Sunday, May 22, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
By Odin's Beard!
From big old question mark to the best of the "Marvel Movie Universe" movies (so far...) in one fell swoop! Kenneth Branaugh pulled off a Herculean feat by turning what is essentially a Marvel "bridge movie" and prequel to The Avengers into something that stands gloriously on its own. I couldn't be happier.
Thor: Wow, this movie should have been ludicrous. I mean, normally if I hear a narration like (and I'm paraphrasing here), "The Asgardians and the Frost Giants waged a war centuries ago..." my Silly Meter buries itself in the red. But, as my friend Josh and I decided, if Anthony Fucking Hopkins says it then, well... GENIUS. And I think that's one of the many things this movie has going for it- talent. Not a bad performance in the whole thing. Chris "I played Kirk's dad for, like, 3 minutes" Hemsworth is a relatively unknown and (until now) certainly unproven actor, but he knocks it out of the park. His Thor starts out appropriately arrogant, rash, and egotistical, but is given a wholly satisfying character arc and becomes so damned likable by the end. I don't know what the God of Thunder is like in the comic book, but as far as Hemsworth's job of driving this celluloid vehicle goes, he's Mario Andretti. Natalie Portman is (as usual) solid as Jane Foster, but not obtrusive, which could easily have been the case after all the Black Swan hoopla. Tom Hiddleston (another relative unknown) plays Thor's sneaky brother Loki with a cold, calculating jealousy right out of a Shakespeare tragedy. Stellan Skarsgård always rocks, no exception here. Anthony Fucking Hopkins ('nuff said). The comic-relief role of Darcy (Kat Dennings), which would normally make me want to claw my eyes out, was, thankfully, underplayed and acttually kind of charming. Hell, even the tertiary roles were pretty well fleshed-out. I suppose it helps when you've got the likes of Ray Stevenson and Idris Elba stacking the cards in your favor (favour?)... but I digress...
A big, red question mark/exclamation point in my head since I first saw the still shots and trailers months ago was the design, specifically the Asgard stuff. I was afraid it would come across as chincy and garish. Instead, it's all so glorious, gold, and warm- a place I'd love to visit, if it were real (I challenge you to see Thor and not wish you could walk down the glass rainbowy bridge for a chat with Stringer Bell). A complete contrast to the Frost Giant realm (did it have a name? I forget. I was too busy shushhing the loud family behind me during that stuff), which was cold (duh), dark, and blue. Actually, I'd say a little too dark... but that probably had to do with the 3-D. Don't even get me started. Fuck it, I started already. The 3-D sucks... did I ever tell you that? I saw Thor at The Ziegfeld where it was, unfortunately, only showing in the 3-D. Now, what was good about Thor's 3-D is that it was basically non-existant. The glasses served as a way to make the movie non-blurry, and that is all. Which is fine, except, you know... I PAID AN EXTRA 5 BUCKS TO WEAR AN UNCOMFORTABLE PAIR OF RISKY BUSINESS SUNGLASSES OVER MY ACTUAL GLASSES FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN TO SEE A DARKENED VERSION OF THE MOVIE PLAYING RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Need... Prozac... now... oh... wait.. I... don't... take... Prozac...
Um, so, the story. Thor defies his dad (Fucking Hopkins as Odin) by attacking the Frost Giants (should I be capitalizing that?), thereby threatening to end the truce between their two worlds. He's banished to Earth and stripped of all his power. His almighty hammer, Mjolnir (yes, it feels nerdy to even type that) is also sent down there, but, like King Arthur's Excalibur, it can only be wielded by one who's worthy. Secret government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. steps in to study the hammer, but no one can lift it, including our Hero. 'Cuz he's not worthy yet. Brother Loki slinks around, revealing his true intentions to rule Asgard to make his dad proud of him for a change (like I said, Shakespearian), sends a giant armored being to destroy Thor, and all hell breaks loose. Oh, and Thor falls in love with an astro-physicist.
Trust me. You want to see it. Even after reading that last paragraph.
I want to talk for a second about the whole S.H.I.E.L.D. thing. Branagh was given the undesirable job of having to essentially shoehorn in the presence of this government agency for no other reason than to set up next summer's Avengers movie. And not only did he handle it with grace, he managed to weave it into the story SO well that only in retrospect do I realize how much it shouldn't have worked. Then again, without the S.H.I.E.L.D (god, it's a pain in the ass to type that. Oh. Right. Caps Lock. Duh) stuff Thor might have been stretched a little thin. I mean, there's only so far you can go with Norse gods and fROST gIANTS (OK. Now I'm just fucking with you, keyboard-wise). I'm crediting Branagh with it, but I'm sure he shared the duty with his screenwriters. Oh, man- there's like 5 of them. OK, I'm giving the victory back to Branagh for making sense of it all. It's not every day that a movie bridging the gap between what has come before and what is yet to come can stand on its own. Also, my man Kenny B actually showed some restraint in his style here. His Shakespeare films are actually a bit more comic-book-y than his first comic book movie. I think maybe he learned a lesson after Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (has anyone revisited that one recently? Is it still as bad as I remember?). Anyway, S.H.I.E.L.D (cut-and-pasted!)- out of the shadows and into the light for the first time. And I actually care to see what happens next with them. Also, I dig that Clark Gregg guy.
What didn't work? Not much, in my humble O. The action is a little front-loaded. The most exciting, grandiose stuff happens in the first 45 minutes. There's plenty of action later on, but it never quite lives up to those big battles in the first half. They were certainly going for a more personal, coming-of-age thing with Thor, which is appreciated, but since the movie cuts between Earth and Asgard throughout it felt slightly... calm (?) in the second half. Another thing- I felt the relationship between Thor and Jane (me Thor, you Jane!) wasn't really earned. The movie takes place over only a couple of days, and by the end it sort of feels like Jane falls in love with Thor because he's all foreign and kinda hot. Well, maybe not that extreme, but... sort of. Anyway, those are the only things that come to mind. I've heard some negativity about Jeremy Renner's small cameo/character introduction (he's in The Avengers), but I thought it was cool. Some people are just not happy unless they're complaining.
