SIFF Opening Night Recap: Pictures Included

Posted on May 17, 2013 by

Euphoria: a feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being sometimes exaggerated in pathological states as mania.

images (4)Last night I was given the unique opportunity to attend the Opening Night of the Seattle International Film Festival, featuring an advanced screening of Joss Whedon’s upcoming Shakespearean adaptation Much Ado About Nothing.  Along with the screening, The Almighty Whedon himself would give an on-stage Q&A session along with several members of the cast.  As passionate fans and financially impulsive college students, my friend Ali and I had gone the extra mile to purchase Red Carpet VIP passes to the event in pursuit of even the slightest of chance to meet those hallowed few who would be in attendance.  While I will soon be posting my review of the film itself, I wanted to take a quick moment to share my experience with all of you.

We arrived at McCaW Hall in Seattle Center at about 5:30 in full awareness of the contradiction between our fancy attire and the 1996 Volvo Station wagon in which we had 2013_FEST_RedCarpet_440x300driven there (Her name is Daenerys and I’d choose her over any Benz, any time, any day). After passing through the gauntlet of volunteers and dutiful cameramen on the Red Carpet, we proceeded to the “VIP Lounge” and its promises of an open bar and unlimited hors d’oeuvres.  It soon became clear that college students did not make up the usual population of that particular ticket level, and it was hard not to feel the slightest amount of awkward self-consciousness while surrounded by a roomful of people easily twice if not three times our age.

Once 6:30 rolled around, people started milling into the theater itself (which was not so much of a movie theater as it was a large performance hall, complete with Opera Boxes and  images (3)multiple levels of seating).  For about half an hour, the audience gave its due diligence and applauded a series of different award presenters and recipients related to the festival itself.  Among these were the Seattle Mayor, Mike McGinn, and the departing director of the Film Festival, Debra Pearson.  To be completely honest, I respect the accomplishments of these people and acknowledge their right to at least some recognition in front of an audience of that size, but my eagerness to see the feature presentation made it hard not to think back to Monty Python and the Holy Grail as time went on; “Get On With It!”

Finally, Joss himself came out with star Alexis Denisof to briefly introduce the film, at which point the lights finally extinguished themselves and the show began.  Once again, I will be posting my full review of the movie later today, so I won’t touch on any specifics here.  What I will say is that, despite some Old English related hang ups, I was absolutely giddy with enjoyment by the time the credits started rolling.  By the sound of the audience around me, I wasn’t alone either.  After the applause died down, the Q&A session with Whedon and cast members Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Amy Acker, and Clark Gregg began.  Here are some of the highlights of that discussion.

  • The entire movie was shot in 12 days, exclusively using Whedon’s own house as the set
  • Clark Gregg wasn’t even formally asked to take part until the day before shooting
  • The Police Station scenes were shot in the Dance Studio Whedon has in his basement
  • The project was Whedon’s self-described method of “unwinding” from the ordeal of shooting The Avengers
  • Cinematographer Jay Hunter received a nasty head wound from a stray camera while shooting, only to patch it up himself with “A towel, some ice and a belt” and continue filming on that same day
  • When asked about his plans for future projects, Whedon answered with what he said were his three favorite words; “I Don’t Know”

263231_10151627584328919_25059380_nIn general, the Q&A gave a really great sense of how well these people get along in real life. With nearly every member of the cast having previously appeared in one or more of Whedon’s previous projects (Fillion on Firefly, Acker and Denisof on Angel, Kranz in Cabin in the Woods, Gregg in Avengers, etc.) the chemistry between the performers was easily visible in the film itself.

Finally, the show was over and the quest to meet the cast and crew began.  We soon found that none of the staff really knew when or where the guests would be making their appearances, so we set out to find out ourselves.  On the way, we passed through the packed after-party, the less packed secondary VIP Lounge, and more, all the while grabbing up as much free stuff as possible along the way (Once again, we’re poor college students, it goes against our DNA to pass up free anything).  For all of our searching, we came up empty on the famous-person front.  Feeling slightly defeated, we decided to look for our gift bags back near the first VIP lounge which we had awkwardly shared with our much older, much wealthier fellow guests.

And then we saw them…

Sure, maybe I’m being a bit over-dramatic but it felt pretty appropriately dramatic at the time.  As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve never met anyone remotely famous in person, and I really didn’t know how to act.  How do you express years of appreciation of someone’s work in the 5-10 seconds before you have to let someone else take their turn?  Well, I still don’t quite have a perfect answer to that question but, it turns out, you don’t need one when the person you’re meeting is as friendly and open as these people were.  When you get approached by the same people over and over with the same sort of frenzied excitement, it would be easy to get a little cynical and aloof over time.  That being said, it’s important for celebrities to put themselves in their fans’ shoes and realize how that kind of routine experience for them could be such a meaningful experience for the people who are fawning over them.  I have a new level of respect for the people pictured below for this sort of respect they showed myself and the people around me.  Luckily, Ali and I were able to preserve these moments of barely-controlled Fan-gasm in the pictures below.

Warning: Possible side effects of these images may include jealousy, nerd rage, heavy salivating, and, in Nathan Fillion’s case, overwhelming increase of Sex Drive.

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As you can see from my face, when I say “Barely Controlled Fangasm” I mean Barely.  I did at least keep my composure up to congratulate each person for the film and express my appreciation of their work in a brief manner.  I also managed to tell Clark Gregg that I look forward to seeing his return to directing later this year with Trust Me, co-starring Gregg himself alongside Sam Rockwell, Molly Shannon, Allison Janney and more.

Well, I’ve rambled along for a while now but I’d like to thank you if you’ve made it this far down the page.  I’ll leave off with this; if you EVER get the chance to meet one of your idols, whether it be an actor, a director, a musician, or whatever your fancy, TAKE IT.  Even if you have to shell out a few extra bucks for a VIP pass, the experience will likely be one that you will never forget.  I’d like to thank Mr. Whedon, the cast members, and the event coordinators at the Seattle International Film Festival for one of the best nights I’ve had in years.

