In Memoriam: Roger Ebert

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Today brings news that legendary film critic Roger Ebert has died at the age of 70. It’s hard to argue that there has been a more influential film critic in my lifetime, and certainly none that elevated film criticism to an art form like he did. While many critics before him, such as Pauline Kael, helped people to take film seriously as an art form, Ebert was the first popular critic to truly champion a well-made film no matter the genre or subject matter.

He was the kind of critic that readily acknowledged that a film didn’t have to be a serious-minded, Oscar-worthy film to be a great film. He made it okay to give a thumbs up vote to schlock, provided it was well-made schlock, and I cannot emphasize how truly important that is to the institution of film criticism. While I may not have always seen eye to eye with his criticism, I valued it in a way that I valued few other critics.

He truly understood the language of cinema, and helped to make difficult films more accessible, and show the value in a good film where others may have dismissed it outright. And none of this is to say that he loved everything. His book Your Film Sucks, gathers some of his most scathing reviews and shows how sharp his knives could be when they were drawn. But he understood when and how to make that distinction, which I feel is his single greatest contribution to world of film criticism. He judged a film on how well it worked in comparison to what it set out to do, which is something that not a lot of critics before him took the time to do. Many would just casually dismiss a film such as Matchstick Men, where he would take the time to understand the filmmakers intent and score the film accordingly.

I cannot overstate the importance his criticism had on my young film going life. Every Friday I would tear into the entertainment section of the local paper (The Bergen Record in northern NJ) to read his syndicated reviews (one of the earliest I remember reading was his review for Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989). Honestly, how many ten year olds cared what a film critic thought about a film, but to me, his opinion mattered. I valued it, even at a young age, and he helped to make me more than just a casual filmgoer.

Roger Ebert loved movies, and this, more than anything else, informed his criticism of film. He didn’t divorce this love of film from his job, and he could write eloquently about films that others would likely just reject. His love of film helped him to champion the underdog and it also led him to eloquently tear down abject failures. He could take it personally when a filmmaker fundamentally failed, and a negative review from him could be enough to make a filmmaker take stock of their work before trying again.

It’s become to easy to dismiss the art of criticism in a culture where anyone with an internet connection can voice their opinion on art, so the loss of a titan like Ebert is immeasurable. In addition to his work in print, he was also one of the first critics to embrace the blogosphere and use the internet as a way to publish articles and other thoughtful pieces that a newspaper might otherwise not make room for. It’s hard to know what impact his loss will have on the critic community, I just hope that whomever is selected as his successor is thoughtful and considerate enough to love film as deeply as Mr. Ebert did.

The fact that he continued his work even after cancer had ravaged most of his face & body is a testament to how deeply felt his love of what he did truly was. He wasn’t one to turn and run in the face of adversity, and it grows his myth even larger in the wake of his passing. Roger Ebert will not be replaced. It’s as simple as that. Much as he struggled to find a replacement in the passing of his long time critic partner Gene Siskel in 1999, the world will try (and fail) to replace Ebert atop the film critic pedestal. Someone else may come along and take over his job as critic at the Sun-Times or take over his blog, but no one will ever replace the man himself.

I would personally like to extend my deepest condolences to his wife Chaz, who was by his side for so many years and became a symbol of strength in the face of adversity. It is a truly sad day for anyone in my line of work, but it is an especially sad day for anyone who loves film, because we’ve lost one of our own. Rest in peace, good sir. You will be missed.

Day 193: Admission

"Virginia Woolf was a twat, extremely overrated, no Getrude Stein. I'll have a breast."

Tina Fey is a force to be reckoned with on the small screen. As head writer for Saturday Night Live, she oversaw one of the show's renaissance periods in the early 00s, and as creator & star of 30 Rock, she forged a path for the smart, single camera comedy that has become a staple of prime time television. On the big screen, however, her work has been sadly met with indifference from the movie going public. Apart from her gig as the writer of Mean Girls, most of her starring vehicles have floundered, and its unfortunate that her most recent film, Admission, has gone the same way, as it's arguably her best film yet.



Based on a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, Admission tells the story of Princeton admissions officer Portian Nathan (Fey), a career driven woman working in a high pressure job at the top University in the country. When Princeton loses its number one ranking from US News & World Report, she is charged by the Dean of Admissions (Wallace Shawn) to find spectacular new freshman to elevate the school's standing once again.

One such student falls into her lap courtesy of old college acquaintance John (Paul Rudd) who runs an alternative high school in New Hampshire called Quest. His prized student, Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), is about to begin his college search, and John is desperate for Portia to take a look at him. He doesn't seem like Princeton material, though, and John's true motives come to light when he tells Portia that he thinks Jeremiah is the son she gave up for adoption when they were in undergrad together.

Portia is dealt a further blow when her longtime boyfriend (Michael Sheen) leaves her for a woman he's been having an affair with. So between her relationship crisis, the information about her possible son & increasing pressure at work, Portia's life seems as if it's going to unravel.



