Monsters vs. Aliens

I didn’t hate this movie, but I didn’t love it either. Overall, I enjoyed this story of the film, but there was nothing really special about it. It flowed well, was fun, and allowed me to get attached to the characters, so in that sense you could say it was okay. It did however, seem like a pretty long 90 minutes. In addition, there were enough things that bugged me about the movie that outweigh the things I enjoyed. To make things easy, I’m just going to list my likes and dislikes. And to be honest, it took listing my dislikes to realize what I liked.

Dislikes:

The 3-D: Wow…. Watching Coraline, I got to see what the future of 3-D could be. Watching Monster vs. Aliens, I got to see what 3-D shouldn’t be. This movie was an assault on my senses from beginning to end. I felt like I was watching a movie that was playing on the tip of my nose. Instead of feeling part of the film and having fun with the multi-dimensionalness of the movie, I found my eyes tired and stressed. There were several times when I had to close my eyes just to give them a rest.

In addition, a slight move of my head either left or right caused me to lose the entire 3-D experience and see the layering. Also, there were some parts of the film where the 2-D was just bad. You could see the flatness of the film. 3-D in no way enhanced my viewing experience of this film.

I should add, that the little kid next to me was so scared that early on in the movie he took his glasses off and refused to watch.

The rest of my dislikes apply to either the 3-D or the 2-D version.

Let the Right One In

Eli, the vampire next door.

Let the Right One In is not a horror film. It really isn’t. Sure, there’s a vampire. You’ve got me there. And people get killed. And it isn’t pretty. Still. Let the Right One In is less about horror, and more about finding someone who will stick by you. No matter what. It’s about connections between people that transcend everything.

Let the Right One In is a Swedish film based on a 2004 novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist and centers around the budding friendship between Oskar, a bullied twelve year old, and Eli, the vampire who moves in next door. The film is shot on a stark, snowy Swedish landscape, creating a heightened sense of isolation throughout.

I’ve heard a lot of folks say that Let the Right One In is what Twilight should have been. That’s pretty much bulls**t. Twilight is what it is–a teen romance starring sexy, romanticized vampires. It’s a fantasy. And it’s pretty damn good fantasy at that.

Oskar considers the school bully.

Let the Right One In is something else completely. Sure there’s a vampire. That’s about where the similarities end. The relationship that forms between Eli and Oskar is not idealized. It is not romanticized. It is not sexy. I can’t even say for sure that it’s beautiful. But it is real. And it is honest. And for that reason, the film transcends the trappings of the vampire genre. You don’t have to be into vampires or horror to love this movie. And the cinematography and score alone are enough to make any film lover drool. Combined with a fantastic script, and brilliant acting from the two leads, and it all adds up to something quite special.

Let the Right One In is available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Gran Tarino

Vintage car. Vintage Eastwood. Go see it.

Let me start out by saying I loved this film. I really did. Now that I have that out of the way.

This film is not perfect. In fact, it has some fairly irritating flaws, flowing mostly from a script that could’ve used another round of revisions. Clint Eastwood’s Walt Kowalski is a grizzled, old, racist, Korean War vet with about the crappiest family on the planet. They’re over the top stereotypical, overindulged, self-centered  middle class jack asses–completely one-dimensional without any hint that they’re anything more than a plot device. Clunky as hell.

Then there’s this big info dump in which one of the Hmong characters, Sue, explains to Walt, and the audience who the Hmong are. I get that most people probably don’t know, so some info along those lines is necessary, but the script dumps in all in one place–an annoying piece of exposition in the middle of an otherwise well-paced story. A nit pick I suppose, but it ripped me right out of the movie.  The script just can’t keep from getting in the way of itself. It seems to allow for complexity of character in some places, and then falls flat by reverting to one-dimensional caricatures in others. It’s fairly uneven, and helmed by a less skilled director/lead actor, I think this film falls flat on its face.

