-Oscar picture was the artistically bankrupt Ocean's 11, which was intended as a fun bank-heist picture, but contained neither fun nor tension. He had two more attempts at making an Ocean's picture that works, and came up with similar results each time. The interstitial pictures have either been bloated and dull (Solaris) or have emphasized style over substance in a way that's awkward and ineffectual (The Good German).
I think he's officially blown his credit line with me, and I'll have to start automatically skipping his movies in the future. I had high hopes for The Informant! as a film that might have been similar to Brockovich in that it would tell an entertaining-yet-true story about corporate crime and some of the interesting people involved with it. The thing is, this movie is a lot funnier if you already know the details of what Mark Whitacre did and where his story is going. In fact, the picture seems to depend on some of that knowledge in order to make any sense at all. If you know those things, however, you might come to the wise conclusion that you should probably just stay home and watch something else.
My review of Ocean's 13
You know, "hate" is an awfully strong word, but it's the only one that really comes to mind when thinking about Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!. Oh, it's started off well enough: The cast, which includes Matt Damon and Scott Bakula, is fantastic, and the true story of a delusional, dimwitted guy who sold out his agro product company, Archer Daniels Midland, to the FBI for price fixing not realizing that he himself would very likely be implicated in multiple corporate crime and embezzlement charges, sounded like fertile ground for at least a passably entertaining evening at the cinema. Perhaps it would sort of be like a comedic variant on Michael Mann's The Insider?
Ultimately, though, I really feel this movie, while amusing for short bursts, doesn't connect... somewhat because of the writing, but largely due to the way in which it is told. Structure first: The movie has a highly irritating way of keeping the audience on the outside of some key plot points for several scenes before letting you know what, exactly, is happening. I want to make the distinction that this can often be used for good dramatic effect, but that's not what this picture does. The difference is that a movie needs to be somewhat deliberate about what it is being unclear about it. Too often during this one I felt like I had simply missed some critical information, which is when "suspense" turns to "frustration" and then ultimately "apathy."
Building on that escalating sense of apathy was the picture's wafter-thin character material. I found Damon's character neither interesting nor sympathetic nor in any way relatable. Giving him funny hair, a fake nose, and a little extra weight seems to kind of hardwire his screen-time for comedy and comedy alone. A problem with that approach, however, is that it's almost like you're watching a stage clown or a Saturday Night Live character instead of a serious actor giving a dedicated performance. Again, I don't necessarily believe that every movie has to have a character that you like or want to root for, but at least we need to care about what happens to the people we're spending two hours with.
I thought that Damon's crazy internal monologues were really entertaining, and being a long time film-score nerd, I found it interesting that Soderbergh picked music legend Marvin Hamlisch out of retirement to write the jazzy, kitschy score. As the movie ground on, however, both really wore out their welcome fast and only further underlined that this is a project Soderbergh somewhat mishandled.
Other technical gripes are that the picture was largely shot on Red Camcorders instead of film, meaning that the picture, when projected on a large theater screen, was quite fuzzy and soft... almost appearing to be out of focus for large segments. Another byproduct of this format is that bright light sources appeared highly misty, particularly during daylight scenes. During segments of the movie, I found myself wondering if my allergies had returned and were affecting my vision, but when I looked around the theater I realized that everything else was perfectly clear: It was only the movie that was not. Soderbergh has shot most of his own movies since 2000 (under the name Peter Andrews), and it's something he really needs to get away from. Part of the idea behind not having everything be a one-man show is that someone can be there to tap the director on the shoulder every now and again and say, "you know, choosing that lens filter for the camera might not be the best idea." Many other scenes are dark and muddy, and in others still it feels like no one even bothered to point some lights at the actors.
Once upon a time, at least, Soderbergh made pictures that I really liked, but I believe the last time I could say that was in 2000 or so when he was nominated for dual Best Director Oscars for his work on Erin Brockovich and Traffic (the latter for which he won). His first post-Oscar picture was the artistically bankrupt Ocean's 11, which was intended as a fun bank-heist picture, but contained neither fun nor tension. He had two more attempts at making an Ocean's picture that works, and came up with similar results each time. The interstitial pictures have either been bloated and dull (Solaris) or have emphasized style over substance in a way that's awkward and ineffectual (The Good German).
