rating: ***
the story: A young woman inadvertently stumbles into a great conflict.
what it's all about: The films of Hayao Miyazaki are routinely rated as some of the best of the modern era. Miyazaki is a Japanese animation director. Whether or not you consider his work part of the overall Japanese anime scene may affect whether or not you've seen his work. I've long known about his reputation, but until recently catching Howl's Moving Castle my practical experience with Miyazaki was limited to Princess Mononoke, which to my mind is easily associated with the overall Japanese anime scene, which I've determined after a number of movies is not really my thing. As it turns out, Howl's Moving Castle isn't much like the overall Japanese anime scene. But I'm still not convinced about Miyazaki.
Like Pixar, Miyazaki seems to get a free pass from critics. If he's got something new, chances are more than good that critics will love it. I can appreciate general admiration. I've got actors and directors I'll always be interested in. The problem becomes if you like a specific movie regardless of its own merits. I don't think Pixar is a perfect movie engine, and I now have two experiences with Miyazaki that have failed to overly impress me.
Don't get me wrong; Howl's Moving Castle earns a lot of points from me for being a clear break from the anime scene. Its instincts are almost completely different, and generally they are quite charming, too. In fact, charm is Howl's greatest advantage. It's clearly an inventive work, even if it's based on a book. (Can we please retire the nonsense of adaptation somehow not equating with creativity?) It's got some truly fun characters in it, too.
A lot of its appeal for me is that Howl's is basically an Oz story. No, not Oz as in Judy Garland, or even as in the horribly unappreciated Return to Oz. Oz as in the L. Frank Baum books. I finally read through all of them a few years back, and I was thoroughly enchanted. If you've seen Howl's then you already have an idea about what Baum's Oz was like. That's what I mean. But where Baum was always light on his feet, Howl's is leaden.
As example I'll spend the remainder of my review talking about Howl himself. Maybe this is really a criticism of the Hollywood dubbing of the movie, but even the appearance of Howl himself is a criticism of Miyazaki's vision. Howl is one of the few characters in the movie who looks like he was ripped directly from a manga, a Japanese comic. Manga and anime are virtually indistinguishable in their instincts. In the Hollywood dubbing, Howl is voiced by Christian Bale. In 2004, Bale had yet to reach the height of his fame. He was one year away from playing Batman. He was best known for American Psycho, four years earlier. I have yet to see that one. I wonder if he uses a voice similar to the one he employs for Howl. If so...
The problem most people have with Bale's Batman is his voice. If Bale had used that voice as Bruce Wayne, too, there would have been a real problem. He doesn't. As Howl, it's basically as if Bale had used his Batman voice the whole film. It's not appealing. As an entire performance, it's distracting. By way of contrast, Billy Crystal as the fire demon is terrific. I couldn't even place the voice until I saw Crystal's name in the credits. I was convinced it was Kevin Spacey. In 2004, Crystal was already ebbing in popularity. Actually, the fire demon is Crystal's last notable role, not counting the Monsters, Inc. sequel. In contrast, Bale's career grew considerably following Howl's.
Bale's Howl is not only a bad performance, it's bad casting. He doesn't sound anything like you'd expect Howl to sound like, based on his design. With this one element, it becomes harder to see why Howl's is seen as anything other than an imaginative experience. There's certainly nothing wrong with imaginative films experiences. As an animated film, though, vocal performances are crucial. Even if it's not a celebrity, it can't be distracting in a bad way. Crystal is an example of a vocal performance being distracting in a good way; Emily Mortimer and Lauren Bacall are examples of vocal performances that don't draw attention to themselves so much as exist as elements of the movie. They work, they're functional, and that's all you need to know.
In sum? Interesting. Could have been better.
Monday, April 16, 2018
Monday, April 2, 2018
Gifted (2017)
rating: ****
the story: A gifted seven-year-old will either live with her uncle or her grandmother, who have conflicting visions of her future.
what it's all about: In the interests of full disclosure, I'm several steps away from the subject matter. For most of my niece's two and a half years of life, I've been asked to step in and help raise her, and recently been confronted with the gut-wrenching thought of being asked to step back and just be an uncle. I won't really go into further details on that, but suffice to say, I have an idea of what the heart of this story's about, and so on that level it certainly speaks to me personally. This may affect my objectivity.
I've been a fan of director Marc Webb, a fairly big fan, since his breakthrough debut film (500) Days of Summer, a heartbreaking drama about a relationship that turns out poorly and an attempt to deal with that. Webb then directed The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel, both of which continued his trademark ability to speak to uncomfortable emotional truths. Webb is a filmmaker who understands that life is complicated, whether or not you're a superhero. Gifted is a fine extension of his filmography. It asks you to put aside any particular prejudices you may have about what's in the best interests of gifted children. Naturally, because that's what society tends to tell you, a gifted child should be given every opportunity to reach their potential. But for every Mozart, there's a Diane Adler.
Diane is Mary Adler's mother, or rather, she was. Diane committed suicide when Mary was half a year old. Before she died, Diane visited her brother Frank in Florida. Frank took that to mean his sister was entrusting Mary with him. We catch up with Mary and Frank when he's decided to put her in school, as he says so she'll learn social skills. She does have a friend, Frank's neighbor Roberta, but Roberta's older than Frank! Frank just wants Mary to have a normal life. He saw what happened to his sister, and desperately wants better for Mary.
His mother sees it different. At this point she comes back into their life and demands custody. Mary's principal has contacted her after several incidents leave a negative impression on her ability to adjust, regardless of Frank's wishes. Like her daughter and mother, Diane was a math wiz. In fact, she was close to solving a "Millennium Prize Problem," which would have been a surefire lifetime achievement, the culmination of all her work and potential. Frank thinks their mother push Diane too hard. The court ruling on the dispute sides with her. Mary is placed in a foster home as a compromise.
The whole situation is really about who relates to Mary on a human level. Clearly it's Frank. Too often we forget that beyond everything else it's really our ability to empathize that's our best attribute, to see worth in the person and not just what they can do for you. Or as Mary says, Frank loved her before she was smart. He loved her for her.
Critics who were only looking for the dramatic arc and how cathartic the climax felt overlooked the message, and what it meant for Mary and Frank, and its greater applications, especially in a society that has all but eliminated basic acceptance. We're always saying, you need to have a reason to be accepted. We've all become cogs in one machine or another, we've all been assigned labels. This is a movie that says there's something else worth embracing. Mary's best friend is a one-eyed cat named Fred. Mary doesn't care that Fred is missing an eye. She loves him because she loves him. It's not because he's damaged, anymore than you should care about Mary because her mother died or Frank because of the sacrifices he's made.
Mary's teacher begins to understand all of this pretty rapidly. By the time Mary shows up in her classroom, Bonnie notices her brash attitude right away, but she also notices that challenging Mary constructively produces constructive results. And she becomes attracted to Frank not because he's played by hunky Chris Evans, but because he's endlessly intriguing. This isn't a movie that ends with a happy, bow-tied ending. Bonnie and Frank don't end up in a relationship as an official new set of parents for Mary. We aren't even assured that Mary ends up having the best of both worlds, even though we do get to see where Frank compromises in ways that make sense for Mary, giving her university-level classrooms and girl scout social time. It qualifies as heartwarming.
Evans has long intrigued me. Along with a lot of other people, he was the most interesting element of the first two Fantastic Four movies. He was also a standout in material like The Losers and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And of course as Captain America. Here he's in an approachable mold of Captain America, rather than the jokier role he used to specialize in. He proves he's ready for mature, nonsuperhero roles, possibly the best of the Avengers crop in that regard.
Octavia Spencer is a revelation in this movie. Other directors have a way of making her look like a caricature, but Webb keeps her human. You can always tell the true talent of a director in how they turn perception completely around like that. Jenny Slate is credible as the teacher. The real find, as seemed to happen in several movies in 2017, is child actress Mckenna Grace. Child actors are notoriously a mixed bag. In years past most were expected to be merely precocious; Grace joins a recent tradition of finding real talent. Without her the movie would probably fall apart, no matter how appealing Evans and his adult costars are. As it is, this is one you'll be able to enjoy without reservation for years to come.
the story: A gifted seven-year-old will either live with her uncle or her grandmother, who have conflicting visions of her future.
what it's all about: In the interests of full disclosure, I'm several steps away from the subject matter. For most of my niece's two and a half years of life, I've been asked to step in and help raise her, and recently been confronted with the gut-wrenching thought of being asked to step back and just be an uncle. I won't really go into further details on that, but suffice to say, I have an idea of what the heart of this story's about, and so on that level it certainly speaks to me personally. This may affect my objectivity.
