SAVE YOURSELF from “The Company Men”

24 03 2012

It must be tough to make a movie about unemployment after “Up in the Air.”  After Jason Reitman’s film so ingeniously brought employees who had actually been downsized in front of the camera to tell their stories, it felt to me like there was no other way to ever achieve the same candid honesty.  I can imagine writer/director John Wells, who had to premiere his film “The Company Men” at Sundance only a month after Reitman’s hit theaters, probably muttered a few expletives under his breath when he realized he had to compete with it.

Yes, it does portray in pretty clear detail the effects of the 2008 financial collapse on the hard-working employee, but did it really pick the right protagonist?  Granted I really don’t care for Ben Affleck unless he’s behind the camera, yet his Bobby Walker is suffering a crisis of luxury, not one of necessity.  Is that the story of the recession?  Tears shed over selling the Porsche and spousal fights over the country club membership.  You would think that having to move back in with his parents temporarily was equivalent to moving below the poverty line.

When it’s not indulging us with the sob stories of siblings sharing beds (when the children who were really affected by the recession were sleeping on the floor), it’s giving us another indictment of post-too big to fail corporate America a la “Margin Call” and “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”  We get it, Hollywood, you think the corporate world is full of sleazes like Jim Salinger (Craig T. Nelson) who will actually say he works for the shareholders and not for the good of his employees.  The man can’t even muster up any sympathy when one of his longest-tenured staffers commits the most clichéd act of desperation in film!

Depression is a sentiment a movie needs to earn to be justified, and “The Company Men” ultimately just wallows in self-pity rather than putting its stark depiction of a catastrophic time in American history to good use.  When a protagonist seriously considers underemployment as a long-term alternative, then I start to question a film’s social compass.  Yes, psychological satisfaction is important from your vocation … but does it balance with the intrinsic disappointment from not realizing your own sense of worth and potential?  Such a decline in our guiding philosophy might be one of the sadder aspects of the recession.


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REVIEW: The Hunger Games

23 03 2012

From the very beginning of “The Hunger Games,” it is very clear that this literary adaptation has in common with “Harry Potter” only the hype surrounding their release.  While Rowling and an army of talented directors transported us to a universe accessible only in our wildest imaginations, writer/director Gary Ross shows no such inclinations in bringing Suzanne Collins’ best-seller to the big screen.  As her novel is meant to hold a mirror up to our own reality-TV saturated culture, he plants the film in an America just a little bit of social upheaval removed from our current one.

He has no interest in sweeping formalist cinematography that basks in the beauty of castles and countryside.  Ross’ style adheres more closely to the films of Danny Boyle with a kinetic desire propelling every shot; watching the struggles in the wilderness harkens more to Aron Ralston’s fight against nature in “127 Hours” than it does to anything in the Forbidden Forest.  The editing is more deliberate, too, lingering on the actors to communicate internal monologues with their eyes rather than conveying that the editor forgot to take their Ritalin.

Of course, not everything in the film looks as gritty as District 12 and as unyielding as the Arena.  The Capitol, where the rich and the elites bask, is embellished to the maximum for an especially emphasized contrast.  The men and women look like they walked out of Hunter S. Thompson’s acid trip, and their lavish makeup and attire are nothing short of ridiculous.  (So don’t be surprised if “The Hunger Games” takes home a technical Oscar or two next February.)

All of this makes Panem, a strange society born from the ashes of an America that tore itself apart, a fascinating place to build a story of triumph over the odds.  16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, volunteers to participate in the Hunger Games in place of her younger sister.  The Games require the competitive edge of an Olympic athlete in addition to the cut-throat inclinations of a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills, and it gets worse for Katniss as class bias is institutionalized in the rigid caste society of Panem.

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F.I.L.M. of the Week (March 23, 2012)

23 03 2012

Before Gary Ross was making us hunger for “The Hunger Games,” he was making thoughtful dramas with insights into society and the individual (which makes him an excellent fit to be at the helm of Suzanne Collins’ hit trilogy). He wrote Tom Hanks’ “Big” and directed a real crowd-pleasing hit with “Pleasantville,” my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.” I was expecting it to be a gentle satire of 1950s culture and television, but it wound up surprising me and insightfully looking deeper at the narrow-minded times both then and now.