The thing that I love most about this film is how well it manages this balancing act with equal parts humor and realistic pathos. It's no surprise that it comes from Paul Weitz, the director of another similarly underrated film, About a Boy. Unlike that film where Hugh Grant's character in that film was dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood, here is a woman who on the surface has her life together, but secretly harbors the fear that she really doesn't, and Fey is perfect in the role.

The major thought that I had throughout almost the entire film was that it shouldn't work as well as it does. It seems so cliched pairing this driven career woman with Paul Rudd's flighty, worldly eco-warrior, and all of the film's themes come to a head when she helps John & Jeremiah birth a cow, a scene that should have sent me running for the aisles for all of its obvious heavy-handedness, but somehow it worked. I think that what made scenes like that work is that they never linger. The film is packed with scenes that seem like they will collapse the film with the obviousness of their meaning, but they move so quickly that nothing feels forced because they don't dwell on the themes the way other movies would.

The film also has a nice third-act turn that helped to alleviate some of the obviousness that was in the air. I won't risk spoiling anything, but I was a big fan of the way that the last half hour of the film artfully wove its way through all of the themes that they had been dealing with. I was actively expecting two things to happen which didn't, and I was pleasantly surprised that it managed to avoid falling into a hole that it seemed to have dug for itself.



The performances are great, particularly Fey & Rudd. They're both world-class comic actors, right at home in this sort of film, and watching them interact with one another was great. Sheen was also a lot of fun in his role as a spineless intellectual who did everything in his power to avoid conflict. Lily Tomlin is fantastic as Portia's mom, the epitome of everything that Portia is rebelling against in her own life, and frankly it's just nice to see her on screen again.

The film's script by Karen Croner is efficient & witty without ever feeling forced, and Weitz's direction compliments it nicely at every turn. The way that the film uses montage is great, particularly early on when Portia is reading applications & touring around various high schools. It all works together incredibly well. The film's score was done by Stephen Trask, who co-wrote the music for Hedwig & The Angry Inch, and the best compliment I can pay it is that you would never know that if you weren't already aware.



As with most of the film's that I've really liked this year, this one has had trouble finding an audience as well, which is sad. I feel as though people are more than willing to pay money to see schlock, but whenever something small and genuine comes along, it's met with indifference. This is a perfect date movie because it can be enjoyed by both sexes equally, and that's something you would never find in a Nicholas Sparks film. If it's still playing, do yourself a favor and go see Admission. It's a lovely little film.

GO Rating: 3.5/5

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Top 5 Movie Trailers That Were Better Than The Movie

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It's happened to all of us, we see a trailer for a movie that looks so amazing, and think that there's no way the movie won't be great. I could name dozens of examples of good trailers for films that turned out to be lousy: Star Wars Episode 1, Cloverfield, Rise of the Silver Surfer, Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Matrix Reloaded, any M. Night Shyamalan movie after Signs. There's no great art in taking two or three minutes worth of great footage and making it look enticing to the viewers, but there's another phenomenon that exists in the world of movie trailers.

I've selected five trailers for movies that I actually liked, but after seeing the film, I was disappointed that it was nowhere near as good as the trailer for the film. These are the kinds of trailers that, when you re-watch them, make you want to immediately see the movie again. Now, there's lots of great movies with equally great trailers, but it's a rare phenomenon to have a great trailer, and then the movie turn out to be good, just not as good as the trailer, and today, I'm looking at my Top 5 examples...

5. Flight (2012)

I rather enjoyed Flight, even though a number of people I've spoken with said it felt like an R-rated afterschool special. But one thing I just couldn't get over about Flight, and I even mentioned it in my review is that it had an absolutely amazing trailer. The trailer is gripping, intense, suspenseful, and gives you just enough information without giving away everything, which is the cardinal sin that far too many trailers commit. Flight the film got 3.5 out of 5, but I'd give this trailer a 5 out of 5.



4. Watchmen (2009)

It's ironic that this trailer uses a Smashing Pumpkins song from the terrible film Batman & Robin, and this trailer debuted before The Dark Knight in the summer of 2008. It was almost ominous, but in spite of the overwhelming odds against it, Zack Snyder's Watchmen film managed to be pretty damn good, although I won't go so far as to say it's great or even one of the ten best comic book movies ever made. The trailer gives you iconic imagery that fans of the book recognized immediately, and even though the costumes seemed a little off, you still get pumped up about the very notion of a Watchmen movie. Again, Watchmen is not a great movie, but every time I see this trailer, it makes me want to watch it immediately.



3. Garden State (2004)

I spent the spring and summer of 2004 obsessively watching this trailer, fevered with anticipation for a film that looked as though it could legitimately be The Graduate of my generation. No film could live up to such high expectations, and I definitely enjoyed Garden State in spite of its numerous plot contrivances and quirk for the sake of quirk. But watching this trailer again and hearing Frou Frou's "Let Go," it's like I'm transported back to a time when I thought this movie was going to change my life.



