rating: ****
the story: A thirty-something unexpectedly reconnects with his college self when visiting a retiring professor.
review: Josh Radnor's bid to be recognized in the same league as Zach Braff, Liberal Arts is the kind of small film that reminds you why small films are important, too. Like Braff (best known for Scrubs before making a brief transition into film glory with Garden State), Radnor is best known for his starring role in a sitcom (How I Met Your Mother) but subsequently made a push into making his own movies. Liberal Arts was the second of two movies he's directed to date.
It's the story of the struggle to reconcile real life with the kind experienced in college. Radnor's character feels lost in the real world. Everything he valued in college seems meaningless outside of it. At college, literature and poetry didn't feel out of place.
Any good review will tell you why the reviewer feels connected to that particular material. Radnor's thoughts are much my own. Even working at a bookstore for five years wasn't anywhere close to the literary immersion I experienced at college. I often found myself wondering who these book people were who showed up at the store, because I never really recognized them. Sure, they read, but they didn't seem to feel any of it. It was just an obligation to them. For a lot of students, reading is an obligation, too, but the sheer volume of students means there's a greater chance of finding, inside and out of the classroom, other people who get it, who aren't just going through the motions.
But Liberal Arts ultimately concludes that you need to stick your head out of the books, too, and while it's not a new message, and the story feels like a collegiate exercise, it's done with conviction, it feels real. It doesn't attempt to give you all the answers. Like Radnor's work in How I Met Your Mother, it's a subtle reminder that life is a struggle for everyone, but that magic can sometimes happen, too, mostly in the connections we make along the way. Radnor's old professor is played by Richard Jenkins, who has cornered the market on this kind of character, who's aged and agitated, but also a welcome presence, someone you want around. Allison Janney plays Radnor's favorite poetry professor, and while her part is smaller and more stereotypical, even she gets to have an open ending. Zac Efron has a small but memorable part as a kind of spiritual guru, a part he would probably never have played outside of this film. Elizabeth Olsen, the kid sister of the famous twins, had a breakout role as the college girl who nudges Radnor along to better understanding his predicament. Elizabeth Reaser gets to benefit from that as the bookseller who becomes his girlfriend.
Maybe it's a movie that speaks so directly to me, with a lead actor I already like, and so that's why I think it's good. And maybe it's just one of those movies that fills a whole in the cultural narrative, and its value is objectively visible, and you just need someone like me to help point it out. I wish Radnor had gotten to make more movies (there's obviously still time). He and Braff are representing an entire generation, one that can easily get lost in the shuffle, a generation that took a lot of things for granted and started finding out that not everything benefited them the way they thought it would. This is the kind of stuff a previous generation (or two or three) of movie stars got to make whole careers out of. And this is what it looks like today.
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Thursday, October 11, 2018
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
rating: ****
the story: Sisters attempting to handle the illness of their mother find unexpected solace in a magical creature.
review: So, my niece has become positively obsessed with My Neighbor Totoro in recent months. My relationship with the works of Hayao Miyazaki is not perfect by any means, but thanks to repeated viewings of Totoro, I think I've finally found the movie that at last helps me see the magic that has helped him become the Japanese version of Disney.
It's perhaps worth noting that the version of Totoro I've been watching is a Disney product, the 2005 English translation with Tim Daly as the dad and sisters Elle and Dakota Fanning as Mei and Satsuki, respectively. Mei's the younger of the two and responsible for all the best moments in the movie, including and most importantly discovering Tororo in the first place. Totoro, unlike virtually everything else I've discovered in Miyazaki movies, is a harmless, lovable giant ball of fur. Miyazaki appears to my untrained eye an animated disciple of the peculiar, post-WWII, Godzilla-fueled purveyor of monster imagery in modern Japanese pop culture. The wider anime and manga material around him doesn't really match his depth or ambition, which is probably half the reason Miyazaki began to stand out in the first place, but curiously Totoro is more like that stuff than his typical work.
Besides Totoro is the Catbus, which is also entirely innocuous and unquestioningly helpful in Mei's adventures. Mei and her sister get to be typical little girls for most of the movie. They move into a new home at the beginning, and their first discovery is the presence of soot sprites (or gremlins), which Mei eventually tries to capture with an enthusiastic handclap (no luck, alas, just soot). They moved to be closer to the hospital where their mother has been recovering when an undisclosed illness. My only real criticism of Totoro is the ill-defined nature of the mother's predicament. It's tough to compare with something like A Monster Calls, which tackles a similar story with far more gusto.
But clearly there's whimsy and fanciful spirit in Totoro that A Monster Calls can't match, either, a perfect encapsulation, in some ways, of childhood, of its inherent magic, that even Disney and Pixar have never been able to capture.
