The Dig

What Jesse said:

Yeah and I also want you to watch The Dig.

Go

Mike’s verdict:

The Dig is not exciting. It’s not suspenseful or mysterious; there are no larger than life personalities and the plot is very straightforward. But it is quietly, unexpectedly, dramatic. The film leans into the understated performances of Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes, allowing it to firmly capture and hold attention – without actually needing to demand anything.

The story is told with a plain, but delicate, simplicity that carries the audience gently along with characters who – despite being set nearly a century ago in what might as well be a another universe – are entirely relatable today. There is a tender grip that you don’t notice until then end when it gracefully lets you go.  Indeed, it was only during the epilogue that I realized I had spent nearly two hours with a shallow anxiety, waiting for the disaster that was surely going to disrupt the story I was enjoying.

But there is no disaster.

There is just life, seen from the perspective of two people who have been brought together by a shared passion for how the past reaches into their present.

There are, of course, trials and frustrations – but they are reasonable. Problems are only as big as they need to be – nothing is embellished for the sake of entertainment. Aside from a strangely tangential love triangle that briefly distracts somewhat from the real narrative, the film does very well to avoid introducing tensions where they are unnecessary.

Mulligan and Fiennes have a solid chemistry that is allowed to fill the scenes they share but it is never exploited. Their connection exists, it’s overwhelming, and it’s unacknowledged.

And in the end you find out that the story is a dramatic telling of actual history – the past reaching into our present.

Jesse really under-sold this one.

9.5/10

The Sisters Brothers

What Jesse said:

Ok, I just watched The Sisters Brothers and thought it was a real mess of a movie but strangely… I ended up really enjoying it! Who knew? lol. So now I need you to go see it and tell me why I like it ’cause I can’t tell right now…

What Jesse said later:

I DON’T know why I ended up liking it.

It was ALL OVER THE PLACE!

And even later:

I feel the same way I did after watching Pet Detective…

Mike’s verdict:

Before this viewing my only recollection of John C. Reilly was from Step Brothers, so I spent at least the first 20 minutes expecting to watch a tedious, tasteless comedy. The eye-roll inducing title (which goes inexplicably unaddressed), and the fact that the film starts out in the middle of some larger story, only reinforced my belief. It wasn’t until it occurred to me that Joaquin Phoenix isn’t at all funny that I finally realized I was in for a simple western drama.

As a western, this film is predictable in terms of its glacial pace and focus on gritty, morally ambiguous, characters. Yet the plotline itself is less predictable than I anticipated, at least as a fictional story. There’s no time that the characters themselves react unexpectedly – you can easily understand and foresee the consequences of all their actions – but somehow the story is still entirely random.  The Sisters Brothers is an entirely unoriginal film but with a strangely original plot – any wester film could go in the direction that this film does, but none of them ever do.

The whole film feels like when you begin watching a movie after it has already started and then have to stop watching before the end. Things happen, and you can follow along, but there’s no explanation for why things are happening, and in the end you don’t really care about the titular characters.

That said, I would absolutely watch a prequel depicting the story of how Riz Ahmed‘s character Hermann Kermit Warm discovered his river gold illuminating chemical, how he came to the attention of The Commodore, and the development of his utopian town in Texas.  I think leaving out these aspects was a significant loss.  I would probably also watch a prequel explaining how Jake Gyllenhaal‘s John Morris came to be employed by The Commodore as solely a non-violent investigator while everyone else The Commodore is associated with is a cold-blooded killer.

Maybe this is the reason that Jesse thinks he likes the film – it hints at other stories that might address bigger, more interesting, and thought-provoking issues.

5/10

Manchester by the Sea

Note: This is the second part of a review double-header!  Jesse sent two recommendations in a single shot so I’m reviewing them at the same time. Click here for the other review.

What Jesse said:

Two movies for you to watch: War Dogs, and Manchester by the Sea. Very different but excellent flicks. War Dogs is so absurd it will make you laugh and then wonder if the grownups really are in charge… also, it was funny ’cause it’s true (based on a real case). Manchester by the Sea was a pretty intense slow burn. Casey Affleck plays the main character. Watch out for the BAHS-ton accents. Family drama.

Mike’s verdict:

“If you’re going to freak out every time you see a frozen chicken, I think we should maybe go to the hospital. I don’t know anything about this.“

Judging by this quote alone, I should like Manchester by the Sea. Add the fact that it is packed full of awkwardness and I should really like it.  Awkward people just trying to exist in a world where all the little things are much harder than they should be; this is my favourite kind of movie by far. But let’s get things straight right up front: I did not like Manchester by the Sea and I am struggling for a reason not to give it 0/10.

Right from the beginning I was aggravated.  The dialog starts before the opening credits music has faded and it was annoyingly difficult to hear what seemed like an expository exchange.  It was a relief when the music finally stopped – little did I know that all the music in this film would be annoying, out of place, too loud or unnecessary.  It was never appropriate to the scene, nor even ironically inappropriate – it was just all wrong.  Music usage is a crucial aspect of film and when not done correctly it can be devastating even to an otherwise fantastic movie.

Of course, this is not an otherwise fantastic movie. Affleck is annoying before you even see his face. To be fair, he did start to grow on me by the end, but I’m pretty sure that had more to do with the rest of the characters.  At first I wondered why his character would be so anti-social, but then it became clear; he has the most immediately unlikable family and friends imaginable. I can’t think of another film with so many genuinely unlikable characters.  None of them are relate-able as people. A good awkward movie is good because the awkwardness is familiar and understandable.  But all of the characters in this film are unpleasant – and they are definitely not helped by the awful fake accents that just make the dialog that much more painful to hear.

Thirty minutes in I wanted to stop watching. By an hour in I had checked the time remaining half a dozen times, and I really wanted to stop watching.  By and hour and forty-five minutes in I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to take anymore.  And then, inexplicably, it just ends abruptly without any resolution. Normally that would impress me, but this time it felt cheap; I had earned something more involved.

Maybe I’m out of practice. Maybe this is what passes for awkwardness in film these days.  In my day, we had people like Mark Duplass to show how awkwardness can be reveled in. I’d like to see him redo this film shot-for-shot with a better cast. The only actor that should stay in the Duplass version is Matthew Broderick. Yes, that’s right, Matthew Broderick is the single best part of Manchester by the Sea.  In fact, for his part I will give the film a whole extra point.

1/10

War Dogs

Note: This is the first part of a review double-header!  Jesse sent two recommendations in a single shot so I’m reviewing them at the same time.  Click here for the other review.

What Jesse said:

Two movies for you to watch: War Dogs, and Manchester by the Sea. Very different but excellent flicks. War Dogs is so absurd it will make you laugh and then wonder if the grownups really are in charge… also, it was funny ’cause it’s true (based on a real case). Manchester by the Sea was a pretty intense slow burn. Casey Affleck plays the main character. Watch out for the BAHS-ton accents. Family drama.

Mike’s verdict:

When does telling the truth ever help anyone?

This is not my kind of movie and I knew it right from the beginning. A ‘true story’ about arms dealers, Afghanistan, and the US government – it’s going to be fairly predictable and I have no doubt about Jesse’s ‘absurd’ label.  Indeed, guns, drugs, war, and banking movies are always the same kind of absurd: someone essentially good makes a series of obviously terrible decisions for the good of family or to get a friend out of a jam, or to just be comfortable for once in their life.  This movie fits the pattern perfectly and it means that there are no surprises as the plot develops.

Granted, that doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining.  The kid from all the Shailene Woodley movies is okay as the naive ‘good guy’ just trying to get ahead. But I initially had trouble accepting him in the role because the life he starts with doesn’t seem that bad.  Jonah Hill is definitely effective as the unsavory partner. He seemed very similar to the character he played in The Wolf of Wall Street, but without the excess.  I can’t say that I liked either character very much; certainly not enough to be on their side.  I knew things would go poorly for them and I didn’t care.

On the other hand, Bradley Cooper‘s role is intriguing.  It’s a fairly small role in terms of screen-time, but he manages to steal the show.  I’d like to see a prequel about him that sets up the Albanian connection and perhaps presents a clearer justification for his involvement in the subsequent scheme.

In most other ways, this movie was entertaining enough to continue watching, but not so interesting that I would be upset if I was interrupted mid-viewing and had to stop watching.  This last thought explains how it is that I managed to watch three quarters of the film before it finally dawned on me that I had actually already watched it once before.  It must have been on the second or third leg of a really long flight because I obviously slept through most of it the first time.

In any case, I did not fall asleep during the second viewing and I was reasonable entertained all the way through.  I even enjoyed the sparse but well chosen music.  There’s always a danger with this type of movie to use overly aggressive music to reinforce themes, but that wasn’t the case here.

Overall,  War Dogs isn’t a great movie, but it isn’t a bad one either.  I was entertained and I think that’s all I would ask of it.

6/10

The Big Short

What Jesse said:

You need to watch The Big Short. Fantastic movie about the 2008 economic meltdown that manages to infuse just enough humour to balance the insanity of the world being on the brink of economic disaster. Christian Bale is amazing in it. Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell… awesome. My favourite scene involves an odd discussion between Carell’s character and a ‘dancer’ about real estate. So much cringe.

