THE HANGOVER (Todd Phillips)Everyone loved this flick. I’m no exception. Bradley Cooper, opened up to do some wacky comedy instead of playing a total dickhead, showed his true star quality for the first time. But of course the real star is Zach Galifianakis, who steals every scene. I’ve been a fan of Todd Phillips’ brand of comedy since I first saw OLD SCHOOL, and although there have been some missteps along the way, HANGOVER takes the promise of OLD SCHOOL to the next level.
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (Spike Jonze)This movie is sad and a little confusing. People sometimes forget that childhood isn’t always rainbows and sunshine or puppy dogs and ice cream. Sometimes, childhood is sad and confusing. That’s one of the reasons imagination is so important to young people. What better way to make sense out of a complex world that most adults, let alone kids, don’t understand in the first place, than to imagine solutions to problems, imagine explanations for things that don’t make sense, imagine connections between the things that don’t seem to connect. Imagination can organize the chaos around us. It can make sense out of the senseless. It can soothe the savage beast.
It seems like the kids’ movies that are memorable to my generation tend to be the ones that are a little strange, a little edgy, a little creepy, a little challenging. People remember the nightmare visions as fondly, if not moreso, as they do the warm and fuzzy ones. Hopefully in ten or twenty years there will be a generation of kids who grow into adults who love WILD THINGS as much as people my age love LABYRINTH, DARK CRYSTAL, NEVERENDING STORY, RETURN TO OZ. WILD THINGS is a better film than all of those, anyway.
WHIP IT (Drew Barrymore)The complaints I’ve read about WHIP IT mostly say it is too formulaic and that it’s too nice. That’s why I like it. Despite the strict adherence to formula and despite how nicely everything turns out, WHIP IT still manages to be a great film with a unique point of view.
The other reason I liked WHIP IT: Ellen Page. More than any movie so far, this film has made me fall in love with Ellen Page. Her face is so genuine that with seemingly no effort she can make your heart break with a glance, or put it back together again with a smile. The trick is that it looks like she’s not working. When she’s sad, you’re sad. When she’s happy, you’re happy. It’s all in her eyes, and her cheeks, and her smile. Hopefully she’ll still be working in a couple decades when her face will have some mileage on it. Imagine what kind of stories she’ll tell.
There is one key scene in WHIP IT where the movie actually defies convention and formula, and it has to do with the love interest. Without giving too much away, there is some question as to whether he cheated on Page’s character or not. He makes a fairly good case that he didn’t. What’s her response? It doesn’t matter. She didn’t like the way the relationship made her feel, regardless of the details behind it, and that’s enough for her to end it. She knows what she wants and what she doesn’t want, and it’s not defined by the guy in her life. Teenage girls should be listening to this message, and not the one in TWILIGHT. I could stand to learn from it, myself.
UP IN THE AIR (Jason Reitman)There’s truth in this movie. That’s why it’s beautiful. Sure, the movie is gray, overcast, about aging, about the death of the economy, about corporate detachment. Sure, the main character, played by George Clooney, has a side job convincing people they don’t need anyone but themselves. Sounds ugly. But, it isn’t. Sad, yes. Tragic, sure. It is that. But, not ugly. I can think of some supposedly heartwarming family films that are quite ugly. UP IN THE AIR is the opposite of that.
I’m guessing most people will exit this movie taking a long hard look at themselves. I say that because that’s what happened to me. My heart moved along with Clooney’s journey, and it didn’t go where I wanted it to go, and my heart broke right along with Clooney’s. But, me and Clooney thought about it, and we realized our hearts had already been broken, anyway. So, time to move on.
Some of the best movies ever made are about people who realize they’re lonely and decide they don’t want to be lonely anymore. The story comes from the choices they make to end their loneliness. The lesson comes from what they learn from the choices they make.
AVATAR (James Cameron)There isn’t a moment in this movie where there isn’t something awesome to look at. And, a lot of this awesome stuff also happens to be totally unique to this movie. So, for the entire running time, the audience is seeing things they’ve never seen before. And that, while admittedly going a little above and beyond, is what seeing a movie should be all about. The whole movie is beautiful, but it is also action packed and breezes by at a good clip, despite the length. It’s deceptively perfect in its simplicity, basically a text book example of Ebert’s old rule, “It’s not what a movie is about, but how it’s about it.” The reason you see AVATAR is how it tells its story, not what the story is. AVATAR tells its story in a way you’ve never seen before. It’s a multi-course meal in a sea of fast food movies. It’s an event in the true meaning of the word, not the fake meaning that’s been applied to every would-be blockbuster of the week.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (Quentin Tarantino)“It’s like writing history with lightning.”