So maybe in time I'll forget my quibble. My Neighbor Totoro might be an unqualified classic. Hail Miyazaki!
the story: Sisters attempting to handle the illness of their mother find unexpected solace in a magical creature.
review: So, my niece has become positively obsessed with My Neighbor Totoro in recent months. My relationship with the works of Hayao Miyazaki is not perfect by any means, but thanks to repeated viewings of Totoro, I think I've finally found the movie that at last helps me see the magic that has helped him become the Japanese version of Disney.
It's perhaps worth noting that the version of Totoro I've been watching is a Disney product, the 2005 English translation with Tim Daly as the dad and sisters Elle and Dakota Fanning as Mei and Satsuki, respectively. Mei's the younger of the two and responsible for all the best moments in the movie, including and most importantly discovering Tororo in the first place. Totoro, unlike virtually everything else I've discovered in Miyazaki movies, is a harmless, lovable giant ball of fur. Miyazaki appears to my untrained eye an animated disciple of the peculiar, post-WWII, Godzilla-fueled purveyor of monster imagery in modern Japanese pop culture. The wider anime and manga material around him doesn't really match his depth or ambition, which is probably half the reason Miyazaki began to stand out in the first place, but curiously Totoro is more like that stuff than his typical work.
Besides Totoro is the Catbus, which is also entirely innocuous and unquestioningly helpful in Mei's adventures. Mei and her sister get to be typical little girls for most of the movie. They move into a new home at the beginning, and their first discovery is the presence of soot sprites (or gremlins), which Mei eventually tries to capture with an enthusiastic handclap (no luck, alas, just soot). They moved to be closer to the hospital where their mother has been recovering when an undisclosed illness. My only real criticism of Totoro is the ill-defined nature of the mother's predicament. It's tough to compare with something like A Monster Calls, which tackles a similar story with far more gusto.
But clearly there's whimsy and fanciful spirit in Totoro that A Monster Calls can't match, either, a perfect encapsulation, in some ways, of childhood, of its inherent magic, that even Disney and Pixar have never been able to capture.
So maybe in time I'll forget my quibble. My Neighbor Totoro might be an unqualified classic. Hail Miyazaki!
Saturday, September 22, 2018
More from just below the Top Ten Favorites
Recently I offered you a look at my new top ten favorite films, and films that had dropped out from earlier versions of the list. I realized later that I meant to mention another movie, and had neglected another previous top ten entry or three, which would also somewhat mitigate the fact that my favorites are all so recent.
The first movie I'd like to mention is Warrior (2011). This was without a doubt a thunderbolt of an experience for me. I've been a fan of Tom Hardy since I first saw him in a movie, and was glad when he finally began to receive wide acclaim. This was something he did early on in the new era, and on top of that also features a breakout performance from Joe Edgerton as his brother, as they follow different paths to an unlikely confrontation in the finals of a prestigious MMA tournament. Director Gavin O'Connor, who is certainly a favorite of mine and massively underrated, pulls every bit of magic possible, and makes all of the story's twists seem utterly believable. This is a movie that's always at or near my list of all-time favorites.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) is endlessly quotable. I recently finally got older than Dennis. Kudos if you understand that.
Office Space (1999) is another cult comedy worth its weight in quotables. My most frequent reference these days remains the red stapler.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) is my personal favorite Will Ferrell comedy. It has every moving part possible, including Amy Adams in one of her many pre-breakout supporting roles as well as Sasha Baron Cohen before people who would never get him as a thoroughly obnoxious Frenchman. There are never enough of those! And I'm from French stock!
And with three out of four movies I just listed being comedies, that's pretty much why I was happy to find something like Isle of Dogs this year. Comedy is easy. Classic comedy is hard!
The first movie I'd like to mention is Warrior (2011). This was without a doubt a thunderbolt of an experience for me. I've been a fan of Tom Hardy since I first saw him in a movie, and was glad when he finally began to receive wide acclaim. This was something he did early on in the new era, and on top of that also features a breakout performance from Joe Edgerton as his brother, as they follow different paths to an unlikely confrontation in the finals of a prestigious MMA tournament. Director Gavin O'Connor, who is certainly a favorite of mine and massively underrated, pulls every bit of magic possible, and makes all of the story's twists seem utterly believable. This is a movie that's always at or near my list of all-time favorites.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) is endlessly quotable. I recently finally got older than Dennis. Kudos if you understand that.
