3+1 Short Paragraphs: Un Prophete

2009, Jacques Audiard -- Netflix

I cannot remember why, but this movie has been on the edge of my radar for quite some time. I vaguely recall a positive review by Roger Ebert. Also on the periphery of my mind is a scene of a man looking out a small window, perched high in the room considering his confinement and the world beyond.

Un Prophète is a French prison drama, about a young Arab boy (his racial origins & France's racial tensions play a part in the movie) sent to prison, straight from streets that have not treated him well. His face is stitched up, his arms and back are criss-crossed with scars and his clothes are only worth being tossed in a bin. We never really know what crime he committed or what happened to him before, because it doesn't matter. This prison is where Malik El Djebena becomes someone.

Malik goes into the prison young and afraid. He is not like the stereotypical strutting street thug ready to prove himself a criminal to his peers. He is merely there because life has led him there. And when the local prison Don, a Corsican named Luciani, coerces him into murdering another prisoner, Malik is torn and forever changed. He becomes the errand boy, the guy who makes the instant coffees, the guy who delivers messages, all for the Corsican criminals who run the prison with the obvious and unchallenged help of the prison officials themselves. And with this exposure, Malik doesn't leave the prison young, or afraid.

What was fascinating about how all of this was played out was that we are never really sure if Malik is meant for this life. He is not a bad man, but nor is he a man to stand up against evil. There is some commentary about how prison makes criminals of its residents, but this movie is more about Malik finding a place, a family and a direction for himself. The prophetic allusions are  somewhat unbalanced, as he has the only meaningful conversations of the movie with absent characters, who might represent his own more intelligent personality emerging. It is never clear and really, it does not play a big part. That he leaves the prison, leader not follower, ascribes some mystical overtones to what led him there, but really, the movie is more a personal evolution not a grand one.

3 Short Paragraphs: X-Men: Days of Future Past

2014, Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, Jack the Giant Slayer) -- download

That issue of The Uncanny X-Men, that one with the cover, that one this is inspired by! There was something about Wolverine with the gray in his sideburns and the crossed-out X-Men. Dystopia! Internment camps! Killer sentinels and time travel! That comic was one of the key points in building my fascination with dystopias. Also, one of the points for establishing my 'body count means plot weight' opinion. You would think I would have a lot invested in seeing the film adaptation. Maybe it was for that reason, that I was very meh about the coming of this movie. Or maybe it was my already deep seated meh for First Class that contributed. That said, I had no interest in seeing it in the cinemas and thus didn't suffer the usual anguish when I was forced to download it.

In Days of Future Past Bryan Singer returns to the franchise to connect the prequel First Class to his pair of X-Men movies. In a dark future where mutants are hunted down or thrown into detention camps, the remaining X-Men all embittered and determined, need to make use of a new power being used by Kitty Pryde, to send someone into the deep past and change history, thus eliminating this Darker Timeline. Of course, Wolverine is the best choice not just because he was there in the time period they need to go to, but also because his powers allow his to recover more quickly. And thus, with the help of Professor X (a completely unexplained, returned Patrick Stewart), Wolvie is sent back to talk with younger Professor X (James McAvoy).

Well, I'll be damned but this movie was a lot of fun. And its meaty, relying on the already established characterizations from the first three as well as the rebooted prequel cast. Its like they finally are finished with establishing movies and can just riff on their versions of characters I have known for thirty years or more. McAvoy and Fassbender are incredible together, the pain and anguish of each man's failings played out well against the confirmed dark future. And the flash forward battle scenes between morphing Sentinels and new/old X-Men is just ... colorful. With Wolverine tying the two stories together, a little mixed up but pretty much the same in each timeline, he pretty much plays observer as much as we do. If I can fault the movie for anything, it is the annoying bloodless PG ratings attached. Seriously, why have claws bone or metal, if you cannot spray blood as you delimb every foe you run into. He's too violent a character to revert to a cartoon version, in a movie that has such emotional weight to it.

3 Short Paragraphs: Transformers: Age of Extinction

2014, Michael Bay (The Rock, The Island) -- download

Age of Extinction doesn't pick up immediately after the last movie but does pick itself up in the world shattered after the War of Chicago, which is a nice bit of world continuity. And then it spends the next 3 hours being the same old same old. I commended the body count of the last movie and I commend the continuity of this movie having it mean something. But again, AGAIN, the movie has to toss in the idea that we not trust the alien robots who have fought and died to save our asses. So, as expected, Michael Bay knows some of the points of making good sequels but still always wants to seed his movies with easy expectations.. and bay-splosions.

The movie picks up not long after the battle in Chicago, about four years. Shia is out and Mark Wahlberg is in; he is a single dad and a failed inventor. Based on the way he interacts with his inventions, talking to them and hoping to coax them into working, instead of inspecting the wiring, circuit boards and software, its no wonder he's a failure. In fact, the whole personality he is assigned is rather dim --- he has a daughter he forbade from ever dating but seems to miss the fact she is super model hot. There is no reality where she is not dating, especially when you see the crowd she hangs with, all standard Bay-hotties. Meanwhile, Wahlberg has purchased a disabled Optimus Prime and nurses the guy back to health, just before he is betrayed by a co-worker and the government.

The next two and a half hours are running away, new autobots, dead autobots, explosions, a new comedic old guy character (Stanley Tucci who is a whole lot of fun), new style baddie robots (made by humans), the return of Megatron (duh) and another alien robot menace, again. Its, as they say, non-stop bay-splosions, car chases, battle scenes and deaths. We know there must be deaths but we only ever actually see one very visibly, the betraying co-worker. We knew he had to die but at least they make it count, kinda. Its all silly and over the top with tons of gramma screaming at the screen stupidities but, with a flick of the brain-switch, kinda fun. And there is Optimus Prime riding a fire breathing dinosaur robot while wielding a sword.

3 Short Paragraphs: The F Word

2013, Michael Dowse (Goon, It's All Gone Pete Tong) -- cinema

Otherwise known as What If in the rest of the world, the Canadian title of the movie says everything you need to know. No, its not about swearing, its an affable movie about being relegated to the friendzone and the troubles and responsibilities that come with that. To the average nice guy, this is the worst thing that can happen -- meet a nice girl, fall for her but hear those dastardly words, "Can we just be friends?" But being friendzoned comes with negative connotations, a sort of responsibility laid at the feet of the female side of the relationship, and this movie wants to sidestep this. The movie is about unrequited love, not sexual politics. For the most part.

Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) is a med school dropout, living with his sister and heartbroken about his ex. He runs into Chantry (Zoe Kazan) at a house party and the two click, in that snarky pop culture conversation sort of way. Part of me wants to rewatch some old youth movies to see if people talked this way in the pre-Buffy days. Clever, relevant and oh so intelligent, Chantry is the first woman to make Wallace think about someone other than his ex. And then she mentions her BF. But they shake hands and agree to be friends.  Allan (Adam Driver) thinks Wallace is being stupid, hiding his feelings for the sake of the gentlemanly friendship. Wallace is conflicted. But they are good as friends.