Mike’s verdict:

At first I couldn’t understand why Jesse cared to watch a film about banking. Sure, it’s got some notable people but it’s still about banking!  Then it all became clear – his favourite dreamy Brad is in this.  Funny how Jesse mentioned all those other notables but left out Brad Pitt again.  At least in this one Pitt’s role is fairly subdued; and he’s actually believable as the jaded banker turned rich hippy who hates the game but will play it again anyway if you just ask him. Classic Pitt.

This film is an odd format.  It starts out almost feeling like a documentary, but only partially. It flips back and forth between wanting to be a history lesson, indicting the banking industry for its lack of humanity, and a funny story about tangentially connected funny characters who have no respect for the forth wall. And it kind of works.

With such a complicated subject as the basis of the plot, there would inevitably need to be some means of clarifying exposition – and the writers decided to take the easy road: pause the movie and give the explanation.  It works, because as jarring as these moments are, they are handled brilliantly by the characters who not only break the fourth wall but also introduce unrelated cameos from celebrities being themselves.

Jesse is right about Christian Bale; his character is so believable that by the end I felt like I knew him – his awkwardness is completely authentic without being over the top. Steve Carrel’s angry jerk who just cares too much has a rocky start, but eventually becomes a highlight as well.

It’s not all good though: the narrative is choppy at times, making it hard to follow the connections as they as developed.  A number of scenes feel like they happen in the wrong order, but not in an intentional way.  And then there are the magical Jenga blocks that go from tower to pile to tower again without any help.

The discussion with the ‘dancer’ isn’t nearly as interesting as Jesse suggests.  The only cringing on my part was at how forced the scene felt – it doesn’t fit into this film at all and I suspect Jesse has other reasons for enjoying it…

About the halfway point I realized the biggest issue with this film:  I was much less interested in the story or characters than I was in trying to understand the mechanics of the financial crisis. How come all these people saw the problem, independently, years ahead of time, but nobody did anything to stop it?  How does debt become an investment? How do banks even keep their multi-level fraud schemes straight?  The social math is just fascinating.  But this movie won’t answer those questions – it feels like it will, but it won’t because it’s not a documentary. It’s entertainment.

And it is entertaining, but nonetheless disappointing because of everything that it won’t explain.

At the end, I still don’t understand the housing crisis at all; however I am now also very concerned about water.

6/10 – because it failed to live up to my unreasonable expectations.

Sing Street

What Jesse said:

You need to watch Sing Street. Just saw it and it is awesome. Homage to the mid-80s. Was made last year and it’s set in Ireland. Dublin. Awesome scene where main character’s (15 year old kid) older [brother] is educating him and their father on the power of the “music video” and the world-changing awesomeness of Duran Duran.

Mike’s verdict:

That grammar-free stream of consciousness mess is all Jesse saw fit to give me. No hint at a plot. No indication of thematic direction. Not even a genre! So it was with a tremendous amount of faith in Jesse’s judgement that I sat down to watch Sing Street.  And minutes in the film it became clear why Jesse had avoided telling me about the story: it’s just another boy-comes-of-age film.

You know the story; you’ve seen it many times: an adolescent boy struggles with a tough but caring home life, a bully at his new school, and an abusive authority figure, all while trying to make sense of a girl – and of course he finds himself in the process.

<sigh> This movie has been done to death.

But nevermind all that; you should watch Sing Street anyway because it is fantastic.  I don’t know where or when Jesse watched this film, but I do know exactly at which points he cheered, laughed, shook his head in dismay, and cringed – because there are moments that are universal to every teen boy.  Details may differ, situations are exaggerated, and the results are unlikely, but the feelings are spot-on.

This film is hopeful all the way through, in a sense that many of this genre fail to be. It doesn’t need overwhelming hardship to make its point. The protagonist struggles meaningfully but realistically, and over comes his life in ways that most boys can only do in day-dreams. Yet as the credits roll, the viewer is left with the sense that while the hero has managed to win in the first chapter of his life, there is still very real potential for disaster to come in the next. Struggle is balance with success, tipping only slightly under the weight of the unknown future.

The story is helped along well by reliable acting – perhaps not surprisingly all the school-age boys are very believable as school-age boys. Even the cleverer bits of dialog seem natural. It’s also supplemented by light symbolism that subtly adds dept: “You can’t put rabbits on the bed and not expect them to shit on your bed.” is surely an apt metaphor for life.

The backdrop to all this is a soundtrack that aggressively makes itself a part of the narrative when its needed, or slips subtly into ambiance when its not. There is a deliberate contrast between songs used in their original 80s glory, followed by quiet piano arrangements that feel timeless. It’s easy to forget that this is a contemporary film.  That is, at least until you realize that it understands the 80s music revolution far better than anyone in the 80s ever could have.

Sing Street is a thoughtful and original take on a very over-done genre. But most importantly, its enjoyable – it uses only the cliches that it needs to lay the foundation, and then layers a tapestry of commercial and original music that revives the 80s perfectly. Jesse absolutely got this one right.

10/10

p.s. It’s definitely worth sitting through the short credits to hear the last bit of music.

Snowpiercer

What Jesse said:

Watch Snowpiercer. Do it now.

Mike’s verdict:

I got a copy of this movie years before Jesse recommended it to me, but I never got around to watching it. For some reason I ended up forgetting what it was about or why I found it interesting in the first place. I actually believed that it was a foreign film with subtitles. If Jesse hadn’t recommended it, I’d probably never have watched it at all.

I’m glad that I finally did; given Jesse’s sparse review though I could easily have forgotten about it again. Since he didn’t elaborate on why I should watch Snowpiercer, I will have to assume that he recognized the film for what it truly is: a review of some of the most enduring themes in the history of political philosophy.

I suspect that many people will walk away from this film thinking it is a commentary on economic inequality – something along the lines of the 21st century protest movements that hope to up-end the so-called ‘One Percent’. Certainly, inequality is a major factor here – economic divide is the source of the film’s main conflict. But Snowpiercer isn’t about economic inequality – it’s about the rationale for maintaining that inequality.

The train here should be looked at as a metaphor (thinly veiled) for a society – everything
humanity needs ,thought not necessarily everything it wants, is within the train, while exiting means stepping into the cold, harsh reality of nature. But just as there are consequences to joining any social contract built to protect humankind, living on the train requires sacrifices to maintain balance. Economic classes develop both from the balance and in support of the balance. The upper-class in the front needs the idea of the poor in the back as much as it needs to physically oppress them. Moreover, the poor need to believe in the possibility of revolution just to maintain meaning in their lives. The train is an intricately designed state; meant to allow the human race to continue living safe from the dangers of nature, even if some lives will be more comfortable than others. The point is not to make every person’s life good, but to maintain a balance that will keep humanity in existence, hopefully until nature itself is less brutal.

The architects of this state understood that classes would be necessary, what each class would require to maintain it’s end of the balance, and how to manipulate both sides to facilitate that balance. The philosopher kings control the state through invisible hands that direct the people; deciding where sacrifices are necessary and building mythologies to make these sacrifices palatable. In the back of the train, the mythology is built on the great revolutionary uprisings that are never successful but close enough to give hope. In the front, people are taught to respect and revere the balance – ‘everyone has their place’.

It almost works. And it like it. Snowpiercer is a contemporary exploration of the social contract, continuing the work developed through Hobbs, Locke and of course Rousseau. That said, their are definitely flaws in this film. Leaving aside arguments against it’s philosophical commentary (that would be a whole other kind of blog), Snowpiercer has some pretty annoying holes: Where does the ‘flammable’ industrial waste / narcotic actually come from? What sort of witchcraft powers the train? Why does the train even need to keep moving? Many of the details seem needlessly implausible.

Even so, the acting is good, the story avoids being too obvious, and the ending was nicely
ambiguous. Jesse got it right, well, I assume.

7/10

Slow West

What Jesse said:

Yo, I got another one fer ya. This one is called Slow West and it stars Michael Fassbender and some kid named Kodi Smit-McPhee, who, turns out, I’ve already seen in another great movie – The Road.  Anyway, this is kind of a weird love story about a pasty-faced lovesick kid (Kodi) who travels from Scotland to the badlands of 19th century America in search of his massive crush, a girl named Rose.  The kid is uber naive and idealistic about his quest so you know he’s in trouble as soon as you see him in the New World.  Throw in some crazy bounty hunters and a jaded gunslinger with an agenda and you got yourself a pretty quirky twist on the old western genre.  I really enjoyed this one so cancel your plans for the Pokemon Go hunt and go see this movie right now. Go.

Mike’s verdict:

Apparently I took a while getting around to watching this one – as evidenced by Jesse’s outdated reference to a game that I was too old for even a decade ago when anyone cared about Pokemon.  Part of the delay was life – I was busy doing non-movie-related activities. But I was also very skeptical about this movie.  I’m not a fan of westerns generally and the idea that Jesse might have uncovered a good one seemed pretty remote.