Office Space (1999) is another cult comedy worth its weight in quotables. My most frequent reference these days remains the red stapler.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) is my personal favorite Will Ferrell comedy. It has every moving part possible, including Amy Adams in one of her many pre-breakout supporting roles as well as Sasha Baron Cohen before people who would never get him as a thoroughly obnoxious Frenchman. There are never enough of those! And I'm from French stock!
And with three out of four movies I just listed being comedies, that's pretty much why I was happy to find something like Isle of Dogs this year. Comedy is easy. Classic comedy is hard!
Sunday, September 16, 2018
New Top Ten All-Time Favorites
- Alexander (2004) This has sat atop my list since I originally caught it on DVD in 2005 and watched absolutely mesmerized. Colin Farrell is my favorite actor, and Oliver Stone has directed many excellent movies, and is one of the few directors with a long career I can say I've seen most of his material (the exceptions are his earliest work). The supporting cast around Farrell is superb. There's nothing I don't like about it, and I love that Stone has a lot of competing cuts out there. I've watched all of them, and they all have selling points.
- The Truman Show (1998) Before Farrell, Jim Carrey was my favorite, and this is inarguably his biggest creative statement.
- The Fall (2006) Tarsem is a visionary director years ahead of his time, and this is his masterpiece, finally released in theaters two years later. The more I think about it the more I love it.
- The Dark Knight (2008) Christopher Nolan had been on versions of this list before thanks to Memento, but he's won a permanent foothold, I think, thanks to this expansive, mythical take on modern superheroes, boosted with Heath Ledger's timely (occurring just before his tragic early death) as well as timeless take on the Joker.
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) Brad Pitt has long wanted to be seen as more than just a pretty face, and in Jesse James, especially as conceived by Andrew Dominik (based on a book by Ron Hansen), he found his perfect vehicle to perform the barely contained wild man he's long wanted to be.
- Isle of Dogs (2018) Rewatchability, for me, has always been key for determining my favorite movies, and this one has attained that coveted status somewhat unexpectedly. Is it premature to list it among my all-time favorites? I don't think so.
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) The Harry Potter phenomenon happened twice in short order, in book and film. To my mind this particular film entry is the perfect representation of the film series.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) A perfect adventure movie with plenty of charm around Johnny Depp's instantly iconic Jack Sparrow, better balanced than its predecessor and needing less to actually accomplish than its sequel (never mind the later efforts).
- Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) The most ambitious of the whole Star Wars saga because it needed to be, having to justify shaping the prequels around how Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, and accomplishing it in at times literally operatic fashion. Breathtakingly ahead of the curve, even when compared to contemporary efforts like Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996) I'm a confessed Star Trek fan, so I've not only seen all the movies and TV episodes, I generally like all of them. Not a lot of fans will say that, and too few of them appreciate the perfect Patrick Stewart vehicle that is First Contact.
- The Departed (2006) Leonardo DiCaprio delivers a hugely underrated career-best performance in this Scorsese ensemble filled-to-bursting with a terrific supporting cast. One of the reasons it's slipped for me is that Matt Damon's performance as DiCaprio's rival peaks too early.
- Gladiator (2000) My appreciation hasn't diminished so much as Ridley Scott has done stuff (Kingdom of Heaven, Exodus: Gods and Kings) of similar quality since and it's harder to justify singling this one out.
- Memento (2001) Nolan's breakthrough is still as clever as ever, and with a small but brilliant cast, but he's done bigger and better since.
- The Matrix (1999) My franchise favorites (bunched up mostly at the end of the current list) have expanded since the first in an underappreciated trilogy came out.
- Munich (2005) Nobody but me (like Scorsese and Departed) calls this Spielberg's best. And it has Eric Bana and Daniel Craig (just before Bond) in career-best mode, and a terrifically moody John Williams score...Of all the past favorites hovering just below the top ten, this one's maybe the closest of getting back in.
- Tarantino - Take your pick. For me every new movie seems to become my favorite Tarantino. Kill Bill Vol. 2, then Inglourious Basterds, then Django Unchained...Lately my appreciation of Hateful Eight has risen, and I wondered if that ought to be in the top ten. So maybe in a few years I'll have this figured out.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Moneyball (2011)
rating: ****
the story: Billy Beane starts a revolution in baseball by putting the hard focus on stats.
the review: I was always going to watch Moneyball, but I also put it off for years. The reason for both is the same, and that's Brad Pitt. Pitt's one of the best actors working today, but his best work is retreating into the past, and I always thought Moneyball was the start of that. I mean, what does Moneyball have to say about his talent, his unique charisma? It's a movie about baseball stats!
