Netflix Junkie

Contagion

2012-01-28T15:02:00.000-05:00

I used to work at a place that did professional wargaming. Not the kind with little paper chits and 20-sided dice, but the kind in which we got a bunch of smart and capable people in a room, threw them a scenario, and analyzed how they did (or didn’t) work together to deal with the situation. Contagion feels like a dramatization of one of those wargames.

The scenario: a highly contagious, deadly virus comes out of Macau, borne abroad by several of the thousands of international travelers who pass through in a given week. It propagates around the world exponentially. Player #1: you’re an epidemiologist with the World Health Organization. Player #2: you’re the head of the CDC. Player #3: Homeland security. Player #4: a suburban city councilwoman at the American center of the epidemic. Go.

Does it work in the film? Yeah. Likeable stars like Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, and Lawrence Fishburne put faces to dilemmas, helping us humanize the scope of the epidemic and empathize with their respective ethical and professional challenges. The stories weave together fluidly, each informing the others and catching us up in their combined narrative. The film rockets along and never feels like the dull procedural it could have become. Contagion challenged and fascinated me, making me feel like I was back in the room of one of those wargames, moving things along and learning from the process.

Grim as the film’s subject matter surely is, I found it to be intellectually and emotionally satisfying. I walked out thinking, “That’s how it could really play out. Nice work.” I haven’t changed my mind, even if I have changed my habits: I’m washing my hands more.

Step Brothers

2012-01-22T21:44:00.000-05:00

Step Brothers is a one-joke movie. Fortunately, it’s a funny joke.

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play 40-ish men who never really matured past the age of, oh, 13. They live at home and act like children. When their parents meet, marry, and move in together, they have to learn to get along.

You could build a funny movie about spoiled kids becoming brothers with child actors, but the hook here is watching schlubby, middle-aged guys exhibit these behaviors. A couple of kids climbing into a treehouse to hang out and gripe about their goody-two-shoes sibling could be amusing, but watching grown men do it is downright hilarious.

Is it shallow? Yeah. Is it formulaic? Yeah. Is it funny? Well, yeah. Go figure.

Observe and Report

2012-01-13T08:31:00.000-05:00

I’m pretty sure Observe and Report is a comedy. It’s billed as one, and it stars comedian Seth Rogen. But it isn’t funny. It’s disturbing.

In the film, Rogen plays a functionally psychotic head of security at a shopping mall. He’s unstable and violent, but appears to have found a niche in which he can mask the former and occasionally indulge the latter. Over the course of the film, events disturb his balance and he spirals down into a full-blown psychotic episode.

Observe and Report plays this for laughs, but it isn’t funny. Rogen’s character is, by turns, pathetic and repulsive. The people he hurts stay hurt. The people he intimidates stay afraid. Nothing about this is good, and nothing ends well. This is a disturbing, scary, deeply weird film, and nothing at all like what I expected. Perhaps the joke was on me.

Make Way for Tomorrow

2012-01-09T09:06:00.000-05:00

I was on board Make Way for Tomorrow, an American precursor to the superior Tokyo Story, for roughly half the movie. Then, one of the leads make a decision so stupid that he lost me, killed my disbelief, and tuned me out. Once that happened, I saw for what it was: a one-note movie that plays its note on a title card before the story even begins.

Here’s the setup: an older couple (roughly 70, which in the world of this film is absolutely ancient) calls their adult children home. This is not a happy reunion, however. They’ve invited them to announce to that they’ve lost their home and need to move in with somebody. The kids are displeased.

Ok, I know where this is going and so do you: it’s right there in the title. Besides, you’ve seen King Lear and Tokyo Story (What? You haven’t seen Tokyo Story? Why are you wasting time reading this blog when you could be doing that? Go on now, shoo. I’ll be here when you’re finished.). You know how this works out.

