OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Grade: B

Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Morgan Freeman, Rick Yune, Melissa Leo, Finley Jacobsen, Robert Forster and Dylan McDermott

Premise: A disgraced Secret Service agent becomes America’s only hope when foreign terrorists attack the White House and take the president hostage.

RATED R for strong, brutal, bloody violence, strong language, and disturbing thematic material including gore, a scene of torture, and a beating

I’m finding Olympus Has Fallen a difficult movie to review, mainly because it reminded me strongly of two better films I would rather be watching. In short, Training Day director Antoine Fuqua’s new movie is the latest in a long line of films that couldn’t more obviously be taking their cue from the 1988 John McTiernan classic, Die Hard. Speed was Die Hard On A Bus, Under Siege was Die Hard On A Boat, the recent A Good Day to Die Hard was Die Hard Over the Hill—Olympus Has Fallen is Die Hard In The White House. Foreign terrorists nab some hostages, kill innocent security people, make ridiculous demands and threaten to kill everybody, while a fly-in-the-ointment wise guy sneaks onto the premises and slowly undoes their well-laid plan. Olympus also owes a debt to Wolfgang Petersen’s Air Force One, another president-in-jeopardy movie featuring an international baddie with love-of-home-country issues who likes to shoot important cabinet people through the head while other high-ranking government officials convene in a top-secret, tech-savvy room and talk repeatedly about how bad the situation is.

Both Die Hard and Air Force One are favorites of mine, and Olympus was almost painfully obviously a carbon copy of the former and made me want to re-watch the latter, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy Fuqua’s film. It’s a ball-busting, bone-cracking, unsophisticated shoot-first film that is enjoyable without resorting to the camp (or plastic surgery) of The Expendables and other recent 80s-action-star encore movies.

Plot

As the head of the Secret Service, Mike Banning (Scotsman Gerard Butler, gamely waging war with his native accent) had it all: an admirable position, a highly-trained team of good friends, and, of course, the trust and first-name friendship of the President of the United States, Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart), and his family (Ashley Judd and Finley Jacobsen). But when the presidential convoy hits the skids one night on an icy road, Mike is forced to make a terrible, unpopular choice. Fired from his position, he struggles slowly through a year and a half flying a desk at the Department of the Treasury while wracked with boredom and regret. He can see the White House through his window, can see the president escorted around by his old friends (Cole Hauser and Dylan McDermott, among others).

But, one ordinary day, the White House is assaulted by a marauding C130, garbage trucks equipped with .50 caliber machine guns, and a crowd of foreigners toting automatic weapons (all this immediately after the president welcomes a North Korean dignitary into the West Wing). Worse comes to worst, Secret Service members and other public service agents drop like flies under clouds of gunfire, and the president, VP and others end up in the president’s airtight, bombproof underground security bunker at the mercy of a seething Korean heavy (Rick Yune). The president and VP’s sticky situation puts Speaker of the House Alan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) into the Oval Office chair—figuratively speaking—and on the receiving end of the baddie’s demands (withdraw troops from the Korean DMZ, provide a helicopter for the transport of hostages, etc…). With time running out before the bad guy makes a lot of big things go boom, Mike sneaks into the desolated, damaged White House, arms himself, and makes use of his inside knowledge to sneak around, pick off unwary foreign sentries, and attempt to penetrate the bunker.

Rapid Reaction

Olympus is almost embarrassingly similar to Die Hard at points, from the fly-in-the-ointment scenario and a bad-guy-playing-good-guy to the bad guy and the hero finding ways to hurl insults at each other via intercom, walkie talkie, and video prompter. Oh, and the rendering of the Secret Service, Washington DC police force, and other uniformed Americans into bullet magnets harkens back to Air Force One. At one point, I silently did a head count: Butler is Bruce Willis/Harrison Ford, Rick Yune is Alan Rickman/Gary Oldman/Alexander Gudonov, Angela Basset and Morgan Freeman combine to be Reginald VelJohnson/Glenn Close, Robert Forster is Paul Gleason…am I forgetting anyone? \

But, it’s still not bad. Olympus is never boring, there’s a couple funny insults intended for American ears only (my personal favorite was one line from Butler to Yune: “I’m gonna kill you, take pictures of your corpse, and then sell it to the press, ‘cause I know you’re into that stuff”), and the violence is so heavy early on it’s sobering, and you want to see justice done. And it ends happily.  Oh, oops. Spoiler.

Acting

It’s a tiny bit funny that we have Scotsman Butler—once woefully miscast as the phantom of the opera—playing a true blue American hero, but the actor is believable enough in the straight scenes and he certainly has the build for a rugged, rock ‘em-sock ‘em action hero. Having graduated from playing Gotham City’s District Attorney to playing America’s President, Eckhart does what he can with an underwritten role as a guy who smiles and gives speeches for one third of the movie and is forced to sit around and sweat, handcuffed and at gunpoint, for the other two-thirds. Freeman could play the agitated politician in his sleep. Yune, who played headlining villains in the blockbusters The Fast and the Furious and Die Another Day ten years ago, is an intriguing bad-dude (naturally, he’s most interesting wielding knives and kung fu know-how in a mano-a-mano breakdown with Butler). Oscar-winner Melissa Leo has a few good moments as the tough old broad Secretary of Defense. Ultimately, it’s a star-studded group who manage interesting portrayals even with rather cookie-cutter types.

Directing

Well, as long as things blow up the right way and people look like they’re really dead when they’re supposed to be, how much “directing” is involved in a movie like this? The opening assault on the White House is--outside of an almost unbelievably lame sequence involving a collapsing Washington Monument--shocking and sobering in its intricate details. The movie does struggle with originality—anyone who’s seen Die Hard a couple times will find it impossible not to realize Olympus is very closely following the earlier film’s classic blueprint. However, Fuqua and his team do well with creating an air of menace, and even maybe making you wonder if something like this is really possible.