The first act of the movie is all short choppy walking scenes, that gives the watcher a tour of the cool spots in Toronto. Wallace and Chantry, Wallace and Allan, Wallace and his sister, Chantry and her sister, Chantry and her friends. There is some weird slapstick comedy and a few out of place, otherworldly scenes of animation come to life. I felt things were far too heavy handed on the quips and clips, but it did lead eventually into the actual turmoil of the movie -- how the two do not deal with the growing mutual feelings between them. There is real emotion bubbling to the surface tangled in real life decisions as the BF moves to Ireland for work and Chantry is offered animation work in Taiwan. When it all comes together the two have to dispense with the charming dialogue and just talk to each other about how they feel. There is plenty of time for charming dialogue after they get together, and sit on a roof watching the stars.

We Agree(ish) Guardians of the Galaxy

2014, James Gunn -- in theatre


All right, people, it's time.  It's time I either poop or get off the poop-pot.  I know you've been waiting for this review from me for so long, Mr. Comic Book Geek...some of you I'm sure have resisted the urge to see the film until such time as I shine my light on it and either bathe it in praise, or douse it with denunciation.  So here's the poop, I couldn't decide whether I loved Guardians of the Galaxy as a result of meeting and exceeding my expectations, or if I was, like David, somewhat underwhelmed by the film for the very same reason.

Certainly my anticipation was high, I was a huge fan of the surprisingly recent source material from which this team of characters sprang.  I've always had great love for the B- (and more for the C- and D-) characters from DC and Marvel comics, and this was a team comprised exclusively of characters and heroes largely forgotten by even many of the hardcore nerds.  That the next big Marvel film would take a risk on a talking, gun-toting, trash-talking raccoon, and a sentient tree who only speaks one phrase ever, and two more characters in full-body green make-up was an utter surprise, but not an unwelcome one.  The Guardians of the Galaxy comic (which weaved in and out of cosmic epic crossovers in its three years of publishing) was relentlessly entertaining, dizzyingly rich with creative concepts, and featured an engaging cast of mismatched characters who truly belonged together if only because they didn't belong anywhere else.  It was, for me at least, an endlessly exciting, and perfectly logical choice for a monster-budgeted motion picture.


I struggle with how I feel about the cinematic GOTG.  I know I came out of the film feeling entertained, as entertained as any film in recent memory.  GOTG features laughs, excitement, and some rather surprising character moments (particularly Rocket's drunken outburst had my eyes welling up in empathy), all enveloped in both the space opera oeuvre I intrinsically love as well as being embedded in a superhero universe I am 100% invested in.  The constant spectacle of seeing things on screen I never thought I would see (the Knowhere space station inside a Celestial's head, I mean COME ON!! Cosmo the Russian space dog, yesss!  More of him in the sequel please.  Nova Corps, wahoo!) propelled me excitedly through the movie, and seeing Chris Pratt, whom I've liked intensely for years as dopey Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation, in a lead role couldn't have had me more tuned in.

But for all that, for all the great special effects, for all the cheering and laughing and almost-crying, so much of the film fell flat.  And no it wasn't the cheesy soundtrack -- which managed to ground the film in an Earth-based reality, without really ever needing to touch the Earth, beyond its opening few minutes -- it was just the condensed, Reader's Digest-light version of what felt like it should be a much longer story.  Ronan the Accuser (a completely disguised Lee Pace) certainly looked the part, but the in story motivation was whisper-thin, as was his character development.  It's a problem Marvel movies are generally having, villains who are basically there for the heroes to fight, and not so much great characters on their own. Compare to Loki or Iron Man 3's the Mandarin, and you can see most of the baddies are not casting much shadow.

Beyond that, certain moments felt palely false, like Gamora being manhandled in prison, or having to be rescued on more than one occasion.  She's a premiere fighter and assassin in the universe, she shouldn't in any way feel threatened by a group of thugs or unable to escape her own demise. A romance with Peter Quill should also be totally beneath her, and at least in this film, it never makes it to the big payoff, which I do admire, but I get the feeling it's just a tease for more love-hate hijinks next film.

Nebula, Gamora's step-sister, is an incredible-looking character.  The make-up job on actress Karen Gillen is phenomenal, such that, for me, she's the standout visual of the film, beyond Groot and Rocket.  Unfortunately, Gillen is either given fairly flat dialogue to deliver, or just doesn't manage to hit the dialogue with the right gravitas, as such she feels like a wasted character.  I do hope she gets more screentime in the next film.

The Nova Corps seem like a nice inclusion in the film, but the stunt casting of John C. Reilley and Glenn Close are overly distracting, the same could be said for Benicio Del Toro as the Collector.  Their characters are perfunctory and really should've called for small-time character actors in the roles.  As is, these are a few big-name people in very minor roles, signifying they have more importance then they really do.

On the upside, former pro-wrestler David Bautista is the revelation of the film, delivering deadpan, literal line readings with precision timing, building Drax into a hilarious, yet still intimidating character.  It's a shame Drax is de-powered next to his comic book counterpart, as he should have been able to go toe-to-to with Ronan, but Bautista still gives him a life that stands on its own.  As well, Bradley Cooper delivers a surprising and masterful voice performance as Rocket Raccoon, which certainly builds him into the endearing character he should be.  Vin Diesel's gravelly croak delivers so much with merely the words "I am Groot".  Of anything in the translation I was wondering how that would play, and it plays brilliantly. Certainly the voice of the Iron Giant knows how to make the most out of sparse line readings.

The film is a visual feast, though logic problems (like how various things survive various conflicts) plague the fallout of fight sequences, but overall Gunn produces a colourful and vivid Galaxy that makes the eyes pop, if not always stimulating the brain with ideas.

I have this feeling that a second viewing will either make or break the film for me, that I will either find too much flaw, or fall madly into like with it.  Given the strong public reaction and my already favourable disposition, I think I know which way I'll probably go, but it's not a foregone conclusion.  I'm certainly jazzed this renegade band of a-holes has made such a massive box-office splash, as a sequel is inevitable and I definitely want to spend more time in this neck of the Galaxy (more Cosmo, please).

  

3+1 Short Paragraphs: Divergent

2014, Neil Burger (Limitless, The Illusionist) -- download

For the time being, youth dystopian fiction is where it's at.  With the astounding popularity of The Hunger Games and the screen realizations of The Maze Runner and The Host, we have a few more years of teens against the Near Dark Future establishment coming. But, isn't it weird, when you think something is a thing and then you try and find examples, but realize they are so few? Its the opposite of finding out someone has a new car, and suddenly seeing that car everywhere on the road. Anywayz, its an easy stretch to see why today's youth would feel attached to fiction that has them up against cruel societies that care little for their people.

Now, despite my fondness for near future stories, I never cared to see this movie. The idea of a dark (near) future that is dominated by how it pre-defines its people, how it breaks everyone up into the group they are most suited for, didn't seem that dark to me. As a premise, it is not very alluring. OMG, they want you to be giving or martial or intellectual or whatever. AND you are actually allowed to go against the suggested group and choose. But what if you are the magical kid who has the connection to all the possible life directions / professions? Oooo dangerous. Even as I type it now, I cannot see how it would be considered a real issue. I imagined the movie would spend so much time convincing us this had an impact, I would end up rolling my eyes. But I was pleasantly surprised. The weight of the choices and how far outside she felt, is pretty apparent from the beginning.

Tris is raised in the "abnegation" tradition; those who are entirely giving. She doesn't feel it. During her 'aptitude test' the evaluator tells her the test fails but that she should tell them it said "abnegation". Instead Tris decides on the martial protectors called "dauntless". And thus begins her training at Hogw... the dauntless training arenas. Thus we get the cliches of The Hunger Games, or Harry Potter, or any other fiction where a young character has to spend most of the story training to not be the weak, unskilled, whiny version of themselves so they can blossom into the confident warrior that will set their people free. Inherently, I cannot fault that trend in fiction, having spent so much of my youth repeatedly reading the Band of Adventurers (i.e. Fellowship) trope.

