Movie Musings: KINSEY

Yes, there was a time before Liam Neeson became known for his complete inability to stop his family from getting snatched off the street whilst on vacation. Even though he’s primarily known these days for his rebirth as the elder statesman of aging action blockbusters Neeson still manages to seesaw between shoot’em ups and more reserved dramatic pieces.

KINSEY is a great example of the latter. The film itself is your standard biopic, a tad more salacious than most considering the undercurrent of SEX running through everything. And, unlike some other part-time actioneers who always look uncomfortable whenever you take the gun out of their hand, Neeson’s gruff and grumbly personality seems more like an intentional character choice rather than an unwanted side effect.

Backed by a strong supporting cast, sporting a respectable number of ‘name’ actors, KINSEY is a amiable, if somewhat safe, peek into the blossoming sexual awakening of America.    

Movie Musings: TOAST

TOAST is a movie completely lacking a cohesive identity. At first I thought it was a sweet, if somewhat by the numbers, story about a boy and his stepmother competing for the affection of his father by constantly one-upping each other in the creation of culinary delights.

It should be noted that during this clash of wills the boy frequently comes off as petulant and whiny and pretty soon you start rooting for the stepmother a) because she’s played by Helena Bonham Carter and b) because she’s vilified for no other reason than ‘she’s not my real mum’.

But somewhere around the film’s third act there’s a jump forward in time and suddenly it’s a story about a young man’s sexual awakening…and also it’s a biography?

Sure. Whatever you say.

Look, if you cut out the last 10-15 minutes you can just pretend that TOAST was a somewhat interesting movie that you just never got around to seeing the end of. But if you include the film’s last gasp of self-indulgent revisionism then the whole thing is a hot mess that never really manages to figure out the point its trying to make.

Movie Musings: THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX

I’ve long grown tired of the quirky damaged characters that populate Wes Anderson films. What started out as fresh and interesting in the late 90s quickly grew stale and repetitive as the director would move through his obligatory checklist of ‘things that always need to be in my movie’. Which is admittedly pretty cool if one of those things always happens to be Bill Murray, but even Peter Venkman can only carry so much on his back.

However, with THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX apparently what was old is now new again. All the little directorly motifs that saturate Anderson’s live action work suddenly take on a new vibrancy when transferred to claymation. The mere act of transferring genre was enough to elevate the impact of Anderson’s standard bag o’ tricks to a whole new level.

Now whether or not that’s because audiences are willing to forgive an endless parade of wooden expressions on clay figurines, whereas those same expression worn by living actors can become awfully repetitive, who’s to say?

THE FANTASTIC MR.FOX is sweet, carefree and just plain old good movie making.

Movie Musings: ONE FOR THE MONEY

When I started watching ONE FOR THE MONEY I didn’t like it because I thought it was a yet another uninspired take on the bounty hunter formula. While the movie purports to be an action oriented romantic comedy, it is shockingly devoid of romance, laughter or action of any kind. MONEY just kind of runs Katherine Heigl out there as the poster child for the bloated romcom genre and hopes to paper over the film’s slower moments with some of her trademark wit and sparkling personality. Which is kind like tying lead weights to the legs of an unsuspecting swimmer and asking them to swim the Channel blindfolded.

MONEY is also living in a pre-CSI world, where in a fit of delusional thinking, it purports to cast a name star in a walk on role and then expect the audience to act surprised when that character turns out to be the mysterious kingpin in the film’s climax.

As bad as MONEY is, and it’s terrible through and through, it only gets worse when you find out the thing was based on a popular book by Janet Evanovich. Which means someone either butchered the adaptation with a rusty desert fork or, terrifyingly, this may be an accurate representation of the source material. And if that’s the case we all need to pack up our toys and go home, because things aren’t going to get any better.

Movie Musings: HOP

After being spoiled by two weeks of Scott reporting live from the darkened theatres of TIFF it’s going to be quite a shock to go back to these five sentence wonders.

HOP.

It’s kind of hard to buy the film’s sweet and sugary cuteness when you know that the adorable bunny who looks like this…

…actually looks like this in real life.

But HOP does a great job in walking the line that all contemporary animated features must travel, light hearted and fun for the kids, but mature enough for an adult to enjoy. The film hits all the expected plot and character beats and its biggest transgression is giving away the end of the film in the opening credits. (Which might arguably be a valid narrative choice for an adult film but feels really out of place for a kid’s movie.)

