Brooklyn

If there’s a word to describe Brooklyn, it would be “quaint.”  It is straightforward, extremely likable, and aggressively… quaint.   It provides plenty of drama, but it’s understated.  There's a good love story, but it’s quiet.  I don’t think a single character yells or screams throughout the film’s two-hour runtime; a rarity to find during awards season.  I had no idea what to expect from Brooklyn, having seen no trailers beforehand, but it didn’t take long for the opening scenes to win me over with their peaceful nature and abundance of charm.   It was probably for the best; my ears were still ringing a bit from seeing Spectre the day before.

The film follows Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), a young woman who lives in Ireland in the 1950s.  With a bright mind but no discernable future, she moves to America (Brooklyn, to be exact) to start a new life.  Naturally, she’s homesick beyond belief; her mother (Jane Brennan) and sister Rose (Fiona Glascott) were all she ever had, and every day she feels increasingly isolated and lonely.  That is until she meets Tony (Emory Cohen), and Italian plumber (insert Super Mario joke here) who practically falls in love with her at first sight.  Now in love with Tony, Eilis has a choice to make when it becomes possible for her to move back to Ireland; can she leave it all for him?

Based on a novel by Colm Toibin, there doesn't appear to be a pretentious bone in Brooklyn’s body.  It knows what it is and fully commits to its reserved, understated tone.  Does it ever become bland?  Occasionally.  It’s shot very well, but I wouldn’t call the movie “beautiful.”  But that’s hardly an issue; while slow-moving, the story never drags because screenwriter Nick Hornby does a great job of moving piloting their scenes with well-developed characters.  The cast is really solid as well; major talent like Jim Broadbent and Julie Walters show up to add some prestige to the affair, but the film really hinges on Ronan’s performance.  She and Cohen have wonderful chemistry and are very easy to root for. There’s a sweetness and authenticity to their relationship that I found refreshing and honest.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention James DiGiamcomo, who plays Tony’s eight-year-old brother and is an absolute scene-stealer.

Though Brooklyn is a period piece through and through, its themes of social isolation and starting a new life are relevant and relatable today.  More specifically, it captures a very specific cycle of what happens to young people when they leave home for the first time: the leaving, the wanting to die of homesickness, the surviving, the loving of your new life, and then the dilemma about which place you want to live permanently.  Think modern college life or studying abroad.  Brooklyn is a funny and romantic film that has modest goals and meets them with deceptive ease.  You won’t find explosive arguments or dramatic speeches about feminism here (but make no mistake, this is a strong feminist piece), and that’s precisely why I liked it so much.

8/10

Straight Outta' Compton

"I got something to say."

Biopics are a tough beast to tame.  On the one hand, the story needs to be faithful to real life events.  On the other, the characters need to be likable and the plot needs coherency.  How can one manage that and still deliver an entertaining film?  Straight Outta Compton seems to manage it pretty well; I've heard some criticism about decisions that may have been made by producers Ice Cube and Dr. Dre in order to protect their image somewhat, chief among them being Dr. Dre's misogynistic tendencies. Other important real-world people in the N.W.A story, including Arabian Prince, were reduced to cameos in the film.  While these can be viewed as detrimental, I prefer to see them as par for the course when it comes to biopics, and it doesn't matter much to someone just looking for a good film (which I often am).  I watch documentaries if I want a thorough education, not Hollywood movies.  More importantly, Straight Outta Compton succeeds in overcoming the cliche trappings of the genre while capturing something raw and timely in the process.

"Speak a little truth and people lose their minds."

In 1986, times are tough for a group of teens living in Compton, Los Angeles.  Filled with drugs, poverty, and police brutality, they get by with little money and not much hope for the future.  They dub themselves Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson, Jr.), Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), and Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) and record a rap album with a few friends called "Boyz-n-the-Hood." It sells so unexpectedly well that it attracts the attention of Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), and he offers to be their manager.  During a recording session for their next album, the boys are harassed by some cops just for standing outside their own building.  Angered by the incident, Ice Cube writes "Fuck tha Police," causing huge controversy and effectively putting the group, now called the N.W.A., in the public limelight in a way no hip-hop artist had before.  In the proceeding years, success forces the group to shift in different directions, and with all of their newfound "friends" and business partners, it becomes impossible to know who to trust.

"What's NWA stand for anyway?"

Some of the best scenes in the film are the most subdued.  The early scenes in Compton are extremely effective, letting the actors breathe and be natural with each other; it's easy to believe that they could all be real-life friends.  I think it's because there's not a whole lot of "performing" going on; the actors, including Ice Cube's real-life son, embody their characters naturally, giving the film a sense of authenticity.  That's not to say that the actors falter in the more emotional scenes; they don't.  But the film's heart lies in seeing these kids, who are growing up in rough-as-hell conditions, just hanging out, ragging on each other, and being people.  Also, I've gotta give it up for Paul Giamatti, who absolutely knocks it out of the park with his performance.