But as training goes on, it becomes apparent why her being "divergent" (carrying traits from all the traditions) is so dangerous. She acts more independent than her peers, more thoughtful. So, despite being smaller and weaker than the other dauntless bullies, she rises through the training ranks. Meanwhile a conspiracy is going on around her, as the current leader of their people, an Erudite (smart people) played by Kate Winslet devises a way to control the dauntless like a suggestible zombie army. And the divergent are immune. As the story closes out, again we have to compare to The Hunger Games as our hero starts a rebellion against the leaders, for the betterment of her people. Let's assume it made enough money to move onto the rest of the series.

3 Short Paragraphs: Enemy

2013, Denis Villeneuve (Maelstrom, Incendies) -- download

Double. Doppelganger. Evil Twin. It must be unnerving to look into the eyes of someone and see yourself staring back. The mirror is within your realm of control; you can just look away. But to unexpectedly find your own face worn by a low grade actor in a B movie would be way beyond strange. Adam Bell is a teacher at U of T, a man who constantly teaches the same lecture over and over, one of history and totalitarian societies, Romans and Circuses. He is bored, bored of his life and his girlfriend and the dusky city of Toronto he lives in. But when, out of that simple boredom, he watches a movie recommended by a fellow boring teacher, he catches himself playing the bellhop. And boredom changes into an obsession with finding out who this double is.

This is an artistic movie, well shot full of wide scenes that make Toronto urbane yet chilling, institutional. Like Prisoners before it, it is quiet and bleak, even in the brightest sun, the skylines tainted with brown smog. There is an underlying tension to everything and every interaction in the movie. Adam meets his double, and its is not enlightening but scares him. Daniel St Claire, the stage name of Anthony, seems to be everything Adam is not -- confident, wealthy, stylish and intimidating. They are not twins, they are not uncannily alike -- they are exact doubles, down to matching scars. But this movie is not about finding out why, its about becoming aware of something more in the world, and being terrified of it. Villeneuve does such a good job of keeping this tension tight as a guide wire, while seeding us with curiosity.

When I see a movie that is enigmatic, as drawn from symbolism, I like to pretend everything is exactly what we see. They are not scenes of giant spiders because the spiders suggest we are caught in webs of control that we are unaware of. I like to envision a true web, an alternate Toronto that is under the dark, smoke tainted control of an unseen force. That these forces are playing with Adam, or perhaps Anthony, by giving him something to upset his life. There is a scene of the cityscape, with a gargantuan spider in the style of Louise Bourgeois's sculptures, roaming the horizon. It is merely cinematic (merely?) but my scifi mind scans the plot possibilities, seeking evil overlords that ride spiders, playing with their inhabitants who are wriggling flies in their web. If Villeneuve wants to conjure spiders as a thinly veiled comment on how we live urban lives, he can do so, but I see things more plainly, and likely more terrifyingly.

We Agree: Life Itself

2014, d. David James (Hoop Dreams)

David's writeup of Life Itself is one of, if not the best review he has written for this site.  It's a heartfelt reaction to this man, Roger Ebert, who we never met, but who we knew intimately through his writing.  Ebert was, and remains, for David and myself and countless others, the inspiration for what we do, which is talk -- and think -- about movies in a way that engages the public, even if the public is only one other person.

David asked me after the film if it was a good documentary, pleading his own ignorance of documentaries and their form.  I said, at the time, that I couldn't tell, basically because I was so emotionally invested in the subject matter from the get go I wasn't able to be objective.  A good documentary, though, starts with a thesis, but will find the path that it does in spite of the thesis, not because of it, whether it backs it up or not.  A documentary lives its life and unfolds as such upon the screen, and you can tell when a film is being dishonest in this regard.  Life Itself began as a documentary on Roger Ebert's life, based of his similarly titled memoir, and very quickly turned into a chronicle of his remaining time on Earth.  That fits the bill.

What documentaries can often do that makes them distasteful or unsavoury is deify their subjects, but director Steve James made it clear from the beginning that this film isn't his alone but a joint effort with Ebert himself, and Ebert would not permit such aggrandizing of his character.  Ebert, we learn, was not a humble man, but he was confident of his place in the world, and that allowed him all the freedom and confidence to give his opinion and have it mean something.  When Ebert injured himself, and later fell ill once again, he seemed uniquely proud to have James document it, and fearless to have every painful moment put on screen.

And it is painful.  It's truly a film where I watch a loved one die before me.  I grieved when Ebert passed away the first time, and I sobbed in the theatre when it inevitably happened again.  Because for all his strength, there came a time where even he was too weak to face the camera, to put that face on screen.  But he was also strong enough to make the decision that it was his time, something that his incredible wife Chaz would have refused had she known.

Between the in-the-moment events, James recalls Ebert's past as culled from his memoirs, interviews with his old editors and friends, pictures of his past life as a raconteur and roustabout, as a know-it-all and driven journalist, as a boob-man and a family man.  Ebert's destiny may not have been writing about film directly, but he was headed for a Pulitzer one way or another, having started his own self-published and self-distributed rag at the age of 12... laser focused.

The highlights were naturally the Siskel years, Roger facing off against his appointed nemesis from across the street, and across the aisle.  The two were born enemies, who became natural brothers, and shared a bond that was deeper than either of them truly cared to admit.  There was passion in their shouting matches, their one-upsmanship, their put-downs, and such heartbreak (and a lesson so noted in how do deal with it) when Roger learned way too late that his polar opposite was closing in on death.

I was a rapt reader of RogerEbert.com in Eberts final years, his blog posts shining a light on his intelligence and world savvy in a way his reviews only so frequently implied.  They also took us deep within Ebert's personal journey through his illnesses, his treatments, losing his jaw and his voice, but taking to technology to retain it, if not speak even louder than before.  Life Itself takes us through this journey again, but instead of it being through Rogers eyes, it's through those that love him, friends, family, James, and Chaz most of all.  It's a bright film filled with sadness, but inspiring and uplifting.  It's an emotional piledriver, but one that feels rewarding all the same.  Everyone in the audience held their thumb up for Roger at the end as they wiped away their tears with the other hand.

Graig and David Sometimes Disagree started out with bigger ambitions, but has settled into what it is because of life, itself.  Would we like it to be more collaborative, more engaged, more back-and-forth? Certainly.  We're not Gene and Roger, but when we get going, pulling apart a film the other liked, or just gushing together over a film we both loved (especially those films that get lambasted by the more mainstream reviewers) we can really have something unique to say (our back-of-the-streetcar post-mortem on Source Code was epic... if only we had something to record it on).  We kind of wanted this blog to be a hybrid of At The Movies debate and Ebert's incredible archive of film analysis and love, fully aware that it would pale in comparison to both, like a pale imitation of a pale imitation.  But Ebert, though departed, still sits firmly in the seat behind us every time we write (more thumbs down than thumbs up, I'm sure, but I'm still happy he's there).  In the end, we may be writing for you, dear reader, but even more we're writing for each other, and, moreover, in Ebert's image, we're writing for ourselves.  I miss Roger Ebert all the damn time.  There's some great movie reviewers worth paying attention to out there still (Nathin Rabin, I'm looking at you), but few come close to Roger, and they all owe him a debt of gratitude for elevating the conversation.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: Brick Mansions

2014, Camille Delamarre -- download

You have to wonder why American producers recreate movies that were already a hit in their own right. Banlieue 13, written by Luc Besson and directed by Pierre Morel (Taken), was an action hit in more countries than its home of France. The rather cheeky lifting of the base plot of Escape from New York had a cop and a criminal breaking into the walled off District 13 (Paris deals with its highly criminal neighbourhoods by walling them off) to rescue a ... bomb. Fluffy plot aside, it was known for its incredible parkour meets the martial arts of Ong Bak. David Belle not only starred, but also choreographed all the chase / fight scenes, which is not surprising since he is considered the founder of parkour as a movement.  See what I did there? It really is an amazing movie to watch, feeling as groundbreaking in action as The Bourne Identity did for fight scenes at its time.