Content

Among movies I’ve reviewed, Olympus is automatically up there with Django Unchained, Lawless and The Expendables 2 for staggering body counts and maximum amounts of splattering blood. Some of these are in long shot, but there’s an uncomfortably vivid beating of a woman by Yune’s baddie, as well as multiple close up head shots (and I hope you understand what I mean by‘head shot’). The movie is stocked with plenty of four-letter words as well, but, of course, that’s not how it really earns its R rating.

Bottom Line (I Promise): This has been kind of a downer of a review, but Olympus Has Fallen is a great edge-of-your-seat popcorn movie for the action cravers and the strong-of-stomach. It’s pretty much wall-to-wall action, with an appealing cast and some eye-popping sequences. The audience seemed to enjoy it; I certainly did.

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

Written by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt

Rated R

Length: 120 minutes

JACK THE GIANT-SLAYER

Jack the Giant-Slayer (2013)
Grade: B-
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Ewan Bremner, Eddie Marsan and Bill Nighy
Premise: When a down-on-his-luck farmboy opens a portal between his world and the mythical elevated world of the Giants, and a princess is suddenly taken captive, the young man journeys into dangerous territory to rescue her from the monsters.

Rated PG-13 for action violence and some gory images

I'm feeling a little let down by Jack the Giant-Slayer. Like 2010's Alice in Wonderland and last year's Mirror Mirror and Snow White & the Huntsman, it's supposed to be a broader-scale, more epic version of a beloved fairy tale, but it falls far short of the edginess suggested by that rather badass title. Squeaky-clean leading man Nicholas Hoult won't be mistaken by anybody as a hard-edged vigilante (this isn't Jack The Giant Punisher), and the familiar "Jack and the Beanstalk" fairy tale is here adapted in a tidier manner more akin to Mirror Mirror, or even 2010's Tangled, than the dark, gothic-horror-embellished pizzazz of The Huntsman. Mostly pretty conventional plot-wise, Jack does manage to gain some credibility with a third act crammed with eye-popping action. Ultimately, it's a mildly-diverting popcorn flick that will give girls plenty of time to oogle Flavor-of-the-Month hearthrob Hoult.

The basic story's pretty simple, and almost everyone knows its most basic plot points. Jack (Hoult, hyper-popular right now after the success of his zombie flick Warm Bodies) is a poor farmhand who eventually comes to the realization that he must sell his beloved horse to get by. On a trip into the kingdom of Cloister, he is able to sell the horse, though admittedly only to a monk who pays him with a handful of beans, which are supposedly "magical". By chance he encounters Cloister's lovely princess, Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), a motherless, adventure-seeking girl dreading her impending marriage to the stuffy, power-mad nobleman Roderick (Stanley Tucci). While Jack and the princess discover they might actually have some things in common despite their different places in life, their lives are put on hold when the beans Jack was paid with erupt into an enormous beanstalk, which carries the princess high into the sky, beyond the clouds, to a kingdom of giants believed to exist only in myth. Immediately, Isabelle's father (Ian McShane) assembles a team to rescue his daughter, led by stalwart knight Elmont (Ewan McGregor). Taking Jack along, the team scales the beanstalk, encounters the giants, and finds the princess, but they soon discover that Roderick holds an ancient key to controlling the giants, and he has his sights set on Isabelle's father's throne. Soon Jack and Isabelle are trying to descend the beanstalk quickly enough to warn Cloister of Roderick's plot to pit the whole giant populace against it.

Jack hits the ground running, sending Jack into Cloister to sell his horse within the first ten minutes, after a brief prologue in which the young Jack and Isabelle are separately read the story of the giants' war with humans (they thought it was just a story). And it wastes little time from there, probably a result of Singer assuming people attending a movie called Jack the Giant-Slayer want to see some giant-slaying. Thus, the characterizations are basic, the sentiments few, and the budding romance between Jack and Isabelle has a cute moment or two but is actually rather shrugged off. This comes as no great detriment, though, as this movie, at 114 minutes, is a little too long as is, without any expansion.

If they wanted to cut something, though, they could always cut most of the Roderick subplot, which embarrasses the always-game Stanley Tucci with one of those frothing-at-the-mouth cartoonish villain roles. Even more embarrassed is Ewan Bremner as his goofy, jester-like sidekick. The rest of the cast (Hoult, Tomlinson, McGregor, McShane) thankfully get less ridiculous parts but are still a long way from three-dimensionality. Each of these characters is a cookie cutter type (the brave young hero, the damsel in distress, the noble knight, the grave king) who's fallen straight out of the pages of a children's book.

But the movie succeeds where it needs to. The scene where the beanstalk erupts out of the ground and through the floor of Jack's cottage is kind of awesome, and the last act--in which the computer-generated giants reach the ground and begin an assault on Cloister--hits a few notes that are flat-out spectacular. And while the obviously CGI giants are a little distracting, they're nonetheless acceptable as dangerous antagonists (and it's always worth hearing Bill Nighy's Irish brogue, even if it's from the maw of a grotesque, two-headed giant).

Largely family friendly but for a few intense action scenes, Jack the Giant-Slayer has the feel of one of those movies that entertains in the moment but will be quickly forgotten (I'm really interested to see the business it does at the box office this weekend). **I saw it in 3-D, which enhances a scene or two, but (as per the extra dimension's usual) is unnecessary.**  It's an uber-safe vehicle for Hoult (now that he's reached bonafide leading man status), and McShane, McGregor and Tucci are all deserving of better, but something tells me it could be a popular rental.

Bottom Line (I Promise): Jack the Giant-Slayer isn't quite the epic spectacle its tough title indicates, but some impressive visuals, engaging action, and a brisk plot make this a servicable popcorn flick.

Jack the Giant-Slayer (2013)
Directed by Bryan Singer
Written by Darren Lemke, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dan Studney; based on the story by Darren Lemke and David Dobkin
Rated PG-13
Length: 114 minutes

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Grade: B
Premise: A young girl in a poor community questions her identity, her home, and the mystery of her long-lost mother after her father falls ill of a terminal disease.
Starring Quveznhane Wallis as Hushpuppy and Dwight Henry as Wink

Rated PG-13 for thematic material include alcohol abuse, some blood and gory images, and a few sequences of a child in danger.

