Some Other Movies I Saw in 2014 (High Expectations, Maybe Diminished Results)

 As has been pointed out to me a few times over the course of last year, I didn't review a number of movies that I had been open about looking forward to. In some instances, like Nymphomaniac, I never got around to watching them. When I do, we'll see what happens, review-wise. What happened with many of them was that I watched a movie I was really looking forward to, spent some time digesting it, and realized I just wasn't interested in writing about them. There are a few exceptions - and I will include links when we get to them - but by and large there wasn't much to add to the general consensus. That, or I really didn't want to rain on the parade of folks who really loved some of the films I'm about to cover.

 Bear in mind that it's not that I hated them, but rather that I wasn't blown away by any of them. A few were pleasant surprises, or technically impressive, but I've struggled with recommending any of them strongly. However, it didn't seem fair to recap 2014 and not mention a few of the most anticipated movies, particularly when two of them were nominated for Best Picture.

 On that note, let's start with Boyhood, which I'm not going to pretend isn't a very impressive achievement for Richard Linklater. That said, I think we all know the talking points about how long it took to shoot and the uncertainty about what direction (if any) the story was headed during that time. And yes, it's quite a feat to stick with it for that long, creating a mini-fiction version of the 7 Up series. Some of the transitions in time are quite clever, and it retains much of Linklater's signature "talking about stuff" dialogue that, when done right, is a fine variation on naturalism. When it's done wrong, well, then you have Waking Life. But Boyhood isn't about monologue-ing its way through Life, The Universe, and Everything - it's about the micro moments of growing up, avoiding the easy traps of movies about adolescence. And I give him a lot of credit for that. Linklater manages to keep the Philosophy 101 crap out of Ellar Coltrane's mouth until just before he gets to college.

 And that's about where I'm going to run out of nice things to say about Boyhood, because the movie didn't do a whole lot for the Cap'n. Maybe it was the choices of music at the beginning: a litany of "it's 2002!" that starts with Coldplay's "Yellow," continues with The Hives "Hate to Say I Told You So," and sneaks in Britney Spears before closing with Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up the Sun." I got it - it's 2002. Yup, got it. In Linklater's defense, the choices in music to indicate what year we're in becomes more subtle - it's almost easy to miss Gotye playing in the background at the bar in Austin - but to open the film, I found it off-putting. It actually sticks out more than the "campaigning for Obama" scene or the "what's wrong with the war in Iraq" bowling alley monologue from Ethan Hawke.

 When I watch a Richard Linklater movie, to be honest, I'm expecting a bit of aimlessness - there's less of it than you think in Dazed and Confused, but much of what he excels at is just spending time with people. It's exactly why the Before films work so well; even if they are scripted, it feels spontaneous. Boyhood has a lot of that, but at nearly three hours, I got the impression that he really wasn't sure how or when to end Mason (Coltrane)'s story. Maybe he enjoyed watching the young man that Coltrane grew into, but there are four or five points in the last forty five minutes of Boyhood that would have been more thematically appropriate than when the film does end. Is it in keeping with the "small moments?" Maybe, but considering that Boyhood just tapers off instead of making this ride feel like it was worth taking left me disinterested.

 It has been suggested that because I'm not a parent that I can't really "understand" Boyhood - or, at least, that was the implicit part of a conversation I had with a stranger who liked it more than I did because he saw his son growing up through the movie. While I understand his position, the counter-argument is that I shouldn't have to be able to directly relate with the film in order to enjoy it. I've never been an assistant hotel manager, or been to deep space, or been a hitman whose wife died, but I can relate to and enjoy films with those protagonists. I will say that Boyhood lacks a certain experiential quality to growing up that The Tree of Life has, at least for me. That may very well be an apples to oranges comparison, but there are small moments in The Tree of Life that stirred memories of being young in a way that Boyhood never did.

 Maybe that's not the point of Boyhood - maybe it's more of a "meta" project that condenses something like Michael Apted's "Up" series into a more manageable time frame. It is, in many ways, a spiritual successor to the Before films, which follow a relationship over the course of 18 years. That said, I think that Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight work better as films than Boyhood does. For every fine performance: Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke are both great as Mason's biological parents, there's a wonky performance like Marco Perella as the stereotypically abusive, drunk stepfather. For a film that relishes in small moments, that lacks a real narrative arc, having Arquette marry her teacher, then leave him, become a teacher and then marry her student is less about poetic irony and more groan inducing. Sorry, that's just how I felt about it. I did enjoy Lorelei Linklater as Samantha, Mason's sister, who manages to make an impression despite never having much to do.

 The acclaim for Boyhood has, as far as I can tell, been part and parcel with the admittedly very impressive willingness of Richard Linklater to slowly make a movie for more than a decade. You do literally watch Coltrane grow up over the course of the film, and you watch everyone around him change, too. In that regard, yes, I find Boyhood to be admirable, but I don't know that I really liked it.

 While we're on the subject of "admirable," - and I suppose that will be most of this post - I never really warmed to Gone Girl, despite David Fincher's exhaustive attention to detail. I have a very hard time making the case that Gone Girl isn't a very well made film, or that structurally it's not successful, but like Boyhood, I was underwhelmed when it ended. I haven't read Gillian Flynn's novel, and I know she made some changes in the process of adaptation. If I understand correctly, the ending is a little more cynical, but the ending wasn't really my point of contention with Gone Girl.

 (By necessity, the following paragraphs are going to SPOIL the major twist of the book / film, so tread cautiously if you know nothing about the story)

 If I had to pinpoint the problem, it's actually more of the middle, when we know what's really going on, yet the film seems to lag, dragging the parallel arcs of Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) out while he defends himself from a well orchestrated plan to assign guilt for her death and she makes mistake after mistake while in hiding. The beginning, when you don't know what's happening with any certainty, as Nick is still basically a blank slate and we're learning everything from Amy's diary entries / flashbacks, is riveting stuff. Our only real insight into Nick is through Amy, and it bleeds over (no pun intended) to the way we perceive him during the investigation into her disappearance.

 And then Gone Girl makes a hard right turn, revealing that we've been listening to an unreliable narrator who then tells us that everything we thought about Nick and Amy's relationship is designed to tighten the proverbial noose around his neck. But that's not the problem - actually, it's a great twist to introduce mid-movie, because now it's a question of whether the person we thought we couldn't trust and the person we thought we could are capable of meeting two very different agendas. So why, then, is the middle of Gone Girl so lethargic? I'm not certain that it's because Amy's story in hiding is much less interesting after she reveals her real plan, or that I just didn't buy that she could plan all of this and then allow hubris to drive her to desperation. What happens with Desi Collings (Neil Patrick Harris) serves only to show us what Amy is truly capable of when she feels she has no other option, but isn't it clear how far she'll go when we know that Nick really didn't kill her?

 The other problem, and one I still haven't been able to reconcile after watching the film again, is that we don't really know Nick. What we know about him is primarily from how Amy portrays him in her manufactured "diary," which means that even the "meet cute" and wooing parts could be total fictions. We know he was cheating on Amy with Andi (Emily Ratajkowski), and that his sister Margo (Carrie Coon) loves him, but doesn't necessarily trust him. Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) has her doubts, but Officer James Gilpin (Patrick Fugit) is positive he's guilty. Celebrity lawyer Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry) doesn't care - he likes the challenge and the media attention. But Nick? Well, we spend the lion's share of Gone Girl with him and I still don't have a reading on the character.

 Despite the obvious joke to be made, I don't blame that on Ben Affleck the actor. I think that he and Coon have some great scenes together, and that he does his best to give Nick a fighting chance when the deck is stacked against him. But I don't believe that the way the film ends is something he'd acquiesce to so easily, implied threat or no. It reminded me of the end of Proxy, which tells a similar tale of people desperate for attention. I also didn't like Proxy. And even if Gone Girl is a better made film, I'm still on the fence about whether that mean I should forgive its bloated running time in service of a great beginning, clever twist, and bleak ending. I do like that Fincher tells you almost immediately about Amy's relationship with her husband, just by showing you the board games in Margo and Nick's bar. Attention to detail runs rampant, Affleck's growing biceps aside (hello, Batman), but structurally, Gone Girl doesn't seem to sustain itself. So can I admire its construction without necessarily being crazy about it? I guess that's how it's going to be for the time being...

