Movies

What I Watched in December 2016

/ skoce / Leave a comment

It should be noted that this week’s posts were written under the influence of strong sinus medication. So forgive me if I just trail off in the middle of a

Movies

Allied – see review here. ****

30 For 30 Catholics vs Convicts – Another solid 30 for 30 effort, this one looking into the rivalry between Notre Dame and the University of Miami. It touches on a lot of things, from the racism inherent in the Catholics vs Convicts moniker to the landscape of branded apparel at the time that made it possible for a student to print up the t-shirts from the title. Like most of these movies, it is a very enjoyable look at a brief window of sports history. ****

Kung Fu Panda 3 – Not bad, not bad at all. This movie doesn’t do anything with the movies larger cast, but Bryan Cranston as Po’s long lost father was a lot of fun. The storyline doesn’t break any new ground, but it is mostly enjoyable. Other than a few impressive flat colored sequences, there isn’t anything great about this movie, but it is largely enjoyable. ***1/2

Angry Birds – What a miserable excuse of a movie. There were a lot of good animated movies this year and Angry Birds was not one of them. It isn’t funny, it doesn’t look good and its message – almost certainly accidental – is gross. Don’t watch this. *1/2

True Memoirs of an International Assassin – This isn’t quite as bad as one would guess. It’s not good, but it’s also not as lazy as a Happy Madison Production. There are sporadic laughs and the glimmer of a good idea here. None of that comes together in any sort of satisfying way, but at least it seems like people put effort into it. **

Tai Chi Master – This is a good time. Jet Li plays a disgraced Shaolin monk whose friend betrays him in a never ending quest for power. It isn’t the best kung fu movie I’ve watched, but Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh are great as always. ***

Man of Tai Chi – Keanu Reeves directs this movie about a kid who gets pulled into a dangerous underground fighting league. Reeves plays the villain, who runs the league and sets out to deliberately corrupt a good but headstrong kid. It has some really good fight scenes, but the story is a fairly bland morality play. Still, it is more than worth watching. ***

Rogue One – read review here. ****1/2

Neighbors – I didn’t really expect to enjoy this as much as I did. I still didn’t love it, but it has its moments. The movie tends to focus on lesser jokes and slip right by the genuinely good ones, but some of the good ones would suffer from extended focus. Still, it has more than enough good laughs. ***

TV

The Office (USA) – I revisited this after watching the original version last month. I am even more convinced that the American version is the superior version. Especially in the first three seasons. After that it mostly settles into comfortable sitcom stasis, but the early seasons have most of the original’s bite and longing while having more and more interesting characters. I would rank it among the best TV comedies.

The Grinder – I skipped this show when it aired last year, and now I deeply regret it. It is damn near great television, and now it is cancelled. Rob Lowe and Fred Savage have some great chemistry as brothers and after about a half dozen episodes the show gets into a pretty great self-referential groove that calls to mind shows like Community and Better off Ted. It is a minor tragedy that this show only got one season. I suspect it will remain in my Netflix comfort viewing rotation for a good long time.

Turn S1 – This is kind of … not good. The production values are there. The cast is there. But the writing is not. Everything feels muddled and unfocused. A lot of time is spent on stories that are completely uninteresting, or on stories that seem to exist only to make the protagonists look bad so viewers won’t sympathize with them(?). There is a lot here that is good, but unless season two starts telling a genuinely interesting story I am going to be out sooner rather than later.

Columbo S1-6 – I saw this was leaving Netflix and made a mad dash through it. Columbo is great. He is a character that is rightfully considered one of the greatest TV characters of all time. Nearly all of this show’s feature length mysteries are well-crafted, with guest stars doing good work against a nearly perfect Peter Falk. I think I have a lot more to say about this show, maybe about how the show deal with class and wealth, but I’ll save that for a full post about the show. It’s worth it.

Top 10 Movies of 2016

/ skoce / 1 Comment

This year’s top 10 is nowhere near as top heavy as last year’s was. There was nothing this year as phenomenal as Mad Max: Fury Road. And I don’t see a movie I liked as much as Inside Out falling anywhere near 7 on this list, though if I were to do last year’s list again I don’t see Inside Out falling to 7. Still, the movies I’ve seen this year have had a fairly high floor even if most of them didn’t rise above middling. I definitely saw a lot more movies, though a lot of that was me making a point of seeing new stuff that came to Netflix and the like. So my list of new movies seen stands closer to 50 than last year’s 20, but I would say I liked to some extent or another about 30 of those movies. Here are my Top 10:

bvsp10: Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Cut – This is only the so-called Ultimate Cut, the extended version. After seeing it I have a hard time understanding how they ended up with the cut they originally released. The long cut – 3 hours – fixes nearly all of the story problems that the original had and provides a lot of context for many of the movie’s more incongruous scenes. Most of what it added back were scenes showing what Clark and Lois were up to throughout the movie, which makes Superman’s journey through the movie actually work. With this cut I really enjoyed the film.

