Megamind (2010)

Megamind is good children’s media. While being refreshingly not entirely predictable on the level of plot, the movie also manages to deliver ongoing punch lines that go way beyond expectations in terms of variety of types and levels of humor.

Visually speaking, 3-D is used tastefully and sparingly, pretty much just doing what it’s supposed to—adding helpful depth cues to what would otherwise be a slightly less accessible visual world. Characters are (obviously) cartoonish, yet the expressiveness of the faces of humans and aliens alike makes me think Dreamworks is consciously taking steps in the right direction in terms of character design. Fantasy remains central while emotions ready to be identified with are easily conveyed.

Bonus points for minimal bodily function jokes. Double bonus points for Will Ferrell’s reigned-in performance of an over-the-top character who might not be that odd after all.

Overall worth the extra bucks to see it in theaters.

Yay!

Quinceanera (2006)

Quinceañera is a really good movie.

It realistically approaches some major issues that can come up in a young person’s life. Quinceañera does not pretend that everyone gets their happy ending in the face of massively difficult and sad family and personal situations, but rather depicts the two main characters’ ways of coping with these problems with a refreshingly honest approach.

I hate movies where you feel like everything is horrible in the world and there’s just no point in living. What the heck, movie? The overwhelming surge of downer moments you shoved in my face combined with the fact that you wasted an hour and a half (or more) of my time on an ending that makes me slip into a mini-depression just becomes a double whammy of I’m never going to watch another movie by your writer/director again.

On the other hand, movies that pretend that in the end of any huge problem all the hard issues can be neatly tied up with a big red bow also irritate me. Seriously, Juno? Teen pregnancy is actually all a smug wry joke? What is wrong with you?

Quinceañera manages to take the very mature middle ground of saying yeah, life can hand you some pretty unfair situations but you know what? Life goes on and you can find ways to get through it. This alone would be enough for me to give this film a solidly positive review.

Serendipitously, I also enjoyed several other aspects of the film. I thought the film’s approach to the gentrification of the Echo Park area of LA was very interesting. I also liked the use of non-professional actors. And I thought the story and the characters were compelling and inspiring.

Overall: watch it. It made my month, movie-wise.

Severed Ways (2007)

Wanna watch the worst movie ever? Watch this!

You’ll see:

-Poop coming out of a dude’s butt
-Extremely anachronistic headbanging to metal
-Guys in really bad wigs speaking slangy Norse in digitally-altered-to-be-lower voices
-Random acts of arson
-Unexplained and unnecessary shaky camera
-Beautiful scenery of northeastern Canada

In short: all you could ever wish for in a bad movie. Ripe for a couple hours of colorful commentary from you and your friends (possibly inebriated). Vent your pent up aggression, sarcasm, and rage toward your TV or computer screen. The movie can’t talk back, and won’t make any effort to get you to like it!

A spectacle of unspeakably bad moviemaking. Enjoy.

Kick Ass (2010)

I really wanted to like Kick Ass more than I was able to. I thought “Hey! Kids imitating/deconstructing the notion of superheroes while making cheeky jokes! What’s not to like?” Sadly there was a lot not to like.

There was the silly-bad score (not usually something I comment on but definitely was distracting here), the overly flippant use of adolescent (sex/sexuality based) humor, and in my opinion, a failed effort to cover the back story of too many different characters to get me interested in any single one. I’d have much preferred a movie that delved deeply into the psychology of one instead of three (or four or five) misfit superhero/villain wannabes.

I think the makers of Kick Ass were going for smart pastiche of the extremely overplayed superhero genre, but ended up with something too insincere to be homage, and something with too much undirected minor tinkering with genre convention to be truly or interestingly divergent from what’s already out there.

Overall, underwhelming. Not worth it.

Fault Line (2009)

Fault Line is a gem of a short-format crime narrative that was written, directed, and produced by Garrison Comstock. The film tells the story of two brothers who find themselves involved in an investigation of a crime that could land one or both of them in jail for a very long time. As the story unfolds, details come increasingly into focus, but the question as to who is really to blame remains even after the credits.

Now I’ll concede that Fault Line is definitely a beginner work shot on a minimal budget, and that you can feel this pinch at certain levels throughout the eighteen minute film. Most regrettably, some of the acting is amateur to a distracting degree—particularly the performance of Garry Myers, who plays the older detective. Additionally, at certain moments the dialogue dealing with heavy-weight subject matter ranging from homosexuality to drug abuse thins, causing it to suffer blows to its credibility, but this may also be a result of poor delivery on the part of the actors.

However, I would argue that Comstock shows great potential in this short work on a number of important counts. In terms of narrative he interweaves complex questions of fraternal responsibility and loyalty, as well as what it means to be guilty in general. A deeper layer of rumination on American masculinity is also at play.

Visually the film is very well done. The color palette and the cinematography are areas in which the limitations of the budget are not at all apparent. Each shot is carefully choreographed and each shot is clearly thought through to the end. Restraint, taste, and intelligent decisions characterize the aesthetic and visual unity of Fault Line.

On a related note, the editing is also top notch. The use of flashback shows a level of mastery that is not often seen in student work. Comstock takes tropes used in the industry for thrillers and crime dramas, shows that he understands them very well, and then makes them his own. On top of all of this there is a shockingly good score that ties the editing and the story together, and makes the whole thing gel very well overall. Hugely impressive, Mr. Comstock. I commend you.

So I have to say that overall, Fault Line definitely makes me want to see more from Comstock. I would be excited to see what he could do with a bigger budget and better actors should he get the opportunity. And that is saying something coming from me, who does not usually like crime dramas or “serious” movies in general.

Well done.

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Where can you see Fault Line? Ask the board of your local film festival to screen it!
Link to it on Vimeo here.
The password is watchfaultline

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010)

Caution: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Jake Gyllenhaal runs around in the desert flailing swords and other weapons while half-heartedly courting an extremely beautiful but predictably shrewish woman. Oh crap! Everyone dies!! But wait—here come the magic swirling sands of time travel. BOOM! Every problem is fixable when you have the ability to access the ultimate do-over. Falling in love all over again, but now under the perfect circumstances instead of really really tragic ones. The end!

Ok now, despite what you may expect, I didn’t hate this movie. Even though the plot was decidedly silly, I still was left with a feel-good glow after all was said and done. Why? Several reasons:

1) I actually really enjoyed the wholesomeness of the romance between Gyllenhaal’s main character, Dastan, and Tamina, played by Gemma Arterton. There weren’t any of those lurid almost-but-not-really-sex-and why-would-anyone-like-this-when-they-could-just-watch-porn scenes. Instead there was some sweet hand holding and maybe two kisses. Refreshing.