David Belle returns in the remake as the criminal hero living in the walled-off city of New... I mean Detroit. Again, the walled-off area doesn't make too much literal sense. Both are trying to recreate the lack of building codes and the jammed-in feeling you get when you see images of Hong Kong, but apply it to a western location. If anything, Detroit lent itself easily for the use of abandoned buildings, gone completely lawless, if but for the fact that much of the filming happened in Montreal.

In the original there was some connection to the reality of certain neighbourhoods in Paris that had become completely controlled by the criminal element, in the extreme, where the police never visited, ever. The underlying opinion was that they were just abandoning the immigrant neighbourhoods they didn't want to bother policing. That isn't present in Detroit (that I am aware of), so it would be just the underclasses that cling to those areas of the city that look more bombed out then lived in. In both Belle's character is not so much a criminal as a Robin Hood hero trying to protect the average folk who were trapped inside the walls when they were erected. They may have been abandoned by the rest of the city, but not by Belle who wages a one man war against the criminals that control his home.

Again, the star of the movie is the parkour and quick paced action scenes. They are at least aware that Paul Walker cannot keep up with Belle, with a few fun scenes of him taking alternate routes. But other than the parkour, the movie is average action, average characterization and not very exciting. As I expected, all the pizazz was in the original, but I gather someone who had never seen it might like this one. As Walker's last movie, there is already a built in audience but I doubt this one made much of an impact anywhere.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

2014, d. Dean DeBlois (he's Canadian)

I used to be a Pixar snob.  Years back.  I just thought every other studio producing cgi-animated movies was just churning out pap for the masses.  Oh sure, Dreamworks`first effort, Antz, was decent enough, perhaps in some respects a more daring film than A Bug`s Life, but it doesn`t quite have the same allure as the Disney branch.  I mean, those tedious monsters Shrek and Ice Age that kept getting churned out every other year were such a grotesque, average bore, and ever other studio`s offering seemed like they were written for the brain dead.  

It`s only since my daughter`s been around, so the past 5 years or so, that I`ve truly given the other studios a shot.  Oh, sure, I dosed her heavily on Pixar in the first two years, but there`s only so many times one can watch Monsters Inc. before he needs a change of pace.  And let`s face it, Pixar hasn`t really been holding up their end, either, these past few years.  Brave, Cars 2, Monsters University, all not without their charms, but decidedly second-rate when compared to Up, WALL-E, or Toy Story 3.

I warmed to Dreamworks` a bit because of Kung-Fu Panda, but How To Train Your Dragon was the true softening blow, coming to that film only in the past 2 years.  It`s a beautiful boy-and-his-dog story mixed with a "nobody understands me, least of all my father" sub plot that is utterly affecting.  In ramping up for the second motion picture, Dreamworks produced a series, Dragonriders of Berk, which further expanded the world and its characters, maintaining much of the film's voice cast (which is rare for TV spinoffs), which has become my mother's favourite show.  So I was prepped, as were my kids, to see the sequel in theatre, but the experience was sullied when my daughter freaked out before the film started.  So I sent her packing back home with her grandmother (thus denying my mother a viewing of her favourite show on the big screen), and tried to not brood about it while the film was playing.

But I brooded nonetheless.  I enjoyed the movie, but it had obvious flaws, particularly around its villain, the role of Hiccup's mother, and the necessity of the demise of another character.  The death in particular is an affecting an emotional sweep, on the one hand, but it also feels very story/plot driven and not true to the situation or the characters.  The film's upbeat finale feels grotesquely hollow and unearned in the wake of the character's death, and really has me question whether it was truly necessary.  Disney films have long had death in them, exposing children to the mortality of their elders seems to be a mandate of film, but this was less than necessary for this movie.

The introduction of Hiccup's mother, which is a bit of a spoiler, provides a great moment for Hiccup, and Valka (voiced by the always awesome Cate Blanchett) is a great character.  Living in hiding, wrangling dragons, providing sanctuary, she's kind of a nutbar having lived in seclusion from any other humans so long.  Her humanity has kind of escaped her, and she's fiercely against the society that she's left, but given the changes that Hiccup introduced she should be welcome back home.  Naturally she's wary, and her reincorporation into society and reintroduction to her family should provide great drama, but the film unfortunately scuttles her and her story to the side to have the BIG FIGHT SEQUENCE which all summer movies must have.  Her story would be much better served on Dragonriders of Berk.

Drago (Djimon Hounsou) is the first non-white (human) character introduced into the HTTYD cinematic world, and it would be great if we could just look past it and not think anything of it, but that he's also the bad guy, stubborn, violent, and ultimately evil, it does seem an unfortunate choice from the filmmakers (as David also points out in his review).  True, vikings and Scandanavians are depicted as Caucasians traditionally, but there's no reason fiction, and fantasy more specifically, can't be more inclusive.  Beyond that, Drago is a painfully thin character.  He's basically on the scene to be menacing, filled with hate, rage, and puffed up with power... his deep, croaking voice meant to inspire fear in children.  The other new addition, Eret (Kit Harrington), gets more to do, and, despite being a poacher and working for Drago, gets his redemption.

The other Dragonriders besides Hiccup get the short shrift here, which I'm unsure whether it matters or not.  I found the same true of the Kung-Fu Panda sequel, where the focus is on the main character and perhaps a secondary character and all the great supporting cast gets scuttled further into the background.  They get reduced to quip machines or exposition talkers, and don't really feel like the ensemble they do on Berk or in the first film.

Story aside, the animation is stunning.  The flying sequence are breathtaking on the big screen, while the introduction of Valka's sanctuary finds the screen chock-a-block with dragons.  Hiccup's affection for Valka's main dragon yields some charming physical comedy, while the epic scope of the Alpha dragon fight which often eats up the entire background, was worth the price of admission alone.  We were treated to Pacific Rim last year, and Godzilla at around the same time as this... it's been a good 12 months-ish for giant monster fighting.

Though the story isn't quite as thoroughly solid as it could have been (rumours say that originally Valka was to be the villain of the piece, which would have made for an even more enticing film, and surely a tighter story) it's still vastly entertaining.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Tower

2012, Ji-hoon Kim (Sector 7) -- Netflix

I love disaster movies. Yet, so few come out that I haven't reviewed a legitimate one here. By legit, I mean something I saw in the theatre. Someday, you will get a 2012 rewatch. And yes, once I see Into the Storm on downloads, you will get that. But until then, I am getting my fix from Netflix and apparently, from Korea.