zootopiampmoana9: Moana/Zootopia – I can’t choose between the two of these movies. Disney is on a hot streak, and both of these films continue it. I’m not sure Zootopia’s metaphor holds up to scrutiny, but it is a charming world with fun characters. Moana’s limited number of characters is more than made up for in the just sheer delight that is on the screen. They are both excellent.

cacw8: Captain America Civil War – This one kept sliding down the list as I made it. I remember liking it quite a bit coming out of the theater, but the few times I’ve thought of it since haven’t raised my opinion of it. I guess I really need to see it again, but right now all that are really sticking in my mind are a few outstanding scenes.

kuboposter7: Kubo and The Two Strings – There are some parts of this movie that didn’t quite work for me, but animation is so beautiful and the parts that do work are so strong that I can’t bring myself to get hung up on the quibbles.

 

arrivalpost

6: Arrival – Smart, methodical science fiction with an excellent star performance from Amy Adams. It is good to see a movie like this that doesn’t rely on explosions to tell its story.

 

stb5: Star Trek Beyond – I gave a solid review to Into Darkness, but upon rewatching I think I side more with the general opinion of that movie than I did a few years ago. This Star Trek feels like an amped up episode of the show. Sure, things are bigger than they need to be and there seems to be one scene missing with the villain to make his whole deal really work, but the rest of it is so good it doesn’t matter. This was the most fun I had at the movies all summer.

rogueone4: Rogue One – Recency bias maybe, but this was one of the most purely pleasurable movie going experiences of the year. The only thing holding it back from being among my favorite Star Wars movie is the downplaying of the music. Still, a Star Wars movie that emphasizes the war part of the title is just different enough. It has lots of great performances – I loved Donnie Yen – and one of the best climactic battles scenes I’ve ever seen. It is just great.

hcmp3: Hail, Caesar! – Even a lesser Coen Brother’s movie is a treat. I’m not even sure how lesser this one is. It won’t be counted among their masterpieces, but I can see myself going back to watch it much more readily than True Grit or Burn After Reading. It is mostly an excuse for a bunch of big name actors to play out bad versions of classic Hollywood movies and it is just a lot of fun to watch.

1b: The Nice Guys – I am really sad I missed this in the theater. It is does just about everything right as these two detectives do everything wrong. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are great and the rest of the movie just works.

landfmp1a: Love & Friendship – Unlike anything else on my list or anything else I saw this year, this movie is amazing. It is hands down the funniest movie I saw this year, with a lot of funny actors giving performances that are at the same time restrained and hilarious.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

/ skoce / 6 Comments

rogueone

Like last years The Force Awakens, Rogue One is a Star Wars movie that exists to comment on Star Wars. Specifically on Star Wars: A New Hope. The Force Awakens was a restatement of purpose. It was A New Hope again, consciously and purposefully. It gave viewers new, immediately iconic characters to root for, but it didn’t break a lot of new ground. It was Star Wars as you always remembered it. I wonder how that is going to age, but it was the right move for last year, for getting people back into the series ten years after the middling prequels. Rogue One, on the other hand, seeks to remind viewers of A New Hope by filling in the cracks around that movie. It is a movie about how that movie came to be, with as many reminders as possible. It nears the ghoulish at times, like with its digital recreation of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin, but for the most part it works at putting the viewer on the margins of the grand saga and giving a different perspective on the series.

Rogue One does have a completely different perspective than other Star Wars movies. This is not a tale in the grand saga of the Skywalker family and the force, while it is mentioned and plays a role in the movie, is not a big part of it. This is a grittier look on how the Rebellion got well and truly started, with Jyn Erso, the daughter of an Imperial scientist, conscripted by the nascent Rebel Alliance to find a message from her father that might give them information about the secret project he is working, which is in fact the Death Star. She is joined by Cassian and K-2SO, a rougher take on Han & Chewie to seek out her old mentor Saw Gerrera, who is said to have the Imperial Pilot that carried the message. Eventually this leads to them and a small handful of others taking on a dangerous mission as a last ditch attempt to give the Rebels a chance to stop the Death Star.

