Day 148: 21 Jump Street

"The people behind this lack creativity and they've run out of ideas, so what we do now is just recycle shit from the past and hope nobody notices."

Clever, right? The biggest problem with 21 Jump Street is that it's too clever, or at least thinks it is, and calls attention to it every couple of minutes. It's actually a very funny movie, but by constantly calling attention to how meta and in-on-the-joke everyone is, it deflates its purpose. It's better than it has any right to be, but it's almost sad that it could have been better. It could have been one of the best movies of the year, but it ultimately tries too hard to be a good movie instead of just allowing it to happen, which it almost certainly would have.

Jonah Hill & Channing Tatum play Schmidt & Jenko, a respectively nerdy & meatheaded cop who are given an assignment to help revive an old undercover program that sends youthful looking cops to high school to bust up drug rings. They mix up their assignments, however, and the dumb Jenko ends up having to masquerade as a science geek & nerdy Schmidt is stuck pretending he's a jock. It also helps that in the years since these two were actually in high school, the social constructs have changed so that the dumb jock is no longer at the top of the food chain. This sends Jenko scrambling to find an identity, but helps Schmidt to actually enjoy high school in a way he didn't when he was a student.

Like I said, it's clever enough as a concept, it doesn't need to make you aware of how clever it is by constantly having characters mention these facts. Schmidt falls in with the popular crowd, which includes the school's main drug dealer Eric (Dave Franco, younger brother of James) and drama chick Molly (Brie Larson) whom he ends up falling for. Schmidt becomes so enamored with his newfound popularity, that he begins to get in too deep and lose sight of what their actual mission is in the first place.

While Hill is the focus of most of the drama, its Tatum who actually shines in the film. I mean this as a sincere compliment, but Channing Tatum actually has the ability to be the next Mark Wahlberg. He's at home in comedy & drama, and he's a much better actor than he appears to be, giving him the ability to constantly surprise you and catch you off guard. I hadn't been impressed with him at all until Magic Mike earlier this summer, and catching up with this film now, I think he's got a bright future ahead of him. I never, in a million years, thought I would utter anything of the sort.

The supporting cast is strong, with Franco & Larson both playing their roles extremely well, and it helps that the teachers are all played by actors with serious comedy chops like Chris Parnell, Ellie Kemper & Rob Riggle (who steals the two or three scenes he's in). Nick Offerman is also hilarious in a cameo as their first Chief, and it wouldn't be 21 Jump Street without cameos from Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise, in a hilariously touching scene late in the film.

Under the direction of Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, it's a solid comedy top to bottom. The two are veterans of tv comedy from How I Met Your Mother, and their earlier directorial effort was another one that was better than it had any right to be, 2009's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The screenplay was by Michael Bacall who previously wrote Scott Pilgrim vs The World, one of my favorite films in recent years, based on a story by Bacall & Hill. It could have been a truly great screenplay had it not been so concerned with making sure that the audience was in on the joke. It's almost as if they didn't trust the audience, and while I get that, considering the film was aimed squarely at teenagers, but it ends up undermining its brilliance with constant asides.

21 Jump Street is hardly a classic, but it's much better than it could have or even should have been. Even if you like the film a lot, you'll likely find yourself with the same complaints that I have, or maybe not. Maybe the film works 100% for some people, and I get that. I guess I just wish the writers hadn't been so concerned with leaving the audience behind and just going for broke. But at the end of the day, at least they tried, and that's more than I can say for 95% of tv to film adaptations.

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Day 147: Bad News Bears (2005)

"Baseball's hard you guys, I mean it. You can love it, but it don't always love you back. It's kind of like dating a German chick, you know?"

There have been a ton of unnecessary remakes in the history of cinema. The distinguishing feature of the unnecessary remake is that there's virtually no reason for it to exist, i.e. no interesting casting choices, nothing new to bring to the table, no new examination of the original material, etc. Some recent examples would be the remakes of Straw Dogs, Psycho, Rollerball, City of Angels, Alfie, and The Pink Panther. There is literally nothing about any of these remakes that made it worthy of anyone's time or money to do, and what's more, they all bombed (or at least weren't overwhelmingly successful).

At first glance, Richard Linklater's 2005 remake of the 1976 baseball classic Bad News Bears seems like a pretty horrible idea. One of the things that makes the original so endearing is that it was made in the era before people were falling all over themselves to remain politically correct. How could that same sensibility translate forward two decades when anything that is meant to seem remotely edgy is typically just dressed up insensitivity, particularly within the confines of a PG-13 rating? The simple answer is that it can't, which makes the whole endeavor pretty unnecessary.