If, as a genre, disaster flicks are not very good, then the enhanced melodrama of Korean cinema only enhances the not-so-good elements of these movies. I am convinced that melodrama, present in every country's movies, is a very cultural thing. What is deep, heart wrenching and touching in one country is overly cheesy and unbearable in another's. If balanced by a good story or good special effects it can work. Those are not to be expected in this genre.

This is all a way to say, yes, my latest Korean disaster movie, about a luxury tower catching fire on its "launch" night, is not a very good movie. It burns, it explodes, it even floods. The wide net of a cast including plucky firefighters, single dads, trusting Christians, hard working housekeepers and the required uncaring building owner. The effects are actually decent, a mix of heavy practical effects and CGI fire. I just couldn't get past all the longing looks and desperate cries, to attach myself to the characters, required to actually care for the dying cast. Only the quiet focus of the Captain Young-ki, the dedicated fireman who is never home because he works so hard, kept me watching. His final sacrifice, detonating explosives to collapse one tower so its twin doesn't topple over taking out downtown Seoul, is actually tragic.

One Episode: Gotham, Scorpion, Forever

Ooooo Gotham (Fox, Donal Logue, Ben McKenzie), ooooo all the villains in younger forms, ooo its young Bruce Wayne. That's it, that is why I didn't give a hoot about this show -- why would I want to watch a Batman show without even the possibility of a Batman? Sure, Gotham is a character unto itself, the deeper, darker version of Manhattan with all those elevated trains and a corrupt police force & government. But even the promotional campaign annoyed me, as they dropped hints about incidental characters who we know would grow up to be big players, such as Selina Kyle the street kid or Ivy, the daughter of a thug who hides behind her potted plants. And all that, "Which one is the Joker? Is it the standup comedian??" So, I was not looking forward to this show.

But surprisingly, I was not all that bothered by the first episode. This is tooled for the fans of Arrow, with a sort of drama light. Gotham is gritty and dirty, but not so much so that its always night. And honestly, anything with Donal Logue is going to have me watch at least occasionally. But really, it was Ben McKenzie sporting a confounding tough-guy accent (did I catch hints of growly Christian Bale?) and the clear values of Jim Gordon that made me enjoy it. There is no way he can clean up the entire city or even the GCPD in the first season, but I was happy to be convinced he will try. But with a level head on his shoulders, not all gung ho, "You guys are all corrupt, I am gonna take you down !!"

I will probably watch a few episodes until I get bored or more annoyed by the references.

Meanwhile we have mostly no names in Scorpion (CBS, Elyes Gabel, Katharine McPhee, Robert Patrick). Billed as a non-comedic version of The Big Bang Theory (because we always have to provide common ground) with overly intelligent, socially inept people who are gathered together to save the world each week, this was not as terrible as I expected it to be.

Oh, it was pretty bad. We have a white male math genius, a white male psychology genius, a white male (but Irish, ooo the ethnicity !) genius genius (one of the 5 smartest people in the world) and a wh...er, Asian female technology genius.  Token smart girl has to be Asian. So, one understands numbers, one people, one machines and the last is smart enough to know everything. Together they are smarter than all of us (I mean all of us) but they cannot pay their bills or keep relationships because they are emotionally crippled. Like a room full of Sheldons.

Except, they are not. Main character Walter O'Brien is well dressed, obviously works out, has friends and at every turn is cracking smiles, connecting with people and understanding the emotional impact of what he is doing. But they add the occasional interpersonal flub to remind us. And the math genius can talk to pretty girls; now THAT was the most unrealistic bit.

They are gathered by blacksuit Robert Patrick (Homeland Security, NSA, something like that does not matter) to save a bunch of planes that cannot land because of a virus in the LAX air traffic system. No one can get hold of the planes and they would rather them be blown out of the sky than attempt dangerous landings.  ??!?!

But all together, this silliness was kind of fun. The tech talk is your typical mix of technical bullshit with a dose of truth so it sound real. Their solutions are way over the top (such as connecting a network cable from a low flying plane to a speeding car) and the interactions are fun. I could actually enjoy this, as long it doesn't ever try to take itself too seriously.

P.S. The show is also stylishly titled as </scorpion>. Uh, closing a tag to connect something to tech is soooo 10 years ago. And its not even proper syntax. <scorpion /> would have been more appropriate.

Speaking of common ground, I can hear the elevator pitch for Forever (ABC, Ioan Gruffudd, Alana de la Garza, Judd Hirsch). Its Castle meets Bones meets Elementary meets New Amsterdam. That's alot of meeting. So, we have the cop & non-cop partnership, charming and well dressed. We have Dr. Henry Morgan as a coroner / medical examiner, who also happens to have a Sherlock style of noticing details about people & situations. And finally, most importantly, he is immortal. If he dies, he instantly appears nearby, naked, in a body of water.

Now, given it has the directing and writing style of Castle, I am built to find it appealing. Surprisingly, Gruffudd who has annoyed me in movies past, is becoming rather charming as he grows older. And the relationship between him and Judd Hirsch just seals that for me. You see, Hirsch is effectively his son, adopted in the 40s and the two have been together since. Abe has aged but Henry is still late 30s. But the two display such a bond, inter-changing father and son, as the situation plays.

The story of how he became immortal is somewhat explained, but with enough mystery to play out for a few seasons. Also, Henry has a "fan", possibly another immortal who is taunting him. As long as they don't end up with tons of mythology, which overshadows the buddy cop show, it could last awhile.

Of the three, I think Scorpion will die the quickest. Despite being on Fox, Gotham will have the most support and it will be up to Forever to find an audience to stick around.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

2014, Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In) -- in theatre

It was a pretty amazing summer for blockbuster movies.  Even if the box office didn't reflect it as being the best ever, I'm almost certain this summer's crop provided us with the best batch of movies week after week.  It started early in February with The Lego Movie and Captain America: The Winter Soldier in March, and went full steam ahead with X-Men Days of Future Past, Godzilla and onwards.  There were naturally a couple duds (Amazing Spider-Man 2, Transformers 4, and Ninja Turtles, all of which I avoided) there always are, but the caliber of the summers biggest films were so above par, not just in providing cool effects, but really strong directorial vision, thoroughly engaging and satisfying stories, and a measure of intelligence we're just not used to seeing in our popcorn entertainment.  While I'm still tardy on reviewing a few of these (Guardians of the Galaxy, Snowpiercer, How To Train Your Dragon 2), I had watched all the big movies that were worth watching this past season...save one: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

There's often a divide among cinephiles and nerds over what constitutes a "good" movie, but also a bridge of nerd cinephiles sitting right in the middle of that venn diagram who appreciate a masterful drama or well-crafted documentary and the biggest of explosions and best special effects money can buy in equal measure.  Most of these people do reviews on the internet (*AHEM*).  Of these hybrid "cinerdphiles", it seemed like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was quite often coming up as highlight of the summer.  It's not like I didn't want to see it.  I love the original Planet of the Apes series, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes was an emotionally devastating and utterly surprising reboot of the series.  David and I had planned to see it together, but with the crazy summer schedule it just never worked out...but I knew I needed to see it in theatre before it went for good.