Perhaps the movie’s greatest flaw is that it doesn’t truly flesh out Jyn. It gives her a starting point and an endpoint, but it never really shows her change. Rogue One doesn’t do a great job of letting the viewer in on her thoughts, so it is hard to understand her changes. For the rest of the impromptu crew it works. The Viewer is meant to question Cassian’s loyalties at times, so his remoteness makes sense. The others from K-2SO, an amusing combination of C-3PO and Chewbacca, who is all quips to the badass duo of the force attuned blind warrior Chirrut Imwe and heavily armed Baze Malbus, are side characters with simple or no arcs, we are given all the information we need to sympathize with them. But Jyn, the protagonist, is kept just as far from the viewer as the rest. She gives a rousing speech before the start of the third act. It is a great speech, but it doesn’t really follow what we’ve seen from her character. It seems like there is a scene missing where she lets go of her reluctance to commit to the rebel cause.

Around the dangerous covert missions is the second point of Rogue One, which is that it works as connection tissue between the prequels and the original trilogy. That is where the numerous references to A New Hope come from; the movie is determined to set its place in the timeline to just before the original trilogy started. But there are also references to the prequels, like Jimmy Smits resuming his role as Bail Organa, adopted father of Leia. It is certainly a Star Wars movie, but while it does do anything to further the saga, it is a great story in its own right while also providing some much needed connective tissue.

Rogue One is deliberately not the crowd pleaser that The Force Awakens was, but for all that is was a movie about the series past, I think it delivered more new Star Wars moments. The characters, while in some cases reminiscent of other Star Wars characters, actually felt new. I don’t mean to denigrate The Force Awakens, which laid the seeds for the future of Star Wars and its character are sure to stick with viewers for a long time, but they also feel like there were created with more in mind than the story of just the movie. Rogue One just feels more impactful. As a one off, its character’s stories are told all in this one film. Between that and some of the best action scenes in the series, Rogue One is one of the most satisfying movies of the year.

****1/2

Allied Review

/ skoce / 3 Comments

alliedposter

Allied feels very old fashioned. It clearly is attempted to comment on and in some ways emulate Casablanca, generally regarded as the best movie or at least one of the best movies of all time. That goes from its opening in Casablanca to its ending on a desolate airfield. It should be no shock to learn that it doesn’t quite soar to those heights. It is a movie that relies on its stars to carry it, and those stars, Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, do that admirably, especially Cotillard. Still, thanks to some structural problems it doesn’t quite work as well as it could.

Pitt stars a Max Vatan, a Canadian British pilot who parachutes into Casablanca for a covert mission. There he meets up with Marianne Beausejour, Cotillard, the lone survivor from a French Resistance group. Together they infiltrate the Nazi favoring government to assassinate the German ambassador. During the mission Max and Marianne fall for each other, and Max brings her back to England with him afterwards. The movie then speeds through nearly two years, with the two of them now married with a daughter living in England. It is then that Max gets a report that Marianne might not be who she says she is and may in fact be a Nazi spy. Though he is forbidden from investigating himself, he proceeds to do exactly that in order to find out if his marriage is a lie.

The first hour or so is a downright excellent spy movie. The two of them make a good team as they navigate the treacherous path to get into that party. It is tense and moving, with Pitt doing enough and Cotillard being amazing. It helps that everything is compressed, with little except for the barebones needed to tell its story, keeping the tension high and the pace moving. After that is a similarly rushed trip through their courtship and her pregnancy. During this first half of the film there are some excellent scenes, from a sex scene during a sandstorm to the birth of their child during a bombing in the blitz.

It is too bad that the second half of the movie doesn’t quite stack up. Much of that has to do with how little Marianne there is during that portion. She quickly has suspicion cast on her and Max, unable to just wait while the government’s test is run, runs about trying to prove her innocence by finding anyone who knew her in France, which is hard since most of them are dead. Again the tension builds, as Max struggles to find proof of her innocence and normally innocent run ins take on a sinister cast with his suspicions. Then there is the thought that maybe this is all a test of him in preparation for a promotion, with the British Intelligence needing to be absolutely sure that he will follow orders. It works, but not quite as well as that first half.

I almost feel like I should have liked this movie more than I did, because it does most things right. The real problem is that while I like Pitt and Cotillard, the part that is the least believable is their romance. That part is sped through, hoping that the performers can find the chemistry to sell and they fall just a little short. Allied is perfectly good, but not nearly great.