"I like Afterschool Specials"

Screenwriters Jonathan Herman and Adrea Berloff do a good job pacing the film and working with a story that takes place over a long period of time.  The development feels natural and the script doesn't pull punches with language, difficult realities, racism, and violence.  No film about the N.W.A was going to be a "safe" one, but it's still a relief that it doesn't appear to have been censored too much by its producers.  We see the boys act like complete jackasses and make terrible decisions, but the consequences are often devastating (and thankfully pulls the film together at the tail end).  The culture of hip-hop during the 80s and early 90s is oozing out of the film's aesthetics as well, which does its job in transporting the audience back in time.

"That shit was DOPE."

If there's something missing from the experience, it's a small but vital moment.  Where's that moment when the group realizes that they've got their first big hit?   There are scenes with small reactions peppered throughout the first act, but I didn't feel the excitement I was expecting when they essentially become famous.  I needed some kind of reaction from the boys that signifies what's really happening; their lives will never be the same.  In addition, transitions between scenes (which sometimes also means transitions between years) sometimes come a little too soon; for example, a scene where the group narrowly escapes a very intense concert is ended somewhat abruptly so that the movie can get onto the next big event in the "real world" story.  No more referencing that crazy scene, time to move on!  I'd call it a plotting problem; I shouldn't be able to remove scenes of the film and still be left with a coherent story, but in certain cases I definitely can.  Also, while we're being negative here, the film is not subtle about its messages... like AT ALL.  It's dangerously close to PSA material, which is a bit disappointing because most of the movie is better than that.

"Is this taking care of me?"

Straight Outta' Compton isn't a paint-by-numbers biopic that trudges through a cradle-to-grave formula without personality, and given its subject matter, that's a great thing.  What's sad about its themes of racism are that they are still as relevant today as they were twenty-five years ago, and what's interesting is how the shock waves sent out by N.W.A. can still be felt today in full force.  Their music was angry, intense, and unhinged, but that's exactly what it needed to be.  You don't grow up in hell and learn to sing about the clouds.  The film's themes about the rise to power and subsequent fall because of overindulgence may seem a bit cliche on paper, but they are used to good effect.  Add in the great performances and solid directing by F. Gary Gray, and you have a blunt film that doesn't shy away from the ideas it presents.  Its messages may not subtle, but then again, neither was N.W.A.

8/10

Terminator: Genisys

"I'm old, not obsolete."

To say that Terminator: Genysis was dead on arrival isn't really fair.  It was dead while it was being conceived. This premise was not going to work under any circumstance (unless at the end of the film Sarah Connor, portrayed by Linda Hamilton, woke up at the end in bed next to Arnold Schwarzenegger and remarked about the strange dream she just had... Sure, it would have raised some questions, but at least it would have been entertaining).  For Terminator fans, myself included, there’s no easy way to say it: our franchise started at the highest of highs and has since been at the lowest of lows.  The Terminator?  A masterpiece of low-budget sci-fi/horror filmmaking. Terminator 2: Judgment Day? One of the greatest action spectacles of all time, and it helped revolutionized the visual effects industry.  This second entry in James Cameron's masterful film series about an Austrian, body-building robot sent back from the future to kill a waitress concludes so wonderfully. So Terminator 3 and Terminator: Salvation are unnecessary additions to the series (not to mention mediocre films in their own right), but at least they had interesting premises and tried to push the story forward.  Genysis wants to reboot the franchise, work as a sequel, and create an alternate timeline story akin to the new Star Trek movies.  Does it succeed at at least one of these highly ambitious ventures?

"Nice to see you. Get out."

The year is 2029, and the Earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  Skynet, an A.I. program that went rogue, took over the world's nuclear defense systems, and waged a decades-long war against the humans, has finally fallen.  Just as the human resistance, led by John Connor (Jason Clarke), seem to have taken down the last Skynet base, they discover that a Terminator has been sent back in time to 1984 to kill John's mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), before he can be born.  John's right-hand man, Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) volunteers to travel back to the same time and protect Sarah from the Terminator.  However, when Kyle arrives, he doesn't find the timid Sarah he was expecting; she saves his life from a T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun) and apparently knows about Skynet, the future, and her son the savior.  She know how to handle herself against Terminators, because she was raised by one: a T-800 (Arnold Shwartzenegger) was sent back in time to when she was a child and became her father figure.  Now it's up to Kyle, Sarah, and this "good" Terminator to stop judgement day from happening, which more time traveling, gun fights, and Terminator re-quotes than ever before.

"I'm neither man nor machine..."

While it may be faint praise to say that the first act of Terminator: Genesys is not the worst possible version of itself imaginable, I’m afraid that’s about all it has going for it.  We finally get to see the events that lead up to Reese being sent back to 1984 in the first movie, which is the next logical step in the film series.  From an art direction standpoint, the attention to detail is admirable when it comes to recreating some of the original 1984 set pieces.  Some shots look as though they were spliced in from the first film in order to really take us back in time and relive the experience from a fresh perspective.  What’s especially impressive is the way the original Terminator is brought back to life onscreen; the CGI-assisted creation is stunning when ’84 Arny looks at his surroundings in a very convincing extreme close-up.  So hats off to the effects department and set designers, they really deserve praise for their work on this film. 

