Hey, everyone!
Glad you could stop by. In case you did not know, just this past weekend I
graduated from college, so that (among other reasons) is why I’ve been even
slower than usual when it comes to updating this thing. In fact, I’d like to
apologize in general for the lack of writing that has been a problem dating
back to last year. I used to crank posts out very frequently, but due to
various… things my attention has frequently been elsewhere. But no longer! I am
out of school and unemployed for the moment, and until an actual job comes
a-knockin’ it’s just going to be you and me. I’ve got literally nothing going on. Isn’t that exciting? I
give it a few days before I pull
a Ben Wyatt and start getting interested in stop-motion animation.
I have decided
to start this rousing comeback to blogging with a Review Roundup of several of
the movies I’ve been too busy/lazy to actually write about over the past month or
so. This isn’t a comprehensive list, mostly because I’m not sure I’d have two
words to rub together on something like The
Incredible Burt Wonderstone. As for the movies below, I thought I’d give
them a whirl. As always, you can see a complete list of the 2013 movies I’ve
seen here.
Shall we begin?
----
The Company You Keep
Dir: Robert Redford
Before going any
further, it should be noted that I’m normally a sucker for movies like this. Robert
Redford isn’t the flashiest filmmaker of all time, and rarely is he able to
give his movies any real thematic heft. Ultimately, his movies feel more like
the work of a skilled history teacher. He takes his material and efficiently puts it
on the screen. He does not hurt it, but rarely does he make it transcendent. I
was one of the five people that actually dug The Conspirator, even though I saw it a year or so after its release and with ridiculously low expectations. With The Company You Keep, Redford has created a standard connect-the-dots
journalism thriller about modern-day members of the old Weather Underground, and
anyone who knows me realizes that the phrase “journalism thriller” is normally
enough to get me at least reasonably excited. Movies like All the President’s Men and Zodiac
are my bread and butter.
The Company You Keep cannot sustain itself for its whole
two-hour running time, but it’s worth a look just because of the absurdity of
its cast. Watching this film is like watching a Steve Jobs keynote on character
actors. Just when you think you’ve seen everyone, the film throws out a “one
more thing” in the form of a Brandon Gleeson or Richard Jenkins. As a result
the final product is rather unfocused, but it was usually able to keep me
interested from moment to moment. Not all of these characters turn out to be
important, but there’s an admirable blue-collar attitude to the proceedings
here. The Company You Keep just feels
like a bunch of professionals getting together and doing solid work. There’s
something to be said for that.
This film also
marks Redford’s first acting work since his own Lions for Lambs in 2007. He plays Jim Grant, an Albany lawyer who
is revealed to be a former member of the Weather Underground when his old
partner Sharon (Susan Sarandon) is arrested and things break bad. On his trail
is the scrappy reporter Ben (Shia LaBoeuf), and as the film lumbers along we
slowly get a more complete view of the truth surrounding these people. Most
events in the film are not quite as interesting as Redford thinks they are, but
The Company You Keep is the kind of
solid, adult drama that doesn’t get a wide release very often. It will
inevitably fly under the radar, but it’s worth a look if you're interested in this kind of thing.
Grade: B
GI Joe: Retaliation
Dir: Jon M. Chu
Over the past
couple years, it seems as if there’s been a pamphlet passed around Hollywood
entitled “How to Revitalize Your Tentpole Franchise,” and the first rule on the
first page of said pamphlet is apparently “Get Dwayne Johnson.” And indeed, it
seems as though studios can’t sign him up fast enough. Out of nowhere, this
former wrestling sensation has become a bona fide movie star, and he’s done it using
his special brand of appealing charisma. He’s a tough guy, to be sure, but he’s
tough in a way that’s inexplicably accessible. He breathed new life into the Fast & Furious movies, he was one of
the best parts of Michael Bay’s Pain
& Gain, and he’s also one of the only reasons G.I. Joe: Retaliation is even mildly watchable.
