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Sunday, December 10, 2006
This week, along with a couple of my own reviews Possum Holler presents a special guest review by my good friend, Sarah.
A quick DVD grading:
The Da Vinci Code
Director: Ron Howard
Possum's Grade: B-
The critical panning is understandable, but I found this movie to be completely watchable. Take that for what it's worth.
Babel
Director: Alejandro Iñàritu
Possum’s Grade: B+
Mexican director Alejandro Iñàritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) specializes in weaving the paths of separate characters and their stories around a single chance tragedy. He works in raw human emotion painting his characters with grief and a desire for vengeance. Each of his prior movies involve three characters that are brought together by deadly car accidents. Amores Perros keeps each story separate until later in the movie, whereas 21 Grams allows the characters to mingle and form alliances with each other while using a nonlinear narrative to keep the audience in suspense and asking questions until the end. This time, Iñàritu sticks with his three storyline, nonlinear M.O., while significantly widening his scope. With Babel, we are bounced between four corners of the world while deciphering (with the help of subtitles, of course) several different languages.
The film is focused on an American man (Brad Pitt) and his wife (Cate Blanchett) who is hit in the shoulder while riding on a bus through Morocco by an arrant bullet fired by a young boy. The second story takes place in San Diego and Mexico as the nanny of the young children of the American couple crosses the border with the kids to attend her son’s wedding after failing to find someone else to watch them. And the third is set in Tokyo as a teenaged deaf girl deals with her awkward social life and her mother’s death. While this third storyline is reasonably poignant and serves to enhance the overall theme of alienation due to an inability to communicate, it is so loosely connected to the main storyline that I was left wondering if it was included merely to add a third story to the movie.
Where 21 Grams seems to snap together with the intensity of a falling noose, Babel doesn’t seem to accomplish anything in the end. It is certainly well done, expertly constructed and deserving of Oscar consideration for its craftsmanship. But I felt the story relied too heavily on exploiting the audience’s emotions, particularly by putting children in harm’s way to drive suspense but not allowing us a clear picture of the resolution and ultimately wrapping things up a bit cleaner than Iñàritu typically does.
While the children of the American couple are stranded in Mexico they are treated to a bit of culture shock as they witness a man spin a chicken around by it’s head until the body snaps off. Babel seems to spin it’s audience around by their heads, but in the end the body never comes flying off.
For Your Consideration
Director: Christopher Guest
Possum’s Grade: C
Christopher Guest and his troupe of mock-umentarians have switched gears somewhat with their latest offering. For Your Consideration follows a more traditional narrative format than the documentary style of their past films Waiting For Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, and as much as I hoped it would work it just didn’t. The characters are still allowed to address the camera occasionally as they give interviews that are part of the storyline. It is in these moments that you realize that the movie could have been somewhat better had they stuck to the documentary format.
Guest-film regulars Catherine O’Hara, Harry Shearer and Parker Posey are play co-stars of the in-production movie Home For Purim. O’Hara and Shearer are long-forgotten C-list celebrities. O’Hara is most known for her film turn as a blind prostitute, and Shearer for the commercial star, Irv the Footlong Weiner. O’Hara’s character’s last name is Hack, but that title is well suited to all three. However, when a Hollywood blogger sneaks onto the set and pronounces to the “interweb” that Oscar nominations are sure to come from Home For Purim the cast and crew are abuzz and slowly heads begin to swell.
There are certainly laughs to be had, particularly coming from the make-up artist played by Ed Begley, Jr. and the team of Fred Willard and Jane Lynch, whose take on any Access Hollywood-Inside Edition-Entertainment Tonight-like show is the closest thing to the spot-on satire we are used to from Guest. But what I couldn’t quite figure out is why, funny though it may be, they chose to make all these Hollywood players completely oblivious to technology and the internet.
A quick re-view of Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman proved that For Your Consideration lacked the magic that Guest has been able to create before.
And now for our guest review:
Happy Feet
Director: George Miller
Sarah's Grade: B-
Last Friday my host mom took Kristina and me to a showing of Happy Feet. I didn’t really know what to expect considering the only previews I saw were of an animated penguin singing, with no clue of the actual plot. First of all, I don’t think the movie would have been made if ‘March of the Penguins’ hadn’t been so popular last year. I think the movie assumes that the audience already has a basic knowledge of penguin life and understands the relationship between male and female penguins and most importantly, the ability of penguins to recognize their mate’s voice. In the movie the penguins sing pop songs to each other to woo potential mates. At first I thought the movie was going to be like Moulin Rouge and tell the story threw pop songs, but not so.
