MOVIES NOW AND THEN

I wish I could say I saw all of the movies featured in that trailer. School, alas, prevented me from doing so, but at least I did squeeze some good ones into my schedule. Here, in order of when I saw them, are the movies I watched at the 49th New York Film Festival.

Melancholia – R
Lars von Trier writes and directs this eerie story about the end of two worlds. The first collapse is an intangible one, of a bride (a moving Kirsten Dunst) losing her mind over the course of a disastrous wedding reception. The second and better half shows the bride, her sister (a wonderful Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her brother-in-law (a potent Kiefer Sutherland) witnessing the imminent collision of Earth with the planet Melancholia, brought to life through simple yet entrancing special effects. The uniformly superb cast successfully maintains von Trier’s sad and gloomy tone even in the film’s more jovial moments. From its artful opening montage to its beautifully terrifying final shot, Melancholia works very well as both science fiction and as a personal drama.
This review was originally published by The Fordham Observer.

A Separation – PG-13
When an Iranian couple (Peyman Moadi and Leila Hatami) divorces, the husband hires a woman (Sareh Bayat) to help care for his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who is stricken with Alzheimer’s. A terrible incident sparks an endless parade of accusations and revelations that turns employee against employer, spouses against spouses and children against parents. Asghar Farhadi’s deeply involving drama withholds many details in this affair to let each viewer debate the facts long after the movie ends. This film is subtly tense, deftly puzzling and tenderly human, creating an impartial mystery in which even characters who do not appear deserving of sympathy earn it.

Miss Bala – R
Gerado Naranjo has fashioned a genuinely exciting action film about a beauty pageant contestant who is forced into the world of Mexican drug trafficking. Every single scene is told from her perspective, which works thanks to Stephanie Sigman’s appealing performance. Naranjo uses long takes throughout the film to build an impressive amount of suspense. One major shortcoming is the escalating sexual advances the gang leader (Miguel Couturier) makes on the girl. These scenes are distracting and somewhat plodding, adding little to her already humiliating situation. The film is much more stirring when it focuses on the girl acting alone as hostage and forced accomplice.

My Week with Marilyn – R
Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn is a biopic whose adoration for its subject, Marilyn Monroe, is so strong it renders the film a little insufferable. Set during the production of The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), it has so many moments that exclaim, “Wow, what a beautiful and tragic star she was” that there are too few introspective scenes. Michelle Williams gives a fine performance as Monroe, but the real treat is Kenneth Branagh’s highly entertaining take on Sir Lawrence Olivier. The actors are good enough to warrant a slight recommendation, but if you want a real tribute to Monroe’s talents, just watch Some Like It Hot (1959) if you haven’t seen it before (or lately).

Goodbye First Love – NR
Mia Hansen-Løve’s story of a young French girl’s loss of her first love and how she moves on with a new one is the only movie I saw this year that I would unreservedly say is bad. It is full of dull, mopey characters whose self-centered demeanors failed to earn any of my sympathy; I suppose it may have been Hansen-Løve’s point to paint a picture of how childish first love can be, but painting a picture so thoroughly sullen does not build solid interest. As I watched the movie, there were times when I would much rather have followed the horses in the background than spend any more energy focusing on the drab humans.

The Descendants – R
In Alexander Payne’s first film since Sideways (2004), George Clooney plays a father who must reconcile with his family after his wife goes comatose in a boating accident. This is Clooney’s best performance since Michael Clayton (2007), mixing frustration and heartbreak with a despairing hope that things will get better. The rest of the movie does not match up, for it fails to integrate drama and comedy into a cohesive whole. While the comedy in Sideways is an extension of the drama, the jokes in The Descendants feel more like bald, inorganic relief from the surrounding sadness. The overall film is competent yet uneven, but Clooney makes it absolutely worth seeing.

Disney’s Winnie the Pooh is one of the most altogether pleasing family films in some while. For very young children, its straightforward narrative is bright and friendly without the adult sensibility of Rango, the violence of Kung Fu Panda 2 or the potentially overwhelming scariness of Toy Story 3. For parents, it is a diverting reminder of things they enjoyed as children. For Disney aficionados, it is an affectionate revitalization of the style initiated in the 60s and 70s Pooh cartoons. For anyone, the whole film is simply smashing.

Today is the United States of America's 235th Independence Day. Celebrations of our nation's birth will not only see fireworks and cookouts, but also patriotic movies. AMC will host a Rocky marathon while Turner Classic Movies will show features like 1776 (1972) and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Personally, I like to watch something that is distinctly American without overtly saying, “Golly, we’re wonderful!” I might pick something that celebrates rustic Americana, like Disney's So Dear to My Heart (1948), or something encapsulating our optimism and happiness, like Singin' in the Rain (1952) or The Wizard of Oz (1939). This year, however, I watched a movie with a decidedly unflattering view on America: Robert Altman's Nashville (1975).

