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Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
As I stated in my review for the 2016 Ghostbusters, allow me to wax nostalgic and explain my own private history with the franchise: “Growing up in the 80s, other kids had Transformers, or G.I. Joe, or He-Man, but I was a Ghostbusters kid. I fell in love with the 1984 original movie, slept below the poster for most of my childhood, and obsessively collected all of the action figures and toys, watched with glee the animated TV series, and hold the world and its characters in a special personal place.” This franchise means something to me. I think about the hours I spent playing in this world and my imagination and my own stories illustrated with marker and crayon, and it makes me extremely happy as well as reminds me how I fell in love with weird storytelling and macabre, ironic humor. I’ve been waiting for more Ghostbusters movies for my adult life. The 2016 movie was fine, I wasn’t enraged by it in the slightest, but it didn’t scratch that itch. While replicating some of the same plot beats, the 2016 movie was not reverent to its source material. Now the 2021 Ghostbusters, delayed over a year and a half from COVID, goes completely in the other direction. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is reverent to a fault, and while it has been met with mixed reviews and complaints of overdosing on slavish fan nostalgia, I found it to be a charming and fun family adventure that left me laughing, cheering, and even crying.
Egon Spangler (Harold Ramis, R.I.P.), original Ghostbuster, is dead, killed by a malevolent spirit. His estranged adult daughter, Callie (Carrie Coon), and her two teen children, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mackenna Grace), are shocked to learn of his death and their unexpected inheritance: a dirt farm in small-town nowheresville Oklahoma. They don’t know much about their grandfather and the kids are not exactly excited about relocating to a secluded mining town. Phoebe starts discovering weird pieces of technology hidden in the old house of her grandfather’s. A presence seems to be reaching out and trying to get the family to understand their real legacy. It appears that Gozer the Gozerian was not fully defeated on top of that New York City skyscraper in 1984, and Phoebe and her family must learn about the past in order to make sure we all have a future.
I can understand the charges of Afterlife being too nostalgic, but I don’t understand the charges of it being so enamored with its past that it poses a disservice to the movie standing on its own. This movie is intended at its very DNA to live within the shadow of the original films. The director and co-writer, Jason Reitman, is the son of the original films’ director, Ivan. It’s going to be reverent but that’s not an automatic bad thing. Whereas the 2016 reboot shrugged at past convention and went completely comedic, this edition takes the opposite approach, hugging onto the lore and past of Ghostbusters with heartfelt affection. If you’re a fan of the franchise, this adoring approach will likely be more favorable, not that the 2016 film is wrong for eschewing the established canon of the franchise and trying something new. If Afterlife had been a completely original story set in a Ghostbusters universe, I would have happily accepted that. However, just because something is outwardly nostalgic, or taps into fan service, does not mean it is destined to be an exclusive retread that only satisfies the hardcore base. I didn’t need the gratuitous Easter eggs of passing shots of a twinkie or Crunch bar, but they’re blink-and-you’ll-miss-them moments that don’t really relate to anything of consequence, so I can excuse them. Afterlife is similar to The Force Awakens in that it uses familiar plot beats to mirror events of its predecessors to ease back fans and new members to the fanclub, most especially in Act Three where Gozer’s demonic pooches are unleashed. I can understand many chaffing at this, but I feel that Afterlife does enough to justify its own creative existence even in facsimile rather than as some insular, facile, fan-stroking cash-grab.
This is, by far, the most dramatic of the Ghostbusters movies, a series that has existed in the realm of comedy. The prior movies were never spooky on adult terms, but they reached back into a primal, childlike curiosity and anxiousness over the unknown that made them creepy when they wanted to be. I don’t understand the umbrage some have expressed over Afterlife being more of a drama. First, the comedy is present throughout the movie with the characters making specific and wry observations that feel fitting for their situation. The humor is not as forced as the loping line-a-rama improv jazz riffs of Paul Feig’s 2016 film. I think this universe can sustain different kinds of stories being told, and I think that drama is perfectly acceptable as long as it’s earned, just like the comedy or horror elements. The central premise involves an estranged family coming to know the secret life of an absentee relative who abandoned them, so the more they learn about his Ghostbusting past and responsibilities, the closer they come to uncovering a clearer picture of who this man really was as well as their connections to him. Reitman and co-screenwriter Gil Kenan (Monster House) have smartly connected the investigation of the past into the development of personal relationships. We in the audience know the significance of the Ecto One and the ghost traps, but the new characters do not. We await them to understand the knowledge we already attain, but the movie doesn’t play this as characters dawdling. Each discovery unlocks new potential for the characters to shape who they choose to be, and each one gets them closer to their grandfather and reshaping their conception of the man who they wrongfully believed abandoned them for folly.
This all leads to a climax that had me genuinely in tears. I won’t exactly spoil it but Afterlife’s conclusion is less concerned with beating the Big Bad Gozer yet again and saving the universe. Reitman and company have smartly placed the real climax as an emotional catharsis; it’s more in keeping with Field of Dreams than some huge Marvel apocalyptic showdown. The ending is personal, emotional, and reaches into our universal desire for closure, for having that one last moment with a beloved who we no longer have any moments left to share, Reitman is clearly missing Ramis, a close family friend and inspiration who died in 2014, and this is his own way of processing his personal grief, offering an emotional output for the fans to share in, and allowing a grieving character/surrogate to find that needed release. It serves as a fitting conclusion and a special end note for any Ghostbusters fan who has held this franchise close to their heart for several decades, especially if shared with a paternal figure who may be gone.
The film also successfully channels a childhood perspective of awkward and awesome. It’s hard to create a story where a group of precocious adolescents discover strange things cooking in their sleepy small town without suggesting Stephen King and Stranger Things, but this isn’t necessarily a total negative. The earlier movies were always from a more cynical adult perspective. Yes, there were characters like Ray (Dan Ackroyd) and Egon who were true believers, but they were often set up for easy laughs. The tone of the series was mostly tied to the irony of the character of Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) that looked at the supernatural with droll detachment. This is the first Ghostbusters entry where the primary perspective is from children, and there’s something hopeful and heartfelt about a younger point of view with the supernatural material. These kids are excited and eager to learn more about the somethings strange in their neighborhood. It becomes endearing to ride along with them as they get to jump into the action. I loved the concept of a sidecar gunner seat for the Ecto One and how it felt like a childhood dream coming true. But it’s more than fan service because it serves as a point of progression for Phoebe’s sense of self, of embracing her scientific interests and roots, and taking charge in the face of unknown danger. It’s a coming out of sorts. When the kids are driving through (the always empty?) town and chasing a runaway ghost, wrecking storefronts from the boom of the proton pack, it’s a blast for them and us.