 

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Seattle International Film Festival: Opening Night

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

images (17)Tonight is something as a big night for me as a fan and as a blogger.  I have been given the unique opportunity to attend the Red Carpet Opening of the Seattle International Film Festival, featuring an advanced screening of Joss Whedon’s new Shakespearean adaptation, Much Ado About Nothing.  Not only will I be able to see the film in advance of its release date (June 7th in the U.S), but I am also going to be attending the Cocktail Hour and Post-Film party before and after the screening.

The real kicker here is that aside from the open bar, hor d’oeuvres and other assorted images (4)pageantry, the event will be attended by Joss Whedon himself, along with several other members of the cast including Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Amy Acker, and Alexis Denisof. While I am excited to meet any if not all of these people, I confess that I’ve been more than a little nervous about the experience.  After all, I’ve never met anyone even remotely famous, let alone the likes of Malcolm Reynolds or Agent Coulson in the flesh.  I have a few questions I’d like to ask each person, but I still honestly have no idea how any of it will go so I will simply do my best to keep my fan-boy exuberance to a comfortable minimum.

While I can’t say whether or not I’ll come out of the night with some pictures to remember it by (my friend is bringing her digital camera so it’s entirely possible), I can guarantee that the experience will be one I will remember for a very long time.  That being said, I’ve double checked with the event coordinators and I WILL be able to post my review of Much Ado About Nothing after the show, so I look forward to at least sharing that part of the evening with all of you.

Here goes nothing!

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The Great Gatsby Review: Baz the Great and Powerful

Posted on May 14, 2013 by

You all have before you a stirring indictment of the modern American education system; a high school graduate who has never read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby.  MV5BMTkxNTk1ODcxNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDI1OTMzOQ@@._V1_SX214_Now, this shouldn’t be so much of a negative reflection on my AP English teachers as it is an issue with the limitations on how much reading you can assign a child before they graduate.  Had I dedicated some of my own free time to educating myself to the likes of Lord of the Flies or The Grapes of Wrath I might have been able to flesh out my literary awareness, but all of that went downhill once I discovered how awesome movies were.  After all, how can you beat a medium of storytelling that lets you experience character development and eat chicken wings at the same time?  In any case, perhaps you can think of this ignorance of mine as a unique opportunity to hear from someone who can’t just brush off the film with the typical manta of someone who’s read the source material; “The book was soooo much better”.  Because of this, I will be focusing almost entirely on the film itself during this review and NOT on the comparison with the text that it is pulled from.  Luhrman fans will be more than pleased with the director’s latest exercise in opulence, but for many of the rest of you it will be hard to feel any sort of real connection with the flashy, highly-stylized melodrama that dominates The Great Gatsby.

The Plot: 6/10

A Midwestern war veteran finds himself drawn to the past and lifestyle of his millionaire neighbor.

I know this is my ignorance talking, but isn’t the primary focus of The Great Gatsby supposed to be materialism?  If I were to base my entire understanding of the book’s imagesmessage on Luhrman’s interpretation, I would have guessed that The Great Gatsby is first and foremost a romance.  As a result, I would have been left wondering just what is so “classic” about that romance as a lot of it feels like a slightly elevated version of your typical Soap Opera story arc.  The movie focuses too much on the scandal of it all and too little on the more interesting elements of Gatsby’s corruption and rise to power, the latter of which is hinted at in so many scenes yet is never fully confronted in a dramatic way.  All of this comes together to make the movie’s two and a half hour run time feel far longer than it actually is.

The Writing: 7/10

The sad thing is, it’s easy to tell from the more transparent scenes of the movie why The 130513_CBOX_gatsbysanitorium.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-largeGreat Gatsby is considered such a great American novel.  Nick’s voice-overs (which I am told are largely made up of direct quotations from the text) are beautifully written and often give the film a sort of poignancy that the rest of it never seems able to measure up to.    I can’t tell if the characters here are restrained by their respective parts in the book or elevated by them, but whatever the cause the effect is that people on screen just didn’t feel very real.

THE GREAT GATSBYThe worst by far is Daisy, who is given an incredibly central role to the story itself only to spend all of it being tossed around back and forth between the male characters of the film like some sort of doll.  If the message of the film is supposed to be that people use material goods to substitute for the feelings that truly drive the emptiness inside them, Daisy’s behavior would almost seem like a ringing endorsement of materialism.

The Acting: 7/10

Whenever the movie really shines, it is a result of one of two things; Luhrman’s flares for visual extravagance or the performances of the leading cast.  Despite my frustrations with the_great_gatsby_a_lhis character’s fixation on Daisy, I fully acknowledge how great of a job DiCaprio did with the titular role.  He takes the sort of raw passion we’ve seen from many of his roles in various shapes and sizes and adds in some of the Howard Hughes-esque eccentricities that he perfected in The Aviator, and I can’t think of many other people who would have been better for the part.  Similarly, my issues with Daisy’s character don’t blind me to the fact that Mulligan’s performance is just as admirable as DiCaprio’s.  If anything, her trademark innocent sweetness makes her a bit too likable at times and adds to the jarring nature of her developments in the later part of the film.

Now I have never been and likely never will be a fan of Tobey Maguire, and I fully great-gatsby-movie-image-tobey-maguire-leonardo-dicaprioanticipated his presence being the weakest aspect of the movie.  For the majority of the movie he’s just as annoying and dorky as ever.  However, I was pleasantly surprised by how well he fit into the dead-eyed future version of Nick, retelling the entire story a psychiatrist at a mental institution.  It seems that for Maguire, the less emotions the better.

As a final note in the acting category, I’d like to tip my hat to Joel Edgerton, who overcomes his slimy role and delivers one of the most surprisingly touching moments of the film in a moment of grief in the third act.  Bravo, sir.