I think he's officially blown his credit line with me, and I'll have to start automatically skipping his movies in the future. I had high hopes for The Informant! as a film that might have been similar to Brockovich in that it would tell an entertaining-yet-true story about corporate crime and some of the interesting people involved with it. The thing is, this movie is a lot funnier if you already know the details of what Mark Whitacre did and where his story is going. In fact, the picture seems to depend on some of that knowledge in order to make any sense at all. If you know those things, however, you might come to the wise conclusion that you should probably just stay home and watch something else.
My review of Ocean's 13
September 5, 2009
Extract (9/05/09)
Lettergrade: B-
If you look at it purely on a story / plot level, Extract doesn't really have a lot going on, but then neither do Mike Judge's other pictures: 2006's underrated Idiocracy and 1999's cultural milestone Office Space. The pleasure of those movies (and this one) is not in what happens as much as Judge's warped perspective on the world and the people who populate it. His characterizations, usually made up of slackers, dimwits, and stoners, get huge laughs because they're not that far off from people you probably know or at least have met.
The movie isn't likely to have the same cultural impact that Office Space did. Even the tag line of that picture - "Work sucks" - struck a deep cultural chord that even now, 10 years later, resonates with me and everyone else I know who has to work for a living. Nevertheless, Extract is a pleasant farce and certainly worth having a look at when time permits.
The schmucky every-man in this one is played by Arrested Development's Jason Bateman, who owns an a small flavor extract company in small-town California. He's in a sex-deprived marriage with Kristin Wiig, and thinking about selling his business to a larger corporate parent. That's complicated by an accident at work which claims an employee's testicle, followed by the arrival of con-artist Mila Kunis who secretly encourages said employee to sue instead of settling. Bateman immediately lusts after Kunis, but feels terrible about wanting to stray from his marriage. One night, his bar-tendin' buddy played by Ben Affleck (in what might be his finest screen performance) helps Bateman come up with a brilliant plan to hire a kid to seduce Wiig, thus freeing Bateman's conscious to lust after Kunis.
Bateman, Affleck, and Wiig are all expertly cast, but as with Judge's other movies, it is the many wonderful bit parts that often steal the show, particularly David Koechner as an annoying neighbor, Dustin Milligan as Brad, the faux pool-cleaner, and Matt Schulze as an intense pot-dealer who only has one scene.
I will say, however, that in spite of the incisive comedy the loose plotting does drag the proceedings down a little. If I think about it, I can vaguely recall that the last third of Office Space mainly revolves around a failed embezzlement scheme, and contains very few laughs. Idiocracy, after a killer first 30 minutes, falls apart much earlier - around the time President Camacho shows up. Extract is a bit more "even" than those movies... the laughs probably aren't as big, but at least they cover the picture from head to tail.
As with his other movies, the production value is a little sparse, and nothing about the way the film has been made feels terribly cinematic -- almost as if it's a movie that Judge decided to make around his neighborhood with his friends. Nevertheless, I think this serves as a good illustration to my continued theory that comedy is often a little funnier when it feels kinda cheap.
August 29, 2009
Taking Woodstock (08/29/09)
Lettergrade: D
We saw this one because my wife and I often love Ang Lee movies, but for a number of reasons I cannot really recommend Taking Woodstock. It wasn't that bad to start with: I really like Demetri Martin's stand-up comedy as well as his TV show, but had never really seen him in a dramatic acting role like this. Here he plays Elliot Teichberg, a very likable but sad aspiring artist who moved back to upstate New York in order to help his Russian Jewish immigrant parents manage their ratty motel in the country. For one reason or another, he never left. Ultimately, he uses his position in local government and his connection to nearby dairy farmer Max Yasgur (played by Eugene Levy) in order to allow the August 1969 event known as Woodstock to come together.
In spite of my admiration for Lee and his cast, I'm not really into Woodstock era music, I can't claim to really have a strong connection to hippie culture and what it might have been about in 1969, and I've never taken an hallucinogenic drug nor do I have any interest in doing so. Above all else, I hate crowds. All these things kind of conspired to create a great indifference within me over what happened during much of the picture's painfully sluggish running time.