As it turns out, plenty. It's one of those quintessential Pitt roles. It's a lot like his Jesse James (as in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, one of my all-time favorites). In fact, that's the best reason to watch it. I've got and will go into plenty of others, too, but that's the main reason, and it's the big thrust of the movie itself. It conforms real history into a showcase performance. You can't appreciate the art of filmmaking if you watch a movie like Moneyball and don't understand that. I'm not talking "showcase performance" in that Pitt makes it flashy, but that it's a role that boils down the essence of a Brad Pitt performance and gives it another context. That's a movie star. And maybe that's why Pitt doesn't get a lot of great roles these days, because the focus had shifted far away from movie stars and onto blockbuster franchises (actual and would-be). So far the closest Pitt's come to work like that is the unexpected success of World War Z (which I also got around to watching recently, and enjoyed to a lesser extent).
Billy Beane was the general manager of the Oakland Athletics during the 2002 season the movie covers. The A's were struggling to recover from the loss of three key players from a great 2001 campaign, mostly because of, well, money. In fact, Moneyball is less about baseball than it is about money. It's a Great Recession movie. It's about a small market team struggling to remain competitive against big market teams. The movie uses a graphic that explains the huge disparity between the payroll of the A's and the most successful franchise in MLB history, the New York Yankees. Basically it's about the haves and the have-nots, the 1% and the lower class. (It may be worth remembering that although athletes are paid handsomely today, more in some sports than others, and more with greater visibility, they used to do this as a side hobby back in the day, as in, for no pay. Jim Thorpe got screwed out of Olympic glory because he played baseball for money, but these guys used to struggle on this life. In other words, this isn't to note the irony of people playing baseball complaining about money. Relatively speaking, Moneyball is talking about all the players making minimum wage.)
Moneyball, in effect, is the predecessor of later movies like The Big Short (2015). In that sense it's also relevant to speak of co-writer Aaron Sorkin's involvement. It may not be known as an Aaron Sorkin project, but it's got Sorkin all over it. Above all else, Sorkin is always interested in trying to riddle out why something's happened. That's The West Wing, trying to figure out why politics remained popular despite how divisive they had become and were going to remain long after the TV series ended. That's The Social Network, trying to figure out how Facebook became so big despite its humbling origins. That's Jobs, trying to explain the rise of new technology against a backdrop of a classic cult of personality. That's even Molly's Game, trying to explain gambling being as relevant as ever. And that's Moneyball, trying to explain how the Great Recession wasn't going to change anything. The story ends with Beane failing to achieve his goal of leveling the playing field. Red Sox fans know another big market team used his tactics to succeed, and now everyone uses them, and so small market teams like the A's are right back where they started. Like any attempt to fix the economy so it works for everyone, apparently.
But you needn't worry about politics or economics to enjoy Moneyball. Like all great movies, you've got a great cast, one that continually rewards you. You've got the always-underrated Robin Wright there in another thankless supporting role. You've got Philip Seymour Hoffman in his classic Patch Adams mode, the mainstream naysayer standing in Beane's way as A's manager. You've got Jonah Hill reinventing his career as a dramatic actor, inspiring and encouraging Beane to look beyond the standard. And you've got...Chris Pratt?
In 2011, Pratt was two years into his career-making turn in the sitcom Parks & Recreation, three away from his breakout role in Guardians of the Galaxy. In Moneyball he plays one of three key small-salary players Beane scoops up to replace superstars. I can't be sure that this isn't hindsight speaking, but he easily stands out from the pack, acting-wise, and even in a small role stands out in the film, without hamming it up, as he does in Guardians. (In Parks he was cast in the John Krasinski Office role, and not unsurprisingly both have since taken the classic lovable everyman role to cinematic success.) Anyway, it's clear he stands out, that he's destined for greater things, and so it's a fun way to experience Pratt before he hit big. For all I know, Moneyball played a role in helping him get there.
As a lifelong fan of the A's, I always wanted to see the movie just on that front alone, and I wanted to know whether it acknowledged Beane's legacy with the 2004 Red Sox win in the World Series, and whether or not it referenced the "Greek God of Walks," Kevin Youkilis (items two and three? check and check). (Of course Beane usurper Theo Epstein, who helped engineer Boston's 2004 curse reversal, did it again with the Cubs after the film was released.)
The film puts a hard focus on some things and a soft one on others. It glosses over the ace pitching staff the A's had that season, all of whom were later poached (I've long called the A's the farm system of the rest of the league, which made it funny when Beane laments the same thing in the movie) by other teams. Clearly it has a narrative it wants to tell. I'm not going to quibble over stuff like that. As I said, it's really an excuse to let Pitt be Brad Pitt. I'll take that. Yeah...
the story: Billy Beane starts a revolution in baseball by putting the hard focus on stats.
the review: I was always going to watch Moneyball, but I also put it off for years. The reason for both is the same, and that's Brad Pitt. Pitt's one of the best actors working today, but his best work is retreating into the past, and I always thought Moneyball was the start of that. I mean, what does Moneyball have to say about his talent, his unique charisma? It's a movie about baseball stats!