2) I thought the color was really well done. Not something I usually notice unless it’s especially good or bad, and in this case, the images were just really beautiful to look at scene after scene. They were tied together into one wonderfully vibrant palette of oranges and blues, for the most part. Very nice.

3) The absurd moment of realizing I was looking at Alfred Molina in brown-face (playing the character Sheik Amar). What the hell? So ridiculous that I had to laugh. (Almost as ludicrous as Jake Gyllenhaal playing a “Persian” prince with an inexplicably British accent.)

4) Sometimes I like a sugar-coated happy ending and Prince of Persia definitely delivered in that regard. I was actually pretty appalled over the course of the movie as it became clear that literally everyone close to Dastan was going to die. So when the end rolled around and everyone was alive again, my relief was palpable.

So. Not the best entry for the one year anniversary of A Phantasmagoria of Complaints, largely because I didn’t really have too many complaints. However, I’ve enjoyed blogging for a year now, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it.

The Phantasmagoria continues soon with a photo of a yet to be baked celebratory one year blog anniversary dessert, a top and bottom five (or ten?) list of movies that feature a jump to the future (or maybe time travel in general), as well as a review of a friend’s exciting indie film that I’ll provide a link to so you can watch it if you like.

As always, please let me know if there is anything you’d like to see reviewed here, or if you have a bone to pick with me regarding one of my reviews.

Thanks for reading! Always good to see hits on my statcounter.
-Cait, The Complainer

Machete (2010)

Not quite bad enough to be truly awesome yet not anywhere near good enough to be likable.

Definitely not worth seeing in theaters but maybe (maybe maybe) worth renting, eventually, if you have nothing else you’d like to watch.

Good for a few chuckles and a handful of cringes. Overall: fair.

--

Note to people who read this blog regularly: the one year (!!!!!) anniversary of "A Phantasmagoria of Complaints" is coming up and I’d like to know if anyone would like to see anything specific appear here on the blog. A review of a particular movie, a new top (or bottom) ten list, etc, whatever your hearts desire. If I don’t hear anything I’ll probably just end up baking myself something fancy to celebrate and then posting a photo and everyone will be jealous so you should probably just suggest something fun, ok? OK.

The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009)

Pretty good overall. Noomi Rapace was awesome, again. And in the first few seconds of the movie it became clear that I’d misjudged the ending of the last one by a lot. All kinds of kick-ass going on in this movie, and no watered down B.S. romantic imperatives. What a relief.

The Girl Who Played with Fire, just like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will make you consider what it means to watch brutal violence, specifically against women, on the big screen. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely difficult to watch at times. Worth the effort for the story and the compelling lead character.

Go see this (and rent the first one too) if you can, before Hollywood churns out its sure to be disappointing adaptation.

Dinner for Schmucks (2010)

Pretty funny, but not really the type where you’re laughing hysterically every three to five minutes. More like a chuckle every ten to fifteen minutes.

Questionable use of the word schmuck: the people in question aren’t really schmucks at all; they’re just sad-ish oddballs lacking in social aptitude.

Also, while the peripheral characters are interesting and definitely unique, you still have to suffer through yet another Paul Rudd playing a guy who used to be nice, became a jerk, and now has to win back his sweetheart by being nice again storyline. Ugh.

Overall, I’d say Dinner for Schmucks is worth a rental. Mostly for the seriously wonderful lovely mice taxidermy tableaux that Steve Carell’s character dedicates his time to, and also for Jermaine Clement’s (of The Flight of the Conchords) well done satire of a pompous artist who photographs himself in animal costumes. Highly silly. I approve.

The Runaways (2010)

This based-on-a-true-story film about the formation of the all girl rock band The Runaways was kind of a letdown, but that wasn’t particularly surprising given the criticism it already received, both when it made the festival circuit and when it was distributed more widely.

I was hoping that critics had been unjustified in rating it so low, but sadly they were right. It was a pretty boring movie overall. Eyebrow raising, considering that the story it tells (of how Joan Jett and company were brought together to form a rather groundbreaking band) is actually pretty interesting in and of itself. It just wasn’t served by the filmmaking and the way the whole thing was put together.

What I did like, however, was Kristen Stewart’s performance. Finally breaking away from the moody teenager romantic angst figure that she’s been associated with so far, Stewart actually convincingly portrays Jett in presumably accurate fashion (Jett herself has been quoted as saying Stewart actually became her for the film)*. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I’m already a fan of Stewart for various reasons, but I think here in The Runaways Stewart’s performance can show that she’s actually a quality actor to those who aren’t on Team Bella.

Maybe rent it if you’re interested in the music history already, or if you’re really keen on seeing Kristen Stewart make out with Dakota Fanning. Overall- meh.

*I don’t remember where. Most likely in an interview in Entertainment Weekly.

The Monster Squad (1987)

Yeah, this movie is good…if you like your movies ridiculous and offensive.

From scenes with Dracula shouting “Give me the amulet, you BITCH!” in the face of a terrified five-year-old girl, to Frankenstein taking photos of a stereotypical 1980s teenage girl in pink bra and thong while muttering “bogus,” it is entirely clear that no one was holding anything back while making this film.

Less amusing: a bunch of twelve year olds throwing around “fag” and “homo” like there’s no tomorrow, with gratuitous violence, lackluster characters, and a plot that would make even the biggest B-movie fan fall asleep.

I watched The Monster Squad because a number of people had said that it was “critically underrated” and “deserved watching.” Clearly I do not share that opinion. This movie should have stayed in 1987.

Bogus, indeed.

Inception (2010)

My feelings toward Inception are not unlike a teacher’s toward the student who sets the curve for the class. Sort of a “hooray, you were totally the best out of the group” attitude balanced with a good dose of “you (and everyone else) really could be doing a lot better.”

That being said, I think the movie had a ton of really impressive aspects to it. The intensity was staggering—I was unable to break concentration for a second, because I felt compelled to fully invest in its details and all the questions it was asking. At the same time, such concentration and investigation was almost immediately rendered irrelevant because we were encouraged to keep diving further and further into the maze without trying to remember the way out. Just as for the main characters, the best way out of the welter was to plunge further in, forgoing any attempt at leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

I also found that the story felt very personal, but sort of effortlessly so. I wasn’t drawn into it by knowing all the details of the time period it was supposed to be set in, or by knowing each character’s back story. Rather, I suspect that my willingness to go along with the emotions and interests of the characters is the result of a well written screenplay combined with some seriously great acting. I can’t even pick out one performance that I thought was particularly well done—every single actor in the movie delivered on his or her role completely and fully.