But wait, there's more: I felt that the very winning characters who appear on-screen are woefully under-developed. Demetri in particular appears to be gay, but it's unclear how "out" he his to his friends and family in addition to how at peace he might be with his own sexuality. We see him kiss women and men in the movie... but is this the first time he has done the latter? Call me simple minded, but I kinda need a little more substance. And I sort of want details and clear internal struggles like this to go somewhere.
The movie was rushed a little in order to get to Cannes in May, and then rushed again to get into theaters around the 40th anniversary of Woodstock in mid-August. Maybe a little more time could have made this movie more meaningful? Maybe not. In any case, it's sort of a waste of time.
We saw this one because my wife and I often love Ang Lee movies, but for a number of reasons I cannot really recommend Taking Woodstock. It wasn't that bad to start with: I really like Demetri Martin's stand-up comedy as well as his TV show, but had never really seen him in a dramatic acting role like this. Here he plays Elliot Teichberg, a very likable but sad aspiring artist who moved back to upstate New York in order to help his Russian Jewish immigrant parents manage their ratty motel in the country. For one reason or another, he never left. Ultimately, he uses his position in local government and his connection to nearby dairy farmer Max Yasgur (played by Eugene Levy) in order to allow the August 1969 event known as Woodstock to come together.
In spite of my admiration for Lee and his cast, I'm not really into Woodstock era music, I can't claim to really have a strong connection to hippie culture and what it might have been about in 1969, and I've never taken an hallucinogenic drug nor do I have any interest in doing so. Above all else, I hate crowds. All these things kind of conspired to create a great indifference within me over what happened during much of the picture's painfully sluggish running time.
But wait, there's more: I felt that the very winning characters who appear on-screen are woefully under-developed. Demetri in particular appears to be gay, but it's unclear how "out" he his to his friends and family in addition to how at peace he might be with his own sexuality. We see him kiss women and men in the movie... but is this the first time he has done the latter? Call me simple minded, but I kinda need a little more substance. And I sort of want details and clear internal struggles like this to go somewhere.
The movie was rushed a little in order to get to Cannes in May, and then rushed again to get into theaters around the 40th anniversary of Woodstock in mid-August. Maybe a little more time could have made this movie more meaningful? Maybe not. In any case, it's sort of a waste of time.
August 22, 2009
Inglourious Basterds (08/22/09)
Lettergrade: B+
There are several really good sequences in Inglourious Basterds, but it didn't quite sizzle for me like some of Quentin Taratino's other movies have. In particular, I guess I'm unfairly comparing this picture to the wildly entertaining Kill Bill movies, which seemed to somewhat set the template for this phase of his career. By that, I mean that Bill was very self-conscious, stylized cinema that switched film stocks furiously, and liberally borrowed from the wide spectrum of pop-culture and classic genré movies on a ridiculously grand scale, right down to cannibalizing its entire film score from old Spaghetti westerns and obscure action / horror flicks.
The thing with Kill Bill is that it was able to do all this with a great deal of joy and heart -- something that was largely absent from Deathproof, his almost stogy half of 2007's Grindhouse double-bill that he shared with Robert Rodriguez. In that one, there was a lot of amusing chatter, but precious few moments that took your breath away. Somewhere among all the bulky dialogue and the kitschy cinema tricks, the heart of the picture got lost.
Basterds is considerably more subtle than those movies in terms of style, but lands somewhere between the two when it comes to emotional beats that really connect. The strong character moments and the trademark Tarantino kitch that he does inject work beautifully, but I found myself wanting much more of each. I'm in the rare minority of people I know who was really impressed that after Pulp Fiction, a brassy one-of-a-kind, in-your-face masterpiece with a ton of youth appeal, he chose to make Jackie Brown, a more traditional heist picture based on an Elmore Leonard novel with two obscure b-movie actors from the 70s in the lead roles. I admired that instead of hitting the same buttons that people responded to in his last picture, he chose to do something mature and thoughtful that his new audience might not necessarily like. Perhaps at long last, I can somewhat understand why fans of Pulp felt a bit let down by Jackie: Because he's recently struck a few chords that I really like, I guess I was left a little frustrated that he decided to slow things down a bit and try something new.