The rest of the film is, essentially, a slog to the bitter end. But there’s a moment, about halfway through, when a friend presents the man of the couple an opportunity on a silver platter with a couple of mints and a lovely flower in a little vase. The man waves away the opportunity because he’s an idiot. This made me so mad, so incredulous, that I stopped seeing him as a man and started seeing him as a cardboard cutout with “pathetic” scrawled upon it in magic marker. I wondered why the “opportunity” scene was even included. And then I was done.

Make Way for Tomorrow is technically competent and decently performed, but it failed to make me believe. What a disappointment.

The Tree of Life

2012-01-06T06:07:00.000-05:00

The Tree of Life made me glad I sprang for an enormous tv and a good stereo. I can’t imagine seeing this film on a computer screen. This film trades on awe, and awe requires big picture and big sound. I think the studio will put this back in theaters for awards season. If you don’t have an enormous tv and a good stereo, take advantage of the theater’s setup and see this film properly.

Sean Penn’s a successful architect in his early 50s. It’s his deceased brother’s birthday. He goes about his day, but he’s lost in thought, reflecting on his childhood, his brother, his family, and life. That’s it – that’s the whole story.

But it’s powerful and it’s beautiful and it’s absolutely effective, and it’s so because director Terence Malick captures the perspective of childhood as seen through the lens of recollection. He uses vignettes and camera angles and selective audio to approximate how children see and adults remember. He weaves it with a meditation on life, and the meaning of life, that put me in a profound, meditative state and took me on its journey.

I didn’t cry during The Tree of Life. I didn’t laugh. Nothing blew up. But this film moved me, its marriage of music and imagery touched me, and the experience felt like the most profound time I’ve had at the movies since Woman in the Dunes.

See this film. Soak it in. When you do, go large.

Green Lantern

2012-01-03T05:47:00.001-05:00

I kinda liked Green Lantern. It struck me as goofy fun. All the goofy fun in the world, however, can’t mask its profound distastefulness.

Here’s the deal: Ryan Reynolds plays Hal Jordan, a test pilot with deep-seated insecurities who gets selected to be Flashlight Guy, er, Green Lantern, a space-cop who can use Lantern Power to focus his will into stuff like really big machine guns. After bilging out of Space Cop Academy, he returns to Earth. Once home, he’s confronted with Capital E Eeevil, overcomes his insecurities, and saves the day. On the face of it, this makes for a good time at the movies. My kindergartner enjoyed it, and I rocked along relatively happily.

But I can’t see how any self-respecting nerd can support Green Lantern. As played by Ryan Reynolds, Hal Jordan is that jock you probably hated in high school. He’s good looking and in great shape and has a ridiculously hot girlfriend whom he neglects. As if that weren’t enough, he has an awesome car, the ability to lose his job without freaking out, and Space Cop powers. But that’s not so bad. Here’s the killer: his nemesis is you. His nemesis is Chess Club Guy, the nerd with the crush on Ridiculously Hot Girl.

{Aside: it just kills me that it always comes back to Ridiculously Hot Girl. By whining about the fact that he’s invisible to Ridiculously Hot Girl, Chess Club Guy marginalizes all the Chess Club Girls. In a sense, he’s marginalizing his own analogue and, thus, himself. I hear you, Evolutionary Scientist Guy: Ridiculous Hotness often comes down to symmetry of feature, perfect averageness, and physical fitness, thus suggesting a good reproductive choice. Nevertheless, the self-loathing inherent in the envy of the one whom Ridiculously Hot Girl finds attractive strikes me as both unjust and uncomfortable.}

So, what are we supposed to do? Root for the Alpha Beta over the Tri Lamb? Cheer Ryan Reynolds because he finally gets in touch with his inner JUMP THE SHARK GUY? Not going to happen. The best we can do is quiet our misgivings and enjoy the pretty pictures.

And plot our revenge. Mu ha ha.

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol

2011-12-30T08:07:00.000-05:00

Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol had me at the opening credits. I’d forgotten that Brad Bird directed this film, and seeing his name flash on the screen assured me that I was in for a good time.

