This Isn't the Blog You're Looking For--We've Moved!

Well, it's been a good run, but the time has come to move on. I've decided that the old Reel to Reel needed a facelift and a little bit of a reboot. So, I've packed up my bags and headed over to a new domain:

www.reeltoreelblog.com

So, not much of a change, but I won't be posting here anymore. Just thought I should leave something of a forwarding address. So thanks to all of my 7 readers for sticking around all this time, and here's to a nice little spell over at the new site. Happy watching everybody!

The Jungle Book

Neel Sethi and billions of pixels star in this Disney update.

Hello, movie lovers! I'm back again, offering un-asked-for armchair commentary on yet another movie I had nothing to do with the creation of. This week I battled rain and beleaguered parents of indifferent children to get into a screening of The Jungle Book, the latest self-tribute/re-imagining picture from Disney. So, how does it stack up?

I'll be honest: I wasn't planning on seeing this. To my mind, it seemed nothing more than other recent Disney remakes like Maleficent or Alice in Wonderland, none of which I have been interested in. But I went anyway. And you know what? I enjoyed it. In many ways it seemed a different enough movie from its originator to to offer up a nice afternoon at the movie house, even though I had to sit next to people whose kids needed to pee every 45 minutes.

First, let's talk about why you might want to see it. If you've heard anything about the film's effects, it's all true. They really are quite remarkable. If you're like me and are inherently suspicious of people who say things like that, believe me: the movie is not a fatiguing effects-fest. Because the only "real" thing in many given instances in Mowgli himself, there is a faint kind of legendariness to the whole thing, fitting material given life by Kipling. Other than to be initially impressive, the film's visual effects don't distract and certainly never evoke something like the animated section of Mary Poppins. They allow a fantastical story to play out naturally.

Weirdly, the film's most unnatural moments come when the specter of Disney (in the form of due respect to the 1967 animated feature) is evoked. Like any phantom, its presence is felt gradually until it can no longer be overlooked. First Kaa says (but does not sing) "Trust in me," which works. Then Baloo and Mowgli sing "The Bear Necessities" floating down the river, but it still pretty much fits and is kinda fun. Then King Louis goes into full dance number mode with "I Wanna Be Like You" sung by Christopher Walken. Yep. In case you were wondering, this IS a Disney movie with a heritage of FAMOUS songs that audiences LOVE.

Now, since this movie is more remake of Disney than revisitation of Kipling, it is not out of place to compare it with its brother. They are, essentially, coming-of-age stories, although they arrive at very different conclusions. In 1967, the worlds of childhood and adulthood are as separate as the jungle and the village. There is a certain bittersweetness as Mowgli crosses the river. We know it is right, even inevitable, but still wish for him to be able to stay. But he (and we) cannot have both, and so the fable teaches us something.

Nowadays, though, we are not comfortable with a little conflicting melancholy in our endings, so Mowgli gets to stay behind as a kind of conscientious boy-king of the jungle. You might read that Man's knack for wrecking his environment can be reconciled by greater awareness thereof, but I see it as a weakened coming-of-age tale tailored to a generation whose inability to let go probably forced this iteration of King Louis to jump from shadowy threat to awkward sideshow because the old Louis was on Sing-Along Songs.

Coming of age stories get their strength from the child no longer being a child at the end, which requires the leaving-behind of an old self. Here, as in many modern tales, Mowgli gets to just be who he always was to begin with instead of someone new. And so an otherwise-entertaining and well-told story is cheated somewhat by a soft, modern-age ending. You will notice the conspicuous absence of "'Til I'm Grown."

Have I read too much into it? Probably. But thither my thoughts turn when, on an otherwise empty theatre row, a family with a ten year old with a refillable soda jug sits exactly next to me. Ah, the unpredictable joys of family cinema.

The Jungle Book features Neel Sethi, Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray, Lupita Nyong'o, Idris Elba, Christopher Walken, and Scarlett Johansson, and is rated PG for general jungle-related action.

Written by Justin Marks
Directed by Jon Favreau

The Revenant

Happy 2016! Here's to a year full of cinematic treats, surprises, and many many superheros. To start things off, let's have a look at Oscar darling The Revenant, Alejandro G. Iñárritu's tale of a zombie mountain man out for unsuspecting settlers' brains.

