HANCOCK
Directed by Peter Berg
**
Who doesn't like Will Smith lately? The answer seems to be nobody, as he headlines Hancock, a film which is sure to be his seventh or eighth blockbuster in a row. He is easily the most bankable movie actor in Hollywood, what with the huge, unexpected success of I Am Legend cementing his place at the summit of the film superstars. So what about Hancock, you ask? Despite being as CGI-filled as most summer films are these days and having one of the most interesting premises that I've seen from a Hollywood movie that I've seen in a while, it has the distinction of being the most uneven film so far in 2008.
The story of Hancock is pretty interesting. John Hancock (Smith) is a superhero who woke up in a Miami hospital sometime in the 1920's with complete amnesia. All he knows is that he has supernatural powers, and even though he goes out of his way to save the occasional bystander and take down the occasional criminal, his constant boozing and the carnage he leaves in the wake of every hero appearance he makes leaves him as a media target. The very people he attempts to save resent him, and all Hancock can do to counter it is get drunk and continue to use his abilities for further destruction.
Hancock's monotonous life turns around though, when he runs into the ambitious PR specialist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman). Ray was stuck in the front seat of his car and nearly run over by a train, before Hancock stepped in and stopped the train in its tracks--literally, leaving the train in complete disarray. Grateful, Ray invites Hancock to his home, and offers to help repair his image to the public. When a warrant is issued for Hancock's arrest, Ray advises him to go to prison, so the public can understand how important he is. Hancock agrees grudgingly, and the plan works.
Ray's plan goes further, including creating a new, leather, more superhero-y uniform for Hancock to wear. Before you know it, Hancock is now a model citizen, and a courageous hero that the public admires. The only problem? Ray's wife Mary (Charlize Theron) seems to have an issue with Hancock. From the first time that she meets him, she glares at him strangely, nearly scowling. She seems constantly annoyed by his presence, and when the reason for this is revealed, the film takes a puzzling and disappointing turn.
I must say that much of the first half of the film I enjoyed. The idea is glorious, because too many times we see action heroes and superheros alike leave areas in complete wreckage with seemingly no consequence. This film has the guts to poke fun at those movies, and at the same time embrace them. The film was directed by Peter Berg, one of my personal favorite B-movie actors. He has shown to have a talent for making energetic action pictures, with a very visceral style, a la Paul Greengrass. He handles this story very well, until that fateful plot twist.
The film reminds me of a blunder released earlier this summer, The Happening. Like that film, Hancock refuses to trust its own brilliant premise, and decides to spice it up with plot contrivances that are frustrating. Granted, this film has the gift of being much more fun than Happening, and like most of the Indiana Jones pictures have shown, a movie that is effervescently delightful can easily overcome the most preposterous of plot points. This film, though, just doesn't seem to get away as easily though because its story becomes so flimsy, so quickly its somewhat unforgivable.
The cast works well together, with Smith and Theron seeming to have a lot of fun together. Bateman is a treat, showcasing the spitfire wit and the surprising depth that has made him so popular recently (why did this happen AFTER Arrested Development got cancelled??)--so they're not the ones to blame. More than anything, the thing that this film seems to be missing is a villain. There really isn't a true villain in this film that matches Hancock blow for blow. I know the charm of this film is its unconventional story, but a superhero movie in which his main enemy is himself is also a gaping plot hole that should be payed attention to.
In the end, sub-par storytelling gives way to an average film, and a wasted storyline. I don't doubt that most audiences will go ga-ga for this, as its pumped with just enough shallowness that its ultimately satisfying. Peter Berg's movies keep on getting bigger and bigger (The Rundown to The Kingdom and now...), but he is slowly approaching Michael Bay territory in terms of films of complete brainlessness. Not that Hancock isn't occasionally a good time. If anything, what I want the reader of this review to understand is that this film deserved to be a lot better.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Wanted (***)
WANTED
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov
***
This is the kind of film that makes the Hollywood summer season great. A little under two hours of sharp wit, beautiful stars, and highly stylized mayhem, all coming together to make the most exciting, action-packed film of the year. Not that Wanted, the first American film by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, is masterpiece theater, but it's ability to lavish in its own schlock chaos makes it ultimately satisfying.
The film is about Wesley Gibson, an over-anxious nobody with an unfaithful girlfriend and an obnoxious, obese boss who shouts her orders at Wesley accompanied by a stapler. Wesley has nothing to look forward to, cause every morning just presents the same misery of another monotonous day. Everything changes for Wesley when he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie), a voluptuous beauty who informs him that the father he never knew was assassinated--and then drags him away from his own possible assassination in a hale of gunfire.
The meeting between Wesley and Fox is the first of many adrenaline-fueled action scenes enhanced by slow motion and outstanding special effects. When all is said and done, Wesley discovers that Fox is a member of the Fraternity, a group of assassins who kill wrong-doers. Their leader is Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who tells Wesley that his father was a member of the Fraternity, but was killed, and Wesley is just the man to extract the revenge.
There are Rocky-like montages which show Wesley gradually becoming the killer he needs to be to get his father's killer. He gets beat up a lot (though they're able to use some special bath--of what I'm still not sure of--to take away scars), but he eventually learns that what he thought was over-anxiety is actually his heart working fast enough to increase his reaction-time. So, for instance, he would be able to successfully assassinate a man from inside a business meeting from the top of a moving subway.
There is a subplot of "curving bullets"--i.e. shooting the gun at an angle, as so to make the bullet change directions. Focusing on preposterous plot details like this is the first thing that you shouldn't do when watching this film. Wanted is like the biggest fireworks show in town: it's distant and overblown, but it will always be better entertainment than bottle rockets in your backyard. No coincidence that this film was released just one week before the 4th of July.
Director Bekmambetov explores a lot of Matrix-style special effects. With the exception of excessive slow motion, Bekmambetov pieces together this labyrinth of destruction rather well. The film never takes its foot off of the acceleration, and by maxing out the talent of the cast (which uses Terrence Stamp and Common in interesting supporting roles), what we have is a film that succeeds on pure adrenaline and fun. Not since The Matrix itself has a film been so successful with the brawn so greatly outweighing the brains.
The film is headed by James McAvoy, a Scottish actor known only to Americans for the seldom seen Atonement and playing the Faun in the first Chronicles of Narnia film. Adjusting his accent for the American Wesley (and very well, to add, considering his harsh Scotsman accent), McAvoy puts together what will surely be a star-making performance. The transformation that Wesley makes as a character from the beginning of the film to the end is quite astonishing, and only partially believable because McAvoy embodies the quirks and sarcasm of Wesley well enough to flesh him out.
Both Jolie and Freeman are having great fun, we can tell. Jolie is in full-fledged Mrs. Smith mode, and Freeman is able to throw around a couple of four-letter words that we rarely get to hear from him. A seemingly tacked on ending almost spoils the experience, but Wanted is exactly what it claims to be: a balls-to-the-wall action film, with non-stop bloodshed and enough humor to make the characters tangible. The film seems to me like a Kill Bill Vol. 1 for the second half of the decade, since the violence is so fanciful. Funny to think how this film is not creating nearly as much uproar as Bill did for its violence. That's good, as long as there is no distraction from this truly rapturous movie roller coaster.
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov
***
This is the kind of film that makes the Hollywood summer season great. A little under two hours of sharp wit, beautiful stars, and highly stylized mayhem, all coming together to make the most exciting, action-packed film of the year. Not that Wanted, the first American film by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, is masterpiece theater, but it's ability to lavish in its own schlock chaos makes it ultimately satisfying.
The film is about Wesley Gibson, an over-anxious nobody with an unfaithful girlfriend and an obnoxious, obese boss who shouts her orders at Wesley accompanied by a stapler. Wesley has nothing to look forward to, cause every morning just presents the same misery of another monotonous day. Everything changes for Wesley when he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie), a voluptuous beauty who informs him that the father he never knew was assassinated--and then drags him away from his own possible assassination in a hale of gunfire.
The meeting between Wesley and Fox is the first of many adrenaline-fueled action scenes enhanced by slow motion and outstanding special effects. When all is said and done, Wesley discovers that Fox is a member of the Fraternity, a group of assassins who kill wrong-doers. Their leader is Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who tells Wesley that his father was a member of the Fraternity, but was killed, and Wesley is just the man to extract the revenge.
There are Rocky-like montages which show Wesley gradually becoming the killer he needs to be to get his father's killer. He gets beat up a lot (though they're able to use some special bath--of what I'm still not sure of--to take away scars), but he eventually learns that what he thought was over-anxiety is actually his heart working fast enough to increase his reaction-time. So, for instance, he would be able to successfully assassinate a man from inside a business meeting from the top of a moving subway.
There is a subplot of "curving bullets"--i.e. shooting the gun at an angle, as so to make the bullet change directions. Focusing on preposterous plot details like this is the first thing that you shouldn't do when watching this film. Wanted is like the biggest fireworks show in town: it's distant and overblown, but it will always be better entertainment than bottle rockets in your backyard. No coincidence that this film was released just one week before the 4th of July.
Director Bekmambetov explores a lot of Matrix-style special effects. With the exception of excessive slow motion, Bekmambetov pieces together this labyrinth of destruction rather well. The film never takes its foot off of the acceleration, and by maxing out the talent of the cast (which uses Terrence Stamp and Common in interesting supporting roles), what we have is a film that succeeds on pure adrenaline and fun. Not since The Matrix itself has a film been so successful with the brawn so greatly outweighing the brains.
The film is headed by James McAvoy, a Scottish actor known only to Americans for the seldom seen Atonement and playing the Faun in the first Chronicles of Narnia film. Adjusting his accent for the American Wesley (and very well, to add, considering his harsh Scotsman accent), McAvoy puts together what will surely be a star-making performance. The transformation that Wesley makes as a character from the beginning of the film to the end is quite astonishing, and only partially believable because McAvoy embodies the quirks and sarcasm of Wesley well enough to flesh him out.
Both Jolie and Freeman are having great fun, we can tell. Jolie is in full-fledged Mrs. Smith mode, and Freeman is able to throw around a couple of four-letter words that we rarely get to hear from him. A seemingly tacked on ending almost spoils the experience, but Wanted is exactly what it claims to be: a balls-to-the-wall action film, with non-stop bloodshed and enough humor to make the characters tangible. The film seems to me like a Kill Bill Vol. 1 for the second half of the decade, since the violence is so fanciful. Funny to think how this film is not creating nearly as much uproar as Bill did for its violence. That's good, as long as there is no distraction from this truly rapturous movie roller coaster.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
The Visitor (**)
THE VISITOR
Written and Directed by Thomas McCarthy
**
Prof. Walter Vale is old. Not in the actual sense, though. He lives, drives, and works in a perfectly functional way, and gravity hasn't yet begun it's unavoidable battle with his skin, but figuratively speaking, he is old. He teaches one course at a university in Connecticut, but never more than one because he says he has to work on a book--a book that he never thinks about. He takes piano lessons, but since he doesn't make progress, he quits rather quickly. Life has taken quite a toll already on Walter, so he goes through life looking for a position with the least amount of responsibility.
Walter Vale (captured in a rapturous performance from Richard Jenkins) is the main character of Thomas McCarthy's new film, The Visitor. The movie showcases Walter as he must travel to New York to present a paper which he co-authored (though he claims he didn't write a word of it). The trip bums Walter out because he would much rather stay in Connecticut, teach his one course, and kick around in his large suburb home then make the taxing trek to New York City to talk about a paper he knows little about. But as his superiors explain, he really has no other choice.
Walter receives the surprise of a lifetime when he gets to his city apartment, and sees a young Muslim couple living there. Since the death of his wife, Walter has rarely visited the apartment, and in his absence, it seems somebody has rented his place to Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira). Walter is shocked, but allows the young couple to stay until they can find another residence. Walter takes to the young couple, particularly Tarek, as he teaches Walter to play the congo in the New York City parks.
Trouble begins, when Tarek is arrested in a subway station, for little to no reason. Walter doesn't understand what is happening, but keeps his cool and issues a statement to the police, who tell him that Tarek will be released later in the day. It isn't until Zainab tells him that they are actually illegal immigrants, and Tarek is moved to a immigration detention center, that Walter understands the gravity of the situation. Walter, deeply concerned for his new friend goes to great lengths to help, first hiring an immigration attorney, and later taking in Tarek's worried mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass), to comfort her as they try to get Tarek free.
When trouble begins in the story, that's precisely when trouble begins in the movie. The first third of the picture is an incredibly satisfying story about a very depressed man whose life is reinvigorated by an exciting young man who teaches him the beauty of small things. Once Tarek is behind bars, the story is confined to message film about the wrongdoings of immigration offices. Tarek is arrested for no reason, true, and it is incredibly unfair that a man who has made a life in a country can be swept out so quickly. That being said, it is this fixation that causes the movie to drag.
The hero of the picture is Richard Jenkins, who has what is easily his most creatively liberating performance. Walter is reserved, frustrated, yet so compassionate and is brimming with anticipation for the opportunity to discover his second wind. The supporting performances from Gurira and Abbass are good enough, and Sleiman is excellent in his limited screentime, but the film works as a showcase for Jenkins. He creates Walter with such subdued emotion, that it makes it that much more frustrating that more of the film isn't fixated on his character.