****

What I Watched November 2016

/ skoce / 1 Comment

Movies

Hacksaw Ridge – read review here. ***1/2

Dr. Strange – read review here. ****

The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 – This isn’t very good. The first Hunger Games movie was solid, exactly what it needed to be, but this adaptation of the first half of the last book is nothing. It is nearly two hours of absolutely nothing. When Harry Potter pulled this trick at least the movie was well shot. **1/2

Arrival – read review here. ****1/2

O Brother Where Art Thou? – The Coen Brothers are great, and this might be the best of their comedies. (editor’s note – It’s The Big Lebowski) All three of the protagonists are great, plenty of the side characters are a lot of fun and Man of Constant Sorrow is a delight to listen to. Just an all-around excellent film. *****

Stonehurst Asylum – An adaptation of a Poe story that I was unfamiliar with, this movie is okay. It has a lot of talented actors, with Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, David Thewlis and Kate Beckinsale, but it is kind of muddled in the middle and not especially good. Still, there is something good in there, even if it is only intermittently visible. ***

Unforgiven – This is an amazing movie. Maybe Eastwood’s best. It is a movie about many things: guilt, fame, time. All of them are woven together perfectly for this somber look at the dying days of the old west and the toll that life can take on people. Just amazing. *****

Hero – I greatly enjoyed this. It has some beautiful shots and some wonderfully choreographed fight scenes, as well as a story that twists just enough to be interesting. It is just really well made. ****

Goon – A dim witted bouncer stumbles into a job as a hockey enforcer, even though when he starts he can barely skate. Finally having a place to belong, he grows to be an integral part of his team even though he is only there to fight. It mostly works, but isn’t anything great. ***1/2

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – read review here. ****

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – This has always been my least favorite Harry Potter story, both in book and movie form, and this viewing didn’t do anything to change my mind. Kenneth Branagh almost saves it with his perfect turn as Gilderoy Lockhart, but it loses some of the magic in trying to capture all of the book. Still, I wouldn’t call it bad, just a little too long and a little too dull. ***

ACOD – This movie has a really talented cast and a good idea, but it is a comedy that is only intermittently funny. For long stretches it isn’t funny at all. **1/2

ARQ – This is basically Edge of Tomorrow on a shoestring budget. It kind of works, though the small budget shows. Some of its concepts could use more fleshing out, but the idea of a house caught in a repeating loop with only a few of the people there aware of is at least an interesting concept. **1/2

Batman The Movie – This is a great comedy and as long as it is looked at through that lens it holds up. Batman is a silly idea, and this is that idea at its silliest. The gleeful goofiness of this movie makes it simply a delight. Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb. *****

Moana – read review here. ****

Burn After Reading – Not the best Coen Brothers movie. Stupid people do stupid things for 90 minutes. Some of them die, some get rewarded. Life has no meaning. There are some good scenes and it is pretty amusing, but it feels fatally slight. ***1/2

How to Steal a Million – Wow. Audrey Hepburn is amazing. Peter O’Toole and Eli Wallach are no slouches, but you watch this movie to watch Hepburn and it is worth it. It is a romantic comedy heist movie, and while the heist is a little undersold, the rest of it is great. ****1/2

London Has Fallen – What a miserable film. It is just ugly and bad in just about every way. There is absolutely nothing to recommend here; this is complete and utter dreck. *

TV

The Office (U.K.) – I sat down and watched this all the way through for the first time. It is still very good. You have to hand it to Ricky Gervais, David Brent is one of the most despicable characters to ever appear on TV; he is wholly unlikeable. At every opportunity he shows himself to small and petty, but he is wrapped in so much delusion that he casts himself as the wronged party. Since his constant faux pas come from ignorance, not malice it can be tempting to forgive him, but even when given the chance to be the thing he thinks he is he fails to do so. That really made the Christmas special at the end ring false; he gets something of a happy ending that he hadn’t earned. Still, it is a great show, though I would argue even more strongly now that the American version is better.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – A solid adaptation of a book I loved that can’t really bring over all of the things I loved about the book (there is no way to do footnotes on film). Still, it is a delightful look at a version of the early 19th century but with magic. It really made me want to reread the book, so I guess it was a success.

Ascension – Euggh. This starts with such a great premise, a generation ship traveling through space that has developed its own customs the longer they have been separate from Earth. It starts with a murder mystery on that ship, but every episode seems to change its mind about what kind of show it was, leading the viewer down some dull, inconsequential and poorly thought paths. This could have been something good, but instead it is nothing.

Curb your enthusiasm s3 – This show is one of those near perfect comedies, like Arrested Development. There is something perfectly relatable and detestable about the fictional Larry David. I’ve never really sat down and watched this show all the way through, but my brothers and I saw most of the 3 season one morning and every episode was hilarious.

CW Superhero Round-Up – This continues to be a strong season for Supergirl and I still like Flash more than most people. I have dropped off Arrow almost completely, though I did come back for the crossover. Legends is junk, but it is fun junk. That crossover, which was misleadingly called a 4-parter even though Supergirl’s episode only barely tied in, was impressive if not completely satisfying.