Beasts of the Southern Wild, the eighth Academy Award nominee for Best Picture I've seen this year, is one of those movies that sneaks up on you. In a nonchalant, no-hurry manner, it plants you in a world of squalor mixed with strange beauty, gives you a mostly-silent protagonist, goes long stretches without dialogue, and, for long periods, seems to be about nothing. However, the force of performance from one of its key actors and the strong presence of the other keeps the film afloat, giving you strained family melodrama and crackerjack whimsy. The movie doesn't always make sense, and you might find yourself wondering why you're watching it, but the emotion surges at all the right moments. It's not a Friday night party movie, but if you're up for something different, it might just surprise you.

Plot: Six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quveznhane Wallis) lives with her daddy (Dwight Henry) in the Bathtub, a mud-and-sticks marsh in a walled-off area of the Louisiana bayou. Along with a few beer-swilling, seafood-binging poor neighbors, they live illegally because they believe they're better off in decaying trailors, leaky cabins and lean-tos than they are in a poor shelter. Precocious Hushpuppy wanders around on her own, playing with chickens and listening to the heartbeats of small animals, always answering the bell her father rings whenever it's "feeding time". She wonders about her mom, some of who's possessions she still has (She may have died; it isn't clear). Though her father is a cantankerous, hard-drinking man who sometimes disappears for a few days at a time, throws angsty fits and shuns affection and emotion, Hushpuppy has a strong connection to him. When he disappears for a few days and then resurfaces in a white hospital gown and bracelet, she doesn't understand.

After a storm floods the Bathtub, Hushpuppy, her father, and their neighbors are relocated to a shelter by local authorities. There, against his will, Hushpuppy's father is taken into surgery and then given proper care and a serious diagnosis. But the comforts of clean clothes, white walls, and square meals mean little to either of them. At first chance, Hushpuppy's dad sneaks the Bathtub citizens out of the hospital and back to their small community, where they'll live the way they want, but his illness is serious. Facing a life without the only constant presence in her life, Hushpuppy wonders if she should remain in the Bathtub or try to find a life elsewhere.

What Works?
You've probably heard by now that 9-year-old Quveznhane Wallis has become the youngest-ever Best Actress Oscar nominee for her performance as Hushpuppy. I don't know if it's a riveting piece of acting (even for a then-six-year-old), but, like the film, Wallis truly engages and moves when she needs to. Her gruff, stubborn, whimsical and wild child is a really interesting characterization. As is that of her father, Dwight Henry's Wink. It's obvious Wink should not be a parent (he's only held her once, right after she was born, he drinks all the time, he throws things at his daughter, and he makes no visible effort to give his child a better life), but Henry and the screenplay nonetheless show a man who teaches his daughter enough to survive, enough to be proud, enough to not live off handouts. He cheers her up during a thunderstorm by firing into the sky with a shotgun, he gets her to crack open and eat crabs on her own by leading their neighbors in a noisy chant, and he gives her pride in herself by challenging her to an arm-wrestling match and letting her win. For most of the film, Wink is not a likeable character, but, again, as his destiny becomes clear (especially as seen through his daughter's eyes), it's hard not to cry for him. Seeing this, I'm actually extremely disappointed Henry was passed over for an Oscar nomination when Wallis was nominated. It's true his performance lacks subtlety and "artistry" and all that stuff serious Oscar voters rave about, but, nearly as much as Wallis, he is the engine that drives the film.

Beasts is made up of a lot of faded camera shots and shaky handheld clips, but it's effective in capturing both the grime of the Bathtub world but also the beauty Hushpuppy sees in it. Between the images and soft but effective score, Beasts conjures up some memorable moments.

What Doesn't Work?
Beasts takes a while to get off the ground, to really establish any characterization beyond the fact that Hushpuppy is a little backwoods girl who lives in squalor. It also takes a while to establish a plot, and nothing about that plot until the last act is very clean cut. There's a lot that is unexplained. It also appears to have a fantasy angle that only manifests itself in a few brief moments, which is confusing--rather like this summer's Moonrise Kingdom, I, personally, think that, if you're going to make a weird movie, make it; if you're going to make a serious, realistic movie, make it. Don't make it look like you suddenly decided to throw in a curveball just for kicks. The movie's inherent curiousness and its slow burn pace also take a toll, as this 93-minute movie feels considerably longer.

Content
There's no sexuality or nudity, no violence, and I'm not even sure there is any real profanity, but Beasts can be a somber movie. It's depictions of poverty, of flood-wrought devastation, and a number of visual reminders of the inevitability of death make this is a sobering picture. It's also just plain out-there enough that I wouldn't recommend it to many people.

Bottom Line (I Promise): If you're up for something different, go ahead and check out Beasts of the Southern Wild. It's a quiet, unassuming movie about life (which is nominated for four of the most important Oscars given out this weekend), featuring two strong performances and a look at what seems like a whole different world.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Directed by Behn Zeitlin
Rated PG-13
Length: 93 minutes

THE IMPOSSIBLE

The Impossible (2012)
Grade: B

Starring: Naomi Watts, Tom Holland, Ewan McGregor, Samuel Joslin and Oaklee Pendergast

Premise: A well-to-do British family on vacation in Thailand is separated and thrown into chaos and grief when a tsunami destroys the countryside the day after Christmas.

Rated PG-13 for disturbing disaster sequences and related elements (terror, bloody wounds and gore, very intense emotional content) and brief nudity

            On December 26, 2004, an earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale rocked the Indian Ocean floor and, according to reports, generated vibrations that could be felt across the entire planet. Within hours, 30 foot waves created by the tremors plowed across the beaches and shoreline of over a dozen countries in Southeast Asia, leaving a reported 230,000 dead and leveling miles of buildings, power lines, trees and roads. Included in the dead and missing were more than 9,000 tourists, who were enjoying the balmy climate for the winter, having celebrated Christmas just the day before.