I suppose that would be impossible since it turns out the main character, Mumble, can’t sing at all but only tap dance and is therefore an outcast. In Mumble’s journeys there are two main messages being presented by the film, but they sort of come together strangely. There is the obvious ‘be yourself’ message, but the last part of the film is devoted to the over fishing by humans of the worlds oceans, except when the ‘be yourself’ message comes back for the finale. Although both worthy messages, they worked somewhat strangely together.
The other thing that bothered me is that at one point Mumble is captive in a zoo in the US, and then in the next scene he has been returned to Antarctica. I know it’s a cartoon…but still.
Although the film fails in its focus, it is an enjoyable film for all ages. It even made me miss my tap shoes.
Coming Reviews:
Apocalypto, Blood Diamond, The Queen, The Good German
A quick DVD grading:
The Da Vinci Code
Director: Ron Howard
Possum's Grade: B-
The critical panning is understandable, but I found this movie to be completely watchable. Take that for what it's worth.
Babel
Director: Alejandro Iñàritu
Possum’s Grade: B+
Mexican director Alejandro Iñàritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) specializes in weaving the paths of separate characters and their stories around a single chance tragedy. He works in raw human emotion painting his characters with grief and a desire for vengeance. Each of his prior movies involve three characters that are brought together by deadly car accidents. Amores Perros keeps each story separate until later in the movie, whereas 21 Grams allows the characters to mingle and form alliances with each other while using a nonlinear narrative to keep the audience in suspense and asking questions until the end. This time, Iñàritu sticks with his three storyline, nonlinear M.O., while significantly widening his scope. With Babel, we are bounced between four corners of the world while deciphering (with the help of subtitles, of course) several different languages.
The film is focused on an American man (Brad Pitt) and his wife (Cate Blanchett) who is hit in the shoulder while riding on a bus through Morocco by an arrant bullet fired by a young boy. The second story takes place in San Diego and Mexico as the nanny of the young children of the American couple crosses the border with the kids to attend her son’s wedding after failing to find someone else to watch them. And the third is set in Tokyo as a teenaged deaf girl deals with her awkward social life and her mother’s death. While this third storyline is reasonably poignant and serves to enhance the overall theme of alienation due to an inability to communicate, it is so loosely connected to the main storyline that I was left wondering if it was included merely to add a third story to the movie.
Where 21 Grams seems to snap together with the intensity of a falling noose, Babel doesn’t seem to accomplish anything in the end. It is certainly well done, expertly constructed and deserving of Oscar consideration for its craftsmanship. But I felt the story relied too heavily on exploiting the audience’s emotions, particularly by putting children in harm’s way to drive suspense but not allowing us a clear picture of the resolution and ultimately wrapping things up a bit cleaner than Iñàritu typically does.
While the children of the American couple are stranded in Mexico they are treated to a bit of culture shock as they witness a man spin a chicken around by it’s head until the body snaps off. Babel seems to spin it’s audience around by their heads, but in the end the body never comes flying off.
For Your Consideration
Director: Christopher Guest
Possum’s Grade: C
Christopher Guest and his troupe of mock-umentarians have switched gears somewhat with their latest offering. For Your Consideration follows a more traditional narrative format than the documentary style of their past films Waiting For Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, and as much as I hoped it would work it just didn’t. The characters are still allowed to address the camera occasionally as they give interviews that are part of the storyline. It is in these moments that you realize that the movie could have been somewhat better had they stuck to the documentary format.
Guest-film regulars Catherine O’Hara, Harry Shearer and Parker Posey are play co-stars of the in-production movie Home For Purim. O’Hara and Shearer are long-forgotten C-list celebrities. O’Hara is most known for her film turn as a blind prostitute, and Shearer for the commercial star, Irv the Footlong Weiner. O’Hara’s character’s last name is Hack, but that title is well suited to all three. However, when a Hollywood blogger sneaks onto the set and pronounces to the “interweb” that Oscar nominations are sure to come from Home For Purim the cast and crew are abuzz and slowly heads begin to swell.
There are certainly laughs to be had, particularly coming from the make-up artist played by Ed Begley, Jr. and the team of Fred Willard and Jane Lynch, whose take on any Access Hollywood-Inside Edition-Entertainment Tonight-like show is the closest thing to the spot-on satire we are used to from Guest. But what I couldn’t quite figure out is why, funny though it may be, they chose to make all these Hollywood players completely oblivious to technology and the internet.
A quick re-view of Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman proved that For Your Consideration lacked the magic that Guest has been able to create before.