“Hey Daddy, why am I watching this movie if I know that the guy ends up as SPOILERS at the end.”

“I don’t know honey, maybe Hollywood doesn’t think you’ll be able to pick up on it two hours from now?”

All the voice acting is top notch, but a special nod has to go to James Marsden who as clearly decided to just embrace the quirkiness of the film and leave his inhibitions at the door. I have an unexplained tendency to discount Marsden has a bankable actor and I can’t really figure out why, especially when you consider that he has a CV longer than my right arm.

Maybe it has to do with the shameful way he got bounced out of the X-MEN franchise as a result of some behind the scenes conflict, which means my first exposure to the actor was right around the time all signs were pointing to him being  completely ‘replaceable’.

Anyway, he’s very good here and does an admirable job in keeping the part light and frothy without pandering to anybody.

Movie Musings: THE DARKEST HOUR

I’ve got to give credit to THE DARKEST HOUR for attempting to do something original with the well-worn alien invasion genre. Setting the action in present day Moscow is an interesting change of pace for the North America-centric settings these kinds of films normally inhabit.

The unseen alien forces also have the veneer of freshness, owing more to ghosts and unseen spooks than the traditional creepy-crawly slime types we normally see in films like this.

Unfortunately the commitment to ‘shaking things up’ is only skin deep. Despite the initial stab at trying something new HOUR follows the familiar group of English-speakers as they band together for your typical heroing and adventuring. The films mimics the traditional plot and genre conventions religiously and never once sets out to put its own stamp on things.  Any Russians who somehow managed to sneak into the movie are reduced to forgettable bit players and redshirts.

HOUR isn’t a bad film, just one the completely fails to take advantage of the few elements that make it a unique.

Movie Musings: THE HUNGER GAMES

I actually enjoyed the movie far more than I did the books. The adaptation for the big screen cut out a lot of the more grating elements of the story, the endless soul searching and whinging spring to mind. What’s left is a leaner, meaner and simpler story that knows exactly what plot points it has to hit and does so almost without fail.

I’m insanely curious what an audience who’s never read the books would make of this movie. For me the two properties worked well in tandem, the books informing the film version about all the unspoken undercurrents in Katniss’s internal monologuing as well as the burgeoning love triangle between herself, Peeta and Gale. (Spoiler’s sweetie) Would a virgin watcher pick up on that same triangle and other character nuances? Or would they be shocked if they saw the movie first and then had the blanks filled in for them after the fact?

But more importantly, besides wisely choosing to downplay or leave certain material out, every time the movie added a scene or element that wasn’t in the books it vastly improved the finished product. Freed from the blinkered perspective of Katniss’s narration, peripheral characters were better developed and fleshed out, motivations became clearer and causality within the story vastly strengthened.

All my quibbles about this film are minor ones (super baker camouflage power!) and largely open to conversations about artistic interpretation rather than an intense analysis of what worked and what didn’t.

Movie Musings: IMMORTALS

As pretty as IMMORTALS is, and it’s a damn fine looking film at times, its striking visuals shouldn’t be used as cover for the film’s multitude of sins.  This overreliance on imagery to do the heavy lifting is a weakness that director Tarsem Singh has exhibited in his previous work. *Cough* THE CELL. *coughcoughcough*

Unfortunately for IMMORTALS Singh’s stunning camerawork doesn’t make up for the film’s uneven pacing, poor scene construction, wooden performances and meandering plots. Every glaring flaw in the film can be traced back to this unbalanced nature in which Singh has constructed his film.

It’s the equivalent of spending millions of dollars on flashy exterior renovations, but forgetting to shore up the crumbling foundation that keeps the whole thing above ground.

IMMORTALS works better as a series of abstract art pieces strung together than it does as a piece of mass entertainment.  

TV Musings: REVOLUTION

REVOLUTION is a hodge-podge of different cult genre thrown together and stirred up with an industrial blender. Western, kung fu, swashbuckling, science fiction, post-apocalyptic action film – there’s no stone unturned here as the creators attempt to throw out the largest net possible in order to draw in the fans.

You have to tip your hat to veteran director Jon Favereau for taking so many eclectic inspirations and somehow making them all work.