2. Independence Day (1996)

The summer before my senior year in high school, this trailer was showing before every movie, and all the anticipation was focused firmly on the week of July 4th when we'd finally get to see The Fresh Prince, Lone Starr & Ian Malcolm kick some alien ass. And don't get me wrong, the first time I saw Independence Day, I thought it was great. I found myself getting caught up in the jingoism & the spectacle of it all, but let's face it, the film is nowhere near as good as this trailer. It's a classically edited 90's action movie trailer, featuring Don LaFontaine's dulcet tones & the promise of the action movie to end all action movies. In retrospect, it just turned out to be the best Roland Emmerich movie ever made.



1. Where The Wild Things Are (2009)

I adore Where The Wild Things Are. I don't think any film has ever captured the inner turmoil of being a ten year-old boy better. The only problem is, the film's trailer was an absolute masterpiece. Featuring the song "Wake Up" by the not-yet overrated Arcade Fire, the film promised to be a journey to another world where anything was possible. It looked incredible, the creatures looked just right, the design elements looked amazing, and Spike Jonze was directing it, what could possibly go wrong? Essentially, the only thing that went wrong was that this trailer is selling a completely different movie. In fact, with the exception of the short shot of Carol crying, there's no hint of what the movie's true nature was going to be. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I really do love the movie, but I think I'm not alone in saying that the movie that this trailer promised us would have been even better.



Honorable Mention that I am totally embarrassed that I forgot...

Moonlight Mile (2002)

Here's a movie that I love, that most people have forgotten about, yet I'll never forget seeing this trailer before Road to Perdition all three times I saw it, and I couldn't wait to see it. I love Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon does solid work & Jake Gyllenhaal was starting to grow on me. Add in the Rolling Stones reference in the title & Elton John's Someone Saved My Life Tonight, and this trailer looked amazing. Again, the movie is great, but this trailer is transcendently good...

Day 192: The Croods

"Big words make me angry... keep talking!"

Dreamworks Animation's seven year partnership with Paramount ended last year, and 20th Century Fox has taken over as the distributor for their animated films for the foreseeable future. It's interesting that The Croods is the first film released as part of this new partnership since, on the surface, it bears many striking resemblances to Fox's own animation franchise, The Ice Age series. If there's an obvious joke in here about Neanderthals being Fox's strong suit, I'm going to go ahead and dodge it, but this is a film far more in line with the lackluster Ice Age series than the strong work Dreamworks has been churning out of late.



The film opens, much as the also 3D Kung Fu Panda 2 did, with a 2D animation sequence. This one is narrated by Eep (Emma Stone) and done as a series of cave paintings that give us the backstory on her family, the eponymous Croods. The dad, Gurg (Nicolas Cage) is overly protective of his family, since all manner of disasters have befallen the other clans in their neighborhood, and he has a system to keep his family safe. His system essentially consists of locking his family away in a cave and repeating his catchphrase "never not be afraid" ad nauseum.

Eep, as the story requires her to, wants more out of life though, and her curiosity one night causes her to cross paths with Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a slightly more advanced human who is traveling to the sun, so that he can ride it to "tomorrow." I swear I'm not making this up. In context, it sort of makes sense, since these primitive humans would have an equally primitive understanding of the universe, but it's still a bit of a stretch.

An earthquake destroys The Croods' cave, and they set off in search of a new home. Their paths cross with Guy's again, and he is taken hostage by Gurg since he knows how to make fire, and could come in handy. The rest of the film plays out as a typical road adventure, as the insanely protective father must come to terms with his family's desire to grow and learn more about the world around them.



First things first, the film looks gorgeous. It's beautifully animated, and many of the 3D effects are great, in particular the flying debris, dust particles or fire embers had the many children at my screening reaching out to grab them. The animators have taken great care to lovingly animate the film, and it's pure eye candy. A lot of the action sequences are exciting and great to look at as well, particularly the family's first trip outdoors to secure breakfast.

The film is also jam packed with humor, not all of which works, but most of which is aimed squarely at the young people in the audience. Unlike the best Dreamworks & Pixar films, this one is not entirely interested in entertaining the adults in the audience. The humor is mostly for the kids, and my six and three year-olds are it up, particularly the antics of Guy's sidekick Belt. I did find it odd how lowest-common denominator most of the humor was, considering one of the co-writers/co-directors is Chris Sanders, who did the wonderfully subversive Lilo & Stitch.

The film has a ton of problems however, not least of which is the mixed-tone of the film. It's squarely set in a fantasy world, at least as far as the wildlife in the film is concerned. There's a ton of Flinstones-esque stone age parallels to modern day devices like photographs, umbrellas & shoes, and it makes the whole film feel much more lightweight than it would have been had it dodged these sort of cheap jokes altogether. At times it seems like the film is trying desperately to let you know that it's got a lot of brains & heart, but these moments all seem forced and more contrived than if they weren't surrounded by so much nonsense.



The film's climax, in particular, is preposterous & ham-fisted. There's a genuinely touching moment with Gurg coming to terms with his over-parenting, but it's followed by a ten minute sequence that feels significantly reduced in order to wrap things up in a timely fashion. The film spends over an hour with The Croods wandering around, essentially doing nothing, and then forces virtually all of its characters to have a change of heart within the same ten minute sequence. And to top it off, it's followed by the most absurd climactic sequence this side of The Matrix Revolutions.