"I'll be back... tehehe..."

I can’t give that same credit to the screenwriters though, whose output is damn near inconprehensible. The story, to be polite, is like a painfully stitched-together series of Terminator fan fictions; clunky in its conception and ugly in its execution.  It becomes more and more preposterous as the plot thickens, with twists that don't make any sense, too many people building time machines, and characters that spend copious amounts of time explaining what’s happening to each other.  The action is mostly shot in close-ups of the actors faces, totally removing any sense of fun, and while I mentioned the great CGI at the start of the film, it's nowhere near as consistent throughout.

"A straight line... you just go and you don't look back..."

As I'm sure it goes without saying, the cast was mostly a disappointment. Arny isn’t playing the Terminator that we fell in love with in T2, he’s playing a parody of himself.   No one was going to be able to replace Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, but I will say this: I’m surprised that Emilia Clarke works as well as she does in the role. I almost do buy her as a mix between the soulless warrior in T2 and the innocent waitress from the first movie, which makes sense given the altered timeline.  But Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese?  He was playing an entirely different character (who apparently had way more time to go to Gold's Gym in the post-apocalyptic future than Michael Biehn's version).  I love Jason Clarke, but he gives a terrible performance as John Connor, not aided by the cheesy dialogue he has to spew.  The best performance has got to be from J.K. Simmons, who despite being given a criminally low amount of screen time, totally steals the show.

The future is not set... but thank God the past is! 

That way the original films can remain untouched...

There’s nothing to get invested in, and not unlike Dumb and Dumber Too, there’s just something awkward about the whole affair.  It's a movie made far too late in the game and serves no real purpose (other than it has a fanbase that will probably see it).  It's boring to watch people explaining what's happening between chase scenes, and it's insulting to lay down so many nonsensical story elements the way Genisys does.  The best parts of the film are retreading old ground, but the spirit of Cameron's original movies is nowhere to be found.  If Genisys has a theme, it's that we shouldn't just make new things because we can; we have to think about the horrible consequences that the over-reliance on technology can have on us as a culture.  It's good advice, no?

2/10

FOX Night of Sitcom Premiers: "Grandfathered" and "The Grinder"

"Sometimes you find exactly what it is you're looking for and you aren't allowed to pursue it for literally no reason."

It's always fun to watch the premier of a new series, never knowing exactly what you're getting into. Will it be a forgettable, horrible, or the next big thing?  Maybe it'll be the masterpeice no one was watching, but you were, and years later when it's a cult classic on Netflix you can be like, "Yeah, I watched that when it was on. Good shit."  You know what I mean? The point is, it's worth it to dive blindly into something new.

So it was with tonite's newest sitcoms on Fox, a network that despite being notorious for its quick cancellations has produced a multitude of great shows over the years.  Would it be that way with either of tonite's premeirs?

First up, we have Grandfathered, which features John Stamos in the role of a fifty-year-old ladies' man who owns an extremely sucessful restaurant and lives a carefree life.  Suddenly one day, he is approached by the son he never knew he had, played by Josh Peck.  But wait... it's gets zanier.  It turns out that not only does he have a twenty-six-year-old son, but that son has a baby daughter. John Stamos, you just got GRANDFATHERED.  Needless to say, I don't really like this premise.  It's nice to see Stamos back in the spotlight (despite the fact that I don't really like Full House either, though I've likely seen every episode in reruns).  It's good to see Josh Peck holding his own as well, having been all but absent from the sitcom scene since his Drake and Josh days (a show that I did actually like).  The character-driven comedy is there in spurts, but the celebrity cameos are mostly pointless (save for one by a certain Fully House cast member who will remain nameless) and the soundtrack is overrun by popular songs to cover up for the fact that the story is lacking.   While it certianly could get better, Grandfathered is likely going to fall into the "forgettable" column of TV shows by the end of its run.

After that, The Grinder aired its first episode, and the difference in writing style is striking.  I was laughing my ass off within seconds of seeing a phony "previously on" segment from a fictional courtroom drama called "The Grinder."  The spoof on drama shows in the current era was spot on, hitting every cliche and over-the-top melodramatic beat it could within the allotted minute or so it had to do it.  From there, I was hooked.  The Grinder is a show that features two brothers: one, played by Rob Lowe, is a famous TV actor who has been playing a lawyer named Grinder for eight years.  The show has just ended and he's trying to figure out what to do with his life.  The other brother, played by Fred Savage, is an actual lawyer who is sick of his dealing with his brother's constant attention for being on a mediocre show while he goes out into the much blander "real world" to work on actual cases.  However, he isn't the best at articulating himself in court: that's where Rob Lowe comes in.  Despite not being an actual lawyer, he's able to put on a hell of a show while Savage does more of the book work, making them a formitable team.  While I wouldn't call it a "great" show by any means, The Grinder has a lot of potential.  The writing is sharp and the cast is excellent, with Lowe and Savage sharing good chemistry.  Do we have a classic on our hands? Only time will tell.

