The Official Review Thread of 2011

[Johnny Guitar]

Oh, and has anyone here yet seen the new Monte Hellman feature, Road to Nowhere? Hoping to see it tonight.

To answer my own question: for what it's worth, Road to Nowhere is a quite good, intricate, and twisty movie. Catch it on video or stream it since it may not show up at your local theater. Or it's already left.

[Sabin]

Attack of the Block (Joe Cornish)

I can't really explain just how much this movie lost my sister in the first ten minutes. There is a big no-no that you're not supposed to do that bummed my sister out - on her birthday, no less! - and it looked as though she was going to have a miserable time. It's a credit to this film that it won her back about as much as it could have by the end. I've never seen her go back and forth like that. To be honest, I don't recall the last time I've seen a film like this feature such characters that engaged in such hoodlum-ery and redeem themselves so fully. These are not nice kids. They may not be the worst thugs on the streets, but they do start off as little shits. And the film knows this full well, and it forces them to reform without whitewashing them. I actually quite admire this piece of work, even though it gets a bit wonky with its alien logic near the end.

The aliens have a great Maxxx design to them, just all black furry shadows with glowing blue jaws. They fall victim to the monster movie law of diminishing threat capacity w/r/t individual oogy-boogies, but it's really hard to gripe when something like this is such a damn good time.

[Okri]

Well, it's probably an exagerration for me to single out this summer, as I count Pixar's summer entries as blockbusters but skipped Cars on account of personal apathy.

Glenn Kenny just said that The Help plays like Mississippi Burning meets Steel Magnolias.

I wonder, Damien has an opening weekend policy on westerns. Does that mean he saw Cowboys vs Aliens?

[Johnny Guitar]

I should see Return to Me...

You should! It's a really chaste movie (amenable to religious grandparents and young children), but the overall sense of sweetness and bonhomie, the individual quirks afforded to each character (not over-emphasized & wooden as such "characterization" so often is), the luminous photography & production design - I think it's one of the standouts from the contemporary rom com pack.

Agreed on climax-as-Arrested Development, as well as the execution raising the general level of the PG-13 date night cliches.

Oh, and has anyone here yet seen the new Monte Hellman feature, Road to Nowhere? Hoping to see it tonight.

[Sabin]

I have never seen fewer blockbusters over the course of a summer. I don't think I've seen fewer art house films either. I missed The Myth of the American Sleepover, Terri, et al. There's just not a ton out there that interests me. I'm on a renting spree.

[Sonic Youth]

I've seen nothing but blockbusters this summer, or at least that's how it feels. I think I've seen all the Marvel films, and I even liked one of them.

Hopefully that will change later tonight, even if that means missing the Yankees-Sox game.

[Mister Tee]

Bridesmaids & Crazy Stupid Love are the first Hollywood summer movies I went to this, and they probably don't even fall under the category Okri means. I might have seen Super 8, but it left before I had a chance. What a useless season (the atypical Woody and Malick aside).

BJ, I'm sorry to hear your reaction to Apes. I'd certainly suspected critics' Stockholm syndrome might be at work, but I'm on vacation this coming week and was looking for ANYTHING to see that might give me something of a kick. Now I'm reduced to The Help, which opens midweek, and, though it looks like a movie to make me gag, is apparently getting "surprisingly decent" reactions.

Come September, please...

[Okri]

I think this might be the first summer where I've skipped every single summer blockbuster.

[The Original BJ]

I felt fairly misled by all those good reviews for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I guess, as far as summer movies go, it's inoffensive enough, and I don't think there's anything laughable or embarrassing here. From the trailer, I just assumed the movie would be a total joke, and had ZERO interest in seeing it, but those strong reviews got me out to the theater. And what I saw was watchable enough, and nothing excruciating, with some genuinely impressive visual effects.