You see, Brad Bird directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The Incredibles is the greatest superhero movie ever made, and Ratatouille moved me to stand and applaud when its credits rolled, something I’ve done exactly once. This guy knows what he’s doing and it shows in this, his first live-action feature.

The Mission: Impossible movies imagine what James Bond would be like if he weren’t a sociopath. Tom Cruise, as secret agent Ethan Hunt, can actually make and sustain friendships, lead people, and present himself as more than a collection of top-shelf stuff he read about in men’s lifestyle magazines. This gives us an “in” to his character that the 007 movies simply can’t deliver. This matters, because it overcomes the fact that this spy thriller is just another entry in the “stop a madman out to destroy the world / corner the market on X / extort ONE MILLION DOLLARS from the UN” genre. We like Ethan in a way that we simply can’t like Bond. We like his team, which includes recently omnipresent Doctor Who alumnus Simon Pegg. We like his boss. By God, we like the Impossible Missions Force, whose self-destructing messaging systems sometimes need a little whack to, y’know, actually self-destruct. So we’re on board when things get rough.

And rough they get, giving Bird a reason to deliver breathtaking action set-pieces. I’ve flown over Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower a zillion times, but it took this film to bring home its awesome height. I’ve been in sandstorms, but the sandstorm here felt more dangerous and more awesome than any I’ve actually experienced. As a film buff, I’ve seen more stunt fights in industrial settings than I can remember; but I’ve never seen a stunt fight like the one this delivers in its climax.

A friend of mine recently said that Brad Bird should get a Bond film. I say that Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol is as good as spy action-thrillers get, and better than any Bond film I can readily recall. Brad Bird hasn’t just raised the bar. He’s built a better bar, taller and stronger and cooler and just plain more fun than the bars that have gone before.

I can’t praise Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol enough. Brad Bird knows what he’s doing.

PS … except for that last scene, which looked like it was filmed on different stock and tied everything up far too neatly. Hey, people who follow this kind of thing: was this a reshoot thing? I just don’t understand how you do two hours of excellence, only to go mundane at the wrap. Thoughts?

Hugo

2011-12-29T03:28:00.000-05:00

In the first ten minutes of Hugo, Martin Scorsese delivers a breathtaking flight above the wintry streets of beautiful Paris, through the crowds at a downtown railway station, and into the very workings of the beautiful clocks that keep the people in the station on time. Further, he introduces the ragamuffin boy Hugo, our hero, wins our sympathy for him, and dazzles us with the beauty of his photography and vision.

And then he gives us the opening credits. Basically, the first ten minutes of Hugo is Martin Scorsese saying, “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the best there is.”

He’s right, of course. He is the best there is, and he uses his mastery of his craft to tell us a story (of the plucky young Hugo and his adventures in the railway station), experiment with and expand 3D technology, and proclaim his love for film, both aesthetically and technically.

He’s aided by the kind of cast a Scorsese can command: Christopher Lee as a bookshop owner who reveals hidden depths, Sacha Baron Cohen as the Station Inspector, Emily Mortimer as the flower vendor who’s the glint in his eye, and Jude Law as, in a sense, the soul of the picture. And that’s just the supporting cast! In the lead, we find the remarkable young Asa Butterfield as the titular Hugo, Chloë Grace Moretz (whom I’m beginning to see as the next Jodie Foster) as an educated young girl who yearns for adventure, and Sir Ben Kingsley in one of his most evocative roles since Death and the Maiden.

Right around here, I usually summarize the plot to help you decided whether the story’s for you. Not this time. The story’s good, and it’ll capture your imagination, but Hugo is for you simply because it’s beautiful. It provokes a feeling of aesthetic wonder, a joy that mankind is capable of creating such visions and experiences, a shared delight in the possibilities of film as a medium. I loved Hugo and consider it among the best films of the year. I think you’ll love it, too.

Hulk

2011-12-27T11:00:00.000-05:00

When the climax of your superhero movie comes down to two guys talking on a darkened stage, you know you have something special.