I've been a fan of director Marc Webb, a fairly big fan, since his breakthrough debut film (500) Days of Summer, a heartbreaking drama about a relationship that turns out poorly and an attempt to deal with that. Webb then directed The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel, both of which continued his trademark ability to speak to uncomfortable emotional truths. Webb is a filmmaker who understands that life is complicated, whether or not you're a superhero. Gifted is a fine extension of his filmography. It asks you to put aside any particular prejudices you may have about what's in the best interests of gifted children. Naturally, because that's what society tends to tell you, a gifted child should be given every opportunity to reach their potential. But for every Mozart, there's a Diane Adler.
Diane is Mary Adler's mother, or rather, she was. Diane committed suicide when Mary was half a year old. Before she died, Diane visited her brother Frank in Florida. Frank took that to mean his sister was entrusting Mary with him. We catch up with Mary and Frank when he's decided to put her in school, as he says so she'll learn social skills. She does have a friend, Frank's neighbor Roberta, but Roberta's older than Frank! Frank just wants Mary to have a normal life. He saw what happened to his sister, and desperately wants better for Mary.
His mother sees it different. At this point she comes back into their life and demands custody. Mary's principal has contacted her after several incidents leave a negative impression on her ability to adjust, regardless of Frank's wishes. Like her daughter and mother, Diane was a math wiz. In fact, she was close to solving a "Millennium Prize Problem," which would have been a surefire lifetime achievement, the culmination of all her work and potential. Frank thinks their mother push Diane too hard. The court ruling on the dispute sides with her. Mary is placed in a foster home as a compromise.
The whole situation is really about who relates to Mary on a human level. Clearly it's Frank. Too often we forget that beyond everything else it's really our ability to empathize that's our best attribute, to see worth in the person and not just what they can do for you. Or as Mary says, Frank loved her before she was smart. He loved her for her.
Critics who were only looking for the dramatic arc and how cathartic the climax felt overlooked the message, and what it meant for Mary and Frank, and its greater applications, especially in a society that has all but eliminated basic acceptance. We're always saying, you need to have a reason to be accepted. We've all become cogs in one machine or another, we've all been assigned labels. This is a movie that says there's something else worth embracing. Mary's best friend is a one-eyed cat named Fred. Mary doesn't care that Fred is missing an eye. She loves him because she loves him. It's not because he's damaged, anymore than you should care about Mary because her mother died or Frank because of the sacrifices he's made.
Mary's teacher begins to understand all of this pretty rapidly. By the time Mary shows up in her classroom, Bonnie notices her brash attitude right away, but she also notices that challenging Mary constructively produces constructive results. And she becomes attracted to Frank not because he's played by hunky Chris Evans, but because he's endlessly intriguing. This isn't a movie that ends with a happy, bow-tied ending. Bonnie and Frank don't end up in a relationship as an official new set of parents for Mary. We aren't even assured that Mary ends up having the best of both worlds, even though we do get to see where Frank compromises in ways that make sense for Mary, giving her university-level classrooms and girl scout social time. It qualifies as heartwarming.
Evans has long intrigued me. Along with a lot of other people, he was the most interesting element of the first two Fantastic Four movies. He was also a standout in material like The Losers and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And of course as Captain America. Here he's in an approachable mold of Captain America, rather than the jokier role he used to specialize in. He proves he's ready for mature, nonsuperhero roles, possibly the best of the Avengers crop in that regard.
Octavia Spencer is a revelation in this movie. Other directors have a way of making her look like a caricature, but Webb keeps her human. You can always tell the true talent of a director in how they turn perception completely around like that. Jenny Slate is credible as the teacher. The real find, as seemed to happen in several movies in 2017, is child actress Mckenna Grace. Child actors are notoriously a mixed bag. In years past most were expected to be merely precocious; Grace joins a recent tradition of finding real talent. Without her the movie would probably fall apart, no matter how appealing Evans and his adult costars are. As it is, this is one you'll be able to enjoy without reservation for years to come.
Friday, March 30, 2018
Ben-Hur (2016) A Second Opinion
rating: *****
the story: Roman and Jewish adoptive brothers clash.
what it's all about: Exactly a year to the day of my last review (read it here), I feel compelled to write about Ben-Hur (2016) again, with very much revised thoughts.
Previously I was very much caught up in the film's history, and even clear associations with Star Wars, and yet the film itself, as I admitted in my closing thoughts, would maybe require more time to process. I can see now where I wasn't even particularly fair in what I did say about it, and so the time has come to try this again. Part of the problem, I think, was at the time I really hadn't attempted too many movie reviews, the way I'd already been writing book reviews over at Goodreads. I hadn't yet allowed myself to process the whole thing. With books, it's almost as important to write about why a book is important as it is to write about the book itself. There are fewer chances of other readers coming across the same books, these days, than there are viewers of the same movies, and it's easier to suggest a movie than it is a book, because it takes less time to consume. A book is a massive commitment. There are some fast readers, and some voracious readers, but there are also a great many more books out there than movies, across a huge range of topics. If it's not a bestseller or a classic, the odds are very small most readers will ever come across the same books even close associates have experienced, and even then the way the brain processes books is different than the way it processes a movie.
All of that is to say, although movies are common currency, they have also, in the accumulated history of them to this point, become easier to dismiss. They're cheaper now than ever, so it's very important to be precise about how you talk about them. The more someone hears about one, or the less, or what they hear regardless, it defines whether or not they will bother to spend even a little time on it, much less give it a fair shake, because the common currency is fast becoming the same as books, the more popular the better, or the more dedicated the following, no matter how small, equally the better. And this has become a rapidly codified rule in the current blockbuster age. The last thing anyone cares about is pedigree, much less quality. Value is in the eye of the restless beholder.
Ben-Hur evokes as much its namesake predecessor now as it does Gladiator, the 2000 epic that won Best Picture at the Oscars. Although there are a lot of reactionaries who've begun to dismiss it as so much hollow entertainment (surely an irony for such a film), it has long maintained a place among my personal favorites. At its heart, it tells much the same story as Ben-Hur of any iteration: two men compete out of pride for the glory of Rome. In Gladiator it's an emperor and a general, in Ben-Hur a Jewish prince and his adoptive Roman brother. The general and prince are both cast aside and must claw their way back, their rivals risen in their stead. But where Gladiator rests on masterful performances from Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, Ben-Hur relies on far less tested shoulders in Jack Huston and Toby Kebbell.
My previous review, I didn't even mention Kebbell's name. I retroactively included it in the labels, as I became more aware of his presence in films that interest me. In a review I did a little later, for A Monster Calls, just two months later, I realized the mistake I'd made. He was also a standout element of Fantastic Four (2015), and if I went back and analyzed his appearances in other movies I've seen, I'm sure my appreciation would only grow. He may not be a known commodity outside of Hollywood itself, but Kebbell has more than proven his worth on the screen. He certainly pulls his weight as Messala, the wayward brother. Huston does in the title role as well. They are reasons all by themselves to watch. Morgan Freeman as Ben-Hur's benefactor, Rodrigo Santoro as Jesus, and even the usual depiction of Pontius Pilate by Danish actor Pilou Asbaek (you can find him in Game of Thrones, too, and that seems just about right).
I wrongly suggested, previously, that Santoro's Jesus feels out of place. This is a crucial element of the movie, and even the movie's ending, as Ben-Hur and Messala finally put their bloody differences aside. What's so clever about this story is that it plays right into the Hollywood wheelhouse, or as Gladiator so boldly stated, "Are you not entertained?" If there weren't such a gulf between mainstream and Christian audiences today, Ben-Hur would once again have been a rousing success. I have no doubt about that. It's the first historical epic since Gladiator to realize what made Gladiator such a big hit, something A Knight's Tale tried to duplicate soon after but failed because it tried too hard ("He will rock you," its tagline, is all you need to know about that), that in order to make history truly relevant, you have to connect it to the present. If anything, entertainment has become even more of a monolith in Western culture, since Gladiator. There was easier, widespread consensus in the 20th century, at least in television, but once Hollywood cracked the Star Wars blockbuster model, beginning at the turn of the century, not only with new Star Wars but Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, massive success, ridiculous success, became so crucial to moviemaking that it's all but flattened the rest of the film industry around it.