This is Reitman’s most commercial and mainstream film of his Oscar-nominated career. It’s interesting to me that this indie darling, who was on such a hot streak in the late 2000s, hit some speed bumps with the critical misfires of 2013’s Labor Day, 2014’s Men, Women, and Children, and 2018’s The Front Runner, so the next movie is a retreat to a big-budget franchise film. Reitman doesn’t necessarily have the best feel for large-scale spectacle, but he knows intimate character dramas and guides his actors well. Grace (Gifted, Haunting of Hill House) is wonderful as our plucky lead. Unfortunately for Wolfhard (It, Stranger Things), his dull character has nothing to do but pine for a local girl, scoff at his family, and then fix up the old ghostbustin’ mobile. Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) is as charming as ever as the school science teacher, especially as he nerds out over interacting with the Ghostbusters paraphernalia like an excitable fanboy living out his childhood dream. I wish Coon (The Leftovers) had more to do, but that’s my primary complaint in any movie where Carrie Coon is a supporting actress. Her chemistry with Rudd is strong and they could have done so much more together as adults trying to make sense of madness. They could have eliminated Wolfhard’s mopey older brother character entirely and given us more time with the goofy adults too. One feels like there is some secret contract where anything relating to 80s nostalgia requires the hiring of Wolfhard on hand.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife will not be the best movie of 2021. There are areas that could have been improved and streamlined and better developed. However, Ghostbusters: Afterlife will most assuredly be my favorite film experience of 2021. It’s a heart-warming continuation for fans with enough wit and whimsy to charm while owning its obvious and intended connections to the original. I may not be the most objective source on this particular matter, but I know what I like, and this movie had moments of pure happiness that just shot right through to my dopamine center. We’ll see if this movie can restart the dormant franchise, and strike more on its own, but even if this lone 2021 entry is all that we eventually get, I’m happy I got to experience this magic once again. I can’t wait to see it again with my dad.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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The French Dispatch (2021)
Wes Anderson’s latest quirk-fest is his usual cavalcade of straight-laced absurdity, exquisite dollhouse-level production design, famous faces popping in for droll deadpans, and the overall air of not fully getting it. The French Dispatch is structured like you’re watching the issue of a news magazine come to visual life, meaning that the two-hour movie is comprised of mainly three lengthy vignettes and a couple of short asides. This narrative decision limits the emotional involvement and I found myself growing restless with each of the three segments. I was amused throughout but each felt like a short film that had been pushed beyond its breaking point. Perhaps that is Anderson’s wry, subtle point considering the entire journalistic voice of the movie feels like somebody made a movie in the style of one of those esoteric, supposedly “funny” New Yorker cartoons. It’s occasionally so arch and droll that it feels too removed from actual comedy. This is not the most accessible Anderson movie for a newbie; it’s very bourgeois in the kinds of people it follows, the stories it pursues, and the intellectual and political conflicts it demonstrates. The first and best segment follows Tilda Swinton discussing a heralded but imprisoned experimental artist (Benicio del Toro) who is dealing with the pressure to produce. The second segment follows Frances McDormand as she investigates a Parisian student union revolting against the ignorant powers that be. The third segment follows Jeffrey Wright recounting an assignment where he investigated a master police chef (not “chief”) and gets in the middle of a wacky hostage negotiation. Each of them has the requisite charm and random asides we’ve come to expect from Anderson, including a leotard-wearing strongman that is called upon by the police to help during the hostage crisis, but it felt more like a collection of overlong short films than a cohesive whole. If you’re already a fan, by all means, step into The French Dispatch. If you’re new to the idiosyncratic world of indie film’s most precise curator, then I’d advise starting with a more digestible and earlier Anderson entry. I enjoyed myself during stretches, was getting frustrated during other stretches, and I hope Anderson focuses more on the big picture of his next picture.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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On the Rocks (2020)
Sofia Coppola’s examination on the relationship between fathers and daughters feels like it would have been more entertaining had it gone for a more farcical tone. On the Rocks follows a struggling writer (Rashida Jones) who is questioning whether her husband (Marlon Wayans) is having an affair. Her partner in this makeshift investigation is her bigwig father (Bill Murray), a notorious Lothario whose own penchant for cheating and flirting with every woman has shaped his daughter’s perspective on relationships. If this is a comedy, I can’t tell you where the comedy parts are. The premise sounds rife with potential for hijinks and comedic mishaps trying to remain elusive. The father-daughter history is also ready for some combustible confrontations and perhaps some shades of earned empathy by the end. The problem is that the movie just sort of happens. It unfurls before your eyes, and those elements are there for the taking, but Coppola’s story never seems to really grab at any of them to build more sustained engagement. It feels like Coppola has taken a zany sitcom premise and adopted the tone of a somber indie exploring middle-class ennui. The amusement is under the oppressive force of melancholy. The dramatic substance also feels too dithering and without greater observation and exploration. Jones has some outstanding moments and Murray is at his best when he’s onscreen with her, his outwardly performative qualities shining light on a relative unspoken history that hangs over them. Even Marlon Wayans is good as the possibly philandering spouse. Really, the movie seems to be about the gnawing questions of doubt and suspicion and how quickly one can succumb to them. By the end, I don’t really know what Coppola was going for here. It’s a nice enough film, it holds your interest, and it has a few surprises, though I don’t know if they amount to much. On the Rocks feels like an early draft of a much better or much funnier movie.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Charlie’s Angels (2000) [Review Re-View]
Originally released November 3, 2000:
These angels aren’t exactly what your father was enjoying when your mother was away fulfilling errands. These angels aren’t delegated as mere sex objects running around providing the jiggle entertainment that is (or was) supplied by today’s Baywatch. The 90s is a different decade after our minority movements and today’s woman is just as apt to do a flying kung-fu face plant into a baddie as any man. The angels of the film are action heroes for an armada of small girls needing some female empowerment when their only other choices consist of a barely clothed Britney or a barely covered Christina. These angels aren’t just the sex objects that the classic assortment of angelic 70s stars were; these angels are also tough-as-nails, resourceful, and not afraid to tussle or tango. Now that this exposition is out I can concentrate on the scattershot film Charlie’s Angels.
The film has been rumored to have at a minimum of 17 writers who tried shaping a story for Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Lui. The story is pretty much shelved toward the back so the forefront is our trio of ladies kicking ass then shaking it with zig-zaggy and wild camera movements from debut filmmaker and video director McG.
Charlie’s Angels is whiz-bang dumb fun. The overall feel of the film is something more difficult to get a grasp on. At times it shows itself as tongue-in-cheek and satirical but then at other times it seems overly serious or overly dumb. The characters are non-existent and basically only discernible by hair color. The characters are very wooden and I actually found more enjoyment watching the villains and seeing more of them; call it the Austin Powers dilemma. Diaz makes the only notable attempt as her goofy and light-hearted angel connects with the audience best. Lui plays a techno-babe dominatrix but is easy to see that she was the last angel chosen and doesn’t exactly gel with the others as much as she could have.
Charlie’s Angels is best when the action is pumping. The scenes are cut together in a jam-packing sequential way adding distinct flavor and style. McG is a true surprise in the effectiveness he can orchestrate his action motifs even if the Matrix effects and moves make absolutely no sense in the real world.
Crispin Glover shows himself as a silent assassin nicknamed “the thin creepy man.” Glover is so suave and slick in his role of the non-verbal Oddjob henchman role that he exhilarated me with every presence he made on screen. Goodness, he was too cool in this film and everyone gets brownie points for allowing him. He has such energy and charisma that I wanted the film to veer off into him and desert our angels. Seeing our ageless McFly perform action scenes and choreographed fights is something I will be pleased with until my grave. seeing Crispin in the excellent Nurse Betty and now huge exposure in this is a true joy. And man… he smokes a cigarette way too cool every time he’s in this film. Some people can smoke cool some of the time but Crispin does it all of the time. His mere presence almost cancels out the annoyance of Barrymore.
The line is drawn with Charlie’s Angels in that it’s sex-kitten jiggle and an acrobatic arrangement of (light) feminism and humor. These gals know they’re sex objects and they’ll use it to their advantage delighting in every second of it. Therefore, you could argue successfully that Angels is exploitation hiding as meaningful but hell… why think about this stuff? The movie rolls along at a fast pace where you don’t keep track of these issues. It’s just an easy sit down.
The gigantic success of Charlie’s Angels makes sequels and a possible franchise all but certain. I’d be happy for McG to hop back in his directorial chair but have a unique idea for Angels 2: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut… it involves Glover kicking a lot of ass really cool like.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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WRITER REFLECTIONS 20 YEARS LATER
The 2000 Charlie’s Angels seems to understand that nobody should take this seriously. It even opens with an in-joke of T.J. Hooker: The Movie being inflight entertainment and an undercover character lamenting how bankrupt Hollywood is when it comes to recycling old TV shows. From there, our undercover angel literally exits with her target in the middle of the air and plummets to the water below, safely landing via parachute with a team meeting via helicopter aerial hook-up and a speedboat below. Why any of this? What sense does any of it make? It doesn’t matter in the slightest, and from the opening scene onward the movie lives by this credo, doing its best to be silly and have fun and just not care about the rest, and it shows. Twenty years ago, I think Charlie’s Angels benefited from low expectations as I recall mostly enjoying it. Now, having re-watched the movie for the first time in ages, I will say the fizzy appeal seems to be diluted. It’s still got energy to spare, though it feels a little too antic, a little too episodic and slipshod, and a little too proudly shallow, and that’s before you re-examine its depiction of the angels.
