Ayn Rand fans, now I've never read Atlas Shrugged but I do know the gist of the plot and its general reputation. Anyway I started watching the movie version and... It. Is. Bad. Like real bad. If I start watching a movie its almost unheard of for me not to finish it. Even if its bad I like to be able to complain about it in detail, but this was just so awful, I couldn't do it. I planed on watching the whole trilogy this weekend but I didn't even get through part I. Bad acting, very limited budget, the dialogue and plot are just eek. I get what its trying to say, that the job creators and innovators are important, we take them for granted, big government bad, personal sovereignty good, you can't tell us what to do, we don't owe you anything, etc. But this story just felt like a pity party for the one percent, and the one percent can afford better. I'm guessing the book must be better then this. Anybody see this movie? Anyone like it? Is it faithful to the book and if so how is the book better? Thoughts? It's 10% rating on Rotten Tomato's seems kind of generous.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Indignation (2016)
I'm a big fan of the novels of Philip Roth, though I (and I think he) would freely admit the man and his work can have their excess. Though when Roth is at his best he really hits it out of the park. His 2000 novel The Human Stain was one such, to mix sports metaphors, 'slam dunk', however its 2003 film adaptation was not. That movie was disappointing, but I don't think it had to be. A large part of the problem was the abbreviated 1 hour 46 minute running time, under the right hands and with say 2 1/2 hours to tell the story I think the movie could have been quite good, HBO should have done it. So I had some cause for trepidation when I heard that another great Roth novel, Indignation was to be made into a film. Though Indignation I felt also had the more potential for a movie adaptation in that the book is shorter, more of a novella, and its story more concentrated, whereas the side stories in The Human Stain, which added a lot to that novel, were largely dropped from its screen treatment.
Indignation, Roth's 29th book, came out in 2008. It along with Everyman (2006), The Humbling (2009) and the now retired authors last novel Nemesis (2010) (which I think has the most movie potential out of the four), are sometimes referred to as Roth's 'Indignation Quadrilogy', as these four short novels are all about a characters taking a real or perceived slight and letting it destroy him. (On a side note one wonders if this theme is at least in part a response to the nasty things Roth's ex wife the actress Clair Bloom said about him in her memories, but that also gets us into his 1998 novel I Married a Communist and is a digression I won't peruse further her)..
Indignation's story is (like many a Roth book) about a bright young Jewish boy of the authors generation from New Jersey, in this case Marcus Messner, the son of a kosher butcher who in the early 1950's gets to become the first member of his family to go to college when he gets awarded a scholarship to Winesburg, a (fictional) small but prestigious private college in Ohio. Logan Lerman, a relative unknown like all of the cast, is excellent as Messner, really capturing the characters mix of naiveté, defensiveness and pride. Plucked into this new world Messner is an awkward fit who seems unconsciously bent on making things worse for himself through a seemingly chronic inability to just let anything go. At Winseburg Marcus falls for fellow student Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gadon, luminous), a pretty but troubled girl who comes from a rich background. That relationship, which is central to the book, is central here, it is what the story is built on, and it is ultimately what will lead Marcus to his doom.
The films strong focus on this central story, as well as the fact that its an adaptation and can't help but drop some things, inevitably leads to some minor changes from the novel. Some of the side characters and subplots, like Marcus's conflicts with his roommates (one of which is played by Ben Rosenfield, who had been a supporting character on Boardwalk Empire and the only actor in this film that I immediately recognized), are truncated, and other things such as the campus wide riot that plays a large part in the ending of the novel, are completely left out (I had been excited to see the riot on screen, but ultimately it was not necessary for the movie and would have taken too much time to set up and been a distraction from the main story). Yet none of these changes really mattered, this film was true to the spirit of Roth's book in a way that The Human Stain movie never was. Beautiful to look at and excellently handled by first time director James Schamus, this understated little film is easily one of the best movies of the year so far. Schamus even manages to work in, and pretty close to word for word, an awkward, confrontational conversation between Marcus and his schools dean Hawes D. Caudwell (Tony Award winner Tracy Letts), which has got to run around 10 minutes and is probably the most glorious thing I've seen on screen all year. There is some sexual content so its not for everyone, but I loved this movie. ****
Indignation, Roth's 29th book, came out in 2008. It along with Everyman (2006), The Humbling (2009) and the now retired authors last novel Nemesis (2010) (which I think has the most movie potential out of the four), are sometimes referred to as Roth's 'Indignation Quadrilogy', as these four short novels are all about a characters taking a real or perceived slight and letting it destroy him. (On a side note one wonders if this theme is at least in part a response to the nasty things Roth's ex wife the actress Clair Bloom said about him in her memories, but that also gets us into his 1998 novel I Married a Communist and is a digression I won't peruse further her)..
Indignation's story is (like many a Roth book) about a bright young Jewish boy of the authors generation from New Jersey, in this case Marcus Messner, the son of a kosher butcher who in the early 1950's gets to become the first member of his family to go to college when he gets awarded a scholarship to Winesburg, a (fictional) small but prestigious private college in Ohio. Logan Lerman, a relative unknown like all of the cast, is excellent as Messner, really capturing the characters mix of naiveté, defensiveness and pride. Plucked into this new world Messner is an awkward fit who seems unconsciously bent on making things worse for himself through a seemingly chronic inability to just let anything go. At Winseburg Marcus falls for fellow student Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gadon, luminous), a pretty but troubled girl who comes from a rich background. That relationship, which is central to the book, is central here, it is what the story is built on, and it is ultimately what will lead Marcus to his doom.
The films strong focus on this central story, as well as the fact that its an adaptation and can't help but drop some things, inevitably leads to some minor changes from the novel. Some of the side characters and subplots, like Marcus's conflicts with his roommates (one of which is played by Ben Rosenfield, who had been a supporting character on Boardwalk Empire and the only actor in this film that I immediately recognized), are truncated, and other things such as the campus wide riot that plays a large part in the ending of the novel, are completely left out (I had been excited to see the riot on screen, but ultimately it was not necessary for the movie and would have taken too much time to set up and been a distraction from the main story). Yet none of these changes really mattered, this film was true to the spirit of Roth's book in a way that The Human Stain movie never was. Beautiful to look at and excellently handled by first time director James Schamus, this understated little film is easily one of the best movies of the year so far. Schamus even manages to work in, and pretty close to word for word, an awkward, confrontational conversation between Marcus and his schools dean Hawes D. Caudwell (Tony Award winner Tracy Letts), which has got to run around 10 minutes and is probably the most glorious thing I've seen on screen all year. There is some sexual content so its not for everyone, but I loved this movie. ****
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Suicide Squad (2016)
Suicide Squad is the first film in the DC cinematic universe not to feature Superman or be directed by Zack Snyder. There is, in theory at least, a lot ridding on this film in terms of opening up said universe. In terms of box office success as of this writing the film has made more then $570 Million box office on a $175 Million budget. So its doing good financially thought critically its scored a mere 26% positive reviews on Rotten Tomato's, on par with Batman v Superman which came out earlier this year and has a 27% fresh rating on the same site. DC is just not getting the critical love that Marvel has, and I think at least part of that is critics not knowing what to make of it.
It's been the better part of two weeks since I saw Suicide Squad and I'm not fully sure that I know what I think of it either. It's hard to point out specific flaws, the nominal villain of the piece is kind of weak, the stakes never fully seem earned, and ultimately I'm not really sure what then whole point of this exercise was, beyond making money. At the same time I can't say that I've ever seen anything quite like this before, a team of villains assembled to combat a larger threat, but one that maybe wouldn't have even existed had this group not been formed. The films pretty well put together, I didn't have any major problems with the structure, though I had a hard time connecting with the piece. Part of that is that I'm just not that familiar with who most of these characters are, I don't have a history with them, I'd only even heard of three or four of them before. One of those of course was the Joker, and I must say I did not care of Jared Leto's take on the character, though apparently most of his scenes were cut so maybe the performance would play better in a longer cut.
So after thinking about it for awhile I've decided to give Suicide Squad *** because I'm not sure what I even wanted out of it in the first place, and at the very least it was something that I hadn't seen in a super hero movie before, namely one largely devoid of super hero's. Will Smith is likable even when he's playing a hired assassin, and the rest of the ensemble cast is given pretty balanced screen time and are largely fleshed out. Joel Kinnaman gives probably the strongest performance out of the lesser known actors in the film, and Viola Davis is great as always. Margot Robbie will certainly sell tickets though I liked her a lot more in Whisky Tango Foxtrot.
It's been the better part of two weeks since I saw Suicide Squad and I'm not fully sure that I know what I think of it either. It's hard to point out specific flaws, the nominal villain of the piece is kind of weak, the stakes never fully seem earned, and ultimately I'm not really sure what then whole point of this exercise was, beyond making money. At the same time I can't say that I've ever seen anything quite like this before, a team of villains assembled to combat a larger threat, but one that maybe wouldn't have even existed had this group not been formed. The films pretty well put together, I didn't have any major problems with the structure, though I had a hard time connecting with the piece. Part of that is that I'm just not that familiar with who most of these characters are, I don't have a history with them, I'd only even heard of three or four of them before. One of those of course was the Joker, and I must say I did not care of Jared Leto's take on the character, though apparently most of his scenes were cut so maybe the performance would play better in a longer cut.
So after thinking about it for awhile I've decided to give Suicide Squad *** because I'm not sure what I even wanted out of it in the first place, and at the very least it was something that I hadn't seen in a super hero movie before, namely one largely devoid of super hero's. Will Smith is likable even when he's playing a hired assassin, and the rest of the ensemble cast is given pretty balanced screen time and are largely fleshed out. Joel Kinnaman gives probably the strongest performance out of the lesser known actors in the film, and Viola Davis is great as always. Margot Robbie will certainly sell tickets though I liked her a lot more in Whisky Tango Foxtrot.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
House (1986), House II: The Second Story (1987)
While I never saw it in its entirety I saw portions of the movie House II many times when it was in regular rotation on the USA Network circa 1990, so in deciding to revisit House II I figured why not see the original as well. Turns out the House films are not really that related to each other, besides the title, some names behind the camera, roughly the look of the special effects, and they each concern a home that is something of an inter-dimensional gateway, though its actually a different house in each of these two films.
The original House is closer to a conventional horror movie. Greatest American Hero star William Kitt is Roger Cobb, a Steven King like horror author who moves back into the home where his aunt raised him after her apparent suicide. This is also the house that his only son disappeared from, an event that ultimately resulted in the breakup of his marriage to (Miss world 1977 Mary Stavin) a successful actress on a prime time soap opera called Missouri. Add to this that Cobb is working on a book about his traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War, and the guy is under a lot stress. The movie really could have gone in an ambiguous direction as it relates to its lead characters sanity, though it largely abandons this sense of uncertainty around half way through. There are a number of rubbery looking caricature-like monster people in this who torment Roger. Cobb also has a somewhat intrusive neighbor played by Cheers star George Wendt, which is a perfect segway into House II, which features another Cheers star.
John Ratzenberger's performance as Bill, a guy whose business card lists him as an Electrician/Adventurer is the element of this film that I always most remembered. When called to the titular house to investigate an electrical issues he quickly a finds a portal behind a wall, 'Yeah that seems to be your problem here, you've got some kind of alternate universe back there. Don't worry I've dealt with this kind of thing before'. House II has a lighter tone then the original, it barley keeps up even a pretense to being a horror movie, its more of a comic/adventure movie. A man inherits the ancestral home of his family he never knew, and in short order unearths the reanimated corpse of his cowboy great grandfather who is kept alive by a ancient Crystal Skull, that the business partner he killed has also returned from the dead to collect. Our lead Arye Gross and his best friend Jonathan Stark end up traveling to alternate dimensions accessible within the house in efforts to retrieve and protect the skull after it is captured, more then once. Bill Maher and Amy Yasbeck are also in this, veteran character actor Royal Dano plays great grandpa Jessie. Its an odd yet enjoyable film that despite its off the wall premise seemed more coherent then the original House, which often felt like it was an assemblage of plot elements from various other movies. House II is probably something you can show the kids, but I don't think I'd let little ones see the original.
House (1986) **
House II: The Second Story (1987) **1/2
The original House is closer to a conventional horror movie. Greatest American Hero star William Kitt is Roger Cobb, a Steven King like horror author who moves back into the home where his aunt raised him after her apparent suicide. This is also the house that his only son disappeared from, an event that ultimately resulted in the breakup of his marriage to (Miss world 1977 Mary Stavin) a successful actress on a prime time soap opera called Missouri. Add to this that Cobb is working on a book about his traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War, and the guy is under a lot stress. The movie really could have gone in an ambiguous direction as it relates to its lead characters sanity, though it largely abandons this sense of uncertainty around half way through. There are a number of rubbery looking caricature-like monster people in this who torment Roger. Cobb also has a somewhat intrusive neighbor played by Cheers star George Wendt, which is a perfect segway into House II, which features another Cheers star.
John Ratzenberger's performance as Bill, a guy whose business card lists him as an Electrician/Adventurer is the element of this film that I always most remembered. When called to the titular house to investigate an electrical issues he quickly a finds a portal behind a wall, 'Yeah that seems to be your problem here, you've got some kind of alternate universe back there. Don't worry I've dealt with this kind of thing before'. House II has a lighter tone then the original, it barley keeps up even a pretense to being a horror movie, its more of a comic/adventure movie. A man inherits the ancestral home of his family he never knew, and in short order unearths the reanimated corpse of his cowboy great grandfather who is kept alive by a ancient Crystal Skull, that the business partner he killed has also returned from the dead to collect. Our lead Arye Gross and his best friend Jonathan Stark end up traveling to alternate dimensions accessible within the house in efforts to retrieve and protect the skull after it is captured, more then once. Bill Maher and Amy Yasbeck are also in this, veteran character actor Royal Dano plays great grandpa Jessie. Its an odd yet enjoyable film that despite its off the wall premise seemed more coherent then the original House, which often felt like it was an assemblage of plot elements from various other movies. House II is probably something you can show the kids, but I don't think I'd let little ones see the original.
House (1986) **
House II: The Second Story (1987) **1/2
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Sex Madness (1938)
A sibling of sorts to the much better known Reefer Madness, Sex Madness is an exploitation film in the guise of a public service morality tale about the dangers of syphilis. Less then an hour in length the film is watchable as a curio, it is on the whole much blander then Reefer Madness but there is some strongly implied lesbianism in the film. This movie has fallen into the public domain and is freely available in multiple places on the internet. **
The Conformist (1970)
The only film by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci that I had seen before this one was The Last Emperor, 1987's Academy Award winner for Best Picture. Well now I know that I really need to see more Bertolucci movies because he's hit the two that I've seen out of the park. The Conformist is based on the 1951 novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia whose work has provided the source material for other notable foreign films like Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963) and Vittorio De Sica's Two Women (1960). So The Conformist is a very literary work and one I must surely see again because its so rich and textured you wouldn't be able to pick up on everything in it in one viewing, for days after I saw the picture I was making new connections in my mind about various scenes and themes in the movie.
The bulk of the story is set in 1938 and concerns Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) an operative of the fascist government in Italy who is assigned, while on his honeymoon in Paris with his much younger wife (Stefania Sandrelli), to murder his old college professor and mentor Enzo Tarascio, who in exile has been publishing things Mussolini's government doesn't much care for. This sets up Clerici's main internal conflict, he is a conformist, always willing to go along with the prevailing winds in order to survive and prosper, but he also has a deep love and respect for his old professor who has shown an ability to standard for principal that Clerici envies though can never quite muster himself. This of course is just the main story, there are number of sub plots and digressions, all of which are interesting. Perhaps the most intriguing of these however is Clerici's ultimately complicated relationship with his best friend Italo (Jose Quaglio) who quite fascinatingly is a blind man who write propaganda for the Italian government. This is an ambiguous yet powerful film which doesn't spell everything out for you, and features a deeply flawed protagonist who even a week after viewing the film I'm not sure how I feel about. Be aware it has some sexual content but I highly recommend. ****
The bulk of the story is set in 1938 and concerns Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) an operative of the fascist government in Italy who is assigned, while on his honeymoon in Paris with his much younger wife (Stefania Sandrelli), to murder his old college professor and mentor Enzo Tarascio, who in exile has been publishing things Mussolini's government doesn't much care for. This sets up Clerici's main internal conflict, he is a conformist, always willing to go along with the prevailing winds in order to survive and prosper, but he also has a deep love and respect for his old professor who has shown an ability to standard for principal that Clerici envies though can never quite muster himself. This of course is just the main story, there are number of sub plots and digressions, all of which are interesting. Perhaps the most intriguing of these however is Clerici's ultimately complicated relationship with his best friend Italo (Jose Quaglio) who quite fascinatingly is a blind man who write propaganda for the Italian government. This is an ambiguous yet powerful film which doesn't spell everything out for you, and features a deeply flawed protagonist who even a week after viewing the film I'm not sure how I feel about. Be aware it has some sexual content but I highly recommend. ****
Friday, August 12, 2016
Star Trek: Beyound (2016)
The third entry in J.J. Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise may well be the film in which this new series comes into its own, and as much as I like Abrams part of the reason for that is because he didn't direct it, Abrams tends to be too loyal to source material sometimes i.e.Star Wars Episode VII. Star Trek: Beyond while produced by Abrams is instead directed by Justin Lin, best known for directing four of The Fast and the Furious movies. There is an expected kinetic energy to the film, which the previous two films had in parts, but this movie also feels loser, freer then the others, more like the original Star Trek TV series then the movies (though honestly part of that is do to the bright color scheme of much of the film). That is not to say that the film doesn't include a heavy dose of Abramsesique homage, there are scenes or story elements taken directly from Star Trek's II, III, IV, V and surprisingly Insurrection. Also there are plot elements that tie the story into the era depicted in the prequel series Enterprise. The story itself though is a new one, not a lose remake, and is better because of it. The stakes also feel refreshingly refrained, the Earth doesn't have to be in immediate peril in all of these movies.
To me the most enjoyable scenes in the film are when the crew is split up into small groups while stranded on the planet after the destruction of the Enterprise, which is not a spoiler as it is highlighted in the movies trailer. Spock and McCoy stuck together and good naturedly sparing, one of the more fondly remembered dynamics of the original series is highlighted here, and I liked Scotty's scenes with the new alien character Jaylah. The climax is also good, with some nifty visuals, and the villain of the piece, played by Idris Elba, is also quite good, which is not always the case with Star Trek villains. This is a fun and good looking movie which I would recommend seeing on the big screen, as well as the entry in this reboot I think most likely to be well received by hard core Star Trek fans and the general public alike. ***
To me the most enjoyable scenes in the film are when the crew is split up into small groups while stranded on the planet after the destruction of the Enterprise, which is not a spoiler as it is highlighted in the movies trailer. Spock and McCoy stuck together and good naturedly sparing, one of the more fondly remembered dynamics of the original series is highlighted here, and I liked Scotty's scenes with the new alien character Jaylah. The climax is also good, with some nifty visuals, and the villain of the piece, played by Idris Elba, is also quite good, which is not always the case with Star Trek villains. This is a fun and good looking movie which I would recommend seeing on the big screen, as well as the entry in this reboot I think most likely to be well received by hard core Star Trek fans and the general public alike. ***
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Ghostbusters (2016)
It has been reported that the trailer for the 2016 version of Ghostbusters is the most "unliked" video in the history of YouTube. Indeed there has been a lot of backlash against this remake/reboot, part of which is rooted in a juvenile misogyny against the female cast, part out of the reverential place the original 1984 film occupies in the minds of many (mostly men) of a certain age, and partially because honestly the first couple of trailers for the film didn't look all that good. I came into this film a little skeptical but willing to be won over, what I got was a film that wasn't great, wasn't terrible, but rather a mixed bag.
I quite liked the first half of this film, less so the second, and did not care for the ending. There will be some spoilers here. I thought the cast worked, there was good chemistry there, and the plot was significantly enough different from the original film to be its own thing. The early sequences with the Ghostbusters first getting together were by far the most entreating, later sequences with their interacting with the mayor and his staff less so. The filmmakers evidently thought Chris Hemsworth as the Busters himbo secretary was comic gold, I thought it wore pretty thin after awhile. There are a lot of cameos in this film, including most of the living main cast of the original film, these worked unevenly. There was a strong emphasis on hitting cues and motifs from the original film, I think they tried overheard on this front including the incorporation of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. This film also channeled a surprising amount of Jim Carey's The Mask.
The movie in too many instances tried to one up the original film or "take it to 11". The end of the film was hyperactive, too much going on and not enough of it sufficiently grounded or earned. There are new Ghostbuster weapons which I thought were quite gimmicky, you have scenes where there are ghost corpses littering the ground, I mean what does that even mean, how do you kill a ghost? I did not like the look of the special effects, far too cartoony, one the things that worked so well in the original film is the degree to which they played the ghost characters more or less straight.
Paul Feig, who co-wrote and directed the film and whose previous work pretty much made Melissa McCarthy a star has an excellent understanding of pace and film structure, and on the whole I can't really fault this film on that front. Everything here is in its place and there is a place for everything, plot points are introduced when they should be and sufficiently developed to make sense, characters are given sufficient backstory and motivation so the character development is good, and the screen time for the members of the ensemble cast is pretty well balanced. Structurally things worked, with the arguable exception of the ending, the film was often funny, again more so towards the beginning, but ironically for a film about ghost catching this whole thing lacked soul. I felt like I was watching a movie from a parallel universe, all the parts where there but the sum total was lacking. You can't just reverse engineer a hit like 1984's Ghostbusters and expect it to not come off as merely the knock off it is, however fine a knockoff that may be. **1/2
I quite liked the first half of this film, less so the second, and did not care for the ending. There will be some spoilers here. I thought the cast worked, there was good chemistry there, and the plot was significantly enough different from the original film to be its own thing. The early sequences with the Ghostbusters first getting together were by far the most entreating, later sequences with their interacting with the mayor and his staff less so. The filmmakers evidently thought Chris Hemsworth as the Busters himbo secretary was comic gold, I thought it wore pretty thin after awhile. There are a lot of cameos in this film, including most of the living main cast of the original film, these worked unevenly. There was a strong emphasis on hitting cues and motifs from the original film, I think they tried overheard on this front including the incorporation of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. This film also channeled a surprising amount of Jim Carey's The Mask.
The movie in too many instances tried to one up the original film or "take it to 11". The end of the film was hyperactive, too much going on and not enough of it sufficiently grounded or earned. There are new Ghostbuster weapons which I thought were quite gimmicky, you have scenes where there are ghost corpses littering the ground, I mean what does that even mean, how do you kill a ghost? I did not like the look of the special effects, far too cartoony, one the things that worked so well in the original film is the degree to which they played the ghost characters more or less straight.
Paul Feig, who co-wrote and directed the film and whose previous work pretty much made Melissa McCarthy a star has an excellent understanding of pace and film structure, and on the whole I can't really fault this film on that front. Everything here is in its place and there is a place for everything, plot points are introduced when they should be and sufficiently developed to make sense, characters are given sufficient backstory and motivation so the character development is good, and the screen time for the members of the ensemble cast is pretty well balanced. Structurally things worked, with the arguable exception of the ending, the film was often funny, again more so towards the beginning, but ironically for a film about ghost catching this whole thing lacked soul. I felt like I was watching a movie from a parallel universe, all the parts where there but the sum total was lacking. You can't just reverse engineer a hit like 1984's Ghostbusters and expect it to not come off as merely the knock off it is, however fine a knockoff that may be. **1/2
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