If you care about the continuity they're setting up with these Marvel movies (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk (no, not that one), Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers), stay through the credits for the tease. Probably don't have to tell you that, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't.
8 out of 10 Anthony Fucking Hopkinses
FUNNY!: Click Here!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Loud, Sharp, Piercing Cry 4
Another Scream movie? Just what we were all asking for!
I actually decided to revisit the first three, one per night, on the three nights preceding seeing the fourth. Let's recap:
Scream: A really good flick that both makes fun of and pays homage to the slasher horror films of the past few decades. A little dated, and a little diminished by the inevitable parodies it spawned (like the Scary Movie series), as well as the more intense horror flicks that have pushed the envelope even further (Hostel, anyone?). But it's still pretty damned fun. And pretty violent and bloody, by 1996 standards. Also, at the risk of being branded a pariah, I kinda love Matthew Lillard in this movie. He turns high-strung lunacy into an art form (these days he's mostly off-the-radar, which is just fine).
Scream 2: Again, pretty good flick that both makes fun of and pays homage to sequels. It's in-movie parody of the first Scream adds to the dated-ness of that flick, but it's a fun wink-wink at itself (Luke Wilson as Skeet Ulrich = Epic Win). Everything in 2 is more grandiose, intense, and over-the-top. The scene where Neve Campbell is on stage with a masked Greek chorus swinging knives at her was almost too much, but actually ended up being relatively artistic (and what an insensitive DICK her acting prof was. I mean, didn't he see Scream?).
Scream 3: Um... yeah... not so much. A not so good movie that both makes weak fun of and fails at paying homage to trilogies. Wes Craven & company phoned this one in, big time. Full of awful, heavy-handed red herrings. Populated by useless secondary characters that show up literally once for an introduction, then once more to die. An out-of-left-field villain with an out-of-left-field weak backstory to justify a non-plot. A head-scratching cameo by Jay & Silent Bob (seriously, WTFuck?). But Patrick Warburton was in it, so not a total loss.
Scream 4: I heard a lot of negativity surrounding this movie when it came out. People were just not digging it. And let's face it... there was really no reason for it to be made. Which is why I was sort of surprised by how much I didn't hate it. No, I didn't love it by any means, but this was so much more the movie that Scream 3 should have been.
The plot? Sidney Prescott returns to her hometown of Woodsboro to promote her new book. But uh-oh! It's exactly the 15th Anniversary of the original "Woodsboro Murders" (convenient!), and two girls have been murdered while watching the 6th (or was it 7th?) sequel to "Stab"- the movie based on the book based on the murders by Gale Weathers-Riley (Courtney "Puffy" Cox-not-for-much-longer-Arquette). Suspects include "seasoned" Sheriff Dewey Riley (David "I smelled a fart" Arquette), creepy Deputy Judy Hicks (Marley "googly-eyes" Shelton), Sidney's Aunt Kate (Mary "walking corpse" McDonnell) & cousin Jill (Emma "Eric & Julia mashup" Roberts), film nerd Charlie Walker (Rory "the littlest Culkin" Culkin), and, um... aww, fuck it. It's a Scream movie. You know the drill. Everybody's a suspect, even if they've been offed already. Hell, after 4 movies I wouldn't be surprised if I was the fucking killer.
So, yeah. There's lot's of stalking, stabbing, and screaming. But by now we're so used to it that it passes us by without much ado (except for the girl further down in my row- she jumped and uttered, "oh my GAWD" literally every time a new person suddenly appeared on screen, whether it was a suspenseful scene or not. Her boyfriend just snored). And the opening sequence(s) didn't help. It was a movie within a movie within a movie thing where people keep getting killed, then are revealed as characters in a Stab film being watched by other characters in a subsequent Stab film, until finally it's the "real" world of the Scream movie, but by then we're already too numb to give a hoot about our first "real" victims. And this was only the first 5 minutes. So, yeah- the cutesy, gimmicky, Matryoshka doll opening worked until we reached the final one. By then it was just a lump of hollow, painted wood with other lumps of hollow, painted wood inside.
Too esoteric? Sorry. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll. Still too esoteric? Sorry. I'm not changing it. Deal.
Anyway, right then and there I was ready for the rest of Scream 4 to blow. And then it didn't. What we got was a laid-back slasher film that didn't take itself too seriously, which I can get behind. I think they learned from their mistakes with Scream 3. The problem is they scaled it back a little too much. Nothing really matters at this point in the series. And yeah, this one was supposed to be the movie that makes fun of and pays homage to reboots, but we only know that because they say so (or, specifically, because lame, useless character "Randy's sister" tells us), not because it at all resembled a reboot. If it was a reboot, there wouldn't be any returning actors, and we wouldn't be told their backstory- we'd experience it for the first time. Again. What they should have done was played it like a return-to-the-well sequel, à la Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull or Live Free Or Die Hard or Lethal Weapon 4, all of which most people loathed*, and talked about how returning to the well is always a bad idea. Let your tongue-in-cheek start there and then give us something new to see in order to prove the concept wrong, you know? But instead we got another Scream movie that followed the same basic outline (murder, character intros, more murder, "who's doing it?", even more murder, "it was me, and this is why"). Actually, they did something interesting in one of the "Stab" movie meta-scenes at the beginning: one character, not wearing a mask, kills the other on screen, letting us all know right off the bat who the killer is. But then it turned out to be another fake movie-in-movie thing. Too bad- that would have been a cool way to mix it up.