It took 17 writers and considering every under-30 actress in Hollywood to put together Charlie’s Angels. Drew Barrymore had bought the remake rights and wanted to make a big screen splash with a trio of kick-ass heroines that could better relate to the culture of the new century. I understand that Barrymore and her team wanted the angels to be sexy, yes, but also smart and funny and goofy and fearsome and all the things that little girls should believe possible. That’s commendable from a positive representation, but then so much emphasis is placed on their bodies and their off-the-charts sex appeal to bamboozle men that the goal becomes eclipsed. One could argue that Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Lui are embracing their sexuality, and that taking control of this is empowering, and if you feel empowered by Charlie’s Angels, by all right enjoy that and bless you. However, twenty years later, this feels less like the girls are in charge are more like they’re just being exploited in a manner we’re being sold as new feminism.
There are so many examples where the angels are in skimpy clothing or objectified. There was an entire clip of Diaz dancing in her underwear that I remember Harry Knowles of the early 2000s mainstay Ain’t It Cool News devoted a gross drooling essay to his obsession (“But to sum up, Cameron Diaz’s Swirling Ass is one of the greatest images and objects in the whole of human existence.”). Barrymore’s character is constantly getting undressed and using her body to disarm men. Again, duping men through their hormones can be a key asset as a spy, but it’s happening in every scene and at her disservice as well. She tumbles down a ravine naked in a last-second escape, and the movie treats it as cheeky comedy (no pun intended). Lui adopts a series of disguises that routinely sexualize her, from a masseuse to the most overt, a domineering corporate boss that resembles a dominatrix. They’re straight fetish roles. I’m surprised a Catholic schoolgirl outfit wasn’t adopted as a disguise. The movie’s depiction of its female stars and the emphasis on their bodies feels retrograde for its ideals. I know they wanted to improve upon the portrayals from the 1970s but we still got problems. McG’s stylish direction prioritizes the angels’ sexuality. They can be smart and kick ass but also in a sexy way, the movie is telling you. Thandie Newton was supposed to be an angel but schedule overruns from Mission: Impossible II got in the way, and later she admitted she had strong misgivings because her character was going to be introduced with a closeup of her denim-clad butt. No one is arguing that women should be barred from taking ownership of their sensuality, but the lens Charlie’s Angels utilizes is strictly a male gaze, and these women are repeatedly objectified.
As a result, the movie has a new sheen of discomfort during all the silly, sudsy spy missions and wardrobe changes. Before you might think, “Oh look, they’re dressing up as Japanese geisha girls, what fun,” and now you’re like, “Oh, somebody at the studio was getting off on this.” Before you might think, “Oh look, they’re dressing up as Middle Eastern belly dancers, what fun,” and now you’re like, “Oh, somebody at the studio was getting off on this.” There are a lot of ethnic disguises that would likely get axed today as cultural appropriation. The carefree, frivolous attitude of the movie is meant to be charming and low stakes, but when it’s applied to the exploitative nature of how the women are depicted, it all becomes a bit dodgier to accept.
This was the first real blockbuster after The Matrix reshaped action cinema and the stylish choices can run the gamut between exciting and cool to dated and shallow. Twenty years later, it’s just not as impressive that they used wires to swing their actors around for stunt choreography, or that they replicated key Matrix touches like bullet time. The fighting sequences are often choppy in editing and some of the moves meant to demonstrate the power of the angels just feel silly, like a moment where Diaz went full Lui Kang with her flying kicking feet. It’s moments like that where the style gets away from McG. The tonal trick is finding a balance between goofy and cool, exciting and cheesy, and I don’t think the movie achieves this with its action. The set pieces feel built around “cool moments” rather than using geography, organic complications, and escalation. It means that Charlie’s Angels has its share of cool moments but then they are fleeting and ultimately meaningless because they don’t better connect to character, story, or even simply their own satisfying action compositions. It’s like immediately disintegrating cotton candy. The dozens and dozens and dozens of needle-drop music cues feel like another potent example of this charge as well as some anticipated attempt to distract from its shallow and diverting design.
I was dreading revisiting my original review as an 18-year-old because I was convinced my younger self was going to conflate the portrayal of the women as taking ownership. I just knew this would be something I had bought into in 2000, and yet it wasn’t quite so: “The line is drawn with Charlie’s Angels in that it’s sex-kitten jiggle and an acrobatic arrangement of (light) feminism and humor. These gals know they’re sex objects and they’ll use it to their advantage delighting in every second of it. Therefore, you could argue successfully that Angels is exploitation hiding as meaningful but hell… why think about this stuff? The movie rolls along at a fast pace where you don’t keep track of these issues. It’s just an easy sit down.” Hooray for my younger self seeing through this movie’s sheen of empowerment. At the time, it bothered me less because the movie was dumb fun, and now it just seems less fun and also dumber. I was so taken with Crispin Glover (Back to the Future) and his creepy cool style, much of which was Glover’s doing. His character was supposed to have dialogue except he hated the lines and asked to be silent. That’s one way out of memorizing, and it worked because he was a breakout and appeared in the 2003 sequel. Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards) was also a fun discovery though he only gets good once he’s revealed as a baddie. He would reuse those dancing moves for Iron Man 2.
By the time 2003’s sequel Full Throttle rolled out, the appeal was gone. In my own brief review, I summarized, “It all seems so ho-hum and excessive at the same time. Quite an accomplishment. No more please.” I feel like the 2000 film also falls into this summary. It’s clearly not intending to be anything more than a goofy action movie, and I suppose the right person could still likely turn off the necessary parts of their brain to enjoy the rush of sights, sounds, and cleavage. There shouldn’t be a “wrong kind of feminism” so if this works for you, great. Many years later I felt that the male gaze was more ogling the women in the name of celebrating them. And yet Sony still felt there was material to be mined when they tried again with a failed 2019 reboot. The original Charlie’s Angels film is a cocktail of style with a creeping hangover right behind.
Re-Veiw Grade: C
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The Dead Don’t Die (2019)
If you’re a Jim Jarmusch fan, you can probably stop reading now. I encourage you to continue but I don’t know if anything will be of help for you from here on out because, frankly, I don’t understand you. Jarmusch is a longtime staple of indie film and I’ve watched three of his films (Only Lovers Left Alive, Broken Flowers, Ghost Dog) and disliked all three to varying degrees, and that’s fine. There are plenty of hallowed names in filmmaking that are just beyond me, like Terrence Malick and Nicolas Refn, but I can at least partially understand what the fans of those auteurs value, an immersive visual, sensory experience at the sacrifice of narrative and coherency. When it comes to Jarmusch, I just don’t understand the appeal whatsoever. This is a man who found a way to make vampires crushingly boring, and now he finds a way to do the same with zombies. The Dead Don’t Die is the widest release of his career and it might be the worst movie I’ve seen in a theater all this year. It certainly feels like the longest.
In a sleepy small Ohio town, the police force consists of Chief Robertson (Bill Murray), Ronnie (Adam Driver), and Mindy (Chloe Sevigny). They’re going about their typical day, warning Hermit Bob (Tom Waits), listening to the alarmist worries of Farmer Frank (Steve Buscemi), and picking up supplies at the hardware store run by Hank (Danny Glover) and Bobby (Caleb Landry Jones). There’s a traveling group of students, lead by Zoe (Selena Gomez), as well as a group of kids in a juvenile detention center. Then the dead come back and small-town life will never be the same.