And lest you begin to suspect that this is just a fan-girl, stars in her eyes over JGL/Leo workin’ together like some kind of fantasy designed just for me moment, let me point out that my favorite scene of the movie had nothing to do with the attractiveness of anyone, and more to do with the level of thought put into both the dialogue and the acting. The hands down best moment of Inception, for me, was when Cobb takes the dying Mal in his arms and explains to her that she’s not his real wife. He says something to the effect of “you’re not half of what my real wife was, because you’re just my own memory/interpretation/reproduction of a sad shadow of the real her.” Hello awesome metaphor for a lot of stuff! (Film/acting/artistic representation/memory/relationships/etc)

Yes indeed, through and through Inception was a really smart, thoughtful, and creative film on questions that the noir genre has been working through since it first reared its difficult to define head way back in the ‘40s.

Why, then, did I start out this review by saying that it sets the curve but doesn’t go far enough? I don’t really know and it’s hard to explain. I’d definitely give Inception an A when compared to the movies that have been coming out so far this year. However, I’d probably assign it a solid B when compared to my favorites picked from cinema from all over the world since the beginning.

Maybe it was because the dreams weren’t weird enough to suit my fancy. Nolan did an excellent job re-creating the feeling of the dream—the disorientation combined with total normalcy, the changes in perspective, the emotions that were made metaphors of. But I’m the kind of person who has bizarro epic nightmares about being Johnny Depp and a vampire in a movie that I’m also watching. So for me, these ‘dreamscapes’ were surprisingly mundane, in a way.

I’m also not a huge fan of spending gag-inducing amounts of cash on movies for no discernible reason. Yeah, I know that to complain about the industry spending money is dumb. That’s like complaining about concepts with capital letters at the beginning: Capitalism, Sexism, Poverty, Ignorance! Pointless, passé, and actually hugely distracting from fresher, more pressing and nuanced debates. But I watched crews laboriously construct a set (the rooftop set that Mal, Cobb and Arthur appear on in the opening sequence for, say, five minutes total in the beginning of the movie) down the street from my house for approximately three months only to tear it down after one night of filming. The whole thing felt a smidge wasteful.

Anyway, neither of those complaints is really a solid reason for me not giving Inception a wildly enthusiastic review. But I’ll give it a solid one without any debate, because it is definitely a good example of creativity in filmmaking, pretty cool special effects, and really excellent acting. I just wasn’t hugely crazy about it, for whatever reason. Definitely worth watching though, and in theaters too.

But people, I know we can do better. Whether or not we will is a different question altogether. I’ll totally look forward to watching filmmakers try.

Despicable Me (2010)

I liked this. I thought the humor was encouragingly bold and that the story was pleasantly imaginative yet simple.

Not really a movie, however, with any type of depth to the characters. Some questionable portrayal of racial (and other) stereotypes, though not enough to incur my wrath, just enough to raise an eyebrow here and there.

Overall—pretty good. Not the best children’s entertainment, not the worst. Props for a lot of humor that was intended for the grown-ups in the audience balanced with tons of silliness for the kids (and me... and you!) to enjoy.

Eclipse (2010)

Despite what you may expect, I, like many people all over the place, have totally and not altogether regrettably been sucked into this whole Twilight mass tomfoolery. I enjoy debates over who is “better for Bella.” I can tell you the plot of the whole series in the time it takes for a bus to travel about ten blocks. I have pretty definite opinions about casting decisions that have been made, and I now own the soundtrack to two of the movies. And I can say all of these things while still acknowledging (like most adult fans of Twilight) that even through the whole thing is pretty awful, when you get right down to it, I still sincerely enjoy participating in it.

And yet I found this latest installment of the self-proclaimed “saga”, Eclipse, pretty ho-hum. Where they were trying for suspense all they really achieved was too much dilly-dallying and dwelling on some weaksauce make-out scenes. The intensity of all the smoldering gazes is totally neutered by the sheer number of shots that are dedicated to them. Plus I think I’m now totally insensitive to both Taylor Lautner’s abs and Kristen Stewart's sultry sulking, which is a goddamn crying shame. Overexposure was the culprit, again.

Pretty much the most emotional part of the whole movie was the scene in which Bella spends what is supposed to be her last sunny vacation with her mother in Florida, which was probably the only scene in the movie done with any type of restraint or subtlety whatsoever.

I spent the rest of the movie being bothered by the clunky opacity of the yellow contacts they put on the Cullens and wishing for a tiny bit of risqué behavior from anyone at all on screen. All this idle time also unfortunately allowed me to make dangerous realizations about Stephanie Meyer’s narrative style, which basically entails her not thinking about the mythology she’s creating, backtracking, and then re-writing the rules so that the story can continue and everyone is happy.

Whatever. I still can’t wait to see the next movies. They should be just as forehead-slappingly frustrating, yet just as mandatory to attend to anyone addicted to the crack that is Twilight.

Yours truly included. (Team Bella).

Toy Story 3 (2010)

I can acknowledge that TS3 is clearly designed to be a crowd pleaser, ok? I get it. After two other wildly popular installments that we all grew up with, this third one about going off to college and passing on your childhood best friends to someone new is clearly aiming to get the grown-ups in the audience to pull out their hankies, pretty much the whole way through.

However, while I’m not opposed to silver lining nostalgia, especially when delivered in Pixar style, I still just did not enjoy the film. I think that the pace felt rushed and stilted from the beginning. Maybe it was the excess of action scenes. I don’t know. These days I’m pretty much just shut down and bored by tons of stuff constantly going on onscreen, and TS3 was essentially a parade of too much empty drama for my taste. I lost interest probably three minutes into the movie.

There were also some questionably horrifying scenes in there. Mostly I’m thinking about the trash incinerator scene, which was pretty dreadful. While I would definitely not argue that this type of serious content should be excluded from children’s film altogether, I did feel that it was kind of jarring for me personally in this particular one. However, I was a fan of the character “Big Baby”. That freakish toy represents exactly the kind of nameless yet utterly identifiable creepiness that I think Pixar has done very well in the past and will probably continue to excel at in the future.

All in all I guess there were some clever lines and smart humor, which I appreciated. However overall, I was just OK with this movie. I will look forward to whatever new storyline Pixar comes up with next.

Knight and Day (2010)

A bizarre and uncomfortable mixture of extreme violence and goofy humor.

No chemistry whatsoever between the stars.

Sort of entertaining in a “this is what the world has come to???” sort of way.

Kudos to Cameron Diaz for her most sincere effort at doing a not-so-over-the-top Boston accent. Part of the time.

Overall, weak!

The A-Team (2010)

I thought this movie was oddly boring, considering its overbearing preponderance of supposed-to-be-riveting action sequences. Also, because The A-Team is based on a long-running TV series of the same name, and is essentially fan service to people who already have their own connections and obsessions with individual characters, the movie does not really include any compelling efforts toward creating audience/character empathy. Kind of a problem for me because I never watched the TV show.

Throughout the movie I felt like there was no point in watching it and I had no investment in whether the characters got what they wanted or not. I was relieved when it was over.

The only aspect I enjoyed was watching the guy from District 9 show everyone that he can act. Really well. His excellent performance in District 9 wasn't a fluke! I’ll look forward to watching him in future movies.

Clearly my opinion regarding The A-Team is going to the opposite of someone’s who used to watch the show all the time and is already highly invested in the characters and their misadventures.

The main point that I want to convey here is that The A-Team is not worth watching except to the already initiated. Unsurprising, maybe, but still disappointing.

Get Him to the Greek (2010)

Lots of sex, lots of drugs, lots of jokes regarding sex and drugs. A robust bashing of the music industry. A handful of witty one-liners. Pleasantly silly at times, eye-roll-inducing at others (I’m talking about the forced emotional situations and unnecessary forays into the romantic difficulties of the two stars. Are we really supposed to believe this movie is about feelings and friendship? Come on!)

But here's a huge relief-- even in the highly unbelievably touchy-feely moments, self-mockery abounds. All in all, Get Him to the Greek delivers about what you'd expect if you've seen the trailer.

Wait for the rental, but definitely look forward to it. Worth it for the laughs it delivers.

Good Hair (2009)

Chris Rock tries his hand at being a documentarian in this rambling and scatterbrained series of interviews revolving around standards of beauty for black women in America.

In Good Hair the usually sharp Rock seems to excel at avoiding being informative or opinionated regarding the information he presents, while surprisingly barely managing to pull off any of his usual bitingly critical punchlines. The result is a mostly pointless trifle of a documentary that asks many questions regarding the current state and future of self-image and black American women. Disappointingly, not only is little coherent effort made to answer these questions, but the overall tone of the film seems to trivialize their importance from the start.

Overall, not worth the time spent watching.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

A vast expanse of boring, eye-bewildering fight scenes sprinkled with a handful of somewhat amusing moments.

Not worth too much despite being obviously pricey to produce.

Meh.

Robin Hood (2010)

Ok blog readers. I am going to tell you something. Get ready for it. Ok, prepared?
I’m a feminist.

No, not the kind from the ‘60s. Not the kind from the ‘70s or ‘80s. Not even really the kind from the ‘90s either, even though that's when I grew up. The kind from right now, probably more aptly named queer-something-or-other. I’m into thinking about things like gender, sex, sexuality, queerness, LGBT issues, etc. And specifically thinking about how these sometimes broad, intangible concepts intersect and interact with pretty much every aspect of real life that you could imagine. And how those interactions, whether under-wraps or overstated in day to day life, are inevitably and often interestingly manifested in the media, specifically film.

In case you didn’t realize that I had this thought pattern from older posts, I just thought I should let you know. Because I am about to go off on a pretty specific aspect of the latest cinematic iteration of Robin Hood Hollywood is offering. You know. The one that’s out right now, with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. Yeah.

Here’s the thing: this movie is dumb. I don’t even know if I can confidently say that this movie ever even had the potential to be good. I mean, you take a story that’s been done many times over on film and you pretty much give us the exact same thing with different actors. I think there was one moment of suspense in the whole thing. One. And the fight scenes. The endless and repetitive fight scenes. Please stop.

But even if you set aside the unoriginality of the most recent Robin Hood—which I grant that you could, if you’re a huge fan of the mythology and you’re really into seeing “the olden days” reconstructed with a big budget—even then. Even. Then. You can’t ignore the annoyance of the treatment of the character of Marion Loxley, played by Cate Blanchett.

She starts out as this ridiculously capable woman who runs a whole town for ten years during her husband’s absence. She manages the household, she runs off thieves, she fights for the townpeoples’ rights, etc. Basically she performs the roles of Lord and Lady of the Manor simultaneously and effectively, albeit not without struggle. Great. This is good.

But then guess what happens. Russell Crowe shows up and through some silly and contrived arrangement gets to pretend that Marion is his wife. All of a sudden it’s “Wife, get me this” “Wife, show me the village so I don’t look like an idiot” and “Wife, ask me nicely.” So she swoons. She swoons. After approximately three days of knowing each other, they’re exchanging dramatic ‘I love you’s and slow dancing prom style to some Medieval band. Apparently for no other reason than that Robin Hood put her in her place. Awesome.

And that’s not all. The filmmakers have the audacity to have Marion follow Robin into battle, predictably striving to do some heroics while actually just messing everything up because of her unsurprising ineptitude at hand to hand combat. Guess who saves her. I’m lucky my eyes didn’t get stuck rolling so far back into my head at this particular scene.

But do you know what? I’m not even mad about Robin Hood. I think we all could have predicted that this was the type of female “heroine” that we’d be offered in this type of movie. Plus, historically, this version of Marion would probably have been burned at the stake for her extremely progressive attitude. So I guess this is progress.

What I’m really mad about is the recent news that they’re planning on remaking The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Hollywood actors. As in (probably) a more conventional leading lady, a more palatable storyline, and less grittiness. (They’re also planning on re-doing the recent awesome movie Let the Right One In, but that’s fodder for a whole other angry essay.)

Anyway, this “leave the Swedes alone” moment isn’t an entirely unrelated tangent. Because the fact that Western mass media markets actually prefer Blanchett’s performance of the acceptable version of a the life and romance of a “strong woman” over something like the remarkably different and varied versions of femininity, feminism, sexuality, sex, gender, etc that world has to offer… That’s what really bothers me.

Seriously, it’s 2010, and we’re still all buying into the whole “she couldn’t do it without a strong man” crap? How is this still even a thing? I’m so tired of it. I swear to God I’d pay $100 a ticket if Hollywood was to produce a movie that in any way took a risk when it came to how it handled its female characters.

Am I the only one?

Date Night (2010)

Very funny dialogue.
Absurd, nonsensical plot.

For some reason I wasn’t able to hold on to or remember any specifics from this movie, despite it being entirely enjoyable.

Bonus points for Tina Fey’s smart, humorous, and accurate portrayal of what it means to be a feminist today.

Worth a rental.

Babies (2010)

Why are babies so appealing? Why is one and a half hours of a documentary about four babies without narration or a story of any sort not overkill?

Because… it’s about babies. It doesn’t really matter what you do to them. You can roll them in dirt, let them chew on bones, lint-roll them every ten seconds, allow them pee and poo all over the place. They’re surprisingly resilient and, evidently, develop fairly generically across the world, at least for the first year of their lives. Even the most cynical of moviegoers can likely appreciate this fact, even if not succumbing to the phantasmagoria of “Awwww!!!” moments Babies has to offer.

A sunshine-y cream puff fit for an afternoon’s worth of happy time.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Oh, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You make it so difficult for me to confidently label this post as either favorable or unfavorable.