Much like Thomas McCarthy's first film, The Station Agent, we have a film that is focused on a character that believes that his circumstances should prevent him from having fun. In Agent, we have a naturally introverted little person, and with Visitor, we have a man still visibly mourning the death of his wife. But with his earlier film, McCarthy explores that character, explaining why he is who he is. This film, though expertly shot, falls flat as a character study. The more we want to learn about Walter's demeanor, the more we are unwillingly told about the horrors of immigration.
Not that I want or expect McCarthy to make the same film over again, it's just that the direction in which he chose to send his latest film isn't very interesting. A career performance by Jenkins is almost enough to make this film a treat, because it is always fun to watch an actor everyone knows (but not by name) finally get his break as a true film lead. The Visitor is a film that is meant to be an experience, a film to spark debate about the politics it tackles through out the story. Instead, it sparks debate as to why a film would take such a puzzling turn in order to make a statement.
Written and Directed by Thomas McCarthy
**
Prof. Walter Vale is old. Not in the actual sense, though. He lives, drives, and works in a perfectly functional way, and gravity hasn't yet begun it's unavoidable battle with his skin, but figuratively speaking, he is old. He teaches one course at a university in Connecticut, but never more than one because he says he has to work on a book--a book that he never thinks about. He takes piano lessons, but since he doesn't make progress, he quits rather quickly. Life has taken quite a toll already on Walter, so he goes through life looking for a position with the least amount of responsibility.
Walter Vale (captured in a rapturous performance from Richard Jenkins) is the main character of Thomas McCarthy's new film, The Visitor. The movie showcases Walter as he must travel to New York to present a paper which he co-authored (though he claims he didn't write a word of it). The trip bums Walter out because he would much rather stay in Connecticut, teach his one course, and kick around in his large suburb home then make the taxing trek to New York City to talk about a paper he knows little about. But as his superiors explain, he really has no other choice.
Walter receives the surprise of a lifetime when he gets to his city apartment, and sees a young Muslim couple living there. Since the death of his wife, Walter has rarely visited the apartment, and in his absence, it seems somebody has rented his place to Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira). Walter is shocked, but allows the young couple to stay until they can find another residence. Walter takes to the young couple, particularly Tarek, as he teaches Walter to play the congo in the New York City parks.
Trouble begins, when Tarek is arrested in a subway station, for little to no reason. Walter doesn't understand what is happening, but keeps his cool and issues a statement to the police, who tell him that Tarek will be released later in the day. It isn't until Zainab tells him that they are actually illegal immigrants, and Tarek is moved to a immigration detention center, that Walter understands the gravity of the situation. Walter, deeply concerned for his new friend goes to great lengths to help, first hiring an immigration attorney, and later taking in Tarek's worried mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass), to comfort her as they try to get Tarek free.
When trouble begins in the story, that's precisely when trouble begins in the movie. The first third of the picture is an incredibly satisfying story about a very depressed man whose life is reinvigorated by an exciting young man who teaches him the beauty of small things. Once Tarek is behind bars, the story is confined to message film about the wrongdoings of immigration offices. Tarek is arrested for no reason, true, and it is incredibly unfair that a man who has made a life in a country can be swept out so quickly. That being said, it is this fixation that causes the movie to drag.
The hero of the picture is Richard Jenkins, who has what is easily his most creatively liberating performance. Walter is reserved, frustrated, yet so compassionate and is brimming with anticipation for the opportunity to discover his second wind. The supporting performances from Gurira and Abbass are good enough, and Sleiman is excellent in his limited screentime, but the film works as a showcase for Jenkins. He creates Walter with such subdued emotion, that it makes it that much more frustrating that more of the film isn't fixated on his character.
Much like Thomas McCarthy's first film, The Station Agent, we have a film that is focused on a character that believes that his circumstances should prevent him from having fun. In Agent, we have a naturally introverted little person, and with Visitor, we have a man still visibly mourning the death of his wife. But with his earlier film, McCarthy explores that character, explaining why he is who he is. This film, though expertly shot, falls flat as a character study. The more we want to learn about Walter's demeanor, the more we are unwillingly told about the horrors of immigration.
Not that I want or expect McCarthy to make the same film over again, it's just that the direction in which he chose to send his latest film isn't very interesting. A career performance by Jenkins is almost enough to make this film a treat, because it is always fun to watch an actor everyone knows (but not by name) finally get his break as a true film lead. The Visitor is a film that is meant to be an experience, a film to spark debate about the politics it tackles through out the story. Instead, it sparks debate as to why a film would take such a puzzling turn in order to make a statement.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
The New Classics
To commemorate their 1,000th issue, Entertainment Weekly magazine published a list of the "new classics" creating a 50 Greatest list of everything from the last 25 years. Greatest albums, greatest books, and of coarse, greatest movies. The film list had the astonishing quality of being both agreeable and completely obtuse--as all these "greatest" lists tend to be. With a wide array of voters, you have things like Die Hard cracking the top 10 of the movie list. In order to speak my peace, I will now reveal what I find to be the ten best films of the last 25 years:
10. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Maybe I'm still hungover from all of the Academy Awards this film just swallowed up in February, but I don't think anyone can deny this film's status as an instant classic. With those tricky Coen Brothers working with the great Cormac McCarthy's complex novel, what came out was a masterpiece of both style and substance. Performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin were snubbed for Oscar nominations, but Javier Bardem's creation of the inherently evil Anton Chigurh won every prize available. It's so deliciously beautiful and haunting at the same time.
9. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
It's safe to say Bardem's Chigurh is one of the top movie villains of all time, but the all-time greatest still belongs to Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter. Along with Jodie Foster and director Jonathon Demme, an incredible cast and crew combined to make one of the most bone-chilling suspense films ever made. With a horrific serial killer, a conflicted cop, and a brilliant psychopath, The Silence of the Lambs is probably the most balanced horror film in the case of it's characters. To this day, the sound of Lecter clicking his teeth makes people stay up at night.
8. CITY OF GOD
Fernando Merielles' epic gangster film is based on a true story, and dissects the dangerous world of gangland Rio de Genero. Told through the eyes of a young boy who wishes to escape the horrors of his home, we are shown decades upon decades of violence, sex, and drugs, while the small children who are innocent age in to ferocious mosters with loads of ammunition. The film rivals schlock movies for violence, but is made with such a sense of seriousness, and a Scorsese-esque energy.
7. GOODFELLAS
Speak of the devil. While Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are both more polished, stylized films, it's Goodfellas where Scorsese felt his most authentic. The greatest, most in-depth gangster film ever made, Goodfellas gets a lot of strength from its cast, which includes Robert DeNiro as a calm but deadly gang leader, Ray Liotta as a starstruck youngblood who does little to resist "the life", and of coarse Joe Pesci, in an Oscar-winning role as the hot-headed, gun-toting Tommy. The film, often accused of glamorizing gang life, is your basic rags-to-riches-to-destruction tale, but it's Scorsese's talent with the camera and with actors that makes this film a notch above the rest.
6. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
I once read somebody saying that there was no reason for this film to be as good as it truly is. There's some fact in that. Certainly, director Michel Gondry hadn't really proven anything outside of the music video world, Jim Carrey hadn't really shown that he can succeed in a serious role, and though screenwriter Charlie Kaufman had success, it came with the baggage of being labled as neurotic and unnameable. With the help from a career-best performance from Kate Winslet (as well as Carrey), Eternal Sunshine may be the most beautifully told love story of the last 25 years. Using basic camera tricks and no CGI, the film warps the mind, but melts the heart.
5. PULP FICTION
This was the reigning #1 on EW's best list, and for good reason. No other movie has gone further in changing cinema and pop culture alike the way Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction has. The movie has rocking tunes, classic performances from John Travolta and Uma Thurman, as well as the dynamite dialogue we've come to know from Tarantino. 14 years later, it seems that Pulp Fiction will stand to be Tarantino's one true masterpiece, but it still is nothing to snuff at. More than anything, the most powerful thing in this film is the masterful performance from Samuel L. Jackson as Jules, the Bible-quoting assassin. It's his brutish yet wise performance that makes this film more than just.... well, pulp.
4. SCHINDLER'S LIST
Probably the greatest and most powerful film ever made about the Holocaust, Steven Spielberg's black-and-white epic about a rich man who would save over two thousand Jews from Hitler's regime, struck a chord in 1993 with audiences and critics alike, and placed Spielberg in a much higher realm of filmmaking than he ever was before. Stark in it's photography, yet graphic in its portrayal of human darkness, Schindler's List is a film filled with sentiment, but the right kind. It is Spielberg's quintessential film, and a movie that is among one of the most moving ever made.
3. SIDEWAYS
Over the last couple years, it seems evident that Sideways may go on to become the forgotten masterpiece of this current decade, the way Three Kings is to the 90's. It has some of the best characters ever in a film, and incredible performances to back them up. The film includes career performances from Virginia Madsen, the hilarious Thomas Haden Church, and the dependable Paul Giamatti as Miles, the alcoholic writer who can't get his novel published. With layered themes of love, humanity, and friendship, no other movie this decade does so much with so little. This film, so far the best of the millennium, is one I hope will get its due in years to come.
2. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
Annie Hall is his classic. Manhattan is his most visually dazzling. Hannah and Her Sisters was his biggest commercial success. All that being said, the peak of Woody Allen's filmmaking career is Crimes and Misdemeanors. One of the seminal films ever made about faith, the human soul, and life in general, the movie is hysterically funny yet frightfully dark--sometimes both in a moment of seconds. With a cast including Mia Farrow, Martin Landau, Alan Alda, and of coarse, Woody himself, Crimes and Misdemeanors stands atop an already accomplished filmography with strong profundity and dazzling characters.
1. FARGO
I once was involved in an argument with two other people. One of the people thought the Coen Brothers film Fargo was a perfect film, detailing a classic battle of good and evil, with amazing style and great performances. The other person thought the film was a waste of time, and that he'd lost interest in the film about 20 minutes into it. Sometimes it's hard to explain what makes Fargo so good, because it is so simple. It's that simplicity that makes it so brilliant, as well as the brilliant performances from Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, William H. Macy, and of coarse the Oscar-winning turn from Frances McDormand. The only way I can explain it is to ask people to truly watch the film. Do not read into pieces of dialogue or complex camera angles. Just think of the story and how everything unfolds so exquisitely. Then I'll defy you to tell me that it isn't a perfect film.
10. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MENMaybe I'm still hungover from all of the Academy Awards this film just swallowed up in February, but I don't think anyone can deny this film's status as an instant classic. With those tricky Coen Brothers working with the great Cormac McCarthy's complex novel, what came out was a masterpiece of both style and substance. Performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin were snubbed for Oscar nominations, but Javier Bardem's creation of the inherently evil Anton Chigurh won every prize available. It's so deliciously beautiful and haunting at the same time.
9. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBSIt's safe to say Bardem's Chigurh is one of the top movie villains of all time, but the all-time greatest still belongs to Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter. Along with Jodie Foster and director Jonathon Demme, an incredible cast and crew combined to make one of the most bone-chilling suspense films ever made. With a horrific serial killer, a conflicted cop, and a brilliant psychopath, The Silence of the Lambs is probably the most balanced horror film in the case of it's characters. To this day, the sound of Lecter clicking his teeth makes people stay up at night.
8. CITY OF GODFernando Merielles' epic gangster film is based on a true story, and dissects the dangerous world of gangland Rio de Genero. Told through the eyes of a young boy who wishes to escape the horrors of his home, we are shown decades upon decades of violence, sex, and drugs, while the small children who are innocent age in to ferocious mosters with loads of ammunition. The film rivals schlock movies for violence, but is made with such a sense of seriousness, and a Scorsese-esque energy.
7. GOODFELLASSpeak of the devil. While Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are both more polished, stylized films, it's Goodfellas where Scorsese felt his most authentic. The greatest, most in-depth gangster film ever made, Goodfellas gets a lot of strength from its cast, which includes Robert DeNiro as a calm but deadly gang leader, Ray Liotta as a starstruck youngblood who does little to resist "the life", and of coarse Joe Pesci, in an Oscar-winning role as the hot-headed, gun-toting Tommy. The film, often accused of glamorizing gang life, is your basic rags-to-riches-to-destruction tale, but it's Scorsese's talent with the camera and with actors that makes this film a notch above the rest.
6. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MINDI once read somebody saying that there was no reason for this film to be as good as it truly is. There's some fact in that. Certainly, director Michel Gondry hadn't really proven anything outside of the music video world, Jim Carrey hadn't really shown that he can succeed in a serious role, and though screenwriter Charlie Kaufman had success, it came with the baggage of being labled as neurotic and unnameable. With the help from a career-best performance from Kate Winslet (as well as Carrey), Eternal Sunshine may be the most beautifully told love story of the last 25 years. Using basic camera tricks and no CGI, the film warps the mind, but melts the heart.
5. PULP FICTIONThis was the reigning #1 on EW's best list, and for good reason. No other movie has gone further in changing cinema and pop culture alike the way Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction has. The movie has rocking tunes, classic performances from John Travolta and Uma Thurman, as well as the dynamite dialogue we've come to know from Tarantino. 14 years later, it seems that Pulp Fiction will stand to be Tarantino's one true masterpiece, but it still is nothing to snuff at. More than anything, the most powerful thing in this film is the masterful performance from Samuel L. Jackson as Jules, the Bible-quoting assassin. It's his brutish yet wise performance that makes this film more than just.... well, pulp.