And yet, Ben-Hur suggests that entertainment is a mere distraction, a false victory. That's its whole point. The famous chariot race that's been the traditional hallmark and showcase element of the story, that's what it's all about. Freeman's character tells Ben-Hur that if he wants revenge, he has to do it in a way Romans will understand. And once he has defeated Messala, there's a moment where Pilate sort of freaks out, but by the time Freeman converses with him, he correctly identifies Ben-Hur's win as a Pyrrhic victory: all he's done is help everyone lose, because now even the Jews are cheering the games, and no one understands what's really happened except Pilate.
So what about the redemption? Santoro's Jesus is interesting. The first time we see him he's a mere carpenter offering a few observations to Ben-Hur about hate being used as a weapon of oppression. This idea is what really turned me around about this element, and helped deepen my appreciation of the movie itself. In 2016 we hadn't yet developed a culture where hate truly drove the whole agenda. I'm not talking about who was elected US president, but the political reaction, and how it grew and grew, and combined with other movements and started new ones and...it was all about putting up new little barriers of hate. The only thing Jesus ever really cared about, and you're dead wrong if you thought it was setting up some new religion, was tearing down barriers. It's a hard thing to accept. His later scenes are more reflective of Gospel material, and as such they're not as important, except to emphasize who exactly that carpenter was, and why his message grows in resonance for Ben-Hur, and why it leads him to an entirely different conclusion than the one he wins in the chariot race.
I'd never quite been impressed with the steep rocky features of Jerusalem in other depictions of Jesus, and yet in Ben-Hur they're unmistakable. There're the flat surfaces of chariot races and the water sequences of the slave galley, and yet when you see what's just on the other side of the street vendors, and the long look down from Golgatha, you realize the extreme vantage points of the landscape. They're hard distances to reconcile. Ben-Hur never sympathizes with the zealots who were the terrorists of their day, and yet when he finds himself branded a criminal, he suddenly understands what it means to hate Romans. Messala feels like an outsider in a Jewish household no matter how warmly he's embraced within it. These are dynamics very much akin to the increasingly frayed social bonds of our present. Once a bond is broken it seems irretrievably lost; trust itself is anathema. All men become cynics. And yet, Jesus sees what true cynicism really looks like, and that is Pontius Pilate, celebrating even in defeat. He suggests that if hate is a blunt weapon, then love is the only real redemption. His sacrifice is the ultimate example. Maybe you need faith to accept that, but then again, Ben-Hur itself is an example of what it looks like without it. It is one big elaborate metaphor, and it always was, and Jesus is included at all because he literally embodied the concept, and died for it, to begin with. That's what it's all about.
It's a big profound story, and this movie version of it is a sensational depiction of it, and I think it will withstand the test of time, no nostalgia needed to prop it up. Even without massive initial success and acceptance, I think it will stand as an enduring testament. In Gladiator there was never any doubt who the hero was, and it's easy to cheer when Russell Crowe wins, even if it ends up becoming a moral victory. You would never for a moment believe that he could reconcile with Joaquin Phoenix. Maybe it takes actors with smaller stature to tell a different ending, to be truly lost in the moment when they finally embrace as brothers again.
the story: Roman and Jewish adoptive brothers clash.
what it's all about: Exactly a year to the day of my last review (read it here), I feel compelled to write about Ben-Hur (2016) again, with very much revised thoughts.
Previously I was very much caught up in the film's history, and even clear associations with Star Wars, and yet the film itself, as I admitted in my closing thoughts, would maybe require more time to process. I can see now where I wasn't even particularly fair in what I did say about it, and so the time has come to try this again. Part of the problem, I think, was at the time I really hadn't attempted too many movie reviews, the way I'd already been writing book reviews over at Goodreads. I hadn't yet allowed myself to process the whole thing. With books, it's almost as important to write about why a book is important as it is to write about the book itself. There are fewer chances of other readers coming across the same books, these days, than there are viewers of the same movies, and it's easier to suggest a movie than it is a book, because it takes less time to consume. A book is a massive commitment. There are some fast readers, and some voracious readers, but there are also a great many more books out there than movies, across a huge range of topics. If it's not a bestseller or a classic, the odds are very small most readers will ever come across the same books even close associates have experienced, and even then the way the brain processes books is different than the way it processes a movie.
All of that is to say, although movies are common currency, they have also, in the accumulated history of them to this point, become easier to dismiss. They're cheaper now than ever, so it's very important to be precise about how you talk about them. The more someone hears about one, or the less, or what they hear regardless, it defines whether or not they will bother to spend even a little time on it, much less give it a fair shake, because the common currency is fast becoming the same as books, the more popular the better, or the more dedicated the following, no matter how small, equally the better. And this has become a rapidly codified rule in the current blockbuster age. The last thing anyone cares about is pedigree, much less quality. Value is in the eye of the restless beholder.
Ben-Hur evokes as much its namesake predecessor now as it does Gladiator, the 2000 epic that won Best Picture at the Oscars. Although there are a lot of reactionaries who've begun to dismiss it as so much hollow entertainment (surely an irony for such a film), it has long maintained a place among my personal favorites. At its heart, it tells much the same story as Ben-Hur of any iteration: two men compete out of pride for the glory of Rome. In Gladiator it's an emperor and a general, in Ben-Hur a Jewish prince and his adoptive Roman brother. The general and prince are both cast aside and must claw their way back, their rivals risen in their stead. But where Gladiator rests on masterful performances from Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, Ben-Hur relies on far less tested shoulders in Jack Huston and Toby Kebbell.
My previous review, I didn't even mention Kebbell's name. I retroactively included it in the labels, as I became more aware of his presence in films that interest me. In a review I did a little later, for A Monster Calls, just two months later, I realized the mistake I'd made. He was also a standout element of Fantastic Four (2015), and if I went back and analyzed his appearances in other movies I've seen, I'm sure my appreciation would only grow. He may not be a known commodity outside of Hollywood itself, but Kebbell has more than proven his worth on the screen. He certainly pulls his weight as Messala, the wayward brother. Huston does in the title role as well. They are reasons all by themselves to watch. Morgan Freeman as Ben-Hur's benefactor, Rodrigo Santoro as Jesus, and even the usual depiction of Pontius Pilate by Danish actor Pilou Asbaek (you can find him in Game of Thrones, too, and that seems just about right).
I wrongly suggested, previously, that Santoro's Jesus feels out of place. This is a crucial element of the movie, and even the movie's ending, as Ben-Hur and Messala finally put their bloody differences aside. What's so clever about this story is that it plays right into the Hollywood wheelhouse, or as Gladiator so boldly stated, "Are you not entertained?" If there weren't such a gulf between mainstream and Christian audiences today, Ben-Hur would once again have been a rousing success. I have no doubt about that. It's the first historical epic since Gladiator to realize what made Gladiator such a big hit, something A Knight's Tale tried to duplicate soon after but failed because it tried too hard ("He will rock you," its tagline, is all you need to know about that), that in order to make history truly relevant, you have to connect it to the present. If anything, entertainment has become even more of a monolith in Western culture, since Gladiator. There was easier, widespread consensus in the 20th century, at least in television, but once Hollywood cracked the Star Wars blockbuster model, beginning at the turn of the century, not only with new Star Wars but Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, massive success, ridiculous success, became so crucial to moviemaking that it's all but flattened the rest of the film industry around it.
And yet, Ben-Hur suggests that entertainment is a mere distraction, a false victory. That's its whole point. The famous chariot race that's been the traditional hallmark and showcase element of the story, that's what it's all about. Freeman's character tells Ben-Hur that if he wants revenge, he has to do it in a way Romans will understand. And once he has defeated Messala, there's a moment where Pilate sort of freaks out, but by the time Freeman converses with him, he correctly identifies Ben-Hur's win as a Pyrrhic victory: all he's done is help everyone lose, because now even the Jews are cheering the games, and no one understands what's really happened except Pilate.
So what about the redemption? Santoro's Jesus is interesting. The first time we see him he's a mere carpenter offering a few observations to Ben-Hur about hate being used as a weapon of oppression. This idea is what really turned me around about this element, and helped deepen my appreciation of the movie itself. In 2016 we hadn't yet developed a culture where hate truly drove the whole agenda. I'm not talking about who was elected US president, but the political reaction, and how it grew and grew, and combined with other movements and started new ones and...it was all about putting up new little barriers of hate. The only thing Jesus ever really cared about, and you're dead wrong if you thought it was setting up some new religion, was tearing down barriers. It's a hard thing to accept. His later scenes are more reflective of Gospel material, and as such they're not as important, except to emphasize who exactly that carpenter was, and why his message grows in resonance for Ben-Hur, and why it leads him to an entirely different conclusion than the one he wins in the chariot race.