The Style: 6/10

When it comes down to it, the biggest determinant of whether you like this movie or not is whether or not you like Baz Luhrman.  There are few people who great-gatsby-2013-sp-500x250divide critics quite like Mr. Luhrman does, and The Great Gatsby has done nothing to change my position on him. To be fair, there were a lot of things the director did here that I enjoyed and the production value is clearly visible throughout the film.  The thing is, my issues with Luhrman stem far more from his preference for melodrama over real drama, and no amount of gorgeous costuming or artful scene changing is enough to make up for that.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the movie’s soundtrack.  I actually liked almost all of the music that was used in the film, but the way that music was used just didn’t work for Jay-Gatsbys-House-in-The-Great-Gatsby-2013me.  In a lot of ways, the 1920′s are a perfect setting for Luhrman’s showmanship in all of their gaudy, disproportionate-wealth-filled glory.  When you take all of that and set it to Jay-Z, it just takes you out of the scene in a very unnecessary way.  Some of the best uses of music in the film come from George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and I can’t help but feel like a similar musical backdrop for the rest of the movie would have been less distracting.

The Verdict: 6.5/10 – Perfectly Adequate

+ Sure to please Luhrman’s fan base

+ Great performances from DiCaprio, Mulligan and Edgerton

-  An exasperating amount of focus on scandal and melodrama

- The modernized soundtrack is more distracting than anything

Critical Consensus:

IMDb:  7.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes:  48%

Metacritic: 55/100

Other Reviews: 

CinemaWolf: B+

The Cinematic Katzenjammer: 7.6/10

The Cinema Monster: 7/10

The Code is Zeek: 3.5/5

FlixChatter: 3.5/5

Fogs’ Movie Reviews: B-

Dan the Man Movie Reviews: 6/10

The Focused Filmographer: 3/5

Black Sheep Reviews: 3/5

Cynicritics: C-

Fast Film Reviews: 2/5

Average: 6.4/10 – Perfectly Adequate

Posted in Drama, New Releases, Reviews, Romance | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Pixar Sequels: Failing to Recognize the Exception

Posted on May 11, 2013 by
 Another post I wrote for Moviepilot, which should be online over there shortly.  In the mean time, I figured I’d give you all a look at what I put together.  I’ve talked a lot about this topic, but I thought I’d take a different angle this time and look at the Pixar/Disney situation from a more practical angle.  I should also be able to re-post my review of Monsters University here soon, so keep an eye out for that!

images (17)A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to see an advanced screening of Pixar’s Monsters University, the upcoming prequel to the studio’s beloved Monsters, Inc.  While Disney’s current review embargo prevents me from telling you anything specific about the film itself, the experience prompted me to return to an issue that has been on my mind since I learned of Pixar’s acquisition by the media giant which has now come to ownership of both Marvel and Lucasfilm as well.  That issue is the new direction Disney has been leading the company down in terms of the studio’s reliance on sequels.

Over the past 18 years, Pixar has released 13 feature length films, of which only three have been sequels.  In comparison, two out of the four upcoming films the studio has announced are sequels to existing material, a ratio which looks to be Disney’s planned new norm for Pixar’s future.  What this means for the future remains to be seen, but judging by the incredibly wide gap between the quality of the studio’s existing sequels (Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 vs. Cars 2) the results could either be a modest step forward or a monumental step back.

Let’s take a look at two things; why Disney is pushing for more sequels from Pixar and why that push is wrong for both the studio itself and the people who love its products.

At this point, the general view of sequels seems to be that they are an expression of Hollywood Greed and little more.  Franchises like Shrek stand for many as an example of how studio executives will do whatever it takes to milk the a film’s cash cow until it is financially and qualitatively dry.  What people seem to often forget or ignore is that the movie industry is a business, and like any business it would not exist without consistent images (6)profitability.  Movies aren’t cheap to make, distribute or market, and as a result studios require a certain amount of assurances of the returns on a project before they pump millions of dollars into its creation.  Unfortunately, in this sense the movie business and the entertainment industry as a whole is comparable to meteorology; even the best Weather Man is going to be wrong half the time, and even the most conscientious studio executives are going to finance a bomb or two.  When these decisions carry burdens of upwards of $100 million dollars, the difference between a 50%  and 60% probability of a film’s success can be huge.  It remains a statistical fact that sequels produce more consistent returns on investment than original projects do, and therefore carry a lower amount of risk.  Bottom line, referring to a sound business decision as “greed”  makes no sense for anyone who recognizes what kind of world we live in.

Having said all of that, sequels aren’t always the slam-dunk that studios hope for them to be.  After all, people go to see movies because they intend on enjoying the experience.  When a movie is well made, people enjoy the experience more, leading to more positive images (4)word of mouth, overall higher grosses for that movie and therefore increased likelihood for future sequels.  This is a harsh reality that Pixar encountered when it released Cars 2 back in 2011, also known as the film that broke Pixar’s infamous winning streak.  The thing is, for a film that was intended to ride its sequel status to higher Box Office numbers, its earnings were less than spectacular.  When adjusted for inflation, Cars 2 finished off its run with the lowest domestic gross of Pixar’s history, its final tallies failing to even match the $200 million production budget.  Admittedly this was offset by the increased merchandising revenue the film brought in, but nowhere near enough to make up for the damage done to the supposedly infallible Pixar brand.

Finally, this brings us to the subject of this article; why Pixar is the exemption to the Sequel Rule.  The reason is that rather than Cars, or Finding Nemo, or even Toy Story, it was Pixar that people kept coming back for.  Other movies might reel people back in with their favorite actors, their favorite characters, or any number of other franchise specific offerings, but the star of every one of Pixar’s first eleven films was the studio itself.  After all, even your favorite actors or directors have had their weak outings, yet Pixar had not a single significant blemish on its record.  The amount images (7)of trust this gave audiences for the studio is the reason why it was consistently able to take some of the weirdest and least relatable material imaginable (i.e. Ratatoullie, Wall-E, Up) and turn them into box office smashes beloved by critics and audiences alike.  We felt like Pixar could take any premise and turn it into a great experience, and as a result we were willing to follow the studio wherever it planned on taking us.  It’s that sort of creative freedom that felt completely absent in Cars 2 and, without serious work, will continue to feel absent if upcoming sequels like Monsters University and Finding Dory follow the same path.  No matter how well made those films may be, the simple fact that we’ve already been to each of those worlds will never recreate the magic of experiencing them for the first time.