Despite what
some people seem to believe, G.I. Joe:
Retaliation is not a good movie. Sure, the action sequences are ably
directed and there’s an energy to it that was missing from The Rise of Cobra, but it’s still way stupider than it’s willing to
admit. It may have a moderate sense of humor about itself, but it isn’t quite
able to resolve the tension between the testosterone-fueled energy of Johnson
and the absurdity of a glorified cartoon villain like Cobra or a speechless sidekick like Snake Eyes. There’s enough
good stuff to slightly salvage the ship, but the project’s inherent flaws are
undeniable. Not even a cameo from a profoundly disinterested Bruce Willis can liven up the
proceedings. Retaliation may have a
slightly better idea of what it’s doing, but that doesn’t mean I have to like
it.
Grade: C
Iron Man 3
Dir: Shane Black
Avengers-era Marvel films aren’t exactly known for
placing the authorial voice above all, but the company does deserve credit for
making some inspired choices when it comes to who helms their biggest projects.
Often their picks are a tad risky, and more often than not they’ve paid off.
Not that the directors come completely out of the blue; choosing Shane
Black to helm Iron Man 3 is obvious
on one hand but still an uncertainty on the other. There are the undeniable pros:
he and Robert Downey, Jr. are a match made in banter heaven (see: the awesome Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), and he has a
history of writing really big action films. On the flip side, KKBB is the only other movie he’s ever
directed, and he’s never really been in charge of a big-budget, PG-13 property like Iron Man. This film had the potential to
neuter Black, but the funny thing about his kind of talent is that it can
easily translate to even the most family-friendly of projects.
Iron Man 3 isn’t exactly family-friendly, of
course, but he’s able to make it all sing. I’m not sure I’d trust him as far as
I could throw him with a hero like Superman, but since Iron Man requires a
certain amount of acerbic wit handing him the keys to the car turns out to be
quite inspired. He can’t handle a serious or sincere moment at all, really, but
luckily he doesn’t have to all that often. Despite what the ads may have
promised, Iron Man 3 is not going for
a Dark Knight Rises-type vibe. It’s a
smart movie, but it isn’t a dark one at all. This is never clearer than when
the secret of Ben Kinsley’s The Mandarin is revealed. I’d imagine most of you
have seen it by now, but I shan’t reveal it just to be safe. It’s the kind of
thing that’s sure to infuriate die-hard comic book fans, and within the
narrative of the film it’s kind of brilliant. It sets up The Mandarin as a
Bane-esque mastermind of terrorism, and then unceremoniously subverts it.
That really is
where Black excels. There are many moments in Iron Man 3 where he takes an action movie cliché and then ever so
slightly turns it on its head. (He did this quite a bit in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which, again, you really need to see.) There
isn’t much visual flair to speak of here—it looks like a Marvel film, all
right—but Black’s voice best comes through when the characters find themselves
in a room just talking too each other. This film doesn’t quite reach the heights of the original, but it is the kind of summer blockbuster
that does precisely what it sets out to do: entertain the crap out of
audiences. It also has one huge thing that Iron
Man 2 lacked: a reason to exist.
Grade: B+
Mud
Dir: Jeff Nichols
Matthew
McConaughey’s comeback has been something to behold. In 2008, he starred in Fool’s Gold and Surfer, Dude. In 2012, he starred in Bernie, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, and now he’s in Jeff
Nichols’ Mud. Not all his recent
films are perfect, but at worst they are respectable works of actual art. On
top of that, in each case he’s given a great performance. Mud might be his best work of the bunch, even if the movie around
him never quite goes into the next gear. It’s solid and occasionally quite
gripping, but Nichols makes the mistake of playing too many moments right down
the middle. Mud would probably work
best as a Malick-ian piece of poetry that puts its plot second and the
cinematics first, but he takes it right in the other direction.
Still, that
makes it all sound far worse than it actually is. Mud is a solid film through and through, and this is mostly due to
Nichols’ impressive realization of the story’s Arkansas setting. Even when the
events of the film aren’t terribly thrilling, Mud has created an absorbing, wholly convincing world that is a
load of fun to hang out in. The material itself is almost disappointingly
straightforward, even though it is acted out in impressive fashion. Besides
McConaughey, credit should be given to young actors Tye Sheridan and Jacob
Lofland, who both do terrific work here. This is the kind of film that does
almost precisely what it sets out to do, and yet the audience constantly wants
it to be something that its not. Nichols is capable of reaching higher than
this, but just because the ambitions are low doesn’t mean the film is bad. It
just puts a ceiling on how good it can actually be.