Anyone walking in expecting a zany comedy from the premise and cast, not to mention marketing materials, will be sorely disappointed, because what The Dead Don’t Die better resembles are the humorless anti-comedies of late-night Adult Swim blocs. It’s not so much that there are jokes, it’s more the absence of jokes, and somehow that might be the joke? The humor is stuck in one mode throughout the film. A character will slowly say something understated or obvious (Example: “That’s not good”) and then the reaction of others will be delayed, and then after that nobody will say anything for several painful seconds later. That’s about it, folks. It’s hard to find humor with that. The deadpan jokes are too obvious and too uniform to really strike any potent comedy targets. The consumer “satire” is brittle to the point of breaking. Various zombies will shamble around and say one-word items of whatever was important to them, ranging from “Coffee,” to, “Fashion,” to, “Chardonnay.” It’s like the one-word utterances are the entire joke (Hey, this dead guy liked fishing, isn’t that a riot?). It’s not satire and it’s not funny. How about the characters of Rosie Perez and Tilda Swinton being named Posie Juarez and Zelda Winston? Is that the kind of humor that sounds appealing? How about Tilda Swinton flexing a samurai sword to slice and dice the undead. Is that supposed to be cool? Is it supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to be funny that it’s trying to be “cool”? What is anything?
Later, the film inserts a new comedy element with meta asides where people seem to know they’re in a movie, and yet again the jokes are obvious and uniform, except now it’s even lazier, relying upon the meta recognition to simply stand in the place of a joke. If anything can happen in the small town, especially toward its crazy end, then why do these things have to happen? Or better yet why don’t better things happen? Because of the deadly pacing it makes every attempted bad joke feel that much more unbearable.
This movie is only 105 minutes but it felt so much longer. the pacing not just as a whole but scene-to-scene and even line-to-line from conversations is deadly still. Every moment feels stretched out but it doesn’t ever feel like you’re going anywhere. Characters will be introduced and given meet-cute moments and little indicators they might be significant players later, and then we’ll just find them dead. Other characters will be introduced and then never leave their locations, having no bearing on the larger story. It’s rare that I could honestly say there are entire supporting swaths of this movie that could be cut completely and not impact the story at all. It makes the many storylines we hopscotch across feel like they don’t matter and are generally wasting our valuable time.
Then there’s the ending where Jarmusch just instructs Tom Waits to unleash a torrent of narration bemoaning how society deserves whatever downfall it incurs and that we’re all just zombies anyway. It’s so clumsy and overbearing and unearned after an entire movie where the cultural criticism amounted to a racist saying he doesn’t like his coffee black and then pointedly staring at the only black man in the movie. Even if we got more moments like that I might say some of the ending vitriol is justified, but the commentary gets muted in the middle until Waits has to finally tell us what the point is. There are scant political and environmental references but they feel like tossed asides themselves.
I don’t blame the cast for any of this although I can’t say what on the page must have seemed attractive. Murray is always going to be an amiable screen presence and Driver is a fun partner, slipping into a skillful deadpan and straining to find humor where there is precious little. Everyone feels wasted on screen because even if you’ve never seen these actors before you know, instantly and instinctively, that they have been far better.
The Dead Don’t Die is further proof that I am not a Jim Jarmusch fan. I can’t fathom how someone can actually be a fan of this writer/director. I was tempted to walk out at several points but I held in there. The jokes are too obvious and barely jokes, the pacing is awfully slack, and the whole movie is reprehensibly boring. Even when it has moments of weirdness it finds ways to make it boring. The structure does little to nothing with a large ensemble of very good actors. The movie and premise had potential. The idea of a zombie outbreak in a small town where everybody knows everybody is ripe for comedy and tragedy. Ultimately The Dead Don’t Die feels like one egregiously long in-joke that the audience isn’t privy to. The joke’s on us, folks.
Nate’s Grade: D
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Ghostbusters (2016)
Growing up in the 80s, other kids had Transformers, or G.I. Joe, or He-Man, but I was a Ghostbusters kid. I fell in love with the 1984 original movie, slept below the poster for most of my childhood, and obsessively collected all of the action figures, watched with glee the animated TV series, and hold the world and its characters in a special personal place. The 1984 movie is such a perfect blend of buddy comedy, the supernatural, and action that nobody has really been able to fully replicate this special film alchemy as well since, including director Ivan Reitman (he tried in vain with Evolution). When the word broke that there was going to be a new Ghostbusters remake, some trepidation from fans could be expected. It’s sacred ground to many. Director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) insisted that he wanted to have an all-female team of Ghostbusters, and that’s when the Internet lost its collective mind. The movie and its stars have been beset with hateful misogynistic (and, in the case of Leslie Jones, racist) harassment. The Internet didn’t want smelly girls playing with its toys. It became part of a larger war between feminists and retrograde men’s rights activist crybabies. Some people wanted it to be succeed just because of he gender of its leads, and others wanted it to fail for the very reasons. I just wanted a good Ghostbusters movie regardless of what bathroom the busters utilize.
Erin (Kristen Wiig) is an esteemed science academic trying to turn the page on her past. Her friend and fringe scientist Abby (Melissa McCarthy) has republished the book about paranormal they wrote together, which ruins Erin’s chance at tenure from her colleagues. Her ire is short-lived as Erin, Abby and her wacky nuclear scientist associate Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) experience a real dead ghost. Their slime-filled encounter with the undead reawakens Erin’s love of the paranormal and the three of them join forces. Patti (Jones) is an MTA worker who leaves her job and joins the gals after her own experience with a ghost in the New York subway. Somebody is trying to open a portal between the living and the dead, and these Ghostbusters gotta bust some ghosts.
My initial apprehension melted away within the movie’s first twenty seconds when it already had me laugh out loud twice (“anti-Irish fence”). There’s a consistent genial absurdity that kept me engaged and entertained, and this is typified by the strong comic camaraderie of the four leads. I enjoyed spending time with these ladies and I enjoyed their interactions, so when scenes could creep up on overstaying their welcome from a pacing standpoint, something of a Feig staple, I gave them more leeway and felt my patience rewarded. I don’t know how to make it plainer than this: I am not a Leslie Jones fan and I liked Leslie Jones in this movie. I have found Jones to be all-too often on Saturday Night Live a one-note comic presence, always loud and brash and hitting the same joke again and again with little variation. With Ghostbusters, she actually plays a character, capable in her own right, and a straight man for the other characters. These women were goofy, gross (a queef joke within Holtzmann’s first appearance), but they also enjoyed one another’s company. There are internal conflicts, sure, but their enjoyment of working together, of displaying their know-how, of the joys of discovering the realm of the paranormal create a bond that helps seal the characters with the audience. Whatever the scenario, I was confident I would laugh from these characters, and I did.
There is a lightness to the movie that makes it all the more appealing, settling into pleasurable summer fare. This story is as much about the formation of the Ghostbusters as anything else. In the original film they just sort of have their ghost-busting gear all of a sudden. With the remake we watch the trial and error process of bringing all that tech to life. It’s a fun process to see their business from the ground floor, so to speak, and their fight for larger credibility. Murray himself even shows up as a paranormal debunker who scoffs at their claims. The ladies are the lovable underdogs in this world.