I loved the lead character named Lisbeth, played by Noomi Rapace. She is a very muscular, highly androgynous, tattooed and pierced young woman who in the first thirty minutes or so of the movie acts out what is (I think) a common retaliatory fantasy against rapists. On top of that, she’s a professional hacker who is fiercely independent, unsentimental, and unemotional, and yet somehow she remains easy to cheer for. And kudos to the filmmakers for making her bisexuality not be a sensationalistic point of interest in the story. It’s just a fact, uncommented upon, plain as day.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the plot, up to a point. With lots of sinister affiliations rolled into one, the whodunit story that brings Lisbeth and a publicly disgraced (but framed) journalist named Mikael Blomkvist together intrigues and entices. Full of brutal details that are kept disturbingly subtle on screen, the 40 year old murder lurches wrenchingly back to life, zombie-like in its horror and its fascination which grips the audience and the characters on screen alike. Extra unsettling moment: when Blomkvist places several old photographs of a missing woman taken in succession together to create a sort of flip-book effect, revealing an important detail about the day she disappeared.

The problem was that while I was wildly enthusiastic about certain aspects of the movie, I became really spitefully resentful toward others. Unfortunately, story-wise, the first two hours were good but the last half hour was just plain dumb. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo started as a great mystery/thriller, i.e. a well paced, interesting (though not necessarily believable) story with very unique characters one could engage with, but then in the last half hour tragically devolved into a frustratingly neatly wrapped up cliché about familial ties and the virtues of heterosexual monogamy. Even the visual aesthetic switched from the cool (though expected) bluish grayish noir with a punk androgyne kicking ass in the beginning to an obnoxiously sunny-happy aesthetic, complete with tearful reunions, stilted confessions of emotional connections, and our (in my view) now fallen heroine sporting a large blonde wig, a business suit, and heels. What the hell.

I can’t even really decide whether the first two hours of the movie make it worth it to watch, either, because I just can’t ignore the flaws of the ending. What I wish is that I could re-watch the movie and just stop it around the point where things start to get ridiculous and add my own alternate ending mentally or something.

Anyway… the only way you’ll find out whether or not it’s worth it is to watch it yourself, which I suppose I can grudgingly recommend, if only for the majority of the movie and not the whole.

Ponyo (2008)

I was really delighted by Ponyo, Hayao Miyazaki’s latest fantastical children’s tale that springs from the most basic details of Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Little Mermaid”.

Because I am a huge Miyazaki fan, it came as no surprise that I was entirely charmed by this movie. However, watching Ponyo helped me articulate to myself just what, exactly, I find enjoyable about Miyazaki’s films.

The aspects I enjoyed the most, in the case of Ponyo specifically, were the expressiveness of the animation and the near perfect conveyance of the wonderfully illogical imagination of children via the fantastical storyline and some of the film’s imagery.

In Ponyo the ocean is alive. It is filled with towering waves the size of monsters, fish-cronies that melt into the water, baby-faced mermaids that bulge into huge carp, goldfish that shape-shift into small magical girls, inexplicably giant women who save ships from disaster, and a myriad of other weird creatures and moments that just are. And the best part—I didn’t need an explanation for any of it. Something about Miyazaki’s style both enables and emboldens me to simply appreciate the incredible creativity that goes into the film and accept it for what it is.

When I watch Miyazaki movies I feel happy, boundless, and hopeful. I feel like I can tackle life’s greatest problems and challenges without any of the grown-up baggage that so often drags me down in real life (i.e. fears, anxieties, memories of failure, etc). I think this is because in Miyazaki’s worlds strange, awful, scary things are happening all the time all around, but the children that have to get through it do so without batting an eye.

If only we could all live somewhere in Miyazaki’s dream worlds!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010)

The primary take-away message of this movie is that kids between the ages of 12 and 16 are terrible people. Horrible excuses for human beings. Unethical jerks. Soulless, spineless, filthy monsters. Etc.

I am sure most readers have their own list of adjectives to add to these few choice phrases. In fact, I am willing to bet that anyone who went to a public middle school in the United States already knows full well the horrors of pubescent and adolescent folly, specifically relating to hubris, hygiene, and home life, which Diary of a Wimpy Kid highlights.

Yet though the appeal of the movie stems from the universal cringe-fest induced by the possibility of reliving one’s terribly awkward pubescent days, Wimpy Kid is nevertheless curiously devoid of any characters that the audience is invited to connect with. It was more the situations that struck a nerve, not the individual kids themselves. Which is not to say that the actors delivered a poor performance—far from it. I think the young actors in Wimpy Kid did a terrific and impressive job in their somewhat hyperbolized roles.

It was just that at the end of the day I couldn’t really sympathize with any of them, but rather was simply left with the uncomfortable feeling that I’d just been a reluctant witness to the humiliating and extremely debasing spectacle that is “coming of age”.

Of course I laughed quite a bit—some of the situations are very funny. But overall, it felt like a downer. But maybe that was the whole point?

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

Ok so… I hate Jay Baruchel’s voice, which was kind of a problem here, being as he voices the main character.
Also a problem: generally unappealing character design. Some of these dragons looked like flying poops. I’m not kidding.

Story was decently entertaining, some funny moments. No surprises in terms of plot or message.
Fun and impressive use of 3-D. Very very cute characterization of one dragon (Toothless), who resembled a cross between a black cat and a pokemon.

Overall: meh. Not entirely a waste of time, but ultimately, forgettable.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Just the right amount of self consciousness and self-mockery, a slew of awesome one-liners, and good comedic use of the hilariously exaggerated eighties motif more than make up for the predictability of the plot, the occasional use of clichéd pratfalls and some neglected loose ends.

Hugely entertaining through and through. Unless you hate the eighties and having fun. Then you’re out of luck.

Alice in Wonderland Commentary Followup

...Because it was so big it merited its own post.

@Chris

You say that you don’t like Tim Burton for two reasons. 1) “his dark and creepy imagery that is portrayed in nearly all of his films” and 2) “the constant praise by die hard conformist followers of "Tim Burton is hip and weird, thus awesome… so I'll believe he is hip and awesome too!" crowd.” But then later you say “knowing the bizarreness naturally associated with the Alice in Wonderland saga, I couldn't bring myself to hate this movie but at the same time, I wasn’t overly captivated or wowed by it.”

What I gather from your commentary is that you don’t like Tim Burton because of the bizarre imagery and dark themes he often uses and because he is, in your opinion, overrated by people who are simply following the crowd. But in this case you grudgingly accept Burton’s bizarre imagery in Alice because the pre-existing story world seems to require it.

So my question for you, Mr. Guy Who Loves Dark Twisted Movies Like The Tin Drum, is would you be willing to accept Burton’s work, and even maybe really enjoy it, if he wasn’t so popular? Or is it something in particular about Burton’s aesthetic/thematic creepiness that puts you off?