While I found Grandfathered to be less than stellar and The Grinder to be more amiable than hilarious, I will say that I was entertianed by both.  It's difficult to make an original sitcom in the television world in 2015; most shows are serialized and planned out so that every little detail matters.  Sitcoms traditionally take place as a series of isolated incidents.  Is this style of TV dying out?  I certianly still think there's a place for it.  A memorable story is a memorable story.  Whether or not either of these sitcoms have one to tell remains to be seen, but my money's on The Grinder if I were to guess which show will likely be seeing a Season Two.

Ant-Man

"My days of breaking into places and stealing shit are over! What do you need me to do?"

While it may be ridiculous to dwell on what might have been when it comes to fairly judging a movie, it's pretty damn hard to not wish that Edgar Wright had been allowed to direct Ant-Man.  As it stands, it doesn't really feel like a Wright film, aside from moments here and there.  What Ant-Man amounts to is mostly fun, but also generic, superhero action movie. You've got the unlikely hero, the sassy romantic interest, and the over-the-top villain.  It's probably the lightest in tone of all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, though it's hardly the funniest.  Fans of the series should feel right at home with the material, which includes lots of fun surprise cameos from other characters in the universe.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has just been released from prison and is attempting to make an honest living working at a Baskin Robbins (WOW, I REALLY WANT BASKIN ROBBINS NOW, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!).  He isn't allowed to see his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) due to his inability to pay for child support, so he decides to pull a robbery with his buddy Luis (Michael Pena) on an old, rich man (and former S.H.E.I.L.D. agent) named Hank Pym (Michael Douglas).  However, instead of finding money inside Pym's huge safe, Lang finds what he assumes to be a motorcycle outfit and takes it.   Accidentally, he discovers that what he's actually stolen is a high-tech shrinking suit, giving its wearer the power to shrink down to the size of an insect while gaining super-strength.  After Lang tries to return the suit, Pym reveals his heroic past as Ant-Man and ropes Lang into becoming his protege.  They set out to steal the shrinking technology from a crazed CEO named Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) who plans on selling his own suit, the Yellow Jacket, to the government as a weapon of war.  Pym's daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly), works at the company and gives Land and Pym the inside information they need to pull off the heist, while simultaneously training Lang in how to use the Ant-Man suit.  I smell a forced romance.

It's a neat (and sort of silly) concept that could easily have been a disaster if it had taken itself too seriously. Thankfully, the tone is light and fun, the stakes are appropriately small-scale, and the pacing is quick.  That works in the film's favor, because after the relatively strong set-up, the plot is paper-thin.  We get training montages, spectacularly-realized scenes of Ant-Man shrinking, growing, kicking ass, and delivering a few self-referential jokes (though thankfully, the two lines from the trailer concerning the name "Ant-Man" are missing from the film entirely).  There's a bit of drama thrown in concerning Pym's wife that gives he and his daughter some development, but it's all cut together so quickly that it feels like an afterthought.  Had that element been pushed to the forefront (strengthening the father/daughter relationship themes already established by Lang and his daughter), there might have been something really memorable here.  And Ant-Man is a movie that desperately needs something memorable.

The cast is mostly great; Paul Rudd has great comedic timing, as does Michael Pena.  Michael Douglass gives it his all as Pym, and adds a little soul to his character.  It actually really made me want to see a movie about his expoits as the original Ant-Man, which was undoubtedly the point.  While Evangeline Lilly is likable as Pym's daughter, she wasn't given enough to do, and her one dramatic scene is ruined by hyper-active editing and over scoring.  The one weak link is Corey Stoll, who plays his uninteresting, generic-as-hell villain with confusing motivations terribly.  It just seems like there are a lot of strange acting and writing choices all directed at the Darren Cross character, resulting in one of the worst Marvel villains this franchise has seen yet.  I just don't believe him as someone who could own a business and keep it running; he's too unstable. As for his Yellow Jacket suit?  That was kind of bad ass.

While I'll always stick to my guns when it comes to using piratical effects, there are some really jaw-dropping moments that come from the shrinking scenes, especially in IMAX 3D (yes, even the 3D part).  When Ant-Man shrinks down the first time, it would have been nice to linger on the moment and take in the spectacle.  Unfortunately, the action is pretty chaotic and quick for the most part, though the dreaded shaky-cam is thankfully not an issue.  My favorite action scene is at the climax, where there are some brilliant visual gags that include a giant ant and Thomas the Tank Engine.  The score by Christophe Beck is a fun, Mission:Impossible-style bit of orchestration, but it follows in the grand tradition of Marvel movie scores being very bland and generic.  Gone are the days of superhero themes being an essential part of the characters; just play the same four notes over and over again and we'll call it a day.  Danny Elfman and John Williams, your skills are much needed here.