So what did I like about it? Well, that's hard to say. I wasn't too bored. Well...maybe a little, at times... certainly not when Alison Brie was, uh, bouncing around... er... did it just get hot in here? Uh... the movie flowed pretty well, I guess- no dead spots. The three returning characters are still charming enough, I suppose (but Courtney Cox needs to lay off the Botox, man). I enjoyed that it was a modest movie. A weird word to use in this context, but considering Scream 3 was so ridiculously, boringly self-aggrandizing ("look, this story is SO GREAT that we're going to set the second sequel on the movie set of the second fake sequel and make broad-stroke comments on what shallow airheaded douchebags Hollywood-types are, even though we're all Hollywood-types ourselves. See what we did there? Pass the Moët!"), Scream 4's return to the small town that started it all simply felt fresh. Also, the villain reveal felt right this time. In the original Scream the reveal made sense, and when you go back and watch it you can see the clues. 2's reveal was OK, but relied a little too much on its exposition. When you re-watch that one you can sort of see why they chose who they did, but it's thin. 3's reveal was a fucking joke. 4's not only made sense in the context of the movie, it made sense in the context of the Reality-TV/YouTube obsessed year 2011. The final shot sequence of the movie deals with that, and might have been the best part. It actually had social commentary! Crazy, right? It would have been better if that commentary had pervaded the whole movie, but you can't win 'em all, I guess.
So, a valiant effort by Mr. Craven & the gang. I'm probably being far too kind, but I'm giving Scream 4 a
6 out of 10 Red Right Hands
* Die Hard 4, Indiana Jones 4, Lethal Weapon 4: For the record, I liked all three of these movies. Suck it.
I actually decided to revisit the first three, one per night, on the three nights preceding seeing the fourth. Let's recap:
Scream: A really good flick that both makes fun of and pays homage to the slasher horror films of the past few decades. A little dated, and a little diminished by the inevitable parodies it spawned (like the Scary Movie series), as well as the more intense horror flicks that have pushed the envelope even further (Hostel, anyone?). But it's still pretty damned fun. And pretty violent and bloody, by 1996 standards. Also, at the risk of being branded a pariah, I kinda love Matthew Lillard in this movie. He turns high-strung lunacy into an art form (these days he's mostly off-the-radar, which is just fine).
Scream 2: Again, pretty good flick that both makes fun of and pays homage to sequels. It's in-movie parody of the first Scream adds to the dated-ness of that flick, but it's a fun wink-wink at itself (Luke Wilson as Skeet Ulrich = Epic Win). Everything in 2 is more grandiose, intense, and over-the-top. The scene where Neve Campbell is on stage with a masked Greek chorus swinging knives at her was almost too much, but actually ended up being relatively artistic (and what an insensitive DICK her acting prof was. I mean, didn't he see Scream?).
Scream 3: Um... yeah... not so much. A not so good movie that both makes weak fun of and fails at paying homage to trilogies. Wes Craven & company phoned this one in, big time. Full of awful, heavy-handed red herrings. Populated by useless secondary characters that show up literally once for an introduction, then once more to die. An out-of-left-field villain with an out-of-left-field weak backstory to justify a non-plot. A head-scratching cameo by Jay & Silent Bob (seriously, WTFuck?). But Patrick Warburton was in it, so not a total loss.
Scream 4: I heard a lot of negativity surrounding this movie when it came out. People were just not digging it. And let's face it... there was really no reason for it to be made. Which is why I was sort of surprised by how much I didn't hate it. No, I didn't love it by any means, but this was so much more the movie that Scream 3 should have been.
The plot? Sidney Prescott returns to her hometown of Woodsboro to promote her new book. But uh-oh! It's exactly the 15th Anniversary of the original "Woodsboro Murders" (convenient!), and two girls have been murdered while watching the 6th (or was it 7th?) sequel to "Stab"- the movie based on the book based on the murders by Gale Weathers-Riley (Courtney "Puffy" Cox-not-for-much-longer-Arquette). Suspects include "seasoned" Sheriff Dewey Riley (David "I smelled a fart" Arquette), creepy Deputy Judy Hicks (Marley "googly-eyes" Shelton), Sidney's Aunt Kate (Mary "walking corpse" McDonnell) & cousin Jill (Emma "Eric & Julia mashup" Roberts), film nerd Charlie Walker (Rory "the littlest Culkin" Culkin), and, um... aww, fuck it. It's a Scream movie. You know the drill. Everybody's a suspect, even if they've been offed already. Hell, after 4 movies I wouldn't be surprised if I was the fucking killer.
So, yeah. There's lot's of stalking, stabbing, and screaming. But by now we're so used to it that it passes us by without much ado (except for the girl further down in my row- she jumped and uttered, "oh my GAWD" literally every time a new person suddenly appeared on screen, whether it was a suspenseful scene or not. Her boyfriend just snored). And the opening sequence(s) didn't help. It was a movie within a movie within a movie thing where people keep getting killed, then are revealed as characters in a Stab film being watched by other characters in a subsequent Stab film, until finally it's the "real" world of the Scream movie, but by then we're already too numb to give a hoot about our first "real" victims. And this was only the first 5 minutes. So, yeah- the cutesy, gimmicky, Matryoshka doll opening worked until we reached the final one. By then it was just a lump of hollow, painted wood with other lumps of hollow, painted wood inside.
Too esoteric? Sorry. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matryoshka_doll. Still too esoteric? Sorry. I'm not changing it. Deal.
Anyway, right then and there I was ready for the rest of Scream 4 to blow. And then it didn't. What we got was a laid-back slasher film that didn't take itself too seriously, which I can get behind. I think they learned from their mistakes with Scream 3. The problem is they scaled it back a little too much. Nothing really matters at this point in the series. And yeah, this one was supposed to be the movie that makes fun of and pays homage to reboots, but we only know that because they say so (or, specifically, because lame, useless character "Randy's sister" tells us), not because it at all resembled a reboot. If it was a reboot, there wouldn't be any returning actors, and we wouldn't be told their backstory- we'd experience it for the first time. Again. What they should have done was played it like a return-to-the-well sequel, à la Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull or Live Free Or Die Hard or Lethal Weapon 4, all of which most people loathed*, and talked about how returning to the well is always a bad idea. Let your tongue-in-cheek start there and then give us something new to see in order to prove the concept wrong, you know? But instead we got another Scream movie that followed the same basic outline (murder, character intros, more murder, "who's doing it?", even more murder, "it was me, and this is why"). Actually, they did something interesting in one of the "Stab" movie meta-scenes at the beginning: one character, not wearing a mask, kills the other on screen, letting us all know right off the bat who the killer is. But then it turned out to be another fake movie-in-movie thing. Too bad- that would have been a cool way to mix it up.