I'd never quite been impressed with the steep rocky features of Jerusalem in other depictions of Jesus, and yet in Ben-Hur they're unmistakable. There're the flat surfaces of chariot races and the water sequences of the slave galley, and yet when you see what's just on the other side of the street vendors, and the long look down from Golgatha, you realize the extreme vantage points of the landscape. They're hard distances to reconcile. Ben-Hur never sympathizes with the zealots who were the terrorists of their day, and yet when he finds himself branded a criminal, he suddenly understands what it means to hate Romans. Messala feels like an outsider in a Jewish household no matter how warmly he's embraced within it. These are dynamics very much akin to the increasingly frayed social bonds of our present. Once a bond is broken it seems irretrievably lost; trust itself is anathema. All men become cynics. And yet, Jesus sees what true cynicism really looks like, and that is Pontius Pilate, celebrating even in defeat. He suggests that if hate is a blunt weapon, then love is the only real redemption. His sacrifice is the ultimate example. Maybe you need faith to accept that, but then again, Ben-Hur itself is an example of what it looks like without it. It is one big elaborate metaphor, and it always was, and Jesus is included at all because he literally embodied the concept, and died for it, to begin with. That's what it's all about.
It's a big profound story, and this movie version of it is a sensational depiction of it, and I think it will withstand the test of time, no nostalgia needed to prop it up. Even without massive initial success and acceptance, I think it will stand as an enduring testament. In Gladiator there was never any doubt who the hero was, and it's easy to cheer when Russell Crowe wins, even if it ends up becoming a moral victory. You would never for a moment believe that he could reconcile with Joaquin Phoenix. Maybe it takes actors with smaller stature to tell a different ending, to be truly lost in the moment when they finally embrace as brothers again.
Saturday, March 24, 2018
A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
rating: *****
the story: A U.S. ambassador inadvertently ends up in a stowaway's bid for asylum.
what it's all about: I'm a big Marlon Brando fan. I think you can't possibly appreciate movies as a creative medium without being a big Marlon Brando fan. Not just for a few signature performances (A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, The Godfather), but for the breadth of his career and what he represented and even what he tried to do with the roles he selected. This was a man of great talent who regularly chose projects that challenged the status quo. Late in life he gave up the fight; I think he got tired of fighting somewhere in the '70s, probably when he realized Vito Corleone had actually wiped out everything he'd sought to accomplish, rather than made it, and him, relevant again. So he just started punishing everyone, including himself. And yet his projects, even at that point, remain fascinating, not as spectacles but because he continued his efforts. You can't watch something like The Formula and tell me that isn't true. You can't tell me Apocalypse Now isn't a stinging indictment. You can't tell me The Island of Doctor Moreau isn't one, either. That was the whole point. Sometimes, and really way too often, we let things that are entirely beside the point get in the way of the work itself. It's no one's business how ornery he became onset, later.
And even though I only became aware of A Countess from Hong Kong's poor reputation after watching it for the first time, it's no one's business, today, what people have said about it, negatively. The movie speaks for itself. It's hilarious. It's a goddam classic.
It's also the last movie Charlie Chaplin ever directed. It's a farce, a delicious piece of nonsense. Maybe I found it so easy to love because of Brando, and maybe it's because the theater experience I have is full of farces. And I'd consider A Countess from Hong Kong a natural piece of stage theater. I have no idea if anyone has ever done a stage production of it, but that really, really needs to happen. If you've never seen Noises Off, a 1992 ensemble comedy featuring John Ritter, Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine, and others, you really should. I caught up with it because I'd seen a college production, and loved that. In high school I became acquainted with the work of playwright Charlie Schulman (The Ground Zero Club and The Birthday Present, the latter of which I got to act in). The local theater seemed, at least at the time I was attending regularly thanks to school (and later; I saw a production of The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon, most famous for The Odd Couple, so they certainly kept it up), to specialize in this kind of play. The blockbuster stage version of The Producers proved it still had mass appeal, too, even if the second film version didn't seem to back that up. This kind of material is the basis for all sitcoms, too. I'd suggest part of why we take ourselves too seriously today is because comedy has largely taken a backseat to spectacle, and what comedy there is usually spends all its time being political. And yet there's nary a Good Morning, Vietnam that's come out of this period.
Anyway, and it's not really bombshell Sophia Loren in her prime, either. I caught up with her much later in her career, Grumpier Old Men. She's one of those exotic beauty prototypes most recently embodied by Sofia Vergara, who inexplicably (and also tellingly) has never been able to capitalize on her Modern Family breakthrough role with success in the movies. One of her early performances was in the severely underappreciated Big Trouble. I've also seen Loren in Man of La Mancha (1972), which was another movie easily dismissed because its leads (including Peter O'Toole) weren't particularly known for singing. It's certainly fun seeing Loren in her prime.
Considering the massive heat the idea of immigration has received in recent years, something like Countess ought to be reexamined on that basis alone, since that's the heart of the story. Loren's character has ended up marooned in Hong Kong, having ended up exiled during the Russian Revolution. We tend to think of refugees as the classic "huddled masses yearning to be free," and yet the bulk of them have no class status, they're merely displaced peoples seeking safe harbor. Countess is certainly a glamorized version, but sometimes (okay, always?) that's exactly what's needed in order for people to understand what's happening. You can see the success of Black Panther as a cathartic acknowledgment that black peoples have often lacked adequate representation; it's a lightning rod of viewers clumsily acknowledging their own shortcomings if not outright racism, an outlet that makes Africa suddenly relevant to them, even if the movie itself is likely pabulum.
What helps Countess escape such crude analysis? The fact that it really is classic screwball, a last love letter from Chaplin, and another unexpected left turn from Brando (similar to Guys and Dolls). And yet as inexplicable as it seems, every single time someone comes to Brando's cabin door and it sends either him or Loren or both of them scrambling for cover, it's gut-busting. That's classic screwball right there, that's the essence of the art, and the basis for every other element working as well as it does, Brando's exasperation (he does it so subtly you're almost convinced he really is annoyed, which is a fine line few actors can pull off) and of course Loren's increasingly heartbreaking predicament. Brando had done comedy before (The Teahouse of the August Moon, which seems dreadfully unPC by today's standards; Brando plays Japanese), but he's playing at the behest of a master, and he's fully up to the task.
Chaplin himself merely cameos; his son Sydney has a much bigger role, and although he's already older than his father was at the peak of his fame, and he doesn't sport the classic Tramp mustache, you can easily spot the resemblance, and that's a treat, too.
In short, this is another easily recommended movie.
the story: A U.S. ambassador inadvertently ends up in a stowaway's bid for asylum.
what it's all about: I'm a big Marlon Brando fan. I think you can't possibly appreciate movies as a creative medium without being a big Marlon Brando fan. Not just for a few signature performances (A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, The Godfather), but for the breadth of his career and what he represented and even what he tried to do with the roles he selected. This was a man of great talent who regularly chose projects that challenged the status quo. Late in life he gave up the fight; I think he got tired of fighting somewhere in the '70s, probably when he realized Vito Corleone had actually wiped out everything he'd sought to accomplish, rather than made it, and him, relevant again. So he just started punishing everyone, including himself. And yet his projects, even at that point, remain fascinating, not as spectacles but because he continued his efforts. You can't watch something like The Formula and tell me that isn't true. You can't tell me Apocalypse Now isn't a stinging indictment. You can't tell me The Island of Doctor Moreau isn't one, either. That was the whole point. Sometimes, and really way too often, we let things that are entirely beside the point get in the way of the work itself. It's no one's business how ornery he became onset, later.
And even though I only became aware of A Countess from Hong Kong's poor reputation after watching it for the first time, it's no one's business, today, what people have said about it, negatively. The movie speaks for itself. It's hilarious. It's a goddam classic.
It's also the last movie Charlie Chaplin ever directed. It's a farce, a delicious piece of nonsense. Maybe I found it so easy to love because of Brando, and maybe it's because the theater experience I have is full of farces. And I'd consider A Countess from Hong Kong a natural piece of stage theater. I have no idea if anyone has ever done a stage production of it, but that really, really needs to happen. If you've never seen Noises Off, a 1992 ensemble comedy featuring John Ritter, Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine, and others, you really should. I caught up with it because I'd seen a college production, and loved that. In high school I became acquainted with the work of playwright Charlie Schulman (The Ground Zero Club and The Birthday Present, the latter of which I got to act in). The local theater seemed, at least at the time I was attending regularly thanks to school (and later; I saw a production of The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon, most famous for The Odd Couple, so they certainly kept it up), to specialize in this kind of play. The blockbuster stage version of The Producers proved it still had mass appeal, too, even if the second film version didn't seem to back that up. This kind of material is the basis for all sitcoms, too. I'd suggest part of why we take ourselves too seriously today is because comedy has largely taken a backseat to spectacle, and what comedy there is usually spends all its time being political. And yet there's nary a Good Morning, Vietnam that's come out of this period.