As it turns out, plenty. It's one of those quintessential Pitt roles. It's a lot like his Jesse James (as in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, one of my all-time favorites). In fact, that's the best reason to watch it. I've got and will go into plenty of others, too, but that's the main reason, and it's the big thrust of the movie itself. It conforms real history into a showcase performance. You can't appreciate the art of filmmaking if you watch a movie like Moneyball and don't understand that. I'm not talking "showcase performance" in that Pitt makes it flashy, but that it's a role that boils down the essence of a Brad Pitt performance and gives it another context. That's a movie star. And maybe that's why Pitt doesn't get a lot of great roles these days, because the focus had shifted far away from movie stars and onto blockbuster franchises (actual and would-be). So far the closest Pitt's come to work like that is the unexpected success of World War Z (which I also got around to watching recently, and enjoyed to a lesser extent).
Billy Beane was the general manager of the Oakland Athletics during the 2002 season the movie covers. The A's were struggling to recover from the loss of three key players from a great 2001 campaign, mostly because of, well, money. In fact, Moneyball is less about baseball than it is about money. It's a Great Recession movie. It's about a small market team struggling to remain competitive against big market teams. The movie uses a graphic that explains the huge disparity between the payroll of the A's and the most successful franchise in MLB history, the New York Yankees. Basically it's about the haves and the have-nots, the 1% and the lower class. (It may be worth remembering that although athletes are paid handsomely today, more in some sports than others, and more with greater visibility, they used to do this as a side hobby back in the day, as in, for no pay. Jim Thorpe got screwed out of Olympic glory because he played baseball for money, but these guys used to struggle on this life. In other words, this isn't to note the irony of people playing baseball complaining about money. Relatively speaking, Moneyball is talking about all the players making minimum wage.)
Moneyball, in effect, is the predecessor of later movies like The Big Short (2015). In that sense it's also relevant to speak of co-writer Aaron Sorkin's involvement. It may not be known as an Aaron Sorkin project, but it's got Sorkin all over it. Above all else, Sorkin is always interested in trying to riddle out why something's happened. That's The West Wing, trying to figure out why politics remained popular despite how divisive they had become and were going to remain long after the TV series ended. That's The Social Network, trying to figure out how Facebook became so big despite its humbling origins. That's Jobs, trying to explain the rise of new technology against a backdrop of a classic cult of personality. That's even Molly's Game, trying to explain gambling being as relevant as ever. And that's Moneyball, trying to explain how the Great Recession wasn't going to change anything. The story ends with Beane failing to achieve his goal of leveling the playing field. Red Sox fans know another big market team used his tactics to succeed, and now everyone uses them, and so small market teams like the A's are right back where they started. Like any attempt to fix the economy so it works for everyone, apparently.
But you needn't worry about politics or economics to enjoy Moneyball. Like all great movies, you've got a great cast, one that continually rewards you. You've got the always-underrated Robin Wright there in another thankless supporting role. You've got Philip Seymour Hoffman in his classic Patch Adams mode, the mainstream naysayer standing in Beane's way as A's manager. You've got Jonah Hill reinventing his career as a dramatic actor, inspiring and encouraging Beane to look beyond the standard. And you've got...Chris Pratt?
In 2011, Pratt was two years into his career-making turn in the sitcom Parks & Recreation, three away from his breakout role in Guardians of the Galaxy. In Moneyball he plays one of three key small-salary players Beane scoops up to replace superstars. I can't be sure that this isn't hindsight speaking, but he easily stands out from the pack, acting-wise, and even in a small role stands out in the film, without hamming it up, as he does in Guardians. (In Parks he was cast in the John Krasinski Office role, and not unsurprisingly both have since taken the classic lovable everyman role to cinematic success.) Anyway, it's clear he stands out, that he's destined for greater things, and so it's a fun way to experience Pratt before he hit big. For all I know, Moneyball played a role in helping him get there.
As a lifelong fan of the A's, I always wanted to see the movie just on that front alone, and I wanted to know whether it acknowledged Beane's legacy with the 2004 Red Sox win in the World Series, and whether or not it referenced the "Greek God of Walks," Kevin Youkilis (items two and three? check and check). (Of course Beane usurper Theo Epstein, who helped engineer Boston's 2004 curse reversal, did it again with the Cubs after the film was released.)