Thankfully, this isn’t really a western, or at least it doesn’t feel like one.  It does tick all the western boxes: dusty plains, wooden buildings, people riding horses, everyone has a gun, nobody can aim a gun, the good guy looks just like the bad guys, nobody is ever in a hurry, it rarely rains but when it does everyone just gets wet, etc. Yet somehow this film feels less like western and more like fantasy.  I can’t quite place it, but the atmosphere doesn’t feel like it’s intended to be part of our reality – it has the same once-upon-a-timeness as the beginning of Stardust. You can sort of relate to the characters, but their reality is clearly askew.  This is particularly strong at the start, before the film shifts to the New World, but it continues right through to the end.  That said, it’s doesn’t feel completely foreign in the way that Cowboys & Aliens does.

The whole thing gives off a slight awkwardness that I enjoyed, and also left me constantly guessing where it was going to take me.  In the end, the basic result is pretty obvious – you can predict how Jay’s quest to find Rose is going to turn out just from the interaction between the two characters in the first five minutes. But this is definitely one of those movies that is more about the details of the absurd journey, than the details of the absurd ending.

Aside from some minor gruesomeness near the end, Slow West is fairly easy to watch, has a nice unrushed – but not too slow – pace and is packed with dry humour that you need to pay attention to notice (ha, salt in the wound!).  It’s like an easy-listening radio station during ‘the cool DJ’s’ shift – nothing overly special, but a fine way to spend a few hours.

8/10

The Advocate

What Jesse said:

The Advocate. Interesting story about when Europe still prosecuted animals for crimes committed. Colin Firth stars as the poor lawyer assigned to represent the animals… Odd little flick. Good times.
…you’re welcome.

Mike’s verdict:

Right off the bat, I almost didn’t watch this film because I couldn’t find it. Turns out Jesse gave me the North American release title, but two decades on the only sources I could find were under the original British title: The Hour of the Pig.  I don’t much like either title.  But back to the review.

This movie starts slowly, and never really picks up.  Until about three-quarters of the way through I was actually worried that I wouldn’t even have anything interesting to say about it. On the surface, it’s a pretty standard early 90s period drama.  Colin Firth does a fine job of reciting his lines, the set is sufficiently gritty, and there is a nice cross-section of characters – but the narrative doesn’t really grab, or give the viewer anything particularly interesting to fixate on.  If it wasn’t for the odd concept of a pig being put on trial, I might have lost interest entirely.

But by the time the credits were rolling I’d realized that there is actually a subtle undercurrent that makes the film a sort of minimalist black comedy.  And it has a message: Humanity is completely absurd.

With hindsight, I realize that I should have noticed the ridiculousness right away: it’s a film set in 15th-century France full of English actors, speaking with English accidents.  But it actually took a fantastically impassioned speech by Donald Pleasence‘s character for me to notice that the film was trying to portray just how silly society is. We try so hard to be ‘civilized’ and ‘logical’ and adhered to ideas of ‘reason’; yet we do idiotic things like accuse strangers of witchcraft and pretend that animals can commit murder.

I like the message, and I like the way that it sneaks up. But overall I still can’t say that The Hour of the Pig (or The Advocate, if you like) is a good movie – because it isn’t: nice idea, poor execution (no pun intended). Besides, the role of the unjustly accused pig obviously should have been a portrayed by goat.

5/10

The VVitch

What Jesse said:

Got another one for you. Awesome movie by a dude named Robert Eggers. Amazing slow burn thriller named The VVitch. Shot in Ontario!

BTW I visited the Salem Witch Museum when I lived there. Creepy shit.

This guy is from New England and really seems to understand all the folklore. The movie reflects this. Just a great story about people living under really strict religious/ideological mindset. Great movie. Oh yeah, one more thing…Black Phillip. BP is one bad MF! Black Phillip Black Phillip Black Phillip….

Mike’s verdict:

I’m actually of two minds about this film, but let’s get one thing out of the way up front – Black Philip is seriously creepy. Even thinking about him now makes me uncomfortable. To be honest, making a black goat seem creepy is not an accomplishment for any film-maker, but where it lacks originality it certainly makes up the difference in effectiveness.

Of course, while Philip is probably the most creepy part of the film, he’s definitely not the only thing that’s creepy; The VVitch has a consistent anxiety that effortlessly reinforces itself.  I had a constant expectation that something (probably a witch) was going to suddenly and unpleasantly present itself, and that feeling didn’t let up at all until the credits were rolling.

Yet for much of the film, the anxiety is self-imposed.  The classic “spooky” elements of the movie actually take quite a long time to come about.  I was surprised at how long it took to see anything truly, visually intense, given that the psychological intensity begins almost immediately. Actually, at one point I began to question whether or not there really would be a witch and – spoiler alert – I’m still not certain that there even is one. But the climax of the whole story is unquestionably eerie and either way, Jesse’s right about the slow burn thriller.

But where the atmosphere works, much of the characters do not. So much just not believable; the characters’ responses and interaction don’t feel like they conform to the basics of the human condition. Everyone is constantly overreacting or under-reacting (will somebody please discipline those children!), to the point that watching verges on labourious.  The only thing that limits this tedium is a deliberate hurry to the plot which is clearly intended to provide fast relief for the viewer.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work. I understand that irrational belief is a necessary component of any story set in the midst of witch hysteria, but usually we get a stable post to lean on – one character that is rational and has the potential to overcome the blind fear of everyone around them. This film doesn’t have that character – everyone is equally consumed by their fears – and it makes for an awkward uncertainty about where the whole thing is going.

Maybe uncertainty is the point?  Maybe I’m supposed to be wondering what it all means at the end?  But I don’t feel like that was the point – I feel like there was a previous episode that is necessary for the finale to make sense.

Then again, maybe my real issue is simply that between Ralph Ineson speaking like he has a mouth full of blueberries, and everyone else whispering their lines, I missed the bits that pull it all together.

6.5/10

Ridicule

What Jesse said:

[Unfortunately, I can’t remember what Jesse said about Ridicule.  He definitely liked it, and he was very indignant at my hesitation to spend an evening trying to keep up with subtitles. But at some point over the last year, while I was coming up with excuses to avoid watching the film, I managed to misplace the email with his thoughts. Oops.  Maybe he’ll send it to me again later so I can update this.  Update: Jesse re-sent his thoughts!]

Ridicule: I really enjoyed this French-language movie about the triumph of style over substance, or, how being witty and socially adept was the primary concern of bored French aristocracy in the 1700’s. Some pretty funny moments and amazing cinematography.

Mike’s verdict:

I am really not a fan of subtitles – for two important reasons. The first reason is everything that I miss while I am reading. Dialog in a film is usually important, obviously, but the visual is even more so – in fact, if it wasn’t crucial we’d all still be listening to radio. For me, the opportunity cost of subtitles is simply too high for anything other than documentaries.  The second reason is that subtitles are regularly plagued by errors. Unless written directly by the film writers, subtitles tend to introduce changes to the meaning of dialog, and often these changes are significant.

This is why I put off watching Ridicule, and as it turns out, I was right. Both of my concerns became reality during a painful hour and forty-five minutes.

Ridicule is supposedly about wit in late 18th century France.  I don’t know anything about 18th century France, but Jesse will agree that I know all about wit.  Wit is complicated.  Wit is precise.  It requires a high level of intelligence and vocabulary from both speaker and listener.  Most importantly, for a phrase to be considered witty, there needs to be agreement on the meaning of the words.  There can’t be ambiguity in any of it, unless the ambiguity is intentional.

And therein lies the problem. I have no idea if any of the characters are witty in French, but if they are then that wit was completely lost in the translation of the subtitles I had to read.

Not only was the subtitled dialog distinctly lacking in wit, I even found it incredibly difficult to follow the story. Actually, that’s an understatement – I literally have no idea what the plot was about.  An old man gets peed on. Some people flounder around a swamp to catch fish by hand. Someone steals a shoe and throws it in a fireplace. A guy hangs himself. All the while, people claim to be witty.  That’s all I got.

Maybe Ridicule makes sense to people who can make sense of French.  But it did not make sense to me, and I think the subtitles might have been written by this guy.

1/10

Ant-man

What Jesse said:

Ant-Man is a friggin’ awesome fun ‘popcorn movie’ that doesn’t waste the audience’s time with overly complicated motives or over the top exposition. It’s a pretty simple story of a guy (Paul Rudd) who puts on a high-tech suit that gives him the power to shrink down to ant size in order to stop an evil dude from using the technology for not-so-nice purposes. The action sequences were a lot of fun and I thought the comic relief (provided by Michael Pena as ‘Luis’) was absolutely perfect. The whole thing was a lot of fun and I’m definitely checking out a sequel if they ever make one. Michael Douglas does a competent job as the ‘Scientist with a formula’ and Evangeline Lilly sleepwalks through this one as the ‘angry daughter who doesn’t get it yet’. Nothing much to think about or grand themes to ponder, just a fun flick to chill out to with some very cool sequences. Good movie, check it out.

Mike’s verdict:

Ant-Man is not my favourite superhero. Ant-Man is not even a superhero I was aware of until Jesse told me that there was a movie. I still can’t understand why Ant-Man is a superhero at all – at least, I can’t understand why a writer would choose to name a hero with the ability to become very tiny ‘Ant-Man’. Lots of things are tiny, many of them cool. There is nothing cool, menacing, or even encouraging about an ant unless it’s the kind that stings; and this one, as it turns out, doesn’t sting.