That’s a famous quote about an infamous movie, BIRTH OF A NATION. The quote referred to the thrilling way D.W. Griffith told his story, when the medium was still new. The quote probably did not refer to the way Griffith took liberties with history to paint a racist and pro-KKK picture of reconstruction.
In any case, that’s the quote I think of when I think of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. The film is painted in broad strokes, with primary colors, larger than life characters and gleefully takes liberties with history in a way that might be offensive if the movie wasn’t so damned entertaining. Of course it helps that the film ends with one of the greatest revenge sequences ever, including a most satisfying death scene for a villain who never gets the death scene he deserves in any other WW2 flicks.
As usual, Tarantino bends genres until he’s basically made up his own and all of this flaunting of convention seems so obvious that it’s a wonder no one ever tried it before. But, that’s the beauty of it. The movie is so deceptively simple and straight forward that it has room to breathe, and it’s in this room that all the details and specifics get filled in, the way Tarantino loves to fill them in, until the movie is so particular you can’t imagine it ending with any other line than:
“I think this might just be my masterpiece.”
THE HURT LOCKER (Kathryn Bigelow)This movie is badass. That’s all there is to it. If you want to see a movie about a badass doing badass things, this is the one to see. Don’t get scared away from all the awards attention and good reviews. I know sometimes that means the flick is boring or weird or whatever. Not in this case. Yeah, it’s a little movie – the main guy, Jeremy Renner, isn’t a star (though he should be) – it didn’t do a lot at the box office (though it should have) and it probably didn’t even play in a theater near you (which is a crime). Good news: it’ll be on video before you know it.
You like suspense? You like action? You like stuff blowing up? You like death metal? You’ll love HURT LOCKER. It has good acting and is beautiful to look at, as well, and, hell, all the technical credits are superb – writing, directing, editing. But, that’s just that artsy fartsy critic stuff.
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER (Marc Webb)I’m a sucker for a good romantic comedy, and this is one. You can tell, because it’s also kind of sad. The best romantic comedies are. Why is that? I guess that’s because the ones that really understand relationships know that romantics are gluttons for punishment. Without the lows, would the highs be any good? Seems like my favorite romantic comedies are about break ups – ANNIE HALL, ETERNAL SUNSHINE, CHASING AMY.
This one benefits not just from a knowing and insightful script, but also from the beauty and grace of Zooey Deschanel as Summer. You could argue she’s up front with the male lead, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, from the beginning and he sets himself up for disappointment, but I’d argue when it comes to relationships you have to listen to what people tell you without words as well as listening to what they tell you with words, and usually the truth is somewhere in the middle.
This one’s a real crowd pleaser – the audience I saw it with sighed on cue, laughed on cue, exalted on cue, despaired on cue. We all wanted to climb into the screen and hug the movie.
After she saw the movie, my mom asked, "Does Summer remind you of anyone?"
Yes, mom, she does.
STAR TREK (J.J. Abrams)Speaking of crowd pleasers.
Now, you could say it's a foregone conclusion that a STAR TREK nerd like myself should love this movie. But, judging from some reaction by nerds on the Internet, it looks like "real" STAR TREK nerds actually DON'T really like this movie. Even though it takes a dead franchise and returns it to glory with lots of color, life, vitality, and spark, the movie is getting flack from nerd audiences for playing fast and loose with the established STAR TREK story and for being more about spectacle than intellect.
Well, news flash: the deep STAR TREK episodes and movies were never that deep, and the spectacular ones weren’t, either. But, the well made ones were always well made, and the bad ones were always bad, and guess what? This one’s well made. That's all I ask for when it comes to STAR TREK -- I want good TREK, not shitty TREK.
Anyway, I don’t put much stock in how deep or shallow a movie is. The greatest intellectual or emotional pleasure I can get out of a movie is when the movie simply works. If it works and it’s dumb, great. If it works and it’s genius, great. If it works and it happens to be STAR TREK, sweet.