In The Hulk, Ang Lee has created a film that replicates the feeling of reading a comic book. Its compositions deliberately recall the printed page. Its wipes and transitions suggest the exuberance of a penciller in creative ecstasy. Its villain kill qualifies among the top three villain kills of all time.

And yet, all that seems almost beside the point. The Hulk is a film about emotions and their repression, and nothing engenders so much of both as family. Bruce Banner’s family is about as dysfunctional as it gets, and he has coped with the ensuing trauma through repression and emotional distance. As played by the extraordinary Eric Bana, he’s a coiled spring. When he finally releases, when he lets go, it’s as chaotic and cathartic as an argument at Christmastime.

Ok, so hang on: is this a movie about an uptight guy who learns to get in touch with his emotions, or is it a movie about a giant green monster who breaks stuff? I understand your confusion: I think audiences went in looking for the latter and felt similarly confused when confronted with the former. But don’t get angry (I don’t think I’d like you when you’re angry): just dig The Hulk for what it is – a movie about an uptight guy who learns to get in touch with his emotions by turning into a giant green monster and breaking stuff. By the time you get to those two guys on that darkened stage, you’ll have grooved on both tracks long enough to feel at home. And when of those two guys literally starts chewing the scenery, you’ll be ready.

Alien

2011-12-23T00:09:00.000-05:00

Oh, Alien is so good.

Here’s a movie that takes its time in the setup, and it pays huge dividends in the second and third acts. When the crew members of the space cargo ship Nostromo awaken to a distress call from an alien world, we get to know them. We get to know their ship and its layout. These things matter, because the Nostromo’s world is one that has been lived in for quite some time, and we need to feel that it’s commonplace, that these are ordinary Joes doing an ordinary job.

Because when Hell breaks loose, we’ve become keyed up and ready. When people start dying, we know who they are and have become invested in their fates. When the alien’s acid blood starts eating through decking, we know what that means and can figure just how close the ship is coming to catastrophic hull breach.

This leads me to wonder: why is this so hard? Why do so many filmmakers not seem to understand that the key to narrative film, even genre-type horror and science fiction, lies in the characters and their environment? If we don’t believe in the characters and their world, we won’t believe in their predicaments or their heroism. If we don’t believe in the characters, all we have is light and sound.

Alien believes in its characters, and it makes us believe. That’s what makes the film so effective, so scary, to this very day. When many of the films we know have passed out of memory, audiences will still watch Alien. If they’re smart, so will filmmakers. This film has much to teach them.

Captain America

2011-12-18T23:34:00.000-05:00

Captain America failed to capture my imagination. It never made me feel like I was watching people, even extraordinary people, in dangerous situations. It made me feel like I was watching characters go through the motions of yet another ‘origin story’ that really served as a prelude to the big Avengers movie the studio has planned for next year. Its perils didn’t feel organic, its villain struck me as silly (The villain’s someone called Red Skull, who’s a really evil Nazi because – what? – regular Nazis aren’t evil enough?), and Captain America’s “super-special good guy team” just looked goofy.

Hey, I like star Chris Evans, who was the best thing about the Fantastic Four movies and Sunshine. I like Hugo Weaving and Tommy Lee Jones and Stanley Tucci; and Hayley Atwell is easy on the eyes. But I never believed in what I saw, and it wasn’t long before Captain America had me looking at my watch. I hope The Avengers will surprise me with something wonderful. Based on what I saw in Iron Man 2, Thor, and now this, I’m not holding my breath.

The Leopard

2011-12-16T09:56:00.000-05:00

In The Leopard, Burt Lancaster delivers perhaps a career-best performance as Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, a giant among the Sicilian nobility of the 1860s. The world is changing around the prince, who adapts as best he can. But that’s not interesting. What’s interesting is how the Salina adapts to not just the greater world of 1860s Italy, but to his realization that his moment, and the moment of all he holds dear, is passing. It’s beautiful and powerful and some stuff even blows up. I don’t know what more you could want in a movie.