I started this movie thinking I was going to see something like Spider-Man, a superhero with super-abilities that are directly related to the persona he portrays, and merely enhanced by technological toys. Instead I got the other kind of superhero – the guy who puts on a suit and just comes up with a name that kind of fits the image at a really basic level – like Batman. That might be fine, except that in this case the toy that Ant-Man uses just takes him from being a normal-sized loser, to a really tiny one.

To be fair, I can’t exactly argue with the things that Jesse liked about this movie:

• It definitely doesn’t waste time with complicated motives or exposition.
• It is a simple story.
• The action sequences were fun.
• The comic relief was, okay maybe not perfect, but appreciated.
• Michael Douglas is competent as an idealistic scientist.
• Evangeline Lilly definitely doesn’t get it.
• There is nothing much to think about or themes to ponder.

Watching this reminded me of Fantastic Four – the one from 2005 . It’s entertaining for the sake of entertainment, nothing is spectacular but everything works together if you suspend disbelief (which obviously you have to – it’s a superhero movie!).

My only real complaint is that nothing about this movie stands out. If I want a simple story, Ant-Man won’t be the first movie that comes to mind. If I’m in the mood for action, or if I want to watch Michael Douglas, Ant-Man won’t be the first movie that comes to mind. If I want to watch Evangeline Lilly, Ant-Man won’t be – wait, I’ll never want to watch Evangeline Lilly.  And if I don’t want much to think about or themes to ponder, Ant-Man won’t be the movie that comes to mind.

Ant-Man fulfilled its role – it helped time go by while I was bored on an airplane. But unless I’m on another plane with really limited choices, Ant-Man The Sequal/Prequal won’t be my choice.

On last thing, Paul Rudd does a fine job as Ant-Man. I expected him to be funnier, because he is, but I can understand that wasn’t his role this time.  But if I want to watch Paul Rudd in the future, Ant-Man won’t be the movie that comes to mind.

5/10

Rudderless

What Jesse said:

I just watched a movie that literally left me speechless. It’s called Rudderless and it stars Billy Cruddup and Anton Yelchin, and was directed by William H. Macy (whom I’ve actually met while waiting for a flight in Vancouver!) I really had no idea what to expect from a movie about the fairly difficult topic of how to deal with unbearable grief following a tragic family event. But then there’s the music (I know that sounds like a non sequitur, but stay with me). Cruddup plays Sam, a man whose life takes a nosedive after losing his college-aged son Josh in a mass shooting. A while after this event, Sam starts to play music in an apparent attempt to learn more about his dead son. Overall, I thought the performances were top-notch, and the movie had some funny as well as some very powerful moments. Awesome. Watch it.

Mike’s verdict:

Finally, a decent recommendation!  It’s been ages since Jesse has recommended any movie at all, let alone one that I thought would interest me. I will admit that based on Jesse’s description I was only vaguely sold on this though.  Human strife is tedious so it takes a good deal of talent to make me think it worth spending my evening. That said, Jesse did get this one right.

On the surface, Rudderless is an engaging and clever look at a side of violence that is rarely considered in film, as the plot follows characters that are normally tangential in stories about mass shootings. This film doesn’t look at the classic victims of violence, nor the classic perpetrators of violence. Instead, it circles those who are affected indirectly. But in a way, even the over-arching plot is itself actually tangential to the real focus of the film/ This is more a story about a man trying to escape his life, and his rediscovery of music as a means to propel himself to fulfillment, than it is a story about a mass shooting.

To be clear, the actual plot itself is pretty light. There’s a nice twist (that you’ll almost certainly foresee if you’re paying attention) but not a whole lot really happens. The pace is good, and the characters are interesting, and that’s enough to satisfy the basics without overdoing it or taking away from the real point – which is to follow a man who reconnects with himself as he tries to reconnect with the son he never really knew.

And along the way you become immersed in a fantastic soundtrack that in some ways over-shadows the rest of the film, but is just so much fun.  You likely won’t ever hear a better rendition of The Wheels on the Bus and Kate Micucci (remember Lucy from The Big Bang Theory?) has an angry/sad open-mic ukulele performance that is perfect. Even William H. Macy (whom Jesse thinks he met in an airport but it was really a 52 year old woman wearing a big hat) is superb as the nondescript open-mic bar owner.

I like this movie – it’ll be going in the ‘keep’ pile, and I’m going to hunt down the soundtrack too.

9/10

 

These Final Hours

What Jesse said:

Got another Aussie gem fee ya. I want you to check out These Final Hours. I’ve never heard of any of these actors so I had no idea what to expect from this low-budget flick. Familiar premise but I found it a lot of fun and thought-provoking. Check it out.

Mike’s verdict:

This is the first movie in a long time that I’ve had trouble starting a review for. I’ve been thinking it over for a few days, trying to come up with something to say but I keep drawing a blank. The trouble is that this film is really quite generic. It’s not bad exactly, and it’s not totally uninteresting; but there’s nothing specifically novel about it. It’s kind of the Australian movie equivalent of Nickelback – all the right elements are technically there, but there’s no spark of life.

I’m generally a fan of the apocalypse genre when it’s done right and I don’t care much about why the world is ending, as long as there’s a good story surrounding the characters. There has to be a thin layer of anxious suspense, or consistent hilarity, that keeps me interested in the people. And of course it helps if the people have an interesting goal that takes them through increasingly unlikely settings before they arrive at the oasis they’re invariably running to.

This films lacks all of those criteria.  The main characters are mostly sympathetic (technically) but I never really felt invested in them, and the plot lacks any significant depth. I do wonder if this might be different for viewers in Australia who, presumably, would be more familiar with the actors. To me, they’re just generic dramatic action movie stand-ins who haven’t had a chance to develop a unique style of their own yet, but at least a few of them are apparently recognizable in the southern hemisphere.

I must admit that I strongly disagree with Jesse’s assessment of it being a low-budget film – at a reported $2.5 million (Australian) it’s definitely not Hollywood, but it’s not an art school project either.  The cinematography is actually quite well done; I was never distracted by it. Of course that doesn’t fix the overly familiar story line and forgettable characters.

If there is one saving grace, it’s that Jesse was mostly right about the though-provoking nature of the film.  About halfway through I came to the realization that there is a subtle undercurrent present in most apocalypse films which is brought to the forefront in this one; namely, the insinuation that, given the knowledge of certain death and sufficient time to react to it, humanity will destroy itself before the apocalypse actually happens.

For some reason, suicide, rioting and general mayhem are regularly assumed to be the most immediate reaction to news that the world will be destroyed tomorrow. While I generally take a dim view of human nature, I’m not sure that I agree with this assessment. Certainly there will be pockets of individuals who decide to kill the boss that passed them up for a promotion, and a significant spike in drunk driving accidents. I’m even willing to accept the odd suicide as well. But I don’t think that average people will be anywhere near as quick to kill their families or themselves as we’ve portrayed them to be. I think people will be so focused on finding ways to ignore the inevitable and in such a state of denial that when the end does come they will miss it.

In considering the spectrum of reactions presented in this film, I realize that film in general has done a poor job of predicting pre-apocalypse behaviour and this is one more example of that. It’s too bad too; the intention of These Final Hours is obviously to provoke discussion on this behaviour and it would have been nice if the film hadn’t presented such melodramatic examples.

Overall, this movie gets a 5/10. The film is thought-provoking in its misunderstanding of people, but not particularly interesting as a movie.

The Babadook

What Jesse said:

Finally an accurate depiction of parenthood! A well crafted unsettling tale about family. I give you… The Babadook. Essie Davis is mesmerizing as a single mom slowly getting to the end of her rope. And that kid…yikes! Go see it now.

Mike’s verdict:

I hadn’t heard of this one before Jesse suggested it and I think he intentionally tried to mislead me by saying it was about family; thankfully The Babadook is not really a story about family in the way Jesse insinuated, though on a certain level it definitely speaks to the relationship and influence of parents on children.

On the surface, this film is a standard haunted-house ghost story that reminded me a lot of The Shining. There’s no terrifying father figure in this, but Essie Davis‘s early on portrayal of the exhausted mother is eerily similar to Shelley Duvall‘s. Similarly, Noah Wiseman does a less effective but still admirable job of channeling Danny Lloyd as the creepy child. And although it’s less literal than in The Shining, I definitely felt a similar sense of isolation on the part of the characters. Beyond the characters themselves, the atmosphere of The Babadook also reminded me a lot of The Conjuring.

The story base – a scary monster that only a child sees – isn’t particularly novel, but there’s no doubt that this movie is disturbing.  Every setting in this film is designed to build anxiety; the house, the car, the hospital, a treehouse, and even the position of a neighbour’s window, all would have made me uncomfortable even if the activity happening around them didn’t. Added with just the right lighting and some cinematography tricks, the visuals had me uncomfortable from start to finish and I was aware of that discomfort the whole time.

