Pacific Rim and The Way Way Back

I am only a little bit ashamed at how much I liked Pacific Rim. I love Guillermo del Toro, but I am not a big fan of giant robots vs giants monsters. This movie has been characterized as Godzilla vs Transformers and I don't like either one. So why did I like this movie so much? Was it the way it looked? Was it the actors? Was it the directing? It's hard to say, although every time Idris Elba appears onscreen, the whole movie perks up. And the scene that takes place in the Godzilla home world is very cool. It was just fun but you really can't think too hard about it. It's a little disappointing, because I expect more from del Toro but it was still a lot fun. I will say this, my brother-in-law's last name is Jaeger, and that was very disconcerting.

The Way Way Back is about as opposite from Pacific Rim as it could possibly be. 14 year-old Duncan is on his way to his mother's boyfriend's beach house for the summer. The boyfriend, Trent (played very well by Steve Carell) has made it very clear that he does not think much of Duncan and he hopes Duncan will put himself out there this summer-and raise his rating his Trent's view. It's hard to imagine what Duncan could to to lift Trent's opinion of him, and it becomes pretty clear that Duncan:
1) doesn't know what it would be and
2) even if he did, would not do it.

Luckily there's a water park near by and it's manned by Sam Rockwell and a cast of misfits (two of whom are the writers of the movie). A teenager could do far worse than to hang out with Rockwell, who is always the coolest guy in the room in whatever movie he makes. Yes, it's a coming-of-age movie, but the performances of Steve Carell, Toni Collette (as Duncan's mom), Alison Janney and Liam James as Duncan raise the level of it to far more than just a standard of the genre. And while I realize Amanda Peet was supposed to be annoying, she really went beyond the pale. And if she was supposed to be sexy and alluring, it didn't work. However, who knew Steve Carell could be so good as a cruel jerk? He's attractive and yet his inner core is rotten. And will Duncan's mother ever stand up for him? Will Duncan grow up and become a little more cool? Will there be a movie where Sam Rockwell doesn't dance a little? I hope not, I love seeing him dance. Is this movie fun? Maybe yes, maybe no but I still really liked it.

Now You See Me, and also Superrman

I'm going to make this short and sweet. Did I like Now You Se Me? Yes, despite Jesse Eisenberg and his snarky persona. Yes, despite disliking Isla Fisher.  I like Woody Harrelson and also Mark Ruffalo. The critics snarked on it, but I thought it was better than what they said, so there.

Superman (or, as it calls itself Man of Steel. Is that really necessary?). I liked it too, but it was too long. Henry Cavill is very good-looking and does a good job as Superman. Amy Adams is MILES better than Kate Boswoth as Lois Lane (and I like her better than her doppelganger, Isla Fisher). Michael Shannon is also good, but I saw MOS on a 70 foot-wide screen and it was hard to take his crazy eyes on a screen that big. Also, it was TOO LONG. Unlike The Avengers (or Captain America or Thor, all of which I would have been happier with if they had been longer) this really needed some judicious trimming. And I really disliked the final confrontation with Zod. Seriously, it did not need to end that way and I think the writer just took the lazy way out because they weren't clever enough to think of something better. And yet, I still liked it.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

I was very curious to see Beasts, so many critics have said it wasn't like anything they'd ever seen before. And I agree, it's not.  What is about? On the surface, a little girl named Hushpuppy lives with her father in low-lying part of New Orleans called The Bathtub.  They fish, have animals and live in squalor but they're happy. Everyone else lives that way too-black and white and they don't know any other way. And then the storm comes, Hushpuppy's father gets sick and the Aurochs come. What are the Aurochs? They are enormous beasts, trampling everything in their paths and generally causing mayhem. They look like a cross between a water buffalo and a woolly mammoth. Can anyone else see them besides Hushpuppy? Doubtful, because they represent all her fears, and she has many. But if you want a true female empowerment movie, this is it. Hushpuppy faces everything (after behaving like a brat in the beginning) and triumphs, more or else. She does what has to be done, and who can ask more than that? She is the spiritual heir of Paikea, from Whale Rider, another little girl destined to be a leader in her community and one who will make her mark on this world. 

The Amazing Spiderman

I was very curious to see what the new Spiderman was like. I was (and still am) a big fan of the first two movies (the less said about the third one, the better) and also as a big comic book geek, this movie had my name all over it (not like The Avengers did, but still).  So,  what's the verdict? Overall positive, I'd say. Andrew Garfield is quite winning as Peter Parker, here more of a loner skateboarder than science nerd. And finally there's a heroine who can match up with him in Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy. One of the things I didn't like about about the first three movies was the character of Mary Jane Watson. They took a perfectly good character, full of intelligence and guts and turned her into a wuss. There was ONE moment in all three movies where she was not like that and that's it. So I was happy to see that not be the case with Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker's first love. She's funny, feisty and intelligent. She calls Peter out on his bad behavior, she stands up to The Lizard (more on him later) and she's smart. It was relief. And it helped that she and Andrew Garfield has so much chemistry together it's ridiculous. But did they really have to kill off Denis Leary? Captain Stacy dies well into the series-they couldn't have kept him around for another movie or two? He brightened the whole place up every time every time he appeared. And now a few words about The Lizard. Really? I have a friend who said that when he first saw The Lizard's tail, he thought "oh, no" and in a "wow, the special effects are really bad" kind of way, not in a scary kind of way, and I felt the same. The Lizard was NOT scary. He was one step above a guy in a rubber Lizard suit and that's pretty sad, considering the Spiderman effects were extremely good. They didn't have to be that bad, I'm sure they could have afforded better-and Rhys Isfans certainly deserved better. But that's just me-I'm sure not everyone thought he looked like a guy in a rubber lizard suit. 