  

Ant-Man is a goofy movie its core, but it does try to infuse its characters with depth, personality, and some pain.  It falls a bit flat, but Rudd, Douglass and  carry the film successfully with their performances and some of the visuals are really impressive.  The plot is something like the "Iron Man Light" without the threatening villains, and we can't forget that this could have been something special had the original director been in place.  In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing plenty of the insect-sized superhero in what I'm sure will be many, many more MCU movies, hopefully with more to work with.

6/10

On the Death of James Horner

James Horner, 1953-2015

I'm honestly a little disgusted with myself.  I learned this morning that one of my favorite composers of all time, James Horner, died in a plane crash.  What's worse is that he died over two months ago and I had absolutely no idea.  In a time where film scores tend to be generic and unmemorable Hans Zimmer knockoffs, James Horner will be sorely missed.  Even if he did tend to recycle his own work, he packed so much heart into his music and added incredible spectacle to movies that wouldn't be the same without him.  As a '90s kid, I grew up with so many movies he had a personal hand in, including An American Tail, The Land Before Time, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Hocus Pocus, The Pagemaster, Casper, and Jumanji.  Not impressed?  He's scored James Cameron movies like Aliens, Titanic, and Avatar; Ron Howard films like Cocoon, A Beautiful Mind, and Apollo 13; other classics like Braveheart, Field of Dreams, and two Star Trek movies.  He's been nominated for an Academy Award ten times, and won two Oscars for Titanic (best original score and song).

So you might say I'm pretty devastated by the news.  At only age 61, it wasn't Mr. Horner's time and he will be sorely missed.   Whether his music was charming, epic, sentimental, or exciting, it always added something special to the movie.  You've done a great service to the industry and have given me untold amounts of happy childhood memories.  Thank you for your contribution; your films will last a thousand lifetimes, and your heart will most certainly go on.

Fantastic Four (2015) SPOILERS

"Look at me. I'm not your friend. You turned me into something else."

If the new Fantastic Four movie has anything going for it, it's that it doesn't share much of anything with its 2005 counterpart, despite both films being an origin story for characters with the same powers.  While the former version is colorful, silly, and lacks a compelling story, the 2015 film is dark, gritty, and lacks a compelling story.  On second thought, maybe the two do have something in common. Trailers for the film didn't impress me, but I'll tell you what did: the 8% score the movie received on Rotten Tomatoes.  Ouch. That's not a bad reception, that's a gaping black hole of suck.  With all the talent in front of and behind the camera, how could it turn out to be such a disaster? I had to see it for myself.

Truth be told, I was really wondering where all the damn hate was about for the most of the first act. Teenaged genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller) has been working on a matter transporter, essentially a teleporter, ever since he was in fifth grade.  His best friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) has always played Igor to Reed's Dr. Frankenstein, helping him out with his experiments in all likelihood to get away from his trashy family.  After Reed's invention is disqualified at a high school science fair, Professor Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) offers him a scholarship to the Baxter Foundation for a chance to work with a team of scientists who are on the verge of traveling to another dimension.  The machine he's been working on all this time has actually been tapping into a place the scientists dub Planet Zero, and with Reed's help, they are able to complete a successful test.  Aiding in the project are Storm's children Sue (Kate Mara) and Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) as well as the potentially dangerous Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell), all geniuses in their own right.  But when they attempt to travel to Planet Zero themselves (just to claim a little glory for the experience), things go horribly wrong.  Like horribly wrong.

Aside from a strange feeling of coldness and some major plot contrivances, the first act of Fantastic Four is actually pretty good.  I'm a fan of Josh Trank's breakout hit Chronicle, and I saw many of the same qualities that made that film work fully intact.  The acting is natural and generally very good (allowing me to disregard the fact that all of the actors are a bit too old for the parts they're playing), and a few interesting themes were established (childhood friends growing apart, rebelling against a parent's wishes, dysfuntional families, lust for fame, etc.) And what a shame too, because as soon as the group heads to Planet Zero and gets their powers, everything goes to absolute shit.

The film cuts to on year later with a title card, and it's precisely then that the movie implodes on itself. The entirety of the story's meat, which is how they learn to control their powers, is 100% missing.  That's the core of the story, the reason you tell the origin in the first place.  Why oh why is that crucial part of the story missing?  Can you imagine if during the first Spider-man movie, after Peter Parker is bitten by the mutant spider it cut to one year later and he was already Spider-man?  That's what this is like... no Uncle Ben dies, no love story, character development, absolutely nothing.  Everything after the opening dips in quality tenfold; the acting is for shit, the dialogue is for shit, the story is for shit, and not a single one of the themes established gets any kind of resolution.  Nothing works about it in the slightest except for the visual effects, which are decent at best.  Apparently Trank was not involved in extensive reshoots and editing which changed the entire second half of the film, and it shows. Badly.