The casting of Billy Bob Thornton is where any inspiration that this remake had begins and ends. In the wake of 2003's Bad Santa, there's been a desire to recapture that film's magic in a new way, but it's honestly folly. This remake even brought that film's writers, Glenn Ficarra & John Requa, on board in an ill-fated attempt to make the film seem more dangerous than it actually is, or even wants to be, to be honest. They keep almost all of the characters' names the same (Morris Buttermaker, Amanda Wurlitzer, Kelly Leak), and add in some odd ethic characters in a pathetic attempt to simultaneously add diversity while increasing the number of targets for Buttermaker's tirades.

So how much of the film isn't a total waste? Well, that depends upon two factors: how much do you like Billy Bob Thornton, and how much do you like the original story in the first place? The original story is so good that even a ham-fisted remake like this can't dampen it. It's an enjoyable enough film, although your time would be better spent watching the original if the story is all you care about. So mainly, it comes down to Thornton, which is an awful lot of responsibility for one man to bear.

For the most part, he pulls it off, playing on any goodwill you have towards him as a lovably unlikable human being. I am a huge fan of Bad Santa, and while this film is a pale imitator, it probably helped me to not hate it outright. I guess it's strange that the only reason I enjoyed this film at all is because it made me think of two other films I like so much better. Probably not reason enough for me to say that it's worth yours or anyone else's time, but also not enough for me to write it off wholesale.

Audiences greeted this film with a similar apathy upon its release, and the seven year interim since then has done nothing to increase its status as a cult classic in the vein of either the original or Bad Santa, but there are a lot worse ways to spend two hours. See the first paragraph for at least six examples of this. However, if you have the original at your disposal, there's absolutely no reason to watch this, and that, ultimately, makes this as unnecessary as those other films.

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Day 146: Hudson Hawk

"Is looking like a constipated warthog a prerequisite for getting a job in the art world?"

There's a very strange phenomenon surrounding Bruce Willis, and it's very hard for me to figure out. Somehow the man churns out a major bomb every couple of years, yet never loses his A-list status. He's starred in such unmitigated disasters as Bonfire of the Vanities, North, Breakfast of Champions, Perfect Stranger & Color of Night, but without a doubt, his most memorable failure has got to be 1991's Hudson Hawk. How is it that Willis remains bankable, even, dare I say it, likable, in spite of his track record? Well, he has starred in a lot more hits than he has bombs, but it's almost as if people just forget about the bombs and focus on the hits.

Hudson Hawk is a doozy of a film. It's not the catastrophic failure that people have made it out to be, but it's also not very good either. I have fond memories of the film, it's always been a guilty pleasure of mine, but revisiting it after more than a decade, I'm here to tell you, it hasn't aged well. At all. It's a ballsy movie, and it's not hard to see why it failed. It's a wacky, almost post-modern riff on the jet-setting James Bond knock-offs that were so ubiquitous in the 60s. I say almost because it's actually a lot stupider than I think the filmmakers realized. It is, by no means, a smart or savvy satire, but it does a lot of things well, which helps to cement its status as a cult classic.

Willis plays the eponymous safe-cracker, just let out of prison, but finding himself getting dragged back in for the proverbial "one last job," that involves the CIA, the mafia, the Vatican & two deranged billionaires (Richard E. Grant & Sandra Bernhard). They're trying to track down relics from Leonardo DaVinci's work that hold the key to some sort of doomsday device. To say that the plot is secondary to the action & set-pieces is an understatement. The plot is so convoluted, it doesn't even seem to have been a concern to anyone involved.

Either way, Hawk's old partner Tommy (Danny Aiello) comes along for the ride, as does an art historian (Andie MacDowell) working for the Vatican. The CIA agents are all code-named for candy bars (Kit Kat, Butterfinger, etc), the mafia representatives are Cesar & Anthony Mario, or the Mario Brothers. In other words, the film has allusions to being clever, but doesn't actually do anything with these set-ups to pay off the presumed cleverness. It's just being clever for its own sake. Which is fine, but it's also an example of why the film, as a whole, just doesn't work.

It seems like an issue of too many creative forces coming together, all bringing their own ideas, and none of them willing to compromise. Therefore, the film ends up being a pastiche of random assorted nonsense, of the kind that would appeal endlessly to my twelve year old self, but as an adult, it's a less than satisfying endeavor. My adult self did delight in the odd casting choices however, like Frank Stallone & James Coburn, both of whom seem to know how bad the movie is, but neither of whom seem to give a shit.

There's plenty of things to like here, such as the crooks timing their jobs to old standards rather than using a watch, or the scene transitions that keep things moving to the point where the film feels as if it's never going to slow down enough to even end. But more than anything else, it's just a convoluted mess of jokes that don't work, pop culture references that fall flat, and Willis smirking his way through the film as if he's sharing a joke with the audience that they don't seem to be in on.