The real reason that Feig’s movies work is the interaction of his boisterous and often brilliant casts, and Ghostbusters is another example. Wiig and McCarthy have a natural chemistry together honed from Bridesmaids, and their back-and-forth banter will often find punch lines in odd places. McCarthy has always been her best under Feig’s direction (seriously go watch Spy if you haven’t). While Abby is a less outspoken character than we’re accustomed to from her, McCarthy still has a commanding presence and is the one who lassos the other funny characters back into a sustainable orbit (“You spell ‘science’ with a Y, and I don’t think you know that that’s wrong”). I’ve stated above my positive feelings on Jones. She brings a welcomed perspective to the team and often serves as the voice of the audience, like a moment where she looks inside a room filled with mannequins, calls it “nightmare stuff,” and wisely keeps walking. McKinnon is the true breakout star, going for broke in a deadpan, anarchic silliness that is Murray-esque. She also displays a funky, near pansexual sense of excitement with the world around her. She licks the radioactive barrels of her proton pack in jubilation. McKinnon is a constant source of mirth in the movie and has some of the best one-liners (“It’s 2040. Our president is a plant!”). Another breakout might be Chris Hemsworth in comedy. His dimwitted and inept receptionist is perhaps too dumb to even function. Hemsworth just commits to his character’s straight-faced stupidity and it produces big laughs.
Not everything in the movie works as well together as the ensemble. The movie’s tone takes a giant leap once the third act commences with its apocalyptic ghost showdowns. You can sense that Feig isn’t nearly as passionate about action heroics and CGI. Example: the movie sets up a large-scale dance sequence and we never see it until the scene appears during the end credits. That seems like a waste. The character arc between Abby and Erin isn’t quite as developed as the movie needs for the emotional re-connection at the very end to hit. As much as I loved McKinnon in the movie, her character is more a collection of quirks than a person. The cameos from the original cast are mostly awful and kill amusement. Watching Dan Akroyd as a cab driver say he “ain’t afraid of no ghosts” made me roll my eyes and wish I could delete this from my memory. The less obvious nods are better fan service, like a character referencing “mass hysteria” or Erin frantically pressing her body against a restaurant’s large glass window. The Stay Puft marshmallow man as a parade float is a nice touch, though. The main villain is feeble but I can see how a dude with a grievous sense of entitlement could itself be a feminist statement on the hostility that women face in today’s world. There are some logical consistency issues when the busters go from trapping ghosts to shooting them and blowing them up, but it wasn’t enough to derail my sense of fun. The worst thing about this Ghostbusters is the new theme song from Fall Out Boy and Missy Elliot.
Is the new Ghostbusters a significant step in terms of feminism or is it overblown as some critics contend? The topic is unavoidable given the spirited furor over this remake; it has the most disliked trailer in YouTube history, though to be fair that was not a good trailer. First I’ll acknowledge that the world doesn’t need the opinion of a heterosexual white male on the topic of inclusion, but I’d like to say that there is something about positive representation. It’s the same reason I approve of Sulu being gay in the newest Star Trek. It’s not for me to say what is and is not empowering for a group of people who often lack positive representation in media. Nor am I arguing that every representation of a group needs to be positive; that swings in a direction where well intentioned “protection” becomes condescending. People can be good. People can be bad. People can be brilliant. People can be dumb. No one pool of DNA has ownership over these human traits. However, the reality of Hollywood is that it is often a poor representation of diversity. It is because of this that I say Ghostbusters deserves some praise for portraying a plot around four women that doesn’t involve boyfriends, weddings, marriages, pregnancies, any sort of romantic coupling, and doesn’t pit them against one another. This is an action movie with a female ensemble, three of whom are in their 40s, and all of whom don’t exactly fit with Hollywood’s standard conception of the attractive female lead. They don’t dress provocatively for the male gaze (the default setting for “strong heroine” in Hollywood is often “sexy deadly”). They don’t make fun of one another’s body types. They stand up for one another when people in power attack. They love what they do. I think there will be a swath of the public that recognizes themselves on screen, maybe for the first time, and I think there is genuine merit to this.
Somewhere amidst all the hype and hate, the new Ghostbusters emerges as a pleasant and enjoyably silly summer comedy. Feig’s movie pays homage to the original, including borrowing many of the general plot beats Force Awakens-style, but steps out onto its own territory. The 2016 Ghostbusters is not slavish to the original but recreates what made it work, a strong core group that meets the experimental and outlandish with droll irony. I think I laughed more with the 2016 Ghostbusters than the 1984 Ghostbusters. It has some flaws and some pacing issues but I was enjoying these characters so much to mind. As a lifelong Ghostbusters fan, I would gladly watch a sequel with these characters and this world once more. This won’t replace the fond feelings I have for the original, nor was it ever supposed to. This all-female Ghostbusters doesn’t take away what fans have loved. It simply adds another chapter with a new batch of entertaining characters, and if a part of the audience can better imagine themselves strapping on the proton packs and going along for the ride, then I don’t see what the harm lies with representation.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Jungle Book (2016)
It seemed like only a matter of time before those in the Mouse House started looking through the back catalogue of hits for inspiration. The Jungle Book is a live-action remake of the 1967 Disney animated film, but it’s only the first of many such translations to come. A live-action Beauty and the Beast is being filmed currently and plans are underway for a possible live-action Aladdin as well, though I pity the actor with the unenviable task of replacing the beloved Robin Williams. I was wary of director Jon Favreau’s (Iron Man) version just because it seemed, on the surface, like a quick attempt to fleece the public of their hard-earned money with a repackaged movie. What I got instead was a brilliantly executed adventure story with a beating heart, amazing special effects, and ultimately an improvement on the original. Imagine that.
Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is a boy raised by a pack of wolves. He tries to fit in with his pack but he grows a bit too slow and he can’t help himself with “tricks,” making tools. During a drought that signals a jungle wide peace between predator and prey, the feared tiger Shere Kahn (Idris Elba) lets the rest of the animals know his demands. The “man cub” is to leave or Kahn will hunt him down. The mother wolf, Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o), refuses to part with her child but Mowgli volunteers to leave to keep his pack safe. Kahn chases him deeper onto the outskirts of the jungle where Mowgli teams up with Baloo (Bill Murray), a lackadaisical bear who makes use of his partner’s affinity for tools and building contraptions. Mowgli’s new life is interrupted when he learns Kahn has attacked the wolf pack with the desire for Mowgli to return and face his wrath. Mowgli must team up with the friends of the jungle and use all his bravery and skills to defeat the ferocious Shere Kahn who has been lusting for vengeance for years.
Favreau’s version of The Jungle Book is a thrilling and thrillingly immersive visual experience that opens up the big screen as an exciting canvas. The visual wizards have made an entire ecosystem look photo realistic to the point that if somebody said offhand that Jungle Book was shot on location in India, I wouldn’t think twice. The environments are entirely CGI and they are brilliantly brought to life in a seamless recreation I haven’t seen so effective since 2009’s Avatar. It’s stunning what can be accomplished with modern special effects, and then there’s Favreau’s smart decision not to radically anthropomorphize his animal cast. These are not some hybrid human-animal combination but rather flesh-and-blood wild creatures that just happen to speak English when they open their mouths (depending upon your territory). The animals don’t fall into that pesky uncanny valley where your brain is telling you what you’re watching is fake and unsettling to the senses (see: The Polar Express). The animals and behave like the real deal and further cement the exceptional level of realism of the movie. From a purely visual experience, The Jungle Book is a feast for the eyes that helps raise the bar just a little bit higher for the special effects industry and its proper application.
The movie would only succeed so far if it weren’t also for its engaging story. Let’s be honest about the 1967 Disney animated film: it’s not really a good movie. It’s fun and has some memorable songs (more on that below), but as a story it’s pretty redundant and flimsy. Mowgli bounces around one potential animal group to another trying to find a home only to move on to the next prospective foster situation. I never made the connection before but in a way the movie North is this plot, minus the talking animals and general entertainment value. There are long segments of the original Disney film that coast just on the charisma of the vocal actors and the animation. Certainly the Beatles parody characters haven’t aged well. There was plenty that could have been added to this story and screenwriter Justin Marks does just that, making the characters far more emotionally engaging. I felt a swell of sadness as Mowgli is separated from his wolf family, his mother declaring that no matter what he still is her son. Marks also personalizes the stakes between Mowgli and Shere Kahn. Each side has a grudge to settle when it comes to vengeance rather than Kahn rejecting the “man cub” out of general fear. This Mowgli is also a much more interesting protagonist; he’s plucky and uses his “man cub” other-ness as an asset when it comes to problem-solving. We have a better hero, a better villain, wonderfully brought to life through the velvety roar of Elba, and a small band of supporting characters that are more emotionally grounded. The wolf pack feels like a genuine family, a community. The relationship between Mowgli and Baloo becomes the backbone of the second half of a briskly paced movie, and the predictable narrative steps feel earned, from Baloo’s con job to caring for his lil’ buddy. The attention to the characters and their relationships provides a healthy sense of heart.
