Friday, June 24, 2011

X-Men First Class/Super 8

X-Men

Here's the one minute synopsis: Better than the third one, not quite as good as the second one, and way better than that Wolverine film. Otherwise the two leads are good, it has too many side characters to care about, and they black guy dies first (which I have to believe was intentionally ironic). Generally entertaining though.


Super 8

For most of its run-time Super 8 is a moderately entertaining, if mediocre, film that is completely undone by a bullshit final 20 minutes. Its not that the ending didn't make sense, it was just stupid, cliched and lazy. Since I can't properly make passive aggressive, petty, criticisms without discussing details stop reading now if you don't want to know any spoilers (though anybody who's alive will figure out whats going to happen halfway through).

Anyway film begins at a funeral in the late 70's for a mother/wife/saint who just died in a mill accident. The grieving husband is played by Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights, who spend the whole film doing that squinty "I'm trying not to cry while still being tough but fair" look he perfected on that show. He and his son have never been close (we know this because one of the characters says "He doesn't know that boy") and now have to figure out how to deal with each-other. The son is helping his fat friend shoot a zombie movie and while in the process they witness an airforce train get run off the tracks and set an alien free. The rest of the film deals with everyone trying figure out whats going on, while coming of age, and whining about their dead mommies. Of course all this angst gives the main kid the strength to teach the Alien a life lesson about letting go of the past which is how he saves the world. Seriously. This is how it ends. No wait it actually ends with the alien ship's magnetic force pulling the dead mom's locket out of the kid's hand after he gives a speech about moving on. That is what we call subtext.

Its too bad because the film has a few interesting ideas (in particular a captured Alien that really just wants to be left alone an leave) which could have been built into something more interesting, and I generally think director JJ Abrams does good work. Unfortunately it gets too wrapped up in its earnestness, and desire to bludgeon every small point into the ground to effectively work. I guess what I'm trying to say is --- Super 8 isn't so super (its writing like that that makes grad school such a good investment).


Saturday, June 11, 2011

Tree of Life

This is one of the most ambitious films I've ever seen. I'm not exagerrating. Tree of Life shows us both the creation, and end, of the universe paralleled with the story of a man (Sean Penn) trying to come to terms with his difficult upbringing (with most of that story told in a flashback to his adolescence). Add to all of this the fact that the film has very little dialog (just a lot of the same whispered narration and fevered imagery characteristic of earlier Terrance Malick film's like The Thin Red Line) and you have at the very least an incredibly unique, and audacious, experience.

The question is ultimately whether all this works, and twenty four hours later I still don't know. It kind of reminds me of Charlie Kaufman's Synechode New York, except unlike that film Tree of Life doesn't explicitly collapse under the weight of its ambition. Considering that the film tries to address mans' relationship with god, the effect of discipline vs. grace in raising children, and the natural order of life that's saying something. Still (and repeating myself here) I don't know if it works. There are points where Malick does seem to get bogged down in his style, and the whole enterprise constantly borders on pretension. But for my next equivocation I will admit that the film is beautiful to look at, and there are several bravura, almost hypnotic, sequences. Alright at this point I'm just rambling. Tree of Life has a lot to recommend it, and it holds together better than could be expected given the unwieldy premise. You'll have to decide whether or not it's successful, or just a little full of itself. I obviously haven't been able to.

Side Note: The screening I went to was filled with senior citizens. And since this is Berkeley it means it was full of entitled senior citizens. This immediately caused problems as the subdued nature of the film was reflected in its sound projection, leading to comments along of the lines of "What Did he Say?" "I can't hear anything", etc. The lovely couple behind me not only spent the first hour eating popcorn while rustling the bag as much as possible, there also had conversations like this:
Husband: "That's Brad Pitt"
Wife (3 Seconds later): " Is that Brad Pitt?"

They also made at least two bathroom trips during the film and since there were stairs involved this meant they they block my view for five seconds at least four times. Thankfully halfway through they shut up. They may have died, I was too relieved to check.

Friday, June 10, 2011

One Tree Hill: This is my house, this is my home

Well here we are the season 8 finale. I was going to see the new Terence Malick film but this seems like a much better use of my time. Concurrent viewing is Giants- Reds.