Even better than the visual is the audio. Thinking about it now, I realize that I can’t recall a single moment when I was aware of the soundtrack. A frequent problem with ‘scary’ movies is over-use of those sounds that we all recognize as tropes. In the right measure they add to the atmosphere, but too much pulls you out of the moment. The Babadook feels natural at every point, even when the monster’s noise is at its worst.

That is the face of this film – an effective ghost story that left me needing to watch an anxiety-reducing comedy before moving on with my night (thank you, Archer).

But I think there is actually much more here.

The Babadook isn’t really about a haunting at all – it’s the story of a woman’s rapidly surfacing psychosis, which has been brought on by the overlapping events surrounding the death of her husband and birth of her son.  What at first seem to be the aggravating and sometimes frightening actions of a disturbed child, are in fact the reactions of a child attempting to live with the symptoms of his mother’s illness. There is no Babadook, only the disassociated personality of a woman who resents the child that is a daily reminder of the husband she lost.  The “disobedient child” is actually a completely normal child trying to live with a woman who is sometimes a loving mother and sometimes a terrifying monster. His fascination with building weapons isn’t a burgeoning sociopathy, it’s a very literal attempt to protect himself and the mother he loves from her own demons.

This film speaks very clearly to the need for parents to understand how directly their own fears, disappointments, anxieties and whole mental state affect their children.  It’s an ironic, thought-provoking, and clever take on the “haunted-house”, and a satisfyingly entertaining scare.

8/10

Nightcrawler

What Jesse said:

So I thought I was gonna watch a movie about one of my favourite Marvel characters, instead I get a weird movie about how Jake Gyllenhaal spends his nights looking for bloody footage to sell to sleazy TV news people who go by the motto “if it bleeds it leads…”. Nice. Gyllenhaal does a nice job as an ambitious sociopath and I can’t remember the last time I saw Renee Russo in anything but she was pretty good too. Check it out.

Mike’s verdict:

I was intrigued by the trailer for this movie. It combined a slow-simmering and eerie awkwardness with an uncommonly clean look – creepy but without the cliché grittiness that everyone’s been doing lately. It gave me high hopes for the movie despite the fact that the concept – people chasing gruesome disasters with a camera, intent on sell the footage to television news – didn’t jump out at me as particularly interesting. I wasn’t overly excited, but I expected there would be a sufficient backdrop for exploring the creepy characters presented in the trailer.

I was wrong.

I will admit that the subtle unsettling nature of the trailer does come through in the full movie. The atmosphere is right, and the creepy-but-clean setting works. Unfortunately, a lot of the scenes are drawn-out – presumably to build suspense – and they’re left just a little too long. Eerie only stays suspenseful if it fluctuates enough to not become desensitizing. Nightcrawler fails at this. It’s really, really slow.

The film is also very obvious. Maybe I have a dim view of human beings, but I wasn’t surprised by any of the things the main character did. I could see every plot point coming way in advance, and that includes the ‘big surprise’ at the end.

‘Slow’ and ‘obvious’ are enough to ruin a movie themselves, but my criticisms are not done: the characters are problematic as well.

One major issue is inherent in Jake Gyllenhaal‘s character. He’s a terrible person on the inside, and a terrible person on the outside. Everything he says is garbage and nobody around him is fooled by it. That’s the point – he’s fake and we all know it. Unfortunately, the nature of acting requires the actor to pretend to be something they are not, and convince the audience. In this case, Gyllenhaal is pretending to be someone who is unconvincingly pretending to be someone. The meta-acting means that Gyllenhaal has to convince me that he is someone who is unconvincing – in other words, the more convincing Gyllenhaal is, the less I am convinced. This movie was doomed right from the beginning. Gyllenhaal could never come across as convincing, because he was trying to be unconvincing.

Sadly, I have problems with the other main characters as well.

Rene Russo‘s character is just awful. I have no idea if she is an accurate depiction of a television news producer, but I really hope not. The trope of the newsman (or woman, whatever) who is willing to do anything for the story is well grounded in reality, but I would like to think that most television producers would set a higher standard for what they are willing to give up personally for the story. This is especially true given that Gyllenhaal’s character is so intentionally unconvincing in his sales pitches. For every hard decision Russo’s character has to make, her choice is unbelievably stupid. And I mean that literally – I simply could not believe that a real person would make such choices. Riz Ahmed‘s character suffers a similar fate – he’s so stupid that I have a hard time believing he could exist.

The movie actually reminds me a lot of the True Detective mini-series. The series definitely shares an intention with Nightcrawler: to show the awfulness of individual humans in an eerie but clean atmosphere. But it also shares its problems; both are slow, obvious and lacking believable characters. Unsurprisingly, Jesse liked both.

3/10

As for the most significant complaint raised by Jesse (and way too many other comic nerds), the bottom line is that the Marvel character is not known even remotely well enough for the movie producers to have thought there would be confusion. Marvel’s Nightcrawler is little more than a tag-along to the X-Men and nobody can realistically argue that they saw this movie thinking it was going to be about mutants.  If Marvel ever chooses to make X-Men 56: Nightcrawler’s Turn, Jesse will have no doubt what the movie is about – because every showing will be sold-out 3 weeks in advance and there will be over-night line-ups of desperate nerds outside every theatre.

Transcendent Man

What Jesse said:

Back in my electronic music days I used some gear by a company called Kurzweil. Turns out that the guy who started that company is a fascinating (and rather sad) human being named Ray Kurzweil and there’s a documentary about him called Transcendent Man. The topics covered are quite profound and reminded me of Her starring Joaquin Phoenix. Go watch Transcendent Man. It’s one of those rare movies that manages to be uplifting and depressing all at once. I liked it a lot.

Mike’s verdict:

I’ll agree with Jesse on one point for sure: Raymond Kurzweil is a rather sad human being. Transcendent Man isn’t so much a documentary as it is a biography. It presents the story of a man who, after bearing witness to the slow and all too foreseeable death of his father, becomes terrified by his own mortality. As if that isn’t bad enough, Kurzweil is an engineer – he’s used to thinking about ways to solve problems – and (because he’s an engineer) he doesn’t realize that death is not a problem he can just engineer a solution for.

Kurzweil has spent the better part of his life looking for ways to ensure that the he lives forever. He takes somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 pills each day – basic supplements and vitamins as well as his own brand of ‘anti-aging’ chemicals. He also has his blood tested every few months to check on his progress. To be fair, at one point Kurzweil was diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes – definitely a condition to take seriously – and he managed to reverse it. Whether or not he beat diabetes because of his daily drug routine is very much open to debate though.

Of course, Kurzweil doesn’t limit himself to the traditional remedies of medical science. He is, after all, an engineer – and he has been looking at technological advances as the next step to defying death. He’s spent decades inventing and researching in a broad range of fields and he’s witnessed first-hand the way that technology has exploded over the last 50 years. He thinks of the world he was born into, compares it with the world he lives in today and imagines the world he’ll experience in another 50 years. Kurzweil has convinced himself that, within his lifetime, technology will advance to the point that death will no longer be a concern – he just needs to live long enough to make use of the technology.

As a response to his fears, Kurzweil has prophesied a pseudo-religious utopian future where humanity and machines intertwine such that there is no way to distinguish between the two. First science will advance nano-technology to fix everything, then it will advance convergence technology to bridge the gap between mind and machine. Then we will travel the stars.

Eventually, we will be sentient machines and as we spread the universe will ‘awaken’ as a single entity.  He calls it The Singularity but there are corollaries found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Bahá’í, Buddhism, and nearly all other religions.

As it happens, Kurzweil isn’t just another crack-pot with a vision – he is actually a brilliant engineer who is responsible for, among other things, the CCD flatbed scanner and text-to-speech synthesizers. He is a director of engineering at Google.

And that’s why his story is so sad. Technology is moving at blistering speed, but it’s not going to continue fast enough to save Kurzweil. You know it, I know it, his doctors know it. And on a certain level Kurzweil knows it too. But he lives in a world that wants his delusions to be true – and is constantly recognizing him for his very real accomplishments. Everyone knows he’s crazy, yet despite his delusions he is helping people. His delusions are riding the coat-tails of his otherwise brilliant career.

I would have like to see more dissenting opinions in this film – particularly from technology experts who could speak to the validity of Kurzweil’s beliefs. The producers chose to include interviews with two people who questioned Kurzweil’s prophecy but they were clearly straw-men – one’s argument was lost in his own completing religion while the other came across as the caricatured cold, unsympathetic scientist.

Overall, the film was interesting – I hadn’t ever heard of Kurzweil before and now I know a great deal about his life. But it was slow in parts, and it became clear that the producers didn’t have a lot to work with in terms of presenting Kurzweil’s imagined future. Just as with any other religion, it’s impossible to provide real evidence to justify his utopian predictions so the producers had to rely on clips of his impassioned speeches – entertaining, but ultimately empty. What I would have liked is a documentary discussing the (im)possibilities of the technology he imagines rather than a biography of the man. I’d like to know more from biologists, chemists and other engineers.

I guess that’s a different film though.