Moana Review

/ skoce / 5 Comments

moana

The release of Moana continues Disney’s strong string of animated features. I would go as far to say that it is the best “Princess” movie they have put out since Beauty and the Beast – which you will remember I called the best of Disney’s animated films – though the only real competition it has in that timeframe is Frozen. Of course, I would also argue that Moana has more in common with Aladdin than with Tangled or The Little Mermaid. Moana isn’t perfect but it’s collection of songs and set pieces, as well as its beautiful animation, make for an excellent experience.

Young Moana is the heir to chief on her small island, but she yearns to sail the seas, something her people do not do. When the crops and fishing hauls start to fail on her island, she embarks on a quest to find the demigod Maui who long ago stole the heart of Te Fiti, which is the source their problems, and force him to return the heart. While the plot isn’t remotely complex, it does its job well. Moana’s struggle is understandable, as is Maui’s. The bulk of the movie is taken up with catchy, engaging musical numbers and gorgeously animated action scenes and sometimes a combination of the two. I don’t know that there is a song in this movie that will take off like “Let it Go”, but the songs of a higher average quality than Frozen’s.

For as much of the film that takes place on the open ocean, Moana can feel a little suffocating. There are only two characters for the bulk of the movie: Moana and Maui. There is no villain or any secondary characters after the opening. All they have to play off of is the braindead chicken Heihei, a character I found insufferable but did delight the target audience. For most of the second and third act it is all Maui and Moana. They are great characters; don’t get me wrong, with a sort of Aladdin and Genie dynamic going on. Moana is one of the most dynamic protagonists in a Disney movie. The weight of the story falls almost entirely on her. She gets some advice from her grandmother and some sailing training from Maui, but she is the driver of the plot. Things don’t happen to Moana, Moana makes things happen. Maui is an over the top hero character who revels in his powers and fame, like a combination of Hercules and the Genie. His bravado is shown, though, to be there to mask his lack of self-worth.

As entertaining of characters as they may be, something does feel lacking with just two characters of note. Some of that comes from the film’s episodic nature. The islanders are there in the beginning, but disappear once Moana sets sail. Her and Maui tangle with a giant crab, but he’s only on screen long enough to sing a song. There are a few other misadventures, but the only consistent parts are that heroic duo. It sometimes felt like it needed a third angle, someone else. Specifically someone for Maui to interact with, since he only ever talks to Moana.

Moana is excellent, even my complaints about it seeming limited are more nitpicking than any real flaw. It feels like a traditional Disney musical, which is to be expected with Clements and Musker behind it. It looks great, with beautiful islands and appealingly designed characters. While it doesn’t do everything, everything it does it does well.

****

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Review

/ skoce / 1 Comment

fvawtftposter

I was a fairly big Harry Potter fan years ago, though I haven’t touched the books since I first read Deathly Hallows and I haven’t seen any of the movies since the last, other than catching a bit here and there on ABC Family, ahem, Freeform. Still, I am generally a fan of the series. I wasn’t especially excited for the return to cinematic version of Rowling’s Wizarding World; at least I wasn’t until I learned that Rowling was writing the screenplays and that it would be set in the Roaring 20’s. Fantastic Beasts turned out of be one of the most satisfying forays into this magical world.

For all that Fantastic Beasts deals with a lot of still extant social issues, it works very well as a delightful distraction. The movie follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) a British wizard visiting New York for the first time. He manages to get his suitcase, which holds an entire magical menagerie, switched with that of the non-magical baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). At the same time he gets embroiled with Porpentina Goldstein, an ex-auror – think magical cop – who is on thin ice with the American wizarding government after an incident involving a group of New Salemers who are trying to rid the USA of magical folks, for illegally bringing many of the animals in his case into the country. There is also apparently a magical beast running loose in New York City causing havoc everywhere it goes. Newt and Jacob search out Newt’s missing beasts, while tensions in the city grow higher and higher. Things eventually build to a head and a big confrontation, as things do. The big conflicts are much less interesting than the Magical Beasts themselves, with the improbable and impossible physiology. Having Jacob doused with the pheromones of some kind of glowing amphibious rhinoceros so he is chased around Central Park while Newt tries to coax the beast back into his suitcase is wonderful.

What Fantastic Beasts does best is create characters, something Rowling was great at in the books. Newt is the right kind of awkward, nervous and furtive around other people while being uniquely competent when dealing with the various animals that show up. Jacob adapts well and believably to being suddenly pulled into this magical world, with awe and fear and curiosity, with skills that have nothing to do with the task at hand, but not just some dolt pulled along for the ride. The too earnest Tina and her delightfully flighty sister Queenie are likewise well fleshed out characters. The villains are not as well shaded, but there does seem to be some life behind them.