            Tiny amongst the carnage and devastation was such a family, which was incredibly wealthy by the locals’ standards—a Spanish doctor, Maria Belon, her husband, Enrique, and their three sons, Lucas, Tomas and Simon. On vacation from their home in Japan, they were ill-prepared for the horror that awaited them. The family, who have become full-time activists in memory of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami and the countless numbers who lost their lives and their innocence, worked with Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona to have their story told as a memorial to those who suffered. The result is an imperfect but emotionally-scorching film that is (ahem) impossible to forget once you’ve seen it.

Plot

Looking forward to celebrating Christmas in exotic beach-side luxury in Thailand, the Bennet family survives some minor turbulence in their inbound flight before checking into a lush resort right on the water. Maria (Naomi Watts) is a doctor who put off her practice in order to spend time with her sons, prickly young teen Lucas (Tom Hollander), bright-eyed seven-year-old Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and five-year-old Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). Unfortunately, her colorful Christmas is dampened slightly by the assertion of her husband Henry (Ewan McGregor) that she may have to go back to work, because there’s a chance he may be on the verge of losing his high-paying corporate job in Japan. However, even that potentially life-altering news becomes little more than a footnote on Boxing Day, when the wind suddenly picks up, the ground shakes, and a terrifying wall of water plows over the hotel and swipes away the family and everyone else around them.

            Finding consciousness amidst a swirling torrent of water strong enough to level buildings, uproot trees and sweep away cars and power lines, Maria is gravely injured but able to locate Lucas, who is, miraculously, almost unhurt. After taking shelter in a tree, they’re located by a rescue crew and taken to a hospital, where Maria’s state quickly deteriorates. Trying to find something to do other than sit by his weak and shivering mom’s bedside, Lucas tries to help some other patients in the overcrowded hospital locate their missing relatives. Meanwhile, Henry, who was with the two young boys when the wave hit, agonizes over whether to send his sons to a shelter in the mountains where conditions will be more sanitary and orderly, or to keep them with him, while he tries desperately to locate his wife and oldest son amongst throngs of sick, injured, terrified and homeless people.

What Works?

I’ve heard some complaints about The Impossible (actually Lo Impossible due to its Spanish origination) centered around the idea that it’s calculated and cheap to make a film about five rich white people who survive a terrible disaster while hundreds of thousands of other poorer, local people did not. And I guess I understand that, but you could make that complaint about almost any war movie ever made (why did the hero live when all these other people died—if indeed the movie in question is one in which the hero lives). But while The Impossible does have the feel of a film that comes to a very tidy resolution, I can tell you now it’s much more gratifying and uplifting to learn the story of a family that survived as opposed to many people who did not. Based on the Belon family’s accounts, the film certainly jumps through hoops to make sure the horror and devastation of the incident is brought home.

Speaking of which, The Impossible is the most viscerally-emotional film I’ve seen in a long time. Holding back the tears will be nearly impossible for most viewers, whether they’re tears of terror, grief, or joy. Oscar Faura’s cinematography is tremendous, capturing the pitched terror of being carried away by a wall of water in an indecipherable cacophony of noise and colors, then seeing the pain and suffering and widespread devastation left by the disaster. Some of the immediate post-tsunami sequences are incredibly difficult to watch. It certainly is nightmarish. Aiding hugely in the film’s credibility and emotional impact are the actors, who give brave performances in the face of such a demanding story. Naomi Watts has gotten the film’s lone Oscar nomination (for Best Actress—by now, after 21 Grams, King Kong and this, it’s clear that Watts can turn on the hysterics like few others), but once she’s immobilized by pain and sickness, it’s revealed that young Tom Holland is the film’s real star. Horribly attuned to the pain and grief around him even while trying to tune it out and remain strong, Holland gives a fierce performance that has been recognized with a great deal of praise and awards. As the husband/father, Ewan McGregor’s performance isn’t nearly as showy, but the normally cool-and-collected actor goes straight for the heart and the throat with one searing moment of emotional distress. The actors playing the two younger sons are serviceable, and Sonke Mohring has a few wonderful moments as a fellow tourist stunned by pain and loss.

What Doesn’t Work?

In an age of huge, epic films that try hard to utterly unforgettable, The Impossible might seem a little short—like it resolves a little too neatly. I got that feel (“wow, already?”) once I saw the resolution being achieved, but it’s really a small complaint. After all, how many times have I complained on this blog of movies being too long? This movie is about the disaster and the immediate aftermath—also why there’s fairly little character-building time before the tsunami. The point still gets across. You still want the family to be reunited.

Content:

Conveying as it does a terrible and unforeseen disaster that really did affect millions of people, The Impossible can be very, very unsettling. While the viewer is spared most looks at dead bodies, the camera glimpses gory details like gaping wounds and people throwing up blood and debris in the hospital. There’s no cursing I can remember, and, while there’s a bit of nudity (though it’s in an unglamorous, nonsexual context), the main thing that makes The Impossible questions for kids or even many adults is the nightmarish content that it strives to make real.

Bottom Line (I Promise): At times terrifying, crushingly sad and exhilarating, The Impossible may not be the Next Great Epic but it’s a vivid and moving film about the disaster that also makes you celebrate the survival and recovery of the Belons.

The Impossible (2012)

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona

Written by Sergio G. Sanchez; based on the story by Maria Belon

Rated PG-13

Length: 114 minutes

WARM BODIES

Warm Bodies (2013)

Grade: B+

Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Cordrry, Analeigh Tipton, Dave Franco and John Malkovich

Premise: A potential cure for a worldwide zombie virus outbreak is discovered after one of the living dead develops genuine affection for a living, breathing human girl.