And I guess that's the reason Willis has managed to maintain his likability, no matter how bad the project around him seems to be. He knowingly places himself above the material, even if it's material he conceived, as is the case here. In other words, if you love Hudson Hawk, you love it because Bruce Willis knows how bad it is, and is in on the joke with you, and if you hate it, you're able to recognize that even the film's star knew how bad it was. He gets to have it both ways, and how many other people in Hollywood have that luxury? Not many. In fact, he might be the only one.

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Day 145: Bernie

"Everybody's describing Bernie Tiede like he's an angel. Well he's an angel alright... an angel of death."

Richard Linklater is a baffling director to me. Like a lot of directors, he goes through phases. Early in his career, he seemed interested in directing movies about aimless small town teenagers (Slacker, Dazed & Confused, SubUrbia). Then he went through a phase where he was obsessed with rotoscope animation (Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly). There was also his man-child becomes unlikely mentor to children phase (School of Rock, Bad News Bears). Then he has some films which defy categorization like Fast Food Nation & his latest film Bernie. 

Bernie tells the true story of Bernie Tiede (Jack Black, in a revelatory performance), an assistant funeral director in the small town of Carthage, TX, who is regarded by everyone in town as one of the nicest men ever to walk the face of the earth. Using a faux-documentary technique lifted from Warren Beatty's Reds, the film interweaves Tiede's tale with interviews from the real people of Carthage, as well as a few actors portraying characters from Tiede's life. At this point in time, I have to urge you to not read any further if you haven't seen the film, as knowing virtually anything about it will dampen your enjoyment of the film. And likewise, if you've seen the horrendous theatrical trailer for the film, it will make you think it's some wacky Harold & Maude clone with Jack Black up to his usual antics. In other words, spoilers for the next two paragraphs…

Bernie strikes up a friendship with a local widow Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) that eventually ends up consuming all of his time, as Marjorie is a bit of a control freak. As Bernie tries to hold things together, he eventually begins to show cracks in his facade, and in a moment of weakness, ends up shooting Marjorie in the back four times. He spends the next several months trying to carry on like normal, since no one in town really much liked or cared about Marjorie anyway, and no one seems to miss her. However, her body is eventually found, preserved in a freezer, and Bernie is put on trial for her murder.

The prosecutor in the case is Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey, also fantastic), and because of the town's adoration for Bernie, he seeks to have the case moved to another county, the first in a series of moves that seem to doom Bernie's defense. In fact, if I have any major grievance with the film, it's that it is firmly on Bernie's side. Buck is portrayed as an egotist and a madman, and thankfully McConaughey is able to infuse him with some pathos, but the film itself definitely sets him up as the villain when it didn't really need to. The nosy accountant was a good enough villain without having to demonize Buck. But that's neither here nor there.

The film is pretty riveting stuff, particularly when you don't know the outcome. It reminded me a bit of the documentary Brother's Keeper in that it presented this world where an entire town rallies around one man, as if to hold them up as a beacon of their way of life they're trying to protect. It would make a great double feature if anyone's up to it.

As I said earlier, Black is fantastic. I've always enjoyed him as a performer, but never thought much of him as an actor. He's at home in films like School of Rock & High Fidelity, but anytime he's taken outside of that zone and expected to give a performance, the results can be disastrous. Peter Jackson's King Kong would be the number one example I could think of where he was so woefully miscast, he actually made a bad movie even worse. His performance here, however, is measured and nuanced. His gait is different, his speaking voice and even his singing voice are transformed, and he wholly embodies this character, never letting you think of Jack Black the buffoon (except maybe The Music Man scene).

McConaughey is every bit his equal, though his role is much smaller. From his doofus haircut to his wheel of misfortune, he's a pitiable dude, and one that McConaughey doesn't seem equipped to play as well as he does. It's often distracting to see attractive actors playing losers, but he does a damn good job here and plays it for all it's worth.

Overall, it's a very satisfying movie and one that I wholeheartedly recommend to film fans everywhere. Don't let any biases you may have towards the film's star steer you away, you'd be doing yourself a disservice. Perhaps this is the start of a new phase for Richard Linklater, and all I can say is that if it is, I'm excited to see what he has in store for us down the road. This is as promising a start as he's had in a long time.

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Day 144: Ted

"No matter how big a splash you make in this world, whether you're Corey Feldman, Frankie Muniz, Justin Bieber, or a talking teddy bear, eventually, nobody gives a shit."

I've gone back and forth a lot on Seth McFarlane. Love him or hate him, he's an undeniably talented individual with his finger very firmly on the pulse of populist comedy. His detractors, and I have been among them at times, will tell you that he prefers quick & cheap pop culture references and throw-away sight gags to actual situational comedy, and nowhere is that more apparent than on his first and most famous creation, the tv show Family Guy. Thankfully Ted, his first foray into feature filmmaking, has yielded mostly hilarious results.