The high-concept dramedy follows the adventures of 1990s teenage siblings David and Jennifer, played respectively by Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon pre-superstardom, after being magically transported through the television into the world of the series Pleasantville. It’s your typical ’50s utopian small town where the sun always shines, the kids all innocently gather at the diner, mom is happy in the kitchen, and dad is bringing home the bacon. The world is as simple as the color scheme it’s shot in: black and white.

But as the Beatniks and Betty Friedan would later show us, the American Dream of the 1950s was not without a dark underside. People were still unhappy; they just didn’t have the channels to express it, so they repressed it. David slowly begins to introduce color into Pleasantville, showing people that they can see and feel as they were meant to feel.

Change is never easy, though, and it is never met without opposition. The town begins to divide on what they perceive as the shifting moral values being advocated by David and his colorful crew. Ross assembles a fine ensemble cast, including Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, and J.T. Walsh to vivify the conflict. While we relish the performances and the story during the movie, we are left to linger with the challenging thematic probing that asks us to apply the color litmus test to our own world.


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REVIEW: ReGeneration

22 03 2012

Reynolda Film Festival

If you’re a concerned enough citizen to make the conscientious effort to watch “ReGeneration,” a documentary about the apathy of our culture, you will still be shocked and dismayed by the findings of the film.  It’s depressing to know that even a movie like this only captures the tip of the iceberg and perhaps even more so to implicate yourself in buying into and selling out to the problem.  Writer/director Phillip Montgomery has no desire to sugarcoat our reality, opening the movie with this quote from Martin Luther King: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

In less than 80 minutes, Montgomery takes a sociological look at why the world is the way it is, why it seems to be spiraling out of control, and if there is any hope to change it.  That’s a lot of ambition for one film, let alone one that short.  “ReGeneration” feels sprawling but never cumbersome, a remarkable accomplishment for a movie that tackles some of the most pressing issues of the day.

Montgomery makes the movie’s overarching cynicism about our consumer-driven apathetic culture palatable by collecting a variety of opinions and explanations that run the full spectrum of experience and perspectives.  From Noam Chomsky to STS9 to a panel of high school students, everyone gets a chance to weigh in on the issues.  We value some people’s thoughts more than others, but it’s great to see that everyone gets a chance to speak out and speak up.

Really, it’s the average American that makes “ReGeneration” a standout, stand-up-and-clap documentary.  Whereas “Inside Job,” the only recent documentary I would dare compare this to in scope, was largely a mouthpiece for Charles Ferguson through his narrator Matt Damon, Montgomery hands the microphone over to the people to narrate their own story.  (If you watch this movie to hear Ryan Gosling, prepare to be disappointed; he has at best ten lines in the film.)  It’s an appropriate move on his part because, as the movie points out, our problems cannot be solved by one person acting alone.  It must be us as a community, rising out of our seats, and redefining what it means to be happy, concerned, involved, and free.  A- / 


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REVIEW: I Am Not a Hipster

21 03 2012

Reynolda Film Festival

Destin Cretton’s film “I Am Not a Hipster,” despite what its title might insinuate, does a fantastic job of deconstructing the modern hipster culture.  In one heated scene near the climax, musician Brook (Dominic Bogart) makes a distinction between “art,” which he makes, and “fun,” which his friend and manager Clark (Alvaro Orlando) makes.  His angry rant is as much a reaction against the YouTube and Hipstamatic-happy culture that makes the world replete with kitsch and devoid of much meaning as it as against Clark’s show.

But to call society the main concern of Cretton’s film is to miss the point.  His film is quintessentially Sundance, small-scale filmmaking applied to intimate storytelling.  Cretton narrows his focus on one character, Brook, and really explores who he is, what made him, and how he responds because of and in spite of that.