The success of THE HUNGER GAMES is also a huge factor here and it’s no surprise that REVOLUTION’s young female lead, striding so confidently through the wreckage of human civilization, could be confused for a Katniss Everdeen clone, bow and all.

Ultimately, REVOLUTION’s greatest weakness is that its playing around in a genre that rewards boldness and risk taking but doing so with one hand tied behind its back. Post-apocalyptic sci fi is a rich seam with the potential for powerful storytelling and uncompromising characters, but unfortunately REVOLUTION is operating under American broadcast television rules.

That means the lead cast looks extra-ordinarily well fed, sporting gym fresh bodies, stylish militaryesque shabby chic clothing (including belly shirts) and generally seems to be living a good, if somewhat rustic, life.

Additionally, all swearing is PG, all deaths bloodless and the central plot slightly generic.

REVOLUTION is interesting and engaging, without being challenging and thought provoking, a perfect recipe for longevity on the small screen but an utterly lousy one for making  a lasting impact on its audience.

One bright light for the show is that character actor Giancarlo Esposito, AKA Gustavo Fring, continues to elevate the calibre of any scene he happens to be in.

Movie Musings: KNUCKLE

When you first start watching KNUCKLE you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled onto the outtakes of an Irish FIGHT CLUB. The story of Irish clans willing to settle their differences through bareknuckle boxing seems like a harmless, if somewhat unnecessarily violent pursuit. After all, the participants are all willing volunteers and there are certainly far worse ways to settle a disagreement than with your fists.

But as the documentary moves through the years it begins to take on an almost tragic flavour. While the adults gleefully pound each other’s faces into raw hamburger their sons and brothers watch, learn and take the feud onto their own shoulders, perpetuating a cycle of blood and brutality with an increasingly tenuous connection to the original quarrel.

As we see innocence and youth casually squandered and watch young men turn into grizzled street brawlers its obvious there’s nothing comical about what’s happening here. For the fighters it’s all about honour and vengeance, but for those of us watching it just seems like a senseless feud better left on the schoolyard.

Movie Musings: TOWER HEIST

Despite starring two actors who’ve made their Hollywood bones as being bankable comedy stars and a marketing push that purports to show TOWER HEIST as being another predictable knee slapper, it was quite the surprise to me find that I’d wandered into a screening of a big budget blockbuster with the trapping of a social conscience.

TOWER HEIST is actually intended to be a ‘serious’ film about us little folk and the fallout from the 2008 financial meltdown. Unfortunately the film’s stunt casting and overly elaborate heist premise undercuts its own passing callout to social relevance.

“Ha, ha. It’s clever to make jokes about poverty and homelessness because Zoolander and Axel Foley are funny.”

The end result is a movie that’s never close to being the comedy tour-de-force you expected to be watching and doesn’t manage to be the cunning heist film it clearly wants to be. Don’t get me wrong, HEIST isn’t a bad film, it’s just the its underlying plot and thematic thrusts are so clearly at odds with the window dressing used to lure the audience in.

Movie Musings: A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS

I can’t stand stoner comedies and I don’t do 3D.

And I friggin loved the third HAROLD AND KUMAR film. Don’t ask me why, I’m not terribly sure either.

Maybe it’s because while other films struggle to figure out how to properly use the third dimension, forced to awkwardly shoehorn in scenarios where something comes flying at the audience, HAK just doesn’t give a rats ass. The film gleefully shatters the third dimension with all the joy of an unattended toddler with access to power tools, throwing everything imaginable at the audience at every possible opportunity. The end result is so staggeringly over the top that you’re forced to laugh at the filmmaker’s sheer excess and gumption

And while HAK is jampacked with crude and raunchy comedy, the film does make an honest attempt at telling a serious, straightforward story.

A hallmark of the HAK franchise is that while you’re laughing about the dick jokes and getting high you don’t notice that the movie has slipped you a straight up adult finishing move.  HAK attempts to reconcile the grownup you’ve become with the foul mouthed brat we used to be. It’s about friendship and growing up, figuring out what you can take with you and what’s better left behind.

 (And if it can do all that smearing a window with feces or ripping off A CHRISTMAS STORY in the most inappropriate way imaginable, well, then, more power to it)

Movie Musings: DREAM HOUSE

DREAM HOUSE is already telegraphing its big twist before the titles have even finished rolling. Where I suspect the majority of Hollywood thrillers would use said twist as the climax to the movie, DREAM HOUSE makes it the jumping off point for the real story it’s trying to tell.