Even if the second half of the movie hadn't been such a trainwreck, there's something about the bleakness of the whole affair that is a bit off-putting, not unlike Man of Steel.  The colors in the trailers were rich and warm, which might have been pleasant to watch as opposed to the dull greys and blues the movie wallows in.  It works for the Dark Knight trilogy because Christopher Nolan is a fantastic director that tone simply fits Batman.  There's nothing memorable about the score by Marco Beltrami and Phillip Glass, which doesn't even attempt to give the Fantastic Four a memorable theme or generate excitement in the slightest.  I would say that there's no shakey-cam during the action scenes, but truth be told, there really are hardly any action scenes to speak of.  This is pretty much the anti-Age of Ultron.

I may not be a fan of the comics, nor was I a huge fan of the past film attempts, but the Fantastic Four is just too iconic and important to the world of superheroes to be treated like this.  In 1961, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created Marvel's first team of superheroes and broke new ground in the comic book medium for how realistically the characters were developed.  Where is any of that here?  Where are the character dynamics, the plot developments, the general reactions to these crazy scenarios?  We never even hear any of the characters being called their comic book names throughout the film, aside from jokes here and there.  And I didn't even get into the villain, Doom, who is positively awful on all fronts. The cast here is uniformly excellent at first, and the friendship between Reed and Ben had a lot of charm before all potential was flushed down the toilet.  What a waste.

2/10

Trainwreck

"I had like two drinks... Three max... Four, now that I'm tallying."

While the gross-out sex comedy is hardly a fresh genre, the "woman's" gross-out sex comedy is still finding new ground to break all the time.  On TV, Amy Shumer's sketch comedy series (as well as her stand-up routine) has proved to be bold, crude, and even thought-provoking.  Shumer really knows how to infuse her sloppy, slutty, drunk persona with depth and hilarious charm (something other female comedians like Chelsea Handler with similar schticks can't seem to get a grasp on).  I wasn't sure how Shumer's style would translate successfully to the feature length rom-com world, but I never doubted for a second that it would, especially with Judd Apatow in the director's chair.  And, low and behold, Trainwreck is a pretty great movie, filled with huge laughs fueled by raunchy humor, a deliberate mix-up of gender norms, and even though the plot may be predictable at times, there's enough heart to make it all work.

"You're prettyish, but you're not too gorgeous.  You're approachable."

Ever since Amy (Amy Shumer) was a little girl, her father (Colin Quinn) instilled a philosophy on her and her sister Kim (Brie Larson): monogamy isn't realistic.  Years later, Amy lives in New York, constantly sleeping around, getting drunk, high, and (most importantly) never spends the night with any guy or calls them the next day.  She also works for a magazine called S'nuff, writing tacky articles about celebrities and sex.  She reluctantly accepts an assignment to do a story on a sports doctor named Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), in spite of her hatred of all things sporty.  Against her own rules, she spends the night with him and even begins falling in love with him.   Having never been in a relationship, she feels uncomfortable with sincerity and commitment, afraid she'll end up just like her father.  Meanwhile, said father's heath is declining at a nursing home that she and her sister can barely afford.

"We watching Downton Abey later?"

The cast, led stunningly by Shumer, is clearly having a lot of fun and improvising like the pros they are.   Comedic timing is key to making the material work, and there more than a handful of scenes that rely solely on the ability of the cast to deliver the laughs.  There are even scenes where comedy and drama are mixed, an Apatow staple that never fails to hit the mark. Hader and Shumer have some chemistry, but it's not exactly the Fourth of July when they're together.  The supporting characters add a lot of charisma to the plot, with LeBron James playing himself in a surprisingly sensitive and frugal way that leads to some of the movie's funniest scenes. Tilda Swinton is effectively icey-hearted as Amy's boss Diana, and there are a slew of celebrity cameos in the form of SNL alums and sports stars, adding in tons of unexpected fun.

"Before you judge, you should know, I'm doing fine."

Trainwreck may not be reinventing traditional rom-com tropes, but it does knowingly take those tropes and invert the genders of the characters normally associated with them.  Who's the one always afraid of commitment in a romance?  Who always has their head in the gutter, constantly thinking about sex?  Who has to win back the other lover in the end because of a stupid mistake they made? The man, of course.   However, just like in her TV series, Shumer takes the typical media's depiction of men and women and exposes them for their inaccuracies (a sketch about Disney princesses exemplifies that idea perfectly).  In Trainwreck, the men talk about love, connections, relationships, and trust.  The women talk about their careers and getting laid, objectifying men almost entirely.  This is all done very tongue-in-cheeck so that the characters are kept likable and there's no serious reverse misogyny; I see it as more of a commentary on the ways that most men and women are portrayed in the media. Seeing these cliches displayed with a gender swap exposes the contrivance of it all.  It also shows how much gender roles have already changed in the 21st century, with the script obviously exaggerating them.

"Why would he call? You guys just had sex."