Prince Salina bears the mantle of his great house, rules his corner of the island, and arranges the lives of his family to ensure the survival of his legacy. This isn’t easy, as the island boils with revolution and capitalism challenges feudalism in all the ways that matter. When the most promising member of the next generation (who isn’t a direct descendant) falls in love with a rich but common girl of the town, how can the Prince both adapt today and make way for tomorrow?

He can do so with vigor, style, and a take-charge intelligence that Lancaster conveys with absolute authority. Alain Delon plays the scion and Claudia Cardinale the commoner, and one finds it difficult to imagine a fitter actor to play their better, their mentor, and (in a sense) their rival. You’ll see this film and it’ll dazzle you with its costumes and sets and scenery and, well, Sicilian – ness, but you’ll take away Lancaster as the The Leopard, perhaps the last feudal lord in Europe. He’s a little frustrated, a little sad, a little resigned, but he’s nowhere near out of tricks and he’ll amaze and impress you.

If you think of Burt Lancaster only as “the guy from those old pirate movies,” think again. Watch this film and stand by to be impressed.

PS In a nifty little coincidence, I’m posting this from the balcony of a hotel room in Sicily, where cool breezes blow across the cedars and the blood oranges hang ripely in the trees. This is a magnificent island.

Spider-Man 3

2011-12-15T05:59:00.000-05:00

Warning! Spoiler Ahead!

Here’s the problem with Spider-Man 3: at the end of the film, Peter Parker and Harry Osborn, in their Spider-Man and (new nemesis) Green Goblin costumes respectively, team up to fight the big, scary villains. They’re old friends in great danger, yet they’re having a ball. They fall into sync. They help each other out. They’re a couple of guys we’d love to spend an hour and a half with. In other words, Spider-Man 3’s climax shows us what we’ve been missing, thus making us feel like we’ve been missing out. Spider-Man was fun. Spider-Man 2 was fun. Spider-Man 3 doesn’t get fun until the last twenty minutes. By then, it’s too late.

Spider-Man mastermind Sam Raimi set out to make a relationship movie in this, his third installment in the franchise. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of relationship movie that makes you want to throw your remote at the screen and yell at these people to just go grab a beer and talk to each other. If they’d done that, they’d have been much happier much sooner, and so would we.

Spider-Man 2

2011-12-13T12:24:00.000-05:00

Many critics call Spider-Man 2 the best superhero movie. I think that distinction belongs to The Incredibles, but I can see their point.

When the film opens, Spider-Man has been web slinging for a while. He ‘s also been trying to hold down a job, go to school, and be there for his friends, but he’s a juggler with too many balls and not enough hands. Fighting crime is a full-time job, and he’s no millionaire playboy. Something’s gotta give.

And so goes the maturation of Peter Parker. He’s found his calling, but he hasn’t found his balance. What results is a work of surprising maturity, balancing the requirements of the ‘spectacular blockbuster’ with those of a carefully told story about growing up and out, about learning how to be a man.

So, how does Spider-Man 2 do in the ‘spectacular blockbuster’ department? Very well, thank you. The film has a very cool, very cinematic villain in Doctor Octopus, played by Alfred Molina. Doctor Octopus is attached to enormous cybernetic arms, and the film brings them to life with a masterful combination of practical and computer-generated effects. We believe in this contraption, and in the menace it represents, and this helps bring the film to life. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the film continues the tradition of hiring world-class actors to play its villains. Molina can do charm with the best of them, but he can also do a version of sneering contempt that’ll make you recoil.

So yeah, I can see why so many critics are in love with this film. It’s thrilling and cool and rewarding, and it succeeds in every way. I love it, too. it isn’t The Incredibles, a legitimate classic, but it definitely belongs in the same sentence.

Spider-Man

2011-12-02T21:53:00.001-05:00

Spider-Man ranks among the best superhero movies ever made.