The film feels like it’s treading familiar grounds when it portrays Brook’s family drama of loving sisters, a dead mother, and an estranged father.  But when it dares to look into whether anyone has the right to mope around simply because they are an artist, as the stereotype of the hipster has come to represent, it is insightful and compelling.

Cretton, who fully understands the indie scene of San Diego, portrays it honestly and candidly.  The pretension is there, the scruffy fashion is there, the prickliness is there.  Above all, the humanity is there, and that’s what  makes “I Am Not a Hipster” a movie that is both illuminating and worthwhile.  B / 


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REVIEW: The Muppets

20 03 2012

The allure of “The Muppets” is that Jason Segel and company, just as Jim Henson was several decades ago, are totally convinced that such a thing as innocent comedy exists and works.  The film opens with a blissfully catchy song-and-dance number, “Life’s a Happy Song,” basically consisting of every character expressing their exuberant love for life.  It’s totally absorbing and a fun toe-tapper.

Allow yourself to be transported by it and the rest of the movie, you’ll find that Segel’s Gary and Walter the Muppet can quickly make you forget about our crushing deficit, our crippled economy, our melting planet, our foreign entanglement, and just about anything else keeping you from thinking the world is great.  The song isn’t totally ignorant, though; it lays the groundwork for the conflict of the film, Gary’s friendship with Walter disturbing his romantic relationship with Mary (Amy Adams).

The rest of the movie proceeds on a similar trip of joy, re-introducing the Henson crew of Muppets to a generation that unfortunately doesn’t know them very well.  That’s a crying shame which Segel happily corrects here, capturing all the effervescence of the Muppets just like it was the 1970s and they were hosting Mark Hamill and Elton John on the show.  We find them all in strange places in the present day – Miss Piggy in Paris as a magazine editor, Gonzo selling toilets, Fozzie in a bad Muppets cover band – that all add to the hilarity for those that know them.

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REVIEW: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

19 03 2012

The impressive accomplishments in Tomas Alfredson’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” are manifold.  The first, and perhaps what will stick with me the most, is how immaculately crafted the movie is.  Every aspect below the line is crisp and precise, be it Alberto Iglesias’ subtle score, Hoyte van Hoytema’s swift camerawork, Maria Djurkovic’s richly detailed sets, or the unbelievably meticulous control over sound and silence.  “Hugo” may have been the Academy’s technical darling of 2011, but this movie can rival its excellence in all those categories (except maybe visual effects).

The second is Gary Oldman’s performance as George Smiley, one of his finest on-screen roles yet.  Much was made of how criminal it was that the lauded character actor had not received an Oscar nomination before “Tinker Tailor,” and thankfully now that has been corrected.  But there is much more to this work than merely endowing Oldman with the epithet “Academy Award nominee.”

Oldman shows his mastery of understatement playing Smiley, a man of few words.  When he’s not speaking, we never have a doubt that Oldman is totally within his character’s mind, never moving a pore without purpose.  When he is speaking, Oldman is forceful and commanding, owning the screen that includes one of the largest casts of acclaimed British actors outside the “Harry Potter” series.  It’s an acting master class from one of the industry’s best and brightest, definitely one Hollywood could learn a lesson or two from as well.

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REVIEW: Being Elmo

18 03 2012

In a year that saw nostalgia being wielded in various powerful ways, “Being Elmo” was able to wield it in one of the most powerful ways – at least for those of us lucky to grow up with “Sesame Street.”  Constance Marks’ emotionally potent documentary achieves the unusual, shining the light on one person while also shining a light on the audience.  It tells the story of a man living out the American Dream but brings to life our dream of returning, for however brief a time, to the bliss of childhood innocence.

I had never fallen out of love with Elmo and the rest of Jim Henson’s puppets, but I had forgotten that for many years of my life, I was so madly in love with them.  I’m what you would have called a “Sesame Street” junkie.  I watched it all the time growing up whether it was on PBS or one of my many VHS tapes.