The vocal cast is expertly matched with their jungle creatures, notably Elba (Beasts of No Nation) and Murray (St Vincent). Murray has an innate way to make his lazy character endearing. Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) gives a much better motion capture performance as a wolf than whatever the hell she was in The Force Awakens. Scarlet Johansson (The Avengers) is a nice addition as Ka the serpent, and as fans of Her can attest, her breathy voice can indeed be quite hypnotizing. Even the small comic relief animals are well done including the brilliant Gary Shandling in his last film role. Motion capture for non-primates seems like an iffy proposition considering that you’re either forcing the human actors to physically walk on all fours and pretend to be animals, which can be silly, or just copying the direct movements of animal models, which seems redundant then with the technological advances. I don’t know how they did it but it seems like The Jungle Book found a working middle ground that still showcases actor performances.
I think this picture cures infertility.
With a movie that works so well on so many levels, the few faulty areas tend to stand out, and I feel like somewhat of a cad to say that one of the biggest problems is the acting from its child star. I’ll give Sethi some leeway here considering he was never interacting with much more than a giant warehouse of blue screens, which I think we’ve shown doesn’t exactly lend itself toward the best live-acting performances (see: Star Wars prequels). When Sethi is in more action-oriented scenes, like running and jumping and generally being physically mobile, his performance improves. However, when he has to shift to portraying emotions beyond fight-or-flight that is where Sethi has trouble. When he’s playing “happy-go-lucky” early on with his wolf brethren, he’s way too animated in that way that unrestrained child actors can be without a proper anchor to moor their performance. There were moments that made me wince. I see no reason why an actor under ten should be immune to criticism when warranted. We live in an age of amazing child acting performances, notably evidenced by the incredible Jacob Tremblay in Room. We should expect better from our smaller actors. Unfortunately for Sethi, the visual spectacle is so luscious that the one human element sticks out more when he is also delivering a mediocre to poor lead performance.
The other minor detraction for Jungle Book is the inclusion of the two songs that really anyone recalls from the original Disney version, “I Want to Be Like You” and “The Bear Necessities.” I’ll even charitably give “Bear Necessities” a pass as it involves a moment of levity and bonding between Mowgli and Baloo and they’re simply singing to themselves as they relax down the river. It’s also the most famous song and if you think about it the “Hakuna Matata” of its day. “I Want to Be Like You” does not deserve the same consideration. It comes at an awkward time and undercuts the build-up of tension and does nothing short of rip you out of the world of the movie. At this point, we’ve been introduced to the hulking presence of King Louie voiced by Christopher Walken. The giant ape is portrayed like a mafia don and his sit-down with Mowgli has a real menace to it as he wants to provide “protection” for the man club at a price. It’s a moody moment and then this big orangutan starts singing and dancing. The illusion and reality of the movie is broken. At no other point does The Jungle Book come close to breaking its reality and it’s all for such an extraneous moment. There’s nothing conveyed in this song that couldn’t have simply been communicated through speech. Instead, the live-action movie makes a tortured homage to the older Disney source material, and it’s the one major misstep in its approach.
The Jungle Book is a magical movie that actually improves upon its cinematic source material. It’s a visual stunner that is completely transporting and another high-level achievement for the art of modern special effects as well as the proper usage of them in connection with fundamentally good storytelling. Favreau is able to open up a new yet familiar world and allow the viewer a renewed sense of awe. We also get characters that we care about, a strongly grounded sense of emotional stakes, and some thrilling action to go along with the CGI playhouse. I only have a few misgivings with Disney’s new Jungle book and one of those is really a function of its homage to the older Jungle Book. I’ll take the rare step and advise moviegoers to seriously consider seeing this in 3D (I did not). It’s a great visual experience, however, that would only take the movie so far if it wasn’t for Justin Marks screenplay adaptation and Favreua’s skilled direction. Now The Jungle Book can be a great visual experience, a great story, and, simply put, a great movie.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Wes Anderson is a filmmaker whose very name is a brand itself. There are a small number of filmmakers who have an audience that will pay to see their next film regardless of whatever the hell it may be about. Steven Spielberg is the world’s most successful director but just having his name attached to a movie, is that enough to make you seek it out and assume quality? If so, I imagine there were more than a few disappointed with War Horse and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But Wes Anderson has gotten to that height of audience loyalty after only seven movies, mostly because there are expectations of what an Anderson film will deliver. And deliver is what the quirky, fast-paced, darkly comic, and overall delightful Grand Budapest Hotel does.
In the far-off country of Zubrowka, there lays the famous hotel known the world over, the Grand Budapest. The head of the hotel, the concierge, is Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), a highly mannered Renaissance man who caters to the every whim of his cliental. Zero (Tony Revolori), an orphaned refugee, is Mr. Gustave’s apprentice, a lobby boy in training learning from the master in the ways of hospitality. Gustave likes to leave people satisfied, including the wealthy dowagers that come from far just for him (Gustave: “She was dynamite in the sack,” Zero: “She was… 84,” Gustave: “I’ve had older.”). One of these very old, very rich ladies is found murdered and in her rewritten will, the old bitty had left a priceless portrait to Gustave. Her scheming family, lead by a combustible Adrien Brody, plots to regain the painting, which Gustave and Zero have absconded with.
For Wes Anderson fans, they’ll be in heaven. I recently climbed back aboard the bandwagon after the charming and accessible Moonrise Kingdom, and Grand Budapest is an excellent use of the man’s many idiosyncratic skills. The dollhouse meticulous art design is present, as well as the supercharged sense of cock-eyed whimsy, but it’s a rush for Anderson to pair a story that fits snuggly with his sensibilities. The movie is a series of elaborate chases, all coordinated with the flair of a great caper, and the result is a movie over pouring with entertainment. Just when you think you have the film nailed down, Anderson introduces another conflict, another element, another spinning plate to his narrative trickery, and the whimsy and the stakes get taken up another notch. The point of contention I have with the Anderson films I dislike (Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited) is the superficial nature of the films. As I said in my review for Darjeeling, Anderson was coming across like a man “more interested in showing off his highly elaborate production design than crafting interesting things for his characters to do inside those complex sets.” With this film, he hones his central character relationships down to Gustave and Zero, and he can’t stop giving them things to do. Thankfully, those things have merit, they impact the story rather than serving as curlicue diversions. We get an art heist, a prison break, a ski chase, a murderous Willem Dafoe leaving behind a trail of bodies, not to mention several other perilous escapes. This is a film packed with fast-paced plot, with interesting actions for his actors, maybe even too packed, opening with three relatively unnecessary frame stories, jumping from modern-day, to the 1980s, back to the 1960s, and finally settling into the 1930s in our fictional Eastern European country.