4. SCHINDLER'S LISTProbably the greatest and most powerful film ever made about the Holocaust, Steven Spielberg's black-and-white epic about a rich man who would save over two thousand Jews from Hitler's regime, struck a chord in 1993 with audiences and critics alike, and placed Spielberg in a much higher realm of filmmaking than he ever was before. Stark in it's photography, yet graphic in its portrayal of human darkness, Schindler's List is a film filled with sentiment, but the right kind. It is Spielberg's quintessential film, and a movie that is among one of the most moving ever made.
3. SIDEWAYSOver the last couple years, it seems evident that Sideways may go on to become the forgotten masterpiece of this current decade, the way Three Kings is to the 90's. It has some of the best characters ever in a film, and incredible performances to back them up. The film includes career performances from Virginia Madsen, the hilarious Thomas Haden Church, and the dependable Paul Giamatti as Miles, the alcoholic writer who can't get his novel published. With layered themes of love, humanity, and friendship, no other movie this decade does so much with so little. This film, so far the best of the millennium, is one I hope will get its due in years to come.
2. CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORSAnnie Hall is his classic. Manhattan is his most visually dazzling. Hannah and Her Sisters was his biggest commercial success. All that being said, the peak of Woody Allen's filmmaking career is Crimes and Misdemeanors. One of the seminal films ever made about faith, the human soul, and life in general, the movie is hysterically funny yet frightfully dark--sometimes both in a moment of seconds. With a cast including Mia Farrow, Martin Landau, Alan Alda, and of coarse, Woody himself, Crimes and Misdemeanors stands atop an already accomplished filmography with strong profundity and dazzling characters.
1. FARGOI once was involved in an argument with two other people. One of the people thought the Coen Brothers film Fargo was a perfect film, detailing a classic battle of good and evil, with amazing style and great performances. The other person thought the film was a waste of time, and that he'd lost interest in the film about 20 minutes into it. Sometimes it's hard to explain what makes Fargo so good, because it is so simple. It's that simplicity that makes it so brilliant, as well as the brilliant performances from Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, William H. Macy, and of coarse the Oscar-winning turn from Frances McDormand. The only way I can explain it is to ask people to truly watch the film. Do not read into pieces of dialogue or complex camera angles. Just think of the story and how everything unfolds so exquisitely. Then I'll defy you to tell me that it isn't a perfect film.
WALL-E (****)
WALL-E
Directed by Andrew Stanton
****
Ever since Toy Story, Pixar studios has produced some of the best films of the last decade. Finding Nemo and Ratatouille were unbelievably sweet films which charmed audiences, and won Oscars, while The Incredibles was a masterpiece about family and responsibility. Their newest film, WALL-E, believe it or not, is better than all of them. The story of a lonely robot, WALL-E has romance, it has social commentary, and a document of human strength, all squeezed into a 90-minute kids movie, that will reach more adults.
The first image we see in WALL-E, is large skyscrapers through the dirty, filthy mist, and as the shot gets closer and closer, we realize that most of these buildings are just constructed patterns of trash. The film takes place about 700-900 years in the future, and the only thing left on the world is WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter- Earth Class). He is the last robot left of all the WALL-Es, a race of bots left on Earth to clean all the trash amassed by human beings. All WALL-E has is his pattern of trash lifting, and a pet cockroach.
Where are all the humans, you ask? Well, as the film describes, the world basically succumbed to a humongous corporation aptly named 'Big & Large', which provided everything from food to gas. This preoccupation with materialism leads to an overflow of garbage. The human race decides to take a space cruise, while WALL-Es clean the world. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't work, as the humans stay in space, and WALL-E is left to himself, savoring small things such as spare pieces for himself and his video copy of Hello, Dolly!.
WALL-E's loneliness is cured one day, though, when he is visited by a large spaceship, dropping off a much-more advanced robot to track down living conditions. The new robot is persistent in her search for life (I say she because the film makes no bones about her sex), but her very presence creates an excitement in WALL-E that he hasn't felt in several centuries. They meet, WALL-E finds out that her name is EVE, and he shows her his layer, and his movies. WALL-E has no choice but to follow her back into space.
It isn't until about halfway through the film, when WALL-E is aboard the ship, do we get any true dialogue. Instead we are satisfied with robot dialogue, which in the case WALL-E consists of screeches, purrs, and squeals. We've seen this in other Disney pictures, where non-human characters are made more humane than the human ones, and that is the case here. The feelings expressed by WALL-E's camera eyes and clamp fingers are so apparent, there is just an unbelievable shade of adorableness.
The most appealing thing in WALL-E is the relationship between WALL-E and EVE, but what cannot be ignored is it's message about humanity. It both criticizes the overindulgence and irresponsibility of the human race, while also praising the never-breaking human spirit. When WALL-E is aboard the space cruise (of which the humans have been on about 700 years too long), human beings have been degraded into obese cretins, who get around on hover chairs, having lost the ability to walk. It's not totally their fault about their size, since living in no gravity for such a long time has increased their bone size.
The social commentary is not stricken hard, and if not paying attention can be missed completely. In a way, that is the beauty of WALL-E. Through it all, it is not meant to proclaim injustice or wrongdoing, but to announce the beauty within love and everyone's soul. Their are beautiful sequences, helped by the films nifty look. Tough and grainy on Earth; sleek and tranquil in space. The film seems Kubrick-ian at a lot of times (in fact, the film directly references 2001: A Space Odyssey on more than one occasion), and it's style is only supplanted by its unbelievably warm characters.
The lack of dialogue, I fear, might throw more people off of this film than it should. The children will love seeing WALL-E scramble all over the screen, and if adults can't appreciate the story that the film tells, then it's safe to say they may not have a heart. I feel safe in saying that WALL-E is the best film of 2008, and while I'm anticipating many movies later this year, it'd be hard, I think, for any of them to be as good as this wonderful fable, containing the most adorable robot to ever (EVER) grace the silver screen.
Directed by Andrew Stanton
****
Ever since Toy Story, Pixar studios has produced some of the best films of the last decade. Finding Nemo and Ratatouille were unbelievably sweet films which charmed audiences, and won Oscars, while The Incredibles was a masterpiece about family and responsibility. Their newest film, WALL-E, believe it or not, is better than all of them. The story of a lonely robot, WALL-E has romance, it has social commentary, and a document of human strength, all squeezed into a 90-minute kids movie, that will reach more adults.
The first image we see in WALL-E, is large skyscrapers through the dirty, filthy mist, and as the shot gets closer and closer, we realize that most of these buildings are just constructed patterns of trash. The film takes place about 700-900 years in the future, and the only thing left on the world is WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter- Earth Class). He is the last robot left of all the WALL-Es, a race of bots left on Earth to clean all the trash amassed by human beings. All WALL-E has is his pattern of trash lifting, and a pet cockroach.
Where are all the humans, you ask? Well, as the film describes, the world basically succumbed to a humongous corporation aptly named 'Big & Large', which provided everything from food to gas. This preoccupation with materialism leads to an overflow of garbage. The human race decides to take a space cruise, while WALL-Es clean the world. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't work, as the humans stay in space, and WALL-E is left to himself, savoring small things such as spare pieces for himself and his video copy of Hello, Dolly!.
WALL-E's loneliness is cured one day, though, when he is visited by a large spaceship, dropping off a much-more advanced robot to track down living conditions. The new robot is persistent in her search for life (I say she because the film makes no bones about her sex), but her very presence creates an excitement in WALL-E that he hasn't felt in several centuries. They meet, WALL-E finds out that her name is EVE, and he shows her his layer, and his movies. WALL-E has no choice but to follow her back into space.
It isn't until about halfway through the film, when WALL-E is aboard the ship, do we get any true dialogue. Instead we are satisfied with robot dialogue, which in the case WALL-E consists of screeches, purrs, and squeals. We've seen this in other Disney pictures, where non-human characters are made more humane than the human ones, and that is the case here. The feelings expressed by WALL-E's camera eyes and clamp fingers are so apparent, there is just an unbelievable shade of adorableness.
The most appealing thing in WALL-E is the relationship between WALL-E and EVE, but what cannot be ignored is it's message about humanity. It both criticizes the overindulgence and irresponsibility of the human race, while also praising the never-breaking human spirit. When WALL-E is aboard the space cruise (of which the humans have been on about 700 years too long), human beings have been degraded into obese cretins, who get around on hover chairs, having lost the ability to walk. It's not totally their fault about their size, since living in no gravity for such a long time has increased their bone size.
The social commentary is not stricken hard, and if not paying attention can be missed completely. In a way, that is the beauty of WALL-E. Through it all, it is not meant to proclaim injustice or wrongdoing, but to announce the beauty within love and everyone's soul. Their are beautiful sequences, helped by the films nifty look. Tough and grainy on Earth; sleek and tranquil in space. The film seems Kubrick-ian at a lot of times (in fact, the film directly references 2001: A Space Odyssey on more than one occasion), and it's style is only supplanted by its unbelievably warm characters.
The lack of dialogue, I fear, might throw more people off of this film than it should. The children will love seeing WALL-E scramble all over the screen, and if adults can't appreciate the story that the film tells, then it's safe to say they may not have a heart. I feel safe in saying that WALL-E is the best film of 2008, and while I'm anticipating many movies later this year, it'd be hard, I think, for any of them to be as good as this wonderful fable, containing the most adorable robot to ever (EVER) grace the silver screen.
It's Been A While.....
Computer malfunctions has put my movie blogging at a complete halt for the last few weeks, so in an attempt to salvage most of the month of June I will do a quick recap of the few films that I've seen since I've been away...
YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN
Directed by Denis Dugan
**
The latest Adam Sandler comedy seemed to be an exercise in complete tastelessness as well as shamelessness. Not that we'd expect better from the guy who was in Billy Madison. To be honest, it felt like a breath of fresh air to see Sandler go back to his silly roots, as apposed to his latest unsuccessful ventures into dramatic films (Spanglish, Reign Over Me), and just flat-out bad comedies (The Longest Yard, Click). Also, Zohan has more than one moment that is actually pretty funny. That being said, the film is a mockery of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts (maybe that subject needs a little humor?), which makes no bones about its lack of intelligence.
THE HAPPENING
Written, Produced, and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
*
Once again, an M. Night Shyamalan film falls victim to not trusting his own premise. The Happening, a tale about how a science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) and his conflicted wife (Zooey Deschanel) try to survive while an odd pandemic is causing the human race to commit suicide, has its moments. It's best coming from a way-too-short performance from John Leguizamo as Wahlberg's math geek, trustworthy friend. Too many times, the film hinges on weak coincidences and bizarre, nonsensical moments which have you leaving the theater scratching your head in frustration that someone as visually talented as Shyamalan continues to struggle at properly telling a tale of suspense.
KUNG FU PANDA
Directed by Mark Osborne & John Stevenson
**1/2
It's a tired premise--particularly in children's films--particularly in animated children's films. The inept worshiper ends up in the world of the worshiped, only to find that he must be the one to protect them. The worshiper in this case is the paltry Po (Jack Black), a fat panda, whose spent his life making noodles and adoring kung fu. When he finds out that he alone must take down the dangerous Tai Lung (Ian McShane), not only is he scared, but he is resented by the kung fu masters he looked up to. The film is sweet, has moments of great humor, but it is very blatantly marketed toward children only, and won't produce the adult belly laughs that you'd get from any of the Shrek films.
GET SMART
Directed by Peter Segal
***
This movie makeover of the beloved TV series has been getting a lot of heat from most critics as it tones down the slapstick of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and ups the action. Never having watched the original series, I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed Get Smart. In a move of expert casting, the always amazing Steve Carrell plays the bumbling Maxwell Smart, who has moved up from writing boring memorandums, and is now an agent. He's paired up with the sexy Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) as they take down nuclear terrorists. Dwyane Johnson and Alan Alda also star in hilarious supporting roles. A lot of laughs and a lot of thrills, Get Smart is the quintessential summer movie blockbuster.
COMING SOON:
WALL-E
Wanted
The Visitor
Hancock
YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN
Directed by Denis Dugan
**
The latest Adam Sandler comedy seemed to be an exercise in complete tastelessness as well as shamelessness. Not that we'd expect better from the guy who was in Billy Madison. To be honest, it felt like a breath of fresh air to see Sandler go back to his silly roots, as apposed to his latest unsuccessful ventures into dramatic films (Spanglish, Reign Over Me), and just flat-out bad comedies (The Longest Yard, Click). Also, Zohan has more than one moment that is actually pretty funny. That being said, the film is a mockery of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts (maybe that subject needs a little humor?), which makes no bones about its lack of intelligence.
THE HAPPENING
Written, Produced, and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
*
Once again, an M. Night Shyamalan film falls victim to not trusting his own premise. The Happening, a tale about how a science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) and his conflicted wife (Zooey Deschanel) try to survive while an odd pandemic is causing the human race to commit suicide, has its moments. It's best coming from a way-too-short performance from John Leguizamo as Wahlberg's math geek, trustworthy friend. Too many times, the film hinges on weak coincidences and bizarre, nonsensical moments which have you leaving the theater scratching your head in frustration that someone as visually talented as Shyamalan continues to struggle at properly telling a tale of suspense.