Big Bird, Snuffy, Grover, and Elmo weren’t just characters; they were my friends.  They taught and reinforced solid moral values, showing how to be kind and decent.  For all those who decry television replacing institutions as a primary agent of socialization and dissemination of acceptable social behaviors, I’m sorry the kids you know didn’t grow up watching “Sesame Street.”

“Being Elmo” follows Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who brought Elmo to life, from his childhood in tough economic conditions to traveling across the world with his creation.  From the very beginning, it is evident that Clash is absolutely in love with the craft of puppetry, and it is this passion that allows him to triumph over his upbringing.  This joy also makes him the perfect Elmo, who is the most pure expression of love on television.

In experiencing Clash’s exuberance making Elmo move, we are reminded of why Jim Henson’s felt-covered humanity has resonated with the entire world for decades.  We are treated to falling in love with Elmo all over again through “Being Elmo.”  The movie is so great at showing how the unfettered positivity made the character the most recognizable on “Sesame Street.”  It made me gush tears when this joy is shown at its most extreme – Clash visiting Make-a-Wish patients whose request to meet Elmo before dying.

I love Elmo.  I love “Being Elmo.”  And I love that now it makes me want to watch “Elmo’s Song” every time I feel really happy or really sad.  A- / 


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REVIEW: Margin Call

17 03 2012

If anyone ever wanted to know about the problems facing rich white people, tell them to pop “Margin Call” into their DVD player.  When it’s not faintly allegorizing what “Inside Job” had the balls to hit dead on, it’s dealing with the pathetic plight of financial sector employees like 23-year-old Seth Bregman (Penn Badgley) who is only bringing home $250,000 per year at an entry level position.  Clearly he can related to little orphan Annie when she sang that it’s a hard knock life for us.

Writer/director J.C. Chandor, in his first feature, narrates the film much like a play, letting the principal characters guide the story.  Aside from maybe one line from a security guard, you won’t hear the voice of the people who will be most affected by the actions in this movie.  There’s one scene in an elevator where Demi Moore’s Sarah Robertson and Simon Baker’s Jared Cohen gravely discuss the implications of their conduct, and in between them is a cleaning lady.  In one of the few great touches of the film and with an almost macabre sense of dark humor, Chandor makes sure that she is totally oblivious to the grave implications of what’s happening in the building she cleans.

“Margin Call” was the beneficiary of chance when the Occupy movement began right around its October 2011 release date, and there are several lines which I feel could have been ripped straight off their cardboard signs.  His portrayal of the investment bankers are shallow, simply becoming more evil and out-of-touch with the more money they make.  The sweeping generalizations of the film are about as ill-conceived as his “magic formula” that predicts the coming of the 2008 financial crisis; I’m wondering if even he knew what on earth it was.  There’s no attempt to explain what a CDO is, or even what on earth these traders do.  There’s great complexity to the system beyond his adaptation of “Baby’s First Guide to Capitalism,” believe it or not.

There are some decent acting moments that make “Margin Call” a watchable movie, and the script has just above the requisite amount of intrigue to keep your attention.  But with all these “one percenter”s just talking about how to spend their millions in convertibles, you wouldn’t think that the world economy was about to collapse.  I know that exists, but if you want to demonize rich people, why not just make a movie only about CEOs of investment banks in September 2008.  C / 


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (March 16, 2012)

16 03 2012

Before Alexander Payne won his second Oscar for “The Descendants,” he still had game.  “Citizen Ruth,” my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week,” was his first feature film back in 1996, and it still has all the clever humor and heart of his later, more acclaimed works.  A razor-sharp satire of the abortion debate and the rest of the ridiculous culture wars of the ’90s, Payne leaves no party blameless, subjecting them all to scrutiny and criticism.

His protagonist, once again, is not someone easy to identify with; we merely experience the movie through them and become all the more aware of their flaws.  Here, it’s Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern), an irresponsible child trapped in a woman’s body (figuratively speaking, this isn’t “Benjamin Button” after all).  She’s addicted to huffing fumes, putting her own life in danger and giving no attention to the lives of her young children.  Now, she’s in trouble with the law for the sixteenth time … and pregnant.