Where Rise was a smaller story about family with a strong anti-animal testing message, Dawn goes much bigger into examining what brings societies to war.  The setting of the film is a decade after Rise, the anti-Alzheimer's drug that Jame Franco's character invented in the first film that caused Caesar to rapidly evolve in intelligence also mutated into a virus that turned lethal to humans.  Society as we know it quickly collapsed while the escaped apes who were experimented on have built an entirely new and quickly expanding ape society in the forests outside San Francisco.  Humanity has survived, but in very small numbers.  When we meet the apes they haven't seen a human in years, up until Caesar's son, Blue Eyes, and a friend encounter one in the woods, one who panics and shoot's Blue Eye's friend.  This sets of a very tense chain of events as the increasingly desperate surviving humans in San Francisco, running low on diesel-generated power, get set to reclaim the forest to get to the dam, led by nervous Dreyfus (Gary Oldman).

Malcolm (Jason Clarke), the sort of engineering leader of the humans, looks to establish a truce with the Apes, and ventures out to connect with Caesar in hopes of reaching an understanding.  Caesar is reluctant to engage with the humans, concerned the influence they will have on his new society, but agrees to help them restore their power if it means peace.   His right hand ape, Koba, not only doesn't trust the humans but hates them with a fervor, and continually advises Caesar against his diplomacy, but when it falls on deaf ears, he turns Blue Eyes against him.

The humans, by and large, are fearful of the apes, blaming them for the deadly virus, not the laboratory scientists that created it.  The fact that some of them can speak and ride horses and brandish weapons amplifies their terror.  The desire to destroy what they both fear and do not understand is an all too common trait, one which both Caesar and Koba know all too well. But what Caesar had experienced, and Koba never did, was compassion, love and guidance from a human hand, and he nostalgically believes there is still value to them.  Koba can't see past his hate and begins scheming to convince to his leader and his apes that they must attack and destroy them.  When his scheming doesn't work directly, he becomes downright insidious in his actions.

It's a potent analogy to real life, that there are good people trying to make the world and the lives of people within it the best they can be for everyone, which includes compromise and tolerance, and there are others out for their own agenda fueled by hate, fear, an greed.  Dreyfu is convinced that their means of survival is taking other's land by force, while it's Koba's blind hatred of another race that he's willing to sacrifice the lives of his own to exterminate theirs.  It operates on a much smaller, more simplified scale, dealing solely with terrain in and around San Francisco populated with only a few hundred people and apes, but in a small dramatic package it speaks to what drives cultures to war.

Of all of the summer films, Caesar may be the best realized and best performed character of the bunch (and it's a hybrid performance between the animators and Andy Serkis' motion capture acting).  Caesar is trying to establish a society that is built around a hybrid of apes of advanced intelligence and of normal ape intelligence.  He has to lead using his superior mind, but also through his brute primal nature in equal measure.  He's a family man, teaching his son about the world both as he once knew it and how it is now, with another son just born and a wife who is ill (women get the terrible short shrift in this film, it doesn't pass the Bechdel test in the least).  He is a warrior, a hunter, a diplomat, and whatever he needs to be to ensure his society doesn't collapse or get destroyed.  The face of Caesar, being digitally rendered, is afforded a level of animation that few human performers could achieve.  But beneath it all are some very real emotions, the eyes of Serkis conveying the weight it all has upon him.  The look of betrayal when Koba turns on him, or the expression of  his failure when his son turns to Koba after rejecting him are palpable.

But it's not just Caesar, all the main apes, Koba, Blue Eyes, and Maurice the Orangutan are so wonderfully rendered, they are the richest characters on screen.  The human characters pale before them, but arguably it's because they have the tougher job of acting against not a actual ape.  Keri Russell and Kodi Smit-McPhee share a nice bonding moment -- as Malcolm's girlfriend and son, respectively, she lost a lot in the collapse, and he's never known anything but suffering -- but it's brief, and the human struggle is of lesser interest overall.  Beyond just wanting to see the human race survive, and, well, be decent, the film gives you little incentive to invest in their plight, or care all that much about the characters.  But it's kind of like watching Jurassic Park from the point of view of the dinosaurs, the humans just aren't as important.

The film has its choppy moments, particularly the opening hunting scene in the beginning where there is way too much cgi fauna on screen.  The uncanny valley maxes out and it doesn't look great.  The scene with the bear was good, particularly Koba's assist, but the bear just didn't quite look right.  Perhaps on the small screen.  But beyond that the cgi apes seemed quite refined, the lead apes certainly having the most amount of effort invested in bringing them to life.  The soundtrack from Michael Giacchino is dangerously dull, television drama quality, threatening to take the viewer out of the film with every slow piano.  It's like Giacchino used up all his tricks on Lost, and I'm so familiar with his work from there, it doesn't easily get repurposed elsewhere.

Of all the summer movies, this is the heaviest, most intense.  I welled up with tears any number of times throughout it, director Reeves balancing the spectacle with the emotional drama, using his effects budget not to dazzle so much as present the weight of the characters and their actions.  It's an excellent continuation of the series, and it's tremendous success means more will definitely be on the way (although the reports from producers seem to indicate a remake of the original film is the ultimate destination point, which seems ill-advised, as it does hold up pretty damn well).

3 Short Paragraphs: I'll Follow You Down

2013, Richie Mehta (Amal) -- download

I am a sucker for time travel movies, especially indie ones. When you are not shooting for blockbuster fame, you have the energy to visit smaller ideas. In I'll Follow You Down it focuses on the question of which timeline deserves to exist.  This, of course, is assuming there is a singular timeline with which to mess with.

When Erol (Haley Joel Osment; all grown up but still baby-fat faced) was 9, his dad (Rufus Sewel) disappeared. He was off to Princeton and never showed up. Everyone assumed he just ran away but Erol's parents' love was so strong, it left his mother (Gillian Anderson) so irrevocably broken, she is lost to her family. Sal (Victor Garber), her father, believes that Gabriel didn't disappear but went somewhere more insidious -- into the past. He confesses this to Erol, who shares his father's genius and together the two decide to recreate the time machine and pursue Gabriel. Sal believes they are all living an alternate life that shouldn't be -- his daughter shouldn't be broken, Erol should not be prone to depression and Gabriel should be here, the perfect father. This will fix it.

This is a mild manner movie, set and shot in Toronto. Erol is a quiet lad, loving the girl next door, preparing a life with her. Despite his desperate desire to have his father back, he cannot deny his fiance is correct in saying, if they revert the timeline, she will definitely be in his life. This is the conundrum he must wrestle with -- which timeline is real, which one is the right one, why should all the people and choices and circumstances that exist currently be wiped away by a short jaunt into the past? But questions asked must be answered, or at the very least confronted.

We Disagree(?) - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

2013, Francis Lawrence -- netflix

It seemed I was one of few who admired director Gary Ross' vision for Suzanne Collins bleak, totalitarian-run, classist future, as well as Ross' ability to focus on the humanity that is both lost and found by the participants in a fight to the death, last-man-standing competition.  I said at the end of my review "A second and third chapter aren't wholly necessary, but at this point they'll be welcome (unless they get too... Hollywood)".

Well, with Ross being cited by so many as the weakest element of the first chapter, he was out and in his stead, Francis Lawrence, director of such astounding mediocrity such as I Am Legend, Water For Elephants, and Constantine, was in.  It's not that Lawrence can't put a movie together, as the stories of those films all flow just fine (and truth told, miscasting of Keanu aside, I kinda liked Constantine a little), but there's little to nothing exceptional or daring about them... they're totally Hollywood productions, competently told to appeal to the masses.

If I have a problem with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, it's exactly that the story is merely competently told.  From the onset, the film plays out like episodic television, with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and her boyfriend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) having an exceptional amount of tension over her "on screen" relationship Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). Peeta still harbors romantic feelings for her, but she doesn't reciprocate, and the drama over it is beaten into the ground.