And the guy in the scene after the credits? Totally Norman Osborn. It's the Chekhov rule-if you show a gun in the first act, someone has to use in the third act. You can't spend the whole movie talking about Norman Osborn and never have him show. The question is, who will play the Green Goblin and will HIS special effects be any better? 

The Hunger Games

I liked the Hinger Games very much, the problem with it though, is that can't really be true to the book and still get a PG rating. Ah, the all important PG rating-it's the reason all those 10-year olds were at a movie that wasn't really appropriate for them (and were running around screaming before it started. Yes, it annoyed me, mainly because if I'd pulled that at a movie with MY parents, they would never have taken me again).  Ahem. Well, did Jennifer Lawrence look like Katniss? I thought not-she looked a little too old and was not the small, skinny girl I pictured. However, she more than made up for it with her performance. And Josh Hutcherson was quite good as Peeta, although it did seem that Jennifer was much taller than he, which I thought was quite funny. And I'll say this-ALL the supporting players were good. Elizabeth Banks in her outrageously flashy clothes, Woody Harrelson as the drunk who helps them survive, Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, the stylist who becomes Katniss's only friend in the city-all were good. And a special shout-out to Stanley Tucci, who seems to be able to anything-is there a part he can't play? And of course, Donal Sutherland, always good at playing the bad guy. And I really liked adding in the background to the Games-you now see the Gamesmaker and the people who work for him, you see that the fire IS created and that, indeed, everything is carefully planned-except what Katniss and Peeta do at the end. But here's the thing-I really wanted it to be violent. The books are quite violent, and the end of The Hunger Games is not only violent, it's emblematic of the whole horror of what has happened throughout the whole book-and they watered it down. Watering down the end really does a disservice to the book and it was all to get the PG rating. I find that very disheartening.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, also Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

What do these movies have in common? The great Gary Oldman, of course. I swear, I could watch him just sit there and watch paint dry (not a bad description of TTSS, as I discussed with a friend), and yet, I couldn't take my eye off of him. He's a delight RGAD, playing the slightly dim Rosencrantz, to the much Guildenstern of Tim Roth, and is the much smarter George Smiley in TTSS. There are many things to be said about both, which I liked very much. Suffice to say that RGAD has to seen to be believed  and that you can't just read the play.  As for TTSS, everyone in it is good, but Oldman is amazing. How he can just sit there and yet draw your attention like no one else is beyond me. I would also like to take note of Richard Dreyfuss, because is quite wonderful in RGAD as the Tragedian, who is also Death or Fate. The way he said "I've been here before" makes quite clear the nature of his previous visit.  He also gets most of the really good lines-it's a great part and he makes the most it, in a play/movie that constantly straddles the line between reality and the action of Hamlet. Nut watch both for Gary Oldman-he's amazing.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Much to my surprise, I very much liked Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. Why the surprise? Well, I avoided Wanted because it looked annoying. I watched Nightwatch and Daywatch, both of which were, as Manola Dargis of the NY Times, said, almost incomprehensible. But this movie is fairly straightforward, action packed and blessed with the charisma of the lead, Benjamin Walker, his mentor, Dominic Cooper and his right-hand man, Anthony Mackie. And, of course,Rufus Sewell as the lead bad guy. Poor Rufus-blessed with a leading man's good looks, he seems almost destined to always play the vampire/monster/all-around bad guy. He had a break from it when he played the detective in Zen for the BBC, but unfortunately it got cancelled, so now he's back to playing the bad guy. I certainly  hope he can get away from typecasting-he's too good an actor to get stuck in those sorts of parts. Everyone else is quite good too. Benjamin Walker does a good job of capturing Lincoln's pain when his sideline in vampire hunting brings pain to family. Dominc Cooper is a lot fun as a his mentor-almost on the verge of over acting but never quite there. And I'd like to give props to Anthony Mackie. I feel about him sort of like a feel about Kathy Bates-every time I see him, I realize how much he perks things up and how happy I am to see him. It's a bit of a thankless part, as Lincoln's best friend, and he invests it with everything he has. I would LOVE to see him in a Marvel superhero movie, reunited with Jeremy Renner. Can't he play the Black Panther? Luke Cage? Someone cool that will use all of abilities? He's too good to waste-the guy is a great actor. And I would also like to say how amusing I found it that the vampires were slave owners in the South. I'll ignore the fact they if they kept killing them, they couldn't use them to work in the fields to get the cotton that the South needed to survive-maybe the vampire were rich already didn't need the cotton and it was all a pretest for owning slaves-it doesn't pay to over think it when a movie is based an Abraham Lincoln as a vampire hunter. But the end was great-I give much credit to Walker for reciting the Gettysburg Address, as iconic a speech as it gets in this country, and giving it all he had. I will say this though, that speech did make me long for the new Lincoln movie coming out in the fall, with Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln and and Jared Harris as Grant. I would have loved to see Grant in this movie, asking Lincoln what the hell  was going on and why couldn't those damned Rebs be killed, but it was not to be. 

