I posted a link to this on Friday, but in case you missed it, this is a must-watch:

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is one of the few films from the past several years that Judd Apatow has had a hand in (he co-wrote the film and was one of its producers), that, despite his involvement, did not receive a lot of love from audiences upon its release.  My own recollection of seeing it in theatres was that it was sort of funny but not fantastic.  However, upon a second viewing on DVD last month, I must say that I have fallen head-over-heels in love with this film!

Walk Hard is, first and foremost, an evisceration of a very specific type of film: the Oscar-bait musical bio-pic (like Ray, Walk the Line, etc.).  In scene after scene after scene, the film mercilessly sends-up every single ridiculous cliche of those types of movies.  

We meet young Dewey growing up in a ramshackle farm down South, enjoying an idyllic life.  But a day of fun with his brother (”ain’t nothing horrible gonna happen today!” the doomed tyke promises) ends in tragedy after a machete-fighting accident.  Out of that grief, Dewey discovers his musical ability, playing the blues (”I got the blues… cut my brother in half…”).  A few years later, a nervous Dewey performs at a High School concert.  (Starting here, Dewey is played by John C. Reilly, despite the fact that the character is only 14 in this scene.  As Apatow and Director/co-writer Jake Kasdan note in their DVD commentary, they were interested in poking fun at  ”just how young the lead actor THINKS he can play” in these sorts of movies.)   Despite the innocuousness of the pop ballad Dewey performs (entitled “Take My Hand”), the concert erupts into a frenzy of sexualized dancing (as, you know, Rock and Roll is wont to cause).  After being condemned by the local priest (”You think we don’t know what you’re talking about when you say take my hand?!”) and his father (”The wrong kid died!”), Dewey decides to leave home and set out on a musical career.

What follows reads like a crazy check-list of the types of scenes one could expect in these sorts of films, charting our hero’s rise and fall and eventual redemption.  Dewey gets an opportunity to perform his music for a disinterested record company executive (played brilliantly by John Michael Higgins, who proclaims: “You have failed conclusively!  There is nothing that you can do, here in this room, to turn that around!”) but, of course, once Dewey plays one of his own songs (the titular “Walk Hard”), the executive is blown away, as are his Hassidic Jewish backers (Harold Ramis — yes, Harold Ramis — Phil Rosenthal, and Martin Starr in delightfully over-the-top Hassidic get-up and accents).  As Dewey becomes a star, his path crosses with many famous musicians, played by an astounding array of actors in one bizarre cameo after another: Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly!  Jack White as Elvis Presley!  And, in the movie’s funniest scene, Dewey meets the Beatles, with Jack Black as Paul McCartney (”John, I’m sick of you being so dark when I’m so impish and whimsical!”), Paul Rudd as John Lennon, Justin Long as George Harrison, and Jason Schwartzman as Ringo Starr.  In each case, the casting is so bizarre and yet so weirdly perfect.

The film continues to follow Dewey through the years as he morphs through a variety of musical styles and influences.  He goes through a Dylan phase, creating nonsensical protest songs.  (Here’s a line from the dead-on parody of “Subterranean Homesick Blues”:  ”Mailboxes drip like lampposts in the twisted birth canal of the coliseum/ fairy teapots mask the temper tantrums oh say can you see ‘em.”)  Dewey, like Johnny Cash, is affected by his time in prison (”I understand the common man the way I never did before!”), leading to his writing a “Folsom Prison Blues”-type song called “Guilty as Charged.”  (”If you say my love is too large… then I’m guilty… guilty as charged…”)  Of course, as Dewey gets more and more successful he becomes increasingly arrogant and unmoored from reality.  In the ’70s, in another of my favorite sequences from the film, Dewey becomes obsessed with perfecting his “Pet Sounds”-esque musical masterpiece (”I’m hearing… more aboriginal percussionists.  And I want an army of digeridoos!  Fifty thousand digeridoos!”)  

Ultimately, Dewey’s drug habits drive him to near-ruin and estrangement from his friends and fellow musicians.  But, as always happens in these movies, hitting rock bottom enables him to sort out his priorities and re-connect with his family.  Towards the end of his life, when he is invited to a musical salute to his life and career (in which we get to witness a wonderful and ridiculous cover of Dewey’s song “Walk Hard” by Jewel, Jackson Browne, Lyle Lovett, and Ghostface Killah), Dewey gets the opportunity to sum up his life for the audience in a wonderfully on-the nose parody of the typical bio-pic redemptive finish (”This, is finally what I’ve learned,” he sings: “And then in the end, it’s family and friends.  Loving yourself.  But not only yourself…”)

I’ve spent a while summarizing this film, but believe me I’ve only scratched the surface.  There are so many wonderful digressions.  Apatow, Kasdan and co. left no stone un-turned as, in moment after moment, they take everything that we’ve seen a million times in these musical bio-pics and turn the crazy up to eleven.  Similar to the way that I now find it difficult, after watching Tropic Thunder, not to laugh at the idea of “serious” Hollywood war movies, after Walk Hard I don’t think I can ever again take a movie like Ray or Walk the Line at all seriously.  