But I think those incredibly enthusiastic reviews are a product of end-of-summer-syndrome, particularly a summer when most of the big budget stuff has been pretty bad. After having to endure a lot of blockbuster turkeys, I think these critics are grateful to finally watch SOMETHING that isn't a total slog, and they're upgrading as a result. All I know is, I saw a movie which was basically about nothing more than apes taking over San Francisco, with a plot that had barely any narrative surprises, and human characters that are no more than perfunctory. Not anything remotely special.

My reaction could also have something to do with the fact that I'm beyond sick of the "reboot" phenom. There's something rewarding about traditional narrative structure -- beginning, middle, and END -- and a movie like this that's basically two hours of set-up for another movie doesn't begin to provide the same pleasures.

On the summer blockbuster spectrum, nowhere near the level of Super 8, which I didn't love.

[anonymous1980]

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Cast: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine, Jamie Harris, David Hewlett.
Dir: Rupert Wyatt.

I have quite a few problems with this prequel (underwritten characters, lack of depth, still dwarfs when compared to the original etc.) but they're few and far in between. Overall, the film does quite a damn good job of rebooting the franchise series after the cinematic abomination that was the Tim Burton "reimagining". The human characters are by and large merely serviceable (with the exception of John Lithgow who shines with his material, even in his relatively limited screentime). The real star here though is Caesar played by Andy Serkis, truly a remarkable marriage of great visual effects (the CGI mo-cap) and great acting. It features a very rousing climactic action scene as well.

Oscar Prospects: This could win Visual Effects. Also a contender for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. Some people are calling for Andy Serkis for a nomination or even a Special Achievement Oscar or something. I wouldn't mind it.

Grade: B

[Sabin]

Mister Tee wrote on Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:18 pm
Still, it's not a great favorite movie because: 1) I don't find the comedy of mortification all that funny (during the dueling shower toasts, and Wiig's diatribe at the Paris-themed party, I literally had to look away from the screen); 2) the plotting was sometimes painfully weak (the whole "we can't find Rudolph/oh, she's at home" smacked of "we ran out of time and never wrote this part of the script"; and 3) I simply don't find the exploding bodily functions scenes terribly funny. I don't think this is just old fart-ism talking; I've laughed uproariously at some of Louis CK's scatological routines. But I sat in stony silence through most of a scene that had everyone around me gasping for air.

re: No. 3

I hated most of that scene. Everybody vomiting and shitting was pretty horrible. What I did like what Kirsten Wiig's sweating face as she found the courage to eat that pistachio nut. I also thought that Maya Rudolph collapsing in the middle of the street was perhaps the most hilarious moment in the film. It was divorced from the low-brow "Women Shitting" humor, and was rooted in horror and shame. I liked her being viewed from a distance as Rose Byrne and Kristen Wiig looked onward assessing "Is she - yeah, she's pooing."

[Sabin]

by Johnny Guitar » Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:41 am
Another bothersome thing – creating completely one-note characters whose flimsiness and flatness are I guess meant to be alleviated simply by the sheer DEPTH of their feeling. (Again, that horrible movie Love, Actually is guilty on this count – or look at e.g. Rose Byrne's character in Bridesmaids.) We come to learn absolutely nothing about this moppet in the course of the movie except that he's got, like, deep deep deep romantic feelings about the universe & his babysitter. Wise beyond his years. Sturm und drang. But other, better romantic comedies with ensemble casts often work because they provide glimpses of characters' multi-faceted inner lives and hobbies. And it's why the Stone-Gosling scene works so well and seems touching and vulnerable, especially in contrast to the one-note yearnings of much of the rest of this ship of soulmate fools. And when characters become obsessed, this is dramatized & thematized in the film – for instance, Return to Me, a really sweet movie, but also a superbly-constructed one for its purposes. That's a film where a character's activities, lifelong dreams, and neverland romantic sentiments are weaved into a compelling and layered dramatic arc.

"Ship of soulmate fools..." I like that.