The film opens with suitably treacly narration from Patrick Stewart (the film is populated with tons of voice actors from McFarlane's various animated series), informing us that one magical Christmas in 1985, a lonely eight year old boy named John made a wish that his only friend, a teddy bear named Ted, would come to life. His wish was granted and Ted became a quasi-celebrity before falling into obscurity. Now they're all grown up and John (Mark Walhberg) & Ted (voiced by McFarlane) are slacking their way through their 30s with no real direction in life.

John's girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) is enamored with John, but beginning to grow weary of his relationship with Ted. She gives John an ultimatum shortly after their fourth anniversary, either Ted goes or she does. John helps Ted find an apartment and a job at a grocery store, but his vow to grow up and leave his childish things behind falls apart quickly, putting his relationship in jeopardy.

There are multiple subplots involving such talented actors as Matt Walsh as John's boss, Joel McHale as Lori's creepy boss & Patrick Warburton as one of John's co-workers, all of which are frequently hilarious, but they're all secondary to the main plot which is basically a man growing up mixed with healthy doses of an addict continuously relapsing. In other words, it plays like an extended sitcom pilot, as things never stray too far from the main triangle of John, Ted & Lori. This isn't necessarily a complaint, it just accounts for why the film plays more like a sitcom than a feature film.

The film goes astray in the third act, and while it has been out for a while, I don't want to risk spoiling any of the details. Needless to say, when they do open up the world and decide to play it more cinematically, it's nowhere near as good as when it's just extended riffing between the characters. It basically turns into a thriller, and though it does feature an inspired and creepy Giovanni Ribisi, it's borderline ridiculous, which is really saying something in a movie about a talking stuffed animal. 

Most of the bits in the film, however, are hysterically funny. Ted & John's obsession with the immortal camp classic Flash Gordon pays off huge dividends with an extended cameo from that film's star Sam Jones. The film is never better than in the second act house party sequence featuring an amped up Jones. Another bit I loved was the running gag involving Tom Skerrit, though it did feel akin to something from Family Guy, as did Ted's repeated backfiring attempts to get fired from his grocery store job, but they're all funny enough to not feel out of place or totally superfluous, as is the case with many of that show's best gags.

When did Mark Wahlberg turn into not just one of the best actors working today, but one of the most solidly reliable comedic actors? I'm serious, I don't know how it happened. His inspired performance in I Heart Huckabees was one of the first times I remember thinking he was hilarious, and most of his best work since has come in comedies. He's great here as the typical comedy man-child, though I didn't buy for a minute that he was only 35 which everyone makes a point of mentioning every couple of minutes. McFarlane is also great, saving virtually all of the best lines for himself, and Kunis does the most she can with a horrendously under-written role. 

The supporting cast is sublime from Warburton to McHale, Ribisi, Walsh, and Jones. Norah Jones & Ted Danson have pretty great cameos, as do two other superstar actors that I won't spoil here. It's a remarkably well-rounded comedy cast, and it's no surprise that this film turned into as big of a hit as it did. It hits all the right notes with its characters, it's just that none of them are fleshed out enough to amount to much more than cameos at the end of the day, with the possible exceptions of McHale & Ribisi.

Normally this is the point in the review where I say that if you're not already a fan of the creator or writer or actor or director involved, that this won't make you a convert, but I think this might be an exception to that rule. I could very easily see someone who's not a fan of McFarlane's tv work being won over by this film. It's hilariously funny and plays well to a variety of audiences. Ultimately however, if you don't like your comedy crass, this film doesn't have a sweet enough core to make up for the crassness, and there were probably one too many gay panic jokes, which are never funny, for my taste.

The third act is ultimately pretty lame and manipulative, but it ends on a high note, and the first two acts are good enough for you to overlook it's inability to stick the landing. I look forward to seeing what McFarlane's future as a filmmaker holds, this is as promising a first comedy feature as we've seen since The 40 Year-Old Virgin, and he has an equally uncanny ability to attract major comedic talent to his projects. So even if you're not a fan, Ted may not make you a true believer, but it will certainly make you laugh, which is more than I can say for virtually every other comedy film that came out this summer.

GO Rating: 3.5/5

[Photos via Box Office Mojo]

Day 143: Lawless

"Do you have any idea what a Thompson machine gun does to a mortal?"

There's an old adage about a collective work of art being less than the sum of its parts, and that adage can be firmly and appropriately applied to the new film Lawless. It features a fantastic acting ensemble, a director who knows his way around desolate and sparsely violent landscapes, and a screenwriter/composer who has proven himself adept at both of those worlds, but these parts just don't add up to a great film. Which is unfortunate, because it had all the potential in the world to be one of the year's best.