The film puts a hard focus on some things and a soft one on others. It glosses over the ace pitching staff the A's had that season, all of whom were later poached (I've long called the A's the farm system of the rest of the league, which made it funny when Beane laments the same thing in the movie) by other teams. Clearly it has a narrative it wants to tell. I'm not going to quibble over stuff like that. As I said, it's really an excuse to let Pitt be Brad Pitt. I'll take that. Yeah...
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Isle of Dogs (2018)
rating: *****
the story: A corrupt politician creates a conspiracy to exile all dogs, but his adopted son mounts a campaign to rescue them.
what it's all about: The exact parallels aren't there, and they don't need to be, but Isle of Dogs might be the first great cinematic response to Trump, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. Its plot can be seen as a response to Trump's immigration policies. But regardless of all that, it's a great film, the crowning artistic achievement of Wes Anderson's career.
Anderson has made a career of creating quirky movies. He's become increasingly ambitious over the years. 2001's The Royal Tenenbaums was his first widely-acknowledged success, but Anderson took a giant leap forward with his follow-up, 2004's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which can be interpreted as a modern, absurdist's version of Moby-Dick. 2009's Fantastic Mr. Fox, a stylistic herald to Isle of Dogs, saw Anderson begin to break free entirely of conventions, while 2014's The Grand Budapest Hotel saw him emerge on a truly grand scale for the first time.
Isle of Dogs, no matter how you interpret it, even if it's only to be understood as a generic cautionary tale, is a wholly contained accomplishment, a complete vision capable of being enjoyed on multiple levels. The title itself is a nod and a wink; you can love it if all you are is a dog lover. This is an era that relishes simple pleasures, after all. You can relish it for the rich vocal cast, a true embarrassment of riches that continues Grand Budapest Hotel's most simple pleasure, all those small roles filled by well-known actors. You have Bryan Cranston, still justifiably riding the wave of his breakthrough performance in Breaking Bad, in the lead role. You have Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber just below him. You have Bill Murray, you have Jeff Goldblum, you have Scarlett Johansson, you have Bob Balaban, Greta Gerwig, Harvey Keitel. You even have Fisher Stevens! You have Courtney B. Vance as narrator!
You can appreciate it as a boy's quest movie. You can appreciate it as the rare movie omitting subtitles despite heavy usage of Japanese characters speaking Japanese. You can appreciate it for subverting the "white savior" concept, despite criticism that it plays into that concept. Gerwig voices an American schoolgirl who leads a peoples revolution against the corrupt politician, but in the end it isn't her actions that produce the happy ending, but the adopted son's, who is Japanese, and the dogs, all of whom have plenty of reasons not to work together, but do. And that's as much the message of the movie as anything else, that idea of putting aside differences that seems to have been utterly lost today.
The music is intrinsic to all this. Not just the taiko drumming. Another criticism of the movie is that it takes a white man's poor understanding of Japanese culture and assumes it's being accurate. The whole point of omitting subtitles is acknowledging the cultural divides that even the dogs represent, speaking English (dogs don't speak English). It's metaphor, people. There's nothing intrinsically Japanese about this movie, it's a creative choice, in a movie brilliantly bursting with them. Very few directors in history have made as many of them, and as many of them as well, as Wes Anderson has in Isle of Dogs. The constant drum beats, with or without taiko drums, and the anonymous indy-style songs, are incumbent of a talent who has been synthesizing the castoffs of film history for decades, and come up with a masterpiece from them.
I don't know if this is going to remain my favorite movie of 2018, but it's going to be difficult to beat.
the story: A corrupt politician creates a conspiracy to exile all dogs, but his adopted son mounts a campaign to rescue them.
what it's all about: The exact parallels aren't there, and they don't need to be, but Isle of Dogs might be the first great cinematic response to Trump, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. Its plot can be seen as a response to Trump's immigration policies. But regardless of all that, it's a great film, the crowning artistic achievement of Wes Anderson's career.
Anderson has made a career of creating quirky movies. He's become increasingly ambitious over the years. 2001's The Royal Tenenbaums was his first widely-acknowledged success, but Anderson took a giant leap forward with his follow-up, 2004's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which can be interpreted as a modern, absurdist's version of Moby-Dick. 2009's Fantastic Mr. Fox, a stylistic herald to Isle of Dogs, saw Anderson begin to break free entirely of conventions, while 2014's The Grand Budapest Hotel saw him emerge on a truly grand scale for the first time.