With all of that in mind, I’d like to leave off on a happier note.  That happier note is that I can say from first hand experience that Monsters University is about as close of a return to form for Pixar as I could have hoped.  It may not be enough to change my mind about the subjects above, but it’s at least enough to keep me coming back for more.  I highly recommend that you give it a try when it comes out this June.

Now I’d like to hear from all of you; what do you think of Pixar’s sequel-filled future?  Are you looking forward to seeing the characters you love or are you afraid that their legacy might be soiled by unneeded sequels?

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Are Midnight Openings Becoming a Thing of the Past?

Posted on May 8, 2013 by
Recently, I was approached from a representative from Moviepilot, a site designed to connect bloggers and fans together in discussion over various aspects of upcoming films.  I have been looking for an outlet for opinion pieces for some time and Moviepilot has turned out to be a wonderful place to do just that for an audience of like-minded readers beyond anything I’d be able to build on my own.  I encourage you all to check out the site and/or my post for the following article which can be found here.  Without further ado, here’s the piece itself.
 

ImageProxy (1)Over the course of the past year, movie theaters across the country have been experiencing a broad shift in the way they premier movies.  For as long as I can remember, a midnight premier was the ultimate litmus test for whether or not a movie could be counted as a “big deal”.  In my small home town’s movie theater, only  upper echelon of blockbusters were afforded the luxury of a midnight release.  Along with that luxury came an immense increase in excitement from the moment you found your place in line to the moment you walked out of the theater.  The moment the clock struck midnight, it felt like the gates flew open with the official passage into the film’s opening day, allowing everyone to experience it for the first time as God and their calendars intended.  

Those midnight showings may soon become a thing of the past, though.  Since early 2012, many national theater chains, including AMC and Regal Crown Theaters, have been transitioning from midnight releases for event films to Thursday night openings for nearly movie-theater-hangout-shutterstock-99435824every new release.  This change offers a great deal of practical benefits for the theaters themselves, such as increased regularity in staffing requirements by eliminating the need for employees to work late on the nights of midnight releases.  In addition, many movies that cater to smaller yet more enthusiastic audiences gain the benefit of the excitement levels of an early release.  For example, under the old system many theaters would not have spent the extra staffing wages to give Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World a midnight release, while the new system would allow dedicated fans the chance to come together for that unique groups experience rather than being spread out across the opening day itself.

From a consumer standpoint, the selling points are a bit of a mixed bag.  On the one hand, being able to see a movie for the first time at 9:00 PM instead of at midnight allows those 9-00-mdwho work on Fridays to partake in a premier without losing out on precious sleep.  For the more impatient/excited fans, it also never hurts to have three hours less to wait to see the movie you’ve already been waiting so long for.  On the other hand, many viewers feel that by taking away the midnight component of a movie’s release, audiences are missing out on a great deal of the atmosphere of excitement that made midnight releases an event in the first place.  For many of these people, the aspect of staying up late for a premier and lining up for hours before is an important part of tradition itself.  With the current system, the night of a release functions just like any other night of going to the movies, requiring no overdose of coffee and red bull whatsoever.

It should be noted that many theaters are still offering midnight screenings for many releases, which would make it seem like fans still have the option to choose which option suits them best.  The problem is, as you can imagine, the point of a midnight premier is to ImageProxysee a movie before anyone else does.  When you wait in line for four hours only to watch people emerge from the film you’re waiting for before the midnight premier has even started, every feeling of exclusivity goes straight out of the window.  As I walked out of my 9:00 PM showing of Iron Man 3 last night, I couldn’t help be feel a small amount of nostalgia for the days when the word “Premier” had some real meaning to it.  Luckily, that feeling was mostly drowned out by an overwhelming surge of superiority as I looked out on  the hundred plus people still waiting to see a movie I had already seen.

Now I’d like to hear what you think.  Will you miss the ritual of midnight releases, or will you be happier for the hours of sleep you’ll save when work comes around the following day?  

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Movies I Should Have Seen By Now: Weekly Wrap-Up 5

Posted on May 6, 2013 by

Okay, so I realize that this “Weekly Wrap-Up” took three weeks to get done, but between Midterm season and a little side project I’ll be unveiling fairly soon, I’ve been pretty swamped.  I finally got around to seeing the last movie of my promised set of five last night, and with that viewing I am now able to move on to the next set of classic films.  Here’s a rundown of the films I saw since the last edition of this segment.

L.A. Confidential: 9.0/10 – Incredible

MV5BMTQ5MTU4MzQ5NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjY1OTM2MQ@@._V1_SY317_CR0,0,214,317_Having finally seen this it, I now understand why so many people considered January’s Gangster Squad to have been such a blatant rip-off of this vastly superior movie.  That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy Gangster Squad for its own merits, but the similarities between the two films can’t help but force the comparison and there really isn’t any.  Setting aside the dynamite trio of Kevin Spacey, Russel Crowe, and Guy Pearce, the movie’s ability to manage the huge amount of moving parts that are present without collapsing under its own weight is impressive in its own right.  Those moving parts do give the movie some pacing issues, but once we actually start to figure out what is going on things quickly accelerate until the amazing conclusion.  Bottom line, L.A Confidential is one of the most elaborate and well-made cop thrillers I’ve ever seen.