  The Cap'n wrote at length about Christopher Nolan's Interstellar a few months ago, and much of what I said still stands. Here's a piece of the review, as it transitioned from the positives of Nolan's scope to the failings of its emotional core:

 "If I'm being honest, I would have liked more of the exploring the other planets instead of the part of Interstellar that you don't necessarily get from the trailers: the back and forth between Coop (McConaughey) in space and his family on Earth. Instead of focusing on relativity and black holes, we have to keep jumping back home to see that Murph stills hasn't forgiven her father and now she's grown up and is Jessica Chastain. Murph is working with Professor Brand (Michael Caine0 on how to save everybody on Earth because they haven't heard from the ship in 23-ish years (2 years to Saturn plus another 21 thanks to a disastrous turn of events on the first world they land on). It's here that the Nolan brothers introduce the theme of Interstellar that isn't about exploration: that love may be a tangible concept that transcends dimensions and we just don't understand it yet. Oddly enough, the internet's least favorite person (Anne Hathaway) delivers the best monologue about it, but it leads Interstellar down a path I maybe could have done without. The space exploration was so much more interesting, and the Earth plot isn't."

 One of the other things I did between watching Interstellar the first and second times was to sit down with 2001: A Space Odyssey, which only exacerbates how foolish the climax of Nolan's film is compared with Kubrick's. Coop literally explains everything as it's happening in the "other" dimension, which seems even more ridiculous when compared to what happens to Dave (Keir Dullea) when he reaches "Jupiter and Beyond." I'm not saying that Interstellar needed to be as opaque as the end of 2001, or that Nolan was wrong to appeal to a wider audience, but when it's abundantly clear what sort of movie you're trying to emulate, you have to understand that fairly or not, you're going to be held to that standard. Interstellar's moment of cosmic transcendence is almost comical when held up against 2001.

 Still, I probably have a more favorable opinion of Interstellar than Boyhood or Gone Girl. Maybe it's the apologist in me, or maybe it's a subconscious reaction to the "Christopher Nolan is teh suxorz" kneejerk internet reception to his films. I don't find any of his films perfect, but I have enjoyed almost all of them, the lone exception being Insomnia, and only because I saw the original first. Even within Interstellar is the desire to reach for something greater, to bring a mass audience to something they don't see much in theatres anymore, and that's appreciated. It didn't necessarily work this time, and didn't connect with audiences (it clearly didn't connect with his peers, or whoever qualifies as "Academy Voters") but if this is what qualifies as a notable failure for Christopher Nolan, I can live with that. Would it be a bad idea to go back to something smaller, intimate? I don't even mean Memento; The Prestige is comparatively scaled back when put against Inception or The Dark Knight Rises. We'll see what Nolan has in store next time.

 "Next Time" seems to be an oft repeated phrase for Terry Gilliam fans like the Cap'n: every movie since 12 Monkeys has been pretty to very good, but falls somewhere short of the far he set so high with Brazil. And it's not just comparing everything to Brazil, because I think Time Bandits and The Fisher King are also among the most interesting work he's done, post-Python. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas comes the closest to his mad, glory days, but The Brothers Grimm, Tideland, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus all feel like there was a great movie in there somewhere, but it didn't quite make it to the finish line. Some from interference, one from an untimely death, and I'm not really sure what to make of Tideland. I always look forward to a new Gilliam film, and always hope that this time "they" - whoever "they" are - left him alone and we get a pure, undiluted experience.

 Which brings us to The Zero Theorem, the first of two movies on this list that I suspect you didn't even know came out in 2014. Like many Gilliam films, I heard about it the year before, waited patiently, and eventually it did have a (limited) release / VOD, and then mostly disappeared. That's not a value judgment on The Zero Theorem (we'll get to that), but what seems, increasingly, to be the case with how his work is going to disseminate from here on out (up next: another stab at The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which may or may not have benefitted from the decade of being abandoned). If you've seen any of the reviews for The Zero Theorem, you've probably noticed that it's been compared to Brazil, and not always favorably.

 The comparisons are not unfair: The Zero Theorem deals with a man very much in his own world, Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz), who refers to himself as "we," or "us" works for Mancom in service of his own agenda. Qohen believes he's waiting for his "call" - in this case, a literal phone call to the apartment he's made out of an abandoned church. In the meantime, he tolerates Joby (David Thewlis), who can't quite seem to remember his name and is an exemplary representative of all "middle management." Speaking of which, Management (Matt Damon) has his eye on Qohen for a high level programming project, one which resembles a video game but is designed to solve mathematical problems. Management wants Qohen to help him solve the titular theorem, with or without the assistance of Joby, Management's son, Bob (Lucas Hedges), and Bainsley (Mélanie Thierry), a woman he meets at a party that might have other hobbies. To keep Qohen on track, Mancom allows him to work from home, as long as he consults Dr. Shrink-Rom (Twilda Swinton), a program designed to monitor his mental state as he pursues the impossible task at hand.

 For the record, I've really just given you the set up of The Zero Theorem, a film stuffed to the gills with visual metaphors, which is always just one step away from collapsing entirely under its own weight. Once you get used to the barrage of information - Gilliam takes the concept of micro-news and runs wild with it - the film can be pleasantly entertaining, but it never feels cohesive. I never got a sense of what point Gilliam was really trying to make, but rather he was quite interested in dissecting the way that media and religion and business operate now. Some of the smaller gags, like "The Church of Batman the Redeemer," are quite funny, even if they add nothing substantive to the story. Of course, it's possible that the story itself isn't especially interesting, as we have little doubt of what Qohen will do by the end of the film. Also, once we're introduced to the virtual reality "fantasy" zone that Bainsley brings Qohen into, it's not hard to figure out where everything is going for the idiosyncratic, mostly misanthropic protagonist. Everyone seems game in the cast, and Gilliam's production design is, as always, a feast of details in every direction. But by the end, there's a sort of sensory overload coupled with, "oh, that's the point?" that just doesn't quite work. The Zero Theorem is an almost, but ultimately misses its mark, whatever it was aiming for.

 There is little doubt that The Zero Theorem is a Terry Gilliam film; his stamp as an auteur is unmistakable at this point. Such is true with Wes Anderson, whose distinct style draws praise and groans alike from audience, and who in 2014 doubled down on his cinematic "signature". When I reviewed The Grand Budapest Hotel earlier this year, I closed the write up by saying:

"I will openly admit to a giddy sensation during the beginning of The Grand Budapest Hotel, as I often have when seeing a Wes Anderson film for the first time. As the film went on, I alternated between admiration for the technical aspects of the Auteur and realizing that I was more impressed with the story than I actually enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong, this is not a film that's a chore to watch, nor does it ever drag, but The Grand Budapest Hotel didn't grab me in the same way that some of Anderson's films do. I would be hard pressed to call this a "lesser" film in his catalog, but I can see why it might end up being another dividing line, as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was. I concede that, for the moment, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a (very entertaining) exercise in form over function. Is it possible that changes the next time I see it (and I will)? Quite possibly. The Cap'n is predisposed to follow Wes Anderson down the rabbit hole - less so his imitators - but it's hard to argue that this is not his most "Wes Anderson"-y film to date, for better or for worse."

