Category Archives: Film

Pineapple Express

Am I still way, way behind? I think you know the answer to that. The sad part is, this shouldn’t have been a hard review for me (and probably still won’t), but I never expected to be delayed by days beyond when I first sat down to type, like this. My time management is gradually getting back into the swing of things, though, and once I catch up on it all, things will be back to normal. (I would skip straight to the review, but I know you love these intricate, behind the scenes looks at how Shards of Delirium works.)

Despite my relative lack of things to say about Pineapple Express, I certainly liked it. It spent a lot of time being funny or sweet (in that slightly off-putting Seth Rogen way, sure, but maybe that contributes to the sweetness, how bad at it he is? Like a puppy who pees just off the edge of the newspaper, while staring soulfully into your eyes), and those were punctuated by chop-socky and explosions; so, like, something for everybody, right?

It’s a stoner comedy, and there haven’t been many of those in a while. But it’s also an on-the-run buddy action movie. My best comparison, which is undoubtedly flawed, is that the writers were heavily influenced by Cheech and Chong movies, but then said, “Hey, what if we throw the slightest soupçon of Boondock Saints into the mix?” Not enough for it to be actually comparable in any way, but like you’re getting occasional hints of it through the clouds of pot smoke. (I’ll have to find someone to ask, someday, if that’s a completely insane comparison or not.) Anyway, that one guy who was in the pregnant movie I never saw is a process server who accidentally witnesses a murder and then teams up with the son of the Green Goblin, AKA his pot dealer. And then, implausibly, they get completely entangled in the drug war that inspired the murder and which is the source of this awesome new weed they’ve been smoking together: pineapple express.

So, yeah: pretty funny! But you probably have to be into that type of movie to really enjoy it much?

Tropic Thunder

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A little while back, I had a brief period in which I found myself out of work. It was pretty hard. I lived out of my car for something like half the time, spent some time in theaters watching movies “for free”, hit a bar for the kind of beer-drinking that only the out-of-work can really experience. You know how it is. Eventually, I got back on my feet, slept in an actual bed, and then I had to get up ridiculously early the next morning to start my new job. (And since then, I have been way too busy to write anything, for ages without end. Which explains this two week delay, you see.)

This is the story of that movie.

So, anyway, free preview, right? I glanced at it, then decided I had to work and couldn’t go and promptly forgot about it. Except then someone besides me wanted to go and other people got involved and my last day had slightly shifted hours, such that I ultimately was able to, plus it was free, right? Yay, Studio Movie Grill! A reasonably short-lived line followed by a good long sit-around eating buffet pizza and drinking moderately buffet Shiner later, Tropic Thunder started.

The premise really fails to capture it. Three successful actors are trying to break out of their pigeonholes by making a Saving Private Ryanesque true-life story of a rescued soldier escaping from Vietnam, but problems with egos and the budget are quickly making a hash of things. So the director decides to drop them into the jungle to film the middle portion of the movie Blair Witch style, with some cameras scattered around the forest for most of the shots and the director shadowing the for the rest. Only, the part of the jungle they land in is being used to grow and process drugs, and the natives are not too happy to find “heavily-armed” intruders in their midst. Also, Tom Cruise played a role that indicates every once in a while he remembers he’s a decent actor with a sense of humor, and not just the face of Scientology. Wacky hilarity ensues!

This sounds no more than a mile north of totally dumb, I know. But in practice, I have not laughed so hard at a movie in ages. If you like things that are funny, you should go see it. In the meantime, though, something pretty awesome happened at the theater. Ryan and Laurell and I were having a discussion about gender disparities launched when a male member of the waitstaff set the first pitcher of beer down in front of her. We ultimately concluded that (in the heteronormative world), people with penises and people with vaginas are in competition for scarce resources, and that if our waitress had brought the beer instead, she would likely have (unconsciously?) given it to one of the guys instead of the girl. None of which would be all that interesting to relate, except that a woman at the table in front of us finally got fed up with all of our foul, penis-ridden language and asked us if we knew that there were children here, indicating the 14 year-old next to her. Although I personally believe that a girl of that age has likely heard the word before (and in equally conversational contexts; we were being uncouth neither in topic nor actual verbiage), it was a point well-taken about how some people don’t want to expose themselves to such topics in some contexts, and I felt a little bad; I think we all did.