If only. It actually deals with a mountain man left for dead after being mauled by a bear, and his quest for sweet sweet revenge after finding himself to be not dead. The film is both brutal and starkly beautiful, but beneath its polished façade only the weakest of meaningful substance is to be found. To call it a good movie, as so many have done, is not defensible.

Usually I try not to be so frankly negative when I evaluate a movie. For all of the man hours of labor and unquantifiable talent that goes into making a movie, there ought to be at least something worthy of praise, even if certain filmmaking decisions don't necessarily pay off. But in this film's case, it is the entire idea that doesn't pay off. What Mr Iñárritu set out to create was a grimly realistic depiction of frontier violence, and that is what we get. There is no substance to the narrative beyond that, nor cause to call his brand of punishing, misanthropic spectacle "entertainment," though. Complicating matters is that, somehow, it is thought of as being some kind of once-in-a-lifetime cinematic miracle, and so it likely won't catch such slack from this writer, who would have checked the time repeatedly if he hadn't have turned his phone off in the screening like you're supposed to.

My issues are the following:

1) Its parts do not add up to the self-consciously important "tone-poem" it wants so desperately to be. Nor, really, to anything. It tries to be both a revenge western and a lyrical meditation on life and death and stuff, and fails to achieve either. On the one hand, its by-the-book plotting and simplistic expositional dialog, on par with something like Commando as far as depth goes, deflate whatever gravity may have been generated by its other (often genuinely harrowing) elements. Which is fine, I guess, if you're into that kind of action movie. But The Revenant takes itself so darn seriously and provides so little in the way of meaningful return that its action becomes an exhausting and unexciting exercise of grime. All this is married via Emmanuel Lubezki's out-of-body cinematography and some moody cello music to an underside that really really wants to be transcendentally introspective, but is mostly vague, imagistic rambling. The result is a final product that, notwithstanding its careful technical precision, feels haphazardly, almost indifferently, stitched together.

2) Its careful technical precision distracts from the story it is trying to tell. We can all agree that Mr Lubezki is a wizard. His free-floating work on Gravity made it the remarkable movie it was. But space and the wilderness are not the same places, and his near-identical approach in the photography here often gets in the way of itself. The images he captures when the camera does not move are always striking, simple compositions. When his camera goes on one of his set-length rambles, often disorientation is the result. It does not feel spontaneous or necessary like camera moves almost always do; instead, its careful choreography is apparent at every step, in a way becoming the most important character in any given scene. Also, when projected onto a 30-foot screen, the constant lack of a cinematic compass becomes almost nauseating. It neither observes the action, nor really becomes a part of it; it interrupts the action like a stagehand sneaking around the stage mid-performance to touch up the set.

3) Its intentionally pied-piper reception. This is obviously not a critique of the film, entirely. For all my decrying it above, it is a competent picture produced by professionals. Its design elements, makeup, and costumes especially all shine. But taken in any other context than a reigning Oscar champion's buzz-fraught next entry, the film cannot be considered really good. It is a fully-developed artistic vision from its director, and there is nothing wrong with that. But it is nothing like the 21st-century Apocalypse Now some (including its own publicity machine) make it to be. Of course, hype is fine, but these external voices also somehow end up seeping into the film, making it all the more misleading. Every scene seems aware that it might be the one chosen as a clip for Oscar night, and comes out with its best face on. But it is a face that hides a remarkably empty interior, one that delights in brutality for its own sake and nothing more, as if discomfort in both performer and audience is the same thing as emotional connection through exploration of real, even if painful, themes. Its self-knowledge does not create value in a vacuum.

Encountering a self-consciously "great" film that is neither entertaining nor insightful is the risk one must take during awards season, and in this case, The Revenant is unambiguously neither. It is technically sound and exhibits a cold beauty of landscape, but the ten bucks you might have set aside for a ticket would be better employed on something else. And at least where I live, there are cold snowy mountains to look at from my window anyway.

The Revenant features Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, and Will Poulter, and is rated R for fairly constant general frontier violence and some swearsing.