One of my favorite toys when I was young was a purple car that could fly. Jet engines would sprout out of the trunk and the doors would turn into wings. I loved imagining it flying and taking down bad guys, and now it sits in my closet safe from being given away. Imagine my delight and gratification when, during the final battle in Cars 2, a purple car sprouted wings and started flying to the rescue. This is just one of the keen, childlike marvels you'll see in this movie, the 12th from Pixar Animation Studios.

The ads for Cedar Rapids make it look like another Superbad or The Hangover, but instead it is the most charming comedy since The Kids Are All Right. It's a movie that considers its subjects human beings instead of stock figures or sideshow freaks. The rude humor is nicely proportionate to affecting performances and surprisingly underplayed scenes.

Disney celebrates its 50th animated feature by releasing Tangled, a loose adaptation of the fairy tale “Rapunzel” that combines the storytelling conventions of the old classics with today’s computer animation. In many ways, the placement of this movie at that particular studio tally is a very fortuitous one. Tangled is a mostly harmonious work that pays reverence to Disney’s traditions and embraces the continuing advances in the medium of animation.

I didn’t walk into Piranha 3D expecting much of anything, but I walked out thinking that this movie may actually accomplish something. It may become a harbinger for the eventual downfall of the current 3D craze.

Inspired by Joe Dante’s 1978 feature Piranha, this new movie about killer fish aims to be like the cheesy 3D horror films from the 1980s. I have not seen movies like Jaws 3-D all the way through, but I think I’ve seen enough to consider them pretty tame. Consequently, Piranha 3D strikes me as being much more violent and tasteless than anything to which those earlier films would aspire. Every scene has one or more of these three goals in mind: kill something, flash breasts and rip off the original Jaws. It fulfills these goals with sickening aplomb. The nudity is pointless, the Jaws moments are too blatant to even be funny and the overdone violence ruins some of the movie’s few amusing moments (like the ironic fate of a chauvinist director played Jerry O’Connell). Piranha 3Dis simply a piece of junk, and I say “junk” because to call it “chum” would be an insult to sharks.

Piranha 3D is bad by itself, but many of its crudest moments are present because of the unnecessary 3D effects. When it isn’t employing the technology to highlight topless girls, the movie uses the same 3D horror tricks as Jaws 3-D, which involve bringing floating objects (usually body parts) towards the audience. I usually refrain from detailing movies so I don’t spoil anything, but this time it is because director Alexandre Aja’s choices in floating objects reach the height of disgust. The only useful aspect of the 3D is that the shaded glasses dim some of the gore. Consider that a godsend if you see some of the abhorrent deeds that occur in this movie.

Video game adaptations, a film genre with a dearth of good examples, have now found a champion. I’ve never seen a movie capture the sensibilities of video games (with a few traces of comic books) as well as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World does. This is a film that compiles the commonalities of those two media forms and delights in exposing their inherent silliness. Writer and director Edgar Wright, who spoofed zombie movies in Shaun of the Dead and action films in Hot Fuzz, has adapted Bryan Lee O’Malley’s manga-inspired series into a bright and hugely entertaining comedy.

It might be unprofessional to admit this, but The Kids Are All Right was so lovely and rapturous that not even once could I concentrate on critical analysis. When this dramatic comedy was over, I saw that I had written down only one note the whole time, and it was just a line of dialogue I wanted to remember. But heck, I won’t need to spout technical information or present theories to just tell you how good this movie is. Directed and co-written by Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right is exquisite in every way.

Tim (Paul Rudd), an ambitious executive, learns about a secret dinner his bosses arrange where they invite oddballs to ridicule them. Tim sees his chance to earn a place with them when he meets Barry (Steve Carell), a meek fellow who taxidermies dead mice and uses them for portraits and dioramas.

Everyone knows that the funny man of a double act is supposed to be funnier than the straight man. In Dinner for Schmucks, Rudd is one of the most sympathetic straight men I've seen in recent comedies. His physical and verbal reactions to the absurdity surrounding him are some of the movie’s funniest moments, but they work to little avail. Despite the efforts of Rudd and the amusing supporting cast (Jermain Clement is a hoot as an earthy and eccentric artist), the film is weighted down by the overbearing presence of Carell as Barry. So much of the film is spent pitting Tim’s rationality against Barry’s naiveté that the truly funny material is not given enough exposure (one might forget about the dinner subplot if the characters did not continually mention it).

Both the character and Carell’s performance are largely obnoxious and partially endearing. To paraphrase a line from Futurama, Barry’s awkward brand of humor is the type where you wish he would end his stories a sentence earlier. Carell's delivery of this material seems forced and emphatic. That’s not to say the character is unbearable. The moments of compassion towards him are performed affectingly, even if some of them feel shoehorned. Still, Barry would have been more likable if played in a lower key (John Candy would have been perfect) and with less panache.