Just wondering!

@Alla

With regard to the moral of the story:

I didn’t say that there is no moral to the story in this decidedly different variation of a distinctly Disney movie. What I said was that I was relieved that Burton didn’t rely on elaborate yet obvious direct metaphors to carry his heroine through her fantasy world. In other words, what I was dreading was a sort of Wizard of Oz scenario in which each character presented to Alice in Wonderland has a direct counterpart in the real world—i.e. the Red Queen being directly relatable to some tyrannical figure in the real world, the Mad Hatter being analogous to a quirky acquaintance, etc. I was so happy to see that a lot of the characters in this version of Alice were actually just independently random (odd, endearing, frightening, horrifying) weirdos.

I also liked that the blue butterfly at the end (presumably the now metamorphosized Absolom the blue caterpillar) showed up in the “real” world, thereby further highlighting the tenuous boundaries between the fantasy space and that of “reality.” I think what really appealed to me was that Alice’s whole Wonderland/Underland adventure was consistently emphasized to be real—that there were fairly high stakes despite the whimsy of the place. It was emphatically not just a dream, and Alice was affected (physically by wounds, mentally by whatever growth she achieved during her stay) by this world.

This all set aside, I do realize that when the White Queen says the line about “when you face the Jabberwocky, you go alone” that this is a literal voicing of a message or moral Alice is supposed to be gaining from her adventures. I concede that the moral is obvious in this moment, and frankly, probably really necessarily so, because I think this movie was a bit crazy and probably difficult for children to process without such a handy take away statement of “the point”. I guess for me this obvious moment is forgivable, though, for a few reasons.

Firstly, that this message comes from The White Queen, who was a character that I thought felt pretty new and interesting. She was not your typical motherly figure, nor a romantic interest, nor even a particularly heroic figure herself. I don’t know where I’m going with this—something about her just really appealed to me. And secondly, and definitely more importantly, I loved that the moral itself was about independence and decision-making. It related to personal responsibility and consequences, risk taking and facing unknown outcomes. Even though the characters referred to the Oraculum throughout the film to see what “destiny” held for Alice, there was still a lot of room for deviation from this path. They kept checking the thing to see if it had changed. It felt less like a sword in the stone, destiny cannot be avoided type of thing than a “you may or may not live up to your potential depending on your choices” sort of thing.

About the Mad Hatter and Alice’s Relationship:

Woah. I totally did not read any kind of romantic relationship into their interaction with one another. I read only a weird and friendly vibe between them. Regardless as to what either one of us did or did not take from their onscreen interactions, the more important point, for me, is that there is no blatant love/romantic relationship in the film that determines Alice’s success or failure as a character. Even her relationship with her suitor in the “real” world is presented as a joke from the get-go. We are never led to believe Alice’s fate hinges on her getting a guy. I mean, obviously, we know that things would probably suck for her if she did marry the weak-chinned suitor, but it’s not like she’s going to seem like a failure if she doesn’t find a replacement.

About Imperialism:

Similarly to the questionable romance between the Hatter and Alice, I don’t think that any kind of endorsement of imperialistic values was really supposed to be the point of this movie. I’m not saying it wasn’t in there—it totally was. I mean… she was pretty much the heir to the British East India Company. “To be the first to trade with China! Imagine it!!”

But I think the whole Imperialism thing was just a product of Alice in Wonderland being written in 1865, not a plot by Tim Burton to indoctrinate young moviegoers into that particular mentality. So it didn't bother me at all.


Anyway… thanks for the provocative commentary. I think I wrote more and thought more about this comment than I’ve written on anything in … a really long time. And I didn't even think this movie was that awesome! I just liked it!

Hope you are enjoying your own adventures!
:)

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Liked:
- All the wonderful colors
- Female protagonist with no romantic imperative
- Subtle (inappropriately?) dark moments
- Outrageous grotesquerie
- The costumes, especially Alice's
- The March Hare
- The pleasant demeanor of the Cheshire Cat
- Johnny Depp's switching accents
- Anne Hathaway's gagging

Did not like:
- The use (perhaps the misuse of or the lack of use of) of 3D in the 3D version (I think 2D was better)
- The futterwhacking dance
- The lame music that went along with the futterwhacking dance
- The overall mellow vibe (would have preferred a bit more crazy of a pace for such a mad story world)

Overall I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this most recent version of Alice in Wonderland. Much serendipity came from the details and not the overall story. From The Cheshire Cat "breading" when he lands on Hatter's hat in the prison cell to the subtle yet impossible stretching of the Knave's arms and legs, I found details throughout this film that made me happy to be paying attention.

Also, I was so so pleased that the fantasy of the story turned out to be traveling to a place where you can figure out the answers to your most crucial, puzzling life questions on your own, instead of a fantasy where morals are handed to you neatly by a prince in shining armor or are revealed by a convenient metaphor mirroring your own predicament.

Definitely worth watching.

The Brothers Bloom (2008)

I liked The Brothers Bloom because it has good comedic timing and an interesting storyline. It is a lighthearted fantasy that knows its own limits. The dialogue and the cinematography are fun, smart, and purposeful.

I didn’t love the movie because it just couldn’t quite come together. There were some random scenes and some loose ends that nagged me. Sometimes it was a little corny. The pacing was off. No glaring errors—just a small number of minor annoyances that added up.

Overall The Brothers Bloom is a flirtation, not a seduction; all smiles and winks, very little actual involvement requested or required. A pleasant way to spend an evening, but nothing that you'll ultimately want to own.

Shutter Island (2010)

Shutter Island seems to be the result of a bunch of people sitting down and brainstorming all the negative ideas or themes they could fit into one movie. Infanticide? Suicide? Arson? How about Nazi death camps? McCarthyism?! The atrocities of abuse in state run mental hospitals?!?! PTSD?!?!?!!!! Ooh, and catastrophic weather AND holes filled with RATS and a STAGGERING array of different kinds of SCARY SCARY PEOPLE AND AN INCREDIBLY OVERBEARING SCORE?!??!!!!!! GREAT LET’S DO ALL OF THAT.

And let’s have it happen in front of a green screen to save time and money.
With a bunch of really really good actors.
For two and a half hours.

No, but for serious, Shutter Island is a solidly (but not perfectly) produced example of surreal horror. There was a little too much going on in terms of plot for my taste and the ending seemed contrived, but that was definitely the entire point of the movie. And Leonardo DiCaprio’s accent was not even as bad as everyone was saying.

So if you can stomach a whole lot of sad/terrible themes, events, and imagery and you like horror and good acting, check it out! You shall not be disappointed.

A Serious Man (2009)

I don’t know quite what to say about this movie, so I don’t think I’ll say too much.