The other issue with Anderson’s past films, when they have underachieved, is that the flights of whimsy come into conflict with the reality of the characters. That is not to say you cannot have a mix of pathos and the fantastical, but it needs to be a healthy combination, one where the reality of the creation goes undisturbed. With Grand Budapest, Anderson has concocted his best character since Rushmore’s Max Fisher. Gustave is another overachieving, highly literate, forward-driving charmer that casually collects admirers into his orbit, but he’s also a man putting on a performance for others. As the head of the Grand Budapest, he must keep the illusion of refinement, the erudite and all-knowing face of the luxurious respite for the many moneyed guests. He has to conceal all the sweat and labor to fulfill this image, and so he is a character with two faces. His officiously courtly manner of speaking can be quite comical, but it’s also an insightful indication that he is a man of the Old World, a nostalgic European realm of class and civilization on the way out with looming war and brutality. And as played by the effortlessly charming Fiennes (Skyfall), Gustave is a scoundrel that the audience roots for, sympathizes with, scolds, but secretly desire his approval, much like Zero. It is a magnificent performance that stands as one of the best in any Anderson film.
The fun of a Wes Anderson movie is the zany surprises played with deadpan sincerity, and there is plenty in Grand Budapest to produce smiles and laughter. It’s hard to describe exactly which jokes land the best in a Wes Anderson film because they form a patchwork that elevates the entire movie, building an odd world where oddballs can fit right in. It was under a minute before I laughed, and I smiled through just about every remaining minute of the film. I enjoyed a joke involving a dead cat that just kept being carried from scene to scene. I enjoyed a sexually graphic painting that just happened to be lying around. I enjoyed the fact that Zero draws on a mustache every morning to better fit in with the men of his day. But mostly I just enjoyed the characters interacting with one another, especially Gustave and Zero, which forms into the emotional core of the film. It begins as a zany chase film and matures as it continues, tugging at your feelings with the father/son relationship (there’s also a subtly sweet romance for Zero and a pastry girl played by Saoirse Ronan). One of the big surprises is the splash of dark violence that grounds the whimsy, reminding you of the reality of death as war and fascism creep on the periphery. In fact, the movie is rather matter-of-fact about human capacity for cruelty, so much so that significant characters will be bumped off (mostly off screen) in a style that might seem disarming and unsatisfying. It’s the mixture of the melancholy and the whimsy that transforms Grand Budapest into a macabre fairy tale of grand proportions.
The only warning I have is that many of the star-studded cast members have very brief time on screen. It’s certainly Fiennes and Revolori’s show, but familiar names like Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Jeff Goldblum, Lea Seydoux, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, F. Murray Abraham, and Bob Balaban are in the film for perhaps two scenes apiece, no more than three minutes of screen time apiece. Norton, Brody, and Dafoe have the most screen time of the supporting cast. Though how does Revolori age into the very non-ethnic Abraham? It reminded me of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (here me out) where, as she ages, Chun-Li becomes less and less Chinese in her facial appearance. Anyway, the brevity of cast screen time is not detrimental to the enjoyment of the film, considering all the plot elements being juggled, but I would have liked even more with the dispirit array of fun characters.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is Wes Anderson at his best, pared down into a quirky crime caper anchored by a hilariously verbose scoundrel and his protégé. Naturally, the technical merits of the film are outstanding, from the intricate art direction and set dressing, to the period appropriate costumes, to the camerawork by longtime cinematographer Robert Yeoman. The movie is a visually lavish and handcrafted biosphere, a living dollhouse whose central setting ends up becoming a character itself. The trademark fanciful artifice is alive and well but this time populated with interesting characters, a sense of agency, and an accessible emotional core. The faults in Anderson’s lesser films have been fine-tuned and fixed here, and the high-speed plotting and crazy characters that continually collide left me amused and excited. If you’re looking for a pair of films to introduce neophytes into the magical world of Wes Anderson, you may want to consider Grand Budapest with Moonrise Kingdom (Royal Tenenbaums if they need bigger names). In the end, I think Anderson more than identifies with his main character, Gustave, a man enchanted in a world of his own creation, a world better than the real one. Who needs the real world when you’ve got The Grand Budapest Hotel?
Nate’s Grade: A
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The Monuments Men (2014)
An all-star cast, a true-life tale that incorporates a treasure hunt, a race against time, Nazis, and fish-out-of-water tropes as non-soldiers are placed in harm’s way, plus the skills of George Clooney behind the camera; in short, how could this go wrong? With that plot makeup and this cast it would take more effort to tell a boring big screen adventure of the real-life Monuments Men (and women). And yet, the movie found a way. It’s by no means a bad film and its heart is in the right place, but allow me to explain why The Monuments Men sadly fails to live up to its mission.
It’s 1944 and Adolf Hitler doesn’t just have his sights on constructing a permanent empire, he wants all the world’s art treasures as well. The Nazis have been plundering famous works of art, and while the war is coming to a close with the Allied invasion, the fate of these priceless works of art may be in jeopardy. Frank Stokes (Clooney) is tasked with putting together a team to save Europe’s art from the Nazis. He puts together an unconventional group of soldiers (Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville) and search for the hidden loot.
The film looks like it’s going to be a high-concept heist film when it reality it’s a series of vignettes that do not add up to a solid whole. Early on, the Monuments Men team is scattered to the wind, divided into pairs, and so we have four or five competing storylines that don’t develop as desired. To be fair, there are some very good scenes, well executed and written by Clooney and Grant Heslov (The Men Who Stare at Goats) where the conflict is turned up, but the film cannot escape the fact that it feels more like a series of scenes than a cohesive story. Not all of the stories are equal in their interest as well. The Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) and Damon storyline in France amounts to little else than her stalling for as long as the plot necessitates, then handing over the Very Important Info, then she’s swept aside. The comical asides, notably with Murray and Balaban, feel like scene fillers when there could be stronger material. Once they’re reunited as a group, you wonder why we even needed the time apart. Perhaps it’s an attempt to showcase a wider sampling of stories and perspectives on a complicated war, which is fine, but the characters don’t get the same complicated examination. Despite physical descriptors, these guys are fairly one-note and stay that way, which is a real shame especially when we start losing Monuments Men. The attention is split amongst a bunch of characters lacking proper development. If I felt like we knew these guys on any substantive level, I would feel more at their untimely passing.
Another issue that exacerbates the directionless feeling pervading the film is that it lacks a clear and concise goal. I understand they’re saving and rescuing art, but that’s kept vague until the very end of the film when it becomes more concrete. Until then, the guys are just traveling from place to place, retrieving this piece or that, having comic misadventures, and the movie just feels like it needs a stronger guiding force to corral all these stories, a concise goal that each scene builds onto and where the urgency increases. Late in the film, I got a glimpse of exactly what kind of movie Monuments Men could have been. Once the war is over, the Germans are replaced as antagonists by the Russians (two-for-two with classic American movie villains) and it becomes a race against time to get to the art before the Russians confiscate it. There was always a ticking clock in the film, as Hitler was assembling his art and his command would destroy them in spite of returning them. However, in the very end of the film, the urgency is cranked up, made real, and for once the film emerges with a sense of suspense. I think it would have been a more engaging film experience if the scope of the film were narrowed simply to the material covered in the climax, namely beating the Russians to the art reserves. It practically has a Raiders of the Lost Ark feel with two parties trying to outrace the other to the next precious treasure. How cool would that movie have been?
Another problem is the film’s seesaw tone never really gels together in a satisfying manner. The film awkwardly switches gears from drama to comedy to action without smooth transitions. Clooney wants his film to be a comical buddy comedy but also a poignant remembrance of the lives lost so that we can enjoy our great treasures. Clashing tones take away from the effectiveness, making us feel that Clooney didn’t feel confidant with either direction to make a movie. Alexander Desplat’s overbearing musical score instructs the audience what they should be feeling at any given moment. It vacillates without similar transitions informing you with little transparency that you should feel whimsical, now sad, and now heroic, now go back to whimsical. The entire film, from a story standpoint to a technical standpoint, cried out for a greater sense of unity.
Then there’s the question of whether art is worth people giving up their lives, and this is a valid question that deserves consideration. I was never in doubt what Clooney and company would say to this ethical query, but it’s as if Clooney has little faith in his own audience. He gives three separate speeches about the significance of art and culture and why it is worth dying for. I expected one hefty speech, but three? It’s like Clooney is afraid his audience will waver when blood starts to be shed, and so we need to be reminded by the professor why art is significant to mankind’s value. The point has been made; it doesn’t need to be belabored. The film even ends on recycling this debate, with Clooney putting one final stamp of judgment before the credits roll.