David, in his review covers well the turmoil Katniss has to face (major PTSD), since she has become a darling resident of the 12 Districts, a champion and a hero, but the pressure is often too much, and her awareness of the potency of her symbolism, of a champion who beat the system, is beyond her comprehension.  When the masses start to, in small ways, rebel against the Capital, they do so in her name, which frightens her more than it inspires her.  It also frightens the people in charge, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) particularly.  He looks to his new gamesmaster Plutarch Heavensbee (GODDAMN THESE NAMES ARE FUCKING AWFUL!!! I can kind of ignore them when just spoken, but I couldn't imagine reading three novels with names like these without feeling nauseated...anyway, he's played by the late, amazing Philip Seymore Hoffman) to help him squash the looming uprising before it begins.  The answer is a tournament of champions, so to speak, in honour of the 75th anniversary of the last failed uprising.  Katniss and Peeta are sent back into the fray along with a male and female former champion from each other district (I find it interesting that each of the 12 districts has both a male and female champion and that so many are so young).

This leads to a whole repeat of the process of the first movie, only accelerated and with more poignant flourishes. The last act of the film is the game itself, which again, is competently handled by director Lawrence, but far too often I could see the actors acting, as they flailed around to imaginary pains and fought imaginary apes and birds.  It was kind of laughable actually, and Finnick O'dair's Aquaman schtick twirling around a trident was quite cheeky.  The quick pace at which the tournament claimed its victims was disappointing, especially since we got very little time with most of the 24 contestants save for a half dozen or so who proved useful in the film's climax, which leaves with a cliffhanger-ish ending that feels more like a "see you next week" ending to a TV show than a cliffhanger proper.   That Lawrence has been twiddling around in TV in recent years with Touch and Kings makes sense.

The performances in this film are all fine.  It's got a great cast with Lawrence, Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, and a most delightful Elizabeth Banks all returning, with Hoffman, Amanda Plummer in typical full-crazies, and Jeffrey Wright all excellent additions to the cast. Star Lawrence is, unfortunately, welled up with tears for about half the film, screaming at someone for doing something bad, or crying over someone dying or who has died, or just in a perennial state of being upset.  The look on her face as the tube goes up into the battlefield is completely "FML".  But the payoff I guess, is the final scene, which hearkens back to Gary Ross' style of the first film (SPOILERS).  It's a full close-up of Katniss' face, rescued but injured, laying on a table, sedated, staring at the ceiling, in a ship on its way to the resistance headquarters in District 13, she's just been told by Gale that her entire District 12 has been firebombed as penance for her in-game revolt.  Lawrence once again profusely extrudes tears, her face torn with regret, but the emotions run the gamut, fear, regret, remorse, sorrow, anger, rage, and ultimately resolve.  The tears stop and that face, the attitude say she's ready to take control and change the world, symbol or martyr or whatever it needs.  It's literally the best moment in the film.

Again, it's an interesting movie, but drawn out, overlong at nearly two and a half hours, needlessly so.  If director Lawrence could handle the breathier moments better, with better cinematography or more intense focus on the characters, it would have helped the film along, but again it's competent storytelling and little else.  I'm interested to see the finale play out, but decompressed over two films, it feels like it's going to be a nightmarish slog.

3 Short Paragraphs: Chef

2014, John Favreau (Cowboys & Aliens, Iron Man) -- cinema

Its really hard for me to write well (shaddup) about something I really like. Often the minutia that comes together to make something that perfectly clicks with me is intangible, even to me. But some of the elements of Chef are already right down my alley, so they have to be contributors. First, its a food movie with all the classic overhead shots of tasty looking food being well plated. And its also about a food truck, one cliche of the mid-otts that I am happy to indulge in; well, whenever you can under Toronto's draconian food truck laws. And it is about love: familial love, romantic love and the tight bonds of friendships that cannot be denied. It even tosses in some insightful uses of social technologies, focusing on how they can bring people together instead of just sharing their naughty pics. It is a feel good movie that presents itself to all the senses and emotions.

John Favreau is Carl Casper, a chef in an LA resto. He wants to cook his best, present his creativity but Dustin Hoffman wants him to continue to cook the favs on the menu, the items that keep the patrons and money flowing in. Add to that a food blogger (Oliver Platt) gone national who ridicules Casper and you get the first act, the life Casper is leading and how he is struggling. His difficult relationship with his ex-wife and young son only further complicate things. So, of course, it all has to collapse when Casper freaks out on the food blogger with it all being captured on someone's phone cam. He is instantly a meme. He is fired.

There is almost an entire movie in that first act, and what I loved so much about this movie is how much it continued on. It didn't feel rushed through the different acts of the story, but filled them up with so much. That we could cover an entire act with Casper rebuilding a food truck in Miami, along with the dedicated friendship of Martin (John Leguizamo) and Casper's son, is lovely. Its about rebuilding relationships, with his son, with his ex-wife and re-establishing why Casper and Martin are such good friends. The final act has the guys driving the truck back to LA, stopping in key cities to promote the truck on Twitter and add local fare to the menu: cubano sandwiches from Miami, beignets from New Orleans and BBQed pork from Austin, Texas. This act is a road story, a music story and the vacation I desperately need in my life. Oh, if I could have half the passion with which these guys live their lives I would be a much richer man, even if you ignore the fact that once again, people pursue a grand life only because of a grand amount of money. Ignore that lil bit of cynicism. I loved the movie. And the best sign of loving a food movie? I was hungry afterwards.

So, where can I find cubanos in Toronto?

I Saw This!! Netflix Edition

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our all-too regular feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of movies they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. Now they they have to strain to say anything meaningful lest they just not say anything at all. And they can't do that, can they?

In this edition of "I Saw This!!" Graig covers:

Magic Mike - 2012, Steven Soderbergh
The 5-Year Engagement - 2012, Nicholas Stoller
Frances Ha - 2013, Noah Baumbach

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa - 2013, Declan Lowney


---

Steven Soderbergh may just well be my all-time favourite director, and yet I've not seen all of his movies (maybe only half), and I'm not sure that any of his films crack my top ten (Out Of Sight may come close).  But Soderbergh never fails to deliver something interesting or different.  He's a definite auteur, a man of very specific vision, but he doesn't have a distinct style or milieu that he works in.  Where other favourite directors like Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino all have a decidedly distinct voice where you can tell a film is theirs at every passing moment, Soderbergh is a man of varied tastes who likes to experiment and push the boundaries of conventional storytelling in all different sorts of genres such that his impact as a director is often unidentifiable, but present.  Magic Mike is a damn bold, intriguing, and highly entertaining film that takes the sub-sub genre of stripper movies and explores it with a gender flip.

You've got your Flashdance, your Striptease, Coyote Ugly and Showgirls, to name the most prominent examples, which are each in their own way revealing of the worlds they explore, but at the same time, are themselves highly exploitative.  This is ever more clear by the gender flip in Magic Mike which highlights just how much control the men have on stage, how freewheeling and easy-going the experience largely is, especially in comparison to the seedy, grimy worlds that other stripper films present.  It's telling that the characters in Magic Mike are never vulnerable to exploitation, at least not in the same threatening way the women in female sex-trade movies are, and that is definitely a point that Soderbergh is making.