The voice cast does admirably solid work. Cage is one of my favorite actors, but he's unreasonably restrained here. The only glimpse we get of the bonkers Cage that we know and love is a late second act sequence where he dresses up like Guy and tries to unleash a series of dumb inventions on his family. Stone & Reynolds are both good in their by-the-numbers roles, and Cloris Leachman manages to score the most laughs as Gran. Clark Duke is also funny as the dim-witted son Thunk, and Catherine Keener is reliably good as Ugga, the mother.

One last thing I have to mention is the film's score by Alan Silvestri. It is awful. It's so overbearing and bombastic, you can't help but be overwhelmed by it for virtually the entire running time of the film. The mark of a great score is that you don't notice it, and you can't help but notice this score. It forces itself on you in an unpleasant way, and resembles Hans Zimmer at his worst.



If you want the real lowdown on The Croods, I would say this. If you have children, particularly under the age of ten, you should definitely take them to see it. If you're just a childless fan of Dreamworks animation or Nic Cage, however, I would subtract a full star from my final rating. Your kids will adore this movie, but you'll find yourself weighed down by its plot contrivances and hollow climax. In the "absurdly protective dad" genre, it's not as good as Finding Nemo, but it's also nowhere near as bad as last year's atrocious Hotel Transylvania, and it even fails to reach even the mediocre heights of Dreamworks' recent output like Madagascar 3. But make no mistake, your kids will love it, and at the end of the day, that's what these films are all about.

GO Rating: 3/5


[Images via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 191: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

"That is a terrible trick to do for children, what if they try and copy you?"
"I'll sue them."

There is no greater sin for a film to commit than that of squandered potential. There's honestly nothing I hate more than a film full of great comedic talent flailing about in a desperate attempt to get laughs where the script has failed to provide them. The world of Vegas magicians seems less a source ripe for parody than a last resort comedic device designed to simply differentiate itself through the sheer fact that no one has really taken a major shot at it before. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a film so jam packed with idiocy that it will almost annoy you more when it actually manages to deliver a handful of inspired jokes.




Bullied from a young age, Burt (Mason Cook) seeks refuge in a crappy birthday present from his mom, a Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin) magic set. Any child of the 70s and 80s will recognize this as a nod to the ubiquitous Harry Blackstone magic sets of that era, and the film relies on that sort of nostalgia to bring you into this world. Burt's only friend is Anthony (Luke Vanek) and they hone their craft as kids, and as adults, form the magic duo of Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) & Anton Marvel (Steve Buscemi). They're stuck playing cut-rate rooms in Vegas until they are offered a deal to bring their act to Bally's by Doug Munny (James Gandolfini). The catch is that they would have to split up, but Burt refuses to leave Anton behind, and turns the deal down.

10 years later, the duo are still doing the same show, to increasingly diminished crowds, and what's more, they despise one another. Their style of magic is now being usurped by crazy street magicians like Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), and an attempt by these old school hams to jazz up their act leads to disaster, and Anton abandons Burt. With his contract cancelled, Burt must try and get his mojo back, as Munny will be opening a new casino, and the winner of a magic competition will get the chance to headline at the new casino.



Don't get me wrong, there are some truly inspired bits throughout the film. Burt trying to continue his two man show by himself is very funny, the running gag about bed sizes also made me laugh and Jim Carrey's final scene is also about as funny as anything he's done in the last decade. But the film prefers to wallow in cheap, lazy jokes. Spray on tans, big wigs, nonsensical Criss Angel/David Blaine -style street magic, this is all pretty low hanging fruit, and the film unfortunately doesn't aspire to any greater heights than these.

The fact that I've gotten this far into the review without mentioning Olivia Wilde's character will also tell you what an afterthought the script treats her as. She's perfectly good in the role and manages to score a few laughs as a foil for both Carrey & Carell, but her character (a stagehand turned magician's assistant with aspiring magic dreams of her own) is a total romantic throwaway.



The main trio of Carell, Buscemi & Carrey are all perfectly fine. They're great comedic actors who can always manage to do a lot with very little. They never show the desperate flop sweat they must have been drenched with, which is really a testimony to how committed they are to this paltry material. Arkin is great in his small role as a shyster who's stil got a few tricks up his sleeve, and Gandolfini is always good, even playing a character as one-note as the one he does here. There's also some funny work in small roles by Jay Mohr & Brad Garrett.

Director Don Scardino has worked almost exclusively in television, and his uninspired work here shows as much. The film is flat and uninteresting visually, and as I said earlier, relies far too much on wigs to get laughs. The script has two screenwriting credits & four story credits, and my opinion on films written by that many people has been well-documented in the past. When that many writers are all fighting for their material to be front and center, it spells disaster for the finished product.



In fairness, I may be giving The Incredible Burt Wonderstone a bum rap. It is definitely a much better comedy than this year's mega-hit Identity Thief, but merely being better than an awful movie is no great feat. This film could have been hilarious and it's a decent rental for a night when you've got nothing better to watch, but it's got too much wasted potential for me to recommend it.

GO Rating: 2.5/5



[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 190: Oz The Great & Powerful

"Good work, you just sneezed away the plan."