One gets the sense while watching The Monuments Men that it would make a better documentary than a fictional feature film, at least this incarnation of a fictional film. Hearing from the men who lived it will be far more interesting than watching the comic squabbles of Clooney’s crew through Europe. I was instantly reminded of an engrossing documentary from a few years ago called The Rape of Europa, which looked at the subject of saving the arts from Hitler, not specifically the Monuments Men. That documentary was filled with so many different fascinating stories, I remember thinking that any one of them could have made a stellar movie. Monuments Men is further proof that a sharper, more contained focus would be best rather than trying to tell as many war stories involved on the topic. Clooney has proven himself an excellent director and despite his film’s faults it’s still an entertaining film in spurts. I just think we all expected better given the pedigree of talent involved and the can’t-miss quality of the history.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
It feels good to be a Wes Anderson fan once again. The indie auteur has a very distinctive style that he seems to have little regard in altering. I’ve been critical of Anderson’s idiosyncratic style, comparing it to crafting wonderfully composed, intricate dollhouses minus compelling or relatable characters to inhabit these artfully constructed mini-worlds. Without that necessary element, it’s all just fancy window dressing. Finally, Anderson, with Moonrise Kingdom, has concocted another movie where the characters grab more of your attention than the backgrounds.
Set in 1965 on a small island just off the New England coast, the movie follows the adventures of Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward), both twelve years old. Sam has run away from his summer camp, the Khaki Scouts, led by Scout Master Ward (Ed Norton). Suzy has run away from her parents (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand). The small island’s one police officer, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), enlists the help of several Khaki Scouts he deputizes to find the missing duo. It’s revealed through a serried of letters, and flashbacks, that Sam and Suzy have been plotting their escape for over a year. They’re in love, and they’re going to make sure nobody interferes.
What more relatable than young love? Sam and Suzy just want to be together and the rest of the adult world seems intent on keeping them apart. Right away you’re pulling for these kids, rooting for their triumph, and the movie does a fantastic job of replicating the innocence of young love without overly romanticizing a very nervous, awkward time in life. When Sam and Suzy practice kissing, for what is obviously the first time, I defy anyone sitting in the audience not to feel a recognizable pang of insecurity. The experimentation is a tad more realistic than you might expect with the PG-13 rating but still nothing to shatter the youthful innocence of the picture. There is not a tawdry moment in Moonrise Kingdom. It’s a time in life when the knowledge of sex existed without a keen understanding of sensuality, like in Miranda July’s Me, and You, and Everyone We Know. It’s more like fumbling around with what you think is appropriate activity. Still, the fact that the movie features twelve-year-olds in their underwear dancing and mildly experimenting means Moonrise Kingdom might draw a swath of ticket-buyers for the wrong reasons (beware the patron in a raincoat).
The scrupulous attention to detail is the same obsessive quality you come to expect from a Wes Anderson movie. He builds living worlds and his color schemes and shot arrangements add much texture to this idiosyncratic landscape. Unlike Life Aquatic and Darjeeling Limited, these artistic elements work in harmony rather than conflict; Anderson actually seems to care about the people here. Chances are if you’re not a Wes Anderson fan, Moonrise Kingdom will probably not be the movie to win you over. The whimsical, storybook nature of the film actually accentuates the broader themes; bright-eyed exploration, the magic of possibility with love, and an unyielding hope. The movie feels like one of Suzy’s storied adventures come to life but without compromising the relatable character conflicts. The movie does build a nice head of steam thanks to the pursuit of our runaway romantics. There’s also a palpable sense of danger lurking, as the kids risk life and limb and even experience death, albeit a dog (Suzy: “Was he a good dog?” Sam: “Who’s to say?”). It’s a poignant tale of childhood but it doesn’t feel childish, a family film meant for people probably too young for families.
Moonrise Kingdom walks a fine line between whimsical and overly precious. Less skilled filmmakers haven fallen suit to making insufferably twee film productions consumed by their own indulgent sense of preciousness. Moonrise Kingdom is full of the typical Anderson quirk but it doesn’t overpower the narrative or define the characters in such limited personal scopes. There’s plenty of laughs to be had with the film, most in the wry chuckle variety; I was laughing throughout, finding those staple peculiar touches to be the most amusing, from the Scout Master reading a magazine titled “Indian Corn,” to Bob Balaban’s questionably omniscient narrator, to some improvised natural earrings.
The movie is consistently funny but also far sweeter than I would have imagined given the detached, arch nature of Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited. Again, the kids are precocious and the adults act more like children, but everyone is really hurting and lonely and looking for a means of coping or persevering, with the biggest source of pain being love; the longing, the ache, the uncertainty of when and if it will return. Usually Anderson’s films involve dysfunctional families mending some degree of their brokenness by film’s end and formulating a connection. With Moonrise Kingdom, the plot is on two kids falling in love and their will to endure. I appreciate that Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola (Darjeeling Limited) do not trivialize or look down upon the relationship between Sam and Suzy (“Oh, it’s just puppy love you silly, naïve, waifs.”). To them it feels like everything. The tender approach to young love opens the film up to a broader audience without compromising the director’s unique vision. I’d hardly say the film approaches overt sentimentality. What’s there feels earned and more reserved than what we might expect from burgeoning romance. When the expressions of affection occur, they have greater weight and make a greater impact charming the audience.
The first-time child actors do a credible job with carrying the film. Hayward and Gilman are charming and easy to like, though I wish Anderson had pushed his young actors a tad harder. They seem stiff at times and a little above-it-all in attitude. I applaud the kids for acting somewhat reserved rather than going crazy with their budding hormones. Both characters are also characterized as “emotionally disturbed,” though this seems like another of the film’s damning details about the out-of-touch adults dictating their lives. I just wished we sensed a greater degree of urgency from them about this whole adventure and the possibility of losing one another. They feel a tad blasé, all things considered.
The bigger celebrity names in the cast assume smaller roles, and many of the supporting characters are thinly sketched with personal conflicts mostly kept at a simmer. These are grownups that, at their heart, don’t know what to do with their feelings. Sam and Suzy feel liberated by their feelings. I found Murray’s blustery sense of anger amusing, and Willis does some subtle work to give you a sense how truly lonely his character is to the core, but it’s Jason Schwartzman (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) who steals the show in my book as the fast-talking, mercurial, scheming Cousin Ben who seems to have whatever somebody needs. When he agrees to marry Sam and Suzy and acknowledges that their marriage will not be deemed official under any court whatsoever, you get a sense that Moonrise Kingdom has been missing a propulsive and delightful character like Cousin Ben. I wish he had been inserted earlier, but this is Sam and Suzy’s movie, after all.
It’s not on the same level as Rushmore of The Royal Tenenbaums (my favorite Anderson films), but it’s a film that feels a lot more alive and emotionally resonant. It feels like a return to form for Anderson, remembering that the characters and their drama need to be as engaging as the set design. The turbulent young love of Sam and Suzy is sweet and leads to some tender yet poignant moments that warm the heart without making you overdose on cheap sentiment. The idiosyncratic touches are all there, the ironic humor, and the stellar soundtrack selection (Benjamin Britten’s deconstructive orchestral marches stand out as a thematic core), everything you’d expect from a Wes Anderson movie, except this time you’ll find the characters recognizable, their struggle compelling, and the end rewarding. Moonrise Kingdom isn’t the most substantive film playing in theaters but damned if it isn’t the most alluring, amusing, and affectionate, yet all on its own terms. Who would have guessed that a pair of twelve-year-olds would help us show what real love is in 2012?
Nate’s Grade: A-
nathanzoebl 
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