 Technically speaking, framing your film for three different aspect ratios is an impressive achievement, but it still surprises me to see The Grand Budapest Hotel alongside the likes of Birdman or Boyhood in the Academy Award nominations. To reiterate: it's not a bad film, and I enjoyed watching it most of the time, but I would hardly put it at the top of any list of Anderson's films. The Grand Budapest Hotel is an exquisite trifle, which might be an oxymoron, but I have a hard time making the case that it is in any way exemplary of the best films of last year. While I do know quite a few people who love it, I also know several people who saw it, said "Oh, so this is just what he does now," and moved on. I don't suspect they - or I - will stop watching Wes Anderson films, or even looking forward to them, but my enthusiasm is slightly muted in a way it wasn't before I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel.

 In the realms of enthusiasm, you will perhaps find the Cap'n no more anticipatory of one with the words "a David Cronenberg film." Despite the fact that he's been mostly in "adaptation" mode since eXistenZ, I haven't seen one from A History of Violence to Cosmopolis that wasn't worth sitting with, digesting, and having conversations about. Even when I didn't love one - as was the case with A Dangerous Method - it sparked conversation and made me want to write about the film. I'm in the minority who really enjoyed Cosmopolis, and have had a number of great discussions about its relative merits with people who truly hated it. So it must be telling that I spent most of 2014 sitting silently on Maps to the Stars. As far as I can tell, the screenplay by novelist Bruce Wagner isn't based on anything, but it has a certain "lived in" approach because of its subject matter.

 Many fans of Cronenberg have lamented his shift away from "body horror" in the last decade, although I'm not sure it's entirely accurate. Yes, we're long past the days of the New Flesh, but I think Cronenberg has moved from exaggerated, external forms of "body horror" and internalized it. One doesn't make a film about Freud and Jung without at least spending some time on the way the mind affects the body. That said, people miss the "gonzo" days of Cronenberg films, and Maps to the Stars isn't going to change that much. That said, there is a fair degree of body scarring, immolation, drowning imagery, and implied incest in his ode to Tinseltown. There's also something I can't recall ever having seen before in a Cronenberg film: ghosts. Maps to the Stars is weird, and that's what I've been telling friends since I watched it. Sometimes because there's not much else to it. It was described to me as "David Cronenberg's Arrested Development," which is probably not inaccurate, but don't go in expecting comedy.

 Cosmopolis alumni Robert Pattinson and Sarah Gadon appear in Maps to the Stars, albeit in smaller roles, one as a driver for Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) and the other as the apparition of actress Clarice Taggart, who haunts her daughter Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore). Havana is lobbying for the role of Clarice Taggart in a biopic, even though in Hollywood she's seen mostly as washed up. Covered head to toe, Agatha's presence in Hollywood is less clear - she arrives from Florida and explains to Jerome Fontana (Pattinson) that she struck up a friendship with a celebrity over Twitter (it's the only "playing themselves" cameo, and I wouldn't dare spoil it) and is here to work. Jerome has a screenplay - who doesn't? - and also works small parts on TV shows. Agatha likes him, but he's a bit superficial. Meanwhile, and seemingly unrelated, we have the Weiss family: New Age Guru to the stars Dr. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), manager mother Christina Weiss (Olivia Williams), and child star Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird). Stafford hawks his inspirational books on TV and is also a Yoga instructor / Masseuse to Havana, while Christina tries to negotiate her son's latest sequel while assuring producers his drinking problem is long over with.

 How the three storylines converge becomes apparent fairly early on, especially once the aforementioned celebrity cameo hands off Agatha to Havana as a personal assistant and Stafford and Christina find out about her. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of moments of drug use and self doubt and threesomes with directors, interrupted by ghosts. Havana has her mother instilling doubt into her every move, and Benjie is inexplicably haunted by Cammy (Kiara Glasco), a girl he visited in the hospital for publicity. There are reasons for their hauntings, mostly tied to Cronenberg's dueling fire / water visual metaphors, although it's less important to how the film is than the very real threat that Agatha poses to the Weiss family. It takes most of Maps to the Stars to get around to why she's really in town, and her connection to Benjie and the vacant lot she frequents when not at work.

 By the end, plenty of cyclical imagery and thematic elements have come and gone, with a few accidental murders, and while I suppose it was worth watching, I'm not sure about much else. One must tread cautiously when using the word "weird," let alone "weird for David Cronenberg," but Maps to the Stars is definitely not like his usual output. I find myself on the fence about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, because while not as aggressively stylized as Cosmopolis, Maps to the Stars does share its "go ahead, try to empathize with any of these people" ethos. Is the self-immolation of a major character supposed to be tragic or funny? The dodgy CGI doesn't help if it's meant to be the former. There's some semblance of comedy in Maps to the Stars, although it's rarely funny. Actually, tonally the film is all over the place, and not to its benefit. Perhaps I've avoided discussing Maps to the Stars because I'm not sure what to say about it. As a result, it's hard to recommend it to anyone other than die-hard Cronenberg fans, and what they make of it is anybody's guess.

 Coming up next, the Cap'n will reflect back on what turned out to be a very impressive year for science fiction, and then we'll move into the final stretch before the Best of 2014. Stay tuned...

Blogorium Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

 Almost ten years ago, the Cap'n and Professor Murder (now Dr. Murder) went to see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the first Wes Anderson film in two years, and the director's fourth film to date. While you could argue that with Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, it was pretty clear what kind of design and filmmaking aesthetic Anderson gravitated towards, the concept of "Wes Anderson"-y movies had not yet really settled into the consciousness of his fans. Bottle Rocket wasn't quite clear - the result of a filmmaker with a distinct voice working on a relatively low budget - but Rushmore and Tenenbaums gave some indication of Anderson's meticulous approach to set design, camera movement, blocking, and hinted that he was putting together an acting "company" of sorts.

 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was, from my perspective, the moment that Wes Anderson as an auteur crystallized, for better or for worse. Professor Murder didn't especially like the film, and after he begrudgingly agreed to see it a second time with another mutual friend, I could tell that realizing what a "Wes Anderson Film" was going to be from here on out wasn't thrilling to him. It's not even actually the most divisive film among Anderson fans - that seems to be split evenly between The Darjeeling Limited and Fantastic Mr. Fox - but it was the indicator that one shouldn't expect much of an "objective" reality in his universe from here on out. That, you could argue, was not the case for his first three films. From here on out, we would increasingly be taken to worlds uniquely of Anderson's creation, and you either were on board or you weren't.

 Skip forward (nearly) ten years, and Anderson is two years removed from Moonrise Kingdom and returning with The Grand Budapest Hotel, which may be the most "Wes Anderson"-y of his films yet. Already it's become something of a bellwether for casual to regular Anderson fans. While I am convinced that Anderson took advantage of some actual locations, the level of artifice on display is truly impressive, and Anderson's degree of control over every element now extends to the aspect ratio(s) of the film: one for each time period covered (1932, 1968, and 1985*).

 Inspired by the work of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, The Grand Budapest Hotel opens at the grave of an Author, tombstone covered in keys. A young woman sits down with her copy of The Grand Budapest Hotel, and our journey begins. The framing shifts (slightly) as we meet the Author (Tom Wilkinson) in 1985, dictating (or reading) the introduction to the book, and then flashes back to 1968, when a younger Author (Jude Law) is staying at the titular hotel, now largely abandoned and soon to close. By chance, he happens to be in the lobby chatting with concierge M. Jean (Jason Schwartzmann) and sees the reclusive owner of the Grand Budapest, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). While chatting, Moustafa agrees to tell the Author the story of how he came into possession of the hotel. In the short span of ten minutes, we've already moved from 1.85:1 to 2.35:1, but the bulk of the film (spent in Zero's flashbacks) will be in the "Academy" ratio of 1.33:1.