You know how it goes: nerdy high schooler Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, develops super powers, and fights bad guys. It’s an origin story, like so many others, but Spider-Man’s theme, that with great power comes great responsibility, resonates because it’s a lesson that we all must learn, over and over again. Spider-Man, as a character, has abilities that make him strong and fast and agile, as well as give him the ability to do neat stuff in involving lots of very tall buildings (Pity the poor, nerdy high schooler who gets bitten by a radioactive spider in Barstow.). But it doesn’t necessarily follow that he’ll use these abilities responsibly. In fact, he behaves like a child, with disastrous consequences. And how many times has each of us done that? How many times have we taken our unique gifts and used them irresponsibly or in service of our own narrow self-interest? How has that usually worked out? That’s part of Spider-Man’s appeal: we don’t need to be nerdy, or a high-schooler, or a New Yorker to relate to this character. We look at Peter Parker, at Spider-Man, and we see a fanciful version of ourselves as we are and as we aspire to be. That’s pretty good stuff for a superhero movie.

Thematics aside, Spider-Man also succeeds as pure entertainment. Star Tobey Maguire nails the role, bringing just the right combination of gee-whiz excitement over his transformation and insecurity as he develops into a man. Perhaps more importantly, he conveys how much Peter Parker enjoys being Spider-Man. Sure, he must have looped much of his in-mask dialogue, but his wahoos and shouts of joy as he swings from building to building feel like the authentic whoops of a young man having a ball. Willem Dafoe, as the villain, proves yet again that he ranks among his generation’s finest actors. His reading of an easy cliché, “We’ll meet again, Spider Man,” belongs at the top of Villainy’s Greatest Hits. He goes big and broad, and just the right amount of over the top, without devolving into silliness.

This isn’t a two-man show, however. J.K. Simmons, playing Parker’s boss and newspaper editor, made my family laugh out loud as scenery-chewing comic relief. Kirsten Dunst and James Franco, as our hero’s would-be girlfriend and only slightly baked best friend, respectively, ground Peter and help us get an “in” to the story. The Chin, well, he does his thing. It really is a magnificent chin.

But hey, these are professional actors. They’re supposed to be good. What makes Spider-Man good is that sense of joy, that fun we get as we swing with Peter Parker through the canyons of Manhattan, thrilled at our abilities and finding our place in the world. There aren’t enough movies about joy and responsibility out there. Even if there were, Spider-Man would be the best of them. I just plain loved it.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2011-11-27T22:11:00.001-05:00

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is so bad it sapped my will to write about movies for over a month. It turned my lifelong enthusiasm for the medium into a flaccid, faded memory of itself. It drove me to bypass all the great films in my Instant queue in favor of old episodes of ’Doctor Who.’ It’s a horror; an abomination. It ranks among the very worst movies ever made. I’d sit through five sequels to Bollywood’s Krrish before I’d even let my neighbor across the street play this horror on his TV.

How bad is it?

It’s so bad that, about 45 minutes in, my three boys fell asleep on the couch while watching it. Just let that sink in for a moment: here’s a loud movie about cars and robots and explosions that bored three healthy American boys. It’s so bad that I, who sat through The Expendables, couldn’t sit through the action set pieces and, instead, found all manner of chores to accomplish around the house (Bathroom towel rack mounting – check.).

This movie is so bad that even thinking of it in any kind of a critical manner makes my head ache. All I want to do is heap scorn upon it, sneer at those who made it, and never see it again.

So, yeah, this isn’t a review. It’s a screed. But some movies don’t deserve reviews and screeds are all they get. Tranformers: Dark of the Moon, you’re an affront to the very notion of narrative film. You have no artistic, aesthetic, or even prurient value. You’re a cynical, worthless, boring embarrassment of a movie that I’m ashamed to have ever tried to screen for my kids. Shame on you, and shame on me for renting you.

Now, begone and never be heard from again.

X-Men: First Class

2011-11-26T12:31:00.001-05:00

Holy cow. X-Men: First Class is actually good!