RATED PG-13 for thematic material including blood, gore, action violence, disturbing images, and some language

If you’ve gotten this far, I’m assuming you’ve read the title of the movie on which this review is centered, and you’ve read the premise (you’ve probably even seen the trailer). Are you thinking I’ve lost my mind yet? After all, I fancy myself a big, tough movie critic who thumbs his nose at Harry Potter and Hunger Games and Marvel Comics adaptations that make billions of dollars worldwide, and yet I’ve gone and given a favorable grade to a zombie/human romance that couldn’t more obviously be just the newest entrant in the ridiculous ‘Paranormal Romance’ sensation that’s sweeping the teen/young-adult world? It started with the vampire/human Twilight books and movies, but more big budget adaptations—such as the witch/human romance Beautiful Creatures due in March—are on the way. I admit I’m on a high because I just saw Warm Bodies and my emotions are in gear, and the first time I hear someone sensible diss the movie I’ll probably scramble to make excuses for such a good rating…

But, dag gone it, I enjoyed the heck out of myself watching Director Jonathan Levine’s adaptation of Isaac Marion’s novel. I watch a lot of movies (some for entertainment, some so I’m in the know for the upcoming Oscar race, some because I get invited to a time out with friends, and some because I just need some background noise in my apartment), and, lately, I’d been finding it a rather joyless process. After all, I watch movies regularly, and I was finding myself increasingly and frustratingly unimpressed by one hoity-toity Movie-of-the-Week title after another (Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained). I’ve been getting a little jaded…probably because lately I’ve been watching a lot of really long, really dark movies full of pain and death (The aforementioned three, plus Skyfall and Les Miserables). Thus, the cute, quick little Warm Bodies worked on me like a magic trick, making me laugh, gasp, swoon, move to the edge of my seat, and, basically, really enjoy going to the movies again. That’s right: a teen girls' zombie/human rom-com became a treat.

Plot: In the not-too-distant future, humanity has nearly been wiped out by a zombie virus (the origins of which are unexplained). In one large American city, a population of survivors lives surrounded by a massive wall, which they had to speedily erect to keep out disease-ridden zombies, some of which are essentially walking skeletons. One such zombie (Nicholas Hoult) can’t remember his own name but is a little more self-aware than others. He wishes to feel, wishes to communicate, wishes to have something to do other than just walk around with other people who can’t feel or communicate. However, it turns out, pretty much the only way this zombie can feel is by eating a person’s brains, wherein he’s able to see and experience their memories. When a small group of living humans ventures beyond the wall to try to recover medical supplies from a lab, zombies attack, our “hero” gets a hold of a guy’s brains, and boom—suddenly he’s neck-deep in lovey-dovey land with a gorgeous, soulful blonde (Teresa Palmer). The girl, Julie, the daughter of the local militia maven (John Malkovich) happens to be in the same company as the man who was just devoured, and the zombie, gob-smacked by emotion and desire, can’t find it in himself to kill and eat her. Instead, finding himself really motivated for the first time in ages, he hides her inside his sanctuary, an airplane he has slowly but steadily stocked with things he finds valuable, like records and sports trophies and magazines. Though at first understandably terrified and repulsed, Julie slowly begins to realize that R (as she comes to refer to him), as well as some of the other zombies, aren’t quite the unrelenting killing machines expected. R even saves Julie when she tries to run for it and ends up cornered by a pack of the more mindless beings. Though she’s still biased and a little sickened, Julie sees enough as R escorts her back to safety that she begins to believe the infected remnants of the human race may not be beyond all hope. The trouble will be getting her fellow human survivors to see it, too.

What Doesn’t Work?

Okay, okay, okay, so, some sense here: you have to leave disbelief at the door when you go to see Warm Bodies. Why didn’t the zombies’ eating of other people’s brains trigger in them feelings of love for the individuals those people loved and, thus, stop the outbreak as it was happening? Why can R form the occasional word when most of his fellows can’t manage even that? What are the chances-really?-that the surviving humans would ever let any of the walking undead stand long enough to try and observe that they’re not the mindless killing machines they expected? Why are cutesy teenage girls like Julie and Nora (Analeigh Tipton) among those sent into the dead zone/kill zone beyond the wall? There’s plenty that set my movie critic sense tingling as I watched Warm Bodies, and is tempting me to give the movie a lower grade, no matter how many warm-fuzzies I'm experiencing.

What Works?

I guess I’m just choosing to ignore those questions. Why can’t I do that with all movies I watch? Probably because I had such a good time watching this movie. I mean, despite the fact that I saw right through this formulaic undead/human romance aimed at teen girls, I found Warm Bodies about a hundred times funnier than any of the Twilight movies (and not because I was laughing at it). Despite the fact that Nicholas Hoult essentially wears one pale, bug-eyed, crusty-lipped expression for the entire film, he’s somehow almost immediately a more interesting and engaging undead protagonist than Robert Pattison ever managed to be. Likewise, Teresa Palmer--who actually does suggest a blond poor man's Kristen Stewart--proves more engaging than the ever-sullen actress who played Bella Swan because she’s not trying nearly as hard to seem like a klutzy, nothing-special, unattractive girl (she’s not unattractive, by the way). The real kicker that makes Warm Bodies better than Twilight and such is that the supernatural/paranormal/undead being with all the powers and quirks is the Main Character, rather than a supporter to a regular old human protagonist.

And, of course, though it has a lot of moments that need to work for the movie to function (the development of believable chemistry between its leads, for instance, and having genuinely harrowing shootouts and zombie/human altercations), Warm Bodies doesn’t take itself anywhere near as seriously as Twilight did. The biggest problem with the Twilight films is that they wouldn’t know humor if it bit them upside the leg—those films revolved around their ridiculously-stuffy and uninvolving attempts to develop to-die-for romantic chemistry. Warm Bodies is bookended with wall-to-wall action and rife with humor (there’s even a full-on LOL teenage girl scene that manages to come across as less ridiculous than it could). Again, Warm Bodies just engaged me. Even though I objectively knew it was a silly teenage girl’s movie, I wanted the protagonists to survive and be together, I wanted humanity to find peace, I felt the suspense of not knowing how terrifying fights and chases were going to turn out, and I felt good when I walked out of the theater. You might forget Warm Bodies a couple days after you see it, and the ending might be a little treacly; you might also feel a little miffed that you spent $10 on an hour-and-a-half girly fairy tale, but, I gotta tell ya, as an entertainment, it beats the hell out of two-and-a-half hour movies that bore you for two-thirds of their running time and make you miserable for the other third.