The date night scene between Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone is pretty wonderful even though it narrowly avoids the self-justification of clichés that you discuss earlier. Emma Stone says outright that this is not the PG-13 version where she gets drunk and falls asleep on the couch. That was a giant red flag for me when I heard it. But this scene is about a young girl who is navigating through her desires from which she only knows second hand and from PG-13 movies no doubt. She clearly knows more about a "PG-13" life than R, correct? So then when Ryan Gosling tells her that his best move is to do the Dirty Dancing thing, and she says that would never work on her, the twist isn't that it does work on her but rather than his big move IS something out of Dirty Dancing. That's not what we're expecting at all.

On the page, what follows might have seemed rather PG-13 (and, given Gosling's revelation about his childhood, cliché), but the way in which it is shot, edited, and performed, it feels like a wonderful night of two people getting to know each other. There is a joy of connection in these scenes that feels altogether real.

The big climax of everybody fighting and everything revealed seemed like as close as we're going to get to a film version of Arrested Development.

I should see Return to Me...

[Johnny Guitar]

Some vague spoilers for Crazy, Stupid, Love …

Reasonably entertaining, and extremely uneven. A bit of excellence, a few cringe-inducing scenes, and some average filler for the rest. I thought the climax (i.e., the real one, not anything having to do with the graduation day) was a terrific sequence/scene. Like with Eminem's freestyle at the end of 8 Mile, it's the special and clever crystallization of everything that was otherwise rote or average about the rest of the movie. I wish more films, even if otherwise routine, could at least provide one scene like this.

Also good: Gosling in general (and his wardrobe), the Gosling-Stone date night, Gosling slapping Steve Carell repeatedly. Groban is funny too.

I'm fed up with 'wise kids,' and the son in this movie is better than, say, that little rugrat from Love, Actually. But come on. Hollywood has expended way, way too much effort into demonstrating “from the mouths of babes...” And that ties into another pet peeve I have with many contemporary movies (including CSL), where writing a reflexive awareness of a cliché into a script is meant to justify that cliché. (Through “distancing,” presumably.) So when Carell gives his horrible impromptu speech at the graduation, which is full of enough cliches on its own, he also has to bring out the old saw about how “it's easy to dismiss my son because he's young … but I'm not so sure anymore.” I don't mind holy idiots and precocious children, but please, writers/actors/directors, give them some real personality or real quirk!

Second example - Steve Carell, in the rain, voicing, “What a cliché.” Because if you say you're doing a cliché, you must not be doing it, huh? Reflexivity and irony are wonderful tools but this way of half-heartedly evoking them just strikes me as weak on all levels. (My least favorite recent example is the voice-over in Kick-Ass, posturing during one tough scene with, “Please don't think we escape this situation just because we're telling the story.” And then the heroes escape. Jebus.)

Another bothersome thing – creating completely one-note characters whose flimsiness and flatness are I guess meant to be alleviated simply by the sheer DEPTH of their feeling. (Again, that horrible movie Love, Actually is guilty on this count – or look at e.g. Rose Byrne's character in Bridesmaids.) We come to learn absolutely nothing about this moppet in the course of the movie except that he's got, like, deep deep deep romantic feelings about the universe & his babysitter. Wise beyond his years. Sturm und drang. But other, better romantic comedies with ensemble casts often work because they provide glimpses of characters' multi-faceted inner lives and hobbies. And it's why the Stone-Gosling scene works so well and seems touching and vulnerable, especially in contrast to the one-note yearnings of much of the rest of this ship of soulmate fools. And when characters become obsessed, this is dramatized & thematized in the film – for instance, Return to Me, a really sweet movie, but also a superbly-constructed one for its purposes. That's a film where a character's activities, lifelong dreams, and neverland romantic sentiments are weaved into a compelling and layered dramatic arc.

[Sabin]

by Mister Tee on Mon Aug 01, 2011 12:18 pm
I'm actually heartened you responded that way, Sabin. I'd thought people who were great fans of Philip Morris might be the most disappointed, as this is very much a step backward into Hollywood-land from that project.

I mean, it is...but it's not a bad one.