Written by Mark L. Smith and Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu

My Top 5 Movies from 2015 (and Also the Worst One)

Well, the end of the year is finally upon us, and that means it's time for me to recap the best of the year so you'll have something to watch instead of Ryan Seacrest on New Years. I have carefully selected my top five favorite films of the year and ranked them according to highly subjective criteria. And to clear things up right away, Star Wars is not on this list, though it made the number six spot. It was narrowly beaten out by...

5. Spectre.

Call this a case of my inner biased James Bond fanboy wanting his own way. This film has received kind of a lot of hate due to its plotting, but one can't really evaluate a Bond based on its plot, because they all have basically the same level of believability. What it does give us is a stylish, dangerous, and appropriately woman-izing spy fantasy that reintroduces the series' most wonderful baddie. Yes, the way he is revealed bugged me, and yes, Sam Smith's "song" is worse than salt and vinegar chips on a canker. But those deficiencies can't defeat my irrational love of these movies, which is, I suppose, what it means to be a fan. I won't judge you if you won't judge me.

4. Macbeth.

This is not your Kenneth Branagh-issue Shakespeare, but it is also not as revisionist as its ultra-stylized visuals suggest. The play is plunged into a period in Scotland where pagan superstition shares the bench with Christianity and bathing is not a concept. Leads Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender are a grim delight, and a supporting cast featuring Professor Lupin rounds out a very introspective take on the Bard's grim play. The photography and immaculate composition often evoke a graphic novel-ish aesthetic which is occasionally a little distracting, but it also provides contrasting stimulus during soliloquies that other cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare lack. Check it out.

3. Inside Out.

As the one film on this list that I know all of you have seen, I don't know that I need to say much by way of praise. But I love it as an example of the kind of wonderful thing that can be accomplished in the world of animation, when those in charge are not busy trying to figure out ways to make half a billion dollars on the backs of one-joke side characters. Ahem... Anyway, this film was a delight, somehow maintaining its light heart through some surprisingly complex emotional material that breaks with the black-and-white happily-ever-after doctrine of any mainstream animated feature ever released. (Okay, except Toy Story 3.) And those scenes during the credits, though.

2. Slow West.

Like I have said before, Slow West is the neo-western fairy tale lovechild of Shakespeare, the Coens, and Frederico Fellini, and I loved every minute of it. It is, well, kind of slow, moving between detached scenes in a pretty observational way, but patches of brutish violence or emotional realization punctuate it throughout. Of those on this list, this is the film you probably have heard the least about, so I highly suggest going and renting it, like tonight. It is the kind of unexpected delight you only get a few of each year, and in another year would have been sitting at the top of this list. But what could possibly have topped such a wonderful little thing?

1. Mad Max: Fury Road, duh.

I want to be careful not to wax too hyperbolic here, but  Mad Max: Fury Road is as close to a perfect a movie as they come. It is, first of all, an absolute riot: an exhilarating, crazy, technically exquisite thrill ride. It also functions as the best, most concise symbol of the terror of the unbridled masculinism in our culture. It is the perfect marriage of pure cinematic showmanship and timely, uncompromising, but undidactic commentary on what we live with today. It is the result of of years of work by masters at the top of their game, visual storytelling the way it ought to be. And if you don't like it, our relationship may never recover. There, I said it.

This brings us to the real reason you're reading, to find out what I really didn't like. So here we go:

Jurassic World

My issues with this movie are many and varied, but let's start off by saying that it just wasn't good, like in any way. There is not much to be entertained by in terms of character, plot, or action. In fact, it leaves mostly a bad taste in the mouth due to its bizarre sexism and constant "hey, remember this?" moments. I say that it is worse than what you think of as other "bad" movies because it is so intent on being as good and important as its older brother, and is so inexplicably popular. Bad movies usually have the decency to at least not make money.