KUNG FU PANDA
Directed by Mark Osborne & John Stevenson
**1/2
It's a tired premise--particularly in children's films--particularly in animated children's films. The inept worshiper ends up in the world of the worshiped, only to find that he must be the one to protect them. The worshiper in this case is the paltry Po (Jack Black), a fat panda, whose spent his life making noodles and adoring kung fu. When he finds out that he alone must take down the dangerous Tai Lung (Ian McShane), not only is he scared, but he is resented by the kung fu masters he looked up to. The film is sweet, has moments of great humor, but it is very blatantly marketed toward children only, and won't produce the adult belly laughs that you'd get from any of the Shrek films.
GET SMART
Directed by Peter Segal
***
This movie makeover of the beloved TV series has been getting a lot of heat from most critics as it tones down the slapstick of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and ups the action. Never having watched the original series, I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed Get Smart. In a move of expert casting, the always amazing Steve Carrell plays the bumbling Maxwell Smart, who has moved up from writing boring memorandums, and is now an agent. He's paired up with the sexy Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) as they take down nuclear terrorists. Dwyane Johnson and Alan Alda also star in hilarious supporting roles. A lot of laughs and a lot of thrills, Get Smart is the quintessential summer movie blockbuster.
COMING SOON:
WALL-E
Wanted
The Visitor
Hancock
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sydney Pollack (1934-2008)
Sydney Pollack was easily one of the most important people in Hollywood in his day. When you see the amount of great films that he had his fingerprints on, it is mind-boggling. Let's begin with his work as a filmmaker: in 1969, he directed the Academy Award nominated film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?. The film was applauded for it's wonderful cast (Gig Young won Best Supporting Actor), but it's demonstration of Depression Era desperation and self-deprecation makes it one of the single most haunting films of it's era.In the 70's, Pollack directed both the dreary western Jeramiah Johnson, and the romance classic The Way We Were. Both films starred Robert Redford, whom Pollack would cast once again in 1975's Three Days At The Condor, a political thriller. In 1981, Pollack helmed another romantic film with Absence of Malice starring Paul Newman (in an Oscar-nominated performance) against Sally Field.
In 1982, Pollack directed what was probably his most popular film, Tootsie. Starring Dustin Hoffman as an actor who pretends to be a woman in order to get work, the film also marked another landmark in Pollack's career: it was the first film in which he appeared as an actor in close to twenty years (starring as Hoffman's agent). The film itself was a huge hit both critically and financially, and picked up ten Oscar nominations, and won one of them for Jessica Lange's Supporting Actress performance. To this day, Tootsie is still considered one of the greatest comedies in movie history.
In 1985, Pollack than directed Out of Africa, starring Meryl Streep and Pollack main-stay Robert Redford. The film won Pollack his first and only Academy Award for Best Director. The film also won six other Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film cemented Pollack's status as a Hollywood hard-hitter, but his films afterward would not be as memorable. Pollack, though, would put his stamp on film in other ways, as an actor and a producer.
After Tootsie, Pollack became an accomplished actor, with memorable performances in such films as Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives and Robert Altman's The Player. Later, he would become the go-to actor for playing characters of supreme authority. He would show this within his performances in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton. As a producer, Pollack worked on other memorable films such as Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, and the before mentioned Michael Clayton (for which he was nominated for his sixth and final Academy Award).
It's hard to say in which role Pollack had more of an impact on Hollywood. He has directed some legendary pictures, he has had some great performances, and his influence has allowed many smaller pictures get up off the ground. It's safe to say that his mere presence had the biggest impact. There are few people on this planet who command the respect of such men as George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert Redford. Pollack was one of those men. He was a living legend, even if nobody knew it, and Hollywood will be a much different place without him.
"With the responsibility of making motion pictures, comes the responsibility of making them good."
-Sydney Pollock
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (**1/2)
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
Directed by Steven Spielberg
**1/2
Twenty-seven years after Prof. Henry Jones Jr. first gripped the whip in the all-time classic Raiders of the Lost Arc, Harrison Ford--at 65 years young--is back at it again, as the Ford, Spielberg, and fellow Indy pioneer George Lucas combine for this newest adventure. This film could have easily been weathered and overblown. Instead, Spielberg constructs this third sequel with such amazing energy, all while giving that sarcastic wink to classic Hollywood, as to make us feel like Indy has never left.
This newest installment in the franchise has Indy is swept up into a plot by a bunch of communists to uncover ancient artifacts. When Indy's partner Mac (a quite bloated Ray Winstone), betrays him and turns him over to the communists and their Freuline leader Irina Spalko (an oddly accented Cate Blanchett), Jones goes to great depths to find the whereabouts of the mythic "crystal skull". Of coarse, Jones is able to escape their grasp in classic Indy fashion, but his involvement with the traitor Mac has American agents looking at him and seeing Red.
It isn't until Jones comes into contact with Mutt Williams (Shia Lebouf in pure greaser fashion), that he becomes embroidered, once again, in the hunt for the crystal skull. Mutt, a coarse, confrontational young man, needs to find it in order to save his mother from being killed by the Spalko-lead commies. His mother turns out to be none other than Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy's constant on-again, off-again romance.
The film, not unlike any of the other films of the series, requires quite a bit of the suspension of disbelief. More than any of the previous films, this film does require many more "It's just a movie" shrugs, but Spielberg's tip-of-the-hat to old school Hollywood filmaking has such majestic, captivating sequences that it doesn't seem to matter that the story short-changes you on more than ten occasions (did we have a problem with any of those moments in the previous Indy films?).
Ford sports the hat just as well as he ever did in his forth stint as Jones. Indiana Jones is easily the best character of Ford's career, because it fits him better than those brown pants and beige shirt, and after all of these years, he hasn't lost a beat. Ford's legendary status has benefited from characters that are charming, sarcastic, and filled with such honorable sincerity, that he has still been able to prosper for decades. No part that Ford has played embodies that better than Indiana Jones.
Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, and John Hurt (as a deranged 'Ox' Oxley) are all legible and seem that there having fun in a very fun movie, but no other actor takes stage better than Lebouf. Shia Lebouf, many years away from his time on the hysterical Disney show "Even Stevens", has a coming-of-age performance in this film. Starring against Harrison Ford is difficult, but starring against Ford as Jones usually leaves his co-stars bidding for attention with annoying actions (Karen Allen, anyone?), but Lebouf takes the stage and delivers the performance with real greaser brawn and attitude.
In the end, there is no greatness within this movie. Between Indy surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator and wild inconsistencies with a magnetic skull, there are points of the film that border on rediculous, but I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't one of the more exhilarating movie experiences I've had so far this year. If nothing else, Steven Spielberg continues to show why he is easily the most talented filmmaker of his generation, and Harrison Ford cements Indy as one of the most seminal characters in cinema. What's so wrong about that?
Directed by Steven Spielberg
**1/2
Twenty-seven years after Prof. Henry Jones Jr. first gripped the whip in the all-time classic Raiders of the Lost Arc, Harrison Ford--at 65 years young--is back at it again, as the Ford, Spielberg, and fellow Indy pioneer George Lucas combine for this newest adventure. This film could have easily been weathered and overblown. Instead, Spielberg constructs this third sequel with such amazing energy, all while giving that sarcastic wink to classic Hollywood, as to make us feel like Indy has never left.
This newest installment in the franchise has Indy is swept up into a plot by a bunch of communists to uncover ancient artifacts. When Indy's partner Mac (a quite bloated Ray Winstone), betrays him and turns him over to the communists and their Freuline leader Irina Spalko (an oddly accented Cate Blanchett), Jones goes to great depths to find the whereabouts of the mythic "crystal skull". Of coarse, Jones is able to escape their grasp in classic Indy fashion, but his involvement with the traitor Mac has American agents looking at him and seeing Red.
It isn't until Jones comes into contact with Mutt Williams (Shia Lebouf in pure greaser fashion), that he becomes embroidered, once again, in the hunt for the crystal skull. Mutt, a coarse, confrontational young man, needs to find it in order to save his mother from being killed by the Spalko-lead commies. His mother turns out to be none other than Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy's constant on-again, off-again romance.
The film, not unlike any of the other films of the series, requires quite a bit of the suspension of disbelief. More than any of the previous films, this film does require many more "It's just a movie" shrugs, but Spielberg's tip-of-the-hat to old school Hollywood filmaking has such majestic, captivating sequences that it doesn't seem to matter that the story short-changes you on more than ten occasions (did we have a problem with any of those moments in the previous Indy films?).
Ford sports the hat just as well as he ever did in his forth stint as Jones. Indiana Jones is easily the best character of Ford's career, because it fits him better than those brown pants and beige shirt, and after all of these years, he hasn't lost a beat. Ford's legendary status has benefited from characters that are charming, sarcastic, and filled with such honorable sincerity, that he has still been able to prosper for decades. No part that Ford has played embodies that better than Indiana Jones.
Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, and John Hurt (as a deranged 'Ox' Oxley) are all legible and seem that there having fun in a very fun movie, but no other actor takes stage better than Lebouf. Shia Lebouf, many years away from his time on the hysterical Disney show "Even Stevens", has a coming-of-age performance in this film. Starring against Harrison Ford is difficult, but starring against Ford as Jones usually leaves his co-stars bidding for attention with annoying actions (Karen Allen, anyone?), but Lebouf takes the stage and delivers the performance with real greaser brawn and attitude.
In the end, there is no greatness within this movie. Between Indy surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator and wild inconsistencies with a magnetic skull, there are points of the film that border on rediculous, but I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't one of the more exhilarating movie experiences I've had so far this year. If nothing else, Steven Spielberg continues to show why he is easily the most talented filmmaker of his generation, and Harrison Ford cements Indy as one of the most seminal characters in cinema. What's so wrong about that?
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Summer Movie Guide
With the release of Iron Man, we have the beginning of Summer. Well, it's only the beginning of May, but as far as all of the movie studios are concerned, we're most definitely in the middle of Summer. That means popcorn films coming out the ying-yang, while studio execs sit crossing their fingers hoping their films fill the most seats. If early estimates are any indication, Iron Man has already delivered on it's cash cow promises, but lets take a look at other releases looking to make a splash in the box office this summer break.
SPEED RACER
May 9
Everyone can agree that the Wachowski brothers dropped the ball when they put together the highly uneven sequels to The Matrix, but if the trailers are any indication, their interpretation of Speed Racer looks to be another mind-bending experience of action and fantasy. The colors seem seizure-inducing, but with a cast that includes Lost's Matthew Fox, Christina Ricci, as well as Emile Hirsch in the title role, the star power can't be denied. Hopefully the Wachowski can make up for their past blunders.
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
May 22
Harrison Ford is pushing 66, but you would never guess it watching him swinging inside warehouses using Indy's nifty whip. Karen Allen reprises her role as Marion Ravenwood, but the newcomers in this third sequel to the classic Raiders of the Lost Arc, are Cate Blanchett as foreign femme fatale named Irina Spalko, and Shia Lebouf as Indy's new whipper-snapper protege named Mutt Williams. With Spielberg back behind the camera, the film is sure to be entertaining, and sure to be a hit. It doesn't seem to matter much the plot of this film, but the idea of Ford back in his ass-kicking ways is enough to make audiences salivate.
YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN
June 6
A wise movie man once told me that Adam Sandler is easily the most bankable movie star in Hollywood. More than Will Smith or George Clooney? Yes. His films are simple, don't cost much to make, and usually guaranteed to make over $150 million. Sandler has sampled in serious work like Punch-Drunk Love and Reign Over Me, but films like Zohan--where Sandler plays an Israeli counter-terrorist who decides to move to the US to become a hair stylist--is his bread and butter. Hopefully this film is more in the range of Billy Madison and The Wedding Singer, and less like Click or I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
THE INCREDIBLE HULK
June 13
I, like most, feel puzzled by this superhero do-over. I never saw Hulk, which was a colossal flop from what I heard, but is making what is basically a slightly edgier version going to be much better? Well, casting Edward Norton as Bruce Banner is certainly taking the material in a different direction. We all know Norton is a brilliant actor, but when are we ever going to see him be brilliant again? Is The Incredible Hulk our oppurtunity, or is this just Norton phoning it in for a Hollywood picture like he did in the horrid Italian Job?
THE HAPPENING
June 13
M. Night Shyamalan freaked everybody out with The Sixth Sense, and since then everybody has been complaining about how he hasn't scared us since. To be fair, Unbreakable is a terrific film, I thought, about what it truly means to be a superhero; Signs is filled with suspenseful moments that are ruined by an anticlimactic and nonsensical ending; and The Village did have some moments of cinematic beauty. It's just that none of those films were very... scary. As usual, Shyamalan has a dynamite cast with Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, and John Leguizamo, but can he make anything with it? I'll be in line to see.
GET SMART
June 20
Ever since The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I've had a pretty big man-crush on Steve Carrell, which made Evan Almighty that much more painful, and Dan In Real Life that much more lovely. I don't know enough about the original television show to know if Carrell will be able to do justice to Maxwell Smart, but I'm sure his attempts will be hilarious. Co-starring Anne Hathaway as his sexy cohort Agent 99, Dwayne Johnson as the bumbling Agent 23, and Alan Arkin as the Chief, it's primed with a great cast. I have a soft spot for all of those actors (particularly Johnson, who I watched when he was the WWF wrestling star, 'The Rock'), and I hope the vehicle lives up to the names.