6/10

Interstellar

What Jesse said:

… before he watched Interstellar:

Dude, we should go see Interstellar. Everyone and everyone’s monkey and everyone’s monkey’s dog is saying that it is fantastic. My brother and my cousin and my neighbour and my wife’s hairdresser’s pet saw it and they all say it’s awesome. They also say it’s the kind of movie we definitely need to see in IMAX. It is a space movie after all. Seriously, it’s going to be great. Plus it has Matthew McConaughey – he’s not as dreamy as Brad Pitt but he’s a close second.

… after he watched Interstellar:

Dude, please don’t review this movie. I don’t want people to think that I would recommend this – it will be devastating for my reputation as a movie-watcher and human-being. Please, please, please don’t tell people I made you and our respective significants pay $17 + taxes to see this in IMAX. Please. Let’s just forget this night ever happened.

Mike’s verdict:

I’ve decided to review Interstellar because even though the recommendation was both premature and formally rescinded, in the end I saw this movie because Jesse suggested we watch it: as far as I am concerned, that’s pretty much the definition of a recommendation. The fact that Jesse didn’t have his facts straight before he made the recommendation is irrelevant. Besides, there is already precedent for this type of situation: Black Dynamite.

There’s a lot wrong with Interstellar, but let’s start with the good because it’ll be quick. The atmosphere is great. This movie doesn’t have quite the same feeling of vastness that Gravity has – which is significant given that I watched Gravity on a comparatively tiny 8-foot screen rather than IMAX – but it still does a very good job of expressing the distance and emptiness of space. There is even one scene where I had a twinge of agoraphobia. I also really liked the stark difference in soundtracks between scenes on earth, in space vessels and in open space. You could really, really here the silence when it mattered.

And that’s it for good points.

My first complaint is that every major plot point is obvious – including the big twist. It’s not just obvious from the point of view of the spectator watching on the outside either – the characters themselves definitely should have seen it coming. The only parts of Interstellar’s plot that were not obvious were the ones that lacked any tie to actual science. Jonathan and Christopher Nolan took the liberty of using fantasy to fill in where science stops. In some sense this is fair, unfortunately I felt that the fantasy they invented was too silly. I really enjoy learning about the theoretical science behind space travel and this movie started off really well (at least to my non-specialist eyes). But it takes a bizarre tangent at the point where the science runs out.

Next, the characters. There is one interesting character in this movie; he gets all the best lines and is the only one you will feel for when there is danger. The entire rest of the cast is just there to ensure that the plot moves along – and I was never invested in any of them. In case you are wondering, the one good character isn’t portrayed by McConaughey, nor is it  really a central character in the strictest sense – in fact it isn’t a real person. I hope Bill Irwin is given the credit he deserves for bringing some entertainment to this movie. As far as the real characters are concerned, McConaughey was the same gritty-but-well-meaning character he is in every movie; Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine had suitably adequate performances but nobody is going to remember them for this movie. Matt Damon‘s role is less forgettable, but his performance isn’t really notable. I did like how Topher Grace and Casey Affleck were unceremoniously thrown in like extras though.

Overall, I think most of this movie was okay. I was basically entertained most of the way through until fantasy took over near the end. But it isn’t a good movie and it doesn’t deserve anywhere near the critical praise that it’s been getting. It’s also not worth the money to see it in a theatre – much less IMAX. I wish I’d waited and watched this at home.

4/10

Homefront

What Jesse said:

Alright, I’m gonna give you a break for once and recommend a movie that is not a documentary about something that happened 30 years ago or requires reading subtitles! I want you to put down your “Hipster Life” magazine and go watch Homefront starring my favorite British ass-kicker Jason Statham and thespian extraordinaire/academic powerhouse James Franco. Statham does his usual amount of knee-capping in this flick, and the plot is fairly straight forward, but Franco is just creepy enough to make this a pretty fun ride. Oh yeah, almost forgot, you’ll get to see Winona Ryder doing her very best impression of a bad girl doing bad things… I had a blast (pun intended) watching this one. Get yourself a large bucket of popcorn and settle in for some good old-fashioned hollywood violence!

Mike’s verdict:

This movie sucks; not because the characters are stupid – which is true – or because the plot is nonsensical – which is also true. No, this movie sucks because of its failure to adhere to the core tenets of action movies.

The first half was the worst. It definitely had a bit of the knee-capping action that Jesse was blinded by, but it was wasted. The narrative spent time trying to force emotional investment in the characters and in doing so neglected aspects that draw viewers to Statham movies in the first place. Nobody watches this kind of movie to have their heart touched. It’s almost as if the writers thought they needed to prove that the protagonist was a good loving father – as if anyone cared. By the halfway point I felt like stopping, not because the movie was so bad (it was!), but because I was annoyed at having been tricked. It’s too bad too – the beginning seemed particularly promising with Izabela Vidovic stepping up as a possible rival to Chloë Grace Moretz‘s Hit-Girl. Unfortunately, five minutes later she was just a lame little girl again. The writers completely missed an opportunity to redeem her later in the movie too.

The second half got a little better as the action picked up, but it was too far gone to recover. I was no longer subjected to the family movie sub-plot but by this point it was just too late. With every new ridiculously unfortunate coincidence, I found myself waiting for the explosions that Jesse alluded to. Incidentally, on my original reading of Jesse’s recommendation I was left with the inference that Winona Ryder was going to be blown up. Even to the last minute I held on believing that my patience would be rewarded. The anticipation was immense and probably would have saved this review if not for the heart-crushing disappointment felt when the credits rolled and I finally realized that Ryder’s character wasn’t going to be obliterated.

Positives: The characters are believable as their characters. James Franco definitely comes across well as the backwoods thug – in spite of the lame actions written for him. I also liked the almost-crooked-but-mostly-just-lazy town Sheriff, and all of the rednecks were sufficiently dirty.  Of course both Statham and Ryder feel natural as well – they play themselves, so how could they not?

I’m both surprised and disappointed with this one. I knew I wasn’t going to get award-winning performances, but I expected a decent smash and bang action movie. Homefront is not that. It’s not enough to have bad guys with unlimited ammo and protagonists that can rig whole houses to explode. A proper action movie needs to be able to insinuate that the good guy probably has deep connections with the people he saves, without wasting precious viewer time trying to show it. Every minute Jason Statham acts like a good father is a missed opportunity for him to headbutt someone.

If you’re looking for a good action movie and have your heart set on seeing Jason Statham hurt people, forget this one – watch The Mechanic instead.

3/10

The Fault in Our Stars

What Jesse said:

So I get dragged out to watch a chickflick with the wife and as it turns out… not a bad movie. It’s called The Fault in Our Stars and it stars Shailene Woodley who I thought was fantastic in 2013’s The Spectacular Now. The movie has a decent balance of funny and sad moments and the performances are pretty tight. Go watch it.

Mike’s verdict:

Subsequent discussions have left me with the distinct impression that Jesse was not so much “dragged” to this movie, and he thinks more of it than the ‘not a bad movie’ comment suggests. I mostly agree with him – it’s not a bad movie. It’s not a great movie either.

Woodley does an ‘okay’ (you’ll get the pun later) job here, and she definitely fits better in this movie than in the universally mis-casted Divergent. (There’s no review of Divergent because Jesse still refuses to admit that he was first in line to see it.) But there’s nothing remarkable about this film. It’s the kind of movie that my mother recommends to me because she caught most of it on TV on a Sunday afternoon in between trips to the laundry room.  Some things happen to two kids who only know each other because they both picked the short straw when life was handing out healthy bodies. And those things teach the kids about life.

In one sentence: this movie is The Spectacular Now for kids with cancer. But where The Spectacular Now felt real, this one just feels like a movie. Yes, the kids are plain but everything else is Hollywood – every character is good or bad, every problem is simple or impossible. There’s not enough grayzone.

I really liked Willem Dafoe in this though – his character was by far the most interesting and he was completely believable as the cranky old man trying to escape humanity. I haven’t read the book, but I’m willing to bet that Peter Van Houten is better developed in it, and I’m disappointed the writers of the film didn’t take him further.

One thing that really bothered me was the poorly chosen ending. By about half way through the story you realize that there is exactly one way the story has to come to a close, and unfortunately director Josh Boone failed to notice it. Maybe he thought it would be too obvious. I think he just didn’t fully understand the message.

Either way, The Fault in Our Stars is adequately entertaining, non-controversial and benign, but you’re going to forget about it as soon you turn it off.

5/10

p.s. If you’re curious, Woodley didn’t let Miles Teller ride her coat-tails into this movie – they must have been having an off week.

Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape

What Jesse said:

Another cool documentary for you. This time it’s about how in the early 80’s the powers-that-be in the UK thought that a list of about 80 mostly crappy movies referred to as The Video Nasties, was going to corrupt an entire generation of British kids. Complete with hilarious stories of UK Parliamentarians sitting around one day to watch these low-budget horror movies (some became physically ill and most couldn’t take more than a few minutes…), or how because of the confusion of not knowing which exact movies were on “the list” police officers were confiscating titles such as Apocalypse Now or other definitely non-nasty or even critically acclaimed films from the shelves of corner store video shops in England. There were video “burnings”, and some shop owners even did jail time for stocking some of these titles! Nothing like a good moral panic to get the old juices flowing…Crazy doc. Enjoy.