And now for our guest review:
Happy Feet
Director: George Miller
Sarah's Grade: B-
Last Friday my host mom took Kristina and me to a showing of Happy Feet. I didn’t really know what to expect considering the only previews I saw were of an animated penguin singing, with no clue of the actual plot. First of all, I don’t think the movie would have been made if ‘March of the Penguins’ hadn’t been so popular last year. I think the movie assumes that the audience already has a basic knowledge of penguin life and understands the relationship between male and female penguins and most importantly, the ability of penguins to recognize their mate’s voice. In the movie the penguins sing pop songs to each other to woo potential mates. At first I thought the movie was going to be like Moulin Rouge and tell the story threw pop songs, but not so.
I suppose that would be impossible since it turns out the main character, Mumble, can’t sing at all but only tap dance and is therefore an outcast. In Mumble’s journeys there are two main messages being presented by the film, but they sort of come together strangely. There is the obvious ‘be yourself’ message, but the last part of the film is devoted to the over fishing by humans of the worlds oceans, except when the ‘be yourself’ message comes back for the finale. Although both worthy messages, they worked somewhat strangely together.
The other thing that bothered me is that at one point Mumble is captive in a zoo in the US, and then in the next scene he has been returned to Antarctica. I know it’s a cartoon…but still.
Although the film fails in its focus, it is an enjoyable film for all ages. It even made me miss my tap shoes.
Coming Reviews:
Apocalypto, Blood Diamond, The Queen, The Good German
Monday, December 04, 2006
The Fountain
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Possum’s Grade: C+
As I was leaving the theatre after viewing The Fountain I heard one teenager ask another if they got the movie. The second teenager responded, “There was nothing to get.” Now, I’m not ready to write-off the film quite so easily, but I was left wondering what the point was.
The Fountain jumps back and forth between three stories involving the same characters one set in 1500s Spain, another set in present day America and the third set somewhere in the future in space. All the stories connect in their quest for eternal life and I was intrigued by their interconnection through the Spanish conquistador’s quest for the Tree of Life.
Watching The Fountain is like putting together a puzzle, and in that sense I enjoyed trying to keep up with it. Yet in the end I didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment for hanging with it. It is a love story between Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, and while Weisz’s present day character seems worth fighting for, Jackman’s character is impossible to empathize with. He is loathsome and selfish, and having picked Death has his antagonist, is impossible to rationally root for him. This is apparent in the futuristic setting as he insists on prolonging his immortality though he is left with only regrets to keep him company.
Aronofsky’s (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) imagery is beautiful and he does a great job keeping the story flowing while seamlessly moving between settings. But ultimately his conclusions on life and death cannot match the spectacle with which they were presented.
Bobby
Director: Emilio Estevez
Possum’s Grade: A-
Bobby takes place at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles and follows the stories of a number of people that were present the day that Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the California primary. In trying to tell the stories of 22 people almost all played by notable Hollywood stars (Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Lindsay Lohan, Laurence Fishburne, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, William H. Macy, Christian Slater and Elijah Wood just to name a few) much of the movie comes off like Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes. And while the cavalcade of celebrities is at first a distraction from the real star of the movie, eventually they fade into their roles as we see the admiration for Bobby in their eyes.
Just like Coffee and Cigarettes some of the vignettes work better than others, and Estevez does a credible job of letting us spend time with the most compelling characters. Most notably, the majority of time is given to the kitchen staff where the movie explores the tensions between an African-American community that is beginning to be recognized more equally yet still stinging from the assassination of Dr. King and a burgeoning Latino community that is being quietly exploited. Perhaps the most profound concept in the movie is how the promise of what Bobby could bring to America seems to encourage people to treat each other better, as well as offer promise to those who have been mistreated.
Another storyline that is given significant time involves a pair of teenagers who skip out of volunteering for the campaign opting to drop acid with a hippie (Ashton Kutcher) over driving elderly citizens to their polling cites. And just like these teens seem to be escaping the world around them, these scenes provide a few instances of brevity and some much needed humor for the audience. Many of the other characters and storylines are a bit shallow and we are not allowed enough time to invest in them. However, Estevez brings it all together well for the final scene as Bobby arrives at the hotel and addresses the audience before marching through the crowd to his final fate.
The soundtrack behind the final few minutes of the movie is perfect and heightens already powerful moments. It is impossible not to be moved as Bobby’s words give way to Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence with the foreboding sense of what is so soon to come. Even more haunting are his own words played over the chaos that ensues as everyone sorts through what has happened and he is rushed to the hospital. I am not sure when that speech is from, but it sounds like it could be just after his brother’s assassination. However, it comes off as a chilling eulogy for himself.