 The Grand Budapest Hotel breathlessly moves from one event to another, all centered around young Zero (newcomer Tony Revolori)'s burgeoning career as the Grand Budapest's Lobby Boy, under the tutelage of M. Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes). M. Gustave is the impeccably mannered, well dressed, and overly perfumed renaissance man about the Grand Budapest, able to deliver on any promise made to his clientele, and perhaps a few more for older women. One, in particular, Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) - and get used to it, Anderson operates mostly on first names with last initials, or none at all - who has a premonition of her death. M. Gustave thinks nothing of it until she actually does die, and at the outset of a possible world war, he and Zero travel to her home and encounter her unsavory children, who accuse him of murder. A murder mystery is underway, and one that Gustave must prove himself innocent of if he hopes to ever see his inheritance, the painting "Boy with Apple" - a late addendum to Madame D.'s Will.

 To say much more would ruin the fun of what is, in essence, a Wes Anderson version of a screwball comedy. There are arguably more characters in The Grand Budapest Hotel than Moonrise Kingdom, introduced at a rapid pace, and some dispatched just as quickly by Jopling (Willem Dafoe) the henchman of Dmitri (Adrien Brody), Madame D.'s greedy son. Dafoe is playing the human version of his character in Fantastic Mr. Fox, but one prone to more bursts of extreme violence. This may, in fact, be the most violent of Anderson's films, not merely limited to what we do and don't see but to the suddenness of it. If dog lovers were shocked at Moonrise Kingdom, cat lovers may well be surprised by a (pun fully intended) throwaway joke involving Jopling and a Persian in the office of Deputy Kovacs (Jeff Goldblum), the assigned Executor of Madame D.'s estate. It leads to something arguably more shocking involving a door, and a bit of misdirection about the fate of Zero's girlfriend, Agatha (Saoirse Ronan).

 It might be fair to say that the violence, like everything else, is exaggerated in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson's use of miniatures, a fixture in one degree or the other since The Life Aquatic, is more apparent this time, in particular during transitional scenes. In some instances, like the rail car to and from hotel, it isn't quite as noticeable, but for an extended period in the film (from the observatory to the end of the ski chase sequence), it's almost distractingly obvious. By the same token, this is the world Anderson is creating, one slight more heightened and appropriate for a screwball comedy. That said, it's inherent artificiality might be off-putting to fans of Anderson who prefer some degree of reality to balance the picture. This may be at the heart of why The Darjeeling Limited is so divisive: Anderson brings his fastidious shot construction to real locations and finds the delicate balance, one not readily available to him in the manufactured interiors of The Royal Tenenbaums. Moonrise Kingdom and Rushmore, for me at least, find the best balance, but it really does depend on what you gravitate towards Wes Anderson films for.

 The shot composition is, as always, impeccable, and Anderson's ability to adjust the shifting aspect ratios without compromising his attention to detail is admirable. The Grand Budapest Hotel is a marvelous film to look at, even as the gimmickry draws attention to itself. For the most part, the film is set in 1932, so it's not terribly distracting, but it's hard to argue that the ratios are there for anything other than their own sake. The 1985 and 2014(?) sections are so brief that they barely merit their own, separate ratios. None of this would really be noticeable if it were in service to the story, or that the story were enough to speak for itself, but Anderson and Hugo Guinness (the voice of Bunce in Fantastic Mr. Fox and Eli Cash's surrogate painter) constructed a story of interesting characters, if not a particularly compelling narrative.

 Not to do a disservice to the excellent cast (and I'll get to them in a moment), but the "mystery" of The Grand Budapest Hotel is never really a mystery, as we know almost immediately what happened to Madame D., who did it, and why. The only thing we don't know is why exactly old Zero is so reticent to talk about Agatha, and the resolution to that is almost a throwaway line of narration near the end. It is a fine film to watch, and great fun to see in the execution of its structure, but The Grand Budapest Hotel lacks a certain something, an intangible quality to the story that resonates. I'll certainly watch the film again, and the characters are more accessible than those in Darjeeling (or even The Life Aquatic), but Moonrise Kingdom and, in particular, Rushmore had a more lasting impact after the first viewing.

 Having been slightly deflated by the window dressing surrounding a mostly empty room, I cannot in good conscience tell you that is in any way due to the cast. To a person, The Grand Budapest Hotel's dramatis personae brings everything they have to even the smallest roles. This includes Bill Murray, who is barely in the film but makes an impression beyond his handlebar moustache as one of the members of the "Crossed Key Society," who to say anything more about would do a disservice to the second half of the film. The Society includes a few other Anderson alumni, as well as a newcomer to the Anderson Players, but a familiar face and welcome addition. If you're looking for Anderson regulars, you'll find almost all of them (no sign of Luke Wilson, but Owen pops up), including new additions from Moonrise Kingdom: Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, and the aforementioned Tilda Swinton all play important roles in the story.

 Swinton, as I understand it, came in to replace Angela Lansbury when scheduling conflicts prevented the latter from playing Madame D., and she isn't in the film much but makes quite an impression with some very good old age makeup (seriously, if there's such a thing as the opposite of Guy Pearce's Prometheus makeup, this is it). I was a bit surprised to hear that the initial casting of Johnny Depp was for M. Gustave, as I honestly can't imagine him in the role. He's more suited for Dmitri, and not just because Adrien Brody's physical appearance in the film resembles Depp's, but M. Gustave H. is such a tightly wound character that it wouldn't make sense. That brings us to the final - and perfect - choice for M. Gustave (as odd as it might seem): Ralph Fiennes.

 Conceptually, I suppose it sounds odd that Ralph Fiennes is in a Wes Anderson film, particularly one as silly as The Grand Budapest Hotel is, but in execution he's a marvel. Fiennes brings a level of distinction that is sharply at odds with M. Gustave's profane outbursts later in the film. His performance is hilarious not merely because you wouldn't expect it from him, but that he commits to the character so deeply that you never doubt he IS M. Gustave. Paired for most of the picture with Tony Revolori - himself an excellent discovery - Fiennes inhabits the screwball spirit of Grand Budapest and is easily the high point of the film. Even if you're lukewarm on Wes Anderson, I would easily recommend The Grand Budapest Hotel just for Fiennes and Revolori.

 I will openly admit to a giddy sensation during the beginning of The Grand Budapest Hotel, as I often have when seeing a Wes Anderson film for the first time. As the film went on, I alternated between admiration for the technical aspects of the Auteur and realizing that I was more impressed with the story than I actually enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong, this is not a film that's a chore to watch, nor does it ever drag, but The Grand Budapest Hotel didn't grab me in the same way that some of Anderson's films do. I would be hard pressed to call this a "lesser" film in his catalog, but I can see why it might end up being another dividing line, as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was. I concede that, for the moment, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a (very entertaining) exercise in form over function. Is it possible that changes the next time I see it (and I will)? Quite possibly. The Cap'n is predisposed to follow Wes Anderson down the rabbit hole - less so his imitators - but it's hard to argue that this is not his most "Wes Anderson"-y film to date, for better or for worse.



 * The film opens and closes with a book-end section about a girl visiting the Author's grave, which one might safely assume takes place in the present, but it seems to have the same aspect ratio as the 1985 scenes.

Cap'n Howdy Presents: The 14 Best Films I saw in 2012 (Part Two)

 I believe when we left off, the Cap'n was lamenting that of the first seven "Best Of 2012" movies that I only had existing reviews for two of them (The Avengers and Cosmopolis) whereas the second half of the list includes only one movie I haven't already reviewed. How silly of me not to, you know, split up the writing duties between the two pieces, but as it turns out I have plenty to add about the films that made this list.

 If the theme of Part One was "surprises" - and, looking back it it, it clearly was movies I didn't expect to be blown away by - Part Two is comprised of films that I had a strong inclination I would enjoy, but that surpassed even that. It's also become clear that more than a few of these films are ones that people I know (and whose opinions I often respect) REALLY hate. One in particular looks to be a repeat of one of my top picks from last year, and we'll address that accordingly. To save some time, I'm going to let the links to the original reviews do most of the heavy lifting this time and focus my energy on additional reflections now that I've had some time to digest these films and to study reactions from around cinephilia.