Snow White and the Huntsman

Let me say right off the bat that I did not go see Mirror Mirror, the jokey version of Snow White with Julia Roberts. I like my fairy tales dark and violent and Snow White and the Huntsman seemed more to my taste.  And I did like it.  I've never seen Kristen Stewart in another movie (okay, Panic Room when she was a child) as I've assiduously avoided anything to do with Twilight so I thought she was fine in this. I have friends who tell me that she only makes one face in her movies, but as this is the only one I really know, I was fine with it. She came though when she needed to, which was the whole point, I think. And Chris Hemsworth was also good, although I was sad to see his handsome face obscured by dirty hair and just plain dirt. But he did a fine job as the guy charged with finding Snow and bringing her heart to the queen, but who then as a change of heart. It's not particularly nuanced but he did the job well. And here's Charlize Theron playing another ice queen. I'll give her this, she does it REALLY well. This queen is scary and you would have to have a sword and belief in yourself in order to face her down. However, the real stars of this movie are the costumes. Good God, they were amazing. Yes, Colleen Atwood has won three Academy Awards but she really outdid herself here. And luck Charlize got to wear all of them-from the slightly raggedy dress she's wearing when Snow's father finds her, to the amazing night dress she wears when she kills him, the gown with with the bird skulls and chains that hang from her crown/tiara to frame her face (and that face!) they are works of art. And I haven't even gone into that metal finger armor that she apparently uses to pull out bird's hearts for a snack. Who cares about the plot when you can look at a magic mirror that seems be a figure clothed in molten gold? 

The Avengers, Prometheus, Moonrise Kingdom

I know this blog is woefully out of date, so I'm doing what I can to update. Sometimes Facebook doesn't give you enough room for a movie review!

First up: The Avengers.
So, I can't really be objective about this movie. I've collected this comic book since I was 10 and I bought as many back issues as I could afford when I was a kid. My Mom bought me a subscription to it when I was 11, so I got it in the mail. And I love Joss Whedon-Buffy and Firefly are two great shows (and check out Serenity, which is a great movie). So, I'm NOT objective. That said, I loved this movie. It's the first one that got The Hulk right, in both Hulk and Banner form. It got the cranky relationship between Iron Man and Cap right-with Iron Man bowing to Cap's superior tactical knowledge. It faltered maybe a bit on Hawkeye (one of my favorite characters), who should have been more of a smart-ass, but did a great job with the Widow and Thor and the relationships between all of them. And it had a great villain-to bring them all together to fight as a team, with all their individual strengths. And it was funny. I felt like I'd been waiting to see this movie since I was 10 and it didn't disappoint. Thanks, Joss.

You know what did disppoint? Prometheus. I wish I hadn't seen all the cool viral videos for it, because that lead me to have high hopes for it. I'll give it this, it looked great. And I thought Fassbender (the heart of the movie, as Mark Ruffalo was in The Avengers) and Rapace were both great, as was Charlize Theron. Here's where I can't cut them any slack. First, let me say that as a sci-fi fan, I don't expect scientic accuracy. Weird stuff happening that goes against all known laws of relativity and science? LOVE IT. But as this is supposed to be a scientific/exploratory journey, I do expect them to behave like scientists. Did they? No, they behaved liked idiots. Taking off their helmets in an underground cavern/space ship with no thought as to what affect they could have on the environment? Throwing the mapping balls AFTER they've taken their helmets off?  Approaching an unknown creature that looks like a sea cobra speading it's hood (and looks dangerous even to an imbecile) and acting like it's a tame lap dog? Mr Biologist, you deserved what you got. As a friend told me, he hated the characters so much and they were so stupid, it was fun watching them bite it. And here's one thing I won't cut them slack on-when Charlize says "We've travelled 2.7 light years. We're a half a billion miles from Earth". Jeez, Charlize. 2.7 light years is almost 13 trillion miles. Half billion put you still in our solar sytem-somewhere around Jupiter. You couldn't have gotten someone to fix that?

Moonrise Kingdom is the lastest from Wes Anderson. I've liked all is movies and this was good as well, although I felt a little disappointed and here's why: I expect great things from him and instead I got this sweet children's story. Yes, it was great to look at. Yes, the acting was very good and it had some great lines. And Bill Murray is in it! And Frances mcDormand and Bruce Willis! But at heart it is still the story of two runaway children who want to get away from the grown-ups and while I really liked it, I wish Anderson would make something more for adults.  However it was a good palate cleanser between all the sci-fi action comic book movies I've seen and Spiderman yet to come.