Ruth’s first thought is to get an abortion as she can barely take care of herself.  But before she can act, she is ambushed by the two sides of the abortion debate, fervent Bible-clutching pro-lifers and free-spirited sexually loose pro-choicers.  To them, Ruth is little more than a tally to add to their team’s score, a prize to be swayed and won.  They objectify her and will do anything to placate her, truly pulling out all the stops to convince her to choose their side.

Deciding whether or not to bring a child into the world is such a human decision, yet no one really seems to care about the baby in the whole debacle.  Payne shows how horrifying the rhetoric from both camps has become as to remove all humanity from the discussion; even Ruth, the woman at the center of the controversy, sways throughout the film based on who can offer her the most money.  Dern’s performance is a little cartoonish and annoying at times, but I would watch anyone act if they were endowed with the words of Alexander Payne.


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REVIEW: Young Adult

15 03 2012

You’ll have to pardon my French throughout this review, but there’s no other way to put it.  “Young Adult” is Diablo Cody’s courtroom drama-style comedy that puts the bitch on trial, both the Hollywood archetype and a very peculiar bitch of her own creation.  It’s really a genius work that serves as a genre deconstruction as well as a story of narcissism and self-loathing in the Facebook age that can stand up on its own two feet.  Then factor in the irresistible pathos of Jason Reitman, a director who tells the most authentic emotional narratives of anyone working in Hollywood today, and you’ve got one of the best movies of 2011.

In anyone else’s hands, Charlize Theron’s Mavis Gary would be a totally unsympathetic, curmudgeonly home-wrecker.  Her vile acts of shameless selfishness draw first our shock, then our ire.  Every minute longer she lingers on the screen, we hate her all the more.  She’s toxic, knows it, and does nothing to change it.

But dare I say it, I actually related to Mavis – way more than I should have, in fact.  While we can’t deny her agency for all her awful deeds, Cody refuses to let her be totally written off as someone mean-spirited down to her core.  Her story takes Mavis back to the root of her problems, her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota.  We get to see the society that spawns the psychotic ex-prom queen, forcing us to wonder how much of her fate is due to society and circumstance.

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REVIEW: The Descendants

14 03 2012

Mixing comedy and drama is a perilous task, but Alexander Payne makes it look like he could do it in his sleep in his remarkable new film “The Descendants.”  An absolute triumph of writing and directing, he finds the humor in the tragic situations and gravity in the funniest moments.  His pathos is unconventional and unexpected, leaving his words and messages lingering in your head for days.

Just like some of Payne’s previous films like “Election” and “About Schmidt,” he chooses to tell the story through the eyes of a prickly protagonist.  In “The Descendants,” it’s Matt King (George Clooney), the owner of a massive Hawaiian land inheritance.  After his unfaithful wife lapses into a coma after a freak boating accident, Matt must come to terms that he has been absent as the head of his family.  His role as the “understudy” comes to bite him in the butt as he is forced to assume both parenting roles actively on short notice.

Payne’s screenplay (which he co-wrote with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) begins its narrations through voice-overs from Matt that illuminate his thoughts.  We get a chance to fully grasp his frustrations, his anxieties, and his fears before we really get down in the mud with him during these trying times.  The narration slowly disappears as the movie progresses, but that hardly means we lose our connection to Matt.  Instead, Payne wisely trusts leading man George Clooney to take over control of communicating his character to the audience.

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REVIEW: Melancholia

13 03 2012

It’s a shame “Melancholia” lasts more than eight minutes.

The movie’s prologue is absolutely stunning.  Writer/director Lars von Trier evokes a strong emotional response with his use of stunning imagery and an evocative score from Tristan und Isolde.  The gorgeous shots, drifting slowly across the screen, are like a walk through an art gallery of film.

But the opening of “Melancholia” is so good that it’s almost too good.  It purveys basically the entirety of the movie, even giving away the movie’s big ending.  So in essence, once you’ve seen the beginning, you’ve seen it all.