That is, until we remembered and later observed that this was an R-rated movie with all manner of violent, sexually-topical, and otherwise far more inappropriate material than anything occurring in our conversation. Jack Black, in particular, made reference to a penis (though I am forced to admit that he never used the dreaded word itself) that I actually think I would be leery of having a 14 year-old hear. Our heroic parent and/or guardian, of course, took her delicate child out of the theater within five minutes of the opening reel, once she realized what a mistake she’d made. Because that would be the only logical decision after having made such a scene in the theater a mere half an hour previously. Right? RIGHT?

OH WAIT NO SHE STAYED FOR THE WHOLE MOVIE!!!

The Dark Knight

mv5bmzyxmze1nzy4nl5bml5banbnxkftztcwmtcxoti2mq-_v1_ It is, I retroactively declare, a good weekend I think for seeing a new movie premiere. After spending a couple of hours around a pizza and an airing of Batman Begins, we rushed off to the theater for a Friday night showing. I’ve spent some time thinking about what I could possibly say about The Dark Knight in the subsequent 48 hours, and I honestly don’t have much better of an idea right now than I did walking out of the theater.

First of all, there’s the story route, but I refuse to do more than thumbnail it, because there are massive spoilers both for fantastic individual scenes and for the highly detailed and brilliantly executed plot. Anyway, a little time has passed and Batman hovers in a precarious middle ground between hated vigilante and police-sponsored hero. Gotham is gradually coming out of its dark age, and district attorney Harvey Dent’s hardline stance against the crumbling mob families is the best evidence of this fact. But there’s a bank-robbing clown who calls himself the Joker who has other ideas on that topic; and he has a plan.

All of which is stage-setting that’s clear within the first 15 minutes or so. If anyone wants to tell you more than that, don’t let them. Although Batman Begins was a lot more of a traditionally mythological hero’s journey, it had nowhere near the psychological depth of The Dark Knight. Christian Bale understands Bruce Wayne in a way that nobody but Michael Keaton has ever come close to, and Heath Ledger’s death was nothing short of a fucking tragedy for movie-goers everywhere, even if his portrayal of the Joker would have been the pinnacle of his talent. I would not have ever guessed I’d say someone surpassed Nicholson, but the writing was probably as much to blame as the acting. They really were two different characters, and the current one the darker and more insane by far.

My point being, with two such powerful leads, an equally strong supporting cast, and additional psychological elements from legal crusader Dent and returning ADA Rachel, Bruce’s love interest and Dent’s current girlfriend… with all of that going for it, there is a lot of room to play in and with a lot of interesting characters’ psyches. And this occurs in spades, to the point where it might be fair to describe the ride as an emotional wringer. But it is also the best movie I’ve seen all year, easily.[1] Juno and Iron Man come close, each in their own ways, but this hit all my buttons just right.

In summary: wow. Now go see it. (Yes, again. I know I would have tonight, if I hadn’t been at work instead.)

[1] Well. Zombie Strippers. But otherwise.

WALL-E

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So there I am, sitting at the bar, nursing the water between my third and fourth beers, occasionally snaking a fry from Ryan, sure because they taste good but mostly for the thrill of the hunt, when suddenly the girl next to me says, “Hey, babe. Is this guy boring you? Why not come with me, I’m going to see a movie about robots who could conceivably go to another planet!” Which is why I never had my fourth beer.

But that’s okay, because I got to see an impressive movie instead, in which a tiny robot has decided to clean up this town. And, okay, this town is Earth, and he was probably programmed rather than deciding. But he sounded like R2-D2 (by virtue of being voiced by the same sound editor), so that earns him a lot of credit. WALL-E is the last of his product line still running, so he has the planet to himself. And over the course of probably hundreds of years, he’s picked up personality from unlikely sources. I have to say, as last beings on the planet go, he probably gave Will Smith a run for his money, melancholy pathos and all.[1]

So, after a period in which we get to absorb the tragedy of the ruined planet and its last inhabitant or two, everything changes with the arrival of a bitchy feminine robot on a mission designed by some humans that are still wandering the galaxy. And, you guessed it, WALL-E’s life will never be the same again. A lot of people claim that Pixar makes movies that are equally enjoyable by kids and adults. I’ve skipped a lot of them recently; I think the last one I saw was The Incredibles, and I was quick to acknowledge I was watching a kid movie, contrary to that same claim I’m saying people sometimes make. I point this out as a preface.