Isle of Dogs, no matter how you interpret it, even if it's only to be understood as a generic cautionary tale, is a wholly contained accomplishment, a complete vision capable of being enjoyed on multiple levels. The title itself is a nod and a wink; you can love it if all you are is a dog lover. This is an era that relishes simple pleasures, after all. You can relish it for the rich vocal cast, a true embarrassment of riches that continues Grand Budapest Hotel's most simple pleasure, all those small roles filled by well-known actors. You have Bryan Cranston, still justifiably riding the wave of his breakthrough performance in Breaking Bad, in the lead role. You have Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber just below him. You have Bill Murray, you have Jeff Goldblum, you have Scarlett Johansson, you have Bob Balaban, Greta Gerwig, Harvey Keitel. You even have Fisher Stevens! You have Courtney B. Vance as narrator!
You can appreciate it as a boy's quest movie. You can appreciate it as the rare movie omitting subtitles despite heavy usage of Japanese characters speaking Japanese. You can appreciate it for subverting the "white savior" concept, despite criticism that it plays into that concept. Gerwig voices an American schoolgirl who leads a peoples revolution against the corrupt politician, but in the end it isn't her actions that produce the happy ending, but the adopted son's, who is Japanese, and the dogs, all of whom have plenty of reasons not to work together, but do. And that's as much the message of the movie as anything else, that idea of putting aside differences that seems to have been utterly lost today.
The music is intrinsic to all this. Not just the taiko drumming. Another criticism of the movie is that it takes a white man's poor understanding of Japanese culture and assumes it's being accurate. The whole point of omitting subtitles is acknowledging the cultural divides that even the dogs represent, speaking English (dogs don't speak English). It's metaphor, people. There's nothing intrinsically Japanese about this movie, it's a creative choice, in a movie brilliantly bursting with them. Very few directors in history have made as many of them, and as many of them as well, as Wes Anderson has in Isle of Dogs. The constant drum beats, with or without taiko drums, and the anonymous indy-style songs, are incumbent of a talent who has been synthesizing the castoffs of film history for decades, and come up with a masterpiece from them.
I don't know if this is going to remain my favorite movie of 2018, but it's going to be difficult to beat.
Citizen Kane (1941)
rating: *****
the story: Family comes into money, boy is sent to grow up rich, spends his life disappointed with the results.
what it's all about: What to say about Citizen Kane that hasn't already been said? If it's not indeed the greatest movie ever made, it's at least the first evidence that film is a medium capable of producing great art. We live in an era, now, that alternately worships popular art and fringe art, and there's very little room to laude anything in-between. Popular art makes all the money at the box office, and fringe art wins all the awards. It's absurd. And then we have Citizen Kane. I think it would be equally doomed today as it was when William Randolph Hearst realized Orson Welles had based a large chunk of it on his life. Hearst effectively blacklisted Welles from Hollywood, as an untethered voice, and declared that art, in Hollywood, came with a price. The studios, then and again now, liked their iron grip, regardless of the results (which is not to say the results must always be construed negatively), and were happy to balk at someone like Welles, who challenged them. In the '60s a whole generation of directors came about to expand the legacy of Citizen Kane, a movement that crested in the '90s, when smaller studios realized they had power, too, in wielding such creative forces, and set about believing they were more important. But in art, it is always the artist, and the artist will always be remembered. You can push an artist to greatness, but as evidenced by The Agony and the Ecstasy, you will find yourself hard-pressed to be remembered positively for it.
Anyway, what about the movie itself? Beyond the visionary techniques? What about the story itself? What does it ultimately say? One of the most overt things about it is that Charles Foster Kane doesn't love others so much as yearns for them to love him. This is one of those things Kane subverts about the tenets of storytelling: he tells more than he shows. He's too busy showing the opulence to bother with rules. He understands that telling is showing, because it reveals the heart of the human experience, since for the subject of his movie, showing was telling, and no one wanted to look. His mother, his father, and the man who would raise Charlie didn't care about the pleasure he took from the mere act of having fun with "Rosebud." His mother is cold and distant when we see her, resigned to the decision she made, and rationalizing it by demonizing the father. She suggests that he's a physical threat to their son, but he's really an emotional one, as far as she's concerned; Charlie's dad hates the idea of his son being sent away. And Charlie himself hates it. But his rebellion is a subtle one, against the system he's meant to embrace. He becomes a newspaper publisher, and he revels in chaos. He would love the modern age.