Based on Matt Bondurant's novel "The Wettest County in the World", Lawless tells the Prohibition-era true story of a family of crooked bootleggers in the mountains of Virginia. The Bondurant Brothers, Forrest (the always fantastic Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke) & Jack (Shia LaBeouf) find themselves in a bit of a pickle when a Special Deputy by the name of Charles Rakes (Guy Pearce) is sent to deal with the family, but informs them that he has other interests in mind.

The boys get in even deeper when a rival bootlegging gang headed by Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman) begins muscling in on their territory. When their de facto leader Forrest is wounded, Jack finds himself in the position of having to man up and protect his family's business, or watching the whole thing come unraveled.



There are some truly unusual circumstances that lead up to the ending, which are almost impossible to discuss in a spoiler-free review. Needless to say, you'll find yourself shaking your head in disbelief and will likely chalk it up to the fact that the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

The film is beautifully shot by Benoit Delhomme, who handled DP duties for director John Hillcoat's 2006 film, The Proposition. If you were a fan of that film, I think it's safe to say you'll find a lot to like here, but not much to love beyond how gorgeous the film looks. The film owes its entire existence to Arthur Penn's Bonnie & Clyde, and seems at times to be desperately aping that film's beautifully violent aesthetic. That film is one of my all-time favorites, and likely the reason that I didn't enjoy this film as much as I should have because it seems to be trying to one-up Bonnie & Clyde rather than paying homage to it.



The performances are all solid, with the glaring exception of LaBeouf. He is so firmly out of his element in this rugged ensemble that his third act transformation is not only thoroughly unbelievable, it's downright laughable. LaBeouf is hardly one of the premier actors of his generation, and he looks like a rank amateur in such formidable company. Hardy, Oldman, & Pearce are all top-notch, as is Jessica Chastain as the object of Forrest's affections. Mia Wasikowska is also good in a small and largely thankless role.

The filmmakers would have been smarter to swap LaBeouf with the much better and severely underused Dane DeHaan. DeHaan, whom you may know from this year's Chronicle, plays the family's genius moonshine cooker, Cricket. He's a magnetic screen presence, and does so much more than LaBeouf does with so much less material. He is definitely an actor to watch for in the future.



Screenwriter & composer Nick Cave has a unique ear for dialogue & captures a wonderful interplay of dialogue between these varied characters, but ultimately the film falls apart in the third act & really fails to stick the landing. Without the benefit of having read the book, I'm not sure at who's feet the fault for this lay, but what started out as a fun, engaging thrill-ride ended up running out of gas and basically sputtered to a halt.

I had high hopes for the film, and maybe if you go into it with lowered expectations, you'll enjoy the film more than I did. There's certainly a lot of great elements on display, some excellent performances, and a really strong first two acts, but in the end, it fails to be better than the sum of its parts. It's not as big a failure as, say, a film like Troy which had similar third act issues combined with otherwise great technical elements, but it still fails to live up to its potential. And at the end of the day, that's almost a greater crime than just being flat-out terrible.

GO Rating: 2.5/5


[Photos via Box Office Mojo]

Day 142: Premium Rush

"You have a real knack for making things worse."

Before I get into this review, I have to preface it by saying that this is not a movie that everyone will enjoy. I can see the average movie-goer walking out of the theater thinking that it was a massive disappointment. However, there is a gem of a movie buried under a premise that has no business working whatsoever, and for those that enjoy B-movies and get on the same wavelength as the filmmakers, you're in for a hell of a ride.



Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a bike messenger in New York City. He helps to establish the world of the film with an opening voice-over that lets us know that bike messengers are part of an unspoken fraternity that takes care of their own, and are among the most able-bodied workers in the entire city. At the end of a long day, Wilee is requested by an acquaintance (Jamie Chung) to pick up a package from her and deliver it to an address in Chinatown.

He immediately attracts the attention of a man calling himself Forrest J. Ackerman (Michael Shannon) who claims to need the letter back from Wilee. When Wilee refuses, Ackerman gives chase, and the film turns into a race across New York City that involves cops, crooks, other bike messengers, the Chinese mafia, and virtually everyone in between.



The movie plays fast and loose with the real-time structure, although the events unfold more or less in real time. There is a ticking-clock that shows up from time to time to let you know when the events you're watching took place, as there are constant flashbacks and scenes told from multiple vantage points, and while it is a bit confusing at first, the pieces begin to fall into place a little more than halfway through.