I’m not sure why I was so lukewarm on this film the first time I saw it.  It might be because, in this sort of parody film, there aren’t really any characters for one to latch onto, emotionally.  But John C. Reilly is absolutely magnificent in the lead role.  He’s able to ground even the most insane bouts of lunacy in the film, and he’s able to be lovable even when engaging in over-the-top spoiled musician bad behavior.  And he is an astounding musician and singer.  By the way, the music in this film is phenomenal, and that’s something that became much more apparent to me upon a repeat viewing.  The filmmakers have created an enormous catalogue of songs for Dewey, which we hear in snippets throughout the film.  These songs are very catchy (and VERY funny), and the way each song is able to evoke a specific influence and style (as Dewey travels through the years and through an array of musical periods) is nothing sort of magnificent.  After watching this movie last month, I immediately went and downloaded the soundtrack from itunes (which contains complete versions of a whopping THIRTY songs created for the movie).  Needless to say, that soundtrack has been in REGULAR rotation on my ipod.

I also need to mention the film’s tremendous supporting cast.  The Office’s Jenna Fischer is a delight as Dewey’s love Darlene, conveying innocence and naughtiness all at once.  SNL’s Kristen Wiig has a harder role as Dewey’s first wife.  As Apatow and Kasdan describe on their commentary, “in order for our hero to be incredibly sympathetic and still heroic when he leaves his wife for another woman midway through the movie, you need his first wife to be AWFUL to him throughout the whole first half.”  Well, Wiig dives into that assignment head-first, creating a hysterical portrait of a shrewish wife who doesn’t believe that Dewey will ever amount to anything.  Tim Meadows and Chris Parnell are also terrific as Dewey’s much put-upon band-mates.  And there is an amazing array of other very funny people who pop up in small roles throughout the film: Craig Robinson (The Office, Knocked Up), Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks, Knocked Up), Jack McBrayer (30 Rock). Ed Helms (The Daily Show, The Office), David Krumholtz (playing almost the exact same role that he had in Ray), Jane Lynch (The 40 year Old Virgin, Role Models), and many other familiar faces all kill in their small roles.

As an added bonus, the DVD is packed with terrific special features.  There are lots of deleted and extended scenes, out-takes, and an entirely new cut of the film (entitled “The Unbearably Long, Self-Indulgent Director’s Cut”).  There’s also a lot of fascinating behind-the-scenes material that chronicles the enormous effort that went into creating all the music for the film.  Finally there is Apatow and Kasdan’s commentary track, which is insightful and funny (as you can tell since I’ve mentioned it several times already in this review).

Bottom line:  If you’ve enjoyed the other movies from the Apatow troupe (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, etc…) but you skipped Walk Hard, I suggest you remedy that oversight as soon as you can!

Good news, everybody!  Futurama lives!!

So Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) is joining the cast of 24 next season?  Time for the Battlestar Galactica actors to learn what the members of the ensemble from The Wire have discovered: they’ll never again be in a TV show as good.

Did you see The Daily Show’s John Hodgman’s uproariously funny speech at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner?  Not to be missed.

A nice farewell to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles can be found on Composer Bear McCreary’s excellent blog, as he lists his 15 favorite moments from the show.  (They are all excellent choices.)  This show had its flaws, to be sure, but I am really disappointed that we won’t be getting a third season.  (By the way, Bear was also the composer for the reinvented Battlestar Galactica throughout its run.)

Speaking of The Terminator, the fine folks over at filmschoolrejects.com have posted an interesting list of 20 Things We Didn’t Like and 10 Things We Did about Terminator: Salvation.

I don’t play videogames, but I must admit that this trailer for Lucasarts’ new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer is ridiculously cool.  I wish we’d seen half that much bad-assery in the prequels…

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog has made his first appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien!  Watch him make fun of some hippies here.

Have a great weekend, everybody!  See you back here on Monday!

One of my earliest posts for this blog last year was a list of a bunch of DVDs on my “to-watch” shelf that I hoped to get to some time in the near future.  One item on that list was the first set of DVDs collecting The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.

Well, it took me quite a while, but I am pleased to report that almost a year later I have made my way through that DVD set!  (It’s the first of three sets that collect the entire run of the series.)

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones was a TV series that ran, somewhat sporadically, from 1992-1996.  Alternating episodes would follow the adventures of 10 year-old Indy (played by Corey Carrier), and teen-aged Indy (played by Sean Patrick Flanery).  In each episode, Indy would find himself in adventures in varying parts of the globe, each time running into many real-life historical figures, Forest Gump style.  ABC cancelled the series after its second season in 1993, but the USA network picked it up and aired a number of new episodes in two-hour mini-movie formats until 1996.

For the 1999 release of the series on VHS, the entire series was re-edited chronologically, with each episode paired with the next one in sequence to form a two-hour mini-movie (similar to the way the episodes were aired on USA).  In so doing, all of the framing device scenes with a very Old Indy (93 year-old Indy was played by George Hall) that used to start and end each episode were completely removed.  These are the versions that have been released on DVD.  Also in 1999, Lucas, ever one to re-name his work (Star Wars eventually becomes Episode IV: A New Hope; Raiders of the Lost Ark eventually becomes Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark), at this point also changed the name of the series from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles to The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.  (And thank heaven for wikipedia for that little tidbit.  Writing this whole review I kept writing The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but I could see that the title on the DVDs was The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.  I had no idea why I kept getting the title wrong!  Well, it’s because I always knew this show as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles! Sheesh!)

(By the way, here’s another amusing tidbit.  Does anyone but me remember how, when this series was released on VHS in 1999 in the form of 22 mini-movies, each labeled “chapter 1″ through “chapter 22,” Lucas also re-released the Indy movie trilogy, labeling the movies “chapter 23″ through” chapter 25″??  This got me so worked up at the time, but now it just makes me laugh at its ridiculousness.  The man just has a thing about numbering the episodes of his adventure serials!)