But on to the good lest you forget I actually liked this movie: Eastwood is brilliant both in front of and behind the camera. Behind the camera, he gets fine performances from his Hmong cast members, many of whom had never been in a film before. They’re not awesome performances, but they’re pretty solid. I really liked Sue, portrayed by Ahney Her. Her performance was a little wooden in parts, but she managed to be endearing, and extremely likeable as she treated Walt  like a person rather than treating him like a category of person. Bee Vang, portraying Sue’s brother Thao, also performs admirably, suitably capturing the awkward teenager who doesn’t fit. He actually manages a steady evolution throughout the film that can be tracked through his body language alone. If you watched the movie without the dialogue, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out what was going on with this kid.

PG-13 Isn’t For Kids

Once upon a time there were no movie ratings. Of course movies were censored back then, but that is an issue for a diffferent time. In 1968, the Motion Picture Association of America, created a ratings system to both restrict access of certain movies (R and X rated) and to give a general idea about the appropriateness of the movie for younger people (G and M). Over the next three decades the ratings have been adjusted and refined to the current system we have (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17). There are many discussions regarding the merit

s and accuracy of the ratings system; but faults notwithstanding, they still provide guidelines for the public. As an aside, when the ratings fail, they often give too low a rating to a movie, not too harsh a rating. (see some posts at The XX Factor )

What stuns me is the number of parents who disregard these ratings and are then surprised when they take their children to movies that are wholly inapproprate for their age. Not only have I seen youngsters at the increasingly dark Harry Potter films (PG and PG-13 all), but also at Batman films (PG-13), and shockingly even at Rob Zombie’s Halloween (R)–although that may be a different parenting issue altogether. Lately, I’ve also become agitated at movie reviewers. I’m speaking of those who disregard the rating and then give harsh reviews based on who they think the audience should be–whether it’s knocking movies for kids because they don’t suit adult tastes or knocking movies they determine are for kids because they are too adult.

 

What sent me over the edge on this?  The bad  rap the film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is getting. Somehow, somewhere parents and reviewers have gotten the impression

Bird Barbie

Look at what Mattel has made to honor the 45th anniversary of The Birds!  Initial thoughts: “wow!”, “cool!”, “awesome!” although maybe she looks a bit happier than she should…

 

And here’s a shoutout to the Rachel Maddow Show for bringing this to my attention!

Asian Cinema!

So I’ve been watching lots of Asian cinema recently. Not sure why it’s been such a heavy concentration lately. But there you go. Here’s a quick run down:

Hard Boiled. Always heard it was an action masterpiece, so I decided I better watch it. The film is directed by John Woo and stars Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. Chow Yun-Fat’s character is a trigger happy cop nick-named Tequila whose parter gets killed during the investigation of Triad gun runners. In the course of the film he hooks up with Tony Leung Chiu-Wai’s character, an undercover cop named Alan, who’s in deep with the gun-running underground. That’s the setup, and I don’t plan to give another single thing away, because if you like action films, you have to watch this movie. John Woo demonstrates how it’s done. But kick-butt action scenes aside, what really works about this movie is Alan. Undercover work hasn’t been kind to him. He’s a guy who’s had to compromise everything he stands for to sell his cover. And it isn’t pretty. Hard Boiled is an action extravaganza with a substantial body count. But it’s also the story of a guy who got in deeper than he would have liked, and the toll it takes on him.

In the Mood for Love. Not an action film. Quite the reverse. Directed by Wong Kar-wai and starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (yes) this film is set in Hong Kong in the 1960′s. The movie follows a romance that blooms awkwardly and a bit painfully after the two main characters discover their spouses are having an affair. Together. They vow never to behave like their cheating spouses, and even as they fall in love with each other, keep their relationship chaste. What I loved most about this movie was how it’s shot. Kar-wai shoots the film so that we end up being voyeurs, peering at them from inside a closet, or through a door. I felt as if I was viewing something personal and private, and it connected me to the characters, while at the same time heightening my discomfort over their awkward situation. The actors contribute an achingly subtle and understated performance, which combined with a stunning soundtrack amount to a beautiful film that explores the often complicated and dissonant relationship between the emotion of love and the social institution of marriage.