Anyway, and it's not really bombshell Sophia Loren in her prime, either. I caught up with her much later in her career, Grumpier Old Men. She's one of those exotic beauty prototypes most recently embodied by Sofia Vergara, who inexplicably (and also tellingly) has never been able to capitalize on her Modern Family breakthrough role with success in the movies. One of her early performances was in the severely underappreciated Big Trouble. I've also seen Loren in Man of La Mancha (1972), which was another movie easily dismissed because its leads (including Peter O'Toole) weren't particularly known for singing. It's certainly fun seeing Loren in her prime.
Considering the massive heat the idea of immigration has received in recent years, something like Countess ought to be reexamined on that basis alone, since that's the heart of the story. Loren's character has ended up marooned in Hong Kong, having ended up exiled during the Russian Revolution. We tend to think of refugees as the classic "huddled masses yearning to be free," and yet the bulk of them have no class status, they're merely displaced peoples seeking safe harbor. Countess is certainly a glamorized version, but sometimes (okay, always?) that's exactly what's needed in order for people to understand what's happening. You can see the success of Black Panther as a cathartic acknowledgment that black peoples have often lacked adequate representation; it's a lightning rod of viewers clumsily acknowledging their own shortcomings if not outright racism, an outlet that makes Africa suddenly relevant to them, even if the movie itself is likely pabulum.
What helps Countess escape such crude analysis? The fact that it really is classic screwball, a last love letter from Chaplin, and another unexpected left turn from Brando (similar to Guys and Dolls). And yet as inexplicable as it seems, every single time someone comes to Brando's cabin door and it sends either him or Loren or both of them scrambling for cover, it's gut-busting. That's classic screwball right there, that's the essence of the art, and the basis for every other element working as well as it does, Brando's exasperation (he does it so subtly you're almost convinced he really is annoyed, which is a fine line few actors can pull off) and of course Loren's increasingly heartbreaking predicament. Brando had done comedy before (The Teahouse of the August Moon, which seems dreadfully unPC by today's standards; Brando plays Japanese), but he's playing at the behest of a master, and he's fully up to the task.
Chaplin himself merely cameos; his son Sydney has a much bigger role, and although he's already older than his father was at the peak of his fame, and he doesn't sport the classic Tramp mustache, you can easily spot the resemblance, and that's a treat, too.
In short, this is another easily recommended movie.
Friday, March 23, 2018
2017
Viewed/Ranked
- Logan
- Dunkirk
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- A Ghost Story
- Justice League
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer
- Star Wars - Episode VII: The Last Jedi
- Wonder Woman
- King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
- Good Time
- The Beguiled
- It Comes At Night
- Blade Runner 2049
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
- Roman J. Israel, Esq.
- The Dark Tower
- Atomic Blonde
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Baywatch
- Split
- The Bad Batch
- My Little Pony: The Movie
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
- A Cure for Wellness
- Alien: Covenant
- American Made
- Baby Driver
- Beauty and the Beast
- Daddy's Home 2
- Darkest Hour
- The Fate of the Furious
- Get Out
- Gifted
- Goodbye Christopher Robin
- The Greatest Showman
- The Hitman's Bodyguard
- Hostiles
- I, Tonya
- It
- Jigsaw
- John Wick: Chapter Two
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
- Kingsman: The Golden Circle
- Lady Bird
- Logan Lucky
- The Lost City of Z
- Molly's Game
- mother!
- The Mummy
- Murder on the Orient Express
- The Only Living Boy in New York
- Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
- The Shape of Water
- T2: Trainspotting
- The Wall
- Wind River
- Wonder
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Collateral Beauty (2016)
rating: ****
the story: A man struggling with the death of his child comes across unlikely support.
what it's all about: In recent years it's become fashionable to put the cart before the horse, when talking about movies. It seems to matter less what a movie actually accomplishes and more a very thin impression of maybe one element (if you're lucky) that becomes distorted in order to form a basis of rejection. Collateral Beauty became an egregious example of this.
For the first decade of the 21st century, Will Smith was virtually untouchable. He made smash hit after smash hit, and critics felt comfortable elevating him from movie star to respected actor. Awards chatter followed him when he chose a role that fit the criteria (Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness). Eventually, though, the streak ended, more or less when he released Seven Pounds in 2008. In a lot of ways, Collateral Beauty is a sequel to Seven Pounds. They both feature Smith as a troubled individual struggling to reconcile himself to a horrible new truth in his life. Actually, even a lot of his blockbuster movies feature him in this mode, notably I, Robot. What Seven Pounds did was scrub away entirely his crowd-pleasing image, so that only the actor remained, and the role and the story around him becomes an outright tragedy. Known for a fairly comedic approach otherwise, this might be considered Smith doing what most comedy actors do, seek out dramatic work now and then, which Robin Williams in particular accomplished to great success. But where Williams waited years to go dark, and met with similar results, Smith attempted it at the height of his success, and plunged right into it. So to see him return to that mode, after a near decade of struggles, is to see that it truly is his choice and not a creative gamble.
After an opening scene that casts Smith in a similar vein to George Clooney in Up in the Air, he virtually retreats into the background, so that for most of the movie, it's not really Smith's movie at all, but the wonderful supporting ensemble's around him. But watching him interact with them, and seeing his relationship with Naomie Harris in particular develop, is to see how all the pieces fit together. The scenes and the arc with Harris in particular evoke Seven Pounds, a movie that builds in its impact until it hits an emotional crescendo, in a way that few movies I've seen have been capable of delivering (Warrior is another, and a true master class in that art).
Now, that supporting cast is involved in an elaborate plot of several layers. Detractors mostly fixated on two of its three essential layers, the ones present in the trailers that became soundly misunderstood. What detractors above all these days love to do is declare something creepy. They did it with that year's Passengers, too, complaining about a plot point that was in fact the entire plot of the movie, that the plot meant to resolve. Smith's business partners, portrayed by Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Pena conspire to demonstrate that he's been permanently compromised by the death of his daughter. They hire an investigator to find dirt on him, and discover that he writes letters to Love, Death, and Time. In the original trailer, it seems actual personifications of these concepts visit him of their own accord. Then it was discovered that Norton, Winslet, and Pena hire actors to play them. It seemed like gaslighting. Like Passengers, this is directly addressed in the movie. But the real twist, which is presented so that the characters Smith, Norton, Winslet, and Pena play never find out, is that the actors really are Love, Death, and Time. This essentially makes a complete mockery of that criticism, and exposes it for never having bothered to see the movie.
And it's to the loss of those detractors, because the result are extremely edifying. Few movies, few observers in general, are interested in looking at humanity as a whole these days. They pick elements here and there and offer defensive looks. A movie like Collateral Beauty is designed to shatter these defenses. That may be its greatest accomplishment, or would be if more people were aware of what it actually accomplishes.
Anyway, the storytelling is one thing, but the incredible assemblage of actors is another. Norton's career stalled when his reputation as being troublesome on set overshadowed his talent. In recent years he's had supporting roles that have allowed him to once again assert that talent. In Collateral Beauty he seems to get a chance to be the troublemaker he's perceived to be, and to have a redemptive arc, too. Out of Smith's three business partners he has the biggest role. Winslet and Pena's arcs are more subtle, but equally essential. The three actors, meanwhile, are arguably the best reason to watch the movie. Keira Knightley is another actor who's struggled in recent years to sustain a once-popular career, and seems to have found a role that commentates on perception. Jacob Latimore is the only unknown actor in the ensemble, but is a true revelation. But the real discovery here is Helen Mirren, who finally has a role that pierces her armor, even in a career that has taken every opportunity, likely and otherwise. Which is to say, she finally lets loose and just has fun.
This is a must-see movie for a lot of reasons. Hopefully I've helped clarify that.
the story: A man struggling with the death of his child comes across unlikely support.
what it's all about: In recent years it's become fashionable to put the cart before the horse, when talking about movies. It seems to matter less what a movie actually accomplishes and more a very thin impression of maybe one element (if you're lucky) that becomes distorted in order to form a basis of rejection. Collateral Beauty became an egregious example of this.