Like most Apatow movies, there are a few scenes that play out a bit too long or that take a joke and run too far with it. While John Cena is pretty good as Amy's sort-of boyfriend in the first act, his "joke" is muddled.  The idea is that he's this big, hulking dude who has a sensitive soul, doesn't like to talk dirty during sex, and is far too clingy (in keeping with the film's gender swapping themes), and that's good enough.  But (and I speculate that this is the result of improvising) his character is built also built on another joke, that he might be secretly gay.  These two things contradict each other, making him stick out badly in a sea of really well-developed characters.  And considering how inconsequential he is to the story, why did he need to be in the film so much at all?  Another character that falls a bit flat is Amy's adopted nephew Allister, who might have been conceived as a mockery of Gary Stu-style child characters, but his scenes are tainted with some juvenile mean-spiritedness.  While that's certainly not the only time the film is juvenile (or mean spirited for that matter), it was the only time it didn't come across as funny.

"Don't hurt him."

What you find funny is, or course, subjective.  However, it's hard to resist that charm and humor of Trainwreck, with its smart script, excellent cast, and its use of sexual humor to actively mock rom-com media while still producing a story with plenty of heart.  Amy Shumer and Judd Apatow seem to be made for each other, with their individual styles perfectly complimenting the other.  My cheeks were killing me from laughing by the end of it all, and I felt like I'd been though something with the characters.  Incorporating her life-inspired stand-up material was a smart but risky move by Shumer, one that could have resulted in a clunky narrative or, at worst, cheaply recycled material.  But the sincerity on display guides the movie along effortlessly, getting me excited to see whatever Shumer endeavors to do next.

8/10

Inside Out

 "Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life's problems."

Pixar's history as an animation studio is really remarkable.  After its partnership with Disney, it produced the very first fully computer animated movie in history: Toy Story.  It changed the industry forever; non-musical narratives, 3D characters and environments, and contemporary humor and dialogue became the standard for American animated movies by the time Toy Story celebrated it's 10th birthday.  Now here we are, celebrating its 20th birthday, and how much does Inside Out owe to what's come before it?  Well, everything and nothing.  It's no secret that the past four years have seen Pixar at its lowest point, with sequels and prequels no one asked for and a fantasy that should have been epic but came up short. Hell, last year there was no Pixar movie, and did people riot in the streets?  No. It appeared as though Pixar had just lost its edge.

However, the studio that changed everything came roaring back with a vengeance this summer with a film helmed by Pete Doctor (director of Up and Monsters, Inc.).  You want memorable characters?  Creativity?  Impeccable animation and voice acting?  Do you want your children to cry like you cried when Mufasa died?  Then buddy, why haven't you seen Inside Out yet?  The world that Doctor and the rest of the creative team have created is beyond anything I was expecting from a movie featuring characters manifested as color-coded emotions.  The themes and message of the movie work in conjunction with the story and characters in ways that make it all look so easy, though I would bet a million bucks that it wasn't.  Like Up, there is so much emotion running through the veins of the movie that it takes on a life all its own, and can easily stand among Pixar's best.

Riley is a girl from Minnesota who lives with her two loving parents.  She loves playing hockey and spending time with her family and friends, all the while five little entities in her mind demonstrate what she's going through on a totally different level.  These emotions manifest themselves in Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling).  These emotions all work in conjunction to keep Riley safe, happy, and healthy (at least in the psychological sense).  They all influence Riley (though rarely ever directly affect her actions) through a control console that they all share, with Joy more or less hogging the panel to keep Riley happy while ignoring Sadness entirely.  When Riley's family moves to San Francisco, one bad thing happens after the next happens to them.  She misses her old life and the way things used to be, and while her emotions scramble to figure out how best to keep her happy, Sadness keeps interfering with Riley's old core memories (manifested as crystal ball-like orbs), which leads the other emotions to wonder why she's even there.

It might appear from that summary of the film's first act that Sadness is the film's main antagonist, but that's the beauty of Inside Out.  It defies expectations, constantly leading the audience down a path that should be riddled with cliches but instead decides to linger on its ideas and develop its themes until we're left with something much deeper than we were expecting.  That's not to say that the story is complicated; it's actually simple and straightforward.  There are no underwhelming subplots to muddle the main parallel stories - the one dealing with Riley in the real world and the adventures the emotions are having - which are both tightly written and executed.  While the concept of emotions having emotions isn't exactly new (even Osmosis Jones toyed with this concept), it's never been so well-realized.

The casting is incredibly on point; more specifically, Poehler, Black, and Smith were born to play these roles.  Even though celebrity casting in animation can be distracting, the actors disappear into their roles thanks to the engaging story and incredible animation.  Each of the emotion characters are designed with an aura about them that demonstrates exactly what they are; tangible realizations of intangible ideas.  Essentially, they seem to be made from tiny, fuzzy particles that glow.  The environments in both the real world and the world of Riley's subconscious are brought to life in the typical Pixar fashion as well, which is to say that they are expansive, incredibly detailed, and filled with eye-meltingly gorgeous colors.