For all that the bulk of the runtime is a delightful romp; it has quite the downer of an ending. The immediate conflict has ended, but none of the problems shown in the film have been solved. The biggest being the tense relations between the magic and non-magic communities. That conflict is what leads to the most emotional part of the ending, when something that has been inevitable from the beginning finally happens. Still, with the handful of codas it does manage to pull out some semblance of happy feelings.

After a summer that can best be described as a disappointment, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them continues a strong fall. I don’t know how well it will stick with me, but its combination of wonder and its terrific setting make it one of the more enjoyable tentpole movies of the year. It isn’t perfect, it is rather messy in spots, but it brings a certain ineffable sense of wonder to the screen that is always enjoyable.

****

Arrival Review

/ skoce / 3 Comments

arrivalpost

Arrival is the next in the recent spat of thoughtful, adult sci-fi, following in the footsteps of films like Gravity, The Martian, and Interstellar. While it isn’t the crowd pleaser that The Martian was nor does it go as big as Interstellar, Arrival is maybe the most successful of those movies. It is genuinely thoughtful and intelligent, though it can’t quite stick the landing with the same confidence that pulls the viewer through the rest of the movie, a problem it shares with the other movies mentioned.

The movie stars Amy Adams as a linguist who is recruited by the military to help them deal with mysterious alien “shells” that have appeared in the sky in a dozen places around the world. She is teamed with Jeremy Renner, playing a physicist, as they try to translate from a completely alien form of communication. It mostly becomes a slow procedural, as Louise breaks down language to its smallest components to try to have a way of speaking with the aliens, dubbed hectapods. Meanwhile, all around the world people’s trigger fingers get itchy the longer things go without learning the alien’s purpose on earth

Arrival is a movie about communication. That guides the central plot, with Adam’s Louise and Renner’s Ian trying to talk with the alien hectapods that have shown up on earth as it likewise runs through all of the side plots with the world’s reaction to the mysterious aliens in our midst. Communicating can be difficult, with people who speak the same language, let alone a different one or beings that treat language as something different altogether. At first many of the effected countries work together, but as things get more tense and possibly more dangerous, the start to cut themselves off. It is the worst thing that can happen Arrival posits, since open communication is the only way to solve problems. It is telling that the plots central conflict is solved with a phone call. It is also telling that the most heinous act committed is spurred by brain dead political commentators. It is also telling that in the slowly unfolding story of Louise and her child that what drove her and her husband apart was also communication based. Louise chooses to not share information and when it finally came to light it drove them apart.

Enjoyment of this film all comes down to how the viewer takes the twist in the back third.  The movie expertly lays the groundwork for its twist, so it is at the same time surprising and completely logical.  Still, it is a massive change to how things proceed. Louise’s expertise with language eventually leads to her deciphering their circular method of writing, which ties back into the movie’s other theme of time. It opens with narration that humanity is too focused on sequence and by the end it escapes that trap.

Usually a movie with this sort of cerebral is also somewhat cold, but Arrival is a thoughtful, intelligent film that is also really emotional.  Unlike last year’s Interstellar, which tried for the same thing, Arrival makes each part feel like it was earned.  It helps that it is not swinging quite so hard as that movie, being both smaller and more personal.
Arrival isn’t perfect; it can be slow and plodding and the final twist is a tough pill to swallow, but it is smarter and more entertaining than just about anything else I’ve seen this year. Amy Adams is as outstanding as usual, and the rest of the cast is solid.

****1/2

Hacksaw Ridge Review

/ skoce / 1 Comment

hacksaw

Based on the true story of Medal of Honor winner Desmond Doss, Hacksaw Ridge is a lot of things, many of them contradictory. It is compelling, gory, uplifting and hokey. It celebrates a famous pacifist with lovingly detailed violence. In the end, it is highly flawed but always entertaining. Whatever else may be true of Mel Gibson, he knows how to make a film.

Desmond Doss, played by former Spider-Man Andrew Garfield, comes from rural Virginia. His father is an alcoholic, his life shattered after his service in WWI. A couple of incidents in young Desmond’s life, in one of which he nearly kills brother during a fight, cement his religious belief to never use, or even hold, a firearm. He is an avowed pacifist. After a quick, and awkward romance with a pretty nurse, he feels compelled to join up when WWII starts. His problems start in basic training, when his refusal to carry a weapon and serve as a medic is challenged. That is the essential part of the story, how can a pacifist serve during his country during war? For Doss this means as medic on the battlefield, attempting to save lives as others are taking them. His fellow recruits and superiors feel he would be a liability. While it is easy to see the military’s point, or at the point of those immediately around Doss, it is impossible to not admire his perseverance and conviction. They try everything to drum him out, up to an attempted court martial, only for him to refuse and stick around, determined to do his part.