For the first decade of the 21st century, Will Smith was virtually untouchable. He made smash hit after smash hit, and critics felt comfortable elevating him from movie star to respected actor. Awards chatter followed him when he chose a role that fit the criteria (Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness). Eventually, though, the streak ended, more or less when he released Seven Pounds in 2008. In a lot of ways, Collateral Beauty is a sequel to Seven Pounds. They both feature Smith as a troubled individual struggling to reconcile himself to a horrible new truth in his life. Actually, even a lot of his blockbuster movies feature him in this mode, notably I, Robot. What Seven Pounds did was scrub away entirely his crowd-pleasing image, so that only the actor remained, and the role and the story around him becomes an outright tragedy. Known for a fairly comedic approach otherwise, this might be considered Smith doing what most comedy actors do, seek out dramatic work now and then, which Robin Williams in particular accomplished to great success. But where Williams waited years to go dark, and met with similar results, Smith attempted it at the height of his success, and plunged right into it. So to see him return to that mode, after a near decade of struggles, is to see that it truly is his choice and not a creative gamble.
After an opening scene that casts Smith in a similar vein to George Clooney in Up in the Air, he virtually retreats into the background, so that for most of the movie, it's not really Smith's movie at all, but the wonderful supporting ensemble's around him. But watching him interact with them, and seeing his relationship with Naomie Harris in particular develop, is to see how all the pieces fit together. The scenes and the arc with Harris in particular evoke Seven Pounds, a movie that builds in its impact until it hits an emotional crescendo, in a way that few movies I've seen have been capable of delivering (Warrior is another, and a true master class in that art).
Now, that supporting cast is involved in an elaborate plot of several layers. Detractors mostly fixated on two of its three essential layers, the ones present in the trailers that became soundly misunderstood. What detractors above all these days love to do is declare something creepy. They did it with that year's Passengers, too, complaining about a plot point that was in fact the entire plot of the movie, that the plot meant to resolve. Smith's business partners, portrayed by Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Pena conspire to demonstrate that he's been permanently compromised by the death of his daughter. They hire an investigator to find dirt on him, and discover that he writes letters to Love, Death, and Time. In the original trailer, it seems actual personifications of these concepts visit him of their own accord. Then it was discovered that Norton, Winslet, and Pena hire actors to play them. It seemed like gaslighting. Like Passengers, this is directly addressed in the movie. But the real twist, which is presented so that the characters Smith, Norton, Winslet, and Pena play never find out, is that the actors really are Love, Death, and Time. This essentially makes a complete mockery of that criticism, and exposes it for never having bothered to see the movie.
And it's to the loss of those detractors, because the result are extremely edifying. Few movies, few observers in general, are interested in looking at humanity as a whole these days. They pick elements here and there and offer defensive looks. A movie like Collateral Beauty is designed to shatter these defenses. That may be its greatest accomplishment, or would be if more people were aware of what it actually accomplishes.
Anyway, the storytelling is one thing, but the incredible assemblage of actors is another. Norton's career stalled when his reputation as being troublesome on set overshadowed his talent. In recent years he's had supporting roles that have allowed him to once again assert that talent. In Collateral Beauty he seems to get a chance to be the troublemaker he's perceived to be, and to have a redemptive arc, too. Out of Smith's three business partners he has the biggest role. Winslet and Pena's arcs are more subtle, but equally essential. The three actors, meanwhile, are arguably the best reason to watch the movie. Keira Knightley is another actor who's struggled in recent years to sustain a once-popular career, and seems to have found a role that commentates on perception. Jacob Latimore is the only unknown actor in the ensemble, but is a true revelation. But the real discovery here is Helen Mirren, who finally has a role that pierces her armor, even in a career that has taken every opportunity, likely and otherwise. Which is to say, she finally lets loose and just has fun.
This is a must-see movie for a lot of reasons. Hopefully I've helped clarify that.
Friday, February 2, 2018
2006 Capsule Reviews
The Departed
rating: *****
review: A lot of people consider this inferior to Martin Scorsese's late '70s/early '80s prime (and/or Goodfellas), but for my money, the cast he puts together and the discipline Leonardo DiCaprio shows as the lead, in what I consider his best performance, more than justifies the Best Picture from the Oscars.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
rating: *****
review: In the whole series to date, even more than Curse of the Black Pearl, I think this one best exemplifies what these films have attempted to do, which is to produce a pure adventure. In a lot of ways, Disney has attempted to duplicate this with its Avengers movies, and never quite succeeded.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
rating: *****
review: Will Ferrell's best solo film works as well as it does thanks not only to John C. Reilly but Sacha Baron Cohen. Oh, and Amy Adams! It's all the additional layers that aren't usually there in his movies that make it so memorable.
Hollywoodland
rating: *****
review: Here's Ben Affleck in one of his comeback roles, increasingly ironic in hindsight, playing Adventures of Superman actor George Reeves struggling with his career, years before Affleck himself jeopardizes that comeback by agreeing to become Batman. Also a perfect noir role for technical lead Adrien Brody.
Superman Returns
rating: *****
review: This one doesn't, ah, fly with fans who want a straightforward, fun Superman adventure in the post-Donner/Reeve era, but it's ridiculously poetic, and probably the only time that's ever gonna happen.
World Trade Center
rating: *****
review: Oliver Stone in his most unexpected movie ever, in which he unabashedly embraces patriotic rah-rah, and just lets a couple of firefighters survive a hellacious experience. An emblem of that fleeting period where the culture hadn't totally disintegrated from the post-9/11 effect.
The Da Vinci Code
rating: *****
review: Most people only mocked Tom Hanks' hairdo as the film version of Dan Brown's hero from the wildly popular book, but...yeah. The movie is pretty great. It's a continuation of Ron Howard's filmmaking from A Beautiful Mind, and features a killer turn from Ian McKellen, which in hindsight was basically the last time he got to have one in the post-Lord of the Rings glow.
Children of Men
rating: *****
review: To my mind, this was a truly great year in film, and you can tell by how adventurous filmmakers got to be. Earlier I described Superman Returns as poetic. There's little other way to describe this one, too.
The Pink Panther
rating: ****
review: My dad is a devoted fan of the Peter Sellers films. I think this Steve Martin update is a lovely ode and version of them.
We Are Marshall
rating: ****
review: Sports movies play by a familiar playbook. This one stands out for me thanks to performances from Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, and Anthony Mackie.
The Break-Up
rating: ****
review: I think the reception of this one comes down to expectations that it should have been a comedy, when it really just wanted to meditate on the painful realities some relationships take. I think it's damn near a classic, and applaud Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn as deserving far better for having appeared in it.
Lady in the Water
rating: ****
review: Here's another one that's been traditionally buried, as part of M. Night Shyamalan's perceived creative decline, his greatest overreach to that point. I think it's lovely, and it's Paul Giamatti's last great cinematic showcase.
The Proposition
rating: ****
review: This one's been routinely celebrated as a tragedy of an Australian western, and it deserves it.
The Illusionist
rating: ****
review: Out of this and The Prestige, I've always found it more magical.
16 Blocks
rating: ****
review: Is this another pattern from 2006? That it was a last chance to shine? This might have been Bruce Willis's last great performance, at least to date.
Miami Vice
rating: ****
review: This one's been winning greater respect in recent years. I think the reason it was received poorly originally was that it was seen as a Colin Farrell movie, which for a lot of people means something different than it does for me. Farrell's performance in it is one of his most understated, and it perfectly works with the tone of the movie around it.
Stranger Than Fiction
rating: ****
review: It's not hard to see this as Will Ferrell expecting to find his Truman Show, and maybe for other viewers it is, but already having long ago decided Truman Show is one of my all-time favorites, it's hard to compete.
The Prestige
rating: ****
review: It's not that it's hard to appreciate, it's that having Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman compete with each other obscures Christopher Nolan's instincts, so that the ambiguity that usually works so well almost becomes a stumbling block. It's hard to root for one without feeling you ought to root against the other. It's just odd.
Brick
rating: ****
review: Rian Johnson's breakthrough was also Joseph Gordon-Levitt's a updated noir that's enjoyable for its novelty alone.
Ask the Dust
rating: ****
review: Colin Farrell again, in his most buoyant performance.
Stick It
rating: ****
review: The range of movies I've seen from 2006 means I probably found material that I would otherwise not have seen or been able to appreciate. I think this one is wonderful as a message about empowerment.
Candy
rating: ****
review: Heath Ledger in a harrowing study about addiction.