Some background: I never got into superhero comics. Everything I know about the X-Men I’ve learned from going to the movies. Consequently, my last exposure to the X-Men universe was through the odious Wolverine. When I went in to this one, my expectations were low.

Here’s the setup: it’s the Kennedy Administration. A dude with groovy brain powers recruits a coldblooded revenge killer to join Team Good. As one may imagine, things do not work out as groovy brain guy might have preferred.

The film hangs a pretty good story on that frame, helped along by fun period work, seamless effects, well-directed action set pieces, and the revelation that the amazing young actress from Winter’s Bone looks great naked.

The consensus among my filmgoing friends is that X-Men: First Class is average, at best. I don’t get it. I had more fun at this film than any other superhero film released this year.

Flyboys

2011-11-13T19:44:00.001-05:00

You’ll like Flyboys if you like aviation history. You’ll like Flyboys if you like “historical recreation” movies. You won’t like Flyboys if you like, y’know, good movies.

In WWI, France established the Lafayette Escadrille. Think of it as a Foreign Legion, but with American pilots. This film is, generally, based on their story. Many of the people portrayed here really existed, and many of the things we see them do actually happened. So, hey, so far so good.

But here’s the problem: the screenplay’s just too tight. Every fact about the escadrille’s planes that we learn early in the film becomes important in combat later on. The love story feels like a detour from the plot. We predict nearly every beat and, though the planes look pretty and the uniforms crisp, this film offers no suspense, no surprise, nothing that we expect in narrative cinema. This feels like a story that’s hitting all the marks from one of those screenwriting books, and it certainly has the best intentions of hagiographying the Corps. But there’s no soul here, no fuzziness, nothing that makes it feel like it’s about real people and not just lists of traits noted on index cards.

Nevertheless, I like aviation history. I like “historical recreation” movies. Flyboys wasn’t much good, but it did teach me something about its world. I guess there’s that.

Hanna

2011-11-03T12:59:00.000-04:00

Hanna is terrific!

Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is smart, athletic, capable, and almost entirely innocent. Her father (Eric Bana) taught her how to hunt, shoot, and fight, but nothing of the actual world and the people in it. When the deliciously evil Cate Blanchett comes after them both, young Hanna must learn on the run. And learn she does.

And so goes a fast, exciting action thriller punctuated with rousing set-pieces and propelled by a driving electronic score. Hanna’s fights make sense in that we know who is doing what to whom and why. Her journey makes sense both in terms of her personal development and its service to the plot. We care about her, we hate her enemies, and we have a great time at the movies. What more can we ask for?

The Conspirator

2011-10-30T08:15:00.000-04:00

The Conspirator tells the story of Mary Surratt (Robin Wright). She owned the boarding house where the Lincoln Assassination conspirators met. She didn’t do anything wrong. She hanged for it.

That’s the hook, at least. It really tells the story of Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy), an idealistic young attorney and Union war hero who takes her case. Aiken’s a believer, you see, in the Constitution and due process. He believes in the jury of one’s peers and the rule of law. He can’t imagine America as a wounded, bloodthirsty nation, one out for revenge even at the cost of its soul.

That’s the text, at least. The subtext is an exploration of hubris and vengeance and the injustices they wreak.

That’s the subtext, at least. The context is an America ten years on from 9/11, an America that has recoiled from its own lashings out and now seems more interested in taking its own measure than sharpening new swords.

And of course it’s very well done. Robert Redford knows how to direct a film and he can attract the best talent around. But that subtext, at least in today’s context, feels a bit too on the nose. We can tut at cynical old men, now long dead, and compare them to cynical old men who still haunt the studios of Fox News. But this film can’t teach us anything about them because it focuses too closely on its text. It assumes the rest and assumes that we’ll assume it, and it leaves those of us who refuse the easy answer on the outside.