WALL-E
June 27
No summer, the last few years, is without that one dominant Pixar film that charms the souls of the children, and melts the hearts of adults. WALL-E is meant to be just that, the 2008 version. I'm sure everyone has seen the adorable teaser trailer, and Wall-E the robot seems primed to become the most adorable robot in movie history (easily supplanting Johnny 5 from Short Circuit and R2-D2). The plot seems to deal with Wall-E's contact with alien visitors, and the film is rumored to contain little to no dialogue. That's a gutsy move that only a studio like Pixar could take, since their films are practically guaranteed to fill the seats.
WANTED
June 27
Looking to face off with WALL-E that weekend is Wanted, an action picture which looks to combine to proven movie stars with one rising star. Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman play members of an underground group of assassins who decide to draft a Johnny Nobody played by Scottish star James McAvoy to become part of their group. The idea of seeing McAvoy in a major star vehicle is enticing, since he's an actor that many should have been paying attention to for quite a while already, but perhaps even more exciting is watching Angelina Jolie bounce back from her brilliant turn in A Mighty Heart, and go back into super-sexy spy mode. There's too much to like with this one.
HANCOCK
July 2
Now, I remember what I said earlier about Sandler, but no other actor has audiences coming out in droves the way Will Smith does. His charm, his dashing looks, and his proven acting ability make him likable to pretty much any demographic. In Hancock, Smith plays a lackadaisical superhero who has taken a serious PR hit because of his raucous, crass behavior. Jason Bateman plays a PR professional who feels he knows how to help his client get back into favor with the public. The plot is no less preposterous then most Smith blockbusters, but one thing's for sure, people will see it.
THE DARK KNIGHT
July 18
Much like The Incredible Hulk, director Christopher Nolan's Batman pictures are meant to make you forget the original pictures--which devolved into Jerry Bruckheimer exploitation films--and let the story start over (but at least Nolan waited a few more years). This is Nolan's sequel to his much praised Batman Begins. The film alone would be enough to stir up a hit, but with the unexpected death of the great Heath Ledger, many will flock to the theaters to see his last full performance as The Joker, which early indicators say is brilliant. The film brings back Christian Bale as the caped crusader, and adds Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
August 8
The way Starbucks has cornered the market on coffee, equals the way Judd Apatow has been able to dominate the comedy world for the last couple of years. Apatow's Forgetting Sarah Marshall is easily the funniest movie of 2008 so far, but Pineapple Express, which is about an everyman played by Seth Rogan and his drug dealer played by James Franco, who must hit the road after they witness a police officer murder someone, may be even better. It has already been dubbed by some as "Superbad--the college years", and is commandeered by the proven visionary David Gordon Green (director of George Washington).
TROPIC THUNDER
August 15
Ben Stiller has seemed to go under the radar as a pretty competent filmmaker, directing the impressive Reality Bites, the underrated dark comedy The Cable Guy, and the brainless guilty pleasure Zoolander. Stiller steps behind the camera again with Tropic Thunder, a film about a group of inane actors who cannot sufficiently portray soldiers in a war film, and are forced into character when they are thrown into real war conditions. The group of actors are played by Stiller, Jack Black, and the rejuvenated Robert Downey Jr. as a method actor who has severe plastic surgery to make him look like a black man for the war film.
SPEED RACERMay 9
Everyone can agree that the Wachowski brothers dropped the ball when they put together the highly uneven sequels to The Matrix, but if the trailers are any indication, their interpretation of Speed Racer looks to be another mind-bending experience of action and fantasy. The colors seem seizure-inducing, but with a cast that includes Lost's Matthew Fox, Christina Ricci, as well as Emile Hirsch in the title role, the star power can't be denied. Hopefully the Wachowski can make up for their past blunders.
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLMay 22
Harrison Ford is pushing 66, but you would never guess it watching him swinging inside warehouses using Indy's nifty whip. Karen Allen reprises her role as Marion Ravenwood, but the newcomers in this third sequel to the classic Raiders of the Lost Arc, are Cate Blanchett as foreign femme fatale named Irina Spalko, and Shia Lebouf as Indy's new whipper-snapper protege named Mutt Williams. With Spielberg back behind the camera, the film is sure to be entertaining, and sure to be a hit. It doesn't seem to matter much the plot of this film, but the idea of Ford back in his ass-kicking ways is enough to make audiences salivate.
YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHANJune 6
A wise movie man once told me that Adam Sandler is easily the most bankable movie star in Hollywood. More than Will Smith or George Clooney? Yes. His films are simple, don't cost much to make, and usually guaranteed to make over $150 million. Sandler has sampled in serious work like Punch-Drunk Love and Reign Over Me, but films like Zohan--where Sandler plays an Israeli counter-terrorist who decides to move to the US to become a hair stylist--is his bread and butter. Hopefully this film is more in the range of Billy Madison and The Wedding Singer, and less like Click or I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
THE INCREDIBLE HULKJune 13
I, like most, feel puzzled by this superhero do-over. I never saw Hulk, which was a colossal flop from what I heard, but is making what is basically a slightly edgier version going to be much better? Well, casting Edward Norton as Bruce Banner is certainly taking the material in a different direction. We all know Norton is a brilliant actor, but when are we ever going to see him be brilliant again? Is The Incredible Hulk our oppurtunity, or is this just Norton phoning it in for a Hollywood picture like he did in the horrid Italian Job?
THE HAPPENINGJune 13
M. Night Shyamalan freaked everybody out with The Sixth Sense, and since then everybody has been complaining about how he hasn't scared us since. To be fair, Unbreakable is a terrific film, I thought, about what it truly means to be a superhero; Signs is filled with suspenseful moments that are ruined by an anticlimactic and nonsensical ending; and The Village did have some moments of cinematic beauty. It's just that none of those films were very... scary. As usual, Shyamalan has a dynamite cast with Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, and John Leguizamo, but can he make anything with it? I'll be in line to see.
GET SMARTJune 20
Ever since The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I've had a pretty big man-crush on Steve Carrell, which made Evan Almighty that much more painful, and Dan In Real Life that much more lovely. I don't know enough about the original television show to know if Carrell will be able to do justice to Maxwell Smart, but I'm sure his attempts will be hilarious. Co-starring Anne Hathaway as his sexy cohort Agent 99, Dwayne Johnson as the bumbling Agent 23, and Alan Arkin as the Chief, it's primed with a great cast. I have a soft spot for all of those actors (particularly Johnson, who I watched when he was the WWF wrestling star, 'The Rock'), and I hope the vehicle lives up to the names.
WALL-EJune 27
No summer, the last few years, is without that one dominant Pixar film that charms the souls of the children, and melts the hearts of adults. WALL-E is meant to be just that, the 2008 version. I'm sure everyone has seen the adorable teaser trailer, and Wall-E the robot seems primed to become the most adorable robot in movie history (easily supplanting Johnny 5 from Short Circuit and R2-D2). The plot seems to deal with Wall-E's contact with alien visitors, and the film is rumored to contain little to no dialogue. That's a gutsy move that only a studio like Pixar could take, since their films are practically guaranteed to fill the seats.
WANTEDJune 27
Looking to face off with WALL-E that weekend is Wanted, an action picture which looks to combine to proven movie stars with one rising star. Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman play members of an underground group of assassins who decide to draft a Johnny Nobody played by Scottish star James McAvoy to become part of their group. The idea of seeing McAvoy in a major star vehicle is enticing, since he's an actor that many should have been paying attention to for quite a while already, but perhaps even more exciting is watching Angelina Jolie bounce back from her brilliant turn in A Mighty Heart, and go back into super-sexy spy mode. There's too much to like with this one.
HANCOCKJuly 2
Now, I remember what I said earlier about Sandler, but no other actor has audiences coming out in droves the way Will Smith does. His charm, his dashing looks, and his proven acting ability make him likable to pretty much any demographic. In Hancock, Smith plays a lackadaisical superhero who has taken a serious PR hit because of his raucous, crass behavior. Jason Bateman plays a PR professional who feels he knows how to help his client get back into favor with the public. The plot is no less preposterous then most Smith blockbusters, but one thing's for sure, people will see it.
THE DARK KNIGHTJuly 18
Much like The Incredible Hulk, director Christopher Nolan's Batman pictures are meant to make you forget the original pictures--which devolved into Jerry Bruckheimer exploitation films--and let the story start over (but at least Nolan waited a few more years). This is Nolan's sequel to his much praised Batman Begins. The film alone would be enough to stir up a hit, but with the unexpected death of the great Heath Ledger, many will flock to the theaters to see his last full performance as The Joker, which early indicators say is brilliant. The film brings back Christian Bale as the caped crusader, and adds Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
PINEAPPLE EXPRESSAugust 8
The way Starbucks has cornered the market on coffee, equals the way Judd Apatow has been able to dominate the comedy world for the last couple of years. Apatow's Forgetting Sarah Marshall is easily the funniest movie of 2008 so far, but Pineapple Express, which is about an everyman played by Seth Rogan and his drug dealer played by James Franco, who must hit the road after they witness a police officer murder someone, may be even better. It has already been dubbed by some as "Superbad--the college years", and is commandeered by the proven visionary David Gordon Green (director of George Washington).
TROPIC THUNDERAugust 15
Ben Stiller has seemed to go under the radar as a pretty competent filmmaker, directing the impressive Reality Bites, the underrated dark comedy The Cable Guy, and the brainless guilty pleasure Zoolander. Stiller steps behind the camera again with Tropic Thunder, a film about a group of inane actors who cannot sufficiently portray soldiers in a war film, and are forced into character when they are thrown into real war conditions. The group of actors are played by Stiller, Jack Black, and the rejuvenated Robert Downey Jr. as a method actor who has severe plastic surgery to make him look like a black man for the war film.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Iron Man (***)
IRON MAN
Directed by Jon Favreau
***
The new Hollywood blockbuster Iron Man is many things. For one, it is the official beginning of the summer movie season, where millions of theaters will be filled with seat-clinching action pictures that would make Michael Bay drool. Also, this film marks the official resurrection of Robert Downey Jr.'s career, with this film being a companion piece to his other summer blockbuster Tropic Thunder, which is coming out in August. Overall, though, the film is a successful hero picture, that succeeds in not taking itself so seriously, and relishing in it's own escapism.
The film is another in an endless line of comic book films, this one concerning a boozing, womanizing weapons manufacturer named Tony Stark (Downey Jr.). He's a mechanical genius, who makes the world's greatest and most powerful weapons. Son of Howard Stark--one of the contributors to the Manhattan project--Tony takes over the manufacturing business, and with the help of his father's close associate Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), successfully sells his weapons for millions upon millions of dollars to anyone around the world who can afford them.
Things go sour for Stark, though, when he is captured and nearly killed by a group of middle eastern terrorists who want him to build a powerful weapon. Instead, Stark decides to build a super-technological suit to help him escape. The plan works, and Stark is able to return home to meet his beautiful, but obedient assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and his military officer buddy Jim Rhodes (Terrance Howard). Dealing with the terrorists, though, makes Stark realize the lack of responsibility he has taken for the havoc his product has created all over the world.
Of coarse, the Stark Industries doesn't agree with Tony's plans to stop making dangerous weapons, so they--particularly Obadiah--try to push Tony out, as they continue to cash in on selling off missiles and M-80 machine guns. The only way Tony's conscience can be cleared is if he fights fire with fire, perfecting his powerful iron suit into a weapon that can fly, shoot, and trigger numerous bombs. As the movie continues, Tony redeems himself by taking care of the terrorists who held him captive earlier in the film, but we find that the capture may have had more than meets the eye. And, of coarse, there is always room for romantic sparks to fly between Tony and Pepper.
The film is a classic superhero movie: charismatic hero, beautiful lady on his arm, gullible friend, and the villain who is closer than the hero realizes. It's by the books, but it is the show put on by Downey Jr. that gives the film most of it's great energy. The last few years, we've seen Robert Downey Jr. slowly bringing himself out of Hollywood obscurity: he was great as the lead in the vastly under appreciated satire Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and then brilliant in his supporting role in David Fincher's serial killer epic Zodiac. But in Iron Man, he is headlining what is possibly a very successful franchise, and his talent doesn't cease.
He has always been an actor of uncanny comedic ability, but has always had that virtuoso aspect, allowing him to rely on his sincerity. Take for instance, the extended montage of Stark building his suit within his own basement. He has the help from a super-smart, talking computer. The relationship between the two could have been played with shtick, like David Hasselhoff talking to Kit in "Knight Rider", but instead, Downey Jr. and Stark's genius machine have some of the best computer-human chemistry I've ever seen in the movies.
The entire show belongs to Robert Downey Jr., if only because he seems like an unlikely candidate to headline a superhero franchise, yet flourishes so. It's a character taylor-made for his skills. But it should be mentioned, part of his charm is aided by a surprisingly inspired performance by Paltrow. The two have vibrant chemistry, and Paltrow gives one of her freshest performances in years. For the first time since The Royal Tenenbaums, Paltrow's award-winning self-absorption was put in the corner, and she allows herself to have fun with the character.