Channing Tatum went into Magic Mike as a meathead pretty-boy actor of little note or interest, and came out the other side a genuine superstar.  Soderbergh's focus on him is a man of confidence, charisma, humour and intelligence and Tatum sells it at every turn (not to mention being a man of skill, showing of some impeccable dance moves that seem far too fluid and limber for a man of his beefiness).  Mike takes young, aimless Adam (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing and brings him into the world of male exotic dancing.  Adam naturally succumbs to all the vices that being young and making money in sex entertainment would provide, and Mike struggles to keep him on the straight an narrow (fostering a crush on Adam's sister doubles his investment in the young man).  The first two acts of the film are so easygoing, they show the environment of male exotic dancing as one of craft (if not exactly artistry), and that it does have it's rewards with few drawbacks.  The third act does take an unfortunate detour into familiar drug-and-danger territory (see Boogie Nights) but the heaviness is thankfully short-lived (you can see the studio notes that these *have* to go that way, don't they?).

It's not a masterpiece by any stroke, but it presents a story and a subject that challenges its audience (particularly the hetero male audience) to appreciate it, and it definitely has its moments worth appreciating.

---

A few weeks (months?!) back I was pondering how television has so unanimously trumped film's ability to make a successful comedy, pointing out that in both character-based and situation-based comedy TV has more time and ability to build one and not exhaust the other.  So it's no surprise then that a film like The 5-Year Engagement plays out less like a three-act film but rather like four or five episodes of a television series.

The plot finds Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) as a warm loving couple with a great relationship on the road to getting married, but with plenty of interference -- school, careers, deaths, weddings -- along the way.  The major impact on their relationship involves moving from San Francisco to Michigan so Violet can explore a career in academia.  The film is fragmented into sections of their life together (and apart), rather episodically.  Segel and Blunt have a charming playfulness and excellent chemistry that sells an otherwise middling script.  There's a lot of warmth but not as much comedy.  To their credit, Segel and co-writer/director Nicholas Stoller write character-based comedies that are much more interested character development than pratfalls and punchlines, so the film has a lot sympathy for and pays equal attention for both leads.  The film features a solid cast of supporting players with Chris Pratt, Alison Brie (although adopting a ridiculously awful British accent as Blunt's sister...I thought she should have played Blunt's best friend who was at school abroad and adopted the terrible accent), Rhys Ifans, Mindy Kaling, Kevin Hart, Randall Park and Brian Posehn.  It's overall engaging and likeable, but not particularly memorable.

---

Noah Baumbach established a reputation as a writer-director of heavy, dark, emotional family dramas, primarily on the backs of his back-to-back Oscar-nominated features The Squid and the Whale and Margot At The Wedding.  One can forget that he started out writing comedy/romantic comedy, and even co-wrote with Wes Anderson on The Life Acquatic and The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  He's more versatile than he gets credit for, but his features typically find their humour drowning in the darkness, buried under the heavy weight of their drama such that it's difficult or uncomfortable to remember the laughs.

Francis Ha is a bit of a departure for Baumbach, working on a much smaller scale, in black and white, and cowriting with his star, Greta Gerwig, to develop a very specific character to center the film around.  Gerwig plays the titular Frances, an late-20-something aspiring dancer living in New York who leads a rather cheerful existence despite her hardships.  She's perennially broke, seemingly always between apartments, and her chances of being a professional dancer diminish by the day.  Francis is looking for love but it's not about romance necessarily, but comfort and companionship.  She makes friends easily enough, but it's her best friend Sophie whom she wants to be with the most (again not in a romantic sense), but Sophie's moving on with her life, and Frances finds the void she's left hard to cope with.

In many ways, Frances Ha feels like Baumbach's riff on a Woody Allen picture, Manhattan smushed with Annie Hall, the old love story to New York (and, briefly, Paris) minus the overwhelming neurosis and jazz score.  Frances is a complex character who deals with the world around her in a truthful way (well, truthful to her, she doesn't realize the denial she's in quite often).  In the end, Frances isn't in a better place than where she started, just a different one... she's maybe a little wiser, and made some smarter decisions, but life is ever moving forward.  It's an entertaining light drama, and I enjoyed the examination of a character defiantly pursuing their dreams, unwilling to accept any alternative, until the cold reality sets in that their dreams are perhaps unattainable, but it doesn't mean life is over. Another plus was having Frances' "romance" be more about friendship than about any actual romance.  Any story diversion away from the "need a man to complete them" is a good one.

---

Given my recent assessments of big screen comedy, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is an interesting  picture thrust in that mix, as it takes an established character from television and transposes him to long-form big-screen comedy.  Oh, it's not a unique thing, since so many feature comedies are born out of television shows, sketch, or characters developed on stage in stand-up routines, but it's indicative of how a small-screen comedic success (like Eddie Murphy, Tim Allen, Will Ferrell or Sacha Baron Cohen) can make their way to big screen prominence, even if these days it's no longer an exclusive thing.

I missed out on Alan Partridge as a British cultural icon of the late 90's/early 00's, despite every intention to catch up with The Brass Eye and I'm Alan Partridge where Steve Coogan built his news anchor/talk show host, so I went into Alpha Papa with only the smallest notion as to who the character was and what he was all about.  I think prior viewers Alan Partridge have a slight advantage in knowing the character, his habits and failings from the onset, but by the end of the first act it's quite apparent that Partridge is an ageing egomaniac with faded celebrity wafting off of him.  But he's not desperate, not fully, and he's not necessarily always above his station either.  I don't know if it's character complexity or just inconsistency, but I admire the choice to have him be at once an attention seeking whore that has accepted his age and finds comfort in being at the top of the lowest rung yet will still take advantage of the opportunity to step back up to the next rung, but not at the bottom of said rung.

Alpha Papa finds the ex-national broadcaster now working as a midday disk jockey at a Northampton radio station where he's settled in for some years.  He drives a car that speaks to his shamelessness as a self-promoting, self-aggrandizing shill and makes personal appearances at small affairs for nominal tokens of appreciation ("how big is the key").  When the radio station is taken over by a new broadcasting group and brand-homogenized, jobs are on the line.  When the nighttime DJ (Colm Meany) is fired, he returns with a shotgun and takes the station hostage.  It's up to Partridge, working with the police, to negotiate their safe release, but of course the question is will all the attention allow him to do that job or will he seek to exploit the media circus opportunity before him?

It's been a long time since I've seen any comedy that isn't stand-up be so singularly focused as Alpha Papa is, in that almost all of the laughs come from Alan Partridge, whether it's his witty turns of phrases, Coogan's impeccable timing, a physical gag, or a specific set piece.  The majority of the laughs come from Partridge/Coogan, and remarkably very few of them are at his expense (and even those that are, one gets the sense Partridge feels very little to no shame, or at lease easily rebounds from embarrassment).  It's a little dark, the comedy at times, since the characters are all generally operating with the threat of violence about them, but at the same time the ability to ignore or comedically excel because of that threat is such a large part of the film's entertainment value.

Coogan commands the screen, as is probably his want, but also out of necessity.  A film with this type of story needs to have a central figure who is equal parts intelligent, compassionate, empathetic, ridiculous, and, at times, stupid while remaining completely in-character.  He owns this role totally, and there's never a moment where Alan Partridge feels like he's out of his element (well, there's that daydream he has of being the action hero, but that's intended fantasy).  It is a wholly off-beat picture, but incrementally hilarious, building as one becomes more and more familiar with the ways of Alan Partridge.