So when von Trier starts using words to communicate a message, the movie ceases to be very effective.  The first half’s naturalism just hits flat note after flat note.  The wedding of Kirsten Dunst’s wildly depressed Justine is an utter disaster, and her moodiness is painful to watch.  It’s supposed to be beguiling us into figuring out her every whim, but instead it just makes Justine unsympathetic and a pain to watch.  Excuse me for totally ceasing to care about an hour through the movie.

Then the movie’s second half descends into the bizarre as a planet, Melancholia, begins a collision course into the earth.  While Jack Bauer – I mean, Kiefer Sutherland, and his wife Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) begin to panic, Justine is calm as a cucumber, uniquely suited to face the crisis because of her condition.  “Melancholia” seems to be trying to enact those how would you spend the last hours of your life fantasies, but they are hardly illuminating save for the manic depressants in the crowd.

So perhaps the best way to view “Melancholia” is as a short film.  The movie’s opening is where von Trier’s artistry shines the brightest.  If you want to wait around for another two hours for genital mutilation or a remark sympathizing with Nazis, you will just waste your time.  The movie is not all that far-fetched; add in some robots and the plot would work as a Michael Bay movie.  B- / 


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WTLFT: April 2012

12 03 2012

Hard to believe April is almost upon us.  It feels like 2012 has just begun, and now we’re in the vamp-up month for summer tentpole season!  Let’s see what this year’s crop looks like…

April 6

I would normally be skeptical of a four-quel that comes 9 years after the last installment and touts itself as a reunion … but “American Reunion” does look some kind of funny.  We’re all allowed some exceptions, right?

The weekend’s other big release is a re-release, “Titanic 3D.”  No thanks, James Cameron, unless you have an alternate ending planned … I’m still upset that Kate Winslet didn’t let Leo on the big door.

“Damsels in Distress,” starring the creepy babysitter/amateur pornographer from “Crazy Stupid Love,” looks like it has some potential to be funny.  That is, if mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig doesn’t sourpuss it all the way down to the core.

Looking to capitalize off of “The Hunger Games”-mania for Josh Hutcherson (hoping he will become the new Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner, I assume), his star-vehicle “Detention” hits theaters just two weeks later.  This SXSW 2011 horror-comedy looks like it might have some potential barring it isn’t stupid beyond belief.

April 13

I’ve never been a Joss Whedon fanboy, but I understand that there’s a significant portion of the Internet that is.  So they can rejoice at their appetizer for May’s “The Avengers,” his horror-comedy “The Cabin in the Woods.”  I, on the other hand, will still try to figure out what it is that has the Web so enamored with this man’s work.

Poor Guy Pearce needs to get his game face back on.  After bursting onto the scene with “L.A. Confidential” and “Memento,” he’s faded into obscurity.  He pops up here and there in Best Picture winners “The Hurt Locker” and “The King’s Speech” … and also in Adam Sandler’s “Bedtime Stories.”  Maybe “Lockout” will get him back on track.  But more likely not since any movie where you share the screen with Maggie Grace and Peter Stormare holds little promise.

The Farrelly Brothers need another “There’s Something About Mary” to revive their career because “Hall Pass” sure wasn’t going to do it. Maybe “The Three Stooges” will be better than the trailer, but from that, I’m sensing an epic disaster as two distinct comedy styles butt heads.

Word on the street is that Michelle Yeoh “coulda been a contendah” for the Oscar as Aung San Suu Kyi in “The Lady.”  Looks baity, no?  For a real Oscar nominee, see Best Foreign Film nominee “Monsieur Lazhar” from the exotic lands of Canada.

April 20

“Think Like a Man” should be retitled “Tyler Perry’s All-Star Team Presents Steve Harvey’s Think Like a Man.”  Then I think it would outsell “The Hunger Games” for sure.

“The Lucky One” should be retitled “An Actual Nicholas Sparks Adaptation: The Lucky One (Zac Efron Might Get Naked).”  Then it would double the receipts of “The Vow.”

“Chimpanzee” should be retitled “The Real Planet of the Apes.”  Then it might stop the downward slide of DisneyNature movies off a box office cliff.