There is a scene near the end of the second act where Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling spend the evening together. I don't know where to begin with what exactly goes right in that scene, but the audience I was with was just laughing pretty much uncontrollably until the next morning. Not howling, but enjoying themselves. And it's largely claptrap! Especially Gosling's revelation in the bedroom about his childhood. But they [Ficarra/Requa] sell it, the actors sell it, and I bought it.

I thought the last touch wasn't creepy at all. It's a sweet gesture. I wish they had recast that kid with someone a little more awkward. The script goes overboard in selling this kid's obsession, and for the most part this moppet has a "whatever" vibe to him that doesn't mesh with the tone of his pursuit. There is a beautiful gangly quality to the babysitter that vanishes the minute she disrobes and I don't see her stringy hair and wardrobe. It's a lovely little performance that can't hold up the minute her crutches abandon her. She looks like the 23 year old she is in real life, but no matter. Anyway, I wish that the filmmakers had found a kid that matches the awkwardness that she projected. That's a bit disappointing, as is the entire final act for the most part. But these are generous filmmakers who allow their actors freedom to carve out a part for themselves in this affair. It's not crazy like I Love You Philip Morris, but it's also not as stupid as it would look on paper.

[Mister Tee]

I'm actually heartened you responded that way, Sabin. I'd thought people who were great fans of Philip Morris might be the most disappointed, as this is very much a step backward into Hollywood-land from that project.

To me, this is a classic "donut or hole?" movie. There's obviously way too much Hollywood bullshit in the film (culminating in Carell's commencement address, a full-on movie cliche). But there are also alot of lovely moments (esp. the Gosling/Stone date), some startling plot turns (which are way too coincidental for reality, but on the other hand caught me totally off-guard -- and, in an era where even most movie surprises are predictable, that counts as a plus), and I laughed an awful lot -- far more, honestly, than I did in the allegedly hilarious Bridesmaids. Plus the movie benefits from one of the most immutable laws of the performing arts: getting good actors will always help. I can think of 100 actors who might have made Jacob insufferable; I can't think of many besides Gosling who'd have made him as interesting. Emma Stone doesn't have the star-making material she had in Easy A, but she's immensely appealing here. And I liked alot of even the smaller parts, like Stone's Asian girlfriend who has some wry deliveries.

Oh, but I must admit: though I found most of the babysitter/son plot acceptable (if borderline), the last touch seemed vaguely creepy. A rare mistake in an otherwise fairly tactful script.

Since I've mentioned Bridesmaids:

I've never much seen Kristen Wiig's appeal on Saturday Night Live. I find her characters so straining-for-effect that to me they're almost anti-funny. There are moments in Bridesmaids -- like her flipout on the airplane, and her cute "get the cop to pay attention" hijinks -- where I thought she slipped into that realm. But her overall natural persona in this movie is quite likable/sympathetic. And I think her character is the key to this movie's success. We're somewhat accustomed to young adult male characters who are attractive enough but somehow seem to do everything to sabotage their own lives, but we haven't seen many such female varieties, and I think Wiig's character speaks to this demographic. She also (quietly) raises class issues -- nearly everything the Rose Byrne character does to outshine her is possible simply because she's got a ton of money. (In a way, Wiig enacts a deflected version of the class issue Maya Rudolph faces simply by marrying above her social station) All that stuff is interesting enough. I also found the scenes with the cop mostly enjoyably low-key.

Still, it's not a great favorite movie because: 1) I don't find the comedy of mortification all that funny (during the dueling shower toasts, and Wiig's diatribe at the Paris-themed party, I literally had to look away from the screen); 2) the plotting was sometimes painfully weak (the whole "we can't find Rudolph/oh, she's at home" smacked of "we ran out of time and never wrote this part of the script"; and 3) I simply don't find the exploding bodily functions scenes terribly funny. I don't think this is just old fart-ism talking; I've laughed uproariously at some of Louis CK's scatological routines. But I sat in stony silence through most of a scene that had everyone around me gasping for air.