The handful of times that the action does slow down or stop, are fraught with tension and strategically placed to give the audience a breather. Other than that, it's pretty much non-stop, wall to wall action and suspense. What at first seem like superfluous details like Wilee's failed relationship with one of his co-workers Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) or his rivalry with another (Wole Parks), all come into play throughout the course of the story, and what at first seem like unnecessary details, come to reveal a fully realized world.



David Koepp is a writer who, when he's on his game, understands structure and timely reveals better than almost anyone out there. As a director, he's hit and miss at best, but again, when he's on, he's a force to be reckoned with. I would place this film right alongside his other B-movie masterpiece, 1999's Stir of Echoes, as a fantastic exercise in genre filmmaking. It also bears more than a passing resemblance to his screenplay for Brian DePalma's Snake Eyes as another film smart enough to know it's playing into the very tropes it seems to be parodying.

The performances here are as good as can be expected for the kind of film this is. JGL is far and away one of the most affable actors working today, and he coasts here on his endless charm and the fact that you just can't help but root for the guy, no matter what. Shannon is an absolute blast, and handily walks away with the entire film. I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to compare his performance here to another of his contemporaries in a similarly so-bad-it's-good film from last year, and that would be William Fitchner in Drive Angry. Both actors are savvy enough to know how pulpy the material is, and thankfully manage to have a ton of fun playing these over-the-top villains.



What I'm getting at, again, is that this is the sort of movie you have to know is going to be ridiculous and fun and be willing to just go with it. The film borrows liberally from everything like Run Lola Run, Two Lane Blacktop, & Looney Tunes, and the more you give yourself over to the fun everyone on screen is having, the more you'll find yourself getting caught up in it as well.

I'm sad that this film is seriously under performing at the box office (I was the only person in the theater this afternoon), but it's no surprise. This film would have been a better match for a February or September release, and just got buried in the end-of-summer doldrums. If you're looking for a fun, breezy, ninety minute B-movie thrill-ride though, you can't get much better than Premium Rush.

GO Rating: 4/5

[Photos via Box Office Mojo]

Day 141: ParaNorman

"Say that you'll do it! Swear!" "Like, the f-word?"

The latest film from Oregon-based stop-motion studio LAIKA, opens with a kitschy throwback opening sequence that perfectly sets the tone for the adventure ahead, including 70s-style studio logos and an "Our Feature Presentation" card ripped right from the grindhouse. It instantaneously alerts you to the fact that you're in good hands, and does nothing to betray that trust in the ensuing ninety minutes. In other words, I'm happy to report that a summer filled with family films lacking in imagination, goes out with a bang, as this film has imagination & inspiration to spare.



Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is cursed with a gift of being able to see and communicate with dead people. He sees them everywhere, including the ghost of his beloved Grandma (Elaine Stritch). Unlike another famous character with the same gift, however, Norman doesn't view this as a curse; It's everyone else that treats him differently. His parents (Jeff Garlin & Leslie Mann) don't understand him, his sister (Anna Kendrick) downright despises him, and the class bully (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) dishes out nonstop punishment to the besotted boy.

Fate has big plans for Norman though. There is an imminent invasion of the undead, and according to Norman's crazy uncle (John Goodman), Norman is the only one that can prevent it. When he fails to prevent it, due to circumstances beyond his control, Norman must convince the entire town that he's the only one that can set things right.



One of the things that ParaNorman does incredibly well is instill in the audience that things are not always what they seem. One of the things that I was apprehensive about regarding this film in the first place, was that it was yet another zombie movie. Zombies are all the rage right now, and every possible metaphor that they could represent seems to have been used up a dozen times over. If it's at all possible, though, I'd love to convince you that there is refreshing twist that this film has for the undead, and therefore I won't spoil it here.

LAIKA's last film was 2009's Coraline, and that film set the bar sky high for anything else they would do in the future. Rest assured, though, that ParaNorman is a worthy successor in quality, much the same way Pixar's A Bug's Life was to Toy Story. It's a pleasantly different story told with the same twisted sensibility. The film is very funny, appropriately dark, but still family friendly, containing a wonderful message along the lines of those who fail to remember and learn from their past being doomed to repeat it.



The voice talent is solid, top to bottom, with Smit-McPhee conveying a wonderful sense of exasperation, desperation, loneliness & determination. As Norman's only friend Neil, Tucker Albrizzi is also fantastic & Casey Affleck is great as Neil's older brother. Casting an actor like Mintz-Plasse to voice a giant bully was inspired, and pays off great dividends. I still don't understand the phenomenon of casting, pardon the expression, fat actors to play fat characters, but both Garlin & Goodman are great. I guess I just don't get the sensibility behind casting directors only casting these great voice actors to play fat guys.