I watched this show when it originally aired.  I remember sort-of enjoying the episodes with teen-aged Indy (particularly the episodes that took place during World War I), although I was rather bored by the adventures of 10 year-old Indy.  Even as a kid I knew mediocrity when I saw it.  Since these DVDs contain the episodes re-edited chronologically (rather than by their original air-date), this first set of DVDs contains mostly the adventures of 10 year-old Indy (10 episodes, divided into 5 mini-movies), and only a few featuring Sean Patrick Flanery as teen-aged Indy (4 episodes, split into 2 mini-movies).  Nevertheless, I hadn’t seen any of these episodes since the mid-90’s, and many of them I hadn’t ever seen at all, so I was curious to revisit the series.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones is an interesting endeavor.  It was designed to focus more on education — teaching kids about history, geography, politics, and different peoples and cultures — than it was to be a whiz-bang action adventure.  I can appreciate that more now, as an adult, and as I re-watched the episodes I also didn’t have the immediate dis-interest in 10 year-old Indy that I had as a kid.  That being said, the show is, for the most part, pretty boring.  This is exacerbated by the mini-movie format, as sitting through two episodes in a row is a bit of a chore.  After the first movie, I started putting the episodes on, periodically, while I was drawing.  If I just sat down to watch one, I’d get bored, but having one on in the background while I worked suited me just fine.  (Most episodes didn’t require 100% of my attention in order to follow!)

What I found myself enjoying on the DVDs more than the episodes themselves were the ENORMOUS quantity of documentaries.  Each mini-movie is accompanied by up to eight documentaries (many of them around 30 minutes in length) that provide further detail about the people, places, and historical events covered in that particular adventure.  I found these documentaries to be FASCINATING in the extreme.  As with the episodes, these would probably be dull if I just sat down to watch a few straight through… but playing in the background while I was drawing, they were phenomenal.  I often was eager to get through an episode so that I could check out the accompanying documentaries.  An enormous amount of time, effort, and money must have gone in to the creation of these documentaries.  Again, it is clear that Lucas’ goal with this project is education, and I have to commend him for that.

Other thoughts:  I was pleased to see the number of famous guest-stars who popped up in the episodes in this first set (although some of them weren’t quite so famous at the time).  These include Max von Sydow as Sigmund Freud in “The Perils of Cupid,” Michael Gough as Leo Tolstoy in “Travels with Father,” and Elizabeth Hurley as Indy love-interest Vicky Prentiss and Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Prentiss in “Love’s Sweet Song.”  Young Indy is also notable in that it was one of the first TV shows to utilize digital effects in order to create some of the far-off locales in which the different adventures were set.  (In many ways, this was a test-bed for the techniques that Lucas would eventually use for the Special Editions of the Star Wars Trilogy in the late 90’s and then, of course, for the Prequel Trilogy.)

I think I would have preferred if the episodes had been released on disc as originally aired.  I do like the chronological presentation, but the transitions half-way through each mini-movie (where one episode originally ended and another began) are very awkward.  Often-times the episodes, although chronologically in sequence, were shot many months apart.  This resorts in some awkwardness in which 10 year-old Indy seems to age by a year or more between one scene and the next!  Also, as noted above, sitting through two of these episodes in a row can be a bit rough.  Another nit-pick: while I understand the decision to excise all of the Old Indy framing-device scenes (my recollection is that, even to childhood-me, those scenes were lame in the extreme), for completeness’ sake I was really disappointed that they’re not included on the DVD set as a special feature of some kind.  That’s a pretty enormous omission.  Also, while I understand that Lucas and co.’s focus was on all of the educational documentaries, I would have really liked to see some sort of making-of documentary or featurette that dealt with the creation of this show itself.  I bet there are some interesting stories to be told, and it’s a bummer that there’s nothing like that on the set.

So there you have it, folks.  In the end, the episodes are about what I expected, and the documentaries are fascinating (if you’re interested in that sort of thing, and have a lot of time to kill or the need for something mildly-diverting to watch/listen-to as you work on something else).  But I’ll tell you this, though: the lamest Young Indy adventure on this set is still better than the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!

The series may be over, but Galactica lives on!

Some tantalizing clips from the two-hour Battlestar Galactica TV-movie “The Plan” have made their way onto the interwebs, courtesy of the fine folks over at Galactiaca Sitrep.  Check ‘em out!

I can’t wait…

As with Charlie Wilson’s War (which I wrote about on Wednesday), The Departed is a movie whose DVD has been sitting on my shelf for a while now, waiting for me to revisit it (after really enjoying my first viewing when I saw it in theatres).  I am pleased to say I enjoyed the film during its second viewing as much as I did during its first.

The Departed is a sprawling film that focuses on two young men who are, in many ways, the mirror opposites of one another.  Leonardo DiCaprio plays Billy Costigan, a state cop assigned to infiltrate the mob run by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), while Matt Damon plays Colin Sullivan, one of Costello’s men who is assigned to infiltrate the state police.  The film deftly follows their two stories, as each one works to make a name for himself in his new world, all the while scrambling to stay one step ahead of discovery.  William Monahan’s script is taut and smart, giving DiCaprio and Damon plenty of great character material to work with, while also fashioning a throughly entertaining, twisty narrative.  (I am becoming an enormous fan of Mr. Monahan’s writing, by the way.  In addition to his work in The Departed, I thoroughly enjoyed his script for Ridley Scott’s criminally-underrated Kingdom of Heaven.)

