Wendy and Lucy (2008)

Wendy and her dog Lucy are driving across the United States on the way to Alaska to look for work, but they hit a snag when the car they live and travel in breaks down in a small town in Oregon.
---
In what amounts to a compellingly understated depiction of the difficulties of a young woman’s transient lifestyle, quiet moments and long takes leave us with plenty of time for reflection. Afforded the rare luxury of time to let my mind wander while watching, I found myself spending a good deal of the film not only processing Wendy’s interactions with her world, but also dwelling on how I might react if I suddenly found myself in her situation.

However, we are not expected to know Wendy by the end of the movie. In fact, we know very little about her at all, save for the events we see unfold on the screen. In this way, Wendy becomes an anonymous every-woman of sorts; that lady you saw at the store once, who said she was just passing through, and was looking after her dog.

Instead, the character most developed over the course of the film is you, as you figure out how you fit into this world where Wendy and Lucy struggle to make their way.
---
Anyone who has ever felt lost could appreciate this film, especially with a warm cup of tea in hand and memories of a time when you were drifting through life in mind.

Bright Star (2009)

This is the story of the love between English Romantic poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne.

Jane Campion, director of The Piano (1993), has a keen eye for detail in this patient period piece.  From the macro shots of the hand stitching to which Ms. Brawne dedicates herself, to the script of Mr. Keats’s love letters, and even in the sad, dark portraits of sickrooms and poverty that punctuate the film we are treated with carefully, beautifully and thoughtfully composed images and a tasteful soundtrack.  Period pieces are usually focused on costuming and setting, but here Campion’s efforts shine as something truly special.

As for the story content of the film, I have to say I took the whole thing very personally.  Based on historical happenings, the film isn’t about building suspense and action.  It is about getting to know characters, feeling how they felt, and knowing what it meant to be them on some level. Excellent acting, real dialogue.

It should be made clear, however, that this movie was far more centered on Fanny Brawne than it was on Keats (which, if you know Campion’s work, is not a huge surprise).  We see the story unfold through her eyes and we get many more insights into her emotions than those of the often absent Mr. Keats.  That’s not really a weak point of the movie, but you should be aware of that fact so you don’t go to see it thinking you’re going to get to know John Keats. 

Go to this movie with the knowledge that you will be asked to fully invest your emotions in the characters on screen, and then actually do it.  You won’t be let down.

Top Ten Off the Top of My Head

People often ask me what my favorite movie is. I always find that type of question very difficult to answer.  Do I go with most entertaining?  Movies I have watched over and over?  Favorite genre of movies?  Favorite era? Director?  Whatever I think is "the best"? According to what standard?

So I decided to quit stressing and just make a list of the top ten that I can think of right now, without any hesitation.  This list will likely change over time, but hey.  Fodder for future posts.

In no particular order:

1) Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
        I think it is quite beautiful. And it has a scene where a piglet gets drunk and runs around. It's silent yet its not annoying to sit through.

2) The Goonies (1985)
        I have seen it probably over a hundred times and it never ever gets old. Someday I shall go to Astoria, Oregon where it was set and walk around quoting the entire thing while listening to the soundtrack. Then I will have truly reached the pinnacle of annoying, but I will also feel fulfilled.

3) The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
        Amazingly complex, Wes Anderson's masterpiece in my opinion. Humor that never gets old, pathos that never goes stale. Excellent soundtrack.

4) Spirited Away (2001)
        So strange yet so engaging.  Hayao Miyazaki is one of my all time favorites. This movie tied with his rendition of Howl's Moving Castle (2004). Haven't seen Ponyo yet.

5) Boys Don't Cry (1999)
        Brutal, terrible, excellent. Not one I can watch over and over, but one that made me cry.

6) The Snowman (1982)
        Amazing colored pencil animation, lovely soundtrack, every kid's dream but with a touch of sadness.

7) Monkey Business (1931)
        Marx Brothers classic.  Hilarious gags from Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo.  The sort of movie where you can't stop laughing once you start. Especially the lemonade scene.