My overwhelming feeling toward A Serious Man is one of indifference. This is pretty odd for me, especially in light of the fact that this movie represents a largely underwhelming project by some of my favorite writer/directors; Ethan and Joel Coen.

I liked the cinematography, which produced many a beautiful and crisp portrait. I also could tell that the filmmakers had put a lot of effort into the sound design. I enjoyed all the Jefferson Airplane songs. I thought the opening vignette was quite disturbing, and subtly so.

However, the plot was sort of wandering and I could not engage with any of the characters. I thought the pacing was too slow. There were too many non sequiturs and unexplained events. Somehow the whole story felt overwrought yet also devoid of any significance whatsoever. A pointless exercise in raising the blood pressure of the audience.

Pretty blah. It just felt to me like a wasted afternoon. I think I’d rather have hated it.

The Wolfman (2010)

Picture this: you’re in a relationship with someone and things have started to go sour. Your person’s personality has become predictable and tiresome; traits that used to be quirky, exciting, and edgy now come off as eye-rollingly dull and predictable.

Sure, you still find this person attractive in some way. You started dating Staley McBlando for a reason—most likely relating to some combination of physical attractiveness and personality that they do, in fact, possess. However, at this moment in time, for whatever reason, you realize that you are just so freaking bored with this particular variation of your usual match’s patchwork of personal qualities that you have to get up from your table at the restaurant you always go to and walk out that familiar door, get in your car and drive as far away as you can get in an hour’s time. Right now.

Such is my relationship with werewolf movies. Despite the fact (or maybe because of?) their often formulaic nature, I find myself attracted to them again and again. My interest is snared by their promises of a tortured, brooding protagonist, silly mythologies of the occult, gory action sequences, and usually not very nuanced metaphors pertaining to the overlap in the human psyche between compassionate humanity and brutal animal instincts.

I freely admit that even though werewolf movies are usually awful when gauged by the standards applied to other cinema, I wholeheartedly enjoy watching them, laughing at them, and cringing at all the spilled guts and ridiculously bad acting. Usually if a movie offers me even one of the aforementioned traits I can walk away saying I enjoyed it. Even Wes Craven’s Cursed (2005), with its truly awful amateurish acting and hilariously cheesy dialogue, was one that I can say I genuinely enjoyed watching and was in some way entertained by, Christina Ricci and all.

But do you know what? Sitting through the colossally dismal The Wolfman the other night I felt like I was at the end of a stale relationship. Maybe it was the endless series of sucker-punch, sudden loud noise scare tactics. Or perhaps it was the hackneyed storyline that was somehow riddled with plot holes so gaping as to have an alienating effect. It might have been the usually sultry Benicio Del Toro’s abhorrent and irritating American accent, or Anthony Hopkins’s half-assed delivery of all his pointless lines. One definite source of my disgust was the stupid choice of not updating the look of the actual wolfman himself from the 1941 classic upon which this picture was based. Seriously, we decided to keep the black plastic dog nose, now painstakingly rendered in CGI? Come on!

Bottom line: approximately five to ten seconds of this was good*, the rest was dumb. Even to someone owns the soundtrack of American Werewolf in Paris and thinks The Howling III: The Marsupials is a good way to spend a Friday night.

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* these five to ten seconds being 1) the opening credits and 2) the brief moment when Benicio del Toro stares hungrily at Emily Blunt’s décolletage with a blank look of arousal.

Dark City (1998)

I don’t want to go into a lot of details about the plot of Dark City except for the absolute basics; John Murdoch wakes up in a bathtub and realizes that reality isn’t real. Memories are false. The best way to describe life is as a series of ideas that have been injected into people’s heads.

Obviously this movie is pretty heavy, conceptually speaking. I like that it plays with ideas of memory, experience, and “reality.” I find the theories Dark City proposes thought provoking. Not earth-shatteringly interesting—just intriguing enough to produce a couple “hm” moments. The story itself is more than a bit cheesy. The acting does not help to reduce this cheesiness.

However, what bothers me more about Dark City is that despite being made in 1998 it still feels uncannily as if it sprang from the 1980’s. The effects are pretty hokey, even for that year. At first I thought “Oh this has a really nice style to it—very neo noir a la Blade Runner, mixed with the expected eighties aesthetics.” Eighties aesthetics are appropriate (albeit silly) when they come from 1983. Not so much 15 years later.

Overall, I'd say that the best way to describe Dark City is that it dances along the fine line between interesting and ridiculous. You’ll have to decide which side it ends up on for you.

--

Up Next:
The Wolfman!

Edge of Darkness (2010)

Ok so… Mel Gibson with a Boston accent. Personal vendetta. Bad guys: watch out!

Sounds pretty ho-hum, right? I didn’t really want to see this movie either. I thought I knew everything about it from watching the previews. Friends, I was totally wrong.

Edge of Darkness is extremely intense in a "makes you squirm but you know you like it" kind of way. It also has some mind-blowing performances. The nuances of the writing allow the fairly hyperbolic set of characters to remain engaging. The editing is very cleverly done.

For these reasons I consider it to be a good movie. Well done, filmmakers. You delivered on the promise inherent to producing a film labeled “thriller.” I literally developed heartburn while watching because I got all caught up in the plot, which was significantly anxiety producing.

The only thing I had a problem with was the very last scene, but I won’t go into that here. It didn’t sour the overall effect of the movie, so I’ll leave you to pass your own judgment on it.

Make sure you watch this movie with someone else, because otherwise you’ll be freaked out and watching your back all way home. Scary!

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Wow. What were they thinking when they decided to produce this movie?
Answer: They were not. Thinking. At all.

Really really nonsensical plot that somehow still managed to be formulaic. Performances that you couldn’t label compelling under any circumstances.1 Lots of very expensive shots and sequences all leading to ultimate disappointment and in some cases, actual physical disgust that they even wasted the money putting them together in this context.

Blech.

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1. Unless, of course, you count this performance. Way more genuine than anything that ended up on celluloid.

La mujer sin cabeza [The Headless Woman] (2008)

In La mujer sin cabeza we watch as a middle class woman named Vero struggles to regain her sense of identity after she hits something with her car on a rural Argentinean road one afternoon. She does not know what she ran over on her way home from a get together—it could have been a dog or a person. She simply drives away after the accident, thereby inducing an odd dreamlike mental state that lasts for days on end following the incident.

I have been waiting with great anticipatory mania for the arrival of this movie, the most recent title by one of my favorite directors of all time, Lucrecia Martel. (She directed one of my favorite films, La ciénaga (2001), which I reviewed as part of my Top Ten off the Top of my Head list a while back.) And I have to say that while I’m not counting on La mujer sin cabeza to replace La ciénaga as one of my all time favorites just yet1, I still feel that it is an incredibly intriguing work because it contains the elements of Martel’s previous works that originally piqued my interest.