 The difficult bit is figuring out where to start, so maybe I should get the most controversial choice out of the way first:


 Looper - To be honest with you, I was expecting The Master or Cosmopolis to be the movie I had the most disagreements about this year. Even Zero Dark Thirty and Django Unchained seem to have a healthy debate surrounding them, but I'm continually surprised by the immediate and negative reaction I get for suggesting Looper was one of my favorite movies of 2012. It's akin to my inclusion of Drive in last year's list, when I discovered that many good friends really and truly hate that film, often for the very reasons I enjoyed it.

 I get the impression that people don't like Looper because the time travel logic is nonsensical, or that the resolution of the story leaves audiences feeling like they wasted their time, or that (in the words of an acquaintance of mine) the film felt like someone was shooting "a first draft."

 Needless to say, I don't agree, but this is a much more hotly contested movie than I had any idea after seeing it. Whether you left the film feeling ripped off or wanting to see it again immediately, I guess it's better to feel strongly about it than to feel nothing, but for my money Looper was worth revisiting. I think that Rian Johnson sets up a world with its own rules about time travel, sticks to them and tinkers with themes set up in the film in clever ways. He also leaves a few elements ambiguous (I find it amusing that in his downloadable commentary, Johnson is fascinated by the "Kid Blue is Abe" theory but doesn't say one way or the other). I've given Prometheus grief for intentional ambiguity, but since Looper is a self-contained story that is pretty clearly about closing Joe's "loop," the story elements not specifically addressed don't fall under the "kick the can down the road" sequel-izing that Prometheus and Tron Legacy are guilty of.

 You'll notice that in my original review I posited a theory that can't possibly be right. One commenter suggested another theory, so I checked to see if that held any water.

This is the comment:

 I saw this posted on another blog about Looper and watched the movie again and realized yup this person has got it right: ( I was a bit uncomfortable with the thought of Joe sleeping with his mother but turns out he didn't at all)

"I'm going to throw everyone for a "loop" no pun intended. If anyone paid attention, Young Joe slept with a hooker whom had a daughter named: SARAH. "Sarah" was the girl looking after Cid. Considering the hooker knew what Young Joe did, and that Old Joe went after the hookers daughter(Note long hair of the kid the hooker carrys to the room, it's blonde.) as one of the three targets this leads you to one conclusion. The hookers daughter is the Sarah watching the young Rainmaker. She herself looped back to change him from a young age, remember Cid stated that, "Sarah's a liar, she's not my mother. My mother was killed." and Sarah stated she was trying to raise him properly. Boom, now you know how Sarah know's what Looper's are.

I caught it the first round. If I hadn't heard the hooker state her daughter's name was Sarah, I would of never of caught it." 

 Unfortunately, none of this is true. I literally just finished watching every scene that Piper Perabo's Susie is in the film, and she never once says her daughter's name. The child is also not blonde, but brunette (which helps the argument because Emily Blunt / Sarah's hair has brown roots). Rian Johnson is actually pretty tricky in avoiding Susie's daughter's name, even in the deleted scenes, but when you look at the age matches Old Joe finds, two of them are visible:

 The cagey bit is leaving the bottom one off (and the edit happens right before the bottom picture gets close), but since Cid is one of the possible choices and the other possibility was the boy that Old Joe kills, I think we're meant to believe that Megan Richardson is Susie's daughter (even though the address doesn't match). So that doesn't help my theory or the reposted comment theory, but I guess if you hate Looper for "not making any sense," then this is only going to bolster your case.

 Fair enough. I'm not going to try to argue with you about whether every plot point makes perfect sense or not, or in failing to do so that it means the film is terrible (and I've heard that a lot). I still think that Johnson sets up the universe well, raises the stakes in a compelling way, and tells an interesting story that leaves you asking questions. Are the answers to those questions in Looper? Well, I've seen it several times now, with and without the commentary/ies, and I find there's something new to discover every successive time. For me, that's successful, but I get that for others, the film collapses under its own logic. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.


 Moonrise Kindgom - While I will continue to debate with myself what my favorite Wes Anderson film is, I'm settling down comfortably with saying that Moonrise Kingdom is his best made so far. For a film that's set in the period that Anderson fetishizes unabashedly in all of his other movie (the mid-1960s), Moonrise Kingdom manages not do feel bogged down by its period trappings. I don't mean to diminish Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums or The Life Aquatic, et al, but Moonrise Kingdom's cast of characters feels less like a motley collection of "let's see what these types would be like together" and more like an ensemble that fit together in the story. In particular, I like the way the adults are continually flummoxed about how they're supposed to handle Sam and Suzy's determination to stay together, in particular Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) and Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton). I don't think I mentioned it in the old review, but the scenes with them talking to Sam's foster parents and Social Services (Tilda Swinton) over the phone made me laugh as hard as anything in the film.


 Argo - Ben Affleck made a Zero Dark Thirty that doesn't seem to bother the people bothered by Zero Dark Thirty. Does that make sense? I don't wish to diminish his truly engrossing, exceedingly well made retelling of a declassified true story by implying that because it doesn't address torture that the film is somehow "less than" another movie that retells something more recent. Not at all. Argo is Ben Affleck firing on all cylinders, and while I enjoyed Gone Baby Gone and really enjoyed The Town, that didn't prepare me for how accomplished his third directorial feature is.

 The parallels to Zero Dark Thirty are inevitable - both deal with CIA Operatives who, in real life, tenaciously pursued their goal and succeeded when nobody believed they could. One was made with the cooperation of the individuals involved and the other wasn't (if you don't already know which is which, go check - you might be surprised). Both manage to keep the audience engaged in the narrative, to give them a laugh or two, but to then turn that switch and be genuinely suspenseful even when we know what happened. Zero Dark Thirty is harder to watch, but don't take that to mean I'm suggesting that Argo's palatability (probably not an actual word) means it should regarded with kid gloves. I've seen it twice, and it holds up both times. Hopefully we can get over this "Ben Affleck who stars in crappy movies" stigma and begin to enjoy his second life as a director of high quality films. We know what he can do, and I look forward to seeing him top himself after setting the bar this high.

  The Master - If Cosmopolis is a hard movie to like, then The Master is its mercurial cousin. Paul Thomas Anderson continues to push his films further away from the concept of conventional narrative and towards specific types of character studies, of dichotomies. Since Punch-Drunk Love, he's edged away from the "three act" structure of conventional cinema and instead hones in on two specific archetypes, pits them against each other, and plays out the result in front of us. The films don't so much end as they drift off, and even more so than There Will Be Blood, The Master is less about the lives of Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) and Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) as it is the specific intersection of their paths for a period of time lasting no longer than two or three years. We learn as much about Freddie as we're ever going to before he meets Lancaster, and what little we know about "the Master" comes from the way that other people react to him.

 I can understand the frustration from audiences (and working at a theatre where The Master was playing, I saw it first hand), but I don't believe the point of the film was to tell a story about these two men - any more than the film is a meditation or expose on Scientology - so much as it was to throw the embodiments of two essentially divergent philosophies together and allow them to coexist for as long as humanly possible. Or perhaps you'd like to think of The Master as the Id and the Ego clashing, as the Super Ego strains to separate them, all the while acknowledging a futility in fighting their codependent addiction. In the end, they both get what they want, and unlike most Hollywood films that turns out not to be each other. Eventually I hope to be able to talk to more people who have seen The Master, as so far it's been a limited sample size.

 Skyfall - It took MGM going bankrupt to settle the Daniel Craig as James Bond run of 007 films. Like another movie on this list, the down time helped, rather than hindered, the end result, because for all of the promise of Casino Royale and all that Quantum of Solace failed to build on, Skyfall at last figured out how to bring Bond full circle. Yes, it borrows a bit liberally from The Dark Knight in its villain's story structure (I'm sorry, but it's hard to watch the interrogation scene and not see Javier Bardem giving his best take on the Joker), but where it stumbles in some places it excels in others. Yes, Silva sometimes resembles a certain Clown Prince of Crime in his philosophy and execution, but his reasoning for it is more sound in the Bond universe, and his maternal fixation to M (Judi Dench) elevates some of the "copycat" mechanics of the plot.