The acting is tight (Daniel Craig doing a much better job dropping his British accent than in COWBOYS AND ALIENS) and the script is solid, still managing to deliver a couple genuine surprises well after the big shock has been left out of the bag.

It’s difficult for any contemporary film to stake out virgin territory in the haunted house genre, any film that has things that go bump in the night has been struggling for attention in a market that is well beyond mere oversaturation.

But, with a little genre bending DREAM HOUSE does a good job in rolling out some of these old clichés, dusting them off and making them feel new again.

Movie Musings: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

Everything you like about Nolan’s take on Batman is here, the all too human characters, the realistic take on superheroics, and the highbrow storytelling.

But, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is more BATMAN BEGINS than it is THE DARK KNIGHT.

Simply put, the second film in the franchise transcends the other two entries with ease. Whether that’s due to the remarkable performance of Heath Ledger and the hullaballoo surrounding his death, which is where I’ve parked my money, or something else entirely different is open to debate. (Cue chorus of dissent)

Tom Hardy’s menacing raw physicality doesn’t reach the same heights as Ledger’s cackling insanity, leaving the audience a little emotionally distant at times as they try to unravel Nolan’s intricate plotting. This isn’t the unpredictable raw emotional struggle of the second film but a marathon chess match played out over months and years.

As a result it’s a little easier to poke holes in some of DKR’s more rushed plot points.

It was inevitable that a small whiff of overfamiliarity was going to end up permeating the franchise, especially considering its rampant popularity guaranteed the series would remain front and center in the great popular culture parody party.

We’ve seen these characters before, we’re familiar with the director’s auterly motifs, we know what to expect.

Nolan is making the smart call here, leaving the Bat-party at the height of his popularity, where he’s still calling the shots and not rehashing the past.

Movie Musings: COWBOYS AND ALIENS

Or HARRISON FORD IS A RACIST BIGOT AND A POOR MILITARY TACTICIAN.

CAA is a fun(ish) big budget popcorn muncher that’s easy to poke holes through but still interesting to watch nonetheless.

(That is if you can get over the taciturn Daniel Craig speaking in an American accent. Poor fellow, every time he opened his mouth to speak, unbidden, my mind would cough up “Why is James Bond talking so funny”?)

We’re also supposed to buy that a name actor as big as Ford could conceivably play a character as nasty and foul as Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde without the obligatory third act redemption. But don’t you believe it.

CAA feels like fanboy pandering writ large, smashing together a handful of genre (SFF, Action, Western) and seeing what trickles out. The end result looks kind of like a finished jigsaw puzzle that’s been assembled from a variety of different boxes. The end result works, but it never really fits together as seamlessly as it should. The movie is too concerned with ripping the audience violently between various genre motifs “now we’re a western\now we’re science fiction” to worry about creating a story with any real depth or substance.

Your brain knows that its time to check out when the titular cowboys discover the extraterrestrial mining camp huddled in the back yard and decide to launch an assault on it. From here on in its straight Action Film 101. This sequence is particularly amusing because Ford spends a lot of time grousing about the need to utilize sound military tactics against a superior enemy and then decides that perhaps the best thing to do is just have his soldiers run around at the bottom of a dessert canyon, bereft of cover or common sense.

Movie Musings: TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY

Have you ever said something to the effect of “Such-and-such an actor is so great I would pay to listen to them read the phone book”?

That is TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY.

Led by none other than Gary Oldman and backed up by a veritable choir of stony faced Brits the film  manages to deliver drama and pathos without ever requiring its cast to emote much beyond mild disgruntlement.  Nobody really DOES much of ANYTHING, for the most part the actors sit in a variety of darkened rooms, ensconced in wreathes of cigarette smoke and barely talking above a hush. Essentially they’re reading that aforementioned phone book and simultaneously kicking ass in the process.

Beautiful.   

At its heart TTSS is supposed to be about finding a mole buried within the ranks of British Intelligence. But that plot line is a bit of a red herring because everybody already seems to know who the mole is. The film is really about displaying a very specific time and place, the British Intelligence community during the 70s, and giving the audience a real taste of the paranoia and mistrust that ran rampant throughout it. Its smart, stylish as all get out and a treat to watch some of the greatest actors working today do their thing.  