That is the first half of the movie, and while it does tend toward some hokeyness, it is a solidly entertaining story. That hokeyness comes from Garfields over the top hick accent and his fellow recruits. His meeting the recruits almost feels like a scene out of Forrest Gump, with their array of similarly strong accents and immediately evident personalities. Vince Vaugh plays the drill sergeant and he is clearly having fun. Still, it is enjoyable. Then they go to war.

The movie does some early prep for the carnage that unfolds during the fighting. Early on Doss saves a man from a car accident that leaves a blood spurting gash in an artery. Nothing, though, can prepare the viewer for the amount of blood and guts strewn across the scene in the battle that takes up that back half of the movie. If it were accompanied by a restrained take on the violence, showing Doss the sane man in a world of madness, it could have been very effective. But Hacksaw Ridge doesn’t show restrained, somber, terrible violence; it shows heroic, exploitative, action movie violence. It is a bad mix. This is a movie celebrating a pacifist, but it spends a lot of time glorifying violence. No chance for extra violence or gore is left on the table. The movie loving shows rats feasting of the corpses of those killed in the battle. It even adds some seppuku and a beheading just because it can.

All that only obscures the simple beauty of the central story. After a bad day of fighting with the Americans forced to retreat, Doss stays behind to rescue as many of his wounded comrades as he can. It is a magnificently heroic thing, worth all the buildup it gets. It being surrounded by that violence would really help cement the sheer heroism of his actions if the movie didn’t go out of its way to show everyone else as heroes too. I am not objecting to the idea of their heroism, they were all undoubtedly brave and valorous men, but this isn’t their story. A lot of what is shown seems to only be there for sake of having more blood and guts.

Even as I write this review I’ve been waffling about how much I like this movie. There are times I am sure it is a genuine classic and others where I think it is a piece of crap. It is certainly an uneven. It is an amazing true story, told in a way that mostly does it justice.

***1/2

What I Watched in October, 2016

/ skoce / Leave a comment

Movies

The Prisoner of Zenda – This is one of the classic adventure tales. It is really old, from the 30’s I believe, but it is still a lot of fun to watch. It feels its age, but it is also very apparent why it was popular in the first place. ****

They Came Together – A charming spoof by the guys behind Wet Hot American Summer, starring Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler. It plays out with all the beats of a romantic comedy, but with a layer of complete ridiculousness. Very funny. ****

Looney Tunes Back In Action – Joe Dante is great and this is the movie that Space Jam should have been. Too bad Space Jam had already shit in the pool by this point. It has some great slapstick action and Brendan Fraser is a lot of fun. ****

Sweeney Todd – This is the perfect musical for Tim Burton’s talents, but that doesn’t make this movie any more enjoyable to watch. The production design is excellent, but I couldn’t make out the lyrics for most of the songs. ***

Jaws – Amazing exercise in tension and pacing. Just a great movie overall. Jaws doesn’t need any defending. *****

Spotlight – This is an altogether excellent movie. There are strong performances and riveting subject matter. I don’t really have more to say. *****

Sum of All Fears – Ben Affleck plays Jack Ryan in a movie that is mostly pretty dull until it goes balls out crazy and drops a nuke in Baltimore. It isn’t especially good, but it is nuts. ***

Redemption – This movie has aspirations of being more than just a Statham action movie, but it really isn’t much of anything. Statham is always fun to watch and it really isn’t like anything else, but neither is it particularly good. **1/2

Mascots – see review here. ****

The Nice Guys – Of all the movies to come out this year, this is the one I most wanted to see in the theater but missed out on. After taking advantage of a 99 cent rental deal with Amazon, I finally got to see it and am even more upset that I missed it. This is easily one of the best movies of the year. Both Crowe and Gosling are fantastic. Really everything aobut this movie is great. Perfection. *****

Tucker & Dale Versus Evil – A largely amusing horror comedy that leans too hard on the gore. There are some good bits and jokes, but it never really rises about amusing distraction into something really memorable. ***1/2

The Accountant – see review here. ***1/2

Jack Reacher – A perfectly competent action movie starring Tom Cruise. It is baseline action movie, nothing too spectacular but completely watchable. ***