 But besides all of that, Skyfall is a cracking good James Bond film that feels like it's a James Bond film. Gone are many of the Bourne-inspired aspects of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, and in its place are clear action sequences, clever quips, and nods to the earliest of 007 films that serve a purpose beyond just referencing the series. Skyfall ends in a comfortable nook that should have James Bond fans very excited for what's to come, because it's the promise of what we've been looking forward to married to the series that brought us here in the first place. The revelation of who a certain character is caught me completely off-guard because of how well Sam Mendes, John Logan, Robert Wade and Neal Purvis built their arc (I'm being cagey just in case you haven't seen it and want to) in the story. Needless to say that we end Skyfall in a very familiar location with a fitfully intriguing dynamic moving forward.

 It's fair to mention that there isn't a "Bond Girl" in Skyfall, not in the conventional sense or really in any way that you'd define the character type. There are characters that would seem to fit into those roles, but without spoiling too much, neither of them actually where you think they'll be. Instead, Skyfall focuses more on Bond's relationship with M, with Silva's relationship to M, and briefly where Bond himself came from (all the while debunking the long-standing theory that "James Bond" is a code name assigned to 007 agents). On the other hand, I can't gripe too much with a movie that brings back Q and the Ashton Martin and has refreshingly clever things to do with both of them.


  Django Unchained - I don't know that I have a lot more to add to my review of Django Unchained. It is, bar none, the most fun I've had watching a Quentin Tarantino film, and that includes the giddy experience of watching Pulp Fiction when I was far too young and that first audience reaction to Kill Bill Part One. It still makes me chuckle that Tarantino brazenly gets away with using a Jim Croce song and it's totally appropriate for the montage he includes it in. That, even more than the Rick Ross or the James Brown / Tupac Shakur mashup, made me laugh out loud in the theatre. If you want to read something silly, Google Armond White's critique of Tarantino (and more specifically, of Samuel L. Jackson), "Still Not a Brother." It's hilarious in the way that almost everything Armond White writes is, and if you haven't heard of the intentionally contrarian reviewer before, it's as good a place as any to learn what he's all about.

  The Cabin in the Woods - I was watching Serenity the other night, and when I finished it made sense to watch some of the extras again. In particular, I wanted to watch them for the conception of Joss Whedon in 2005, when he was still mostly known as the guy who made Buffy and Angel and Firefly. He had a small legion of devoted fans (of which the Cap'n counts himself, to a degree) that helped turn the cancelled Firefly into Serenity, which didn't set the world on fire (at first, anyway - today it has a solid fan base I run across frequently). Whedon made Dr. Horrible and Dollhouse, and then 2012 happened.

 Now he's the proven box-office commodity / smash hit director slash writer of The Avengers, a movie that really shouldn't have worked and even then shouldn't have worked as well as it does. The world is his oyster, but it's funny to think that because MGM went bankrupt, the Whedon-scripted / Drew Goddard-directed meta-horror film The Cabin in the Woods went from coming out to relative anonymity in 2009 (when it was made) to being a preamble of sorts to the blockbuster to come. And honestly, if I really had to choose between the two, I'd give the edge to The Cabin in the Woods.

 I've mentioned it before, and because horror films are something of a specialty for the Cap'n, I come back to it a lot, but The Cabin in the Woods doesn't necessarily deconstruct or redefine horror films in the way that I think some people believe it does. That fact, counter-intuitively perhaps, actually helps the film more than it hurts it. Scream was a deconstruction of slasher films while also being a slasher film. The Cabin in the Woods slaps the structure of "Scooby Doo" on top of the concept of horror archetypes - trust me, you'll have a hard time finding a horror film that corresponds closely to the "rules" of Cabin, especially The Evil Dead - and then uses that pretext to explore what audiences expect in scary movies.

  The Cabin in the Woods is clever as a meta text not because of how it deconstructs the genre, but in exploring why the genre persists when people firmly believe that it's the bottom of the barrel in "entertainment." Whedon and Goddard throw in a few specific references (a Pinhead stand-in complete with puzzle box) but by and large focus on the broader purpose of horror, and of audiences who don't get what they want. Look at it this way, complaining about the way the movie ends is really making their point.

  Had The Cabin in the Woods been released in 2009 or 2010, I'm not sure how people would have responded to it. That was still in the height or remakes and Saw-mania, and I think that unlike some movies that sit on a shelf for a few years, Cabin benefited from being able to wait until a lull in horror trends. The impact was that much stronger last April, because not knowing what I was in for made all the difference that first time.

 And yes, to be fair, it was following Lockout, the worst movie I saw in 2012, but I've seen The Cabin in the Woods three times since that fateful weekend, and I tell you with confidence that it still delivers the goods and rewards multiple viewings. So, sorry Avengers, but in the battle of Whedon projects, you come in second this year... 



 * I'll include the link down here, although I generally disagree with everything in this review and don't necessarily see the connections he tries to make with other films listed.

Blogorium Review: Moonrise Kingdom

 There's a moment in the first half of Moonrise Kingdom that elicited an audible gasp from most of the audience. It's the kind of scene that should, for all intents and purposes, ruin the movie for a lot of viewers, and it's impressive that Wes Anderson is able to pull everyone back in with a wry response. When Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) answers Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) question with a typically Andersonian response, "who's to say?" the tension broke and Moonrise Kingdom continued along its course. A lesser filmmaker wouldn't be able to save the moment, and yes, I'm deliberately staying vague because it isn't an essential plot point but it does break an unspoken cardinal rule of filmmaking.

 A quote famously attributed to W.C. Fields* goes thusly "never work with dogs, or children" when making movies. Wes Anderson breaks both of those rules to great success, although the adults in Moonrise Kingdom are no slouches either. At its core, the film is about Sam and Suzy conspiring to run away from unhappy situations: Sam is an orphan with a history of acting out and Suzy is a "troubled" child in the eyes of her parents, Laura (Frances McDormand) and Walt (Billy Murray). Through correspondence, Sam and Suzy decide to escape and follow the old Chicktaw Nature Trail to find a private hideaway. Unfortunately, the Bishop family, along with Khaki Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) and police Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) are on their trail, along with the rest of the Khaki Scouts and their dog Snoopy.

 This was roughly what I knew about Moonrise Kingdom going in (minus Sam and Suzy's reasons for running away) along with what appeared to be the most Andersonian opportunity the auteur had to indulge in his fetishistic set design. Wes Anderson has always demonstrated an affinity for the mid-1960s, in music, art direction, and color palette, so setting Moonrise Kingdom on an isolated island in New England just before a hurricane hits. Oh, and it's 1965. If it was possible to go beyond Fantastic Mr. Fox, where Anderson literally had control over every element of production, Moonrise Kingdom would be that film.

 I don't suppose I need to warn people who don't like Wes Anderson films that Moonrise Kingdom isn't going to change your mind, but it's a good enough opening for the fourth paragraph of a review as any. Anderson fans have a tendency to fixate on Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums as "high water marks" (with good reason), but tend to disagree about The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited. Anderson, working with Roman Coppola again on the screenplay, finds a tone similar to Rushmore and Tenenbaums, but from a different perspective. Sam and Suzy are 12, even younger than Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman does have a small role as "Cousin Ben"), and rather than behaving like adults, the two bond over their feelings of alienation from everybody else. Sam leaves Scout Master Ward a letter of resignation from the Khaki Scouts but relies heavily on the hiking and camping skills he picked up at Camp Ivanhoe. Suzy leaves a note to her brother explaining that she will return his record player "in ten days" with new batteries. Their plan is naive, they just barely know each other, but the kindred spirits are determined to be together.