Movie Musings: REAL STEEL

If you think you’ve seen REAL STEEL before you’re absolutely correct.

STEEL is the literal embodiment of every ‘child manages to overcome great adversity and succeed beyond his wildest dreams’ movie that you’ve ever seen, complete with the obligatory ‘emotionally distant parent realizes their deep and temporarily misplaced love for their son\daughter” subplot. It jam packs all the strong-enough-for-an-adult-but-made-for-a-kid stereotypes into a single film. A third of the way through the movie I was online looking to see if STEEL was produced by Disney*, because you couldn’t come up with a more Disney-esque film if you cloned Michael Eisner and made him create this movie using nothing else but the sweat pooled at the bottom of a Disney World Mickey Mouse costume and childlike whimsy.  

And its really damn good. Note perfect in fact.

Just because all the plot points are incredibly predictable and the character arcs and story progression even more so doesn’t detract from the fact that STEEL consistently and irrefutably gets it. Slick and smartly crafted STEEL makes its mark through polished film making and charastimatic performances from its leads. although for the love of God can’t we find something better for Evangeline Lilly than ‘obligatory love interest’.

Yes, the film suffers at times from a sense of the overfamiliar, but let’s face it Hollywood is so full of retreads and remakes and reboots and reimaginings that most of what they put out these days can be teased apart by even the most casual moviegoer before the end of the first act.

Don’t dismiss STEEL just because you know what’s going to happen next. After all, people don’t stop watching their favourite movies or listening to their favorite songs just because they’ve seen\heard them before.

*Huh, Dreamworks. Disney’s hipper edgier kid brother.

Movie Musings: THE EAGLE

Given my deep and endless aversion to Charming Potato I went into THE EAGLE with the lowest of expectations. Damned if the film didn’t hurdle them with ease.

It’s a weird kinda film with a buddy-cop-polar-opposites thread* woven into a swords and sandals epic. THE EAGLE makes an earnest attempt to strive for some sort of historical accuracy then falls all over itself in the execution.

But my biggest complaint is that it’s so very American. Seriously, I don’t need my Roman Senators talking like they’re the small town sheriff in a low budget remake of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. If you’re not going to talk with some sort of Roman accent** then can you at least make an effort to construct your sentences in a way that doesn’t sound like grade schooler learning about nouns for the first time.

Come on! At least try to get flowery and pretentious on me every now and again, pretend that powerful dialogue is something to be embraced not avoided.

Anyway, it didn’t suck. At all. No matter how much I wanted it too. So that’s one for you Charming.

*He’s a cop! He’s a slave! Together they’ll fight crime and find…THE EAGLE!

**No, I don’t know what a Roman accent sounds like either, but a misspent youth in front of a television set tells me it sounds very British.

Movies Musings: THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is an examination of the changing makeup of the family unit told through a faux Indie lens.

Mark Ruffalo's character seems to unfairly bear a disproportionate amount of the blame for bad decision making in the film and indeed he is punished by not being given any meaningful resolution to his character's storyline. Which, in hindsight, makes him less of a truly nuanced character and more like a convenient (and cuddly) tool for the screenwriter to disrupt the status quo and generate some conflict.

KIDS is a solid movie that manages to be serious and dramatic without being grim and tedious. It punched above its weight during award season, but don’t let such a mealy-mouthed endorsement of its worth throw you off.

Movie Musings: CONTAGION

For a film about a developing global pandemic, CONTAGION is a reserved and bloodless movie.  With an ensemble cast and no central protagonist to carry the story, the film assembles a coherent plot from bits and pieces of other people’s stories.

The feeling of emotional distance keeps cropping up. The film is shot in cold, pale washed out colours, often heavily tinted in an array of blues and greys.

The soundtrack is simple and counterintuitive at times with an almost retro feel, one person fiddling around on a child’s keyboard\synthesizer.

And there are very few moments for the cast to wail and gnash their teeth, no moments of high drama where the lantern jawed hero turns things around at the last minute, instead director Steven Soderbergh  lets the camera rest on his actors, using their reactions to establish the emotional resonance of the film.

This clinical detachment makes for a very cerebral experience when watching CONTAGION, stripping emotion from the film and replacing it with a cold awareness of how powerless and alone we all are.