The exclamation of predictability can be heard loud and clear within the first five minutes of Despicable Me, the new animated feature from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment. The opening sequence uses the old joke of somebody trying to catch an object and saying, “I got it!” just before he or she misses the target. At the screening I attended, a child anticipated the joke and loudly said, “I don’t got it!” before the character could (the character did not say that line, giving the routine a bit of moot surprise). The child did not say anything else the rest of the movie, which surprises me considering how much else in Despicable Me is recycled material. The film is as hackneyed as many other recent computer-animated features, though a few elements save it from being truly disposable.

It does not help that neither Cruise nor Diaz are particularly good in this movie. Cruise seems to be trying to make his role an everyman type of secret agent. That direction fits with his character's back story, but it ruins the already tenuous believability of his combat scenes. It is hard to take this agent seriously as a viable ally or threat when he acts so distractingly boyish and goofy in his downtime. At least he is more amusing than Diaz, who should have taken an earthier approach to her character. This girl is said to know how to repair a car and how to pick out usable parts out of scrap. Diaz does not look nearly casual enough for a hobby like that, let alone to make us conceive that she will become a willing assistant in international intrigue. Her weakness is not only with her appearance, for her half-hearted line delivery drags down the already lame humor (her truth serum scene is especially awkward). The film is forgettable by itself, but these two actors are insufficient to steer this supposed star vehicle.
 
First published in The Coastland Times

Almost 11 years after the release of Toy Story 2, Pixar Animation Studios is revisiting their biggest franchise with Toy Story 3. The span between the second and third film may have been primarily the fault of the Disney/Pixar ownership negotiations in the mid-2000s, but that time has been an unequivocal boon to the series. Many of the kids who saw the first movie in 1995 have reached the age where their childhood will be tucked away and reserved for rainy days or for time with their own children. What better way to signify that transition than with one more adventure with the toys that simultaneously enraptured the youth of the world while creating the art (or craze, to some) of the computer-animated feature?

DreamWorks Animation’s most successful franchise finally ends with this fourth chapter. The movie takes stock of everything that has happened to Shrek by placing him in an alternate reality, created by the twitchy trickster Rumpelstiltskin, in which he was never born. This darker story focuses more on action and character than on humor, and it allows Shrek and his friends to be their most heroic and sympathetic since the original film.

“Shrek Forever After” is a serviceable finale that emphasizes the series’ strengths and flaws. The main characters are as appealing as ever, largely because of their voice actors’ seasoned yet still likable performances. However, the anachronistic pop culture humor remains as hit-and-miss as ever. These modern jokes are less numerous than in the other sequels, but they still beg the question of whether they will date these movies. The film also seems the most chaotic, using quick editing and rarely stationary cinematography that render the proceedings somewhat exhausting.

The best moments occur when the alternate universe offers variations on jokes and scenes from the other movies. These details, which range from appearances of old props to direct quotations, are easy to recognize and help tie the series together into one story. A few recollections do rely too much on fond memories of the other movies (“I’m a Believer” is far less magical here than it was in the first “Shrek”). Still, “Shrek Forever After” is almost like a yearbook in how it allows fans to view highlights (albeit twisted ones) of their years in the kingdom of Far Far Away. It may not be as special as the first two movies, but it is a mostly satisfying conclusion.

First published in The Coastland Times

The most successful difference between the 1984 underdog story and this remake is the new Chinese setting. The lead character’s need to embrace traditional kung fu (not karate) to defeat his bullying adversaries is made more meaningful when set in a China that seems to favor autocratic instruction over the peaceful ancient ways. The Chinese culture also permeates through the script, modifying scenes and details from the original to fit this new version. Even if the footage of famous locations become a little gratuitous by the end, the setting contributes enough narrative changes that the switch from American to China does not feel like a gimmick meant to justify the remake.

The rest of the movie is much less successful at revitalizing the story. The new “Karate Kid” succumbs to using current filmmaking trends (quick cuts, handheld cameras, etc.) for its fighting and training scenes. The use of medium shots makes the action scenes more comprehensible than the fights in recent movies like “Prince of Persia,” but the fast cutting looks systematic in comparison to the deliberate long takes in the original film. Perhaps the worst component is the casting of Jaden Smith as the titular student. While the character is supposed to be defenseless and unappreciative anyway, Smith just comes across as whiny and uncharismatic. He might have performed better if he were older and a more developed actor, but his current level of expertise is not quite enough to carry a film.

“The Karate Kid” remains entertaining thanks to its likable story, its location change and a memorable performance by Jackie Chan as the teacher, but the flashier style and inexperienced lead render the film less effective than the more tranquil original.

Initially Published in The Coastland Times