-Great we begin with a Jaime voice-over. Maybe its from beyond the grave. That would be awesome.
-Jaime decides he wants to walk to the river court by himself. Nathan in a solid parenting move decides to let him. Maybe this will lead to the beyond the grave voice-over we're hoping for.
-Brooke wakes Julian up to show him that the baby is beginning to show. He says she's just fat and then slaps her.
-So our opening narrative device is to to cut to each of the main couples and have the couple in the new scene use a variation of the closing line from the previous scene. (I'm actually overstating this, I think it only happened twice, which is plenty).
-Jaime and his girlfriend have swapped one shoelace so he's walking around with a girlie lace. My boy chuck mocks him so he puts his regular lace back in and then totally brushes off his girl Madison at school. Oh Snap. Men, they're all the same.
-First commercial break and still no minorities. I'm counting on at least one Q flashback to meet our quota of one per every three episodes.
-We jump ahead 3.5 months during one break, this shown by Brooke drawing her stomach on the wall and writing 3.5 months. For a show that once jumped ahead four years between seasons this is nothing.
-Apparently Julian finished his film and the reviews are in. Of course everybody loves it - the key quote: "A gentle voice that cuts through the white noise of modern film-making." I guess they were reading the review from Mr Skin.com.
-Mouth and Millie now somehow have a morning show called "Mouth and Millie in the morning." Its as bad as you would think. Seriously it makes Good Morning America look watchable.
-Madison gets all passive aggressive with Jaime and takes out her matching shoelace as well. He slaps her.
-The fact that CWtv.com runs three minutes of commercials during each break severely reduce the likelihood of me continuing this for season 9. I mean if I wanted to devote an hour of my life to this show I'd watch it live for gods sake.
-Well Brooke and Haley's big business idea is to reopen the corner cafe. Because nothing like a coffee shop in a failing North Carolina town to replace a major clothing line.
-Bartender guy (I forget his name) is spending a year in the Air force, and receiving a letter each week from his movie star girlfriend. However he happens to see a national enquirer cover with her in a compromising position with another guy. I'm sure he'll handle this well and consider the source before making accusations.
-Brooke is having twins. Yeah!
-After the commercial break they use the stomach chart to show that we've jumped another 2.5 months in the future. I think more shows should incorporate this time-keeping technique.
-Hey everybody's favorite singer songwriter Kate Voegele just happens to be performing at Bartender guy's air base. I'm sure they just brought her back to wrap up the season and not for any other purposes. *Googles Kate Voegele* Wait she has a tour starting two weeks after this episode aired? Oh CW you sly foxes.
-Because shes so great Millie is offered a network morning gig, but she doesn't want to leave Mouth. He slaps her.
-Bartender guy's name is Chase. I thought you should know.
-Clay and Nathan are out recruiting marginal NBA prospects for their agency. They decide to sign some prospect because he's shooting hoops at 3 AM which obviously shows he has intangibles that exceed the fact he's not considered one of the top 75 players in the draft. And he's white. Of course he is.
-We come out of the next commercial break with Brooke covered in placenta and screaming to the heavens as her demon spawn wreaks havoc throughout the hospital. She then takes the scissors meant for the umbilical cord and drives it between the eyes of the bad seed who already killed the sibling. Fin.
-Just kidding stomach clock tells us we're at 7 months.
-Jaime tries to get Madison back by apologizing and giving the girle shoelace back. This works. Must try one day.
-I'm not joking about this next part - they bring Skillz back by having him wear a chicken suit and say 'aw hell no.' And thus ends the shows stab at racial balance.
-Millie decides to turn down the network job and stay with Mouth.
-Brooke is standing in heels, wearing a mini-skirt, on a stool, getting a heavy bag of flour off a top shelf and falls. This causes her to give birth (without noticing apparently) prematurely. Not a good sign for her future parenting skills. I mean seriously what 7 month pregnant woman gets on a stool and starts throwing around bags of cooking supplies?
-Aww Alex came to meet Chase a year later just where she said she would. I guess this means we jumped another five months ahead. He decides to forgive her (which given the way she looks isn't surprising).
-Nathan find's Dan working as a short order cook in some backwoods town. They have a moment and Nathan leaves. And this ends the appearance of the one cast member with any acting ability.
-I still can't get over the fact that the only appearance by the one black regular in the show's run was in a chicken suit for 1o seconds.
-Jaime's closing voice-over is unbearable (probably because he's reading from Lucas's book - which is just as unbearable as I remember).
-We get a closing montage with all the (white) characters speaking from the book which is obviously supposed to wrap up the series. Unfortunately does not end with Jaime getting hit by a train.

And we're done. I love it so much.




Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Midnight in Paris

Look, I really like Woody Allen's work. The guy can just flat out write, and (with the exception of the awful Celebrity) even his lesser works at least have enough of his unique sensibility and intelligent dialogue to make their viewing worthwhile. That said Midnight in Paris definitely falls into this 'lesser' category. Don't get me wrong-I generally enjoyed it. The film follows a hollywood writer (Owen Wilson) who's in Paris with his fiancee while trying to write a novel. He's obsessed with the Paris of the 1920's and, through some unexplained rift in the space time continuum, every night he's able to transport back to that time and mingle with his literary heroes. Allen uses this setting to make a rather blunt commentary on nostalgia clouding peoples judgement, but in general its just a rather whimsical, well written, travelogue of Paris. The film didn't have quite the impact for me that Allen's best works do, for instance Crimes and Misdemeanors. It may be because I"m not somebody who thinks the past was all that great (mostly because I wasn't living then) but am somebody who arranged to have his mistress murdered by Jerry Orbach. Still its still a thousand times better than anything starring Kevin James.