Marie Antoinette
rating: ****
review: Sofia Coppola does a wonderful job of making a period drama look modern without being false about it, with an increasingly appealing Kirsten Dunst in perhaps her ideal showcase.
Casino Royale
rating: ****
review: The story here is Daniel Craig's sensational debut as James Bond.
Letters from Iwo Jima
rating: ****
review: Clint Eastwood's unexpected companion to Flags of Our Fathers instantly eclipsed it.
X-Men: The Last Stand
rating: ****
review: My favorite single X-Men film, which like a lot of the opinions you'll find here goes against the grain.
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
rating: ****
review: A lot of people have a lot more experience with Steve Coogan. If this remains a fairly isolated one for me, it feels like a pretty ideal one. And, I've read the book. This feels like a better way to preserve its story.
Mission: Impossible III
rating: ****
review: After the artistic flourishes of its predecessor, this was really the birth of the rest of the franchise. Seems about right, given JJ Abrams had perfected spycraft with Alias on TV.
Accepted
rating: ****
review: I never really got into '80s youth comedies, but I imagine that this is probably as close as any update could get.
United 93
rating: ****
review: It can't be considered entertaining. But it surely must be considered cathartic, in ways World Trade Center couldn't be, as a cinematic vision of 9/11.
A Good Year
rating: ****
review: Russell Crowe in a fairly low-stakes drama, testing the waters for a more human persona.
Idiocracy
rating: ****
review: As Mike Judge's bid to follow up Office Space, which became a cult favorite, it's slowly reaching that status itself. We'll see how close it gets.
The Fountain
rating: ****
review: Hugely artistic, hugely ambitious. I personally think Aronofsky achieves this vision better in Noah, having perhaps realized his overreach.
Babel
rating: ****
review: A fascinating tapestry of a world filled with great complication.
The Pursuit of Happyness
rating: Will Smith in one of his most pure spotlights.
review:
Apocalypto
rating: ****
review: Mel Gibson dips back into the past, with another vivid experience.
Over the Hedge
rating: ****
review: Like sports movies, animated flicks can all seem alike. There's just stuff that speaks to me in this one, including Bruce Willis in one of his many voiceover roles.
The Good German
rating: ****
review: Many observers claim this is a Casablanca wannabe. It's really not. Casablanca isn't noir. Good German is more like Bogart's other signature flick, The Maltese Falcon, as if its stakes were Casablanca's.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
rating: ***
review: This third entry in the series, which at the time seemed like a last gasp, is best viewed as Han's spotlight and debut, because that's what it became.
Pan's Labyrinth
rating: ***
review: I have no problem with the expansive artistry Guillermo del Toro brought to this, but it just seems as if it's wasted on a dour narrative. Limits its appeal.
Nacho Libre
rating: ***
review: Jack Black doing his best to emulate the Will Ferrell playbook.
V for Vendetta
rating: ***
review: If there was much more appeal to this than the pleasure of Hugo Weaving's voice, it's be much easier to appreciate.
Snakes on a Plane
rating: ***
review: Instantly a cult sensation thanks to the wise call to amplify the Samuel L. Jackson-ness of its appeal.
Beerfest
rating: ***
review: Loses the goofy appeal of the previous two Broken Lizard films by trying too hard to be liked.
The Devil Wears Prada
rating: ***
review: This is right about the time Meryl Streep, and critics, started loving Meryl Streep too much, for material that really just called for her to be unlikable.
The Good Shepherd
rating: ***
review: As a metaphorical study of Robert De Niro's relationship with his father, this makes a ton of sense. As a standalone product, it tries too hard.
Tideland
rating: ***
review: Easily the weirdest Terry Gilliam has ever been. Surely that tells you enough?
Down in the Valley
rating: ***
review: Edward Norton in a low-key attempt to reprise his most familiar act.
Factory Girl
rating: ***
review: Sienna Miller in a fine spotlight and look at the world of Andy Warhol.
Don't Come Knocking
rating: ***
review: Sam Shepard in a looks behind the scenes of a fading western star's career.
Saw III
rating: ***
review: As a culmination point in this series, and probably the point where it was clear the series had a story to its monster, it's rewarding, for a rare horror series I've followed to any extent.
Happy Feet
rating: ***
review: It would probably have been more fun in Robin Williams had voiced the lead character, too.
Little Miss Sunshine
rating: ***
review: As subversive a feel-good movie is ever likely to be.
Blood Diamond
rating: ***
review: DiCaprio's Oscar chances in 2006 were dulled by the belief his performance here seriously competed with what he did in The Departed.
Ultraviolet
rating: **
review: This attempt at another franchise for Milla Jovovich thought it was a comic book movie. In another two years, this would have been impossible.
Unaccompanied Minors
rating: **
review: This was all but a Tyler James Williams showcase, back when he still had a name for himself as star of Everybody Hates Chris. In hindsight, if it had been his showcase, it could've helped out both the movie and the sitcom.
A Scanner Darkly
rating: **
review: Fascinating artistic experiment, at least in theory. In hindsight seems like another of the soft attempts at a Robert Downey, Jr. reboot pre-Iron Man.
The Shaggy Dog
rating: **
review: Tim Allen (and hey! Robert Downey, Jr.!) in an excellent excuse for another voiceover performance.
The Guardian
rating: **
review: Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner in a fairly standard drama.
Beowulf and Grendel
rating: **
review: Gerard Butler's calling card for 300.
Poseidon
rating: **
review: Standard catastrophe.
Zoom
rating: **
review: Tim Allen struggling to find a vehicle.
Cars
rating: **
review: There's two audiences for this Pixar flick. One's the kid set, who'll embrace all the shiny cars. The other's the adult set who doesn't care how saccharine this particular variation on the Pixar formula is.
Just My Luck
rating: **
review: Early Chris Pine, in the kind of role that made it so hard to discover him, a romantic second lead with no real nuance.
Haven
rating: **
review: Orlando Bloom in the kind of movie that sort of justified his fall from relevance.
American Dreamz
rating: **
review: An attempt to translate American Idol into a standard Hollywood product.
When A Stranger Calls
rating: **
review: A nice little light horror.
John Tucker Must Die
rating: **
review: A nice little young adult comedy.
One Night with the King
rating: *
review: Sort of proof of why religious movies generally aren't taken seriously dramatically.
rating: *****
review: A lot of people consider this inferior to Martin Scorsese's late '70s/early '80s prime (and/or Goodfellas), but for my money, the cast he puts together and the discipline Leonardo DiCaprio shows as the lead, in what I consider his best performance, more than justifies the Best Picture from the Oscars.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
rating: *****
review: In the whole series to date, even more than Curse of the Black Pearl, I think this one best exemplifies what these films have attempted to do, which is to produce a pure adventure. In a lot of ways, Disney has attempted to duplicate this with its Avengers movies, and never quite succeeded.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
rating: *****
review: Will Ferrell's best solo film works as well as it does thanks not only to John C. Reilly but Sacha Baron Cohen. Oh, and Amy Adams! It's all the additional layers that aren't usually there in his movies that make it so memorable.
Hollywoodland
rating: *****
review: Here's Ben Affleck in one of his comeback roles, increasingly ironic in hindsight, playing Adventures of Superman actor George Reeves struggling with his career, years before Affleck himself jeopardizes that comeback by agreeing to become Batman. Also a perfect noir role for technical lead Adrien Brody.
Superman Returns
rating: *****
review: This one doesn't, ah, fly with fans who want a straightforward, fun Superman adventure in the post-Donner/Reeve era, but it's ridiculously poetic, and probably the only time that's ever gonna happen.
World Trade Center
rating: *****
review: Oliver Stone in his most unexpected movie ever, in which he unabashedly embraces patriotic rah-rah, and just lets a couple of firefighters survive a hellacious experience. An emblem of that fleeting period where the culture hadn't totally disintegrated from the post-9/11 effect.
The Da Vinci Code
rating: *****
review: Most people only mocked Tom Hanks' hairdo as the film version of Dan Brown's hero from the wildly popular book, but...yeah. The movie is pretty great. It's a continuation of Ron Howard's filmmaking from A Beautiful Mind, and features a killer turn from Ian McKellen, which in hindsight was basically the last time he got to have one in the post-Lord of the Rings glow.
Children of Men
rating: *****
review: To my mind, this was a truly great year in film, and you can tell by how adventurous filmmakers got to be. Earlier I described Superman Returns as poetic. There's little other way to describe this one, too.
The Pink Panther
rating: ****
review: My dad is a devoted fan of the Peter Sellers films. I think this Steve Martin update is a lovely ode and version of them.