2001: A Space Odyssey: 7.0/10 – Good

MV5BNDYyMDgxNDQ5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjc1ODg3OA@@._V1_SY317_CR12,0,214,317_Yet again, this is one I know I’m going to catch some flak for.  Heralded by many as one of the best Science Fiction movies of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey also comes from the supposedly infallible Stanley Kubrick.  I’d like to reinforce that I love every other Stanley Kubrick movie I’ve seen, but I just couldn’t get behind this one once the credits started to roll.  To be fair, the movie could easily be separated into four separate parts, and the most prominent of those parts (aka Dave vs. HAL) is by far the most effective.  I absolutely loved that segment of the movie, due in equal parts to Kubrick’s claustrophia-inducing direction and the cold, monotone voice of HAL himself.  I could even handle the opening twenty minutes, which have no connection to the rest of the film other than an elaborate and prolonged metaphor about humanity’s relationship with technology.  The following Moon segment is perhaps a bit slow and overly reliant on extended shots of spacecraft which aren’t quite as powerful now as they were back then, yet it does a good job of building up a sense of mystery and dread surrounding the recurring alien Obelisk discovered on the lunar surface.  My biggest issue with the film is that the culmination of all of these elements is a twenty-minute long acid trip of an ending sequence that is as incoherent as it is inconclusive.  I’m sure people will say that I just don’t get the artistic brilliance of the ending, but to that’s the thing about high-concept art; no matter how “brilliant” it is, it’s just not going to work for some people.  Turns out in this case, I am one of those people.

Dr. Strangelove: 8.5/10 – Impressive

MV5BMTU2ODM2NTkxNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTMwMzU3Mg@@._V1_SX214_If you were to ask me what my favorite genre of movie is, I would be able to answer without any shred of hesitation;  I LOVE dark comedies.  My sense of humor has always been a little warped, but whether it’s the over-the-top violence of Tarantino or the sparkling dialogue of a Joss Whedon script, I can’t get enough of twisted humor in film making.  For that reason, I’ve been looking forward to seeing Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb for some time now; after the ground it broke into for the genre is one of the reasons the genre is so bountiful in the present.  The movie is just as weird as the title would suggest, and I loved every bit of it.  Between great one-liners (“You can’t fight in here, this is a War Room!”), comically exaggerated insensivity and the complete and total sense of originality throughout the film, Dr. Strangelove deserves every bit of the cult-following it has maintained to this very day.  My only reason for the slightly lower score is that like most films with a cult following, the material is not quite as accessibly to average viewers as many would like.

Top Gun: 8.0/10 – Pretty Damn Great

MV5BMTY3ODg4OTU3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwMjI1Nzg4._V1_SY317_CR3,0,214,317_Oddly enough, I was almost more worried that I would dislike this movie more than I was for any other movie on this list.  The split nature of it’s reviews (it hovers around a 50% on Rotten Tomatoes) combined with the intensity of it’s fan base’s support make dissing Top Gun nearly as life-threatening as dissing Die Hard.  To be honest, I could easily populate a long list of reasons to hate this movie; from the boring, unnecessary romance to the heavy-handed overuse of the synth-heavy soundtrack (If I hear “Take My Breath Away” one more time, I’m going to lose it), the movie invites criticism at every turn.  The thing is, no matter how cheesy it got, I just kept on forgiving it in my mind.  The movie has this way of  bringing you around to its side that only 80′s movies could pull off.  It’s the reason that the script remains so quotable regardless of how poorly written it is, the reason why many people select this as their favorite Tom Cruise performance even though there are plenty of other, better roles he has played in his career.  At the end of the day, no amount of logic or sense can diminish movies like this for the people who love them, and I am happy to finally be able to count myself among that group.

The Sting: 8.5/10 – Impressive

MV5BMTY2OTM3Njk2MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwNzk4Njk4._V1_SX214_I’m not quite sure why this movie made it onto the list last week, but in hindsight I’m glad it did.  I had never seen Robert Redford in anything pre-90′s, and had never seen Paul Newman in anything at all.  If the duo’s performances here are any indicator, though, that is a wrong I am eager to go on right-ing.  The Sting reminds us why movies about con men conning other con men will always be a huge amount of fun, even if most modern renditions don’t come anywhere near this level of quality.  There’s something about the premise that allows viewers to completely forget the sort of moral concerns that usually plague criminal protagonists, and instead look at the proceedings like some sort of elaborate, high stakes game.  By doing this, the movie is able to get away with a much lighter tone than you might expect.  While this light tone robs some of the more serious elements of the move from a bit of their weight (especially visible in the vaudevillian background music for some of the chase scenes), it hit’s its mark far more often than it misses.  Even when the con itself gets a bit too elaborate to remain believable, it’s still fairly easy to suspend disbelief and forgive the film for its unrealistic developments.  My hat goes off to the late Robert Shaw in particular for providing the movie with a much-needed villainous role for the audience to unite against.  All in all, is as entertaining as it’s theme song’s title would suggest.

For the next set of films, I’d like to try something a little different.  Instead of picking the entries myself, I am going to put it up to a vote from all of you to decide which movies I will  see for the first time.  The three polls down below represent the three categories of movies I am looking to represent; two films from the IMDb Top 250, two films from the AFI Top 100 , and one film that has had a lasting cultural impact regardless of what lists it is or isn’t on.  Please take a second to cast your vote below!

IMDb Top 250

4]

AFI Top 100

Culturally Significant

Posted in Movies I Should Have Seen By Now, Reviews | Tagged | 21 Comments

Iron Man 3 Review: Starting Off the Summer with a Bang

Posted on May 3, 2013 by

images (17)It’s here, it’s here, thank God Almighty it’s finally here!  No longer must we cinephiles languish in the doldrums of spring and winter releases, for May has arrived with it the Summer Blockbuster season we have all been waiting for.  Gone are the days of looking at the theater marquee and having to ask yourself “What the hell is this crap?”, here are the days of lining up with your fellow fans to see the opening releases of movies you’ve known about for months if not years.  At this time I must apologize for my gushing, but it’s been a long four months.  Having seen every single movie that’s come out this year on 1,200 screens or more, I would be hard pressed to claim that anyone who hasn’t been to the theater yet in 2013 has been missing out on much.  I strongly anticipate that fact to change over the course of the next 30 days, however, and if Iron Man 3 is the opening salvo of what’s to come then thing’s aren’t looking too shabby.  Between a snappy, amusing script and another expectedly great performance from Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man 3 right’s nearly all of the wrongs of its predecessor to produce the most explosively entertaining film of the year.