It is what others more clever than I have termed a "legacy-quel:" a narratively unnecessary sequel that relies more upon nostalgia than novelty in order to bring in an audience. Here we see recycled fan-favorite sets, props, and animated characters that make us think of watching Jurassic Park on VHS after school. These winky moments trick us into thinking we like the movie, when really there are no likable characters or memorable sequences, only lots of cartoon dinosaurs and product placement. Other legacy-quels of note this year include Terminator: Genisys and, yes, Star Wars. Almost all of Star Wars. But what about Mad Max, you say. It is not, since it does not pander for attention by throwing in references to Bartertown or Toecutter. It supplies new material with the tools provided by its world. A fine line, but one that Jurassic World crosses repeatedly and unenjoyably.

But with all of the cinematic good out there, we needn't bother with the rubbish. And you needn't even bother with the rantings of this writer, for if you have enjoyed any movie, that ought to be good enough, and I can and should have nothing to say against it. Just please enjoy movies next year responsibly.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens

There's no need to address the hype or response to this film, so let's just jump right in. Be advised that this will be a candid discussion you might not want to participate in if you haven't seen the film.

First, I say that The Force Awakens is a good movie. It is fun and exciting and pretty much what you would hope for. I think it strikes the right kind of tonal note for fans of pretty much any level of intensity, and may even encourage a different stylistic approach to large fantasy tentpoles, which I'd be just fine with.

I say that because the film's greatest strength is its wonderful design. There is just something lovely about real props and creatures and robots and stuff in a movie like this. Even if you know it's just a guy in suit or an overlarge puppet. I don't know that any one thing could have tied this movie to its ancestors better than this kind of stylistic approach. Using sub-par 21st century CG visual effects is one large reason why movies like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Terminator: Genisys are no where near as cool as what came before. That, and, well, crappy storytelling. But whatever.

All of this practical design makes for an unartificially fun viewing experience, which is what a movie like this should be first and foremost. Adding to that fun is the delightful dialog by master Lawrence Kasdan. He gets playful intergender banter like no one else in the business. Where lesser writers opt for casual misogyny or unfounded competition, he goes for good-natured, witty word sparring. He is also the reason geriatric Han Solo works, which was my single greatest fear going in. So wherever this film works, thank the design team and Mr Kasdan.

And of course, Daisy Ridley. I mean seriously.

Now, although I have said it is a good movie, it is not a really good movie. One mustn't confuse exhilaration leaving the theatre for witnessing a marvel. For, as delightful as many of its elements are, the movie suffers from one kind of large problem: it's not really very complete. It functions like a really fun first act. Which, you say, it is, since it's a trilogy. But I think that it still ought to be complete in itself, with more complete character arcs and resolutions. Instead I almost get the feeling of being played, of being put off until the real movie comes out in a few years and then the world explodes out of its wonderfulness. But what else could we expect from the people who bring us a certain other "cinematic universe."

I don't want to sound like a whiner, but I really think we should at least consider the film's structural issues while heaping praise upon it. Because of how it is structured, none of the characters really have any significant development, and therefore problems kind of just solve themselves, leaving the characters essentially where they were. Take Rey. She starts off as determined and competent, and she stays that way. The one difference is that she can Force by the end, something that took Luke two masters and three movies to do but which she teaches herself in an afternoon to get out of a plot corner. The effect this change has on her as a character is not seen. It is perhaps hinted at in her journey to Luke, but something that momentous should be concluded better. Meanwhile, no other character is given any kind of resolution, either, or even time to process or emote about the death of the series' most beloved character. I guess we'll just have to wait until next time.

Of course you'll say that The Empire Strikes Back ends like that, too. Which it does. But it is the middle chapter, not the first. With it, we have already been through like five hours of story together, seen growth, setback, triumph, and failure, and know the characters well. I do not think we know any of our new characters well enough at the end of The Force Awakens or have seen them do enough to leave them as we do. It may end up being a gutsy, satisfying way of structuring the new trilogy. But until it can be enjoyed as a whole several years from now, it is an incomplete and narratively weak chunk of story.

So I say go and see it and enjoy the heck out of it, because it is an undeniably fun ride. Its enjoyability largely outweighs its dubious structure (which will be forgotten once everyone owns all three anyway) but that does keep it from being great.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens features Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaacs, Domhnall Gleeson, and all your old favorites, and is rated PG-13 for general Star Warsing.

Written by Lawrence Kasdan, JJ Abrams, and Michael Arndt

Directed by JJ Abrams