Content

Children and some squeamish adults will certainly find things to cringe at, given that our “hero” and his mates enjoy killing people and eating brains--at least they don't usually do it right in front of the camera, right? Warm Bodies is not unnecessarily gory, and though the movie’s tense, really sinister, terrifying moments are few. There's also the odd four-letter word to spice up the low-key dialogue (some of these curses are actually croaked by zombies). And, for the record, other than one brief shot of Teresa Palmer stripping down to her undergarments (seen from behind), there is nothing particularly suggestive or edgy in a sensual way. The last two Twilight: Breaking Dawn films were far more rambunctious.

Bottom Line (I Promise): It’s no Oscar-winner, and I’ll probably feel appalled some time in the future that I gave this movie such a good rating, but I was legitimately entertained by Warm Bodies, a short, cute movie lacking grandiose ambition but perfect for an engaging time at the movies.

Warm Bodies (2013)

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Based on the novel by Isaac Marion

Rated PG-13

Length: 97 minutes

DJANGO UNCHAINED

Django Unchained (2012)
Grade: B-
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington

Premise: A bounty hunter frees a slave to help him find a trio of wanted criminals, and after completing the mission agrees to help the slave find his long-lost wife.

Rated R for Strong bloody violence and gore, strong language (including multiple racial slurs), intense emotional content, brief graphic nudity, and a few torture-related images

            My problem with Quentin Tarantino’s movies is not that they’re violent. As a red-blooded, American male movie fan, I’m always up for some butt-kicking, shoot-em-up Action Jackson stuff. It’s not even that the man’s movies are different with a capital D—on the contrary, it’s nice to see movies that don’t take themselves too seriously, that are unique and cheeky stabs at different genres, brimming with quirky dialogue and surprising plot twists that make your typical horror movies, romantic comedies and inspiring true story movies seem all the more bland and perfunctory. No, my problem with Tarantino’s movies can be summarized in one word: excess. I’ve seen five of his films—1994’s Pulp Fiction, 2003’s Kill Bill: Volume 1, 2004’s Volume 2, 2009’s Inglorious Basterds, and now Django Unchained, which came out on Christmas Day of last year—and all of them were at least two hours long (Pulp, Django and Basterds all exceeded two-and-a-half), and all of them could have been shortened by at least twenty minutes. All were stuffed to the brim with sly jokes, cutting sarcasm, ringing irony and intersecting plotlines, the likes of which you wouldn’t see anywhere else. And all of them overuse (and I do mean OVER. USE.) violence to the point of absurdity, to the point of drawing perverse giggles from the audience. There’s no denying the man is a craftsman, that his movies are truly unique and interesting, that actors trip over themselves to get into his films and then come back for second and third tastes—Tarantino’s movies are always events. But, after sitting through the two-hour-forty-five minute Django Unchained, I’m impressed but weary. Too much of a good thing, you might say.

Plot

One frigid night in Texas, circa 1858, a pair of armed men leading a troupe of chained slaves is stopped by a traveling dentist, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2009 for his multilingual role in Basterds), who’s hunting a trio of miscreant cowboys who have a bounty on their heads. When Schultz determines that one of the chained slaves, Django (Jamie Foxx), knows the men he’s seeking and could recognize them by sight, he offers to buy him. When the slave traders refuse, he kills them, unlocks all the slaves, and takes Django with him. A bounty hunter, Schultz takes Django deep into the plantation lands of the south, where they not only find and collect the reward on the men in question—the ‘Brittle brothers’—but also bond when Django admits his real driving goal is finding his wife, beautiful fellow slave Bromhilda (Kerry Washington). When Schultz agrees to help Django find her, they set out, and because she not only derives her name from an old German legend but also speaks fluent German, she actually proves trackable. But it turns out Bromhilda is the property of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a brutal, pompous eccentric who rules a sprawling old family plantation, Candieland. And of course, he has no intention of selling any of his slaves, let alone one unique enough to speak German. Their quest ultimately becomes a match of wits and a race against time as they try to find a way to nonchalantly buy Bromhilda from Candie before Calvin’s head servant (Samuel L. Jackson) finds out why they’re trying to trick his master, and before local unrest over the sight of a well-dressed black man on a horse explodes.

What Works?

Whatever their flaws, Tarantino movies always come equipped with a high entertainment factor, courtesy of rollicking soundtracks, absurd comic situations, show-stopping sight gags, crackling suspense, and a steady undercurrent of knowing, winking humor. Django also contains some attractive visuals (sprawling plantations, snowy mountain-scapes).

But, of course, it’s the characters that always make Tarantino movies memorable, and Django is no different in that regard. As the title character, Jamie Foxx gives his best performnace since his Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles in 2004’s Ray; always aware he’s a black man in a white man’s world, Django oozes rage and hurt—there’s a spectacular scene where Django interrupts the whipping of a young slave girl and whips the daylights out of the white man who was inflicting the punishment. Foxx’s face and body light up with the anger and drama of the moment. And as his object of utmost desire, Ray costar Kerry Washington has a small role but nonetheless wins the audience’s sympathy and care; we want to see her freed and reunited with Django.

Already an Oscar winner thanks to his previous collaboration with Tarantino, Christoph Waltz has snagged this film’s lone acting nomination for this year in the Best Supporting Actor category (he won the Golden Globe already, as well). And while I will say no one can deliver a line in the English language with more panache and delightful I’m-smarter-than-you-and-I-know-it nuance, his being nominated over his other costars is a big surprise, and something of a disappointment. That’s not to fault the ever-watchable Waltz, but it’s because the film’s middle segment is completely stolen by Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. A Golden Globe nominee, the always-admirable DiCaprio is firing on all cylinders scene as Calvin, putting his knack for accents, intensity, and explosive, raging, screaming drama at the fore of his portrayal, which is a stunning and instantly-memorable scene-stealer. The actor will always be associated with Titanic because of that film’s groundbreaking box office and pop culture success, but here, even more than in his twin coming-into-his-own 2006 leading roles (in The Departed and Blood Diamond), DiCaprio shows that you don’t have to be defined by one role, even one in a superduper megahit. It’s not easy to connect the sadistic, frothing-at-the-mouth Calvin with the fresh-faced dreamboat artist of Titanic (Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games actors hoping to have careers free of typecasting, take note). Speaking of actors connected to one role, Django Unchained may be the first movie Samuel L. Jackson has made since Pulp Fiction in which he’s not lampooning his classic Jules Winfield role. Though he does his share of yelling and cursing (which is what we all expect from Jackson), the actor’s hunched posture and sarcastic-servant-mumblings actually took me back to Hattie McDaniel’s Mammy from Gone With the Wind—I guess we’re not used to seeing the intense, loud-mouthed actor in a submissive servant role, but he puts his whole heart into it. Jackson actually steals a few scenes in his own right, with a performance that is both intimidating in its own way, but also, at times, a laugh riot.

Thus, I feel cheated by the Oscars. I can't believe DiCaprio got missed for such a wowzer of a performance, but either he or Jackson would have made a much more interesting nominee than Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Alan Arkin (Argo) or Robert DeNiro (Silver Linings Playbook) all of whom felt to me as though they were essentially playing themselevs.

What Doesn’t Work?

First of all, Django is long, and it feels long. I believe they could have cut a good forty-five minutes out of this film and made a perfectly-entertaining two-hour movie. I especially believe this because the last thirty minutes are just a shoot-em-up bloodfest, just as the last acts of Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds were. I quickly became overwhelmed and annoyed by the sheer amount of blood spraying and splattering, and by the amount of people being killed (especially when some of them—particularly the cold-blooded shooting of a white female character—are played for laughs). And also, while Tarantino’s humorous touches are often funny, a few scenes are dragged out so long they just feel like desperate gimmicks, particularly a narrative-stopping scene involving a Jonah Hill cameo and a Ku Klux Klan gathering.

Though I appreciate the type of knowing wit that fills Waltz’s lines, I do wish this film was done just a little more seriously.

Content

It’s Tarantino. Dozens of people get shot in the head, chest, legs, and crotch in bloody shootouts, a man gets ripped apart by dogs, people get whipped and beaten, and people bludgeon each other in a sickening, bare-flesh to-the-death wrestling match. There’s a fair amount of cussing (Samuel L. Jackson is in this movie, remember), but it’s the shocking, desensitizing gore that you’ll remember.

Bottom Line (I Promise):

It’s Tarantino. You’ll see things you’ve never seen, and you’ll hear things you’ve never heard. Django is entertaining, and driven by some bravura performances, but it can be a little too much.

Django Unchained (2012)
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Rated R
Length: 165 minutes

OSCAR NOMINATION REACTIONS, PART 2

A Nine-Year Old, I Dreamed A Dream, And A Whole Host Of Winners: Thoughts on the 2012 Academy Award Nominations (Part 2)

BEST ACTRESS

The nominees: Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), Quveznhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Naomi Watts (The Impossible).

-          Count ‘em, folks: this year’s Best Actress nominees range in age from 9 to 85, with stops along the way at 22, 35 and 44. Both Wallis and Riva made history, as they were, respectively, the youngest-ever and oldest-ever Best Actress nominees (and nominees, period, in Riva’s case). This was actually a very competitive year where Chastain and Lawrence were the only people even in the neighborhood of “locks”, because…

The snubs: Marion Cotillard (Rust & Bone), Helen Mirren (Hitchcock), Rachel Weisz (The Deep Blue Sea)

-          You know it’s a tough year when the Academy leaves three former winners out in the cold. Again, they already have their trophies, so how angry can they be? Still, many doubted two actresses from foreign-made films would get nominated (that’s Wallis and Riva, I remind you). And Naomi Watts got really lucky that The Impossible started hitting theaters last week.

The Favorite?

Umm…I’m going to say Jennifer Lawrence, even though Jessica Chastain just beat her for the Critics’ Choice Award. In three years, Lawrence has rocketed to the top of the A-list (here is a big opportunity for the Academy to seem cool and hip by awarding someone popular and recognizable, and having a legitimate case for doing it). She got nominated for Best Actress at 20 for Winter’s Bone, making her one of the youngest Best Actress nominees ever (okay, so, we all know Quveznhane Wallis is smirking at that, but still). Then she grabbed the plumb role of the young Raven/Mystique in the X-Men reboot, which was a big hit, then she grabbed the even plumber role of the lead in the movie adaptations of the crazy-popular Hunger Games books. The first film, released this past March, was a mega hit that has, to date, won her an MTV Movie Award and a People’s Choice Award and bagged $400-plus-million domestically. Then she got rave review after rave review for her performance as a confused, lonely, “different” widow in Silver Linings Playbook. And, incredibly, she’s already had to refocus her attention because she’s been in Hawaii filming the next Hunger Games. And soon she’ll be filming the next X-Men. But for the record, she was very good in Silver Linings—she lucked into a very multifaceted role in which she got to cry, dance, yell and make a public scene, cuss people out, swoon, and, best and most amazing of all, out-argue Robert DeNiro.  

Upset Potential?

A lot, because Jessica Chastain just won the Critics’ Choice Award. And there’s no chance for an earlier comparison because, at the Golden Globes (winners announced this Sunday night), Chastain is nominated in the Drama category while Lawrence is in the Musical/Comedy group. Anyway, Chastain got great reviews in the sort of role (a CIA intel expert hunting Osama Bin Laden) that women rarely get. I wasn’t blown away by her performance in Zero Dark Thirty, but she, too, is a very well-respected and obviously-talented actress (who, by the way, has been in a ton of movies in the past few years, and got nominated just last year for her role in The Help). I can’t speak to the other nominees much because I haven’t seen those movies, but I do know that Meryl Streep upset in this category last year when her performance was the main reason her movie, The Iron Lady, was even thought about come Oscar time (kind of like Naomi Watts and The Impossible). And the Academy loves to bring on the emotion by awarding old actors who thought they’d never have a shot (like Riva; Christopher Plummer, Jessica Tandy, Alan Arkin and Helen Mirren are among the gray hairs who’ve won overdue Oscars in recent years).  Plus, Amour got great reviews, and Riva’s performance is one of the big reasons why. And that’s not to mention, the last time there was a big spoiler in this category (2007, when Marion Cotillard shocked Julie Christie and the rest of us), it was by an actress in a French-made and French-speaking film, which Amour is. Oh, and finally, I’m just going to go out on a limb and say the nomination’s the honor for the 9-year-old Wallis, no matter how cute it would be to see her on the podium.

Will Win: I really want to say Jennifer Lawrence with certainty, but I can’t. But if the award goes to someone other than her or Jessica Chastain, it would be a surprise.

Should Win: Again, I haven’t seen The Impossible, Amour, or Beasts of the Southern Wild, but I’m going to say Lawrence. She worked hard and completely stole the show in Silver Linings Playbook. (I also can’t help feeling that she’s not a super talented actress, and that Silver Linings made great use of her strengths and may be her best opportunity to win an Oscar)

Should Have Been Nominated: I don’t really have an opinion on this because I didn’t see any of the also-rans I mentioned, but Helen Mirren’s been hitting home run after home run lately, so I’m sure she was great playing Hitchcock’s wife.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

The nominees: Alan Arkin (Argo), Robert DeNiro (Silver Linings Playbook), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

-          This was the easiest category to predict, because four of these guys have been penciled in for months, and it was who, not if, for the major players in Django Unchained. With Waltz winning that contest, we here have a category in which all five nominees are previous Oscar winners. That’s right: all five.

The snubs: Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained), Samuel L. Jackson (Django Unchained), Javier Bardem (Skyfall), Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being A Wallflower)

-          Again, it was pretty much guaranteed someone from Django Unchained was going to get nominated, given Tarantino’s penchant for creating crackling dialogue, explosive encounters and memorable personalities. Waltz’s beating the respected DiCaprio isn’t a huge surprise, but I had started to hear a lot of buzz for Jackson recently. Bardem and Miller—though I wish it were otherwise—were never more than extremely long shots.

The Favorite?

There is none. Not that I know of, anyway. Four of them were always going to be nominated, and the fifth is hardly a surprise. But there is a wide range in the importance of the performance to the respective film. Hoffman was practically a co-lead in The Master, and, from what I hear, the same is true of Waltz in Django. On the other hand, Alan Arkin probably had fifteen minutes of screen time in Argo, and Jones had two memorable but short scenes in Lincoln. DeNiro, the third-billed actor in Silver Linings, was right in the middle. So, who could it be? It’s been the longest since DeNiro won (he won his second Oscar in 1980; Jones won in ’92, Hoffman in ’05, Arkin in ’06 and Waltz in ’09), but that doesn’t mean much. I have a hard time picturing DeNiro winning, though (unless—once again—the unlikely happens and Silver Linings Playbook buzzsaws through the major categories). But I would say Philip Seymour Hoffman gave the strongest of the performances I saw. He put his knack for seeming like the smartest person in the room, his knack for looking and sounding in control, and his split-second explosive temper all side by side in a truly dynamic performance.

Upset Potential

A lot, I guess, since there’s no real favorite. We’ll probably know more after the Golden Globes, for which DeNiro did not get nominated and Waltz’s co-star DiCaprio joined the others (whoa, what if DiCaprio wins the Globe; that won’t help Oscar forecasts at all!). It’s a real tossup. But I just have to say, though I’m a fan of Tommy Lee Jones, his performance was so small on the canvas of Lincoln that I’d be a little irked if he snagged it and beat out the likes of Hoffman.

Will Win: No idea. We’ll know more after Sunday night.

Should Win: Philip Seymour Hoffman. Even though I wasn’t a big fan of The Master, his terrific performance reminded me what a great actor he is.

Should Have Been Nominated: I loved both Javier Bardem and Ezra Miller, who gave scene-stealing performances in Skyfall and Perks of Being A Wallflower, respectively. If it were up to me, I’d replace Arkin and Jones with these two. But it doesn't matter.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

The nominees: Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Helen Hunt (The Sessions), Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

-          Jacki Weaver’s a big surprise; though she was nominated in this category two years ago, she didn’t get a lot of advance buzz for Silver Linings, probably because there were three other actors (Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro) in her movie receiving more attention. Otherwise, it’s a strong and nostalgic group, with Sally Field getting her first nomination in 20-something years and Hunt getting her first since winning Best Actress in 1997. Hathaway’s been the lead buzz-getter for Les Mis. And as for Adams, well, I know she’s an Oscar favorite, having been nominated three other times, but her role was small and the most memorable thing I can remember her doing was reading a porno aloud (something even Joaquin Phoenix’s perverted alcoholic didn’t like).

The snubs: Maggie Smith (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Nicole Kidman (The Paperboy)

-          While Adams, Field and Hathaway were locks and Hunt was close, Weaver’s spot was figured to be up for grabs between this pair of former winners, who got standout recognition for movies that otherwise got fairly mixed reviews.

The Favorite?

Lincoln was so popular and well-reviewed, and two-time Best Actress winner Sally Field is so well-liked, that she might have been the favorite in another year for her fiery performance as Honest Abe’s legendarily off-kilter first lady. But Anne Hathaway is the favorite here, especially since Les Mis has opened and gotten great word of mouth. While she’s pretty much only in the movie’s first half hour, her role as a poor, suffering woman who loses everything (even a tooth and the majority of her hair), is forced to serve as a prostitute for money, and then sings the emotional showstopper “I Dreamed A Dream”, has made her the clear front-runner. Her big tear-jerking one-take delivery of “Dream” is one of the movie scenes from this year that everyone is talking about.

Upset Potential?

It’s hard to say who is a bigger lock, Hathaway here or Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor. If the sky falls, though, could the winner be Adams, who has been nominated three times but has yet to catch a break?

Will Win: Anne Hathaway.

Should Win: I’m not going to argue. “I Dreamed A Dream” was amazing, and people have won this award on less.

Should Have Been Nominated: It would have been nice to see another beloved, former winner (Maggie Smith) nominated, but this is a solid group.