Mike’s verdict:

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front – I am totally, utterly and completely against censorship. I don’t believe that the state should attempt to block the expression of ideas whether they are in print, video, audio, stone tablet or the voice of the crazy guy yelling on the corner. Governments should be free to pay experts to publish information, but they should not block non-experts from publishing as well. That’s not to say that I think most people have valid opinions. They don’t. And I certainly don’t care to actually listen to most people’s opinions. I’m also not under the delusion that everyone has some inherent ‘right’ to be heard, and I don’t think that spilling blue paint on a sidewalk constitutes ‘art’.  What I do believe is that everyone has a responsibility to ignore the opinions they find disagreeable. Don’t like that TV show? – change the channel. Don’t like what’s on the radio? – learn to play the guitar. Don’t want to see naked people killed by chainsaw-wielding maniacs? – don’t rent the video. Don’t want your children to see naked people killed by chainsaw-wielding maniacs? – don’t let them rent the video either. I’d like to live in a world where people think of their interactions with others as governed by personal responsibility – not personal rights.  What’s that? You think you have a right to be heard? Great. The best part of my worldview is that I don’t need to argue with you. You can stand on your soapbox all day – I’m going to get a sandwich.

That being said, I thought this movie was mostly a waste of time. It’s terrible that a group of almost-parliamentarians were allowed to create a panic that allowed corrupt police to put video store owners in jail. Seriously, that is terrible. But I didn’t need to watch endless interviews cut with unpleasant video clips to reach that conclusion. Granted, before watching the documentary I had no idea that this particular moral panic had occurred. But there’s really no difference between this panic and any other that has led to censorship. The film-makers here could have made a 60 second public service announcement and got most of their point across.  This is particularly true now that we have the internet to show us all the unpleasant video we can stand, and nobody able to censor it.

Two and a half decades ago, someone should have stepped in to stop what was obviously unfair treatment of video store owners. And this should definitely go into the history books as one more example (in an extremely long list) of why state censorship is a terrible idea. But there was no need for this lesson in 2010 – nobody was then or is now in any danger of having their ‘right to watch gross movies’ taken away.

I’m pretty sure the film-makers just wanted an excuse to watch all the movies their parents warned them about.

3/10 – But only because I learned a bit of history.

Bottle Shock

What Jesse said:

I got another awesome movie for you to review. It’s called Bottle Shock and it stars Chris Pine (the new Cpt. Kirk) and one of my favorite badass (and unintentionally funny) actors of all time, Alan Rickman!

Rickman is absolutely perfect with his low-key off-beat performance as a wine-pushing guy just trying to make a buck. Yes, the movie’s title does have something to do with wine and the wine industry but the plot is really about people and their obsessions with trying to prove that their stuff is the best. Nothing tastes as sweet as being proven right and these characters’ agendas start to become more and more obvious as the story unfolds… enjoy.

Mike’s verdict:

I feel like there are actually three movies here, and the one represented by the title actually gets the least screen time.

First, there is the snobby wine guy movie. It’s not bad – but it sort of feels like Wes Anderson and Woody Allen came together and the best parts of both of them cancelled each other out. There’s always this feeling like something ridiculous and fantastic is about to happen, but at the end I realized that the anticipation was all I would get. I’m not really sure why this part of the movie got naming rights – the storyline begins and ends the film, but is almost completely absent in the middle.

Next there is the lost boy needs to grow up / serious dad needs to chill out movie. This one was pretty tired. It’s been done many times before and everyone knows that it will end with both men understanding each other and themselves a little better. Bla. Bill Pullman‘s character doesn’t even make sense – I don’t think that a guy who walks away from being a lawyer to start making his own wine would really need to be told to chill out. And I won’t even get into Pine’s character looking completely out of place wearing the Kurt Cobain costume.

The last movie is about a Mexican vineyard worker who wants to get out from underneath the prejudice that surrounds him. I think this would have made the best movie if it had not been buried within the other two. I really liked Freddy Rodríguez‘s character Gustavo, and his storyline could easily fill a feature-length film. 

I had hoped that Bottle Shock would live up Jesse’s hype. I really like Alan Rickman and looked forward to his deadpan disdain for life coming through in every scene. Unfortunately, there was so much of the movie that had nothing to do with his character that by the time he finally came back I had forgotten the movie was even about him.

If you want to learn about the California wine scene in the 70s, I’d skip this and find a documentary. If you like seeing Alan Rickman, I’d skip this and watch pretty much anything else that he’s ever been in. If you want to see Bill Pullman have a melt down, I’d skip this and watch the first 2 minutes of The Grudge. But if you like the feeling of anticipation followed by the emptiness of disappointment you should definitely watch this.

I’m going to rate this 3/10, but only because I really like Alan Rickman.

Oldboy (2013)

What Jesse said:

Oldboy was just “icky” kinda like Happiness.

Mike’s verdict:

Oldboy is the Spike Lee remake of Chan-wook Park‘s Oldeuboi, which I’ve previously reviewed. I did not find it icky, nor is it anything even remotely like Happiness.

I gave the original film an 8/10 because I thought that it managed to break through the language barrier well and was entertaining. But looking back I mostly remember it being a little slow, so that likely set the stage for my expectations with the remake. Not surprisingly, the fancy-Hollywood-Spike-Lee version, complete with Samuel L. Jackson, was in no sense slow. This film has all the action and tension that come standard with a Lee film, and it does a very good job of keeping the best aspects of the original. There’s even a rather lengthy homage to some ridiculous scenes in the original that betrays the film’s Korean roots. Without having viewed the original, this particular set of fight scenes will probably feel out of place. But anyone that did watch Oldeuboi first will appreciate them.

There are also a few gruesome scenes that come standard with any Lee film. I covered my eyes for them – I much prefer the Korean style of allowing the viewer to use his imagination to fill in the blanks.

My biggest complaint with the original was that I thought the final twist was too obvious and I worried that this would be the case again. Clearly, I had no hope of being surprised by the remake so I tried to keep this in mind while I was watching. As it turned out, my fear was unwarranted. I think that Lee did a much better job of hiding the twist. Had I not known all along what was happening, I don’t think I would have guessed before the big reveal.

The acting was sound, the settings kept the feel of the original really well, and this version is definitely more accessible to people in North America.

8/10 like the original.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

What Jesse said:

Jesse didn’t really say anything about this one as far as I can remember but he did suggest we get together to see it.  It’s not the strongest recommendation, but a recommendation none the less. We never got around to finding a good time, so I decided to watch it myself.

Mike’s verdict:

Wes Anderson makes strange movies; sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Within minutes of opening, The Grand Budapest Hotel projects a feeling similar to The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou which, despite a strong cult following, didn’t work for me. That put me a little on edge to start and in some sense that feeling stayed with me throughout the film, though in the end I felt I had been well entertained. I think anyone who enjoyed Life Aquatic will likely enjoy Grand Budapest but the latter will probably find a broader audience.

Grand Budapest managed to mostly fix the things I didn’t like about Life Aquatic. It’s still very Wes Anderson – you’re watching for an understated quirky story populated by overstated quirky characters. But this time the two halves meshed really well. The endless string of cameos was a lot of fun and the whole cast did a fantastic job. In a lot of cases it took me a moment to figure out why a person was familiar.

One really nice surprise was the variety of cameos this time. You don’t just get the standard Wes Anderson movie fare. A whole new group of recruits meant a wonderfully sparing use of Owen Wilson and no Ben Stiller at all!

The story still moves a little slow, but like with all of Anderson’s films you are expected to make use of the pace to look around at details in the background.

7/10

Gravity

What Jesse said:

Gravity was stupid but very entertaining. There’s only so much Clooney doucheyness a man can possibly endure and that movie pushed that limit to the brink.

Mike’s verdict:

Jesse got this one dead-on; Gravity is stupid. The story failed to suspend my disbelief in almost every way and at no point did I accept the progression of the plot as even remotely plausible. It’s one thing to have the hero be an expert that can make fantastical last-minute achievements to stay alive, it’s another thing entirely to have these achievements made by a bumbling idiot who just randomly mashes buttons. On top of this, add terrible dialogue and Sandra Bullock’s extremely annoying soliloquies. The whole thing is so bad that I barely even noticed the Clooney doucheyness.

As a film, my rating is 1/10. The story is just that bad.

That said, the cinematography in Gravity is absolutely stunning. The visualizations of Earth, the detail in the space stations and the actors fluid motions were fantastic. Even the final scene back on Earth looks great. The physics wasn’t even close to perfect but the most noticeable errors at least made things look good – this is science fiction after all. I don’t think I agree with James Cameron’s judgement that Gravity is “the best space photography ever done”, but I’ll admit it is the best fake space photography ever done.

Assuming a big enough display and the sound turned off, Gravity could be an engaging addition to the background of a party; particularly with the right music playing. But I would definitely not invite people over to watch the movie itself.

Enemy

What Jesse said:

Enemy is one of the most anxiety inducing movies I’ve watched all the way through. I can’t remember the last time I was this uncomfortable watching a flick… and still enjoyed it. Oh, yeah, now I remember… “Prisoners“.

Mike’s verdict:

I don’t get it.