The film has its generic moments, and there are definitely no big unsuspected surprises throughout the picture, but it meets the requirement for a summer action movie: it's fun. It relishes in being a chaotic popcorn film, and never tries to insult the audience by insinuating that you are watching anything profound (**cough**Spider-Man 3**cough**). I can see many, bloated sequels following Iron Man, and that can be more of a curse than a treasure, and to be honest, I find the character of Tony Stark a lot more interesting when he isn't pounding around in an Iron Man suit, but as long as those CGI effects don't become overbearing, it will always be a successful action prospect.
Directed by Jon Favreau
***
The new Hollywood blockbuster Iron Man is many things. For one, it is the official beginning of the summer movie season, where millions of theaters will be filled with seat-clinching action pictures that would make Michael Bay drool. Also, this film marks the official resurrection of Robert Downey Jr.'s career, with this film being a companion piece to his other summer blockbuster Tropic Thunder, which is coming out in August. Overall, though, the film is a successful hero picture, that succeeds in not taking itself so seriously, and relishing in it's own escapism.
The film is another in an endless line of comic book films, this one concerning a boozing, womanizing weapons manufacturer named Tony Stark (Downey Jr.). He's a mechanical genius, who makes the world's greatest and most powerful weapons. Son of Howard Stark--one of the contributors to the Manhattan project--Tony takes over the manufacturing business, and with the help of his father's close associate Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), successfully sells his weapons for millions upon millions of dollars to anyone around the world who can afford them.
Things go sour for Stark, though, when he is captured and nearly killed by a group of middle eastern terrorists who want him to build a powerful weapon. Instead, Stark decides to build a super-technological suit to help him escape. The plan works, and Stark is able to return home to meet his beautiful, but obedient assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and his military officer buddy Jim Rhodes (Terrance Howard). Dealing with the terrorists, though, makes Stark realize the lack of responsibility he has taken for the havoc his product has created all over the world.
Of coarse, the Stark Industries doesn't agree with Tony's plans to stop making dangerous weapons, so they--particularly Obadiah--try to push Tony out, as they continue to cash in on selling off missiles and M-80 machine guns. The only way Tony's conscience can be cleared is if he fights fire with fire, perfecting his powerful iron suit into a weapon that can fly, shoot, and trigger numerous bombs. As the movie continues, Tony redeems himself by taking care of the terrorists who held him captive earlier in the film, but we find that the capture may have had more than meets the eye. And, of coarse, there is always room for romantic sparks to fly between Tony and Pepper.
The film is a classic superhero movie: charismatic hero, beautiful lady on his arm, gullible friend, and the villain who is closer than the hero realizes. It's by the books, but it is the show put on by Downey Jr. that gives the film most of it's great energy. The last few years, we've seen Robert Downey Jr. slowly bringing himself out of Hollywood obscurity: he was great as the lead in the vastly under appreciated satire Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and then brilliant in his supporting role in David Fincher's serial killer epic Zodiac. But in Iron Man, he is headlining what is possibly a very successful franchise, and his talent doesn't cease.
He has always been an actor of uncanny comedic ability, but has always had that virtuoso aspect, allowing him to rely on his sincerity. Take for instance, the extended montage of Stark building his suit within his own basement. He has the help from a super-smart, talking computer. The relationship between the two could have been played with shtick, like David Hasselhoff talking to Kit in "Knight Rider", but instead, Downey Jr. and Stark's genius machine have some of the best computer-human chemistry I've ever seen in the movies.
The entire show belongs to Robert Downey Jr., if only because he seems like an unlikely candidate to headline a superhero franchise, yet flourishes so. It's a character taylor-made for his skills. But it should be mentioned, part of his charm is aided by a surprisingly inspired performance by Paltrow. The two have vibrant chemistry, and Paltrow gives one of her freshest performances in years. For the first time since The Royal Tenenbaums, Paltrow's award-winning self-absorption was put in the corner, and she allows herself to have fun with the character.
The film has its generic moments, and there are definitely no big unsuspected surprises throughout the picture, but it meets the requirement for a summer action movie: it's fun. It relishes in being a chaotic popcorn film, and never tries to insult the audience by insinuating that you are watching anything profound (**cough**Spider-Man 3**cough**). I can see many, bloated sequels following Iron Man, and that can be more of a curse than a treasure, and to be honest, I find the character of Tony Stark a lot more interesting when he isn't pounding around in an Iron Man suit, but as long as those CGI effects don't become overbearing, it will always be a successful action prospect.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Baby Mama (**1/2)
BABY MAMA
Written and Directed by Michael McCullers
**1/2
For the last couple years, it seems that the aura of Tina Fey has continued to grow more and more. She became somewhat of a cult hit as the host of Weekend Update on "Saturday Night Live". She gained a lot of recognition, and a Writer's Guild nomination for her script for the teenage hit Mean Girls. She left SNL, and created the brilliant NBC sitcom "30 Rock", and plays the main character Liz Lemon--an ode to her geek chic style. "30 Rock" has won numerous Emmys, and Golden Globes, leading the way for Fey to headline a Hollywood motion picture for the first time in her career. It's a wonder it didn't happen sooner.
Joining her is fellow Second City comedienne, and former Weekend Update co-host Amy Poehler. Together they team up for the incredibly light film Baby Mama. The story is about Kate (Fey), an independent, wealthy woman who works for a health food company, but has been struck with a sudden case of baby fever, when she realizes her biological clock is ticking. She tries adoption, but can't seem to break through. She tries to get artificially inseminated, but her doctor has issues with her "T-shaped uterus", and claims she is infertile. Finally, Kate finds a solution to her problem.
She finds a surrogate mother program, led by an extremely fertile, but extremely strange older woman (Sigourney Weaver), who explains the process to Kate. That is when Kate comes into contact with Angie (Poehler), a coarse woman, with no manners and a slick tongue. Together, Kate and Angie decide that Angie will be the surrogate mother, and carry Kate's child. All seems well for Kate, when Angie becomes pregnant, but when Angie dumps her loser "common law" husband (Dax Sheppard), Angie decides to move into Kate's apartment.
There is plenty of odd couple moments between Kate and Angie (Angie sticks numerous pieces of chewed gum under Kate's coffee table), and they get under each other's skin on more than one occasion, but over time they come to understand and respect each other, forming a strong friendship. Weaving in and out of the story is Rob (Greg Kinnear), a fruit drink store owner who catches Kate's eye; and also, there is Oscar (Romany Malco), a doorman with a heart of gold and a strangely close relationship with the hotel's patrons.
It's a credit to the cast and their comic ability that this film comes off as funny and warm, since the story is framed by a script that is so incredibly mild and safe, that is guaranteed to only be liked by everybody or nobody. Nothing will surprise you, and everything unfolds so conventionally that there is never any real suspense to the story, whatever twists and turns that McCullers tried to throw in. Any fans of Fey's and Poehler's past comedy will be underwhelmed by this film's complete lack of bite, no doubt a technique used to agree with the most demographics possible.
But in the end, the chemistry between Fey and Poehler is infectious, as well as hilarious. Fey proves once again that she can be a very dependable actress when she is put in her comfort zone, and Kate is role taylor-made for her wonderful sarcasm and straight-man reactions. On the other hand, Poehler is a revelation. Angie is not an incredibly complex character, but Poehler takes the character and runs wild with it, creating someone who is as smart as she is inept, and as confident as she is neurotic.
Everything in this movie is supposed to feel bubbly, almost to a fault, but it's compelling to watch these actors have fun with this light material. Steve Martin makes a wonderfully funny cameo as Kate's narcissistic guru boss, but that is the only thing this film has in the way of edge. Malco, Kinnear, Sheppard, and Weaver are all dedicated to their confined roles, and with the guidance of Fey and Poehler, there is nothing dissatisfying in this film, and it gets the audience result that it searches for: a chuckle and a smile.
Written and Directed by Michael McCullers
**1/2
For the last couple years, it seems that the aura of Tina Fey has continued to grow more and more. She became somewhat of a cult hit as the host of Weekend Update on "Saturday Night Live". She gained a lot of recognition, and a Writer's Guild nomination for her script for the teenage hit Mean Girls. She left SNL, and created the brilliant NBC sitcom "30 Rock", and plays the main character Liz Lemon--an ode to her geek chic style. "30 Rock" has won numerous Emmys, and Golden Globes, leading the way for Fey to headline a Hollywood motion picture for the first time in her career. It's a wonder it didn't happen sooner.
Joining her is fellow Second City comedienne, and former Weekend Update co-host Amy Poehler. Together they team up for the incredibly light film Baby Mama. The story is about Kate (Fey), an independent, wealthy woman who works for a health food company, but has been struck with a sudden case of baby fever, when she realizes her biological clock is ticking. She tries adoption, but can't seem to break through. She tries to get artificially inseminated, but her doctor has issues with her "T-shaped uterus", and claims she is infertile. Finally, Kate finds a solution to her problem.
She finds a surrogate mother program, led by an extremely fertile, but extremely strange older woman (Sigourney Weaver), who explains the process to Kate. That is when Kate comes into contact with Angie (Poehler), a coarse woman, with no manners and a slick tongue. Together, Kate and Angie decide that Angie will be the surrogate mother, and carry Kate's child. All seems well for Kate, when Angie becomes pregnant, but when Angie dumps her loser "common law" husband (Dax Sheppard), Angie decides to move into Kate's apartment.
There is plenty of odd couple moments between Kate and Angie (Angie sticks numerous pieces of chewed gum under Kate's coffee table), and they get under each other's skin on more than one occasion, but over time they come to understand and respect each other, forming a strong friendship. Weaving in and out of the story is Rob (Greg Kinnear), a fruit drink store owner who catches Kate's eye; and also, there is Oscar (Romany Malco), a doorman with a heart of gold and a strangely close relationship with the hotel's patrons.
It's a credit to the cast and their comic ability that this film comes off as funny and warm, since the story is framed by a script that is so incredibly mild and safe, that is guaranteed to only be liked by everybody or nobody. Nothing will surprise you, and everything unfolds so conventionally that there is never any real suspense to the story, whatever twists and turns that McCullers tried to throw in. Any fans of Fey's and Poehler's past comedy will be underwhelmed by this film's complete lack of bite, no doubt a technique used to agree with the most demographics possible.
But in the end, the chemistry between Fey and Poehler is infectious, as well as hilarious. Fey proves once again that she can be a very dependable actress when she is put in her comfort zone, and Kate is role taylor-made for her wonderful sarcasm and straight-man reactions. On the other hand, Poehler is a revelation. Angie is not an incredibly complex character, but Poehler takes the character and runs wild with it, creating someone who is as smart as she is inept, and as confident as she is neurotic.
Everything in this movie is supposed to feel bubbly, almost to a fault, but it's compelling to watch these actors have fun with this light material. Steve Martin makes a wonderfully funny cameo as Kate's narcissistic guru boss, but that is the only thing this film has in the way of edge. Malco, Kinnear, Sheppard, and Weaver are all dedicated to their confined roles, and with the guidance of Fey and Poehler, there is nothing dissatisfying in this film, and it gets the audience result that it searches for: a chuckle and a smile.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (***)
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
***
Despite Forgetting Sarah Marshall being a startling impressive debut from director Nic Stoller, and featuring to television stars in Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis, the undeniable star of this film is Jason Segal. The film's writer, and main star, Segal's presence is the dominant one throughout. Segal is another member of the oh-so-popular Apatow comedy crew. I bet I wasn't the only one who cringed when Apatow but his name on a blunder like Drillbit Taylor, but it didn't take long, and with the help of Segal's hilarious script, the Apatow films continue on successfully.
Peter Bretter (Segal) is a composer who writes music for a hit cop television show titled "Crime Scene", and is lucky enough to be the boyfriend of the show's superstar lead, Sarah Marshall (Bell). Everything is fine for Peter, until Sarah decides to break up with him. The news is so surprising to Peter, it's jaw-dropping (and towel-dropping, with Segal letting it all hang out). He can't get over Sarah, but attempts to by sleeping with random women. Unfortunately, this doesn't fix his broken heart. Taking advice from his helpful step-brother Brian (Bill Hader), Peter decides to go on a vacation to clear his mind.
Off to Hawaii Peter goes, only to find that Sarah has decided to stay at the same hotel. Making it even more unbearable for Peter, is that Sarah has dragged along her sex-addicted, rock star boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). The one bright spot in Peter's trip is meeting Rachel (Kunis), a free-spirited woman, who's sympathetic to Peter's plight, having been on the wrong end of break-ups before in her life. In between awkward moments and run-ins with the oddballs of the hotel, Rachel begins to help Peter realize that there may be more to life than just Sarah Marshall, as broken-hearted as he is.
So, we all know where this one is going to go, right? In a way, that is the beauty of all of the Apatow comedies. None of them are about the destination, but about the journey. Sure, plot lines are recycled throughout this film from other romantic comedies, but it's the execution of this picture that makes it so unforgettable and so unbelievably funny. Segal's script is so honest, yet so hysterical. The words are so subtle, sometimes the heart in them is hard to comprehend, particularly when they are behind so many weed and sex jokes. But the heart is there.
We've all heard by now of Segal's notorious full-frontal scenes. Other than shock value, the scene showcases Segal's commitment to the film (not that Segal appearing nude in a film is anything particularly surprising). Of course, the film's humor is abundant, such as the numerous segments from "Crime Scene", in which Sarah co-stars with William Baldwin, who spurts out one one-liner after another ("I don't think she'll be able to re-enter that pageant... without a face").