So what did I like about it? Well, that's hard to say. I wasn't too bored. Well...maybe a little, at times... certainly not when Alison Brie was, uh, bouncing around... er... did it just get hot in here? Uh... the movie flowed pretty well, I guess- no dead spots. The three returning characters are still charming enough, I suppose (but Courtney Cox needs to lay off the Botox, man). I enjoyed that it was a modest movie. A weird word to use in this context, but considering Scream 3 was so ridiculously, boringly self-aggrandizing ("look, this story is SO GREAT that we're going to set the second sequel on the movie set of the second fake sequel and make broad-stroke comments on what shallow airheaded douchebags Hollywood-types are, even though we're all Hollywood-types ourselves. See what we did there? Pass the Moët!"), Scream 4's return to the small town that started it all simply felt fresh. Also, the villain reveal felt right this time. In the original Scream the reveal made sense, and when you go back and watch it you can see the clues. 2's reveal was OK, but relied a little too much on its exposition. When you re-watch that one you can sort of see why they chose who they did, but it's thin. 3's reveal was a fucking joke. 4's not only made sense in the context of the movie, it made sense in the context of the Reality-TV/YouTube obsessed year 2011. The final shot sequence of the movie deals with that, and might have been the best part. It actually had social commentary! Crazy, right? It would have been better if that commentary had pervaded the whole movie, but you can't win 'em all, I guess.
So, a valiant effort by Mr. Craven & the gang. I'm probably being far too kind, but I'm giving Scream 4 a
6 out of 10 Red Right Hands
* Die Hard 4, Indiana Jones 4, Lethal Weapon 4: For the record, I liked all three of these movies. Suck it.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
...And Her Sisters?
Yeah... saw this one, like, a month ago. SLACKER! Gotta write it up all quick-like so I can move on to my Scream 4 review. Eventually. So...
Hanna: Whoa. What a cool movie this was. I saw the trailers and figured it would be alright, but I was pleasantly surprised when it was much better than just "OK".
Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a girl born of a secret government project intent on creating the perfect assassin. She is raised by her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana) in the snowy wilderness (Finland, I think) to be a completely self-sufficient survivor. Basically, he raises her as the assassin she was meant to be. When she turns 16 he gives her the choice to be "found" by the government in order to kill Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), the corrupt agent responsible for her mother's death. Hanna agrees, turns on the locator device her father has left out for her, is found, murders a "fake" Marissa Wiegler, escapes custody, and is chased through Morocco, then Germany by a hired mercenary named Isaacs (Tom Hollander) on her trek to reunite with her father.
What makes this movie great is the its take on the fish-out-of-water aspects of Hanna's journey. Having grown up in utter seclusion with her father being the only human she's seen since she was an infant, and having seemingly completed her mission right away, we basically get to follow Hanna on the lam, experiencing the world for the first time. She befriends a travelling family who decide to help her get to her dad in Germany, and for the first time learns what "normal" family life can be like, and what it means to have friends. It's fun, cute, exciting, but all the while dangerous, as we know she's being hunted by a ruthless, whistling mercenary and his cronies. What's great, though, is as "gee-whiz" as Hanna's experiences are, we never forget the calm, calculated killer she is if pushed to defend herself. And, of course, the people she meets have no idea what this fair, blonde, wisp of a girl is capable of.
The action is pretty great. Hanna's escape from the CIA compound is pretty exciting, the fight scenes are both brutal and elegant, and the general pacing of the movie is a nonstop mashup of chase flick and road movie. And they don't skimp on the latter, either- it's a movie that loves its location shoots. Everything's so outdoorsy. Makes me wish I was still out west doing the hiking thing. But I digress...
The acting is top notch. Saoirse Ronan knocks her role out of the park, Eric Bana is always great- no exception here, Cate Blanchett is great... with one exception. I won't get too into it here, but I have a real problem with that "give the non-American English-speaker a southern USA accent because it's the easiest to fake" thing. Ms. Blanchett is a goddess, but seriously, that shit rarely flies. Just picking nits here, though. You can decide for yourself how much it bugs you. Oh, and that Tom Hollander guy was great. So creepy and awkward. What's the term the kids are using these days? "Douche-chills"? Yeah- he gave me those.
Anyway, great movie. A little over-the-top at times, but that can be seen as part of the dark fairy-tale world (almost literally and for sure a little heavy-handed in the third act) that this socially underdeveloped teenaged murder machine has been thrust into. Go see it if you haven't already. I think you'll dig it.
8 out of 10 Tracksuit-Wearing Psychos
Hanna: Whoa. What a cool movie this was. I saw the trailers and figured it would be alright, but I was pleasantly surprised when it was much better than just "OK".
Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a girl born of a secret government project intent on creating the perfect assassin. She is raised by her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana) in the snowy wilderness (Finland, I think) to be a completely self-sufficient survivor. Basically, he raises her as the assassin she was meant to be. When she turns 16 he gives her the choice to be "found" by the government in order to kill Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), the corrupt agent responsible for her mother's death. Hanna agrees, turns on the locator device her father has left out for her, is found, murders a "fake" Marissa Wiegler, escapes custody, and is chased through Morocco, then Germany by a hired mercenary named Isaacs (Tom Hollander) on her trek to reunite with her father.
What makes this movie great is the its take on the fish-out-of-water aspects of Hanna's journey. Having grown up in utter seclusion with her father being the only human she's seen since she was an infant, and having seemingly completed her mission right away, we basically get to follow Hanna on the lam, experiencing the world for the first time. She befriends a travelling family who decide to help her get to her dad in Germany, and for the first time learns what "normal" family life can be like, and what it means to have friends. It's fun, cute, exciting, but all the while dangerous, as we know she's being hunted by a ruthless, whistling mercenary and his cronies. What's great, though, is as "gee-whiz" as Hanna's experiences are, we never forget the calm, calculated killer she is if pushed to defend herself. And, of course, the people she meets have no idea what this fair, blonde, wisp of a girl is capable of.