Because, I’m not going to claim that with WALL-E, Pixar finally made a movie that can be enjoyed by adults and kids alike. It’s more like… honestly, I felt like Pixar made an adult movie and then added a bunch of kid-laughs after they remembered they were Pixar and are only allowed to make kid movies. So now the kids are able to sit in the theater and not be bored by what their parents are watching. Which is a trend that I hope continues, because damn, but the effects are consistently spectacular, and it’s nice not to be even a little bored between them. Yes, it was a child-like, innocent movie. But if it was specifically kid-oriented, then I’d think the other Pixar movies would have sucked me in better than they did.

P.S. If you happen to watch it, there’s a thing that bothered me a little bit. I get why a Disney movie isn’t going to delve into the mechanics of reproduction, but did it seem to anyone else that the humans should have become extinct a generation or two prior to the events depicted, or at the very least should have been on their way in this generation?

[1] I should pause here to point out the possibility that my identification with our robotic main character here may have colored my favorable impression of the movie. But I’m pretty sure that’s it’s also as good as I think it was.

The Happening (2008)

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Yesterday, I said to myself, hey, let’s go see a movie! And then I looked up times, but the dollar movie I want to see (even though I found a second dollar theater, and right across the highway, not far away like that other one (where “far” in this case equals about 1/3 of my daily commute. Help.)) was only showing in the evening, and I already had evening plans. So then I poked around at what was out in general, and settled on The Happening. And then I saw it, which just goes to show you the value of a plan.

The movie itself was an odd mix of satisfying and cheeseball. I went in knowing nothing beyond what I’d seen in a couple of previews, which as it happens is sufficiently little to make the thing work; I have to assume that without the mysteriousness pulling you in, the satisfaction would have been nowhere to be found. The premise is straightforward: one day in Central Park, people start acting mentally and physically confused, and then they start dying. And those scenes which open the movie? Creepy as all get out, I tell you. Next thing, a teacher and his wife and some friends are headed out of town because of their concern over the TV-reported terrorist attacks that have just occurred, and the film turns into about one-third mysterious deadly event and two-thirds marital drama. Or maybe fifty-fifty? I was never annoyed that the scary mystery part had vanished, and the drama part was pretty decently done.

Unfortunately, this was billed as M. Night Shyamalan’s first R-rated movie. I call this unfortunate because, aside from a ridiculous chase scene about which I cannot divulge more that would otherwise assist me in mocking its ridiculousness, the biggest problem the flick had was its focus on gore. It just wasn’t the right kind of movie, in mood, to be concerned with over-the-top death scenes; and there were a few. It’s like M. was just trying too hard, to no good effect. Well, the acting was a little iffy, too, which is odd, because I’ve seen both leads do far better jobs elsewhere. All in all, though, it was a decent, scary movie. It was not the best movie I saw yesterday, which is kind of funny when you consider I had only planned to see the one. But anyway, just don’t go in expecting Shyamalan’s previous brilliance, and you should be fine.

Get Smart

The Incredible Hulk

I can’t really explain what went wrong with The Incredible Hulk. It was much more of a super-hero movie than Ang Lee’s much derided The Hulk from a few years ago. It did a really good job of pulling in numerous sly references to the ’70s TV show, plus of course to the original Marvel comics. The effects were always spot on, as they have been of late. And I have to geek out a little bit at the way that the various movies are being tied into a cohesive Marvel Universe, just as the comics have always done.

These all sound like pretty good things. And yet, it felt like a late winter release from Marvel a la Daredevil, rather than the summer renaissance they’ve provided so often this decade, most recently with Iron Man. I know that part of the problem has got to lie with the Hulk himself; at least, what I’ve read from 1962-1967 reveals him as an insufficiently interesting character with especially uninteresting villains. And sure enough, the majority of the movie related to Bruce Banner being hunted by the army, angered, transformed, eventually captured anyway, and so on, because the army and General Ross are practically his only interesting foes, and they because of the human element. Which is good and all, but falls flat in an ostensible superhero movie. You need super villains for things to work.[1] If you don’t believe me, ask Ang Lee.

On the other hand, though, whatever pejorative comments have been thrown at Lee over the past few years, the primary flaw of his Hulk was in making a movie whose reach far exceeded its grasp. There are worse epitaphs to be cursed with, and among them is to make a movie that simply didn’t bother to reach very far at all.

[1] And, okay, this had a super-villain. Which was pretty much an alternate brute strength guy who we do not like because he isn’t green and because Liv Tyler doesn’t like him. (Well, and he’s kind of a douchebag.) Still, not much of an improvement on the army, which he is incidentally a part of in the first place. On the bright side, they laid groundwork for the only interesting Hulk villain I’ve seen in the comics to be present in a potential sequel. So that’s something.

The Strangers

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

I finally saw Prince Caspian over the weekend, and it was kind of a weird experience. As a fantasy adventure movie, it kind of works. All those kids from the first movie are magically summoned back to Narnia when Prince Caspian, marked for death by his usurping uncle, stumbles across Susan’s magic get-out-of-jail-free horn where she dropped it in the woods while trying to escape his uncle’s army and blows it.[1] Or, considering he wouldn’t have known to, maybe someone gave it to him instead. Or maybe he didn’t know and was just hoping someone would show up to save him? I’m not sure.

Anyway, there they all are, and it’s been over a thousand years and their whole castle is fallen apart, because evil Spaniards (who we call Telmarines) attacked and subjugated Narnia quite a while ago, driving the magical creatures and talking animals so far into the forest that they are believed to be extinct, plus nobody has seen Aslan in pretty much that whole time. Although Caspian is heir to the Telmarine throne, the fact that his people want him dead and that plot necessity demands it combine to get all the Narnians willing to support him. His enlightened reign, he promises, will see his people and the Narnians peacefully co-existing, which one supposes is better than hiding so well everyone thinks you’ve died out.

Then he and the Narnians and the Pevensie kids (aka Kings and Queens of Narnia, aka Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy) all get together and have a war against Uncle Miraz and the Telmarine army, with mixed success, all culminating in a grand finale of some kind, as movies often do. So, yeah, that worked.

As the Christian metaphor that one expects from the Narnia property: well, mixed success fits well here, too. There’s a bit about not making a deal with the devil, even if it is the devil you know. And there’s a bit about not ignoring God’s little nudges in your life. Which, okay, I suspect that they maybe aren’t as obvious as seeing a lion waving you over, but that’s how metaphors work, so fair enough. But even though most of the failures in the movie were blamed on not following Aslan, as is a good and proper metaphor, the fact is there was just no real way to tell what it was that Aslan wanted of them. He just sat around waiting for things to be terrible, and then rolled in to save them all, while proclaiming that the whole point of not coming and saving them to start with, as he’d done in the previous movie, is that things aren’t ever the same twice. Except really, what he did was exactly the same, because, after all, the whole point of the metaphor is that ultimately you can’t face the evils of the world without Aslan there to carry you down the beach some of the time.

I mean, if they’d made a show of “I didn’t help you because you never asked me to”, that at least would have been a prayer metaphor, and I could get behind it working, pretty well in fact. But I mean, there was no show. And by ‘show of’, I mean not even a single line of dialogue, which is approximately how much it would have taken. Maybe another line or two of reaction, but this is not a long conversation I’m describing here. This also might have tied into the part where nobody in Narnia really believes in Aslan anymore, since nobody has much seen him in the past millennium, although at the same time, I imagine that the Narnians were looking for him to come help back when the war started and their castle was being smashed and they were doing the extinction-hiding and it had been less than a thousand years since anyone had seen him. (I mean, I don’t know how long, but this is the 10th Caspian, so it’s been a little while.) And since he obviously didn’t show up to help out then, well, that would kind of hurt the metaphor a bit, I guess.[2]

Also, the above review probably contained spoilers, and if you care about such things, you should not have read it.

[1] I just reread that sentence, and as much as I considered rewording it because it loses track of proper antecedents at least twice, I choose instead to let it stand as a monument to my awesome clarity of communication.
[2] I just remembered another complaint. It bothered me when they said that Narnia is only ever right when a Son of Adam or Daughter of Eve rules the country. Even though I understand the whole ‘man shall have dominion over the creatures of the earth’ thing, it’s just, these are centaurs and talking mice[3] and morally conflicted dwarves, and they all seem to have agency, you know, so the concept comes off a lot more as White Man’s Burden to show up from a different, far away place and take care of the poor misguided natives so they don’t screw things up too badly than as the Genesis metaphor that is apparently intended.
[3] To be clear, Reepicheep was in fact awesome. So that’s nice.

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay