Hello movie lovers! Or likers, or it's-complicateders or just-frienders or whatever you do. I'm back to sort out my thoughts about Fury, the Brad Pitt-starring WWII drama that came out over the weekend. It has had me thinking since I saw it on Monday, and I think you should give it a look as well.
In Greek mythology, furies, or erinyes, were the female deities of vengeance. They would often violently punish oath-breakers and the insolent. They are also sometimes an "embodiment of the act of self-cursing." Thank you, Wikipedia.
I went on this pseudo-research bend after I saw Fury, because as it finished it seemed to me that it isn't really a war movie, at least as far as making a politicalish statement is concerned. Plot-wise, of course, it totally is: Pitt leads an American tank crew through Germany as the war ends. But resonance-wise, it feels different. This is vague, so allow me to explain.
On paper, Fury is often as conventional a WWII movie as there is. Pitt is the grizzled leader of a tight tank crew, which includes the religious guy, the Mexican guy, the Alabamian guy, and the scared new guy. This hardy troupe encounter the kinds of experiences with anonymous and faceless German soldiers you might think they would, and there is a healthy but not overbearing dose of postmodern skepticism thrown in to taste. But, all that aside, it is not really a war movie.
The movie is about the primeval in us, more than anything else. Nobility and honor in a war movie are things we stopped doing with Vietnam (with the exception of Saving Private Ryan,) but Fury tries to take it a step further: there isn't even right and wrong. Here, what is awakened in the man who finds himself in battle far predates any conception of what is good or not. Stephen Crane talked about it in The Red Badge of Courage, the animalization of a man driven to survive the insane situation of 10,000 of his fellows trying to kill him. No other species attempts its own genocide. Perhaps that is the fury referred to in the title: the fury of the complacent, easy, "natural" man against the bloody and counterintuitive taxes of life required of his "civilized" generation.
One of the more moving scenes takes place in a German home which two of our tank crew have adopted after a battle. The women make them food; together they eat and sing and make love and try to enjoy something "normal." But these men are as out of place there as they would be flyfishing on the moon. The scene ends with a call to battle, and a return the belly of the tank, the only home they understand anymore. They claim, ruefully, ironically, but undeniably, that the war is "the best job they ever had." I would say then that, more accurately, the fury the film is concerned with is more of the self-cursing variety.
Fury is haunting and grim and at times contradictory, or at least tonally complicated. It is an interesting counterbalance to the idealistic tone struck in Monuments Men, from earlier this year. Though probably stick with that one for your feel-better-about-life movie night.
Furyfeatures Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal, and is rated R for tank-related killing and many swears.
A while ago (okay, like a month ago) I was reading a little post over at Collider about why this summer's box office has been so much slower than last year's. It's an interesting little nugget, but to me it boils down to this: people haven't gone to movies this year because movies this year haven't been that good. But that can't really true, can it?
Heaven knows I don't want it to be. But I had a depressing realization this week: it has been two solid months since I have gone to a movie. (For the record it was Edge of Tomorrow, which was pretty nice until the last three minutes.) This drought often happens in January or February, which are usually reserved for studios' unplanned and regretted mistakes, but not in high summer. Of course you are thinking, must be real a tough life if not going to movies is the biggest problem you have. And, of course, moviegoing is a silly little passtime. But ask yourself: what was the last movie you really enjoyed this year? What is the movie you would go see again?
Part of the issue is that I live in Cedar City which, for being such a self-proclaimed artsy town, has a pretty large cinematic blind spot. There are exactly 16 movie screens in this town, 14 of which are owned by the late Mr Larry H Miller's car selling multi-media conglomerate. The other two belong to a pretty nice (and locally owned) second-showing theatre. There simply isn't room for a diverse slate of options down at the multiplex. Or so it would seem to one disgruntled lover of decent film.
Now, before I decry the Megaplex any further, I will say this. I like the Stadium 8 in Cedar City more than almost any other theatre I've been in. The stadium seating in some rooms is so deep, the head of the person in front of me only reaches my shins. It feels like a small-town theatre, often with small crowds and quick lines. The screens and projection are very often without fault. Part of the issue, no doubt, rests in complicated and expensive distribution deals about which I am totally ignorant. But I don't think that a little variety or quality control would kill anybody, either.
Observe the list of showtimes for this week, typical of every week so far this summer. Between the two theatres, 11 movies are playing. Now to be continually fair, this is actually a pretty nice movie-to-screen ratio compared with how it has sometimes been. But let's look at the movies themselves rather than just the numbers. There are no less than 5 showings of Disney's sequel-of-a-sidequel-for-your-five-year-old, Planes: Fire & Rescue, more than for the James Brown biopic Get On Up, which is out this week. Other movies you all are beating the doors down to see are more recent releases like Sex Tape, The Purge: Anarchy, and May holdover Maleficent, which together are tying up 8 showtimes. I guess my question with this is: Would it be a bad thing to do away with duds no one will miss for something a little more artistically and culturally satisfying?
Don't get me wrong, the multiplex is probably the crowning achievement of the mechanized entertainment industry profit machine, and I realize its primary purpose is to make money. It is a carnival for movie exhibition, and the bigger the show the bigger the draw. Movies have been this way since the Lumiere brothers. But I also believe that a theatre should do something to show off the best of the medium it showcases, and that it can do so without being confused for a non-profit arthouse in Greenwich Village run by hemp-smoking Tarkofsky junkies. Surely as much money could be made on two or three showings of Richard Linklater's critical triumph Boyhood as is being gleaned from token exhibitions of Sex Tape. I am willing to bet that you don't even know anybody who knows anybody who went to see The Purge's sequel, but anybody who saw Snowpiercer doesn't stop talking about it. Maybe afternoon showings of Maleficent to two or three people could be better used for accessible indies like Begin Again or Wish I Was Here. But of course, I don't know.
So I guess my plea here is, if you live near an independent theatre, please support it. Movies like Guardians of the Galaxy will always be around (always, since there is already a sequel in the pipes, aren't you excited) but independent gems like Grand Budapest Hotel or even disappointing non-sequelated flicks like Edge of Tomorrow are far less common. Maybe you'll be disappointed or challenged or (heaven forbid) actually emotionally involved, but your experience will surely be more rewarding than sitting through incoherent pixelated robot porn.
I go to movies (and consequently write about them) because I like movies. I try to like the movies I go to see: to take them on their own terms, meet them in the world they create. People that go to movies presumably to identify everything wrong with them (ie, CinemaSins, Screen Junkies, etc) really bug me. A lot. They are fun-sucking parasites who mistake fault-finding or cheap parody for critical analysis. I like that we have temples of entertainment to which we can journey and forget our troubles temporarily in the smell of popcorn and the hum of projector wheels. And I like that, sometimes, special things can happen there.
But, unlike most or possibly all of you, I don't like comic book movies.
Normally a thing like this wouldn't bother me: difference is the spice that makes film great. When people like a movie that I don't, I'm glad that they enjoyed it, because for all the work that went into it, somebody ought to. But I feel that, in the spirit of letting you enjoy the movies you will, I should say something. Obviously this is opening a can of potentially angry fanboy worms, but know that I'll love you no matter your life choices.
First, I concede that such a categorical ban of such a broad genre is pretty narrow-minded and possibly unfounded of me. I feel (and based on the many comic book movies I have seen have concluded) that basically, a comic series does not, and cannot, a good movie make. Fanboys will claim that comics give us unique opportunities to explore important contemporary themes along with timeless motifs, that they are a window into us. They do, and are, but their prolonged (and often interminable) episodic structure cannot be made into effective, original cinema, the very form of which is bound by tight time constraints and often years of work per single offering. Comics work on their own because they are more like television shows, offering small chunks of story minced out on a weekly basis. Movies in a series come at most once a year, and therefore cannot have the same kind of structure. The resulting attempts have yielded a lucrative but lame formula which has become something of an addiction to both studios and audiences, one that values the next movie more than the one currently being shown. What fanboys forget is that movies of any genre offer us a glimpse into ourselves. That's why we make them in the first place.
But my complaint is not that movies like these exist, or even necessarily that they are popularly enjoyed. What I see is an artificial behemoth that is damaging the art that gave it life (such a great comicky theme!) and whose disease is spreading. The great comic houses of DC and Marvel are running an arms-escalation race similar to the one they both lost in the 90s when people people realized it wasn't the 50s anymore and stopped buying comics, causing their bankruptcy. The film medium has now provided them a renaissance with exponentially higher cost but much less product to produce. The result is a reliable but generally unchanging palette of movies on accelerated production timetables. Each is enormously expensive, and while each has also so far paid its own bills, one wonders for how long a brand of movies with near-identical dramatic arcs can be profitable.
The answer, you say, is forever, because we only tell a handful of stories to ourselves in the first place. Is there anything in Captain America different from Errol Flynn or Star Wars? Essentially, no. A hero's journey is a hero's journey, a romance is a romance, and a tragedy is a tragedy. Part of my grief comes not from content for its own sake, but from the amount of fanboy control exercised thereon, at the expense of quality. This begins as early as the writing room with screenwriters who were weaned on Superman and The Hulk creating indulgent fan fiction at the behest of controlling studio heads. They are not free, even if they would, to stray even experimentally with the adopted canon, else vengeful fanboy crucifixion and shameless studio eviction are inevitable. (Remember the fallout from Superman killing in Man of Steel? Or, just this week, Marvel's and Edgar Wright's divorce after he worked on Ant-Man for 8 years?) Thus the rest of us are presented with formulaic summaries of hallowed storylines in which no meaningful surprise is hidden and no real depth is or can be plumbed. The nuance that might be present in a comic series lasting years is sanded off in order to present a sleek, boring replica.
But what, you say, of Ironman 3? Wasn't the Mandarin's character twist a brilliant attempt at freshening up the property, of breaking with the establishment? I say, no, not really. It was more an example of world-building in place of story telling, of again waiting to show off the "real story" yet to come just before Robert Downey Jr's contract is up. Like much of what these movies do, it only works at a self-conscious level at best, something only hardcore fanboys will appreciate because they know how it used to be different. The rest of us are left with unsatisfying narrative arcs glossed over too quickly to be meaningful. They are films made to go through the motions, like playing Super Mario World even though you have it memorized, and we are left to be the younger sibling watching over the shoulders of the player.
I concede perhaps over-generalization, but ask yourself: what are the real stakes in a comic movie? Is the outcome ever uncertain even a little bit? You didn't really think Spider-Man would die, did you? That maybe he wouldn't come out on top, or that a baddie might get away? If Christopher Freaking Nolan's Dark Knight can't actually die, who would entertain even momentarily that Thor or Wolverine or Ironman would? Take the example of Captain America, whose entire purpose was to prepare the way for The Avengers. Of course poor Steve-o's sacrifice can't be consummated, because he has to appear in the Real Movie for which he has been giving us a 2-hour preview. I guess what bothers me about these movies, about paying money to experience the same archetypical story I would get in pretty much any other movie, is that given the "mythology" each brings with it, there can be no real originality or dramatic vitality.
Again, if the problem were self-contained I wouldn't bother, but it is spreading. Outside of comic book land we have something like Star Trek Into Darkness. (Perhaps not the best example since I have already maligned it elsewhere.) When Kirk is "dying" you know he won't: not because his hero's journey and therefore the story is incomplete, not because he must yet pass through fire and ice and come out better and blah blah blah, but because Paramount has a franchise to maintain. At least the first time around they had the nerve to actually kill Spock (albeit temporarily). It is one of any number of growing examples of starry-eyed fanboy writers breaking the rules of their story for the sake of a) doctrinal soundness and b) the profit-hungry studio machine. For this reason I am exceedingly apprehensive of the forthcoming Star Wars movies, or that there will be a 2 and 3 of Godzilla, and indeed why I have almost given up on the non-comic breed of franchise altogether.
So, while you are all enjoying X-Men in the Past Right Now, I'll be sitting at home writing angry blog rants because there are exactly three (!) comic movies playing right now, all with the same comic house father but with three separate and vengeful studio mothers, tying up screen space that might have gone to somebody's unique, risky, but probably rewarding original idea. Or at least to a broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera.
Am I being too obnoxious about a problem over which I have no control? Or do you find yourself wanting to join the boycott? Let me know how you feel, and when it comes out I'll look at Edge of Tomorrow, which at least looks like it shouldn't have a sequel.
The summer season is full upon us, and that means movies where stuff gets destroyed and superheroes and so on. While this writer isn't planning on ceasing his embargo of superhero movies (I am currently writing a discourse thereon that will be available soon) I do enjoy a good monster romp now and then (check out Pacific Rim from last summer.) Of course this week we all saw the other Pacific menace, Godzilla, as brought to us by Gareth Edwards. While I did have some qualms with some elements that we'll get into later, I found the movie to be largely a breath of fresh air in a genre dominated by adolescent mediocrity.
Godzilla is the story of (spoiler alert) a giant monster that causes havoc for humans. The humans involved, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and others, are caught in the crossfire as the military tries to subdue the prehistoric beast.
The film's greatest strength, by far, is the artistic quality Edwards and his team bring to the story. The film is often artwork first, then action movie, a work of a cool kind of terrifying beauty. One of the advantages of a largely CG environment is perfect control over shot composition, and the shots in the movie, be they full-on destruction or a only fleeting glimpse of Zilla's razor back, are handsomely done. In a film where we know exactly what will happen from the outset, the shots are also how Edwards creates suspense throughout. He teases (some say too much) the monster, only giving a peak here and there for most of the movie, and much of the destruction is seen after the fact. I say this works for a property so ubiquitous, as it gives you something to keep watching for. Along with the visual elements, the score and sound design are hugely effective as well. These combined elements do much to distinguish this movie from others of its kind by the likes of Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay.
However, much of what didn't work in the movie forces to be associated with its lesser-quality action movie brothers anyway. Thid comes down to characterization specifically, and writing generally. None of the characters are any kind of flushed out, which is frustrating given the film's Oscar- and Emmy-winning cast. More offensive, though, is how the film's female characters are used. They are all essentially there to be a motivation for the men (who have important things to do!), usually because of some combination of grief and guilt. Obviously not shocking considering its genre, but it felt different here again because of the talent of the cast and the outrageous extreme to which the ruse is taken. Even Olsen, the closest thing to a female protagonist in the film, only has a 15 minutes of screen time, and much of that is filled with screaming and not knowing what to do. But the sin, I am careful to note, lies in the material and not the performances. What little the actors are given they generally make good use of, but it is often very little they are given indeed.
An interesting historical read of the film I was thinking about involves our post-imperial unease with the atomic bombs used on Japan in WWII. The original 1954 film is largely a Japanese reaction to the terror caused by the weapons, of the indiscriminate annihilation of entire cities; but our American versions have never really addressed that. This one does, if marginally, by claiming that Godzilla was awakened by American nuclear tests. The subsequent fallout is ascribed by some as nature correcting itself, and the conflict (ironic, slightly) of whether to use nuclear weapons to destroy the creature is a prominent one.
Overall, I say that the movie is generally impressive, especially visually and and technically. Ultimately, the film forces us to realize that we have no control over nature, that while she might let us live as we will, she is still in charge and is something of which to be in awe. Edwards' vision supports this, even if whenever a human is involved the vision gets a little hazy.
Godzilla features Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Bryan Cranston, Sally Hawkins, Juilette Binoche, and David Strathairn, and is rated PG-13 for the wanton destruction of landmark American architecture.
Writer: Max Borenstein
Director: Gareth Edwards
Behold, the trailer featuring Bryan Cranston, easily the most interesting character in the movie:
Also, a trailer for the 1954 original by Ishirô Honda, apparently more terrifying than the collected works of Jules Verne:
I don't suppose there is much use in telling you otherwise, but there are other movies out this weekend than Spider-man's Adventures with Angry Electricity Man (in which, as per policy, I shan't be indulging). Well, truthfully, there isn't much. Transcendence is all right, but its occasional beauty doesn't make up for its general lack of salt. No, one must delve a little deeper if he is to find solace and escape at the hands of the cinematic minister. Such solace is found, and relished, in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel.
This little film has actually been out for a month or so, but the powers that be have declined its making even a weekend stop in Cedar City, so I had to go to it in Salt Lake. Perhaps you have already seen it. If not, it tells the story of Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge in an eastern European hotel, and his adventures with his valet Zero (Tony Revolori). It is a film of easy and winning charm, delightful like a colorfully wrapped box of chocolates.
The film begins properly in the mid-sixties. The hotel, though still grand, is aging and has had some unfortunate orange and green plastic makeovers. Soon, though, we are whisked back to the thirties and it is restored to its full, lustrous charm. I say this to illustrate one of the film's defining characteristics: it is permeated by a joyful yet wistful nostalgia. You say: but all Wes Anderson films are like that, that's kind of his thing. True, but this one is different. Gustave embodies truly an age gone by, something that has been gone too long for even the parents of those writing about it to remember. But it is still there, just beneath the surface.
But I am waxing metaphysical. The film itself is a joy to see unfold. There are intricate models and sets and costumes, and each inch of screen is filled perfectly. The story is an amalgamation of romance and intrigue and adventure wrapped in a script as endlessly entertaining as its cornucopia of characters. It is one of those movies that feels much shorter than it is, that casts a pleasurable spell of forgetfulness and livens a rainy Saturday afternoon. I suppose it has that most in common with its adventure movie brethren of the Golden Age: the possibility of temporary escape into another, better-decorated world. Only now, it is we who are envious of they.
The Grand Budapest Hotel features Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, Jude Law, F. Murray Abraham, Willem Defoe, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and several dozen other delightful actors, and is rated R for some pretty hilarious swears and some naughtiness.
NOTE: MILD SPOILERAGE IN PARAGRAPH 5, IF YOU WORRY ABOUT THAT.
Noah came out yesterday, and it is a notable break in the typical cinematic dry spell of spring. It is also one of the more controversial movies to come out for a while, with many people claiming that it is disrespectful, if not sacrilegious. I will say that while it certainly isn't the Noah movie you would have made yourself, it is not the flat Roland Emmerich-style disaster flic or ground-up or cynical deconstruction you thought it might be, either.
The story is what is in the Bible: Noah (Russell Crowe) is told by the Creator (as God is called in the movie) to build an ark for his family and all the animals in advent of the destruction of the world. Non-believers led by Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone) find out and aren't happy, and there is the ensuing drowning-related drama one would expect.
A chief point of controversy is that the film was co-written, co-produced, and directed by Darren Aronofsky, an atheist who makes (putting it mildly) pretty weird stuff. His approach here seems to be the same approach any of us might take when looking at Hercules or Gilgamesh: that of somebody else's foundational myth. He delves into extra-canonical legends and fabricates stuff to fill out the brief Biblical account. And, generally, his telling works, so long as you aren't expecting authoritative doctrinal exposition. I think the same rule applies here as it does to any adaptation: IT WILL BE DIFFERENT.
That said, it is no soulless action movie. There are certainly sequences of rain-soaked, Peter Jackson-esque heroics, but much more of the film is a study of faith versus reality. It somehow takes the complicated role of both criticizing faith and being in awe of it. The scenes detailing miracles or the creation are actually pretty awe-inspiring, and can probably fit within your own theological framework. On the other hand, it doesn't ignore the fact that Noah, because of his faith, will effectively kill lots of people by not letting them on the ark with him. It also takes into account the times when God seems silent and one is left alone to choose.
Actually, I think Mr Aronofsky is here criticizing religious fanaticism rather than faith generally. Every time faith is shown by a character it is an inspiring moment, even in its mythological terms. The rub comes when the line between obedience and zealotry becomes vague. The non-believers have their own bloodthirsty, cultish beliefs which, as juxtaposed with Noah's decisions, make his righteousness seem almost as barbaric. It is here that a subplot is introduced involving Noah's belief that there is to be no more mankind after his family's eventual death, that the Creator is purging all humanity and only needed Noah to save the animals. This leads him to want to kill his gestating grandchild, which is understandably disliked by his family. I suspect that this, more than anything else, is where most of the controversy actually stems. And, I'm not sure it really even fits in the story Mr Aronofsky is telling. It seems pretty forced, something to give us drama after the waters recede and all the baddies have drowned, and it kind of derails the last third of the movie. Make of it what you will.
Technically speaking, the film is pretty good. The color palette feels somehow pre-historic: it gives the impression that it takes place on an Earth we don't have access to anymore, something still freshly post-Eden. The script is often the weak element in any given scene: the ideas it contains and meditates on are cool, but the dialogue is rarely more than functional. One final note: there is a continuous shot of the creation of the world as told by Noah, following the formation of the universe through the the appearance of man that, is super awesome. If you don't want to see the movie, wait for this clip to be online and find it just for its own sake.
Overall, I think much of the brew-ha-ha isn't entirely warranted. For all its departures, the film does tell the complete story of Noah. On the other hand, it is in the departures that contemporary concerns like environmentalism and religion are considered. So I say, check it out if you can separate it from Sunday school, but if you like your Noah the way you know him, it won't be a major loss.
Noah features Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Ray Winstone, and Anthony Hopkins, and is rated PG-13 for violent stuff.
Writers: Darren Aronofsky & Ari Handel
Director: Darren Aronofsky
It's been a while since I've run an Oscar feature (I know you've missed them), and since the ceremony is this week I thought we'd have a go with 1939's seminal Gone With the Wind. This might actually be interesting for some of you because many of you have seen this, or have at least heard of it. As for me, it is certainly a spectacle, but I'm not totally sure how I feel about it.
The movie is the adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's novel about the fall of the south in the Civil War. It is a passionate romance of characters and place, and the adaptation has become one of the icons of American cinema.
And, truly, every inch of it is iconic. The photography is lush and evocative of the much-romanced south we all think of. Its scope is monumental (the movie comes in at just under 4 hours), a dramatic megalith on the scale of Wagner. It is worth the watch if only to witness the perfection of craft in such a young industry. But then, there is also the rest of it about which I am conflicted.
Most of that "rest of it" is the protagonist, Scarlett O'Hara, embodied by Vivien Leigh. The first time I watched the movie several years ago, I HATED it because of one or the both of them. Leigh has always bothered me as an actress (see: A Streetcar Named Desire), but her character in the movie is just as irritating. Of course, that is her arc, falling from spoiled plantation queen to fending for her very existence as the Northern imperialists rape the land she grew up on. Upon second viewing I have become more sympathetic, but only some. The movie is made watchable because of Clark Gable's potrayal of Rhett Butler, Scarlett's lover. By the end I felt to cheer as he finally tells her what I have been wishing to tell her the entire movie.
Is such an irritating character and her portrayal worth so much of your life in exchange for unfiltered cinematic beauty? This is one of the deeper questions pursuers of art must face. Why do you like watching movies? Is it for their aesthetic quality, for stories that resonate with you or challenge you, or some combination of these or other factors? Does a broken and frustrating character make a "bad" movie? I don't know, but this is why we watch anyway.
There are lots of ill feelings on my part, but overall I still think this is one of the more important films of our history. Together with The Wizard of Oz, also from the same year, color film signaled an important, if slow, industry shift. It is one of the rare films that becomes immortal on its own. Many require several adaptations or sequels, but Gone With the Wind sits in a very privileged class. It is appropriately ubiquitous, even if it remains divisive. I recommend it both as an historical artifact and as a worthy film.
Gone With the Wind features Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, and Hattie McDaniel, and is not rated.
Writer: Sydney Howard
Director: Victor Fleming
Also, if you don't feel like four hours, here's the condensed version from Carol Burnett:
Well do I remember my days as a carefree lad, playing with my beloved Lego sets. My brother and I would devote hours on end to carefully creating worlds for our tiny Lego figurines to inhabit. We would follow meticulous instructions in order to build the models just right, and a lost piece was something truly lamentable.
Some friends also enjoyed Legos, but they combined all of their sets into one massive pile and drew thence to construct their own crude creations. This was something I never understood, because THAT IS HOW YOU LOSE PIECES. This denominational difference often caused strife when these friends would come over to play.
By now hopefully you've seen The Lego Movie but if you haven't, this conflict provides the central conceit of the movie: what happens when a maniacal overlord is seeking to destroy your world by ensuring that every block remains precisely in place? The Lego Movie is just as much fun as it should be, subversively reveling in everything that made playing with Legos great in the first place.
To be clear, it is not the giant multi-franchise commercial it easily could have been. Here, Lego is the medium, not the product. The animation resembles the stop-motion movies grown up nerds like me might make, but the scale is impossible and enviable for the amateur. Here, Batman, Gandalf, and NBA All-Stars mingle freely (and hilariously). It is an immensely enjoyable adventure.
I said that Lego was the medium, and I would like to explain that. So often, nostalgic properties are turned into movies for only vaguely artistic reasons. Think of disasters like Battleship or successful travesties like Transformers. The only reason for their existence is to mine happy memories for money. Even the upcoming Mr Peabody & Sherman looks more like a cheap base hit than anything else. The Lego Movie felt different because it is at once respectful and cheekily self-aware. On the one hand, it manages to remain true to everybody's own Lego memories and adventures, and on the other it knows that it is a commercial endeavor, and takes delight in not taking that fact very seriously.
The movie is truly funny, and makes brilliant use of established and contemporary pop culture references. My one quibble with that is that it won't become a "classic": much of its humor is too closely grounded in the present for kids a few years from now to really get. Not that it's important, because the best kid's movies are adult-savvy as well.
So I say that The Lego Movie is enormously fun and more than worth braving the crowds of 10-year-olds to see. I would even claim that your love would probably rather watch it than Endless Love or Winter's Tale this weekend, but maybe that's just me.
The Lego Movie features Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Morgan Freeman, Will Ferrell, and all kinds of other hilarious people, and is rated PG mostly for an instance of non-graphic Lego nudity.
Writers: Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Here we are at the beginning of a new year, hooray and all that. My first cinematic foray of the year was Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, out at Christmas. People have complained that it isn't really "true" to the iconic story by James Thurber, but I will suggest the possibly-heretical idea that this movie does well what most adaptations don't. Isn't that provocative?
The story centers around Walter (Stiller), a lonely man whose life is only filled with the excitement his imagination creates for him. He makes up for in fantasy what his real life lacks. And, truly, this is the only commonality shared between the film and the story. The rest is totally fabricated. But I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing.
At first, though, this vexed me. The story is considerably more despairing than the film, with Walter's final flight of fancy taking him stoically before a firing squad. It seems a disappointing life will always be there. The movie, though, always optimistic if sometimes cute, never gets that grim. Its premise is certainly sugar-coated, but also pretty valid. A man is not what he does, but really just what he is.
An early scene sees Walter trying to send a "wink" to somebody on an online dating service. The site, though, doesn't let him, because his profile is found wanting. Simply because his life hasn't been glamorous and successful enough means he is disqualified from participation in it. We have created a society built on this, particularly with social media. Remember last month when Facebook kept wanting to show you your biggest moments from the year? Those were the things other people thought were important by "liking" them, and may not have really mattered at all.
This is what Walter Mitty made me think about, and actually led to my enjoyment of it. There is despair in Stiller's Walter, but resolve also, and dedication. These are things he always had: his journey doesn't bring them out in him, but rather helps him respect and like who he already is.
Now, it is a pretty soft-cornered movie that doesn't ask or really give much in the end, or (more frustratingly) fully deliver on a promising premise, but after sleeping on it I think it is a fair adaptation, in the truer sense of that word. Indeed, it is often better than many "truer" adaptations, choosing to be a movie of its own and expressing itself in that medium. It is a fun watch, and certainly better than most of what gets thrown at the comfortably PG adult.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty features Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn, Adam Scott and Jon Daly, and is rated PG for daydreaming adventures and name-calling.
Writer: Steve Conrad
Director: Ben Stiller
PS: There is another film about Walter, made in 1947 and featuring Danny Kaye as well as dream-dazzling Technicolor that looks slightly (and only slightly) more based in the text, if that is your thing.