The animation is amazing, as to be expected. Three years have passed since Coraline, and LAIKA surpasses even that film's great look. The film's climax is a wonder to behold & the way they superimpose the ghosts onto the frame is inspired and eerie. The use of 3D is minimal and mostly adds depth rather than being gimmicky, but it's a better use of the technology than, say, Brave or Ice Age made.



I took my six-year old daughter Clementine with me, and she had a blast, laughing up a storm. After we left the theater, she said to me, "Dad, Norman's dad didn't believe in him. That's really sad," and that to me is an indicator of how good the film's creators were at establishing and conveying their message. What could have been a pat exercise in the standard "believe in yourself" tropes got turned on its ear. It's not surprising that this film is rooted in a story as old as the tale of Chicken Little, but it's a powerful tale that gets better in the re-telling.

With Pixar and Ghibli already established animation powerhouses, and Dreamworks beginning to finally assert itself as a force to be reckoned with, I think we can safely say that we're in a bit of an animation renaissance. Let's hope that LAIKA sticks around for the long haul, because they're currently batting a thousand. Quality animated films are a win-win for studios and audiences, and now that we finally seem to be past the days of rapid-fire pop-culture references as substitutes for actual storytelling creativity, I think we can look forward to a bright future for the animated film. If only the next batch is half as smart as ParaNorman, we're in for a hell of a ride.

GO Rating: 4/5


[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 140: The Campaign

"I am not beholden to my opponent's questions, I am beholden to only one man, the greatest American that ever lived... Jesus Christ."

Much like another comedy from earlier this summer, The Dictator, The Campaign seems to have been made solely for one late film scene where a character sums up the entire issue with our modern political world in an on the nose tirade. I'm not saying that it's not enjoyable and there aren't a lot of funny things that happen over the course of its running time, but continuing to bury prescient political digs in sophomoric humor is only going to diminish your point when you finally get around to making it.



Four-time Congressman Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is running unopposed for a fifth term in his small district in southern North Carolina. That is until his campaign begins to fall victim to several political scandals, almost all of which involve his rampant infidelity. Seeing an opportunity to take control of this solidly Democratic district, the conservative billionaire Motch Brothers (John Lithgow & Dan Aykroyd) look to insert an opposition candidate into the race that they can easily control & manipulate and allow them to introduce their nefarious & illegal business practices into the region.

Enter Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) the black sheep son of a former Republican bigwig (Brian Cox) in whom the Motch Brothers see the perfect man to turn the political tide their way. Huggins is a sweet & innocent soul, ripe for molding into the ultimate political pit bull who will spout whatever pithy talking points they give him. The film then quickly devolves into a series of each candidate trying to one-up the other through political attack ads, debate distractions and various other tricks & games.



The film has some smart and incisive things to say about the current political atmosphere in this country and the way that elections are bought, if not outright, than through means that skirt issues of legality. It's nothing that hasn't been said before, it's just all consolidated here into one storyline that spans roughly five months rather than the seemingly never-ending campaign cycle we currently live in. It's a tad dumbed-down but it's right on target for the average comedy seeking American heading to the multiplex to see it this weekend.

If you've seen the trailers, you've gotten a general sense of what the film is and what it's going for, but thanks to the film's R-rating, it does have a handful of genuinely funny vulgar moments that couldn't be revealed in the advertising. Unfortunately, the R-rating almost seems like an afterthought. It seems as though there were a handful of things they just didn't want to cut and were saddled with the rating, rather than going full bore for the R like some comedies have lately. This isn't necessarily a criticism, more of an observation.



Ferrell is funny as always, if you're amused by what he does. I happen to be a fan and am willing to follow him down roads that many others may not, so if you're not a fan, you're not likely to be won over by his character and performance here. Galifianakis is the true star here however, playing essentially a variation on his stand-up created "twin brother" Seth Galifianakis. Watching him run the gamut from wide-eyed innocent to cold-blooded politician and back again is a joy and for someone who's been a fan of his for years, it's great to see him get a role where he can show his versatility, rather than just showing one facet of his personality like his roles in The Hangover & Due Date have.

The supporting cast is good, but largely underused. Jason Sudeikis, another guy I love in pretty much anything, isn't given much to do here as Cam's campaign manager, but he makes the most of it. Dylan McDermott also does well with his role as Marty's Motch brother financed campaign manager, and Katherine LaNasa & Sarah Baker similarly make the most of their small roles as Cam & Marty's respective wives. Lithgow, Aykroyd & Cox, all formidable screen presences, are almost entirely wasted in thoroughly unfunny glorified cameos.



Director Jay Roach has proven that he can do great political satire with his HBO films Recount & Game Change, but here he appeared to be more comfortable returning to his role as director of safe, crowd-pleasing comedies like Meet the Parents & Austin Powers. I wish he had retained more of his bite, but I suppose that a dumb comedy with teeth is better than one without any teeth at all.