As good as Damon and DiCaprio are, though, they almost have the movie stolen right out from under them by Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg, who are both absolutely magnificent playing two gleefully profane Boston detectives.  Martin Sheen is a great father figure as Police Captain Queenan, and Jack Nicholson — well, he’s Jack!  Completely over-the-top but somehow still believable as the dangerous Costello.

Having lived in both Providence and Boston, I really enjoyed the film’s focus on the distinct flavors of those two great cities.  I love movies that dig into a particular subculture, whether that’s a documentary such as Spellbound or Wordplay, or a movie like Adventureland (which I reviewed here) that captures the life of kids working a summer job at an amusement park.  So it’s no great surprise that I was tickled by The Departed’s focus on life in Providence and Boston, two cities that are both quite different than, say, New York.  Now, I can’t really vouch for the veracity of the depiction of the crime families of those two towns, but I can say that I think Mr. Scorsese and his collaborators really captured the unique FEEL of those two cities.  

This is a big story being told, taking place over many years and with a lot of characters and a lot of narrative twists and turns.  It is all held together by Martin Scorsese’s deft direction.  I enjoyed Gangs of New York and The Aviator, but it’s a thrill seeing the master back to telling a good, gritty crime tale.  Nobody does it better.

Picked this up off the DVD shelf recently, and I must say I enjoyed it as thoroughly as I did when I saw it in theatres last year.  In his review of the film for the New York Times, A.O. Scott described Charlie Wilson’s War as “more of a hoot than any picture dealing with the bloody, protracted fight between the Soviet Army and the Afghan mujahedeen has any right to be.”  I must say that I entirely agree!

Tom Hanks plays Charlie Wilson, a representative from Texas’ Second Congressional District to the U.S. House of Representatives.  Hanks imbues this good ol’ boy with an inordinate amount of charm, whether he’s flirting with women in a hot-tub or debating the intricacies of Constitutional law with a constituent.  Charlie quickly finds common purpose with short-fused, take-no-nonsense C.I.A. operative Gust Avrakotos, played with great vigor by Philip Seymour Hoffman.  (His opening scene, in which he viciously tells off his boss at the C.I.A., is an absolute riot.)  Hoffman’s Gust is the polar opposite of Charlie — ornery, blunt, and poorly-dressed.  But the two find a strange sort of kinship in their realization of the importance of defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan.

While Hanks and Hoffman get most of the fun (and most of the film’s best lines), the supporting cast is superb as well.  Julia Roberts is beautiful and imposing as the wealthy Joanne Herring; Amy Adams is sassy and smart as Charlie’s assistant Bonnie Bach (though I do wish she had a bit more to do in the film); and I don’t want to forget the delightful Ned Beatty (forever known to my generation as Lex Luthor’s oafish henchman Otis from the Richard Donner Superman movies).

But the real stars of the film are writer Aaron Sorkin and director Mike Nichols.  These two gentlemen know comedy, and they know drama, and they know how to combine the two.  Sorkin’s script is filled with memorable lines (my favorite being Charlie’s response to Joanne’s question as to why Congress is saying one thing and doing nothing: “tradition, mostly”) and the rat-tat-tat dialogue exchanges that he is famous for, but not in a way that overwhelms the story being told.  And Nichols’ direction gives the film a light, enjoyable tone, while not shying away from some difficult questions that any look at the U.S.’s actions during this period must lead to.  This is a film with a clear point to make about today’s political realities, but the filmmakers are confident enough not to hit you over the head with it.  Most importantly, Nichols and the skilled actors with whom he is working are able to create fully-realized characters to populate the film, not one-dimensional caricatures.  That gives the film some emotional weight to accompany all of its amusing moments (which are myriad).

If you missed this film in the glut of political, Iraq war-related films that were released in late 2007 and early 2008, I encourage you to go back and check this one out.

I love talking about movies.

I don’t think that’s a terrible surprise to any visitor to this site.  Whether I loved a movie or loathed it, I love picking movies apart and analyzing the acting, the directing, the visual effects, the score, the editing, the ins-and-outs of the plot, etc. etc.

Take J.J. Abrams’ recent Star Trek movie, for example.  I really enjoyed the flick, but I also had a lot of problems with the script, problems that I discussed in my review and also in many conversations with friends.  I just love getting into a discussion with other fans about plot points such as “is it plausible or ridiculous that Spock would be able to see the destruction of Vulcan by looking up with the naked eye from another planet.”  But nothing makes me crazier than when someone responds by saying something like “well, it’s just a (sci-fi/comic-book/etc.) movie so you can’t really think about those things.”  AARGH.  That happens to me all the time (and certainly did in the context of discussions of the latest Trek flick).

Drew McWeeney, in his blog over at HitFix.com, gives a response to that sort of attitude better than any I could have ever come up with on my own.  This comes from his review of the Night at The Museum sequel (which, no shock, he rakes over the coals).  After listing several inane plot points in the movie, he writes this paragraph:

“Oh, it’s just a movie for kids.”  Screw you, and screw that answer.  That’s insulting and lazy and, honestly, seems to me to suggest that anyone who says it is disqualified from ever criticizing any story or logic point in any film ever made.  If you’re willing to just concede that anything that happens in any film is fine because it’s “just a movie,” then there is no common ground for us in discussing what works or what doesn’t.  I love seeing movies where the fantastic happens.  That’s one of the reasons I go to films… to see things that could never occur in the real world.  But it has to make SOME SORT of sense, even if it’s just internal logic.  And the rules seem to change from scene to scene here, and beyond that, they just don’t explain so much that after a while, all you can do is either surrender to the idiocy or reject it outright.