The action is pretty great. Hanna's escape from the CIA compound is pretty exciting, the fight scenes are both brutal and elegant, and the general pacing of the movie is a nonstop mashup of chase flick and road movie. And they don't skimp on the latter, either- it's a movie that loves its location shoots. Everything's so outdoorsy. Makes me wish I was still out west doing the hiking thing. But I digress...
The acting is top notch. Saoirse Ronan knocks her role out of the park, Eric Bana is always great- no exception here, Cate Blanchett is great... with one exception. I won't get too into it here, but I have a real problem with that "give the non-American English-speaker a southern USA accent because it's the easiest to fake" thing. Ms. Blanchett is a goddess, but seriously, that shit rarely flies. Just picking nits here, though. You can decide for yourself how much it bugs you. Oh, and that Tom Hollander guy was great. So creepy and awkward. What's the term the kids are using these days? "Douche-chills"? Yeah- he gave me those.
Anyway, great movie. A little over-the-top at times, but that can be seen as part of the dark fairy-tale world (almost literally and for sure a little heavy-handed in the third act) that this socially underdeveloped teenaged murder machine has been thrust into. Go see it if you haven't already. I think you'll dig it.
8 out of 10 Tracksuit-Wearing Psychos
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Here's Tom With The Weather
American: The Bill Hicks Story: OK. First off, I'm really not a documentary guy. I just don't dig them that much. When I go to the movies I generally want to see fiction. Like a wiser man than I, who at one time practiced some pretty weird science, said, "we know about the reality. Don't mess with the fantasy, OK?" I'm not trying to say I'm above seeing them... I mean, I saw Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 911, and thought they were great, but let's face it- they were more flashy op-ed pieces than documentaries. And I think maybe they were the only two "documentaries" I've actually seen in a theater, so I guess I'm woefully undereducated in the ways of the documentary and therefore don't really know how to go about reviewing one. But I'm going to, anyway.
Secondly, Bill Hicks is someone who I've always been just outside of "the know" about. I've seen some clips of him on stage, heard good chunks of his standup, been told stories of his early years from a friend who went to school with him, know the very basics of his life and career... but I admit- I've never actually seen or heard any of his available acts in their entirety. I completely dig his anti-establishment aesthetic, his contempt for those who shun individuality, his views on the bullshit "war on drugs"... Basically, if you know me, you'd probably be pretty amazed that I'm not more of a Bill Hicks enthusiast. But let me be clear- it's not for lack of interest, it's simply because I haven't had the time.
So I saw American: The Bill Hicks Story at Cinema Village in Manhattan, which, as I understand it, is the only place in the country where it's playing right now. And I liked it... a bit. It was somewhat informative and well put together... for the amount of information it had. Which seemed a little light. That is to say, it had plenty of anecdotal information from friends, family, and colleagues from Hicks's teen years, but when the "story" branched out into his time in Los Angeles, England, and around the US during his touring periods it relied on those same 6 or 7 people. I mean, shouldn't a documentary that spans 15 years of someone's life include 15 years worth of people? And what about the hundreds of comedians that he inspired? Even if they never met the guy, I'm sure they'd have plenty of useful insight about him.
The people who were interviewed were all pretty good- there's no doubt his friends, family, and colleagues absolutely adored the man. This really set quite a somber tone over the movie, for sure, which I assume was what they were going for, but again, it raises the same complaint: only the same handful of people discussing Bill Hicks for 90 minutes completely diminishes the impact of this legendary performer. We should have heard from more comics that opened for him, comics he opened for, people he pissed off, modern-day funny people who owe their sense of humor to him, fans... etc., etc., etc. Bill Hicks was certainly a much more incendiary force of nature and product of counter-culture than a handful of people who loved him could ever get across on their own.
Most of the movie used photos of Hicks, his friends and family, that were computer re-generated with movement and added to images both realistic and psychedelic to enhance the storytelling (the bit where they talk about eating mushrooms was fun, visually). It was pretty cool... at first... but after an hour in it just came across as repetitive and uninventive. Like someone who took an Adobe Flash course and decided to show off a little. It sort of gave the whole thing a Made-For-TV feel, like something you'd see on the History or Biography channel. I like watching stuff there at times, but that's because those features only last 30-60 minutes. In fact, I wonder if American was supposed to be a TV doc that got expanded for some reason. Whatever. As it exists it comes across as stretched, a little afterthought-ish, and somewhat unfinished.
I don't want you to think it's a total loss. Like I said, I knew a bit less than a fair amount about Hicks before I saw it, and it's not like it didn't add to my knowledge. I just wish it added SO MUCH MORE to what I knew. I suppose it works best as an introduction to the man- if you know nothing about him, and you're interested, check it out when and if it hits a theater near you. If anything it has inspired me to check out his material for real and stop being "on the fringe" about him. The best parts of the movie were certainly the live clips of him performing. And from what I've been told, some of the earlier clips were never-before-seen, which I imagine is pretty cool to Hicks fans. I know it was cool for me.
So, basically, American is... OK. I'm calling it "average"- there are definitely worse ways to spend an hour and a half, but (and I don't usually endorse this) if you wait for DVD no one would think any less of you. Or if you wait longer you might actually catch this one on Biography where it belongs.
5 out of 10 Magic Mushrooms By The Lake
Secondly, Bill Hicks is someone who I've always been just outside of "the know" about. I've seen some clips of him on stage, heard good chunks of his standup, been told stories of his early years from a friend who went to school with him, know the very basics of his life and career... but I admit- I've never actually seen or heard any of his available acts in their entirety. I completely dig his anti-establishment aesthetic, his contempt for those who shun individuality, his views on the bullshit "war on drugs"... Basically, if you know me, you'd probably be pretty amazed that I'm not more of a Bill Hicks enthusiast. But let me be clear- it's not for lack of interest, it's simply because I haven't had the time.
So I saw American: The Bill Hicks Story at Cinema Village in Manhattan, which, as I understand it, is the only place in the country where it's playing right now. And I liked it... a bit. It was somewhat informative and well put together... for the amount of information it had. Which seemed a little light. That is to say, it had plenty of anecdotal information from friends, family, and colleagues from Hicks's teen years, but when the "story" branched out into his time in Los Angeles, England, and around the US during his touring periods it relied on those same 6 or 7 people. I mean, shouldn't a documentary that spans 15 years of someone's life include 15 years worth of people? And what about the hundreds of comedians that he inspired? Even if they never met the guy, I'm sure they'd have plenty of useful insight about him.
The people who were interviewed were all pretty good- there's no doubt his friends, family, and colleagues absolutely adored the man. This really set quite a somber tone over the movie, for sure, which I assume was what they were going for, but again, it raises the same complaint: only the same handful of people discussing Bill Hicks for 90 minutes completely diminishes the impact of this legendary performer. We should have heard from more comics that opened for him, comics he opened for, people he pissed off, modern-day funny people who owe their sense of humor to him, fans... etc., etc., etc. Bill Hicks was certainly a much more incendiary force of nature and product of counter-culture than a handful of people who loved him could ever get across on their own.
Most of the movie used photos of Hicks, his friends and family, that were computer re-generated with movement and added to images both realistic and psychedelic to enhance the storytelling (the bit where they talk about eating mushrooms was fun, visually). It was pretty cool... at first... but after an hour in it just came across as repetitive and uninventive. Like someone who took an Adobe Flash course and decided to show off a little. It sort of gave the whole thing a Made-For-TV feel, like something you'd see on the History or Biography channel. I like watching stuff there at times, but that's because those features only last 30-60 minutes. In fact, I wonder if American was supposed to be a TV doc that got expanded for some reason. Whatever. As it exists it comes across as stretched, a little afterthought-ish, and somewhat unfinished.
I don't want you to think it's a total loss. Like I said, I knew a bit less than a fair amount about Hicks before I saw it, and it's not like it didn't add to my knowledge. I just wish it added SO MUCH MORE to what I knew. I suppose it works best as an introduction to the man- if you know nothing about him, and you're interested, check it out when and if it hits a theater near you. If anything it has inspired me to check out his material for real and stop being "on the fringe" about him. The best parts of the movie were certainly the live clips of him performing. And from what I've been told, some of the earlier clips were never-before-seen, which I imagine is pretty cool to Hicks fans. I know it was cool for me.
So, basically, American is... OK. I'm calling it "average"- there are definitely worse ways to spend an hour and a half, but (and I don't usually endorse this) if you wait for DVD no one would think any less of you. Or if you wait longer you might actually catch this one on Biography where it belongs.
5 out of 10 Magic Mushrooms By The Lake
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Rouge Floyd: (One Flew Over) The Wall
Finally.
Sucker Punch: I like all kinds of movies. Funny stuff, sad stuff, fantasy, thrillers, sci-fi, Oscar bait, animation, documentaries, drama (pronounced like 'AlabAma', of course), and, yes, check-your-brain-at-the-door movies. I don't believe everything has to be Citizen Kane. Or On The Waterfront. Or Dog Day Afternoon. The only caveat here is that a movie simply has to be good. You're probably thinking, "Well, duh..." and I guess you'd be right, but what I'm trying to convey here is it's only OK to check your brain at the door if what you're being fed stands out as something worth your time. The two (so far) Transformers movies are check-your-brain-at-the-door (CYBATD) flicks, but they're fucking awful and therefore give a bad name to the, er, genre (yes, I'm calling it a genre. What.). Besides, even CYBATD movies should at least make you think after the credits roll and you're home on your couch with your kitties and beer.
Sucker Punch is a CYBATD movie. And it's worth your time. The plot: a girl ("Baby Doll" played by Emily Browning) pisses off her evil stepdad who wants her family money, tries to kill him, accidentally kills her sister, and gets sent to an asylum and scheduled for a lobotomy to keep her quiet. She copes by imagining the world as an alternate reality in which the inmates are all oppressed dancers and hatches an escape plan with the help of some of the other girls. To distract anyone in her way she "dances" for them, and in order to convey the emotions she requires she lets her mind escape that world into a hyper-realized, genre-spanning realm of orcs and zeppelins and guns, oh my.
Trust me- it plays out much better than I could possibly put in writing.
So, the movie lets you know right off the bat that you're not seeing a straightforward drama about a maverick mental patient that inspires her fellow inmates. The first five minutes are quite literally a music video for Browning's rendition of 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)'. Much like Moulin Rouge meets the video for 'Janie's Got A Gun'. Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Zach Snyder was inspired by Moulin Rouge when he wrote and directed Punch. Well, that and Pink Floyd: The Wall. And One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Throw all those in a blender, press the 300 button, and viola!
Where was I? Right. Not a straightforward drama... blah, blah, blah. OK. Here's the deal- it's a kick-ass movie with really, really awesome action sequences, set to the music of Queen, Björk, and some remakes of Jefferson Airplane, The Pixies, The Stooges, etc., by some musicians I've never heard of. And, really, it's these sequences that are worth your hard-earned dollars. Yes, they play out like a nerdy fantasy/sci-fi/war nut ate some mushrooms and started rambling into a dictaphone... but with style, man. I mean, giant demon samurai, steampunk WWI soldiers, dragon vs. airplane dogfights... Scott Glenn...
It's like a big, crazy genre mashup extravaganza. This pleases me. If a good portion of your movie takes place in a character's id, it certainly shouldn't be shackled by any one idiom. And somehow Sucker Punch manages to throw in all but the kitchen sink without feeling like Zach Snyder blindly fired a shotgun and called the carnage "art." And as crazy as each of the worlds he creates are, they have boundaries and the action never steps outside of them. Yes, you can try and outrun a dragon over a medieval castle overrun by orcs in a vintage 1914 airplane, but she's probably going to catch up to you and beat your ass. Or chew off your ass, as it were. There's definitely some order in all the chaos. Which is good because ordered chaos is, like, a director's job, and stuff.
This is not really a "performance" movie, but it should be noted that there are some good ones. Carla Gugino (Dr. Gorski/dance instructor), Oscar Isaac ("warden" Blue Jones/club owner), and Jena Malone ("Rocket"- inmate/dancer) are all solid. Isaac, especially. That guy is fantastically creepy. Emily Browning was really good, too... even if her role is more about unspoken emotion than dramatic speaking. And she's cute as a button, yo.
The cinematography is, yes, like 300 was... but I'm a fan. I like the "paintings come to life" aspect of it all. The "real world" is a cold, drab, florescent-lighted purgatory. The dancer-world gets some color added to the mix, but the walls are still faded, pea-green, peeling... The fantasy world is a warm, orange-and-brown post-apocalyptic extravaganza of stone and steel. They really did a fine job of giving these worlds their own specific feel, visually. Pretty great stuff.
The sound design was appropriately bombastic. I mean, this movie is an extravaganza for the senses, so when a bomb goes off behind our heroes, you're going to hear it behind you. Airplanes whoosh over your head and bullets fly by your ears while White Rabbit is pumped straight out of the screen and at your face. Subtlety be damned, jack. And I saw it in a very LOUD theater. I hope you can, too.
Something needs to be said about the portrayal of women in this movie. If you check out the posters, or the trailer, or really any of the advertisement art of Sucker Punch you may say to yourself, "Oh. So this is a movie where women dress up in fetish outfits and wiggle their stuff for the slow-motion cameras, eh?" In fact, no. I can tell you fo' sho' that ain't the case. I think Snyder did a pretty good job in keeping it grounded in "girl power." That is to say, the movie isn't about feminism, and I don't think it's trying to say it is, but "gratuitous" and "misogynistic" are certainly not words I would use to describe the filming of our band of sista heroes. In fact, the use of the fantasy sequences in place of the actual "dancing" that Baby Doll does for her oppressors is, I think, Snyder's comment on the inner strength of women. But I'm just a dumbass male, so I really couldn't tell you. Fo' sho'.
So, I really want to give this movie a better rating than I'm going to. I certainly wasn't disappointed, and I'm psyched to watch it on the Blu-Ray in a few months, but there were a few times that I found myself slightly underwhelmed. Never during the crazy fantasy stuff... in fact, if the movie had been all that I would have no complaints... but during the, uh... "second tier" world (the one where they're all dancers and the warden wears a zoot suit) I started to feel the repetition of the story. Go get next item to aid in escape, dance for oppressor/enter fantasy world, lather, rinse, repeat. It's obvious that this was a serious passion project for Z-Snydes. I mean, he wrote the story, co-wrote the screenplay, directed it, and produced it (with his wife)... and sometimes having that much control is a bit too much. I used to say the same thing about Batman Returns- Tim Burton directed and co-produced that one, and it was a little too Burton. There's only so many clowns on motorcycles crashing through snow-covered cobblestone streets that I can watch before I'm overwhelmed by style-over-substance. Sucker Punch definitely fares better than that one... maybe (and I'm gonna contradict myself a bit here) because Snyder also wrote SP and was therefore, unlike Burton, not trying to force his aesthetic onto someone else's story. Anyway, I can sort of see the same issues brought to the table- no one was reigning Snyder in. Just because you can do anything you want doesn't necessarily mean you should.
And please don't get me wrong here- Sucker Punch is friggin' cool. The issues I mention only get in the way because the fantasy world is so very fully realized while the dancer-world is a little nebulous and the "real world" is almost non-existent. That said, I've heard some talk about how the movie was cut down a bit for its PG-13 rating. Makes me wonder if we'll get some kind of director's cut for its home release, and if a DC will help the odd pacing and maybe flesh out the confusing bits. I don't know much about these things, but in my mind I imagine Snyder got everything done his way during filming and the initial editing, but then had to make some cuts for the Brothers Warner that hurt the flow of the movie. Anyway, the DC of his Watchmen (not the "Ultimate Cut") certainly improved that film, so I have hope. Or maybe I should just shut up, sit back, relax, and check my brain at the door again.
(I want to give it an 8 but for now it's a) 7 out of 10 Steampunk German Zombie Soldiers (with the sincere hope that a Director's Cut really ties the room together)
Sucker Punch: I like all kinds of movies. Funny stuff, sad stuff, fantasy, thrillers, sci-fi, Oscar bait, animation, documentaries, drama (pronounced like 'AlabAma', of course), and, yes, check-your-brain-at-the-door movies. I don't believe everything has to be Citizen Kane. Or On The Waterfront. Or Dog Day Afternoon. The only caveat here is that a movie simply has to be good. You're probably thinking, "Well, duh..." and I guess you'd be right, but what I'm trying to convey here is it's only OK to check your brain at the door if what you're being fed stands out as something worth your time. The two (so far) Transformers movies are check-your-brain-at-the-door (CYBATD) flicks, but they're fucking awful and therefore give a bad name to the, er, genre (yes, I'm calling it a genre. What.). Besides, even CYBATD movies should at least make you think after the credits roll and you're home on your couch with your kitties and beer.
Sucker Punch is a CYBATD movie. And it's worth your time. The plot: a girl ("Baby Doll" played by Emily Browning) pisses off her evil stepdad who wants her family money, tries to kill him, accidentally kills her sister, and gets sent to an asylum and scheduled for a lobotomy to keep her quiet. She copes by imagining the world as an alternate reality in which the inmates are all oppressed dancers and hatches an escape plan with the help of some of the other girls. To distract anyone in her way she "dances" for them, and in order to convey the emotions she requires she lets her mind escape that world into a hyper-realized, genre-spanning realm of orcs and zeppelins and guns, oh my.