Segal is buoyed by his supporting cast. Kunis, who's grown into a glowing beauty since her days on "That 70's Show", is probably the most rounded female character in any of the Apatow comedies. Her brashness, as well as her sweetness, play well throughout. Bell, ironically a TV star herself with "Heroes" and the now-canceled "Veronica Mars", seems to add all of it to her role as Sarah Marshall. Of course, Sarah comes around to Peter again, but Bell pulls it off with honesty, not schitck. Then, of course, there is Russell Brand. Already a famous comic in England, Brand's spot-on portrayal of rock star narcissism is gut-bustingly funny, perhaps getting the biggest laughs of the whole movie.
There is no Apatow comedy without the onslaught of hysterical minor characters, fleshed out by the Apatow mainstays. There's Matthew (Jonah Hill), the waiter who is constantly pestering Aldous with his own rock star ambitions. There's Chuck (Paul Rudd), a surfing coach who is in a constant state of weed-induced utopia, allowing him to say such classic lines as "the weather outside is weather". Also, we meet Derald (Jack McBrayer from "30 Rock"), a God-fearing newlywed, whose frightened about having to consummate the marriage. These are roles and performances that are more ambient than useful to the plot, but without them, the film's hilarious energy would not be the same.
Overall, I don't know if I'd endorse this film as much as The 40 Year Old Virgin or Knocked Up, but it is more in the league of last year's hit Superbad, and that's not a bad place to be. This is not a film for children, nor a film for anyone who is averse to seeing Jason Segal's penis (it makes a cameo in two scenes). But it is easily the best comedy to come out so far this year. Filled to the brim with uproarious scenes, it still manages to be somewhat earnest about heartbreak and falling in love. In the end, that's what makes it stay with you after you leave the theater.
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
***
Despite Forgetting Sarah Marshall being a startling impressive debut from director Nic Stoller, and featuring to television stars in Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis, the undeniable star of this film is Jason Segal. The film's writer, and main star, Segal's presence is the dominant one throughout. Segal is another member of the oh-so-popular Apatow comedy crew. I bet I wasn't the only one who cringed when Apatow but his name on a blunder like Drillbit Taylor, but it didn't take long, and with the help of Segal's hilarious script, the Apatow films continue on successfully.
Peter Bretter (Segal) is a composer who writes music for a hit cop television show titled "Crime Scene", and is lucky enough to be the boyfriend of the show's superstar lead, Sarah Marshall (Bell). Everything is fine for Peter, until Sarah decides to break up with him. The news is so surprising to Peter, it's jaw-dropping (and towel-dropping, with Segal letting it all hang out). He can't get over Sarah, but attempts to by sleeping with random women. Unfortunately, this doesn't fix his broken heart. Taking advice from his helpful step-brother Brian (Bill Hader), Peter decides to go on a vacation to clear his mind.
Off to Hawaii Peter goes, only to find that Sarah has decided to stay at the same hotel. Making it even more unbearable for Peter, is that Sarah has dragged along her sex-addicted, rock star boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). The one bright spot in Peter's trip is meeting Rachel (Kunis), a free-spirited woman, who's sympathetic to Peter's plight, having been on the wrong end of break-ups before in her life. In between awkward moments and run-ins with the oddballs of the hotel, Rachel begins to help Peter realize that there may be more to life than just Sarah Marshall, as broken-hearted as he is.
So, we all know where this one is going to go, right? In a way, that is the beauty of all of the Apatow comedies. None of them are about the destination, but about the journey. Sure, plot lines are recycled throughout this film from other romantic comedies, but it's the execution of this picture that makes it so unforgettable and so unbelievably funny. Segal's script is so honest, yet so hysterical. The words are so subtle, sometimes the heart in them is hard to comprehend, particularly when they are behind so many weed and sex jokes. But the heart is there.
We've all heard by now of Segal's notorious full-frontal scenes. Other than shock value, the scene showcases Segal's commitment to the film (not that Segal appearing nude in a film is anything particularly surprising). Of course, the film's humor is abundant, such as the numerous segments from "Crime Scene", in which Sarah co-stars with William Baldwin, who spurts out one one-liner after another ("I don't think she'll be able to re-enter that pageant... without a face").
Segal is buoyed by his supporting cast. Kunis, who's grown into a glowing beauty since her days on "That 70's Show", is probably the most rounded female character in any of the Apatow comedies. Her brashness, as well as her sweetness, play well throughout. Bell, ironically a TV star herself with "Heroes" and the now-canceled "Veronica Mars", seems to add all of it to her role as Sarah Marshall. Of course, Sarah comes around to Peter again, but Bell pulls it off with honesty, not schitck. Then, of course, there is Russell Brand. Already a famous comic in England, Brand's spot-on portrayal of rock star narcissism is gut-bustingly funny, perhaps getting the biggest laughs of the whole movie.
There is no Apatow comedy without the onslaught of hysterical minor characters, fleshed out by the Apatow mainstays. There's Matthew (Jonah Hill), the waiter who is constantly pestering Aldous with his own rock star ambitions. There's Chuck (Paul Rudd), a surfing coach who is in a constant state of weed-induced utopia, allowing him to say such classic lines as "the weather outside is weather". Also, we meet Derald (Jack McBrayer from "30 Rock"), a God-fearing newlywed, whose frightened about having to consummate the marriage. These are roles and performances that are more ambient than useful to the plot, but without them, the film's hilarious energy would not be the same.
Overall, I don't know if I'd endorse this film as much as The 40 Year Old Virgin or Knocked Up, but it is more in the league of last year's hit Superbad, and that's not a bad place to be. This is not a film for children, nor a film for anyone who is averse to seeing Jason Segal's penis (it makes a cameo in two scenes). But it is easily the best comedy to come out so far this year. Filled to the brim with uproarious scenes, it still manages to be somewhat earnest about heartbreak and falling in love. In the end, that's what makes it stay with you after you leave the theater.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Smart People (**1/2)
SMART PEOPLE
Directed by Noam Murro
**1/2
The story goes: renowned commercial director Noam Murro was approached to make his feature film debut with The Ring Two. Murro, after much consideration, turned it down, and decided to introduce himself to the film world with Smart People. Not having seen The Ring Two, I couldn't really say giving up one for the other was a good decision, but I can say that Murro's first film does struggle with a contrived plot. The film's charm, though, comes from it's wonderful, star-studded cast.
The story is about Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid), a widowed father of two, who teaches (well, kind of) English at a university. He's become a crusty curmudgeon, judging his students before even meets them, citing that students today do not have the right amount of passion for literature to properly digest his grumpy teaching methods. His son, James (Ashton Holmes), attends the school where Lawrence teaches, but tries his best to avoid him because of Lawrence's crass attitude. Lawrence lives alone with his over-achieving daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page), who's own behavior is no less self-absorbed then her father's.
After suffering a seizure, Lawrence meets Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), whom he learns later was a former student of his. She tells him that a seizure legally prevents him from driving for no less than six months. Catching wind of the opportunity, Lawrence's adopted, never-do-well brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) decides to be a chauffeur, and in return is given a place to stay. As the story moves forward, Lawrence develops a romantic relationship with Dr. Hartigan, and Chuck attempts to teach Vanessa how to get fun out of life.
The film was produced by Michael London, the same guy who was behind the masterpiece Sideways. There are many concepts within Smart People that reminded me of Sideways, mainly the cranky, socially-nonfunctional protagonist whose only coerced out of his introverted persona by a sweeping romance. The big difference between the two films though is its story development. With Sideways, we never wonder why the characters do what they do, because the film took the time to truly develop them, making sure the audience knew them better than they even knew themselves. Smart People--which was penned by first-timer Mark Jude Poirier--has a conflict which goes from sad, to happy, and back to sad so inexplicably, we wonder why these characters do anything we see them do in the film.
But that being said, I enjoyed Smart People quite a bit. Its quick-witted, snappy dialogue pops, and the film has a perfect cast to fill the shows of every part. Dennis Quaid, a much underrated actor, finds a soul within the grizzled Lawrence. It's difficult play a character that's so unbelievably unlikable, yet is on the screen more than 75 percent of the time. Very easily, he could have given Lawrence a very honorable personality, to give him more leeway with the audience, but instead, he makes Lawrence even sadder, more sunken into his own narcissism. I wouldn't be surprised if Quaid's performance turns off some of his loyal fans, but it was the right thing to do for the character.
Thomas Haden Church, an actor with uncanny comedic ability brings most of the laughs of the film. Church, an actor who's always brought depth to his black sheep characters (see him also in his Oscar-nominated performance in Sideways), gives little to no energy to Chuck, instead relying on his subtlety and comedic timing to flesh his slacker character out (not to mention more than one shot of him bare-ass). Ellen Page, the little Canadian that could, is in full Juno-mode here, if Juno were a grade-grubbing Republican, whose worries were not babies but getting a perfect score on the SAT. But there is a depth to her performance, creating a character with complex (almost Oedipus-like) issues, brought on by her maddening father. It's not until Chuck brings it out of her, that she sees the emptiness of her ambitions.
Parker and Holmes, as well, are striking in their supporting roles, each successfully portraying how someone can both hate and fall in love with Lawrence. Truth is, for a first director, Murro truly hit the jackpot with his cast. This film is hard to market; it is certainly too high brow for casual moviegoers, but not nearly as complex for hardcore movie fans to give full acclaim. I, myself, am on the fence with this one, and probably won't know my true opinion of the film's quality until I view it a second time. But I will say this, I enjoyed this more than I enjoyed any other film I've seen so far in 2008, so I guess that's something.
Directed by Noam Murro
**1/2
The story goes: renowned commercial director Noam Murro was approached to make his feature film debut with The Ring Two. Murro, after much consideration, turned it down, and decided to introduce himself to the film world with Smart People. Not having seen The Ring Two, I couldn't really say giving up one for the other was a good decision, but I can say that Murro's first film does struggle with a contrived plot. The film's charm, though, comes from it's wonderful, star-studded cast.
The story is about Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid), a widowed father of two, who teaches (well, kind of) English at a university. He's become a crusty curmudgeon, judging his students before even meets them, citing that students today do not have the right amount of passion for literature to properly digest his grumpy teaching methods. His son, James (Ashton Holmes), attends the school where Lawrence teaches, but tries his best to avoid him because of Lawrence's crass attitude. Lawrence lives alone with his over-achieving daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page), who's own behavior is no less self-absorbed then her father's.
After suffering a seizure, Lawrence meets Dr. Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), whom he learns later was a former student of his. She tells him that a seizure legally prevents him from driving for no less than six months. Catching wind of the opportunity, Lawrence's adopted, never-do-well brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) decides to be a chauffeur, and in return is given a place to stay. As the story moves forward, Lawrence develops a romantic relationship with Dr. Hartigan, and Chuck attempts to teach Vanessa how to get fun out of life.
The film was produced by Michael London, the same guy who was behind the masterpiece Sideways. There are many concepts within Smart People that reminded me of Sideways, mainly the cranky, socially-nonfunctional protagonist whose only coerced out of his introverted persona by a sweeping romance. The big difference between the two films though is its story development. With Sideways, we never wonder why the characters do what they do, because the film took the time to truly develop them, making sure the audience knew them better than they even knew themselves. Smart People--which was penned by first-timer Mark Jude Poirier--has a conflict which goes from sad, to happy, and back to sad so inexplicably, we wonder why these characters do anything we see them do in the film.
But that being said, I enjoyed Smart People quite a bit. Its quick-witted, snappy dialogue pops, and the film has a perfect cast to fill the shows of every part. Dennis Quaid, a much underrated actor, finds a soul within the grizzled Lawrence. It's difficult play a character that's so unbelievably unlikable, yet is on the screen more than 75 percent of the time. Very easily, he could have given Lawrence a very honorable personality, to give him more leeway with the audience, but instead, he makes Lawrence even sadder, more sunken into his own narcissism. I wouldn't be surprised if Quaid's performance turns off some of his loyal fans, but it was the right thing to do for the character.
Thomas Haden Church, an actor with uncanny comedic ability brings most of the laughs of the film. Church, an actor who's always brought depth to his black sheep characters (see him also in his Oscar-nominated performance in Sideways), gives little to no energy to Chuck, instead relying on his subtlety and comedic timing to flesh his slacker character out (not to mention more than one shot of him bare-ass). Ellen Page, the little Canadian that could, is in full Juno-mode here, if Juno were a grade-grubbing Republican, whose worries were not babies but getting a perfect score on the SAT. But there is a depth to her performance, creating a character with complex (almost Oedipus-like) issues, brought on by her maddening father. It's not until Chuck brings it out of her, that she sees the emptiness of her ambitions.
Parker and Holmes, as well, are striking in their supporting roles, each successfully portraying how someone can both hate and fall in love with Lawrence. Truth is, for a first director, Murro truly hit the jackpot with his cast. This film is hard to market; it is certainly too high brow for casual moviegoers, but not nearly as complex for hardcore movie fans to give full acclaim. I, myself, am on the fence with this one, and probably won't know my true opinion of the film's quality until I view it a second time. But I will say this, I enjoyed this more than I enjoyed any other film I've seen so far in 2008, so I guess that's something.