Among the elements that really work in this picture is much of the wonderful supporting cast, including, in particular, Austrian-born actor Christoph Waltz who steals every scene he's in as the charmingly vile Nazi Col. Hans Landa, otherly known as the "Jew Hunter." Another exceptional standout is Mélanie Laurent, who plays an escaped Jewish girl hiding in Paris after Landa murders her family early in the picture.
The Basterds themselves, a team of Jewish American soldiers who have been dropped into Nazi occupied France in order to savagely murder as many Germans as they can, are led by Brad Pitt. Although I generally like him as an actor, this felt like a rare role in which he was miscast. His accent is hysterical, but he's also one of the few characters on screen who never fully disappears into his role. Tarantino is so good at casting exceptional actors for key parts in his films, sometimes out of complete obscurity and/or career purgatory. Landing Pitt for one of the leads might have been enough to get the movie green-lit, but something tells me they might have been better off had someone else gotten the part.
But a lot of this is just minor bitching. It's a Tarantino movie: They're usually interesting and worth going out of your way to see, and this one is too. Many groups started complaining about this one already: Jewish commentators about the anti-Semitic undertones, historians about Tarantino's, um, liberal interpretation of the end of the war, and audiences in general about the horrific scalping scenes and overall violence. But like most Taratino movies, at it's best it's really remarkable cinema, and at worst... well, it's still a hell of a lot of fun.
My review of Grindhouse
There are several really good sequences in Inglourious Basterds, but it didn't quite sizzle for me like some of Quentin Taratino's other movies have. In particular, I guess I'm unfairly comparing this picture to the wildly entertaining Kill Bill movies, which seemed to somewhat set the template for this phase of his career. By that, I mean that Bill was very self-conscious, stylized cinema that switched film stocks furiously, and liberally borrowed from the wide spectrum of pop-culture and classic genré movies on a ridiculously grand scale, right down to cannibalizing its entire film score from old Spaghetti westerns and obscure action / horror flicks.
The thing with Kill Bill is that it was able to do all this with a great deal of joy and heart -- something that was largely absent from Deathproof, his almost stogy half of 2007's Grindhouse double-bill that he shared with Robert Rodriguez. In that one, there was a lot of amusing chatter, but precious few moments that took your breath away. Somewhere among all the bulky dialogue and the kitschy cinema tricks, the heart of the picture got lost.
Basterds is considerably more subtle than those movies in terms of style, but lands somewhere between the two when it comes to emotional beats that really connect. The strong character moments and the trademark Tarantino kitch that he does inject work beautifully, but I found myself wanting much more of each. I'm in the rare minority of people I know who was really impressed that after Pulp Fiction, a brassy one-of-a-kind, in-your-face masterpiece with a ton of youth appeal, he chose to make Jackie Brown, a more traditional heist picture based on an Elmore Leonard novel with two obscure b-movie actors from the 70s in the lead roles. I admired that instead of hitting the same buttons that people responded to in his last picture, he chose to do something mature and thoughtful that his new audience might not necessarily like. Perhaps at long last, I can somewhat understand why fans of Pulp felt a bit let down by Jackie: Because he's recently struck a few chords that I really like, I guess I was left a little frustrated that he decided to slow things down a bit and try something new.
Among the elements that really work in this picture is much of the wonderful supporting cast, including, in particular, Austrian-born actor Christoph Waltz who steals every scene he's in as the charmingly vile Nazi Col. Hans Landa, otherly known as the "Jew Hunter." Another exceptional standout is Mélanie Laurent, who plays an escaped Jewish girl hiding in Paris after Landa murders her family early in the picture.
The Basterds themselves, a team of Jewish American soldiers who have been dropped into Nazi occupied France in order to savagely murder as many Germans as they can, are led by Brad Pitt. Although I generally like him as an actor, this felt like a rare role in which he was miscast. His accent is hysterical, but he's also one of the few characters on screen who never fully disappears into his role. Tarantino is so good at casting exceptional actors for key parts in his films, sometimes out of complete obscurity and/or career purgatory. Landing Pitt for one of the leads might have been enough to get the movie green-lit, but something tells me they might have been better off had someone else gotten the part.
But a lot of this is just minor bitching. It's a Tarantino movie: They're usually interesting and worth going out of your way to see, and this one is too. Many groups started complaining about this one already: Jewish commentators about the anti-Semitic undertones, historians about Tarantino's, um, liberal interpretation of the end of the war, and audiences in general about the horrific scalping scenes and overall violence. But like most Taratino movies, at it's best it's really remarkable cinema, and at worst... well, it's still a hell of a lot of fun.