So there I sat, admiring the film’s recreation of post Civil War Washington, admiring its performances, and enjoying the courtroom drama of a case whose outcome I already knew. But I couldn’t shake the film’s simplicity of viewpoint and its almost too casual judgementalism. The Conspirator will engage your imagination and it may break your heart, but it should light off at least one alarm bell in your brain. It certainly did in mine.

King Kong Escapes

2011-10-24T21:27:00.000-04:00

Oh, King Kong Escapes is absolutely horrible. It features gratingly bad American actors in critical roles, ugly monster design and story that feels like it was designed to put its audience to bed as quickly as possible.

Here’s the story: a “research submarine” commanded by a hunky American guy and crewed with a capable Japanese dude and a comely American woman with indeterminate responsibilities, goes to an island in the South Pacific. Of course, it’s that island, and some pretty standard Kong-type stuff happens, including a fun little Kong-on-dino battle for the ship’s bimbo. Kong gets captured, eventually, and there’s a battle with a Mecha-Kong that exists for no other reason than to give its inventor the rather amusing name of Doctor Hu. The film winds up on the Empire State Building, for reasons I don’t entirely recall, the ship’s bimbo screams a lot.

But I didn’t care about Kong, or the bimbo, or He-Captain, or much of anything here. King Kong Escapes conjures no sense of wonder, danger, or delight. It gives us no characters of interest and does nothing to compel us to watch it all the way through. It’s just bad. Bad bad bad. I wouldn’t even see it to mock it. Neither should you.

Gamera vs. Barugon

2011-10-16T17:17:00.000-04:00

Gamera vs. Barugon is dull. It’s mostly talking. It doesn’t help that the people who do the talking are completely bland. I rented this movie for the fight scenes. There were only like, I’m not sure, 30 seconds of fighting?

This movie was very boring. Avoid it. All said.

King Kong Escapes

2011-10-15T20:58:00.000-04:00

King Kong escapes was perfect!... Perfectly disappointing, that is.

King Kong was so tiny. He was smaller than a blue whale. He was only 60 feet. He should be a lot larger, like 30 meters. Also, the adult protagonists were annoying, unlike the kid protagonists from Gamera vs. Guiron. The blond-haired damsel in distress keeps shouting “Kong!” in a really whiny voice.

So I suggest you do yourself a favor and stay away from this movie.

Oh, well. It’s kind of hard to appreciate slurm like this after you’ve watched a great movie like Gamera versus Guiron.

Slowdown

2011-10-09T23:14:00.001-04:00

Reader,

If you check this site from time to time, you'll have noticed that I've gone from posting new material several times a week to posting only occasionally.

If you're a regular reader, you know that I'm an airline pilot and that I also fly in the Navy Reserve. Well, the Navy has entrusted me with command of a squadron. I've found that it's an all-consuming duty, leaving me with limited time to watch films, much less compose my thoughts on them.

Nevertheless, I enjoy writing and I hope to snatch the occasional moment to share with you my impressions. Please do keep this site in your RSS feed. In the meantime, simply take my advice and avoid King Kong Escapes.

Have a wonderful day,
Alex

Gamera vs. Guiron

2011-09-28T20:25:00.004-04:00

Here's another review from my 6-th Grader, Ian!

Gamera vs. Guiron is perfect.

The monsters are fake looking, which is great. I like fake looking monsters. So if you like cheesy movies featuring giant monster battles in which the monsters are so fake looking they’re actually cute, then this movie is for you. If you’re a kaiju fanatic, you’ll love this. If you’re not? Well, naturally, being a kaiju fanatic, I wouldn’t know what the average Joe would think about it. This movie is meant for kaiju fanatics. If you’re not one, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t like this flick. The movie itself is good, but the DVD cut out one of the best fight scenes: The one where Guiron chops up Spacegyoas (who is just like Gyoas, except white) into pieces using his knife head. This isn’t a big deal however, because you can find the entire battle on youtube, or go on Netflix instant to watch the Mystery Science Theater 3,000 version. They make fun of the battle of course, though.

I really liked this one. it was just plain terrific! =^D