Like Martel’s other films, the point of La mujer sin cabeza is not actually the central event driving the rest of the story, but rather the odd, partially obscured details of the protagonist’s life that the ramifications of the central event draw out. As we follow the post-accident Vero wandering through her life in a somnambulistic haze, we catch a glimpse of the many strange and complex relationships surrounding her. We are privy to the unspoken details and whispers of Vero and her husband’s marriage, Vero’s relationship with her lover, Vero and her bedridden, addled mother, and the flirtation between Vero and her niece. Even with the peripheral characters of the film there are references to other ambiguous yet nuanced relationships that Martel hints at but never fully defines.

Indeed, what’s especially good about La mujer sin cabeza is that Martel refuses to offer explanations for many events and conversations, instead referencing the off-screen, the unsaid, the absent. However, rather than creating a void or a lack of meaning with all these question marks, Martel uses double entendre, ambient music, and overheard, half intelligible conversations to prove the existence of that which lies beyond her frame.

In the end Martel is able to say more by saying less, forcing us to focus in on the edges of her story-world, craning our necks to see if we can catch a glimpse of what lies just beyond the borders of the frame. This, for me, is great cinema.

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1. You always have to watch Martel’s work several times over before you can begin to play favorites with characters and stories.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008)

This is a documentary about how the women of Liberia decided they’d had enough with the outrageous violence and civil unrest in their country and then actually did something about it. Awesome!

The filmmaking itself wasn’t anything spectacular. There was a lengthy segment of the movie that had a bunch of text on the screen, headlines and news clips and whatnot, and that part really annoyed me. It seemed like a trailer for the movie and not the movie itself. Other than that the format was fairly standard—nothing too crazy, nothing too experimental. It made me happy to see that the film was produced almost solely by women.

I would recommend this movie based on the inspirational quality of the story. Pray the Devil Back to Hell is about events that you think sound way too good to be true, and so when you realize that they really did happen you feel like the world isn’t as awful a place as you feared.

Youth in Revolt (2009)

Soooo. Filmmakers behind Youth in Revolt. Again with Michael Cera in the “young guy who really wants to not be a virgin anymore” role? Really?

…And the ill-advised audacity of shoehorning overly pretentious youths pining away for French Cinema of the ‘60s into this tired narrative?

…And using ridiculously poorly done “artsy” animations to pass the time between the hackneyed scenes of teenage romance?!

Please. Please do not do this kind of thing. Ever. Again.

P.S. Michael Cera: more Francois Dillinger roles, less Nick Twisp. Grow a pair, buddy. Take some freaking risks. You were almost sexy there for a second, guy. Almost.

Up in the Air (2009)

I don’t have much of a narrative to weave about this one, just a few thoughts I’d like to throw together here.

First of all, this movie was very sad. It was about sad people doing sad things in a sad world. George Clooney plays a guy who fires people for a living. That’s all he does—travel all around the country for 300 days a year firing people. Needless to say we are confronted with many questions of human connections, emotions, and what it means to be tied down.

That is the strength of Up in the Air—it is about very relevant current affairs. How many people have been laid off lately? How many people find themselves drifting through their days, wondering what aspects of their lives right now are going to last into tomorrow? I liked that Up in the Air didn’t flinch away from showing how horrible things can get for some people, economically and emotionally speaking.

As usual, I had some minor reservations, predominantly relating to the acting. To me George Clooney is always acting like George Clooney, and Up in the Air is certainly no exception to this rule. That’s fine and dandy if you like George Clooney, but I don’t really care for him too much. It’s not that he isn’t a good actor. I just kind of want to smack him for smirking so often. He did do a good job being a vulnerable George Clooney in this movie though. So that’s saying something.

I also had a problem with the disjunction between the real people who played those being laid off and the actors. Evidently the director, Jason Reitman, used non-actors who had recently been laid off to do some of the scenes between Clooney and his victims, and then sprinkled in some recognizable faces for certain scenes. I don’t know what these docu-esque moments were supposed to do, because this movie was no documentary. To me all this mixture did was highlight the falseness of the actors’ portrayals of the people who had been laid off. Probably not what the director was aiming for.

In spite of my reservations I can still very much see why this is already nominated for best picture. Up in the Air is highly relevant to current events with good performances and a refreshingly realistic view of the ways of the world. Pretty rare.

The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) (1979)

So here’s something unusual: it seems I have writer’s block. That is why there has been a bit of a lag in my usual regular posting. Every time I sit down to write I end up averting my eyes from Word and lamely clicking around on the internet. To be fair, there has been some hugely amusing stuff out there lately, but nothing so interesting as to justify me becoming unable to casually barf out some snark about film and post it without actually editing, as I usually do.

Maybe this aversion to writing is a result of the movie I have been trying to write about, which was so odd I’m not even sure there’s any point in trying to describe it. I watched The Tin Drum, as far as I can gather is pretty much an essay in uncomfortable situations. The story is about a three year old boy in WWI-WWII era Germany who decides not to grow up. However, not growing up doesn’t stop him from having sex with people, being hell bent on destroying various precious objects, and being generally depraved no matter what the situation.

I actually really admired The Tin Drum for its sheer audacity in presenting these explicit situations of violence, abjection, and sexuality candidly. I also was extremely impressed by Angela Winkler’s performance as the mother of the weird-o perpetual toddler. I think the scenes when she goes blank and shoves preserved fish in her mouth are brilliant.

The main issue that I take with the film is that I couldn’t really figure out what the whole thing was supposed to mean. A lot of the time when you have an unusual or fantasy-ish storyline and it’s historically located in a really specific iconic period it means that the storytellers behind it are trying to construct some sort of metaphor that relates to an overarching moral or theme. For the life of me I could not figure out what the hell this bizarro tale was supposed to be saying.

Despite my own intellectual failings I still enjoyed the movie overall. A definite recommendation for anyone who likes to indulge in the darker side of cinema, with the added bonus of getting to watch the forest fairy named Gump from Legend (1985) get busy with his sixteen year old nanny.

Up Next:
Up in the Air

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)

The Squeakquel essentially amounts to a terrible amalgam of everything that irritates me about bad children's media.

It is filled with very stale jokes, an extremely pointless plot, ugly, clunky, and charmless animation, actors who seem like it is a chore to be in the movie, oddly sexualized cartoon child-animals, and an incredibly short attention span both with regard to story and editing.

It addresses the audience as if neither children nor adults have any semblance of an imagination, intellect, or wit.

At best: boring. At worst: offensively bad.

Here's to hoping 2010 has something more to offer!
Happy New Year. The Phantasmagoria of Complaints continues.