In other news, if you are interested to see just how far Diane Keaton can fall from “Annie Hall,” the answer awaits you in “Darling Companion.”

April 27

I have zero shame in saying that the April release I’m most excited for is “The Five-Year Engagement.”  It’s beyond guilty pleasure territory.  Jason Segel and Emily Blunt together in one movie, plus Chris Pratt, plus a very interesting concept that might actually move beyond the cliches?  Count me SO in.

There’s also an indie winner of the week, “Sound of My Voice.”  It stars Brit Marling, star of last year’s Sundance bust “Another Earth,” although she’s totally absent in this WTF-worthy trailer.  But rather than being turned off, I’m very intrigued.  This ought to be good.

Someone should have told Aardman that the pirates fad was over in 2007 … but since no one did, we get “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.”  And thanks to “The Raven,” Edgar Allen Poe just got a lot scarier than reading him in high school English.

Also, is it just me or is Jason Statham this decade’s Steven Seagal?  When the narrator for “Safe” said the most wanted girl was 12 years old, I just started bursting out laughing.  Now Statham is wading into straight-to-video territory, let’s all kick back and enjoy.

So, what are YOU looking forward to in April?  Sound off in the comments or vote in the poll!


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Classics Corner: Singin’ in the Rain

11 03 2012

What a glorious feeling it was to behold the Best Picture win for “The Artist!”  A celebration of the glory of silent film, a look at the industry’s apprehension during the pioneering days of the talkies, and an ultimate wide-faced grin at what film would become … sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Benjamin Sutton of The L Magazine wrote this in a column back in December: “[T]he lion’s share of ‘The Artist”s many narrative and aesthetic quotations allude to films of the sound era,”specifically naming “Singin’ in the Rain” as a movie he constantly saw parallels to within Hazanavicius’ movie.

I saw “Singin’ in the Rain” a few weeks before watching “The Artist,” and perhaps part of the reason why I felt the movie suffered a slight dearth of originality was because it was so obviously inspired by Gene Kelly’s classic musical.  I don’t, however, intend to judge the original solely in terms of the knock-off.  Such would hardly do justice to a movie that has stood the test of time and is still a fun romp six decades after release.

As a riotously fun musical in its own right and a parody of the overblown proclivities of the genre’s early classics, “Singin’ in the Rain” follows Kelly’s Don Lockwood, a silent film star who exudes more charisma than George Valentin, as he is forced unwillingly by his studio into talking movies.  When he is shown a demonstration of the new technology at a party, he scoffingly laughs it off.  But with the success of “The Jazz Singer,” Kelly has no choice but to add sound to his latest picture.

That brings up a unique problem though: his leading lady Lina Lamont has a grating and screeching voice that would totally destroy her image and the film.  Quick thinking leads him to bring on Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), a songbird if ever there were one, to provide dubbing services for Lina.  The zany, crazy situations that follow are as numerous as Gene Kelly’s overblown dance numbers – that man REALLY loves to dance, and darned if we don’t leave this movie knowing it!  And beyond the titular song that everyone knows from rainy days or “A Clockwork Orange,” the film also boasts great tunes like “Make ‘Em Laugh” and “Good Morning” that will have you whistling for days.

While the pleasures that exist within the frames of “Singin’ in the Rain” have made it an endearing audience favorite for years, it remains thematically relevant because it speaks to the common fear of technology displacing us.  With 3D, video-on-demand, and streaming services bringing about a new sea change in moviemaking, Kelly’s film speaks loudly to filmmakers past, present, and future.  As A.O. Scott so perfectly put it in his piece “Film Technology Advances, Inspiring a Sense of Loss” back in November 2011:

“The birth of the talkies, it goes without saying, represents the first death of cinema […] The movies survived sound, just as they survived television, the VCR and every other terminal diagnosis. And they will survive the current upheavals as well. How can I be sure? Because 10, 20, or 50 years from now someone will certainly be complaining that they don’t make them like they used to. Which is to say, like they do right now.”


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Categories : Classics Corner, Movie Reviews

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