 Scout Master Ward and Chief Sharp find themselves in a situation they honestly aren't sure how to deal with, one that grows increasingly more complicated when Sam's foster family refuses him and Social Services (Tilda Swinton) gets involved. The Bishops are both lawyers who reject the notion that their daughter is culpable in Sam's plan, or that she would attack one of the Khaki scouts in order to escape a showdown (I will say nothing more than it involves a pair of left-handed scissors). Part of the fun of Moonrise Kingdom are its twists and turns; beyond what you learn in the trailer, there's a lot going on between the adults, between the other children (particularly the scouts), and how the Narrator (Bob Balaban) figures into the narrative. Also, a mostly unmentioned cameo from Harvey Keitel Khaki Commander Pierce, who runs Camp Lebanon on an island across the way.

 If you felt detached from the characters in The Darjeeling Limited or had trouble connecting to Team Zissou or Mr. Fox, you'll have no such trouble with Moonrise Kingdom. First timers Gilman and Hayward are excellent as Sam and Suzy, two prepubescent kids who don't quite know how to be grown up but want something better. Willis, Murray, McDormand, Norton, and Swinton all make impressions as they try to make sense of the situation, and while Murray is typically in high form working with Anderon, the others fit like a glove in his "universe," particularly Norton as a sweet-natured math teacher who wants to do right by his scouts.

 There's something about setting Moonrise Kingdom in 1965 that might lead you to expect Anderson is indulging in all of his favorite stylistic moments, but the soundtrack leans heavily on Hank Williams and the film feels loose and unencumbered in its mid-section. Once we move past the impeccably organized Bishop home and move outdoors, Anderson's camera is liberated along with Sam and Suzy, and Moonrise Kingdom benefits from this relaxed approach. Later in the film, he returns to stop motion animation (watch the bridge crossing late in the film) and some clever special effects (the lightning field sequence), but overall Moonrise Kingdom feels more attached to its characters, however flawed, and it's a fine experience at the end. (Oh, make sure to stay through the credits to hear a musical bridge to the opening credits. It's worth it.)


 * I could find no evidence that it isn't a Fields quote but at the same time couldn't pinpoint exactly when he said it.

Releases, Announcements, and Things of That Nature

I usually put up reviews on Monday of movies the Cap'n and Doctor (nee Professor) Murder saw, but since Saturday saw a review for The Expendables (and the subsequent addressing of specific criticisms directed at the film), today's entry will focus on upcoming releases of interest to all.

For example, tomorrow brings a Blu Ray release for Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (review here), which means that for the first time since it played in theatres, it'll be possible to watch Hamlet from beginning to end without switching tapes / discs/ etc*.

Tomorrow also brings the release of season four of Dexter, something I've been trying to follow all year to no avail (streaming faltered consistently during episode three, so I'm two and a quarter episodes in). Seeing as the BIG TIME SUPER SPOILER has already been spoiled for the Cap'n (coupled with ads for No Ordinary Family that functionally sealed the deal), what remains is to figure out HOW that happened. Oh, and to see more of super creepy John Lithgow...

Moving a bit further out, Criterion announced their November releases, and it's some very exciting news:

While I'm done eating crow, Antichrist is finally on the list of Blu Rays coming out, along with The Night of the Hunter, Chaplin's Modern Times (a sign that Criterion may be slowly replacing the Warner / Mk2 releases), and a boxed set that has my attention piqued, to say the least - America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. If you've read or seen Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, you already know who Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider, and Steve Blauner are, but to folks not steeped in the move from studio controlled films to the independent spirit of the late sixties and early seventies, BBS are responsible for some of the best known "new wave" American films not coming out of AIP**.

The boxed set has seven movies, a few of which I'm familiar with and the others I've heard of. That all of them are under the Spine Number banner makes the Cap'n very happy. They are:

Head - The Monkees' psychedelic answer to A Hard Day's Night and Help!
Easy Rider
Five Easy Pieces
Drive, He Said - Jack Nicholson's directorial debut.
A Safe Place - Orson Welles, Tuesday Weld, and Jack Nicholson, directed by Henry Jaglom.
The Last Picture Show
The King of Marvin Gardens - Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, and Ellen Burstyn.

It's hard to topple a list like Antichrist, The Night of the Hunter, and Modern Times (coupled with The Thin Red Line, Paths of Glory, The Magician, Hausu, and a Blu Ray The Darjeeling Limited) but Criterion really outdid themselves with this boxed set. It's a collection of movies that existed in various forms on DVD (and Easy Rider on Blu Ray) but puts them together in a way that serves as a historical document of the "independent" movement one reads so much about. Count the Cap'n in.

Additionally, there are regular Blu Ray releases coming for Back to the Future, Apocalypse Now, The Evil Dead, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, that massive Alien Anthology box, King Kong, the first season of The Twilight Zone, Time Bandits, Mars Attacks, Forbidden Planet, Mona Lisa, The Last of the Mohicans, The Exorcist, Psycho, Grindhouse (as one movie!), Seven, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Oh, and that announcement about next year's big Blu Ray release. I'll save that for Wednesday, when I answer the question "could he possibly do two Video Daily Double posts about the same thing???"

Stay tuned.


* technically speaking, since there was an intermission during the theatrical release where one can assume the projectionist had to switch platters (a 4 hour movie would be a massive amount of film to put on one platter), it will be the first time you can watch it beginning to end with no interruption whatsoever.
** American International Pictures is probably best associated with Samuel Arkoff, James Nicholson, and Roger Corman, and launched more careers than you can imagine. Check out a brief description via Wikipedia.

News and Notes (part two)

Welcome back. Once I finished writing out all three fronts, I realized this was quite a lengthy post, and determined it would be best to split them up and let you read them in manageable chunks. Let's continue with our other two "Fronts", Releases and What the Hell was That?

The Release Front:

Up-Front Disclaimer - I'm not reporting any of the following from the position of an expert, only from the position of somebody who did some poking around and added his own conjecture.

I don't know where else to put this, but Amazon put up links a few months ago for Criterion Blu-Ray titles that I can't find confirmation about anywhere else. In addition to two reasonably likely titles (Seven Samurai and Videodrome), Amazon is also listing Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, and Lars Von Trier's Antichrist as "Not Yet Announced" Blu-Ray titles available for Pre-Order.

For their part, Criterion doesn't seem to be saying anything. I just checked their "Coming Soon" page (this would be June 10th, 2010) and you're not going to find any of those movies listed. The Criterion Collection has been coyly playing with fans on their Facebook page by including links to stories about Malick's new film The Tree of Life (they have released Days of Heaven on DVD and Blu-Ray, so there is some relationship with the director), causing comments to explode with questions about the "4 Hour Cut" that will no doubt be the next Spine Number from Malick. I just don't know, especially since 20th Century Fox released The Thin Red Line (see below).

For The Darjeeling Limited, well, I just don't see why Fox is going to let Criterion put that out. Yes, I realize that Criterion and Wes Anderson have a working relationship (all of his films, save for two, are Spine Numbers already), but it's important to note that none of the other films were released by 20th Century Fox (Bottle Rocket was Columbia Tri-Star and Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou all came from Disney / Touchstone). Fox, on the other hand, released The Darjeeling Limited on DVD and is already selling a Blu-Ray / DVD / Digital Copy combo for Fantastic Mr. Fox. Ergo, I don't really see that there's any incentive to let Criterion have Darjeeling, especially if they're doing pretty well with Mr. Fox.

Antichrist, well, to be honest with you, this makes plenty of sense. There is currently no U.S. release date for Lars Von Trier's latest film on DVD or Blu-Ray (it's available in Europe right now) and I don't know what studio really wants to try marketing it. Criterion has released The Element of Crime and Europa, and also has a history with "controversial" films like Salo and In the Realm of the Senses, so of the three titles, this one does make the most sense.