8) La cienaga (2001)
        The sort of movie where nothing happens, yet everything happens.  Brilliant colors and nuanced characters, even if you don't understand Spanish. Very honest.

9) Labyrinth (1986)
        David Bowie, goblin king and baby thief extraordinaire, wears tights and wigs and makeup while he attempts to foil Jennifer Connelly's efforts to rescue her little brother. Of course its a musical.

10) Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)
        A gem of the French New Wave.  Shot in lovely black and white in Paris.  You'll think you hate the protagonist in the beginning, but by the end you'll cry too when she sings "Sans Toi."

So that's it. For now. Do you have your own list? Its fun to think about, especially when you put a limitation in number on your "favorites."

Juno (2007)

Since I figure a lot of people have seen it already, I’m going to keep this short. I’ve also been toying with the idea of having more short reviews than long ones, focusing my lengthier diatribes on new releases. This keeps people from having to slog through paragraphs on movies that are old news, and it should theoretically keep my blog more readable on a regular basis. Any thoughts? Please let me know.

Anyway, here goes.

Summary:
High school girl named Juno gets pregnant and then uses a plethora of improbably witty quips to maneuver her way through the process of giving up the baby for adoption.

Good:
It had its moments. There were some parts I laughed at and some cutesy stuff that made me feel all fuzzycuddly. I was entertained through and through.

Bad:
The improbability factor. No matter which way you sliced it, this was a ridiculously rosy view of what happens to a girl during teenage pregnancy in Middle America. Juno cries once during the entire movie. Once. Evidently shielded from actual human (let alone pregnant teenager) emotion by the juggernaut of her verbosity, Juno makes her way from start to finish acting like “it’s really no big deal.” She has parents who support her, finds the perfect woman to be the new mother of her child, and maintains her central friendships and romantic interest with minimal damage. I don’t buy it.

Now, I am aware that Juno isn’t supposed to be a documentary of teenage pregnancy in America. And to be honest, I wouldn’t watch it if it was. It’s just that the sheer fakeness of the dialogue and the plot didn’t charm me in the way I think they were meant to, and for that reason, I think this movie was kind of just ok. Sort of like when you’re craving something sweet out to eat and you settle for stale vending machine candy. It’s not the fresh baked chocolate chip cookie you were hoping for, but it’s not a watery glass of Kool Aid either.

Overall:
Worth watching once as a rental (not that you have any other options currently), for a handful of laughs and a good test of how much snark you can take in one sitting.

Off Day

Hey all,

No new post today, but be sure to check out the wonderful and welcom insightful comments that have been posted on the reviews so far, and the newish Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs review.

Upcoming:
- List of my top ten (?) favorite movies!
- Reviews of Juno, Sunshine Cleaners, and Wendy and Lucy.

Have a great weekend!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

Summary:
A ne’er-do-well inventor named Flint Lockwood botches one experiment after another while the local economy of the small island he lives on goes down the tubes too. A botched project unexpectedly leads to a big break for Lockwood and his town as well as for aspiring weather girl Sam Sparks, but circumstances don’t quite turn out to be the bowl of cherries that they initially seem.
Tiny Summary:
Food falls from the sky. Meanwhile, silliness!

Yay!:
This movie was stuffed with hilarious moments. I’m sure that if I were to watch it again I would find even more random little things to laugh at. There are nods to adult comprehension level humor throughout, but still enough just plain silly jokes and gags so that kids aren’t left scratching their heads. Happily, however, the movie avoids relying on bodily humor as a way to cater to the younger crowd (which I maintain is OK as long as used sparingly), instead opting for slapstick and scenarios kids recognize, like being the odd one out at school and trying to make friends.