The Plot: 8/10

When Tony Stark’s world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution.

When it comes to Superhero movies, the role of the story is far more important than it is in your typical action movie.  The comic books that characters like Iron Man and Batman are Iron_Man_3_screenshot_620x380taken from feature some of the most complicated, intricate story lines of any form of entertainment that exists today, and as a result there is a constant struggle in comic book movies to balance those complex story lines with audience accessibility issues.  In that sense, the plot of Iron Man 3 might not be as elaborate or dynamic as, let’s say, The Dark Knight, but it still has more than enough going on to keep you interested.  In particular, there is one specific twist that occurs partway through the film that had me legitimately taken off guard in a very enjoyable way.  If you’ve seen the movie, you probably know what I’m talking about so no spoilers…

The Writing: 9/10

This is by far the biggest area of the film which makes it stand out from the first two entries.  In Iron Man and Iron Man 2, the writing was good but it always felt like it was Iron_Man3_trailer2-610x343Downey Jr. who made the lines pop rather than the script itself.  Here, writer/director Shane Black works in a great level of dark, sarcastic humor that fits in perfectly with Stark’s character.  There are a few jokes that didn’t really land in the screening I was in, but for the most I thought the movie’s comic side had just the right amount of dryness in it for my taste.

On a side note, the humor is what makes the movie entertaining but that isn’t to say that the film is without its serious side.  After all, the promotional material tried to emphasize the raising of the stakes here as much as possible, ranging from the images (2)destruction of Stark’s iconic mansion to shots of a wounded Stark weakly dragging his suit through a snowy field. While the shortcomings on the villainous end prevent us from feeling like Tony himself is ever in much serious danger (though to be fair, the announcement of The Avengers 2 made that a non-issue from the get go), but it’s the world around him that really feels at stake.  In a franchise like this, that’s often enough to keep you emotionally invested regardless of what the star has already signed on for in the future.

The Acting: 8/10

It’s no secret that I was disappointed by Iron Man 2, mostly because it felt like what director Jon Favreau would later go on to admit that it was; a cash grab.  As a result, I thought that Robert Downey Jr. felt a bit like he was on auto-pilot during that movie, a images (1)feeling which I am happy to say did not present itself here.  With a strong script behind him, Downey Jr. reminds us all why the role brought him back into the public’s good graces in the first place.  I was slightly nervous to hear some of the weariness the man has expressed with the role, after all it would be easy to phone it in if you were sick and tired of a character that has nearly come to define you as an actor (Robert Pattinson feels your pain).  Luckily, that weariness comes across on the screen and works very well with Stark’s exhaustion.

iron-man-3-pepper-potts-1I’m pretty opposed to the idea of liking Gwyneth Paltrow, so I’m not going to talk about her for the risk of breaking my own rule (Read: Pepper get’s to play the Badass in a few scenes and it’s more effective than I’d care to admit).  Don Cheadle doesn’t factor in here quite has heavily as he did in the last film, but his chemistry with Downey Jr. is even better.  That being said, I remain firmly on Tony’s side in the case of War Machine vs. Iron Patriot.  War Machine is way cooler.

Finally, we have Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce in the bad guy’s corner.  There really isn’t a hell of a lot I can talk about here without spoiling some of the most impressively kept secrets of the movie’s production, but I’ve seen strongly mixed reactions to the villains of the film from various reviews I’ve read.  Personally, I think that the handling of The Mandarin worked great from a plot standpoint, but not necessarily as great from a character standpoint.  Beyond that, go watch the movie and then we’ll talk

The Action: 10/10

We knew from the start that as the “downfall of Tony Stark”, Iron Man 3 was bound to feature a lot of Tony getting his ass handed to him for the first half of the movie at least.  iron-man-house-malibuUnfortunately, it’s not nearly as fun to watch the hero lose as it is to watch him win, so it would have been really easy for the first half of the movie to illicit a strong “Get on with It!” response from the audience.  I never got this feeling though, since no matter how bad things get or how much of a beating Stark takes, he always feels like he’s somehow in control of the situation.  

When things do come around to the movie’s second “redemption” half, though, the result is absolutely spectacular.  The final battle gives us the ironman3-trailer-blog630-jpg_061350extremely crowd-pleasing concept of a mini-army of Iron Man suits joining Stark in battle, and though once again I will spare you the spoiler-oriented details I can assure you that it is an absolute blast to watch.  The one criticism I would have for the movie’s action as a whole would be that the 3D really didn’t add much of anything to the movie, so my strong recommendation is to save yourself the extra money and catch it in the traditional format.

The Verdict: 8.5/10 – Impressive

+ Robert Downey Jr. fully recovers from the auto-pilot feel of Iron Man 2

+ The script is full of the kind of sarcastic humor that made us love Stark in the first place

+ The stakes are higher than ever, culminating in the best action sequences of the series

- The Mandarin is a good villain, but doesn’t have the raw power of Bane or The Joker

Critical Consensus:

IMDb:  7.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 79%

Metacritic: 65/100

Other Reviews: 

Elemental Reviews: A+

The Cinematic Katzenjammer: 9.2/10

Movie Writing: 9/10

The Bishop Review: 4.5/5

Tim’s Film Reviews: 88%

Dan the Man Movie Reviews: 8.5/10

Three Rows Back: “…as cool, collected and cocksure as its hero”