Lust, Caution. I meant to see this film when it came out, because I heart Ang Lee. But I was, frankly, stupid, and I decided to wait to get the DVD because I got wind of some less than stellar reviews. Pish Posh. That usually does not stop me, and I don’t know why it did in this instance. At any rate, I watched it recently and was bowled over by how completely entranced I was watching this film. Set in China during the Japanese occupation, the larger plot of the film follows a resistance cell as they plot to assassinate a high-ranking official in the collaborationist government. We follow this story through Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), a young college student who becomes involved with the resistance. She is to lure the target, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, surprise!) to an unguarded location where the resistance can kill him. Easier said then done. In the course of infiltrating Mr. Yee’s home, we watch Chia Chi (now posing as “Mrs. Mak) descend deeper and deeper into a troubling relationship with Mr. Yee. And while Lust, Caution is, on the surface, a film about espionage and resistance, it is also about the transformation? destruction? liberation? of Chia Chi. Which is it? Is it all three? I will be adding this film to my DVD collection. I hardly noticed the long running time (although most negative reviews gripe about it) and highly recommend the film.

Grave of the Fireflies. This film is Japanese, and does not star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. But that’s okay! All I have to say about this film is: Just see this movie. Show it to your kids. It’s heartbreakingly sad, but its intensely personal portrayal of the horrors of war make it a film everyone should watch. Written and directed by Isao Takahata, adapted from the semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies is an animated tale about a young boy and his sister who are left to fend for themselves after their town is firebombed in a WWII air raid. The animation is not as stylized as most anime, favoring more realistic renditions of people and the environment. The animation adds a strange realism to depictions of bombers flying overhead, dropping incendiaries on various towns. Perhaps it’s because seeing that kind of thing for the first time must seem a bit unreal. So the animation capitalizes on that fact, and every time I saw a shot of the bombers flying over head, I felt fear, and even found myself wondering what it would feel like to see bombers flying over Salem. That’s not something a film has ever made me stop and think about. This film is kind of a kick in the chest. On the one hand you watch this young boy (Seita) looking after his little sister (Setsuko) and you get what love is. The film is a tear-jerker for sure, but there are a lot of moments where the film will make you feel genuine happiness and overwhelming joy. On the other hand it takes place during a war. A nasty one. And on a large scale, we all know why war sucks. But it’s the small scale consequences of war that are easy to forget, and sometimes, when faced with them, the hardest to bear. Because on a small scale war isn’t about the ideologies that that nations fight over. It’s about the people who are trying to survive. So add this film to your Netflix queue. You’ll blow through a lot of tissues watching the film, but in the end you’ll probably be glad you did.

And finally, I might as well give a short mention to Samurai Champloo (roughly meaning Samurai Mash-up). It’s a 26 episode anime series written and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, who also directed the anime hit Cowboy Bebop. It follows a young woman who, after saving a reserved ronin (Jin) and a extroverted loose cannon (Mugen) from execution, presses them into helping her find a samurai who smells of sunflowers. I’m about halfway through, and so far it’s pretty hilarious and has had some great fight scenes. Although I usually recommend Cowboy Bebop or Wolf’s Rain to people who want to try a little anime, I think Samurai Champloo would be a good starting point as well. Like Cowboy Bebop, the characters are fun and the soundtrack is always great!

Coming up: 2046, a sequel to In the Mood for Love. I hear it features time travel, which I would normally be into, but find strange since In the Mood for Love did not feature any such sci-fi mainstays. But Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, that stud of Chinese film, reprises his role. He is pretty dreamy. And a damn fine actor. So that’s a big plus. We’ll see how it goes. Until next time!  (Also posted on a film blog I contribute too, Closet One Films. )