Also, let’s talk about the surprisingly varied all star cast for a second. Usually I frown upon big names doing the voices for animation, because to me it’s distracting to be thinking “This is Billy Crystal as Calcifer” instead of “This is the fire demon Calcifer!” (see Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) dubbed and then subtitled for details). Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs features the not entirely superstar but definitely talented talents of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, and Andy Samberg. However, it also has Mr. T (!!!), Neil Patrick Harris, James Caan and Benjamin Bratt. I like all of those people exponentially more now that they were associated with this movie—totally unexpected and zany. Yes, zany.

Now down to the nitty gritty. What can make an animated movie special beyond the level of story? The animation style itself! This includes character design, the way the characters and objects move, color, faithfulness to or departure from reality, and stuff like that. Here we are treated to a pleasantly bright but not over the top color palette, very candied but definitely balanced out by some weird and definitely not aesthetically pleasing imagery (see the water to food conversion machine near the end). Why is color important? You might not consciously register color when you go to watch a movie (animated or otherwise), but it helps set the tone for you on some level. Here the colors work to make you feel happy and interested all the way through, even during scary or sad moments. It’s a kid’s movie, so that’s perfect.

I also think that the 3-D technology was utilized very well here. I am not a fan of 3-D just for the sake of theme park moments like shrapnel flying toward the audience, and I don’t get it when movies are 3-D just because (I saw Coraline (2009) in 3-D and walked out wondering why they bothered). In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 3-D helped bring to life otherwise very 2-D cartooney characters, and to help the audience visualize some very farfetched scenarios (e.g. cheeseburgers raining from pink and purple clouds). Basically, the way this movie uses 3-D helps us invest more fully in the fantasy world, which is great!

Going back to the character design, the characters are very stylized, and in a good way. There is no pretense of any type of life-like representation going on here. All of the characters, human, food, and animal alike, are bendy, squashy, and stretchy to the extreme, have huge expressive eyes, and are pretty much visually appealing all around. One of my favorite moments is a self-reflexive nod to the improbability of the characters’ anatomy, which occurs when Flint has to puff out his lips to kiss Sam, because his nose is so large that he can’t possibly reach her face with his mouth otherwise. I bring this point up because recently I saw Up (2009) and one of my major qualms with it was that I found the main characters to be duds in terms of visual appeal. Even the golden retriever Dug wasn’t really visually cute to me, which is saying something considering his addendum to every sentence was “…because I love you.” Not to imply that a character has to be cute or cuddly to get me to like it. Just… appealing. I guess it’s a personal taste issue.

Boo!:
The only drawback I could come up with for this movie was the price. I saw it as a matinee at my local Regal Cinemas and it cost $12.50 plus tax. Kind of a lot of money for a movie in general! However, I think the extra price is supposed to be because of the use of 3-D, which I already decided was justified in the case of this movie. Plus I really think you should see this one in theaters, because on the small screen the colors wouldn’t be as bright, the 3-D effect would be lost, and overall it just wouldn’t be as cool.

Overall:
This movie was great and you should go see it if you are at all interested in animation, children's films, or laughing a lot for about an hour and a half!

Also: The extended trailer for the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are literally made me cry. Again. Looks. SO. AMAZING!

The Informant! (2009)

Summary:


The story centers on a guy named Mark Whitaker, an informant employed by the US government in the 1990s to gather information on agricultural giant ADM (it happened in real life!).  Though the investigation is initiated by the FBI to look into allegations of price fixing in the industry, Whitaker’s own machinations come out of the woodwork over the course of the story, eventually causing his elaborately and expensively constructed life to fall to pieces.

The Good:

First of all, no one can claim that the acting was not up to par in this movie.  However, walking into the theater I was skeptical.  All I knew about the movie was gleaned from hearsay which excitedly advertised Matt Damon’s thirty pound weight gain, apparently a guarantee of a great performance.  While I remain unconvinced that Damon’s extra heft lent any additional credibility to his role as Mark Whitaker, I do have to say that I sat through the movie thinking, “Mark Whitaker was a real asshole” and not “Matt Damon is a real asshole for playing this guy.”  So kudos to you, Matt.  I totally believed you were him, which is the whole point of your job. 