As I said earlier, if you're not a fan of this sort of comedy, this isn't going to win you over and make you see the light. If you are, however, you may find yourself getting caught up in the silliness of it all, and only later will you begin to wonder why the film couldn't settle into a rhythm of either being a gross-out comedy or a sharp political satire, because in its current state, it just doesn't belong in either camp.

GO Rating: 2.5/5

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 139: Prometheus

"There is nothing in the desert. And no man needs nothing."

I think it fitting that I chose a quote from Prometheus that was actually lifted from another film. Prometheus, as a film, didn't need to add in the specter of another film hovering above it. Positioning itself as a prequel to Alien built that in to the experience to begin with, however, the filmmakers (and I say that because I don't know if it was a script choice or a director choice) decided to give one of the characters an obsession with Lawrence of Arabia. Thankfully they picked the best actor in the film (Michael Fassbender) to give that obsession to, but any time you take one of the greatest films ever made, insert it in to your own film, and reference it more than once, you're only serving to remind your audience of all the better things they could be doing with their time.

And thus is the paradox that is Ridley Scott's Prometheus. What begins as an ambitious science fiction film that sets out to tackle weighty issues like the origin of human life and religious belief systems, turns into a base, sophomoric attempt at being a (thoroughly unpleasing) crowd-pleaser. For its first 45 minutes (excluding a thoroughly ridiculous prologue), the film is actually surprisingly good, and I was having a hard time understanding where the film's detractors were coming from.

The film chronicles an expedition to the vast reaches of the solar system, funded by an enigmatic & wealthy benefactor named Peter Weyland (Guy Pierce), aboard the eponymous vessel. The ragtag group of people aboard include the captain (the always great Idris Elba), the woman running the operation (Charlize Theron, never blander) and the two archaeologists (Noomi Rapace & some guy that looks like a low-rent Tom Hardy) whose discoveries on earth have led Weyland to believe that the answers to the origin of life on Earth reside on the moon of a distant planet. Also aboard are a bunch of other utterly forgettable supporting players and an android named David (Fassbender) who has spent the two year voyage of the ship watching the dreams of the other passengers in between language lessons & viewings Lawrence of Arabia.

Anyone who's seen at least one science fiction film knows that there's more awaiting this crew than meets the eye when they arrive. What makes the film so utterly stupid is the fact that the characters will, in time, receive the answer to virtually every question that they have. Pins are set up just to be knocked down & it diminishes the whole point of bringing up such heavy issues. Why does there have to be an answer to everything? Do you care where the Alien in Alien came from? You'll get your answer here. Did you absolutely have to know what the space jockey in Alien was? Watch Prometheus for a truly stupid answer. It doesn't matter where everything comes from, but it's funny that the entire theme of Prometheus is people seeking answers to unanswerable questions. It's like they're letting you know what you're in for right there in the god damned log line.

No one's motivations make any sense. A single word is spoken, unnecessarily, by Charlize Theron's character, almost as a reason to help you understand why this wholly unlikable person is the way she is. I'm really not sure I understand why the two guys left in the cave would so eagerly approach a phallic alien life form when they've avoided every imaginable danger up until that point. I also don't understand the filmmakers motivations, like why they were so slavishly faithful to the costume and set designs from the original Alien. Has everyone just plain run out of ideas, or do you not trust your audience enough that you have to spell absolutely everything out for them?

Apart from Elba & Fassbender, the performances are nothing to write home about. There was nothing distinguishable about any of them. I think there were just too many people. The original Alien worked because the cast was so streamlined and everyone had their distinct character traits. Here, everyone wants to be shrouded in mystery and cast in shades of grey that they all wind up fading into the background due to their insistence on being meaningful and three-dimensional.

I genuinely miss the days when a director could surprise you. There was a time when a guy like Ridley Scott could come seemingly out of nowhere with a genuinely entertaining film like Gladiator and remind you why he was an elite director in the first place. Now we're reduced to waiting for the other shoe to drop halfway through even the most promising of efforts by directors that lost their mojo long ago.

There might have been a good film in here somewhere, but like the Star Wars prequels before this, the filmmakers became obsessed with turning virtually every little unexplained nuance of the original into some deep, meaningful entity with a backstory. I think Hollywood views moviegoers as people who are no longer willing to expect the unexpected, and with every new film that comes along, the need to classify it as a total success or a total failure has only bred that contempt studios have for us peons even further.

Unless you're a die-hard fan of Alien and need to know where everything came from, avoid Prometheus at all costs. It may only end up tarnishing your memories of an otherwise great film. As a matter of fact, I'm going to cleanse my palate with a viewing of Alien right now.

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