Oz: The Great and Powerful seemed to be one of the more interesting films on the 2013 release schedule. Part of me cringed at the notion of it turning into another Alice in Wonderland style over substance fiasco. But another part of me believed that with Sam Raimi behind the camera, this could be a good film, a nice companion piece to the classic 1939 The Wizard of Oz. So, which is it? Read on to find out...



Before you go any further in this review, I must let you know that while I didn't hate this film as much as I did Alice in Wonderland, I didn't like it at all, and in order to explain why I didn't like it, there will be some minor spoilers. Disney has more or less done a terrible job of keeping it a secret who the Wicked Witch turns out to be, but if you're interested in going into this film without any spoilers at all, come back once you've seen the film.

Oscar Diggs (James Franco), Oz for short, is an illusionist living in early 20th century Kansas when the film opens. At a show, a young girl (Joey King) in a wheelchair asks him to cure her, he refuses. All hell really breaks loose when a circus strongman finds out that he's been making advances towards his girlfriend, and Oz is forced to flee the scene in a hot air balloon. His balloon heads right towards a twister, and soon enough, Oscar finds himself in the Land of Oz.

The first person he meets is a witch named Theodora (Mila Kunis) who informs him that he may be a wizard of prophecy, who is said to help defeat the Wicked Witch, restore Oz to its former glory & rule the land as its king. Oz works his charms on Theodora, who takes him to meet her sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz). Evanora tells him he must journey into the dark forest & kill the Wicked Witch, and once he does, he can rule as king.



We're not even forty-five minutes into the movie yet, and I've already skimmed a ton of details and still have a ton more to wade through. Needless to say, this film is bogged down in exposition & incidental nonsense, making the first hour a chore to get through. When Oz finds the witch in the woods, she turns out to be a good witch named Glinda (Michelle Williams) who informs him that he's been tricked by the real wicked witch, Evanora. She brings him to the good part of Oz to meet the people & mount a counterattack against the evil witches.

Now the big turn that Disney has done a poor job of hiding is that Theodora turns into the classic looking green witch when she takes a bite of an apple that her sister gives her to reveal her true form. I was fine with this, even though I knew this "twist," my issue with it is the fact that while I like her a lot as an actress, Mila Kunis is not good enough to sell the big, bold, over the top classic Wicked Witch schtick. Her first scene where she reveals herself to Oz & Glinda is comically bad & her dress shows so much cleavage that it was clear that no one behind the scenes really cared how good she was as an actress.

This was pretty much a deal breaker for me. Put aside the fact that Weisz is a much better actress and would have likely sold the transformation in a more believable way, it's ridiculous to even consider that they're sisters when Weisz has a British accent & Kunis doesn't. It just doesn't seem like a whole lot of foresight was given to what these roles would require of the actresses in them. Williams is thoroughly wasted in a thankless role, and all of her backstory with her murdered father is chucked aside in the final battle in favor of more spectacle.



The real problem with the film though is Franco. He's an actor that is so tricky to cast, because he's great at doing a handful of things, but playing a fraud who wants to be a great man is not one of them. I believe the role was originally intended for Robert Downey, Jr. who would have been much better despite the fact that his age would have made his multiple romantic subplots a bit creepy. Franco has a tendency to look like he's phoning it in (even if he isn't), and while that works sometimes, it's disastrous here. The whole film centers around his character & his character's arc and he looks as disinterested and disconnected as he did when he hosted the Oscars two years ago.

Why the filmmakers felt the need to create an original story when L. Frank Baum has provided us with nearly twenty tales from the Land of Oz is beyond my comprehension. The film cribs more from the film The Wizard of Oz than it does from any of Baum's works, but that's the version of this world most people are familiar with. Sam Raimi added a few flourishes that work, such as the changing of aspect ratios along with the switch from black & white to color, but mostly his talents were wasted on what seems like a film calculated to appeal to as broad an audience as humanly possible.

Films like this are going to feel like they were made by committee, because they almost always are. Why even hire a director like Raimi then? Fans will love some of his stuff in here (Bruce Campbell as a Winkie Guard, a late film homage to the "She-Bitch" from Army of Darkness) but he just reeks of being a director for hire. Even the 3D is pretty pedestrian, I can't honestly remember anything I liked about the use of 3D, and I just left the theater about an hour ago.



Oz: The Great & Powerful suffers from a lot of things: bad casting, lame jokes, overly cgi'd everything, but more than anything else, it falls victim to being inessential. It just didn't need to be made. It's boring as all get out and god help your children if you take them (the handful at my advanced screening were mostly asleep by the end, although it was a school night).

I realize that I didn't even mention things like Oz's sidekicks, the flying monkey voiced by Zach Braff & the China Doll voiced by Joey King. That's how little they matter to the overall story, which was so crammed with stuff, that none of it mattered in the end. I just shouldn't leave a film like this wondering why they even made it in the first place and that speaks volumes about what's truly wrong with the film.
 