Amanda Knox – It is amazing to watch this, to see the filmmakers get a lot of the major players to appear on camera and two of them just damn themselves with what they saw. I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered someone as scummy as Nick Pisa, or at least as he comes across here. It also gets across how flimsy the case against her was. This isn’t the most informative of documentaries, it assumes the viewer has a basic understanding of the case already, but it is riveting. ****

Godzilla 2014 – I liked this movie a lot more in the theater. I still like it now, but without the big screen spectacle the flaws stand out more. There really isn’t enough Godzilla action and some of the stuff with Ford doesn’t work at all. Still, that climax redeems it for the most part. ***1/2

Dazed and Confused – I have liked a lot of other Linklater movies, and when this one showed up on Netflix I jumped at the chance to finally see it. It is one of those perfect coming of age comedies. Most of the characters are at least partly sympathetic and it manages to capture the feeling of being in high school. ****1/2

Addams Family – This is one of the great horror comedies. The cast is great: Raul Julia and Christopher Lloyd especially. I don’t know that I like the actual plot, but all of the jokes and scenes play. ****

Addams Family Values – A much better plot than the first movie, with a lot of good stuff for this game great cast. I love camp stuff, seeing Wednesday and Puggsley being forced to interact with something like the real world. It is just so much damn fun. *****

Young Frankenstein – An all-time classic. It is not my favorite movie by either gene Wilder or Mel Brooks, but any collaboration of theirs is worth seeing. While I don’t love horror movies, I do like horror comedies and this might be the best. *****

Sisters – Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are a great comic duo, but this movie doesn’t quite stick the landing. All the elements are there and there are some genuinely funny jokes, but there is also a lot of flab. It doesn’t nail the character stuff or the comedy hard enough, though all of it is roughly good. Still, Fey and Poehler are too good to not at least like. ***1/2

The Cabin in the Woods – A pretty great meta take on slasher movies. I don’t much care for any horror movies, but this seems like it was doing something really smart with the genre.

Shaun of the Dead – Still excellent. It is layered and well considered and very funny. I like the other Cornetto movies a little better, but this one is still great. *****

TV

Poirot Series 13 – I finally worked my way through the last series. It is the same as it ever was; largely very well executed mystery movies built around a great performance with its lead. Still, it always manages to feel a little cold. It is never the less completely enjoyable. I am glad I soldiered through.

Detectorists Series 2 – The more I watch this show, the more I love it. It nails this perfect pastoral feel, with its characters gradually revealing themselves, never rushing to state its points. The characters are perfectly human; their struggles are wholly relatable. It is just everything I want in a show.

The Ranch S1 Part 2 – More of the same from the first part; a comfortingly terrible sitcom. Terrible is too strong, it isn’t good but it is well executed and the cast has some chemistry. There just isn’t a lot here to recommend unless you are a big fan of the stars.

Luke Cage – I’ve already written about this here.

The Get Down – I don’t really know how to evaluate this beautiful mess. There are some great scenes, but the show is just all over the place. Again, some of the musical numbers really work, but a lot of the dialogue is insultingly on the nose. I liked it on the whole, but it isn’t really all that good.

Quick Draw Season 1 – This show has essentially one joke, that the over-educated Harvard graduate sheriff doesn’t get the old west, but it manages to wring quite a few fun bits out of it, especially since they actually let him be an expert shot. Still, I watched the first season during a slow afternoon and likely will never come back to it.

Flash S3 – It hasn’t rebounded to the soaring heights of the first season, but while it has been a little slow so far, it does feel like they are actually building to something worthwhile. Unlike last season when the first third of the season was mostly set up for Legends. I’m really enjoying all the different Wells and Draco Malfoy as Barry’s work rival. I hope it pays off on all the promising stories it is setting up.

Arrow S5 – I think this season is shaping up to be stronger than last, but no less weird. They’ve brought in Ragman, Mr. Terrific and Wild Dog. Freaking Wild Dog. Still, it is staying closer to the street level stuff that Arrow works better with. I don’t know that I’ll keep up with it past the crossover, though.

Legends of Tomorrow S2 – The show is slightly stronger through three episodes than it ever was last season. Maybe that is just my innate love of the JSA showing through. It is still too ambitious for its effects budget, but Vixen is better than Hawkgirl. Of course, Commander Steel is no match for Captain Cold. Still, they are being set up to fight a time traveling Injustice League, which is much better than last season’s tepid take on Vandal Savage.

Supergirl S2 – The show is going through some pretty big changes in its move to the CW, but it overall feels a lot more confident with what it wants to be. Superman in the first few episodes was great and most of the new additions are fun so far. This might end up being as good as Flash S1 at this rate.