It's best to end here before I give something away, but all you need to know is that there was hardly a dry eye in my crowded theater by the end.  Children were escorted out, parents were reaching for more tissues... it was beautiful.  Inside Out is one of the best animated movies in recent years, and got my confidence up for more Pixar masterpieces to follow.  I guess Pixar's return to form will really be tested with The Good Dinosaur, premiering later this year (which, if it's anywhere near as good, will be the first time that two Pixar movies will be competing for best animated feature at the Oscars... OH THE DRAMA).  What a relief to have you back, Pixar!

10/10

ParaNorman (2012)

Originally posted on October 19th, 2013

ParaNorman falls comfortably into a category of movie I like to call the creepy stop-motion kid's movie.  From an outside perspective, it seems like these movies are all trying to be the next Nightmare Before Christmas, Laika studios seems to have a different agenda: tell funny, original stories edgier and deeper than most American animated movies.  Oh, and use the most gorgeous, cutting-edge stop-motion animation out there.  While the story of a kid who learns to "be himself" through some kind of magical adventure has been absolutely done to death, I can safely say that ParaNorman is not your average family film by a wide margin.

The story follows 11-year-old Norman Babcock, a ghost-whisperer outcast at his school situated in a very Salem-esque town that sells itself as a witchy tourist attraction.  About 300 years ago, a witch was hanged for her heathen ways and cursed the townspeople who sentenced her. The story has become nothing more than an excuse for the town to sell cheap knickknacks and dress everyday stores in tacky witch decorations.  As the town prepares to celebrate the anniversary of the hanging, Norman starts getting strange visions doom, and the threat of the dead zombies rising from the grave to terrorize the town grows ever near.  Norman, with his gift to speak with the dead, is the only hope the town has to survive. Or at least, that's what the story appears to be at first.

It turns out to be much deeper and complex than a typical "be yourself" story.  The theme of "revenge on your bullies" is a challenging and well-developed idea that actually applies to the witch character more than it does to Norman.  He becomes more confident in his abilities and his relationships with the other characters develops in both predictable and not so predictable ways. The supporting characters are drop-dead hilarious most of the time, but they also grow past their stock cliches to become well-developed in their own right (more so than say, the supporting kid characters in How to Train Your Dragon).

Norman's sister Courtney, his friend Neil, Neil's brother Mitch, and a bully named Alvin all get tangled up in Norman's quest, and they all provide really great comic relief.  I love it when a movie can enjoyed by a kid, but an adult can enjoy it for totally different reasons.  It's great to see some humor that isn't necessarily politically correct, or what soccer moms deem as "appropriate." Correct me if I'm wrong, but this might be the first animated family movie EVER to have an openly homosexual character in it as well, and that's definitely something noteworthy (even if the reference is more of a punchline than any kind of social statement).  There's chemistry between the way the story works, the characters interact, and the humor flows.  Not to mention the gags with the crazy townspeople are comedy gold. Dialogue is well-written and the voice acting feels nice and natural, which is greatly appreciated in any animated film.

And now for the really good stuff.  ParaNorman looks fantastic; one of the best stop-motion films I've ever witnessed in terms of look alone.  Designed by a newbie straight out of art school, the film has a lopsided look that pervades every set, character, and prop on screen.  Dr. Seuss would be proud; I don't think there's a single straight line in the entire film.  My words here don't do it justice. You need to see the film to really appreciate the extreme exaggerations in the character designs or the gorgeous fluidity of the animation. I understand that some of the elements were accomplished with CGI, but you still get that great feeling of watching real objects moving in the real world in a totally unreal way.  It's a charm that is entirely unique to stop-motion animation, and with the way Laika pushes the boundaries of the medium (they produced Coraline as well, if you couldn't tell from every single ad). In theaters, I didn't see the 3D version, and I'm fine with that.  I can make out the hand-crafted artistry a lot easier in nice, bright 2D anyway.

My big nitpick with the film is a story element. There's no explanation as to why there are dozens of ghosts all over the town in the beginning scene and in the rest of the film they are completely absent. This was cleared up in a deleted scene where Norman's grandmother says that they all fled when the witch's curse was unleashed, and that is a perfect explanation. However, it is missing from the finished film, which makes that aspect a glaring plot hole.  Norman doesn't even attempt to seek help from the ghosts around him, which just doesn't make any sense.

ParaNorman's unremarkable box office numbers left me a little concerned. While I'm sure that stop-motion films are far from dead, we all know that studios, above all, want to make money. Unfortunately, the year 2012 had three major stop-motion films that all underperformed, especially poor Frankenweenie.  It's clear that the American public just isn't that excited whenever a new stop-motion film comes out, and that's a damn shame. I'm also continuously perplexed as to how Brave won the Oscar for Best Animated Film that year.  I'll get into my personal thoughts on that movie another time, but let me make it clear that it was no "best of anything" picture that year.  Oscar politics aside, this is a film that has officially made it into my cycle of yearly Halloween films, not only due to its substance and humor, but for its horror aspects as well.  While it does have some fun parodying horror films, it has plenty of creepy imagery all its own. Paranorman is a near-perfect combination of elements that I love. 

9/10