I had high expectations for this one. I thought Prisoners was fairly good and figured that if Enemy could maintain the same atmosphere but with a more interesting plot, it would do well too. And in one sense, the movie is quite effective – the atmosphere is tense from beginning to end. Jesse isn’t wrong about the level of anxiety at all. The music and the cinematography work together perfectly to build a tension that stayed just beyond my comfort level without being over the top. The problem is, it’s a trick. The atmosphere is so effectively tense you almost don’t notice that with the exception of a few scenes there’s almost no reason for the tension. Most of the ‘big scenes’ involve characters reacting dramatically – portraying tension – to events that don’t actually warrant the reaction portrayed. The fear is fabricated – I just can’t imagine normal people reacting the way these characters react. Granted, all movies fabricate atmosphere – that’s pretty much the whole point – so I can’t really criticize that too much.

Unfortunately, Enemy has a much bigger issue: it doesn’t make any sense. Are the twins really twins? Are they just two personalities in the same body? Why does twin #2’s wife suggest she knows what’s going on after meeting twin #1? Why is twin #1 willing to comply with twin #2’s demand immediately, without any fight? Why does everyone act like the sudden appearance of a twin means that something terrible is going on? Why is the movie even called ‘enemy’? What is with the damn spiders?? And what was the point of the opening scenes in the creepy club? Basically all the questions you have after watching the trailer are left completely unanswered by the movie. My theory: José Saramago thought that Javier Gullón‘s book would make a fantastic trailer, and then he tried to write a movie around it.

Admittedly, the acting is really good. The characters seem totally irrational, but the actors do an amazing job of portraying them anyway. And I really liked all the little references to Toronto. I tried to find a location inconsistency but there’s wasn’t anything noticeable.

I have to give this one 5/10. Full marks for the artistic parts, but zero marks for the story. If it had wrapped up in a way that explained what was going on, it might have gotten a perfect score.

p.s. This one will probably be watched again just in case it’s a matter of picking up clues, and I’ll reassess the score then – hopefully it doesn’t lose points.

Godzilla

What Jesse said:

They’ve finally made a movie that does Godzilla justice. It isn’t going to win any awards for Best Acting, but it’s not about the people. There was even a scene where I was compelled to cheer out loud!

Mike’s verdict:

Godzilla has been done. And done. And done. And done.

It’s been done so many times that when Jesse first mentioned seeing it, I was reluctant to say the least. Of course there is always something alluring about movies with large monsters rampaging through major cities, so eventually I came around. In fact, when I found out Jesse had gone to see the movie without me I was annoyed – so much so that I made him go see it again in Imax 3D.

Unlike the mess that happened in 1998, this time Godzilla did not disappoint.

The story is pretty similar – big monsters do their thing, and measly little human cities happen to get in the way. Measly little humans also run around pretending like they are doing something about it.

But this time there is a lot more emphasis on turning Godzilla into a superhero – and it works. With most monster movies I cheer for the monster because, well, who wants to see the humans actually win? But in this case it seemed like cheering for Godzilla was the morally correct option. Plus, without even being told which scene he cheered out loud at, I knew exactly what Jesse was talking about as soon as I saw it.

One thing I hadn’t realized going in (or at all until Jesse mentioned it after the movie) is that the film stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the skinny kid from Kick-Ass. Except he’s had some work done: he’s no longer skinny, nor a kid. Unfortunately, while we have the technology to enhance his body, he still has his skinny-kid voice. It bugged me the whole movie; I just didn’t understand why until Jesse pointed out who he was.

Overall, Godzilla is a very good monster movie. The effects are believable, the story is logically consistent, and very little time is wasted on the development of characters that nobody came to see.

8/10

Prisoners

What Jesse said:

It’s good. Watch it. And when you’re done you’re going to watch Enemy too.

Mike’s verdict:

Prisoners is a captivating thriller / mystery that manages to keep a decent pace and avoid over-done plot devices despite resting in a very crowded genre. The abducted child/helpless parent film has been done many times, but this one manages to present a mystery engaging enough to keep it interesting.  The pieces of the puzzle are laid out in a way that they keep you guessing and building theories all the way through, but they also do fit together to make a coherent picture at the end. It’s a ‘satisfying’ mystery in that once you have all the information the story makes sense.

The atmosphere is quite effective as well. Most of the film takes place in the rainy days of late November and the dreariness really adds to the sense of helplessness.

One aspect that I very much appreciated, but others may find to be a fault, is the very minor emphasis put on character development. The film isn’t about parental anguish or the struggle of a cop – it’s about the mystery of what happened to two little girls. For me the characters were as fully developed as they needed to be to get the story across, without wasting my time.

I like the title too – it’s unclear even to the end who it should refer to (the children, their parents, the abductors) and the ambiguity adds to the mystery.

However, there are a few aspects that I didn’t like. I think Hollywood has greatly overstated how easily the average family-man can be pulled by grief to the point of doing despicable things to another human being; and this film is an example of that.  Even worse, the torture scenes (admittedly tame by today’s standards) were entirely unnecessary as they didn’t really advance the plot. Perhaps the point was to show the uselessness of torture, but if that’s the case this is the wrong movie for making that statement.

Overall, it was an interesting and entertaining mystery. You won’t be talking about it for days, but it’s worth an evening on the couch.

7.5/10

Leon: The Professional

What Jesse said:

I can’t believe you still haven’t seen this 90’s classic! Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman, Jean Reno… Awesome performances by all these fine actors in a movie that’s all about delivering a fun kick-ass ride. I enjoyed this one very much when it came out and I would rank it as one of my top all-time favorite action flicks. Now drop whatever you’re doing and go watch it!

Mike’s verdict:

What’s with Jean Reno and movies where his character has to protect a teen girl? Leon: The Professional and Wasabi are not the same movie, but they’re awfully similar. In the former, Reno is a good bad-guy protecting a little girl who lived down the hall; in the later Reno is a bad good-guy protecting a daughter he didn’t know he had. In both there is a lot of punching and kicking and grown man / little girl tension.

Leo the Pro is a pretty standard action flick with a very familiar group of characters. It isn’t a bad movie, but it isn’t really notable either. It’s the kind of movie that has its few naughty words muted so it can be shown on basic cable at 2pm on a Sunday. Reno’s performance is not as awesome as Jesse pretends, but it’s okay. I’ve never met Reno, but I’d be willing to bet that in real life he’s exactly the same temperament that he portrays in every movie.  My immediate impression in the opening scenes was that this film seemed like is was going to be a comedy.  Then about 5 minutes in I was quite certain it was a comedy. But by the 30 minute mark I had realized that I wasn’t supposed to be laughing.  Natalie Portman is most definitely not awesome either, but she was only 12 in 1994 and has since done much better work so I think she can be forgiven.

The runaway star of the show is actually Gary Oldman. He is absolutely fantastic as a crazy bad guy. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Heath Ledger took Oldman’s performance in this movie as a basis for his legendary portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight.

This film isn’t really anything. But Oldman’s performance is so good that it’s worth watching at least once.

6.5/10

A Shine of Rainbows

What Jesse said:

You should watch A Shine of Rainbows next. It’s a heart-warming film about a young boy whose life is unfair. It made me cry. It also has a young Jack Gleeson who shows that he’s more than just King Joffrey. Plus, Aiden Quinn has dreamy eyes.

Mike’s verdict:

As soon as I heard Jesse’s description of this film, I figured that I was going to hate it. I actually put off watching it for weeks because I just couldn’t bring myself to accept the level of torture I was sure it would turn out to be. But I knew it needed to be watched eventually so I finally gave in the other night.

And my fears were completely justified.

I suppose that there is an audience for this movie, but it definitely is not me.

To start with, the story is depressing in a sometimes-life-sucks kind of way and never really turns around, but doesn’t add anything new to the complaint either. Where most intentionally depressing movies have some kind of happy ending or an intellectual reason for not having one, this film only has a sort of “mitigated” ending. Life isn’t as bad as it was 30 minutes earlier, but it’s still not that good either. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally fine with movies that leave out the fairy-tale ending. But if you’re going to make a movie that illustrates why life isn’t always fair, it should at least have a captivating or thought-provoking message. The only message in A Shine of Rainbows is that some kids have difficult lives and they need to focus on whatever silver lining they can find – even if that silver lining has a massive black cloud rumbling in the middle of it. I can’t even really say that this movie is about sympathy for the main character because in the end his lot isn’t nearly as bad as some of the other children who are left behind at the orphanage in the opening scenes.

Even worse, there is nothing surprising in this movie. The entire plot plays out exactly the way you think it will – except in a few cases where the obvious development would have been more interesting than what actually happened.

To be fair, the acting is pretty good. John Bell is definitely believable as a mostly defeated orphan and Aiden Quinn is definitely believable as a reluctant adoptive father. I disagreed with Jesse’s assessment of King Joffrey though – he came across as exactly the same Jerk to me.

Overall, A Shine of Rainbows is precisely as I expected – tedious and predictable. It’s the kind of movie my mom would watch on a Sunday afternoon while folding the laundry – and she would walk away 20 minutes before the end to start making dinner.

2/10