One of the main reasons I love this movie, aside from the fact that it is irresistibly fun, endlessly entertaining and constantly coming up with new things to keep the story moving, is because it goes back to the holy trinity of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. After those guys left the scene, STAR TREK was never the same. Yes, I love NEXT GENERATION and DEEP SPACE NINE. But I don’t get the emotional reaction to those characters that I get from a good old Kirk/Spock/McCoy interaction. And, as others have said, they nailed the casting, striking a perfect balance of paying homage to the original actors and characters while being bold enough to try something new. Like that one NEXT GENERATION episode, it’s the best of both worlds.
The only thing that could have made it better would have been a little more of Eric Bana as the bad guy, but who am I to argue with the Captain of the Enterprise.
ADVENTURELAND (Greg Mottola)This was my favorite film of the year. I love a good coming of age story. This one stars Jesse Eisenberg, who is quickly becoming my favorite young actor, as a kid fresh out of college who ends up working at a run-down mom and pop theme park to earn money for grad-school. This is ADVENTURELAND, already losing its luster by the mid-80s, when the film takes place.
Eisenberg’s character made it through college as a virgin, but the quest to lose his virginity is a red herring. This is not that movie. It’s made clear in the early scenes that Eisenberg’s biggest obstacle to overcome is himself, not the women he’s dated or will date. This character is a romantic to a fault -- so in love with being in love, he ends up cock blocking himself at every turn. In this film, women aren’t inaccessible creatures who only exist for men to conquer. They’re real, three dimensional people and Eisenberg has to learn to become a real, three dimensional person himself before he can really relate to the world.
Take the Kristen Stewart character, Eisenberg’s main love interest: yeah, she’s confused, probably depressed, unhappy at home, involved in a dead-end relationship. But she also stands up for what she believes in, is loyal to her friends, and has a voice that wants to be heard. She is not an empty symbol for Eisenberg's attraction, she's a fully realized character who has her own shit going on. And, that's rare in movies -- usually supporting characters only exist to serve every whim of the protagonist. Rarely do you get the feeling the rest of the cast has stuff to do independently of what the plot requires.
This narrative generosity is extended to the whole ensemble cast, but one character who benefits from it a lot is Eisenberg's work-friend played by Martin Starr. Like most of the rest of the movie, Starr's performance is low key, but it's so well observed I feel like he's a real guy I met one time, instead of some dude I saw in a movie. He's the perfect sarcastic antidote to the otherwise dull and obvious world of ADVENTURELAND. There's truth to the relationship between Eisenberg and Starr -- they're the kind of buddies who meet out of a lack of anyone else to hang out with, who have enough in common to bitch to each other but not quite enough in common to really understand each other when it counts.
There's also Ryan Reynolds in what I believe is his best role to date. Ironically, the role is kind of a deconstruction of his usual roles -- the cool, aloof guy with a crooked smile and a twinkle in his eye. Only, in this flick, the audience can see through him. We can see he's not as cool as everyone thinks he is, and not as funny either. We can see he knows he's lost whatever he once had, even if the people around him haven't caught on yet. This vulnerability adds another dimension to a character who would otherwise just be a wisecracker who can't be touched, and the characterization gives Reynolds more to do than he usually has to do -- Reynolds is a performer cursed by being so naturally charming that directors usually forget to ask him to work.
What else? Above all, the movie is funny. But, it's not broad a gross-out, laugh-a-minute extravaganza. It's more observational in its humor, letting funny moments grow organically from character interactions. There's also a great soundtrack.
If the movie has one fault, it's the fact that the ending is just a little too happy. It feels tacked on and a little less grounded in reality than the rest of the film. That's not to say there aren't happy endings in real life, but with this film I would have felt satisfied with things up in the air, with an uncertain but hopeful future in front of Eisenberg.
As someone who tries to write, there's tragedy in a movie like this. It's so good, so well observed, so much like what I wish I could create, that it makes me wonder what I'm doing. I wrote a novel in college and it never quite worked, and when I saw this movie I thought, "That's what my novel wanted to be. I just didn't know it until I saw it."
Still, it's nice to have examples of art to strive for. It's tough work, trying to say the stuff that can't be said, especially when you don't have any examples of others who have said it close to the way that you want to say it.
That's one way you know you've found a movie you love -- if the movie is able to articulate something you always wanted to say, or always felt, but never knew exactly how to put it.
That's ADVENTURELAND.
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