We Are Marshall
rating: ****
review: Sports movies play by a familiar playbook. This one stands out for me thanks to performances from Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, and Anthony Mackie.
The Break-Up
rating: ****
review: I think the reception of this one comes down to expectations that it should have been a comedy, when it really just wanted to meditate on the painful realities some relationships take. I think it's damn near a classic, and applaud Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn as deserving far better for having appeared in it.
Lady in the Water
rating: ****
review: Here's another one that's been traditionally buried, as part of M. Night Shyamalan's perceived creative decline, his greatest overreach to that point. I think it's lovely, and it's Paul Giamatti's last great cinematic showcase.
The Proposition
rating: ****
review: This one's been routinely celebrated as a tragedy of an Australian western, and it deserves it.
The Illusionist
rating: ****
review: Out of this and The Prestige, I've always found it more magical.
16 Blocks
rating: ****
review: Is this another pattern from 2006? That it was a last chance to shine? This might have been Bruce Willis's last great performance, at least to date.
Miami Vice
rating: ****
review: This one's been winning greater respect in recent years. I think the reason it was received poorly originally was that it was seen as a Colin Farrell movie, which for a lot of people means something different than it does for me. Farrell's performance in it is one of his most understated, and it perfectly works with the tone of the movie around it.
Stranger Than Fiction
rating: ****
review: It's not hard to see this as Will Ferrell expecting to find his Truman Show, and maybe for other viewers it is, but already having long ago decided Truman Show is one of my all-time favorites, it's hard to compete.
The Prestige
rating: ****
review: It's not that it's hard to appreciate, it's that having Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman compete with each other obscures Christopher Nolan's instincts, so that the ambiguity that usually works so well almost becomes a stumbling block. It's hard to root for one without feeling you ought to root against the other. It's just odd.
Brick
rating: ****
review: Rian Johnson's breakthrough was also Joseph Gordon-Levitt's a updated noir that's enjoyable for its novelty alone.
Ask the Dust
rating: ****
review: Colin Farrell again, in his most buoyant performance.
Stick It
rating: ****
review: The range of movies I've seen from 2006 means I probably found material that I would otherwise not have seen or been able to appreciate. I think this one is wonderful as a message about empowerment.
Candy
rating: ****
review: Heath Ledger in a harrowing study about addiction.
Marie Antoinette
rating: ****
review: Sofia Coppola does a wonderful job of making a period drama look modern without being false about it, with an increasingly appealing Kirsten Dunst in perhaps her ideal showcase.
Casino Royale
rating: ****
review: The story here is Daniel Craig's sensational debut as James Bond.
Letters from Iwo Jima
rating: ****
review: Clint Eastwood's unexpected companion to Flags of Our Fathers instantly eclipsed it.
X-Men: The Last Stand
rating: ****
review: My favorite single X-Men film, which like a lot of the opinions you'll find here goes against the grain.
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
rating: ****
review: A lot of people have a lot more experience with Steve Coogan. If this remains a fairly isolated one for me, it feels like a pretty ideal one. And, I've read the book. This feels like a better way to preserve its story.
Mission: Impossible III
rating: ****
review: After the artistic flourishes of its predecessor, this was really the birth of the rest of the franchise. Seems about right, given JJ Abrams had perfected spycraft with Alias on TV.
Accepted
rating: ****
review: I never really got into '80s youth comedies, but I imagine that this is probably as close as any update could get.
United 93
rating: ****
review: It can't be considered entertaining. But it surely must be considered cathartic, in ways World Trade Center couldn't be, as a cinematic vision of 9/11.
A Good Year
rating: ****
review: Russell Crowe in a fairly low-stakes drama, testing the waters for a more human persona.
Idiocracy
rating: ****
review: As Mike Judge's bid to follow up Office Space, which became a cult favorite, it's slowly reaching that status itself. We'll see how close it gets.
The Fountain
rating: ****
review: Hugely artistic, hugely ambitious. I personally think Aronofsky achieves this vision better in Noah, having perhaps realized his overreach.
Babel
rating: ****
review: A fascinating tapestry of a world filled with great complication.
The Pursuit of Happyness
rating: Will Smith in one of his most pure spotlights.
review:
Apocalypto
rating: ****
review: Mel Gibson dips back into the past, with another vivid experience.
Over the Hedge
rating: ****
review: Like sports movies, animated flicks can all seem alike. There's just stuff that speaks to me in this one, including Bruce Willis in one of his many voiceover roles.
The Good German
rating: ****
review: Many observers claim this is a Casablanca wannabe. It's really not. Casablanca isn't noir. Good German is more like Bogart's other signature flick, The Maltese Falcon, as if its stakes were Casablanca's.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
rating: ***
review: This third entry in the series, which at the time seemed like a last gasp, is best viewed as Han's spotlight and debut, because that's what it became.
Pan's Labyrinth
rating: ***
review: I have no problem with the expansive artistry Guillermo del Toro brought to this, but it just seems as if it's wasted on a dour narrative. Limits its appeal.
Nacho Libre
rating: ***
review: Jack Black doing his best to emulate the Will Ferrell playbook.
V for Vendetta
rating: ***
review: If there was much more appeal to this than the pleasure of Hugo Weaving's voice, it's be much easier to appreciate.
Snakes on a Plane
rating: ***
review: Instantly a cult sensation thanks to the wise call to amplify the Samuel L. Jackson-ness of its appeal.
Beerfest
rating: ***
review: Loses the goofy appeal of the previous two Broken Lizard films by trying too hard to be liked.
The Devil Wears Prada
rating: ***
review: This is right about the time Meryl Streep, and critics, started loving Meryl Streep too much, for material that really just called for her to be unlikable.
The Good Shepherd
rating: ***
review: As a metaphorical study of Robert De Niro's relationship with his father, this makes a ton of sense. As a standalone product, it tries too hard.
Tideland
rating: ***
review: Easily the weirdest Terry Gilliam has ever been. Surely that tells you enough?
Down in the Valley
rating: ***
review: Edward Norton in a low-key attempt to reprise his most familiar act.
Factory Girl
rating: ***
review: Sienna Miller in a fine spotlight and look at the world of Andy Warhol.
Don't Come Knocking
rating: ***
review: Sam Shepard in a looks behind the scenes of a fading western star's career.
Saw III
rating: ***
review: As a culmination point in this series, and probably the point where it was clear the series had a story to its monster, it's rewarding, for a rare horror series I've followed to any extent.
Happy Feet
rating: ***
review: It would probably have been more fun in Robin Williams had voiced the lead character, too.
Little Miss Sunshine
rating: ***
review: As subversive a feel-good movie is ever likely to be.
Blood Diamond
rating: ***
review: DiCaprio's Oscar chances in 2006 were dulled by the belief his performance here seriously competed with what he did in The Departed.
Ultraviolet
rating: **
review: This attempt at another franchise for Milla Jovovich thought it was a comic book movie. In another two years, this would have been impossible.
Unaccompanied Minors
rating: **
review: This was all but a Tyler James Williams showcase, back when he still had a name for himself as star of Everybody Hates Chris. In hindsight, if it had been his showcase, it could've helped out both the movie and the sitcom.
A Scanner Darkly
rating: **
review: Fascinating artistic experiment, at least in theory. In hindsight seems like another of the soft attempts at a Robert Downey, Jr. reboot pre-Iron Man.
The Shaggy Dog
rating: **
review: Tim Allen (and hey! Robert Downey, Jr.!) in an excellent excuse for another voiceover performance.
The Guardian
rating: **
review: Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner in a fairly standard drama.
Beowulf and Grendel
rating: **
review: Gerard Butler's calling card for 300.
Poseidon
rating: **
review: Standard catastrophe.
Zoom
rating: **
review: Tim Allen struggling to find a vehicle.
Cars
rating: **
review: There's two audiences for this Pixar flick. One's the kid set, who'll embrace all the shiny cars. The other's the adult set who doesn't care how saccharine this particular variation on the Pixar formula is.
Just My Luck
rating: **
review: Early Chris Pine, in the kind of role that made it so hard to discover him, a romantic second lead with no real nuance.
Haven
rating: **
review: Orlando Bloom in the kind of movie that sort of justified his fall from relevance.
American Dreamz
rating: **
review: An attempt to translate American Idol into a standard Hollywood product.
When A Stranger Calls
rating: **
review: A nice little light horror.
John Tucker Must Die
rating: **
review: A nice little young adult comedy.
One Night with the King
rating: *
review: Sort of proof of why religious movies generally aren't taken seriously dramatically.
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