The most meaningful moments of the movie are when it leaves the actors and we see real footage of Kennedy on the campaign trail and hear his voice. My only complaint with the movie is that we don’t get enough of this. We often go lengthy periods without seeing or hearing Bobby. Yet there is a hope in everyone’s eyes at all times no matter a person’s race or economic situation. And that, as a person too young to have experienced it, is what impressed me the most. Here was an individual who was a source of hope for all Americans in a time that was not so different from today. And to have that taken away in an instant it is easy to empathize with the desperation that followed.
So while perhaps not a movie that is academically well done, that is not the point. Bobby is one of the most powerful movies I have seen in a long time.
Coming Reviews:
Babel, For Your Consideration, Apocalypto, The Good German, and a guest review of Happy Feet
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Possum’s Grade: C+
As I was leaving the theatre after viewing The Fountain I heard one teenager ask another if they got the movie. The second teenager responded, “There was nothing to get.” Now, I’m not ready to write-off the film quite so easily, but I was left wondering what the point was.
The Fountain jumps back and forth between three stories involving the same characters one set in 1500s Spain, another set in present day America and the third set somewhere in the future in space. All the stories connect in their quest for eternal life and I was intrigued by their interconnection through the Spanish conquistador’s quest for the Tree of Life.
Watching The Fountain is like putting together a puzzle, and in that sense I enjoyed trying to keep up with it. Yet in the end I didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment for hanging with it. It is a love story between Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, and while Weisz’s present day character seems worth fighting for, Jackman’s character is impossible to empathize with. He is loathsome and selfish, and having picked Death has his antagonist, is impossible to rationally root for him. This is apparent in the futuristic setting as he insists on prolonging his immortality though he is left with only regrets to keep him company.
Aronofsky’s (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) imagery is beautiful and he does a great job keeping the story flowing while seamlessly moving between settings. But ultimately his conclusions on life and death cannot match the spectacle with which they were presented.
Bobby
Director: Emilio Estevez
Possum’s Grade: A-
Bobby takes place at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles and follows the stories of a number of people that were present the day that Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the California primary. In trying to tell the stories of 22 people almost all played by notable Hollywood stars (Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Lindsay Lohan, Laurence Fishburne, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, William H. Macy, Christian Slater and Elijah Wood just to name a few) much of the movie comes off like Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes. And while the cavalcade of celebrities is at first a distraction from the real star of the movie, eventually they fade into their roles as we see the admiration for Bobby in their eyes.
Just like Coffee and Cigarettes some of the vignettes work better than others, and Estevez does a credible job of letting us spend time with the most compelling characters. Most notably, the majority of time is given to the kitchen staff where the movie explores the tensions between an African-American community that is beginning to be recognized more equally yet still stinging from the assassination of Dr. King and a burgeoning Latino community that is being quietly exploited. Perhaps the most profound concept in the movie is how the promise of what Bobby could bring to America seems to encourage people to treat each other better, as well as offer promise to those who have been mistreated.
Another storyline that is given significant time involves a pair of teenagers who skip out of volunteering for the campaign opting to drop acid with a hippie (Ashton Kutcher) over driving elderly citizens to their polling cites. And just like these teens seem to be escaping the world around them, these scenes provide a few instances of brevity and some much needed humor for the audience. Many of the other characters and storylines are a bit shallow and we are not allowed enough time to invest in them. However, Estevez brings it all together well for the final scene as Bobby arrives at the hotel and addresses the audience before marching through the crowd to his final fate.
The soundtrack behind the final few minutes of the movie is perfect and heightens already powerful moments. It is impossible not to be moved as Bobby’s words give way to Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence with the foreboding sense of what is so soon to come. Even more haunting are his own words played over the chaos that ensues as everyone sorts through what has happened and he is rushed to the hospital. I am not sure when that speech is from, but it sounds like it could be just after his brother’s assassination. However, it comes off as a chilling eulogy for himself.
The most meaningful moments of the movie are when it leaves the actors and we see real footage of Kennedy on the campaign trail and hear his voice. My only complaint with the movie is that we don’t get enough of this. We often go lengthy periods without seeing or hearing Bobby. Yet there is a hope in everyone’s eyes at all times no matter a person’s race or economic situation. And that, as a person too young to have experienced it, is what impressed me the most. Here was an individual who was a source of hope for all Americans in a time that was not so different from today. And to have that taken away in an instant it is easy to empathize with the desperation that followed.
So while perhaps not a movie that is academically well done, that is not the point. Bobby is one of the most powerful movies I have seen in a long time.
Coming Reviews:
Babel, For Your Consideration, Apocalypto, The Good German, and a guest review of Happy Feet