GO Rating: 1.5/5



[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 189: Amour

One of my all-time favorite television shows was Seinfeld, and in one of the best episodes, Elaine is deciding what films to rent based on the recommendations of the employees at the video store. The film that forces her to betray her favorite employee's picks in favor of Weekend at Bernie's 2 was a fictitious film called The Pain and The Yearning, a three hour film where "an old woman experiences pain and yearning." You might be able to see where I'm headed with this review, but trudge on faithful readers...




I need to preface this review by saying that I am not a fan of director Michael Haneke in any way, shape or form. I admire his composition, and I have always enjoyed the fact that as a director, he never feels the need to get "coverage" on a scene. In other words, he doesn't set up the standard shot-reverse shot conversations that we as an audience are accustomed to seeing. Apart from that I can't say anything else good about him. He is a provocateur, plain and simple, and he utilizes the cheapest of tricks to get a reaction out of an audience, such as lingering on static shots for an interminable amount of time and using sudden, shocking moments to relieve the ridiculous tension that he's built by simply not doing anything at all for extended periods of time (up to an hour in some cases).

All that being said, I was strangely looking forward to seeing Amour since I had heard so many incredible things about it. I put aside the fact that I didn't like Cache, The White Ribbon, The Piano Teacher, Funny Games (either version) or The Seventh Continent, and decided to go into this with no biases. It didn't take long to get turned off almost entirely though, as he was clearly up to his old tricks within the first ten minutes of the film, holding on a static shot of an audience preparing to watch a piano concert, with our main characters framed just left of center, and the shot holds for several minutes for no discernible reason. If I'm missing something here, I'd certainly like for someone to tell me what it is and why I clearly don't get it.



The film tells the story of two octogenarians Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) & Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) living in quiet isolation. One morning, Anne suddenly slips into a catatonic state & when she recovers several minutes later, she has no memory of the incident. Georges takes her to the hospital, only to discover that she's suffered a stroke which has left her paralyzed on her right side.

Upon returning from the hospital, Anne makes Georges promise not to take her back to the hospital, no matter what happens to her. And thus the film is a long, slow march towards death for Anne, and Georges is left to take care of her by himself. He refuses help from their daughter (Isabelle Huppert) & he fires a hospice nurse for being insensitive to his wife. And so the rest of the film plays out, sometimes in real time, as we watch this woman die, and this man attempt to care for her.

It's a chore to get through. It's unsparing in its brutality and how unsentimental it is, and while it's likely the most realistic portrayal of the long process of dying, it's exhausting to watch when the audience has absolutely nothing to cling to in the way of relief. I understand that this is the point that Haneke is trying to make, I'm just trying to say that it makes the film almost unbearable to watch.



I often feel like a philistine when I walk out of a film such as this and find myself completely and totally turned off by what the filmmaker was attempting to do. I consider myself to be a fairly enlightened film goer, I just can't handle a film as unrelentingly morose as Amour is. Much like Cache, the film relies on two big, startling moments to relieve the built-up tension, and just like in that film, they both feel cheap to me. They're designed solely to force the audience into reacting to something since the rest of the film has been dwindling in silence for so long. To my mind, it's no different than the cheap jump scares that come from any of the Paranormal Activity films, they're solely there to get a reaction from the audience.

What makes them feel especially cheap to me in a film like this is the fact that Haneke is clearly not interested in goading the audience into feeling any sort of emotional attachment to his characters or situations prior to this. These two outbursts almost seem designed to jolt the audience awake after sitting in silence for so long. It's Machiavellian in a way, since it seems to come from a place of pure maliciousness on the filmmakers part.

The two lead performances are both very good, and are likely the only reason I could even recommend watching this film. Riva is an actress that I've seen far too little of in the past, but she is in one of my absolute favorite films, Alain Resnais' Hiroshima, Mon Amour. Her performance here is spare, subtle & devastating. Trintignant is forced to do the heavy lifting and is quite good, in spite of the fact that his character is pretty curmudgeonly. If the two leads had not been as good as they are, this might have been one of the most irredeemable films ever made.



I'd be willing to bet that your appreciation of Amour as a film will directly correlate to your appreciation of Michael Haneke as a filmmaker. He is undeniably skilled behind the camera, but his willingness to treat his audiences with contempt has all but turned me off to his films in general. Is there value in a film like this? Yes, but I think that there's value in other films that can illustrate similar points with more levity. Maybe I am a philistine after all, but I'd rather not be forced to live in a world where I'm forced to watch old women experience pain and yearning without the ability to gasp for some air.

GO Rating: 2/5


[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 188: Escape From Planet Earth

"This is the peace shield!" "Nothing says peace like a gigantic gun."

I will fully admit that I was filled with nothing but apprehension about the new Weinstein Company animated film Escape From Planet Earth. The first trailer I saw for it, which was before Wreck-It Ralph, made it look like a 7-11 commercial with a hackneyed storyline. As a movie loving parent with movie loving daughters, it's my duty to see most every kid friendly film that gets released and I knew I'd get dragged to this one as well.

Thankfully, the film is actually infinitely better than its advertising campaign would lead you to believe. In fact, despite some lame jokes early on and some ridiculous plot contrivances, the film is actually pretty good.




Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser) is a renegade space hero from the planet Baab (pronounced Bob). His older brother Gary (Rob Corddry) is in charge of mission control on his adventures, and constantly saving his brother's hide. When Scorch accepts a dangerous mission to "The Dark Planet" (Earth), Gary protests, as no aliens have ever come back from that planet. Scorch fires his brother & sets off to be a hero.

Arriving on Earth, Scorch is kidnapped by the corrupt General Shanker (William Shatner) and held with other abducted aliens. Gary, feeling bad about the falling out with his brother, mounts a rescue mission to get his brother back. Once he arrives on Earth, he is promptly abducted as well, and begins to uncover a much more nefarious scheme at work involving General Shanker.



At first, the film seemed to be going for a lot of cheap, lowest common denominator jokes, but it began to show some signs of both life and bite with an informational video that Gary watches about Earth. Narrated by Ricky Gervais, it's actually a scathing indictment of a lot of things that humanity has done over the course of its evolution. I and many of the other parents in the audience were in hysterics, and it pulled me instantly back into the film.

There are several Star Trek references as well, such as referring to Earth as a Class-M planet, but the film actually manages to balance these jokes that will fly over the heads of children, with lots of jokes that they will eat up. Ultimately, what won me over was the film's underlying message that our planet is full of militaristic madmen who would genuinely not understand what to do with aliens who actually do come in peace. It's what I had been hoping to find more of in Monsters Vs Aliens or Planet 51 several years ago, but this film is actually much better than those as it balances the commentary quite well with themes that children will latch on to like working together to achieve a goal and believing in yourself.



The voice cast is excellent, with some great supporting turns from Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, & George Lopez. Corrdry is very good as well, as is Sarah Jessica Parker as his wife & Shatner is always a hoot. Fraser might be the only one completely out of his league. His character seems to reside in a much dumber film and most of what didn't work for me revolved around his character. With four credited writers on the film, it's no surprise that some of the jokes and situations were going to land flat, but his entire character seemed like a relic of an earlier, dumber draft of the film.

First time feature director Cal Brunker manages to keep the action moving well. He cut his teeth as a storyboard artist on such animated films as Horton Hears a Who, 9, & Despicable Me, so he's got some good experience under his belt. Two of the film's writers have also written the Hoodwinked films, which I think are pretty decent as well, and I would say that if you liked those films, you'll like this one as well.



The matinee my daughter and I attended today was packed, mainly because school is out and there's been a dearth of animated theatrical films since Rise of the Guardians, but part of me is hopeful that a halfway decent film is actually going to find an audience and make some money. This is not the kind of film that will set the world on fire and it's likely to be forgotten in years to come. It's not on the same level as a Pixar, Laika or even Dreamworks at their best, but it is much better than it looks and provides lots of laughs for kids and adults.

If you have kids, I would highly recommend that you take them to see this film, and even adults without kids will find enough stuff to keep them entertained for 80 minutes, but it's not essential viewing. At the end of the day, it's better than it has any right to be, and that's more than I can say for just about every film I've seen so far this year.

[Photos via Rotten Tomatoes]

Day 187: The Sessions

"I believe in a God with a sense of humor. I would find it absolutely intolerable not to be to able blame someone for all this."

One of the most fascinating & interesting actors currently working is John Hawkes. He first showed up on my radar in 2005 when I saw him on Deadwood on HBO & then in Miranda July's film Me and You and Everyone We Know. It was his Oscar nominated performance in 2010's Winter's Bone that got him a lot of well-deserved attention, and he's been on a roll since then. Many prognosticators thought that his role in 2012's The Sessions would earn him another Oscar nomination, but it wasn't to be unfortunately. He's certainly the best thing about the film, and I'm always happy to see him recognized for his work.

In this true story, Hawkes plays Mark O'Brien, a man who was afflicted with polio when he was a child, and has been bed-ridden ever since. He's allowed to be out of his iron lung for up to four hours at a time, and he spends most of that time either at church or at the park. He is contacted by a local university to do a study on sexuality and the handicapped, and this gives him a sense of his own lack of sexuality in his life. 

He is given the number of a licensed sex therapist, and with the counsel of his priest (William H. Macy) decides to embark on a quest to lose his virginity before it's too late. Cheryl, the sex therapist (Helen Hunt) is up front with Mark about their sessions together. The ground rules are that there will be no more than six, and that it is about him becoming in touch with his body and desires, and not about him projecting emotions on her. Of course, it's more complicated than that, and before long, Mark begins having feelings for Cheryl, which Cheryl seems to somewhat reciprocate, in spite of her status as a married woman with a family. 

The film was written and directed by a man named Ben Lewin, who I was surprised to find was an older Polish gentleman. The reason I say that this surprised me is that after watching the film, I expected to find out that it was the product of some young film school graduate, since so much of the dialogue and particularly the third act situations all seem like the stuff of a rank amateur. The film gets so heavy handed at the end of the second act and start of the third act, that it actually almost completely came off the rails for me. 

I enjoyed the first hour of the film, and thought it moved well with all of the dialogue and situations feeling very grounded in reality, and well saturated with humor. However, the film takes a hard left turn into cliche-ville and becomes so absurdly over-wrought, I found myself becoming very disappointed in it. I don't want to risk spoiling the film for anyone, but the scene with Cheryl & Rhea Perlman at the temple & the next scene with Mark and the power outage were awful. They were the kind of thing that make me hate movies like this. I understand that it's based on a true story, but those two scenes in particular were nonsensical. Thankfully it rebounded a bit and ended strongly, but it teetered on the brink for much of the last half hour.

The performances were very good in the film, in spite of its heavy handed subject matter. Hawkes is a magnetic actor who manages to turn what could have been a "Simple Jack" style character into a real person. His eyes are incredibly expressive, and his work here is top notch. His role isn't as showy as Hugh Jackman's in Les Mis, but I certainly think he deserved a nomination over Jackman for Best Actor. 

Helen Hunt is also good, though her accent is a bit overdone. Maybe it's just because she has such a recognizable voice and putting a Boston accent on it sounded strange (very similar to her As Good As It Gets co-star Jack Nicholson in The Departed). William H. Macy is also good in what is essentially a plot device of a character. I did, however, like the way the film jumps around a bit and utilizes Mark's confessional sessions with the priest as a means of explaining some of his inner life.

Overall, The Sessions is a good film that walks the narrowest of tight ropes. It could have been a great film had it found a more solid footing and ditched the cliche-ridden third act scenes, or it could have been an awful film had the script and performances not been as good as they are. I don't see myself revisiting this film again, but I could see people thoroughly enjoying it. It's a very mature film that deals with sexuality in a light hearted but adult way, which is more than I can say for most films in this day and age. It's worth your time, just don't expect too much from it and you won't be disappointed. 

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

   

Day 186: Identity Thief

"I've got no money, I've got no time, I've got no... pants."

As far as auspicious beginnings go, director Seth Gordon had one of the finest. His first feature length film was 2007's The King of Kong, an absolutely remarkable documentary about old school video game world records. It's unfortunate that his leap to fictional filmmaking has been notable only for how generic the films are that he's chosen to make (Four Christmases & Horrible Bosses). I am sad to report that his latest film, Identity Thief, does nothing to change that perception of Gordon as a director.




Sandy (Jason Bateman) is stuck working a thankless role at a large corporation when he fields a phone call from a woman named Diana (Melissa McCarthy) offering to help him protect his identity from being stolen. After a brief time on the phone, she has all the information she needs to successfully steal Sandy's identity and begin using it to rack up some major league purchases. After Sandy is arrested for missing a court date in Florida for assaulting a bartender, he realizes what has happened to him.

The only way for Sandy to reclaim his identity is to bring Diana to Denver, where he lives, since she can't be extradited across state lines (one of the many plot contrivances that seem to exist only to inflate an otherwise slim concept). Sandy travels to Florida to bring Diana in, only to discover that she's in big trouble with a drug dealer, his flunkies (Genesis Rodriguez & T.I.) and a skip tracer (Robert Patrick). The two unlikely companions are now forced to flee together across country in an attempt to clear things up.



As I hinted at earlier, my biggest issue with the film is the number of thoroughly ridiculous plot devices utilized to ensure that these two remain in each other's company for as long as humanly possible. The aforementioned extradition, the reason they can't fly together & are forced to drive, the drug dealers, etc. are all brought in to play solely to elevate this to feature length material. Eventually though, the film's bloated 113 minute running time gets the best of it, and all of these converging plot lines overwhelm the film.

I hate to accuse the film of being wholly unoriginal to boot, but it borrows from so many other "road trip" film playbooks, it's ridiculous. Even the mediocre Due Date is ripped off wholesale in a scene when Diana has a chance to runaway and then has a sudden change of heart. The film's climax is even cribbed a bit from Gordon's previous film, Horrible Bosses. I'm not asking for much from a comedy in this day and age, but the only thing that the film's screenwriter Craig Mazin has proven with every screenplay he's written (Scary Movies 3 & 4, The Hangover Part 2) is that he hasn't got an original thought in his head.



Thank goodness the fllm's leads are as likeable as they are, otherwise the film might have been a total disaster. McCarthy manages to mine the comedy in even the most banal situations, and her infectious energy is the only thing that keeps the film afloat for most of its interminable running time. Bateman is a world class comedic straight man, and he does a great job playing in counterpart to McCarthy. They're both amazing comedic talents that deserve infinitely better material than they're given here.

The film is aided by some great comedic turns in smaller roles such as Eric Stonestreet, Jon Favreau & even Patrick in his funniest turn since his role in Striptease. The major problem, which I can't stress enough, is that it's all in service of a film that's significantly less than inspired.



With a better script, fewer plot contrivances, and a tighter running time, there's a chance this could have been a much better film. As is, it's got a handful of laughs, none of which are worth wading through the rest of the film to get to. Like Horrible Bosses, it's got a talented cast that does the most they can with slight material & jokes that seem to consist of nothing more than people saying a curse word for a laugh. It's unfortunate that this film is a step backwards from that one, rather than the giant leap forward it should have been.

GO Rating: 2/5


[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]