Trust me- it plays out much better than I could possibly put in writing.
So, the movie lets you know right off the bat that you're not seeing a straightforward drama about a maverick mental patient that inspires her fellow inmates. The first five minutes are quite literally a music video for Browning's rendition of 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)'. Much like Moulin Rouge meets the video for 'Janie's Got A Gun'. Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Zach Snyder was inspired by Moulin Rouge when he wrote and directed Punch. Well, that and Pink Floyd: The Wall. And One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Throw all those in a blender, press the 300 button, and viola!
Where was I? Right. Not a straightforward drama... blah, blah, blah. OK. Here's the deal- it's a kick-ass movie with really, really awesome action sequences, set to the music of Queen, Björk, and some remakes of Jefferson Airplane, The Pixies, The Stooges, etc., by some musicians I've never heard of. And, really, it's these sequences that are worth your hard-earned dollars. Yes, they play out like a nerdy fantasy/sci-fi/war nut ate some mushrooms and started rambling into a dictaphone... but with style, man. I mean, giant demon samurai, steampunk WWI soldiers, dragon vs. airplane dogfights... Scott Glenn...
It's like a big, crazy genre mashup extravaganza. This pleases me. If a good portion of your movie takes place in a character's id, it certainly shouldn't be shackled by any one idiom. And somehow Sucker Punch manages to throw in all but the kitchen sink without feeling like Zach Snyder blindly fired a shotgun and called the carnage "art." And as crazy as each of the worlds he creates are, they have boundaries and the action never steps outside of them. Yes, you can try and outrun a dragon over a medieval castle overrun by orcs in a vintage 1914 airplane, but she's probably going to catch up to you and beat your ass. Or chew off your ass, as it were. There's definitely some order in all the chaos. Which is good because ordered chaos is, like, a director's job, and stuff.
This is not really a "performance" movie, but it should be noted that there are some good ones. Carla Gugino (Dr. Gorski/dance instructor), Oscar Isaac ("warden" Blue Jones/club owner), and Jena Malone ("Rocket"- inmate/dancer) are all solid. Isaac, especially. That guy is fantastically creepy. Emily Browning was really good, too... even if her role is more about unspoken emotion than dramatic speaking. And she's cute as a button, yo.
The cinematography is, yes, like 300 was... but I'm a fan. I like the "paintings come to life" aspect of it all. The "real world" is a cold, drab, florescent-lighted purgatory. The dancer-world gets some color added to the mix, but the walls are still faded, pea-green, peeling... The fantasy world is a warm, orange-and-brown post-apocalyptic extravaganza of stone and steel. They really did a fine job of giving these worlds their own specific feel, visually. Pretty great stuff.
The sound design was appropriately bombastic. I mean, this movie is an extravaganza for the senses, so when a bomb goes off behind our heroes, you're going to hear it behind you. Airplanes whoosh over your head and bullets fly by your ears while White Rabbit is pumped straight out of the screen and at your face. Subtlety be damned, jack. And I saw it in a very LOUD theater. I hope you can, too.
Something needs to be said about the portrayal of women in this movie. If you check out the posters, or the trailer, or really any of the advertisement art of Sucker Punch you may say to yourself, "Oh. So this is a movie where women dress up in fetish outfits and wiggle their stuff for the slow-motion cameras, eh?" In fact, no. I can tell you fo' sho' that ain't the case. I think Snyder did a pretty good job in keeping it grounded in "girl power." That is to say, the movie isn't about feminism, and I don't think it's trying to say it is, but "gratuitous" and "misogynistic" are certainly not words I would use to describe the filming of our band of sista heroes. In fact, the use of the fantasy sequences in place of the actual "dancing" that Baby Doll does for her oppressors is, I think, Snyder's comment on the inner strength of women. But I'm just a dumbass male, so I really couldn't tell you. Fo' sho'.
So, I really want to give this movie a better rating than I'm going to. I certainly wasn't disappointed, and I'm psyched to watch it on the Blu-Ray in a few months, but there were a few times that I found myself slightly underwhelmed. Never during the crazy fantasy stuff... in fact, if the movie had been all that I would have no complaints... but during the, uh... "second tier" world (the one where they're all dancers and the warden wears a zoot suit) I started to feel the repetition of the story. Go get next item to aid in escape, dance for oppressor/enter fantasy world, lather, rinse, repeat. It's obvious that this was a serious passion project for Z-Snydes. I mean, he wrote the story, co-wrote the screenplay, directed it, and produced it (with his wife)... and sometimes having that much control is a bit too much. I used to say the same thing about Batman Returns- Tim Burton directed and co-produced that one, and it was a little too Burton. There's only so many clowns on motorcycles crashing through snow-covered cobblestone streets that I can watch before I'm overwhelmed by style-over-substance. Sucker Punch definitely fares better than that one... maybe (and I'm gonna contradict myself a bit here) because Snyder also wrote SP and was therefore, unlike Burton, not trying to force his aesthetic onto someone else's story. Anyway, I can sort of see the same issues brought to the table- no one was reigning Snyder in. Just because you can do anything you want doesn't necessarily mean you should.
And please don't get me wrong here- Sucker Punch is friggin' cool. The issues I mention only get in the way because the fantasy world is so very fully realized while the dancer-world is a little nebulous and the "real world" is almost non-existent. That said, I've heard some talk about how the movie was cut down a bit for its PG-13 rating. Makes me wonder if we'll get some kind of director's cut for its home release, and if a DC will help the odd pacing and maybe flesh out the confusing bits. I don't know much about these things, but in my mind I imagine Snyder got everything done his way during filming and the initial editing, but then had to make some cuts for the Brothers Warner that hurt the flow of the movie. Anyway, the DC of his Watchmen (not the "Ultimate Cut") certainly improved that film, so I have hope. Or maybe I should just shut up, sit back, relax, and check my brain at the door again.
(I want to give it an 8 but for now it's a) 7 out of 10 Steampunk German Zombie Soldiers (with the sincere hope that a Director's Cut really ties the room together)
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