Additionally I loved the quirky voice-overs when Whitaker details his random thoughts and daydreams, because random silly bits of character interiority thrown into movies on serious topics make me feel like maybe other people are starting to understand the value of frivolous silliness. 

Performances from Scott Bakula (as the very normal FBI agent Brian Shepard) and Melanie Lynskey (as Whitaker’s dedicated wife Ginger) were excellent as well, both as their own characters and interaction with Damon’s Whitaker.  Have you ever watched a movie where one performance so outshone the others that it made it seem like otherwise good actors were hacks?  (Think The Dark Knight (2008), where Heath Ledger’s performance made Aaron Eckhart’s look like child’s play).  Definitely not the case here.  The whole cast pulled their weight in this film through and through.

The Bad:

Despite the excellent acting by all parties involved, something was definitely off.  I felt as though I wasn’t really being encouraged to identify with any character.  Whitaker is shown to be a confused sociopathic individual who is completely untrustworthy to the extreme.  But we are not asked to take the side of the FBI either.  Nor ADM.  Nor even Whitaker’s wife, a sad figure who may be the one person throughout the piece with clear cut values.  I’m the kind of person who has to be able to emotionally invest in a movie on some level.  If I can’t even find a character where I can think to myself “I know how you feel”, I unfortunately have to file the movie under kind of pointless.  At least for me.

Equally troubling as the just-not-quite-working-ness on the emotional investment side was the blaring and oddly selected musical score.  I think there was supposed to be a point to it, but I think it too missed the mark.  Marvin Hamlisch, composer/writer of the famous musical A Chorus Line wrote it and it definitely shows in terms of style.  I think maybe they were going for satire with the jazzy and at times too loud musical interludes, but to me it was just distracting, and didn’t really work to any specific effect.

On the nitpicky side, I also really did not understand the random 1970s style lettering.  This movie was about events that took place during the 1990s.  What’s with the bizarre font? 

Overall:

My overall impression of this movie was that it had the potential to be really great, but somehow and somewhere missed the mark.  Not so severely, however, that I think it was total crap.  If you like movies with good acting and aren’t up for something that will make you feel a bunch of feelings while you watch it, go for it.  Just be prepared to walk out and say “What’s next?”

Welcome!

The Basics:
This is a blog which features my personal opinions on movies that I watch. The aim is to help readers decide whether or not they want to invest any time or money in watching a movie, and to get readers to think more about movies they have seen.

My Qualifications:
- I have opinions about movies. Have you ever met someone who said they liked pretty much every movie they saw? I'm not that person.
- I like to have conversations about my interests and hobbies-- in this case, (sometimes) popular entertainment.
- I have two degrees in Film Studies. What this means is that I watch a lot of movies and am fairly accustomed to writing about them and talking about them. What this does NOT mean is that I am willing or able to 1) validate your taste in film, 2) confirm or challenge your knowledge of movie trivia, or 3) back up your insider knowledge of production techniques and/or the "real meaning" behind scenes or dialogue.

My Standards:
- I would really like to avoid a star or grading system. For now. I'll try to outline what I liked and disliked about a movie and why, and you can judge where my opinion indicates that the movie might fall on your own scale.
- I try to watch a lot of different kinds of movies, but admittedly I do have genres and directors I favor as well as those I avoid. That being said, if you get obsessed with reading my blog and enjoy reading about my opinions (fingers crossed), and then find yourself wanting to know what I think about a particular film, I would not be averse to having a look.

Your Role:
- I want people to read and enjoy my blog. If you form an opinion, favorable or unfavorable, pertaining to my writing style, reviews, format, layout, etc, whatever, please feel free to comment. If you don't like the public-ness of commenting, you can make your post anonymously or email me directly.


Finally:
- Please enjoy! I am writing this blog for myself and others, and it is meant to be of some value to all parties involved. If you find yourself angrily swearing at my critiques or developing an irrational grudge against yours truly as a result of my terrible syntax and obnoxious vocabulary, just stop reading.


-Cait