However, I have to reiterate that none of these titles are in any way actually confirmed. Pre-ordering them might be an exercise in futility, as Amazon has very limited information about the discs and the user reviews seem to reflect hopes more than any evidence they're coming out. The going rumor was that Yojimbo and Sanjuro were released on Blu-Ray because Seven Samurai's restoration was taking longer than expected, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is actually coming out. Videodrome is a 50/50 proposition, if only because Universal has been releasing back catalog Criterion titles on Blu-Ray (like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Traffic, and Spartacus) on their own. Keep your eyes peeled, as will the Cap'n, but don't rush to pre-order those movies until you hear they're really coming out.

Finally, the "What the Hell Was That Front":

I actually don't even know what to make of the Mortal Kombat "proof of concept" video floating around the internet. I'm betting it won't embed correctly here, so I'm just going to put the link up. Yes, that is Michael Jai White, and yes, that is Star Trek Voyager's Jeri Ryan. I guess it's a "gritty" take on Mortal Kombat, and that's either really silly or potentially cool. I just don't know. Watch for yourself and decide.

Blogorium Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

It was silly of me to sit out Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox when it came out. I don't remember why I wasn't terribly interested in the movie. It has three things I enjoy very much: 1) Roald Dahl, 2) George Clooney, and 3) Stop Motion Animation. As I also enjoy (to varying degrees) the films of Wes Anderson to this point, there was really no reason not to see it, but somehow I chose not to.

The good news is that I rectified this last night, and I'm happy to say that this year's Best Animated Film category was truly well contested (admittedly, I have yet to see The Secret of Kells, but I'll get there soon enough). I don't mean to beat up on Coraline* - which I feel like I do every single time I mention the film - but as stop motion goes, I really did enjoy Fantastic Mr. Fox more in just about every respect. There's something about watching the hairs move around on Mr. Fox and every other animal that reminds you just how much work went into the film.

Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) are chicken thieves, until one night when, in a trap, she reveals that she's pregnant. Mr. Fox promises to give up stealing and live a crime-free life as a newspaper columnist. 12 fox years later (there is a fox to human time conversion handled in title cards) Mr. and Mrs. Fox are living a life of quiet domesticity with their angsty son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) and visiting Nephew Kristofferson Silverfox (Eric Anderson). Mr. Fox has aspirations, and moves his family from a hole in the ground to a new tree he can't really afford, in part because of its proximity to the farms of Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness), and Bean (Michael Gambon), three rather unpleasant farmers who specialize in chicken, geese, and cider respectively.

With his new partner in crime, Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky) - and against the wishes of his attorney, Badger (Bill Murray) - Mr. Fox resumes his life of crime, tempting fate by stealing from the meanest farmers around. All goes smoothly at first, but when the vindictive Bean declares war on Fox, all of the animals nearby are forced underground and face starvation and attacks from Rat (Willem Dafoe). Unless, of course, the newly tail-less Mr. Fox (Bean shoots it off) can come up with a scheme to win the day...

I'm going to focus on two things I really enjoyed about the film in order not to ramble - as the Cap'n tends to do. What's very impressive is that - despite the fact that Anderson was mostly "hands off" during the production, according to most reports - the film clearly fits into his stylistic approach. You can pause the film at almost any point and say, "Yes, this is a Wes Anderson film"; from the title cards to the production design to the use of music, but also particularly the pace of the story, Fantastic Mr. Fox occupies the same universe as Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, just with stop motion animals.

That being said, the other element that I found really astonishing is how, despite the fact that it clearly could fall into "auteur" category, Fantastic Mr. Fox (it's so hard not to put a "The" at the beginning, but that's not the title!) is a film you can show to children without concern. In a world where Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel is raking in the big bucks (I assume), it's a relief to see a movie like Fantastic Mr. Fox where the Cap'n enjoys the film from beginning to end but would not hesitate to show it to a youngster. Aside from (spoiler) the death of Rat, there's not much there to find objectionable. In fact, there's a rather clever conceit of removing profanity and simply saying the word "cuss"; it's a clear enough referent for adults what the word would be, but kids aren't going to pick up any new words you'd have to explain to their teachers later.

The pace of the film - which is only around 80 minutes without credits - still manages to feel leisurely but never dull. The cast are all having a great time and despite the fact that they come in clusters of similarly shaped animals, there's never a problem telling which character is which. Clooney, in particular, seems to be having a ball in what one could call "Fox's Eleven". Even Boggis, Bunce, and Bean have distinctive qualities that carry you through the fact that two of them barely say a thing. I was both impressed and very entertained by Fantastic Mr. Fox, and look forward to watching it again, which is kind of strange; typically, while I enjoy Wes Anderson films, I will revisit them periodically but never in any kind of hurry. I highly recommend you check Fantastic Mr. Fox out, as it's every bit as deserving of its nomination as Up and Coraline (I'll get back to you on The Secret of Kells and The Princess and the Frog).



* Allow me to reiterate that I really did enjoy Coraline, and feel in some part that my ambivalence towards the story has everything to do with me and nothing to do with the film itself. I've read Neil Gaiman's book three or four times, and because I know it backwards and forwards, the film didn't really surprise me in any way. That's totally on me and not at all a reflection of the exemplary work Henry Selick did with his adaptation.

Pain in the Wallet

I know you spent most of your hard earned pennies on New Moon last Friday, kiddos, but tomorrow is a kinda/sorta ridiculous day for cinematically inclined nutzoid geeks. Allow me to elaborate:

We'll start with movies coming out on Digital Versatility Disc and Blu-Ray, then move to BD exclusives....

The African Queen - Tuesday marks the first time The African Queen has ever been available on DVD in the U.S. If you've never seen it, do yourself a favor and pick this up, sight unseen. Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, a rickety old steamboat, and John Huston directing a C.S. Forester adaptation. Just watch it, then read Hepburn's book about going to the jungle to film The African Queen and nearly losing her mind. Great stuff.

Bigger Than Life - Criterion releases another previously unavailable product of the 1950s, this one starring James Mason in a film about the dangers of medication. Also starring Walter Matthau and directed by Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause, Johnny Guitar, King of Kings), and like The African Queen, on DVD and BD.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox - I've yet to hear anyone breathe an unkind word in the direction of Wes Anderson's newest, and despite my hesitation to see it in theatres, I think I might be sold on giving it a go.

Mad Men: Season Three - the Cap'n can't honestly say he's watched the show, but I've heard great things from those who have, and if I ever get around to it, seasons one and two are in the "to watch" pile.

The Men Who Stare at Goats - You've read my review, now see the film for yourself. I do not believe you'll regret it one bit.

Now, moving on to some Blu-Ray only releases:

Days of Heaven - have you seen the Criterion Collection DVD? Remember how good that looked? Let's try to imagine Days of Heaven in 1080p, shall we? (If it helps, put in the Blu-Ray of the Malick-fied cut of The New World and let that soak in...)

Yojimbo / Sanjuro - While Criterion is putting the finishing touches on Seven Samurai, they're releasing Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune's rogue samurai films. If you consider yourself a fan of the Eastwood / Leone Spaghetti Westerns, there's no reason you shouldn't see where A Fistful of Dollars came from.

Toy Story / Toy Story 2 - Look, I already have A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up on Blu-Ray (sorry, no Cars, and The Incredibles somehow hasn't made the leap yet). I even have the Pixar Short films BD, so there's really no question as to how on-board I am with Toy Story and Toy Story 2. As much as I love the first film, the second one really does it for me in some way, so I'm looking forward to watching it again.


Oh, and I guess The Blind Side and Brothers are coming out tomorrow, if that's your bag. I shan't leave them out in the off-chance you were waiting to hear officially. And New Moon, if for some reason you forgot about the midnight sales, or (worse) you were so busy putting together your, uh, sparkly vampire guy costume that you got there too late.

Yeah, I bet he has a name. And I dare you to be the one who posts it in a comment.