Committed to Celluloid: 4/5

Amonymous Reviews: 4/5

Black Sheep Reviews: 4/5

The Focused Filmographer: 4/5

The Devil’s Advocates: 4/5

FlixChatter: 4/5

262 Pages: 4/5

A Constant Visual Feast: “smarter than the average tentpole film”

Fast Film Reviews: 3.5/5

The Code is Zeek: 3.5/5

Keith and the Movies: 3.5/5

Fogs’ Movie Reviews: B-

PG Cooper’s Movie Reviews: B-

Average: 8.0/10 – Pretty Damn Great

Posted in Action, New Releases, Sci-fi | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Scorsese Spotlight: The King of Comedy (Committed to Celluloid)

Posted on May 1, 2013 by
Today we have a special treat courtesy of Fernando over at Committed to Celluloid.  You can find out much more about Fernando than I can tell you here in the Blogger Interview I did with him last month, but I will say that there are few other people I have met so far who network as well as he does (Fernando and Tim the Film Guy are currently neck and neck for my “Top Commenter” spot).  Here is his review of The King of Comedy, a film I had no idea even existed before I started this segment. Enjoy!
 

MV5BMTM3NzIzNDQyM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwMTA3MDg5._V1_SY317_CR3,0,214,317_There’s a throng of unconditional fans outside a TV studio. They’re waiting for Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) to come out and catch a glimpse of him, shake his hand, get his autograph. We’ve all been there.

Masha (Sandra Bernhard) is a bit more intense. She sneaks into Jerry’s limousine and sexually attacks him. No, we haven’t been there (I hope).

Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro), a frenemy of Masha’s, reaches in and saves the day, while she curses inside the vehicle and Ray Charles’s versión of “Come Rain or Come Shine” plays.

I’m gonna love you, like no one’s loved you

Come rain or come shine

High as a mountain, deep as a river

Come rain or come shine

A perfect song choice, of course, since Martin Scorsese’s underrated 1983 film is a commentary on obsession. Jerry’s admirers obsessed with meeting their idol and getting his signature on their books. Masha obsessed with Jerry, the man behind the TV host, devoting her life to thinking about him in the tub. Rupert obsessed with making it big as a comedian, whatever it takes (seriously, whatever it takes).

In The King of Comedy, as per IMDb, aspiring comic Rupert Pupkin wants to achieve success in showbiz by resorting to stalking his idol, a late night talk show host who craves his own privacy.

the-king-of-comedyThroughout 109 minutes, Rupert and his sidekick Masha exhibit all sorts of psychotic tendencies. As the French would say, these people are “fucked up in the head”. Of course, the crazy stalkers are oblivious to the insanity of their actions. Showing up at your idol’s country residence and letting yourself in is totally normal!

It’s baffling to me that this dark comedy is one of Scorsese’s lesser known and most under-praised films, since it’s also one of his finest.

Paul D. Zimmerman’s BAFTA-winning screenplay deftly blends comedy, a central theme to the film, with the desperation of Rupert’s unfulfilled career aspirations and the murk of two severely damaged minds.

imagesRobert De Niro is one of the greatest actors to ever grace the screen, and one of my favorites, but if we’re being completely honest, the man rarely veers from a certain type of part. The ruthless mobster, the taxi-driving vigilante, the bigoted cop; they’re all iterations of the same tough guy role Bobby does so well.

As Rupert, De Niro shows a vulnerabilty and desperation you wouldn’t expect from him, and that’s what makes his performance so compelling. We’re not used to seeing Robert as a loser, the underdog, but he’s just so damn good at it.

Stand-up comedienne Sandra Bernhard is fantastic as deranged Masha, a rich woman with too much time on her hands, who thinks having your favorite TV host taped to a chair in front of you equals a date.

Jerry-Lewis-in-The-King-of-Comedy--300x162With The King of Comedy, Scorsese and Zimmerman show us the scary lengths some people will go to to fulfill their dreams. I mean, tone down the laughs a bit, give it an ominous score and you have yourself a horror movie!

We all daydream sometimes. About being rich or famous, hanging out with our favorite celebrity or, like Masha, soaking in the tub with them. The thing is, we’ve got to be careful not to let those fantasies dictate our lives.

The Verdict : 9/10 – Incredible

Once again, I highly encourage you to check out Committed to Celluloid or follow Fernando on Twitter at @fernandorafael.
Posted in Guest Reviews, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

April Wrap-Up: The Highest Highs and Lowest Lows

Posted on May 1, 2013 by

During this month, the month that so frustratingly precedes the Summer Blockbuster season, we’ve see a very wide range of quality from the pack of new releases.  Ranging from the year’s finest to it’s most despicable, April 2013 has been full of stand-outs for better or for worse.  So far, the field for “Worst Movie of the Year” feels quite a bit fuller than the field for “Best Movie of the Year”, but hopefully the coming months will begin to change that.  Who knows, with Iron Man 3′s release only days away that change could come sooner than I might let myself believe.  Before all of that though, here’s a quick look back at the final chapter of the Spring 2013 movie season.

As a quick note, I’ve finally gotten around to compiling these wrap-ups into my “The Ugly and The Beautiful” page for 2013.  You can find the page in the menu up above or by clicking here, check it out for a full list of my reviews for 2013 and their respective scores.

8.5/10 – Impressive

The Place Beyond the Pines

8.0/10 – Pretty Damn Great

Evil Dead

7.5/10 – Superior

42

Oblivion

7.0/10 – Good

Pain & Gain

2.0/10 – Symphony of Suck

Scary Movie 5

1.5/10 – Revolting

The Big Wedding

Here are some tidbits about March’s releases:

The avg. Rotten Tomatoes Score from February was 48% (up from 37% in March)

Three out of the Seven were “Fresh”

The avg. Metacritic Score from February was 47/100 (up from 42/100 in March)

Per Metacritic, two films were ranked positive, two were negative and the rest were mixed

My average score was 5.1/10 (up from 5.1/10 in March)

My picks for most underrated would go to Oblivion

My pick for most overrated go to… nothing this time

Well folks, it’s finally all behind us.  April is hopefully a small taste of what hope the rest of the year has to offer moviegoers, and I for one am eager for the main course.  In other words; Iron Man 3, please don’t suck.