Amen, brother.  I could not have asked for a better summary of my attitude about movies (whether I’m watching them, talking about them, or writing about them).  Amen.

Hamlet 2 tells the story of frustrated actor-turned-high school drama teacher Dana Marschz (a nearly-unpronounceable last name, for which I was eager to learn the correct spelling by watching the film’s end credits) played by Steve Coogan (so funny this past summer in Tropic Thunder).  Dana is not-dissimilar to Christopher Guest’s Corky St. Clair (from the terrific film Waiting For Guffman) although rather more pathetic (and more prone to accidentally flashing his genitals).  Even in teaching, Dana is struggling to find success.  He only has two loyal students, and the school plays that he supervises (such as a recent stage version of Erin Brockovich) are continually savaged by the school paper’s young drama critic.

Things go from bad to worse when the school decides to cut most of its electives, filling Dana’s drama class with an unruly mob of kids who have no desire to be there.  But Dana is inspired to write a new play — a musical sequel to Hamlet that will correct that play’s downer ending — and sets out to get all of his kids involved.  What follows is a sort-of-insane mish-mash of inspiring-teacher movies (Dead Poets Society, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Dangerous Minds) with kids-coming-together-to-create-a-musical films.

The movie is all over the place.  It’s at its best when it allows Mr. Coogan to depict his slow-burn desperation to connect with the kids in his class.  There are also a number of amusing digressions, such as Dana’s encounter with Elisabeth Shue (playing herself), who has decided to give up acting in favor of life as a nurse; explorations of his home-life with his bitter wife Brie (the very funny Catherine Keener) and their new tenant Gary (David Arquette, who is hysterical in his nearly-silent role); and the appearance of civil liberties lawyer Cricket Feldstein (a fast-talking Amy Poehler).

There are also some stretches of the movie that don’t quite work, and a lot of jokes that are weird but not necessarily all that funny.  More problematically, there were times when, even in a ridiculous movie like this, I wished the characters had been fleshed out a little bit more.  There wasn’t that much depth given to most of the new students in Dana’s class, and I didn’t really believe that they would ever willingly decide to participate in Dana’s play.  That’s a key transition that the film needs to make, both for the plot and for all the character story-lines, and the fact that I don’t think it worked hurt the film for me.

But in the end, a film called Hamlet 2 lives or dies on the ultimate performance of the titular play itself — and let me tell you, those moments are gold.  You’ll be humming the tune to “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus” (yes, Jesus Christ is a major character in Dana’s Hamlet 2 production, which focuses on Jesus’ Bill and Ted style adventure through time) long after you’ve finished watching the film.  

In the end, like Dana Marschz, I can’t say that Hamlet 2 is a complete success.  But it’s still a lot of fun.

Writer/director Guy Ritchie’s films Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch rank among my favorite movies.  Both are incredibly clever, unique movies characterized by hysterical rat-a-tat dialogue and complex, interweaving plots filled to the brim with bizarre, violent, charismatic characters (most of whom are rather shady in nature).  And yet, despite my love for those two movies, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a Guy Ritchie film.  Swept Away (2002), starring his then-wife Madonna, didn’t interest me, and the critical drubbing it received didn’t inspire me to rush out and see it.  I was interested in seeing Revolver (2005), but I missed in in theatres, and the negative reviews that that film also received have contributed to my always choosing other movies to rent when visiting the video store.  But I was very pleased to recently have a chance to watch RocknRolla (released last year, in 2008).

RocknRolla has an incredibly complex plot that I’m not even going to begin to try to explain.  I’ll just tell you that it follows the intersecting lives and capers of figures at a variety of levels in the London underworld, from minor thieves like One Two (Gerard Butler, from 300), Mumbles (Idris Elba from The Wire), and Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy, much more entertaining here than he was in Star Trek: Nemesis), boss Lenny (Tom Wilkinson, from Batman Begins, Michael Clayton, In the Bedroom, and a lot of other great films) and his loyal right-hand man Archie (played by Mark Strong, who I’d never believe, if not for imdb, is the same actor who played Jordanian intelligence official Hani Salaam in Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies), rock star Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), music promoters Roman (Jeremy Piven) and Mickey (Ludacris), foreign mobster Uri (Karel Roden) and his accountant Stella (Thandie Newton) and many, many other characters.

As with Lock, Stock and Snatch, the fun of the movie comes from listening to the terrific, joke-a-minute dialogue, and watching the talented ensemble of actors bringing all of their wonderful characters, each of whom could have a movie all their own, to life.

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that RocknRolla hung together as a complete film as well as those other two movies did.  As much as I enjoyed the enormous ensemble, I felt at times that there were too many characters, with too much going on.  RocknRolla doesn’t really have a main character, and I think that is the crux of the problem.  The closest thing would be Gerard Butler as One Two, and Butler is really terrific as the charismatic but slightly dim criminal.  But his character drops out of the movie for long stretches of time, and has almost no role to play whatsoever in the film’s climax.  Without a central focus, the movie seemed to meander at times, and it was hard to really invest in any of the characters.  The film ends with a promise that the characters will return in The Real RocknRolla, which I guess is a sequel to come, although I know that Guy Ritchie’s next film is Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. (a movie which, by the way, I am very excited for).  Anyways, rather than making me excited to see all of these characters again, that “to be continued” ending just exacerbated what I had already been feeling, that RocknRolla was really interesting in parts, but didn’t come together as a successful, complete movie.

Click here for a terrific three-essay series that delves into the first three Indiana Jones films.  These are all really well-written pieces, filled to the brim with love for the cinematic adventures of Dr. Jones.

Clever tourists wrecking the world one monument at a time.  Don’t think — just follow that link.  You won’t regret it.

Click here for a fascinating list of the twenty best non-fiction books for people who think they hate to read non-fiction.  I need to get on this, having only read two of the items on this list!

I’m not exactly recommending this lengthy essay, because I disagree with it wildly, but it’s sort of bizarrely fascinating two see two individuals who really don’t seem to like Star Trek at all go on an enormous length about it as they revisit the first six Trek films.  (Well, one of the two authors seems to be a fan, but he doesn’t seem to put up much of a fight whenever the other one bashes the series.)

Speaking of Trek, here is a link to a lengthy, fascinating Q & A that’s been going on over at Trekmovie.com between Star Trek screenwriters Bob Orci & Alex Kurtzman and a number of fans who, like me, had lots of questions about elements of the new movie’s plots.  I really respect Mr. Orci for engaging with the fans in this way — though I feel most of his responses are pretty flimsy.  Check it out and see what you think.  (UPDATE:  Still MORE Q & A with Mr. Orci & Mr. Kurtzman can be found here!)

It’s pretty obvious that the new Star Trek movie was pretty heavily influenced by the action and dynamism of Star Wars.  But have you considered just how deep those similarities run?  Shocking!  (And hysterical.)

Let’s close with three intriguing trailers: Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Junior, the bizarre-looking Nine and (can you believe it?) Toy Story 3.

That should keep you all good and busy until tomorrow!  See you back here then!

It is the distant future of the DC Universe.  Beings with super-human abilities have spread across the globe, and ever-more powerful violent heroes and villains wreak untold havoc with their escalating conflicts.  Meanwhile, the heroes of old are gone.  Green Lantern has abandoned Earth for the solitude of space.  Wonder Woman has returned to Themyscira.  Batman, his body broken after years of pushing himself beyond the limits of human endurance, maintains order over Gotham City through the use of menacing robotic sentries.  And Superman has lived alone in his Fortress of Solitude for the past ten years, ever since the Joker’s brutal attack on the Daily Planet resulted in the deaths of ninety-two men.  And one woman.

This is the world of Kingdom Come, a dazzling tale of the future of the DC Universe by Mark Waid and Alex Ross.  Originally published in four parts in 1996, one of the initial core ideas of the story was a comment on the increasingly violent anti-heroes that were very popular in comic books of the nineties.  The brutal Magog, with his scarred eye, his enormous shoulder-pads, and his vicious weaponry was a clear comment on Marvel Comics’ character of Cable.  The specificity of that reference has faded over the years, but the power of Kingdom Come has not.

I can think of few stories that have captured the grandeur of DC’s pantheon of heroes as well as Kingdom Come.  This may be a story of an alternate, possible future, but it remains oen of the most iconic tales of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman that I have ever read.  The dynamic between the three of them is at the heart of the story.  Kingdom Come focuses our attention on the way their differing backgrounds have lead them to view the world from vastly different points of view.  Those differences drive deep wedges between the characters, and lead to much of the drama of the story.  Mark Waid’s script is filled with powerful moments and wonderful characterization.  Having read the tale countless times, I am still struck by the moments like Wonder Woman’s first visit to Superman in his isolation, when she throws his oft-repeated commitment to truth and justice in his face.  Then there is my very favorite moment in the series (and frankly, one of my favorite moments in any comic book ever), which comes in Chapter Three when a furious Superman flies out of the Batcave at super-sonic speed, basically disappearing from sight he’s moving so fast, leaving a solitary Batman to remark “so that’s what that feels like.”  Brilliant!

Which brings me to Alex Ross’ remarkable painted artwork.  I have been an enormous fan of this great talent ever since I read his epic work Marvels (with writer Kurt Busiek), and I have read almost everything he has ever illustrated in the years since.  But Kingdom Come remains, in my mind, his greatest work.  Ross is able to bring unparalleled realism to every image while never losing the ability to make the god-like heroes of the DC Universe look appropriately majestic.  He is able to cram a staggering amount of detail into every panel of every page, whether that image is of an elderly preacher walking down the street, or two armies of super-humans engaging in an armageddon-like conflict.  Each page, each panel, is a true work of art, and I get tremendous enjoyment from lingering on the images to try to absorb them all.

I can still remember the enormous anticipation my friends and I were gripped by as we waited for the fourth issue of Kingdom Come to come out, back in 1996.  I was working at summer camp at the time, and I remember like it was yesterday the afternoon when one of my friends strolled onto the camp grounds bearing issue four in his hands.  It was manna from heaven!  I sat down, with another one of my good buddies right beside me, and we read the issue together, page by page (not turning the page until we’d both finished reading).  If one of us finished before the other, there were a lot of non-verbal exhortations to “hurry up already!!” so we could move on to the next page.  This is a true story!  I have never in my life read a comic book in such a fashion.

Last month I wrote about some of my favorite super-hero graphic novels.  Kingdom Come is one of the very best.

In 2006, documentary film-maker Nanette Burstein and her team followed several teenagers through the course of their Senior Year of High School in Warsaw, Indiana.  While a number of students applied to participate, the final film focuses on five kids, who seem to fit into typical Breakfast-Club style stereotypes.  (”I grew up watching John Hughes movies, and the inspiration I had for this movie was to find these fictional teen narratives in real life,” Burstein said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.)

There is The Jock: Colin Clemens, the star of Warsaw High’s basketball team who is hoping to receive a basketball scholarship and afraid that, without the money to pay for college, he’ll have to enter the Army if he doesn’t receive one.  There is The Princess: Megan Krizmanich, a pretty, popular girl who is at the head of the pack of the social life at Warsaw High.  There is The Geek: Jake Tusing, a nerd with bad acne and a bad haircut, who loves video-games and is desperately looking to get a girlfriend.  There is The Heartthrob: Mitch Reinholt, who is popular and good-looking; he’s friends with Megan and plays on the basketball team with Colin.  Finally there is The Rebel: Hannah Bailey, who dreams of being an artist and a film-maker, who plays in a band and openly despises life in Warsaw and hopes to move out to California after graduation.

What is most fascinating about American Teen (and what prompted a flurry of articles upon the film’s release last year), are the questions it raises about the degree to which the kids do or don’t perform for the cameras that they must know are recording them, and what that says about the lives of teenagers today in the world of facebook, myspace, youtube,  and reality television.  There are a number of times during the film when you can see clearly that the kids are wearing microphones.  And yet, they seem to behave as if they are entirely unaware that the cameras are observing them.  I have no doubt the kids were coached about not looking into the cameras, but there are moments in the film when we see the cameras capture very intimate moments (an almost-hookup, a breakup, etc.) as well as moments of  teenage cruelty (such as Megan and her friends planning and executing a vicious prank).  This of course raises the question of whether the kids altered their behavior for the cameras.  On the one hand, it seemed that they didn’t — that the cameras quickly became a ubiquitous part of their lives, and that they carried on behaving the way they ordinarily would.  As the New York Times observed (in the review by A. O. Scott), “Even when they are wearing microphones, few of them display much visible self-consciousness or discomfort.”  On the other hand, watching certain moments during the film, it is astoundingly hard to believe that the kids couldn’t have been aware and conscious of the cameras recording them!

American Teen is at its best when, as we watch the lives of these teens unfold, it allows us to get to know them in all of their unique, imperfect, teen-aged ways.  I was particularly taken with the funny, bracingly honest Hannah Bailey.  She’s a hoot (and the uncut interviews with her that make up one of the DVD’s meager extras are also a lot of fun).  But all of the kids are fascinating in their own way, and despite the marketing hook of labeling the five major kids The Princess, The Jock, etc., the film for the most part avoids shoe-horning them into easy Hollywood narratives.  And the leisurely pace of the film allows the viewers time to learn about them all, seeing their strengths and their flaws.

My biggest complaint about the film were  the times that the filmmakers attempted to bring the kids’ inner-lives and dreams to life with brief animated sequences (animated in a different style for each kid).  I found those to be way too on-the-nose and, frankly, annoying.  (Watching Jake’s video-game style avatar, complete with facial acne, rescue his fairy-tale princess was particularly agonizing.)  

I also sometimes felt that I could too-strongly see the editorial hand of Burstein and her team, shaping the stories of these kids into a more orderly narrative.  For example, we learn something poignant about Megan pretty late in the film.  It’s a powerful moment, and helps to shed light on her character and actions — but the placement of that revelation in the movie, which really could have come anywhere, seemed driven by where it would have the most emotional impact.  I understand that that is what a good filmmaker needs to do in order to shape a two hour film out of what must have been thousands of hours of footage.  Still, moments like that drew me out of the film somewhat.

American Teen has its flaws, just like the kids it follows.  But nevertheless it’s a fascinating, involving look at the lives of today’s teenagers.  I really grew to like all of the kids whose lives were chronicled in the film.  I wouldn’t mind a sequel, picking up their lives a few years down the road!  As I think now about the movie, I’m finding myself surprisingly concerned about their current situations — the way they all turned out, and the lives they’re finding for themselves after High School, and after the release of this film.  I hope they’re all doing well!!

Bottom line on Terminator: Salvation — It’s not as good a Terminator movie as I would have hoped for, but don’t believe the reviews, it’s not nearly the catastrophe you’ve been lead to believe it is.

Ever since James Cameron’s original masterpiece The Terminator (made in 1984, can you believe it??), we’ve been teased by glimpses of the post-Judgment Day future war against the machines.  With Terminator: Salvation, we’re finally being given a movie that is set entirely (except for a short prologue) in this post-apocalyptic world.  

The year is 2018, and things are looking pretty grim for mankind.  Most surviving humans are just focused on their own survival, but several small, rag-tag groups of resistance fighters are attempting to fight back against the machines.  John Connor is amongst them, but while his mother’s messages to him have provided him with valuable guidance, this John Connor has not yet become the leader of the resistance (nor has he sent his buddy Kyle Reese back in time).  Reese, meanwhile, is not yet a member of the resistance — he’s just a tough teenager trying to survive.  While Connor and Reese get a lot of screen-time, surprisingly, neither one of them is really the main character of the film.  That would be death-row inmate Marcus Wright, who signs his body over to Cyberdyne systems in 2003 and then wakes up in 2018 in a Skynet lab.

The way I see it, the film has three major weaknesses:

1.  Clearly this is a film written with the intention of focusing on a new character (Marcus Wright).  But when Christian Bale signed on to play John Connor, his role was significantly expanded.  The result is a movie that is split rather unevenly between those two characters and their storylines.  The film aspires to be an epic war-movie, telling multiple interweaving stories… but instead winds up losing the audience’s focus by not giving us a clear character in whose story we can emotionally invest.  Similarly to the way I can watch J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie and see clearly the way the character of old Spock was shoe-horned into the movie (Imagine that movie’s plot without old Spock — it would be NO DIFFERENT.   Kirk gets ejected onto the ice planet, finds Scotty, and utilizes Scotty’s engineering expertise to get himself beamed back to the Enterprise), I can clearly see how this film was not originally intended to focus on John Connor.  That explains why, despite Connor being in a lot of action scenes, he doesn’t have any real story-line in the film.  This isn’t a movie about his rise to the leadership of the rebellion, or about him running away from or facing up to his destiny — those ideas are hinted at, but not focused on in any way (in contrast to the tremendous character growth of Sarah in the first Terminator film and young John in the second).  The split focus really hobbles the film.

2.  As with the other two big summer blockbusters I have seen so far this month (Star Trek and X-Men Origins: Wolverine), this movie is hobbled by its script.  I just addressed the major structural problem, but there are also a ton of major plot holes (for instance, I counted about 10 times in which any slightly-intelligent machine could have easily killed John or Kyle, thus ensuring Skynet’s victory), as well as lot of little scenes and moments that just don’t work (the “I want to cuddle” scene between Marcus and resistance pilot Blair Williams being particularly atrocious).  

3.  I cannot recall another movie in recent memory that was so spoiled by its marketing campaign.  What is supposed to be a major plot twist half-way through the film has been revealed in every single trailer for this film.  Now, granted, that plot twist wasn’t particularly twisty (I’d imagine that anyone who has ever seen a Terminator movie before would be able to guess what’s coming once Marcus wakes up in a Skynet facility in 2018), but still.  Any drama that MIGHT be found in Marcus’s story-line is totally gone because we all knew exactly what is really going on with him.

Wow, that all sounds pretty bad!  Didn’t I say that I rather liked this film?

Indeed I did!  Let’s focus on the positives:

1.  The action scenes are as good as you’d hope for.  There are several extended sequences (an assault on a Skynet facility at the beginning of the movie; Marcus and Kyle’s race from and battle with an enormous Harvester machine; and of course the climactic assault on Skynet) and they’re all pretty magnificent — energetic and in-your-face.  I’m sure there was a lot of CGI used, but the film’s action sequences have a gritty, real-world feel to them that is more reminiscent of Mad Max than, say, The Matrix.  And that is a very good thing/

2.  The Terminators look great and are dangerous and scary again.  (I sort of liked the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show, but after two years of that I was getting really frustrated by how easy-to-kill the Terminators on that show seemed to be.  The ones here really seem menacing.)  I also really liked the various different robot designs.  From the trailers that highlighted the enormous Harvester robot, I was worried that the robots in this film would all look too much like Transformers, but that wasn’t the case.  I was particularly pleased by all the great T-800 action in the film’s final half hour.  Great stuff.  (Though John Connor’s innards should have been pulped after getting punched by one of those things…)

3.  The cast was surprisingly solid.  They’re all short-changed by the script, but despite that I thought everyone acquitted themselves well.  No surprise, Christian Bale gives good bad-ass as the grizzled John Connor.  Newcomer Sam Worthington is also compelling and likable as Marcus Wright (making his scenes watchable despite the fact that, as noted above, I had almost zero interest in his character’s predictable story-line), and Anton Yelchin (Chekov in the new Star Trek film — the kid is having the summer of his life) absolutely knocks it out of the park as Kyle Reese.  

4.  I’ll be coy here just in case you managed to avoid being spoiled about the surprise CGI reprisal of an old character (news of which has been all over the internet and the mainstream press for months now), but I absolutely LOVED this.  Even knowing this was coming I was surprised and tickled by the appearance, and I thought the CGI looked dynamite.  

5.  I have bashed the heck out of the script, but let me pay the writers one compliment: they manage to do a great job of incorporating a lot of the classic Terminator lines into this film in fun, organic, and surprising ways.  This sort of thing can be painful and awkward if done wrong, but I was really pleased at the way these moments were woven into the film.

There are a lot of other things that I really liked, such as the inclusion of a familiar voice coming from John Connor’s tape recorders.  I also have plenty of other complaints, such as my disappointment that, with the exception of the opening credits, the film’s score didn’t really use any of Brad Fiedel’s classic Terminator music (in contrast to the way Bear McCreary has cleverly woven those themes into his scores for the Sarah Connor Chronicles).  But I’ve probably already devoted more words to this film than it really deserves.

In the end, I feel almost exactly the same about this film as I did about the last installment, 2003’s Terminator 3.  It’s not anywhere close to the masterpieces that James Cameron’s first two films were, nor is it a franchise-ruining mess.  After reading all the dreadful reviews of this latest film, that almost feels like a win to me.  Still, I hope to someday be able to walk out of the screening of a new Terminator movie having once again recaptured the “Oh my god that was AWESOME!!” feeling of the first two films.

Maybe someday.