10 Music Videos
This is a bit of a sidetrack, but this was a list of the ten best music videos I thought up the other day while I was bored.
10. "Hypnotize", Notorious B.I.G.
The quintessential rap video of the nineties: big-budget, shot in widescreen, and equipped with a strong, intriguing plot line (usually hacking off a famous action film). Though Tupac’s “California Love” was bigger in terms of style, concept, and popularity, it was B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize” which perfected this style of video which is still common today. Involving a sing-a-long bouncing ball which allows to follow along with the lines of the song, our eyes are mostly focused on one of the best car chase scenes in music video history, which involves B.I.G.’s sidekick at the time, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, driving backwards. What it lacks in coherence it makes up in style with the white suits, and the surprisingly stunning cinematography.
9. "Freedom '90", George Michael
George Michael’s career has seemed to have an unfortunate devolution into numerous gay jokes, but he was at his peak in the year 1990, when he released the song “Freedom ‘90”, a huge hit that was supported by a wonderful music video. The video, which involves numerous famous super models of the time canoodling alone within a ragged building, while simultaneously lip-synching the lines of the song, was most notorious for the absence of Michael himself. Looking to do away with his Wham! past, Michael took himself virtually out of the video, instead being replaced by Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Cindy Crawford. Nobody can forget the ceremonial explosion of his niche leather jacket and jukebox.
8. "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Nirvana
Nirvana's introduction to the music world came with a bang, leaving the phony prestige of 80's hair bands in their dust. Set in a murky school gym, it was a video that reached out displayed teen angst in its most bare form. With essentially every band member covered by long, unclean hair, the band performs with an audience of moshing schoolchildren, and high school is shown the way it feels for most of it's inhabitants: a grim hell, where the only escape is letting off steam listening to your favorite band with the volume all the way up. It was as revolutionary as it was innovative, setting the stage for incoming alternative rock throughout the 90's, and inadvertently placing lead singer/songwriter Kurt Cobain to the forefront of the movement. The song and the video still stand as a cornerstone for that entire decade.
7. "Need You Tonight/Mediate", INXS
This double video, containing to songs and videos with completely different styles in terms of tone and complexity, became a huge hit in the late 80's. A majority of "Need You Tonight" consists of a groundbreaking (for its time) multi-layering technique which allowed a black & white band to play in the background, while a color, and almost grainy Michael Hutchence sang in the foreground. The dark tone of the video's visuals coincide with the song's dark, immediate lyrics. And for a moment, for what seems like no reason other than to add a moment of strangeness, Hutchence walks in the foreground with a white mouse nestled on his shoulder. "Mediate", the second part is a nice homage to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues", arguably the first official music video, which you can see here.
6. "Virtual Insanity", Jamariquai
A video that is brilliant mostly because of it's simplicity. Consisting mostly of lead singer Jay Kay trying to find his way around a room where the floors refuse to stop moving, throwing couches, chairs, and love seats in every which direction. There are cameos made by several large bugs and a bird, and when all is said and done, both couches are left bloodied by the abuse the room has put them through. Sporting a trademark hat, Kay performs moves some of the best gymnasts couldn't pull off, working his way around a room where lord only knows which way the walls will close in on you. On top of everything, the hyperactive room and the bleeding furniture is all allegorical for the meaning of the song, spouting the fear that technology can have over our simple minds.
5. "Coffee & TV", Blur
Another video pulled along by allegory. The video tells the story of a very optimistic carton of milk attempting to find the missing son of the family who purchased him. On his journey, he comes along the terrors of the real world, including angry hookers, dark alleyways, and watching the love of his life (a pink milk carton), getting smashed rather violently by a rather omnipresent foot. Despite it all, the little carton continues on his trek, determined to find the boy, and when he finally does, the boy pays him back by drinking his milk, and throwing him in the trash. Representing our own mistreatment of the little guy, the video's imagery is bettered by the most adorable milk carton anyone's ever seen. There is a happy ending, though: he meets up with his pink-carton love in milk heaven.
4. "Everlong", Foo Fighters
After the end of Nirvana, drummer Dave Grohl moved over to the Foo Fighters, and when they released their underrated masterpiece The Colour and the Shape, along with it came the video for one of the album's biggest hits, "Everlong". The video, a dream sequence mixed with an action film mixed with a romance, is as hard-rocking as it is nonsensical. In a quest to save his wife from a dream in which she's being attacked by two strange men with Elvis hairdos, lead singer must go to sleep himself, to enter her dream and kill the attackers. His weapon? A magically large hand that grows when he gets angry, so he can bitch-slap people to death. Of coarse, all of the characters are played by the members of the band, and the video ends as they rip off their costumes and conclude the song, instruments in hand.
3. "Weapon of Choice", Fatboy Slim
There's a famous rumor that actor Christopher Walken has never turned down a part in his life. Whether or not that's true, I don't know for sure, but one thing that I do know for sure, is that Walken did not turn down the part for the Spike Jonze-directed Fatboy Slim video, "Weapon of Choice". The video displays the wackiness we've come to love from Walken, as he shows off some surprisingly good dance moves throughout an empty hotel lobby. Defiling desks, magazines, and escalators, Walken glides from area to area with an exuberance of a man half his age. His youthful energy becomes so much, that it actually allows him to fly toward the end. Brilliant in its simplicity, the video is a collaboration of two masters of their craft: Walken and Jonze. Hopefully, it is not the last of the projects the two will have together.
2. "Loser", Beck
From depths of underground folk in 1994, came the long-haired, pasty-white Beck. "Loser", a song mixing alternative guitar strumming mixed with nonsensical rap lyrics ("Shave your face with some mace in the dark"), struck a chord with most music-lovers, in the first sign of great music to come after Kurt Cobain's suicide. The film that has a message that combines apathy with downright laziness seemed was supported with a groundbreaking video that matched the song's style exactly. Consisting mostly of homemade-looking videos scrapped hastily together, creating a feeling of havoc which only Beck could make so harmonious. With film negative shots of exercising cheerleaders, and another image of death cleaning someone's windshield in blood, the film's viral energy brought Beck into pop music where his strange innovation still reigns true.
1. "Sledgehammer", Peter Gabriel
This is easily music video equivalent to Citizen Kane. It's innovation and bold attempt to recreate the definition of what a music video was make it stand any other music video of its or any time. Using stop-motion animation combined with Gabriel's face, we're able to go on a pretty interesting adventure through the depths of somebody's subconscious. The video's constant shape-shifting ability makes it fascinating to watch even today. At one point, "Sledgehammer" was the most played video in MTV history, played so much that Gabriel himself called to ask the station to please stop. The film's near-cinematic quality and hypnotizing visuals culminate in a sequence involving two uncooked, dancing chickens. Of coarse, the video ends as Gabriel shifts shape one last time, into a man made out of stars.
10. "Hypnotize", Notorious B.I.G.
The quintessential rap video of the nineties: big-budget, shot in widescreen, and equipped with a strong, intriguing plot line (usually hacking off a famous action film). Though Tupac’s “California Love” was bigger in terms of style, concept, and popularity, it was B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize” which perfected this style of video which is still common today. Involving a sing-a-long bouncing ball which allows to follow along with the lines of the song, our eyes are mostly focused on one of the best car chase scenes in music video history, which involves B.I.G.’s sidekick at the time, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, driving backwards. What it lacks in coherence it makes up in style with the white suits, and the surprisingly stunning cinematography.
9. "Freedom '90", George Michael
George Michael’s career has seemed to have an unfortunate devolution into numerous gay jokes, but he was at his peak in the year 1990, when he released the song “Freedom ‘90”, a huge hit that was supported by a wonderful music video. The video, which involves numerous famous super models of the time canoodling alone within a ragged building, while simultaneously lip-synching the lines of the song, was most notorious for the absence of Michael himself. Looking to do away with his Wham! past, Michael took himself virtually out of the video, instead being replaced by Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Cindy Crawford. Nobody can forget the ceremonial explosion of his niche leather jacket and jukebox.
8. "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Nirvana
Nirvana's introduction to the music world came with a bang, leaving the phony prestige of 80's hair bands in their dust. Set in a murky school gym, it was a video that reached out displayed teen angst in its most bare form. With essentially every band member covered by long, unclean hair, the band performs with an audience of moshing schoolchildren, and high school is shown the way it feels for most of it's inhabitants: a grim hell, where the only escape is letting off steam listening to your favorite band with the volume all the way up. It was as revolutionary as it was innovative, setting the stage for incoming alternative rock throughout the 90's, and inadvertently placing lead singer/songwriter Kurt Cobain to the forefront of the movement. The song and the video still stand as a cornerstone for that entire decade.
7. "Need You Tonight/Mediate", INXS
This double video, containing to songs and videos with completely different styles in terms of tone and complexity, became a huge hit in the late 80's. A majority of "Need You Tonight" consists of a groundbreaking (for its time) multi-layering technique which allowed a black & white band to play in the background, while a color, and almost grainy Michael Hutchence sang in the foreground. The dark tone of the video's visuals coincide with the song's dark, immediate lyrics. And for a moment, for what seems like no reason other than to add a moment of strangeness, Hutchence walks in the foreground with a white mouse nestled on his shoulder. "Mediate", the second part is a nice homage to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues", arguably the first official music video, which you can see here.
6. "Virtual Insanity", Jamariquai
A video that is brilliant mostly because of it's simplicity. Consisting mostly of lead singer Jay Kay trying to find his way around a room where the floors refuse to stop moving, throwing couches, chairs, and love seats in every which direction. There are cameos made by several large bugs and a bird, and when all is said and done, both couches are left bloodied by the abuse the room has put them through. Sporting a trademark hat, Kay performs moves some of the best gymnasts couldn't pull off, working his way around a room where lord only knows which way the walls will close in on you. On top of everything, the hyperactive room and the bleeding furniture is all allegorical for the meaning of the song, spouting the fear that technology can have over our simple minds.
5. "Coffee & TV", Blur
Another video pulled along by allegory. The video tells the story of a very optimistic carton of milk attempting to find the missing son of the family who purchased him. On his journey, he comes along the terrors of the real world, including angry hookers, dark alleyways, and watching the love of his life (a pink milk carton), getting smashed rather violently by a rather omnipresent foot. Despite it all, the little carton continues on his trek, determined to find the boy, and when he finally does, the boy pays him back by drinking his milk, and throwing him in the trash. Representing our own mistreatment of the little guy, the video's imagery is bettered by the most adorable milk carton anyone's ever seen. There is a happy ending, though: he meets up with his pink-carton love in milk heaven.
4. "Everlong", Foo Fighters
After the end of Nirvana, drummer Dave Grohl moved over to the Foo Fighters, and when they released their underrated masterpiece The Colour and the Shape, along with it came the video for one of the album's biggest hits, "Everlong". The video, a dream sequence mixed with an action film mixed with a romance, is as hard-rocking as it is nonsensical. In a quest to save his wife from a dream in which she's being attacked by two strange men with Elvis hairdos, lead singer must go to sleep himself, to enter her dream and kill the attackers. His weapon? A magically large hand that grows when he gets angry, so he can bitch-slap people to death. Of coarse, all of the characters are played by the members of the band, and the video ends as they rip off their costumes and conclude the song, instruments in hand.
3. "Weapon of Choice", Fatboy Slim
There's a famous rumor that actor Christopher Walken has never turned down a part in his life. Whether or not that's true, I don't know for sure, but one thing that I do know for sure, is that Walken did not turn down the part for the Spike Jonze-directed Fatboy Slim video, "Weapon of Choice". The video displays the wackiness we've come to love from Walken, as he shows off some surprisingly good dance moves throughout an empty hotel lobby. Defiling desks, magazines, and escalators, Walken glides from area to area with an exuberance of a man half his age. His youthful energy becomes so much, that it actually allows him to fly toward the end. Brilliant in its simplicity, the video is a collaboration of two masters of their craft: Walken and Jonze. Hopefully, it is not the last of the projects the two will have together.
2. "Loser", Beck
From depths of underground folk in 1994, came the long-haired, pasty-white Beck. "Loser", a song mixing alternative guitar strumming mixed with nonsensical rap lyrics ("Shave your face with some mace in the dark"), struck a chord with most music-lovers, in the first sign of great music to come after Kurt Cobain's suicide. The film that has a message that combines apathy with downright laziness seemed was supported with a groundbreaking video that matched the song's style exactly. Consisting mostly of homemade-looking videos scrapped hastily together, creating a feeling of havoc which only Beck could make so harmonious. With film negative shots of exercising cheerleaders, and another image of death cleaning someone's windshield in blood, the film's viral energy brought Beck into pop music where his strange innovation still reigns true.
1. "Sledgehammer", Peter Gabriel
This is easily music video equivalent to Citizen Kane. It's innovation and bold attempt to recreate the definition of what a music video was make it stand any other music video of its or any time. Using stop-motion animation combined with Gabriel's face, we're able to go on a pretty interesting adventure through the depths of somebody's subconscious. The video's constant shape-shifting ability makes it fascinating to watch even today. At one point, "Sledgehammer" was the most played video in MTV history, played so much that Gabriel himself called to ask the station to please stop. The film's near-cinematic quality and hypnotizing visuals culminate in a sequence involving two uncooked, dancing chickens. Of coarse, the video ends as Gabriel shifts shape one last time, into a man made out of stars.
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