I am absolutely saying Citizen Kane is more relevant in 2018 than possibly ever before. In the movie, Charlie straddles the 19th and 20th centuries. We forget about the plague of anarchists from that time. We can identify terrorists, and what motivates them, in the 21st, but anarchists? They assassinated a president and an archduke, and they reached the height of their powers in sparking the first world war. We gloss over these things in our rush to condemn a more obvious evil with a more obvious sin, two decades later, and yet the whole point of this movie is to address grievances when they happen, rather than shrink away from them, ignore them, deny them. This is a movie about the lies we tell ourselves, about the truths we refuse to face, and how it poisons everything around us, and yes, that have devastating consequences.
So it is not just powerful filmmaking art, but it is a powerful storytelling statement. And when the sled is finally lost for good, tossed into an inferno, the world loses its chance to understand a man who did everything in his power to gain his revenge, having lost his ability to speak for himself, and farce becomes tragedy. Charlie Kane continually loses himself, and we as voiceless observers alone are capable of redeeming him. In celebrating Citizen Kane, it's important to remember that its message is what's most important about it, and that if we want a better world, we have to know what's wrong, and how to fix it. Many people will tell you what's wrong, and like everyone trying to answer what Charlie's last words were, they're won't understand what they're talking about. Charlie died a monster. But he wasn't, really. He was just another citizen, and that's all he ever wanted to be.
the story: Family comes into money, boy is sent to grow up rich, spends his life disappointed with the results.
what it's all about: What to say about Citizen Kane that hasn't already been said? If it's not indeed the greatest movie ever made, it's at least the first evidence that film is a medium capable of producing great art. We live in an era, now, that alternately worships popular art and fringe art, and there's very little room to laude anything in-between. Popular art makes all the money at the box office, and fringe art wins all the awards. It's absurd. And then we have Citizen Kane. I think it would be equally doomed today as it was when William Randolph Hearst realized Orson Welles had based a large chunk of it on his life. Hearst effectively blacklisted Welles from Hollywood, as an untethered voice, and declared that art, in Hollywood, came with a price. The studios, then and again now, liked their iron grip, regardless of the results (which is not to say the results must always be construed negatively), and were happy to balk at someone like Welles, who challenged them. In the '60s a whole generation of directors came about to expand the legacy of Citizen Kane, a movement that crested in the '90s, when smaller studios realized they had power, too, in wielding such creative forces, and set about believing they were more important. But in art, it is always the artist, and the artist will always be remembered. You can push an artist to greatness, but as evidenced by The Agony and the Ecstasy, you will find yourself hard-pressed to be remembered positively for it.
Anyway, what about the movie itself? Beyond the visionary techniques? What about the story itself? What does it ultimately say? One of the most overt things about it is that Charles Foster Kane doesn't love others so much as yearns for them to love him. This is one of those things Kane subverts about the tenets of storytelling: he tells more than he shows. He's too busy showing the opulence to bother with rules. He understands that telling is showing, because it reveals the heart of the human experience, since for the subject of his movie, showing was telling, and no one wanted to look. His mother, his father, and the man who would raise Charlie didn't care about the pleasure he took from the mere act of having fun with "Rosebud." His mother is cold and distant when we see her, resigned to the decision she made, and rationalizing it by demonizing the father. She suggests that he's a physical threat to their son, but he's really an emotional one, as far as she's concerned; Charlie's dad hates the idea of his son being sent away. And Charlie himself hates it. But his rebellion is a subtle one, against the system he's meant to embrace. He becomes a newspaper publisher, and he revels in chaos. He would love the modern age.
I am absolutely saying Citizen Kane is more relevant in 2018 than possibly ever before. In the movie, Charlie straddles the 19th and 20th centuries. We forget about the plague of anarchists from that time. We can identify terrorists, and what motivates them, in the 21st, but anarchists? They assassinated a president and an archduke, and they reached the height of their powers in sparking the first world war. We gloss over these things in our rush to condemn a more obvious evil with a more obvious sin, two decades later, and yet the whole point of this movie is to address grievances when they happen, rather than shrink away from them, ignore them, deny them. This is a movie about the lies we tell ourselves, about the truths we refuse to face, and how it poisons everything around us, and yes, that have devastating consequences.
So it is not just powerful filmmaking art, but it is a powerful storytelling statement. And when the sled is finally lost for good, tossed into an inferno, the world loses its chance to understand a man who did everything in his power to gain his revenge, having lost his ability to speak for himself, and farce becomes tragedy. Charlie Kane continually loses himself, and we as voiceless observers alone are capable of redeeming him. In celebrating Citizen Kane, it's important to remember that its message is what's most important about it, and that if we want a better world, we have to know what's wrong, and how to fix it. Many people will tell you what's wrong, and like everyone trying to answer what Charlie's last words were, they're won't understand what they're talking about. Charlie died a monster. But he wasn't, really. He was just another citizen, and that's all he ever wanted to be.
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