My review of Grindhouse
August 8, 2009
Julie & Julia (08/08/09)
Lettergrade: B-
I probably wouldn't see Julie & Julia on my own, but my wife who, like the first half of the film's title, keeps a very entertaining food blog, wouldn't miss it. I've only attended Nora Ephron movies occasionally, and usually don't think much of them. Her filmography includes such instant classics as You've Got Mail, Michael, and most horrifically, that shitty Bewitched remake that Will Ferrell was in. Nevertheless I was quite surprised to find that there was a lot about this movie that I quite liked.
I've been a life-long plain eater, and as such I cannot say that all the French cuisine that Julia Child prepares throughout the flick had my mouth watering, but the real pleasure for me here, aside from the stellar acting from Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, was that I found a connection with the parallel stories of the two women in different time periods who arrived at points in their lives where they simply wanted something more than what was in front of them. Julia Child does it by learning how to become a master chef in 1950s Paris, where her diplomat husband is stationed, and then spending years attempting to get her future-landmark cookbook, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, picked up. Julie Powell, living in Brooklyn around 2003 or so, attempts to cook every single recipe from that same book within the span of a year while keeping a very detailed, entertaining blog about it. If you really love to do something, why not go after it? If you're lucky, you'll figure out how to make a living along the way.
Perhaps it's just where I'm at in my life at the moment, but another poignant element for me was Julie's feeling that her friends have run circles around her, both in career and in adult life. A lot of the criticism directed at the movie faults the "Julie" half for being considerably less interesting than the Julia Child material. That may be valid, but somehow I feel like this is a good marriage of subjects. I'm not sure I'd have a lot of interest in seeing a straight Julia Child picture by itself, and I don't believe Julie's story would hold up well if divorced from that of her beloved cookbook's author. The intercutting between the two story-lines evokes The Godfather Part II, but certainly I can think of lesser movies to borrow a device from.
The movie feels a bit longer than its runtime, but what the hell? It's an entertaining picture with great acting that's witty and meaningful without being saccharine or cloy. Do you think anyone's going to walk out of G.I. Joe this weekend saying that?
I probably wouldn't see Julie & Julia on my own, but my wife who, like the first half of the film's title, keeps a very entertaining food blog, wouldn't miss it. I've only attended Nora Ephron movies occasionally, and usually don't think much of them. Her filmography includes such instant classics as You've Got Mail, Michael, and most horrifically, that shitty Bewitched remake that Will Ferrell was in. Nevertheless I was quite surprised to find that there was a lot about this movie that I quite liked.
I've been a life-long plain eater, and as such I cannot say that all the French cuisine that Julia Child prepares throughout the flick had my mouth watering, but the real pleasure for me here, aside from the stellar acting from Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, was that I found a connection with the parallel stories of the two women in different time periods who arrived at points in their lives where they simply wanted something more than what was in front of them. Julia Child does it by learning how to become a master chef in 1950s Paris, where her diplomat husband is stationed, and then spending years attempting to get her future-landmark cookbook, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, picked up. Julie Powell, living in Brooklyn around 2003 or so, attempts to cook every single recipe from that same book within the span of a year while keeping a very detailed, entertaining blog about it. If you really love to do something, why not go after it? If you're lucky, you'll figure out how to make a living along the way.
Perhaps it's just where I'm at in my life at the moment, but another poignant element for me was Julie's feeling that her friends have run circles around her, both in career and in adult life. A lot of the criticism directed at the movie faults the "Julie" half for being considerably less interesting than the Julia Child material. That may be valid, but somehow I feel like this is a good marriage of subjects. I'm not sure I'd have a lot of interest in seeing a straight Julia Child picture by itself, and I don't believe Julie's story would hold up well if divorced from that of her beloved cookbook's author. The intercutting between the two story-lines evokes The Godfather Part II, but certainly I can think of lesser movies to borrow a device from.
The movie feels a bit longer than its runtime, but what the hell? It's an entertaining picture with great acting that's witty and meaningful without being saccharine or cloy. Do you think anyone's going to walk out of G.I. Joe this weekend saying that?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)