Grade: B
Olympus Has Fallen
Dir: Antione Fuqua
Holy cow, this
movie was dumb. I don’t have a whole lot more to say about it, and that’s
mostly because I don’t remember it. I guess the best thing I can say is that
Roland Emmerich’s upcoming White House
Down can only look amazing by comparison. (If not, look out below.) The
stupidity of this film is best exemplified in Dylan McDermott’s character, a
man with some of the most unconvincing motivations this side of Lisa in The Room. Olympus Has Fallen feels like it was made from a script that was
written in the early ’90s, got lost in an executive’s drawer, and then was
pulled out in 2012 by a bored Gerard Butler. He is an actor with genuine
talent, but he keeps on wasting it in bottom-of-the-barrel romantic comedies
and profoundly stupid action movies.
Grade: D+
The Place Beyond the Pines
Dir: Derek Cianfrance
The danger in
not letting the audience know of your agenda up front is that it has the
potential to backfire when you start throwing curveballs their way. Case in point:
the mostly terrific The Place Beyond the
Pines from Blue Valentine auteur
Derek Cianfrance. This film has some truly lofty goals, but there’s no way of knowing
that until the first act comes to its shocking end. From there it morphs into
another film entirely, and then 40-odd minutes after that it changes itself up
yet again. That’s all well and good, and the last two-thirds are able to
provide some great moments, but the first third of the film—which follows Ryan
Gosling’s tortured motorcycle stuntman as he tries to provide for his son—is by
far the best. In fact, it’s magnificent from start to finish. When the
movie goes through its first transformation, there’s a definite sense that some
of the air is being let out of the balloon.
The good news is
that I was mostly willing to follow Cianfrance wherever he took me, even when
there were some strange decisions along the way. One of the most puzzling to me
was the choice to make the son of cop Bradley Cooper more of a Grease character (played by Emory Cohen)
than an actual human being. In fact, the final third of the film as a whole
isn’t really my favorite part. Cianfrance could have written the teen
characters a whole lot better. Even so, when this movie clicks it shows just
how talented of a filmmaker he is, and it provides more material to put into
the Ryan Gosling is Awesome museum that I'm working on getting built. The
Place Beyond the Pines is one of the more ambitious movies to come out this
year, and its batting average is too high to completely dismiss. There are
frustrations, but at its best it packs quite the punch.
Grade: B+
Room 237
Dir: Rodney Ascher
One of the most fascinating things about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is the strangeness of its
own existence. Kubrick was always one to do whatever the heck he wanted, but
his decision to take a Stephen King novel and turn it into an over-the-top
collage of terrifying oddities that at first appears to mean nothing was
especially puzzling. In many ways, it’s a mess, and empirically speaking it
probably is one of his worst movies. That does not make it bad, however. In
fact, The Shining has some of the
most memorable moments and haunting images in Kubrick’s career, and many
devoted Kubrick fans have spent the last 30 or so years searching the film top
to bottom, trying to figure out just what the filmmaker was up to. Enter Room 237, a new documentary/audiovisual
collage that presents several arguments as to The Shining’s hidden meanings.
The thing is: most of these theories are hogwash. There’s no
way Kubrick meant for The Shining to
be about the Apollo 11 moon landing. The
good news is Room 237 is less about The Shining than it is about the whole
notion of the death of the author; the idea that once a movie is released into
the wild, it is up to audiences to interpret it as they choose. At its best, it
is a celebration of this very idea. It is truly awesome that movies have the
power to lead people down some of the rabbit holes put on display here. This
film definitely goes into the “film buffs only” pile along with last year’s Side by Side, and it isn’t necessarily
put together in the most compelling way, but for those who find this kind of
thing fascinating it’s unlikely to disappoint. The Shining is the perfect example of a movie that becomes
something else entirely in the mind of each viewer. Room 237 shows how such a Rorschach test can yield some
fascinating, borderline insane interpretations.
Grade:
B+
No comments:
Post a Comment