Posted in Editorials, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Pain and Gain Review: Stranger Than Fiction

Posted on April 30, 2013 by

517f243c2a765.preview-300Michael Bay is the Nickelback of movies.  His films are loud, shallow, overly sexual and generally unintelligent, yet somehow he still manages to pump out hit after hit.  His last few films, the Transformers trilogy, are arguably the peak of the man’s flaunting of the inverse relationship between a movie’s IQ level and its Box Office potential.  I still maintain that Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen stands as the worst true Blockbuster of all time (Batman & Robin would have taken the title had it not tanked at the Box Office and subsequently killed the Batman franchise for nearly a decade).  Perhaps it’s not so surprising that the movie that many critics are dubbing Bay’s most intelligent film to date was met with the man’s lowest ever opening weekend gross.  All of Bay’s usual traits are visible in Pain & Gain, but a set of entertaining performances from Wahlberg and Johnson combined with the remarkably true-story subject matter come together to form a refreshingly entertaining bumbling-criminal flick.

The Plot: 7/10

A trio of bodybuilders in Florida get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.

Michael Bay has proved on many occasions that a complicated story doesn’t necessarily images (2)translate to a smart story.  After all, Revenge of the Fallen had a fairly elaborate plot and we all know how that turned out.  Pain & Gain, on the other hand, is perhaps the first example I can think of for the director in which the amount of moving parts is a good thing.   The kidnapping plot itself only occupies about half of the run time, the rest being devoted to the related fallout.  The fact that all of this is a true story makes the entire experience quite a bit more interesting, though adherence to the real life events led to a longer length than the movie is able to justify for itself.

The Writing: 6/10

Now let’s remind ourselves that this is Michael Bay we’re talking about, so if there’s pain-and-gain-dwayne-johnsonanything that you can expect from the writing here it’s a large amount of unnecessary and largely ineffective comic relief.  That being said, I was expecting much less from the script than I ended up seeing.  A large amount of the credit for the jokes that actually land go to the acting talent involved, but it can at least be said that the writing itself doesn’t get in the way too often.  Some of the lamer comic relief comes in the form of Anthony Mackie’s character, who is the closest the movie comes to a reincarnation of Shia LaBeouf’s mom in the Transformers movies.

The biggest thing that impressed me from a writing standpoint was the use of multiple perspectives in the way of voice-overs.  Each character gets their own turn in the topicspotlight, along with the opportunity to explain some of their back stories and thus giving each character a much more fleshed-out feeling.  The biggest “Bay” quality that this highlightes though is how sexist Bay is with his character choices.  The only female character who gets a voice-over is a ditzy Russian stripper named Sorina, aka your typical Bay Girl.  Rebel Wilson is basically used as a walking, talking fat-joke for all of us to laugh at.  Which one is the more offensive stereotype, you tell me.

The Acting: 8/10

By award season standards I wouldn’t necessarily score the movie this high on an acting level, but I stand by my score here if nothing else because the movie wouldn’t have worked PAIN AND GAINwithout the presences of the acting talent involved.  Mark Wahlberg is always fun to watch when he’s at his most clueless, and the combination of that with his meathead character makes for an entertaining lead.  I’ve already voiced my issues with Mackie, but I was much  happier with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the coke-fiend-turned-Jesus-freak-turned-coke-fiend weak link of the crew.  Johnson just has this mix of lovable tenderness and physical power that makes him perfect for roles like this, like if you were to mix The Hulk with a Teddy Bear.

On the supporting end, I was a big disappointed by Tony Shalhoub as the kidnapee, Victor Kershaw.  I know that Shhaloub is given an inherently unlikable character, but he never Pain & Gainfeels like anything more than a rich asshole who merits neither sympathy nor contempt.  I was much more of a fan of Ed Harris as the Private Investigator Victor hires to bring justice to his kidnappers (I would consider this a spoiler, but the fact that it is shown in the trailers themselves should classify it as fair game).  I may have expected Harris to be a bit more ruthless, but his position as the one decent person in the entire movie helps his cause quite a bit.

The Action: 7/10

As one of the lowest budget films Mr. Bay has made in quite some time, his usual reliance on explosions and special effects was never going to be enough to give him a pass in Pain & pain_gain_explosionGain.  Because of that, the action element of the film isn’t even close to the same levels as his past projects, leading to a much more character-centric focus than his comfort zone usually allows for.  That being said, the action is less of an explosive sort here and more of a bumbling criminal sort, and I for one found the results more entertaining than simply watching gangs of giant robots clobbering each other for two hours.

On the other hand, some of the elements you’re used to seeing from a Michael Bay movie images (3)are still here, for better or for worse.  The addition of Lugo’s “Free Gym Memberships for Strippers”which I maintain is a brilliant idea, gives the director more than enough opportunity to parade around the army of scantily clad, well-endowed women that fans of his have come to expect.  If this alone is enough to make you want to see this movie, then you won’t be disappointed (especially seeing as Bay makes repeated usage of the freedoms of the film’s R rating).

The Verdict: 7.0/10 – Good

+ Wahlberg and Johnson make for extremely entertaining leads

+ The True-Story basis adds a level of depth to the film that Bay’s movies usually lack

- Bay’s usual sexism, pseudo-racism and overall lack of intelligent writing is still present

- The movie is a bit overlong and might get a bit too dark for some in the second half

Critical Consensus:

IMDb:  7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes:  48%

Metacritic: 45/100

Other Reviews: 

Fogs’ Movie Reviews: B+

Dan the Man Movie Reviews: 7/10

The Code is Zeek: 3.5/5

Devil’s Advocates: 3/5

The Focused Filmographer: 2.5/5

Posted in Action, Comedy, New Releases, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments