No Thief Like a Bad Movie

This is a collection of movie reviews, impressions, articles and conversations about film. Like movies themselves, it is not meant to be taken seriously. Individual reviews are starred on a five-star system and may be tagged either as full-review (article length), mini-review (one or two paragraphs) or star-review (no or very little accompanying text). Any article without one of these three tags is not a review but a discussion or blog post related to movies. As for me, my name is Paul Hamilton. I do stuff on the Internet. You can read my main, miscellaneous Tumblr blog or my author website. You can also find me on Twitter; Goodreads; or Last.fm.

[nothieflike]

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 (2023)

★★★★☆

Written and Directed by: James Gunn

Based on the Comic Book series by: Marvel Comics (Arnold Drake and Gene Colan)

The last film I reviewed for this blog before I sort of let it peter out was 2012's The Avengers. Obviously a lot of Marvel Cinematic Universe... er, stuff occurred in the intervening years. All three Spider-Man movies, for one thing, but also any mention of Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, even the Infinity Stones. Heck, the first glimpse of Thanos came during the mid-credits bonus scene at the end of The Avengers. And, of course, in between that review and this one, we got two Guardians of the Galaxy films.

I won't get into my thoughts on those two previous films except to say that I understand why these films have been so frequently emulated in the years since the release of the first one. It's a formula for an ensemble movie where the characters are (probably) not known ahead of time, but by the end there is enough work put in to make the audience genuinely care. So with James Gunn apparently signing off from the MCU to take the reigns on a new chapter of DC films, Vol. 3 exists here in a space where the MCU has floundered a bit (or a lot, depending on your point of view) since the conclusion of The Infinity Saga and we see what Gunn's Guardians franchise is going to do to right the ship.

The answer, it turns out, is: nothing. Guardians Vol. 3 does not make any effort to "fix" The Multiverse Saga, Phase 4, or the MCU. Well, except in one specific way: Vol. 3 returns to a strategy that served the MCU extremely well in earlier eras which is that it sets out to make a solid action/adventure film first and leaves all the inter-connected broader universe stuff either to the backstories, the post-credits scenes, or just other franchises/films. And it's fairly obvious that is absolutely the right move to make. Guardians has been a bit of an outlier in the MCU for some time in that they are team movies but not team-UP movies. But the fairly minor flaws of this film don't have anything to do with it feeling distant from any of the Kang/Thunderbolts/Celestials nonsense going on elsewhere. That's a feature, not a bug.

So, what holds Vol. 3 back from true greatness? Mostly it comes from a trend in the cinematic universe model that has been in place since Avengers: Endgame, and that's catering to the most indulgent excesses from the comic book arm of Marvel. See, in the early days of the MCU, Marvel Studios rightly recognized that movies based on comic books needed to do several things simultaneously: firstly, appeal to broad audiences mostly by focusing on being self-contained and well executed films in their own right but secondly, they needed to also be as unassailable as possible by the hardcore comic book nerds who constituted the very core of the movie's audience. Plenty of earlier "successful" comic adaptations (Byran Singer's X-Men films from the 90s, for example, as well as edgier adaptations like Batman Begins and 2003's Hulk) seemed quite often to be embarrassed by their brightly-colored source material. They downplayed the elements that had originally endeared some of the characters to comics fans in favor of mass appeal, often in ways that quickly dated them. Marvel Studios though decided that the thing holding super hero movies back wasn't flashy costumes or somewhat trope-y, goofy fantastic elements but rather a self-seriousness that sucked the inherent fun out of escapism. And, ultimately, they were right.

Very, very right. The problem though? They were almost too right. For about ten years Marvel Studios stuck to a particular formula for making their movies fun and approachable and true enough to their funnybook roots that they avoided hardcore nerd outcry while gaining huge amounts of new fans who maybe otherwise had little to no use for comics themselves. But no one can keep a streak like that up forever. So what happened?

My theory is that Endgame happened. And it didn't just happen, it was (and still is as of this writing) the biggest MCU film in terms of box office grosses. It crushed. Looking at the overall plot of Endgame, it really did feel more like a direct adaptation from a Marvel Comics summer crossover event: time travel, alternate realities, key character deaths, the whole shebang. Up until this point Marvel Studios had been smoothing over some of the more comic-book-y elements of their storylines, running a riff on their Ultimate line where popular, foundational elements of the modern myths they traffic in were given a fresh pass under the guise of expanding the audience. But it worked so well, pleasing core comic fans with it's rootsy takes while gently easing moviegoing audiences into their world, they learned the wrong lesson.

The lesson they should have learned: don't stop doing that.

The lesson they did learn: if everyone loves every risk we take (galactic setting? portal wizards? funny Thor? yes, please!), we got so much more where that came from!

Which starts the straight line that leads us past unmentioned-afterward canon including: dueling myth-gods, literal Zeus, half-hatched god eggs, robot K.E.V.I.N (Feige), alligator Loki, and a giant popped-out eyeball in New York City. Oh and, like, Kang.

Now, to be fair, most of those things would feel a lot more at place in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie. As in, it's pretty weird they aren't the excesses Vol. 3 is guilty of. Rather, Vol. 3 reaches into the vault of dark, over-expository sorta-allegories straight from the fashionable grim-n-gritty late 90s era of the comics. It decides to push boundaries even beyond what a Sam Raimi MCU film felt inclined to push. And it does it all while daring to have a happy ending.

Vol. 3 picks up somewhere after the events of the Disney+ Holiday Special, which is (I believe) where we learned the Guardians had inducted Kraglin and Cosmo the dog and set up shop over in Knowhere with a bunch of... friends? Locals? Refugees? It's not clear. What is clear is that Guardians' leader Peter "Star-Lord" Quill (played with an unexpected complexity by Chris Pratt) is still struggling with the loss of the teammate Gamora (played here with as much nuance as possible by Zoe Saldana given the disservice the script pays her) he'd fallen in love with, particularly in light of the fact that a version of her lives on somewhere out in the universe, at best hostile toward him and at worst indifferent. A gold-skinned guy arrives, wreaking havoc, seeming fixated on Rocket (voiced with a lot less wise-cracking than usual by Bradley Cooper) and manages to mortally wound the mutated raccoon. When they try to heal him, they discover Rocket's creator put a kill switch into him and if they try to operate without removing it, he'll die.

This sends the Guardians on a desperate quest to find a way to save Rocket by digging into the past of his creator, a being who calls himself the High Evolutionary (played with a vulnerable gravitas by Chukwudi Iwuji). As the team crosses paths with Gamora and the Ravager faction she's been running with for the inevitable awkward reunion between her and Star-Lord, the film then begins cutting back and forth to the time when Rocket, well, became Rocket.

It's here that the film makes a choice to swerve hard into the pitch black in tone and visual aesthetic. The scenes of Rocket's creation and the introduction of his fellow discarded experiments are harrowing, ghastly things that might as well flash a bright yellow, all-caps title card: "ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION IS ANIMAL CRUELTY!" Or maybe just, "HURTING ANIMALS IS EVIL!" It's a lot, in all honesty and I was very glad I pre-screened this before taking my kids to see it.

Eventually the Guardians track down the High Evolutionary on a planet called Counter-Earth, which he created as part of his quest to fabricate a perfect utopian society. Here, again with the dark, we get essentially a genocide that occurs without much more than a passing mention by the main characters. And, y'know, narratively it mostly serves as a ticking clock and bit of chaos to keep the team from forming Voltron and making short work of the film's conflict before we can wring a bit more pathos out of the audiences' greater concern for a computer-animated raccoon than an entire planet of sentient and uncomfortably human-adjacent animal hybrid people.

The rest of the movie takes a few more dark swerves which really felt like the movie was setting me up for a huge gutpunch of an ending. I was thinking, fool me thrice, or whatever but I see where this is going. And then it swerves again and says, "actually no, you know what, sometimes things really suck a lot but then it turns out to be some flavor of all right." And it sorta turned out I was right because while I was waiting for the inevitable slug to the breadbasket, I got a different, gentler strike and dammit if it wasn't even more effective because of it.

I know it sounds a lot like I have some pretty major gripes with the film and I did find it's brazen and ballsy approach to the MCU as a bit off-putting. Buuut... the last several tentpole MCU entries that have been trying to stick with "the formula" have been pretty off-putting as well so even if I didn't say anything else positive at all, I'd still have to give it to Vol. 3 for at least failing to stick the landing in a novel fashion. And I genuinely do have a lot of positive things to say about this movie. The dynamic between the characters is loose and feels lived in, no matter what configuration is on screen at the time. I'd go so far as to say the acting is all best in Cinematic Universe for these characters. Not only do Pratt and Saldana do a fantastic job with adding new layers to their performances that carry the backstory in a way that means they have to do only minimal "as-you-know-bob"ing to sell their scenes. Unsung heroes abound as well from Pom Klementieff's smooth portrayal of a woman growing into an affinity for compassionate leadership to Karen Gillan's deft and subtle arc of "How Nebula Got Her Groove Back." Even Cooper manages to deliver a stellar vocal performance, really dragging the audience that extra few feet across the finish line to genuine concern for... well, for a computer-animated raccoon.

The stakes are smaller than expected but the satisfaction of the resolution is so rewarding it feels like it's been a bigger journey than even saving the universe with a dance contest. The soundtrack adds the same kind of welcome texture to scenes as ever, the visual effects are great, and though there are fewer jokes than earlier entries, when they do come they mostly all work. I could cite a few more minor bits of both nitpicking (Groot's regeneration ability seems very ill-defined and at this point amounts to "it's just whatever we need it to be for the current scene") and complimentary (the way they handle the lampshading on Groot's signature dialogue is super satisfying and wonderfully subtle), but I think I can summarize it all with this: it's not perfect, but it kind of feels like exactly what we needed right now. And if that doesn't summarize the Guardians of the Galaxy, I don't know what does.

I recommend Vol. 3, with the minor warning that it has some squirmy, uncomfortable scenes and subject matter. If you have some younger kids who have enjoyed previous Marvel films or if you're a squeamish type who generally finds nothing distasteful about these films, tread carefully because this one takes even some of the shocking moments from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and more or less says, "hold my beer." But if you can stomach it, it's one of the best Marvel features in a long time and well worth the wait.

[nothieflike]

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (2023)

★★★★☆

Written and Directed by: Kelly Fremon Craig

Based on the Novel by: Judy Blume

I definitely read the book by Judy Blume back when I was a kid, probably around 1986 or so. Unlike other books by Blume that seemed to speak a little more directly to me (the Fudge series in particular) which I read multiple times, I only read Are You There the one time so it never quite embedded itself into my subconscious the way other books did. Which is all to say that I went into this movie knowing I'd read the source material but not sure how much of it I really remembered.

Having now seen the movie, I can say with authority that this is not the kind of review where I have any business bothering to compare and contrast the original to this adaptation. Certain bits like the chest-growing exercise mantra ("I must—I must—I must increase my bust!") were familiar and I did recall there being a lot of discussion about the main characters' first periods and other puberty-related milestones which is reflected in the screenplay. But, for example, I didn't recall the book having religion as such a core factor in the overall plot though a quick scan of the Wikipedia entry for the book indicates it was central to the novel as well.

So I can't say whether or not this film is particularly faithful to the source, but I can talk about how the movie plays as just a regular coming-of-age story set in 1970 New Jersey made in 2023. And from that perspective there is a lot of great stuff to talk about. One comparison I am comfortable making is that this feels a lot like Pixar's Turning Red from last year. In fact, I'd be shocked if Are You There God (the novel) wasn't a huge inspiration to the writers and producers of the animated film. Are You There God is obviously a lot more grounded and aimed at audiences a little bit older (Turning Red definitely Disney-fied the most overtly sexual elements of pubescence which Are You There definitely does not shy away from). But there are parallels between the friend groups the protagonists rely on, the meditation on the changing nature of relationships between mothers and their children as those daughters begin to grow up, and the awkwardness of youthful forays into romance and relationships.

Are You There God? It's Me Margaret tells the story of Margaret Simon (played with fearless gusto by Ant-Man alum Abby Ryder Fortson), who comes home from camp the summer before sixth grade and finds out her father (played affably by Benny Safdie) has been promoted and they're moving to the New Jersey suburbs before the start of school. Margaret's dad is Jewish and her mother, Barbara (Rachel McAddams, bringing an earnest but lived-in energy to the role), is a lapsed Christian whose parents ostracized her when she chose to marry a Jewish man. They've chosen to raise Margaret without a formal religion and are allowing her to choose when she's older. As such, Margaret has forged a unique relationship with God, where she has casual prayer-conversations that serve as sort of a verbal diary.

Immediately after moving into the new place, Margaret is introduced to a neighbor girl her same age, Nancy Wheeler (played with complicated mean girl perfection by Elle Graham). Nancy inducts Margaret into her tight-knit circle and they begin a club in which they talk candidly about their crushes, the size of their bras, and the status of their first periods. A lot of the second act of the film is comprised of a series of loose vignettes where Margaret and her friends try to buy sanitary napkins for the first time to practice with, or prepare for an awkward birthday party where the class plays spin-the-bottle type kissing games. Margaret visits her paternal grandmother (portrayed with force-of-nature aplomb by Kathy Bates) back in New York and asks to accompany her to Temple. She joins one her friends at a raucous southern baptist service, noting afterward that she isn't sure she feels closer to God as a result, but she sure enjoyed her time. She learns about her maternal grandparents and why she's never met them, and struggles with jealousy and mistrust among her close friends.

Eventually Barbara stumbles into a partial reconciliation with her parents, leading to a tense scene where her parents and grandparents share an uncomfortable meal together before the religion issue rears its head and forces Margaret to question whether there is value in religion at all. In the end, she adapts as best she can and the film ends on a positive note where it's clear not all of Margaret's problems are completely solved, but she's in a better space and looking forward to middle school.

The film is sweet, funny, and utterly charming. The cast is great all around and McAddams in particular does some excellent work elevating a role that could easily have been buried in the editing room but works to provide a wonderful counter-weight to Margaret's tale as it highlights they way uncertainty and indecision can have repercussions long after adolescence is through. There is one scene in particular where Margaret is asking about the grandparents she's never met. Barbara is trying to calmly and dispassionately relate the high-level version of events but it's obvious the wound she thought was so old and unserious is far more painful and present-tense than she expects. She casually swipes the tears away, tries to change the subject and downplay the impact her parent's intolerance has had. But as Margaret grows incensed on her behalf, you can see Barbara's pain begin to overwhelm her even as she's touched by her daughter's indignant rebuke of people she's never even met. It's such a real-feeling, dynamic bit of screenwriting, directing and acting.

Even bit players like Isol Young (as early bloomer and source of savage envy from Margaret and Nancy, Laura Danker), and Kate MacCluggage (as future blueprint for Nancy, Jan Wheeler) bring a little something extra to their roles. Director Kelly Fremon Craig wrings every bit of sincerity and warmth from the film's modest hour and forty-five minutes.

The complaints I have about the film are sparse and relatively minor. A few of the more emotionally intense scenes feel a little choppy (which may be the director/editor working around some young or inexperienced performances), a handful of plot threads seem a little under explored (Margaret's crush on someone other than the class stud causes her to break her own "no lying" rule but this isn't remarked upon, even when Nancy's own lies cause a rift between Margaret and Nancy, as one example). I also wondered if the old-fashioned feel of the movie (in terms of filmmaking, pacing, and direction, not setting) might make age-appropriate middle school audiences a bit restless. I suspect this film plays best for adult audiences—particularly those who grew up in the 70s and 80s pre-Internet/mobile phones—for whom I suspect this will be ridiculously nostalgic even if they hadn't read the book. But none of it sours what is otherwise a fantastic bit of filmmaking.

In the end I recommend this movie. It's exquisitely crafted and wonderfully entertaining for most audiences, though younger viewers may find the laughs a bit too spaced out and the prominence of the adult characters a bit perplexing for a movie about kids trying to grow up. But I suspect that even though I can't remember it well enough to do a thorough comparison, if you or your kid enjoyed the book, you'll have a great time with the movie as well.

[nothieflike]

The Covenant (2023)

★★☆☆☆

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Written by: Ivan Atkinson, Marn Davies, and Guy Ritchie

The Covenant has the pastiche and air of a "based on the true story" war film, although it is an original story that dramatizes some legitimate issues faced by Afghans who served as interpreters for the US military during the two-decade long war in Afghanistan. The plot follows Sergeant John Kinley (played a bit unevenly by Jake Gyllenhaal) and his squad of soldiers as they fruitlessly search for locations where the Taliban may be manufacturing or storing explosive devices. When their interpreter is killed in a bomb attack (that's not a spoiler, it happens in the first five minutes of the film), Kinley's squad is assigned a replacement named Ahmed (Dar Salim in a standout, potentially star-making performance).

With Ahmed's help and some unconventional tactics, Kinley and his squad close in on a legitimate IED factory. But when they arrive, one of the workers notifies the local Taliban leaders of the Americans' presence and discovery of their stash. As the Taliban close in, Kinley's squad is picked apart and Kinley and Ahmed are separated from everyone, ultimately forced to flee on foot. What follows is a very protracted chase sequence culminating in Kinley being seriously wounded. Ahmed bandages the sergeant up and starts off to drag, carry, and care for Kinley across over 100 kilometers of Taliban-controlled territory.

Eventually Ahmed is successful in saving Kinley, who wakes up weeks later in the hospital. Once back home in the States, Kinley is haunted by grief and remorse once he learns that Ahmed has been forced into hiding for his actions, becoming something of an anti-Taliban folk hero. The third act of the movie is then an extended rescue mission where Kinley returns to Afghanistan in an attempt to locate and extract Ahmed and his family to the US.

It's sort of an interesting structure for this particular story. I think a lot of screenwriters (or perhaps editors) would typically focus on a more protracted third act and either deal with Ahmed's perilous journey in flashbacks or intersperse it throughout Kinley's rescue mission. Here, though, the events are depicted linearly which puts the bulk of the film's runtime on the second act. It's a pretty great second act, to be sure, full of high stakes escapes, and a truly exhausting level of heightened tension. This is where Dar Salim truly shines and his character is displayed through a handful of dialogue-free actions and pivotal decision points.

The bridge between this sequence and Kinley's decision to return to try and save Ahmed is where the film broke down for me. Gyllenhaal's wooden stoicism from the first act is replaced by a see-saw between extra wooden and over-the-top ham as he rages against the system dragging their feet about securing Ahmed's immigration visa. I get that he was going for a PTSD effect and perhaps the editors did him no favors, but it just didn't work for me. There are a few other odd choices in this section as well: Johnny Lee Miller's Colonel Vokes is hinted at having a deeper backstory connection with Kinley than was previously indicated, Alexander Ludwig's strangely menacing turn as Sergeant Declan O'Brady takes a momentarily prominent role, and poor Emily Beecham as Kinley's wife Caroline puts up a valiant struggle to adopt a convincing American accent in the one single monologue of substance she gets, but ultimately the writing and her accent torpedo the scene. Ultimately it culminates in a tedious subplot where Kinley tries to hire and then convince a private military contractor (played beardily and pointlessly by Antony Starr) to honor a deal, which of course fails, leading Kinley to believe he has to go in to save Ahmed and his family all by himself. (For some inexplicable reason this turns out to all be a big misunderstanding, which doesn’t matter in the least except that to me it kind of neatly encapsulated how roughshod and arbitrary the whole screenplay feels.)

All of which amounts to a dull interlude leading up to the very abbreviated-feeling escape scene that merely sets up a deus ex machina moment which might be the most unsatisfying denoument in recent memory.

In the end, then, the film is quite a mixed bag. Ritchie is great at blocking complex pursuit and combat scenes, and he knows how to create an atmosphere of tension without much dialogue. The cinematography is generally excellent, too, which is probably why the firefight-into-Kinley-and-Ahmed-escape is the best sequence of the whole film, even if narratively it should have been either the entire movie or edited into the rescue scenes instead. There are too many characters introduced in the beginning who end up getting basically zero development other than some colorful nicknames; there is too much clumsiness in the non-action scenes both in terms of acting and directing; and the whole thing feels like the producers were trying to treat real-life characters and circumstances with an appropriate level of gravitas and sincerity that a wholly fictional story doesn't require.

More so than anything else though the film feels like what it really needed was some kind of purpose, a point of view, some kind of message or position to take. It doesn't really have much to say about the US's war in Afghanistan in general, and barely has enough of an opinion about the treatment of Afghan interpreters serving the US military and their treatment both by the US and by the Taliban outside a small title card at the end of the film. It doesn't attempt to illuminate a broader topic or even make any commentary on this conflict and seems content to assume everyone watching it will view the Taliban as generically evil and the US military as generically noble.

Despite some promising elements, I can't fully recommend The Covenant. It doesn't work as a popcorn flick because it's a bit too self-serious and hampers itself with an awkward structure. And it can't even claim to try to be a thoughtful meditation on self-sacrifice, war, or the plight of the average citizens of a war-torn country as it never bothers to take a stance on much of anything. What's left are some slickly produced but disjointed action scenes, one great performance, and a lot of close-but-not-quite work by everyone else. Catch it on streaming services in a month if you have nothing better to watch, but it's not worth making a special effort to see in theaters.

[nothieflike]

Air (2023)

★★★☆☆

Directed by: Ben Affleck

Written by: Alex Convery

Based on: Actual events

Perhaps not surprisingly, the film this brought to mind most by way of comparison was another Ben Affleck-directed inspired-by-true-evenets movie, 2012's Argo. Both are slickly produced period pieces telling stories whose outcomes are already well established (or at least easily inferred). The trick of both movies is that in Affleck's able directorial hands, there is a genuine air of tension and suspense. Argo covers the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the CIA operation tasked with rescuing them. Air covers the efforts of the flagging Nike basketball shoe division in 1984 as they try to convince young Michael Jordan to sign a shoe deal with them despite his preference for Adidas. In Argo, we know the hostages will be rescued so the operation will succeed. In Air, we know the Jordans will make the deal, and yet somehow the pre-determined outcome doesn't feel foregone while watching either.

The story follows Sonny Vacarro (played portly but exquisitely by Matt Damon), who is Nike's in-house basketball ambassador. The Nike basketball division in these years is getting clobbered by Converse and Adidas and Nike's board of directors is pressuring CEO Phil Knight (played as mystifyingly complex by Ben Affleck) to focus more on their bread-and-butter business: running shoes.

Marketing Exec Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman playing Michael Bluth again only without the convenient scapegoat of, well, the rest of the Bluths) is content to stick to their old losing strategy of picking up sponsorships for a few third tier players but Sonny wants to make a hail mary run at getting projected third round pick in the draft, Michael Jordan, by eschewing the diversification angle and blowing their whole budget on the one player.

The biggest obstacle to this is that Jordan has publicly and definitively stated he has no interest in working with Nike. Sonny then spends the first half of the movie slowly convincing everyone around him, Strasser, then Knight, that the plan has merit. The second half of the movie focuses on the dance between Sonny and Michael's mother, Deloris (played with room-shattering gravitas by Viola Davis) to give Nike a fair shake. The uphill climb and Sonny's shifting, ballsy strategies to overcome each hurdle are what make the movie really shine and the scenes with Damon and Davis are electric.

Some of the details of the creation of the iconic first edition Air Jordan are featured as well including a memorable performance by Matthew Maher as in-house shoe designer Peter Moore. Chris Messina also turns in a fun, over-the-top turn as Jordan's agent, David Falk. The one somewhat mystifying inclusion in the cast is Chris Tucker as Howard White. Tucker is... fine, doing more or less his usual hyper-verbal Chris Tucker thing, but the character brings very little to the overall narrative. Marlon Wayans's brief appearance as George Raveling is more impactful to the story and feels like the kind of character that would have been merged with White in a cleaner version of the script, but I understand one of real-life Michael Jordan's stipulations to Affleck was that White (a friend of Jordan) be included as a character in the film. I guess that makes Tucker's presence a necessary mistake?

The acting is universally excellent and the script and direction work in tandem to set just the right pace to give the story room to breathe while not bogging down with unnecessary side plots or belaboring the point. Like Argo, this isn't a flashy film that will make you want to rush out to see it again or even stick with you for a long time afterward, but it's got a lot going for it. That said, a couple of minor details did irk me a little. The way Michael Jordan himself is handled in the film is a bit peculiar; he's present in the film but fleetingly and Affleck goes a long way out of his way to keep the stand-in actor's face hidden from view and he says maybe two lines. I get that de-aging or deepfake style CGI (such as with the Luke Skywalker scenes in The Mandalorian) was probably out of scope for the project, but I think I'd have preferred to just let the actor be seen. The other small gripe is there is a framing device using what I presume are some of Phil Knight's zen koan-esque business strategies as title cards. I don't know much about the real life Phil Knight but the film portrays him a bit unevenly, making him out to be both a bit of a maverick-guru as well as kind of a dippy hack. It wasn't clear if I was meant to see the title cards as sage advice responsible for the unbridled success of Nike the company or if my initial eye-rolling reaction to them was in fact correct. Either way, it was a small directorial or editorial decision that I thought added very little to the end product.

I went in thinking, "Okay, it's a free movie, it only has to be worth the couple of hours" and I walked out thinking, "That was more than just worth the time, I genuinely enjoyed that." I recommend the movie, it doesn't have anything particularly revelatory to say or an edgy take on a particular moment that matters mostly to sports fans, shoe collectors, and I guess Nike fans, but it's a well crafted film that provides great entertainment value, even if it weren't free.

[nothieflike]

Is This Thing On?

It's been a spell, so let's catch up.

How was your decade? Mine was... a lot. Yours too, I imagine.

I started this blog over a dozen years ago as a place to record my thoughts on some of the movies I watched. I love movies, I watch a lot of them and I usually have some sort of commentary for them so it made a certain amount of sense. I kept it up for about a year and then got busy, then got laid off and figured I'd better focus on work and such. In any case I sort of half intended to get back to it but just never did. It goes like that with content creation sometimes (although we didn't call it that back then).

Now, years down the road, I find myself laid off again. Unlike last time, I'm not quite as hyper fixated on resuming my career in the same vein. Office environments in a post(?)-pandemic world that seems to prefer the ostrich approach to outbreak mitigation don't hold quite the same appeal, for starters. And I'm at an age where I'm ready for a new chapter.

But this isn't about my career, it's about movies. So why come back to a movie blog no one read in the first place?

Well, one thing that my family mostly lost during the lockdown and tepid re-emergence of 2020 and 2021 was theater-going. We are fortunate to have one of the few remaining drive-in theaters relatively nearby that has allowed us to enjoy a handful of family films and Marvel pictures and doesn't require sitting in poorly ventilated rooms with a lot of popcorn-stuffing mouths but like a lot of folks we spent most of the last few years streaming movies. Our family had a number of conversations during the peak lockdown period about things we missed about the pre-covid years and for me the number one with a bullet item was seeing films in theaters. Because as a largely homebody-type personality, it takes a special kind of experience to coax me out of my comfy abode. But seeing movies on big screens with dynamic sound systems and the focused, forced attention of a dark theater is just such an experience.

I loved it so much that I joined a rewards club at my local theater which came with one free movie ticket per month. I used the heck out of that perk before 2020. But then we all retreated to our caves and... I forgot about the service. It, however, did not forget about my bank account. Quietly throughout the last few years the club has been extracting its $10 monthly fee from me and cheerfully collecting a truly nutty number of free movie passes. When I finally figured out what had been going on during a budget evaluation in the face of some altered cash flow, I was shocked to note that I had almost 30 free movies.

The club has a stipulation: you can save and use the free passes as long as you... keep paying the subscription fee. I lamented the prospect of throwing away nearly a month's worth of free movies, but I was about to go through with it when I noticed they had a special option: for three months you could pause your membership which would stop the automatic payments but allow the perks to remain. After three months, I'd have to cancel and lose whatever was unused or resume paying.

So. Challenge extended? Not exactly, but I am faced with the prospect of trying to get through as many of these passes as I can in three months. My schedule currently works very well to see the first matinee on Fridays, so the plan for now is to just see whatever is showing each week. And since I'm seeing movies just to see movies, I figured I'd catalog my thoughts on them as I go along. Might as well, right?

I don't know if I'll have the free time to actually start reviewing the other random movies I catch on Netflix or Amazon Prime or whatever, but I won't rule it out entirely.

Anyway, welcome back, or just welcome. First up is "Air" (which will follow this post very shortly) and it looks like this week I'm seeing "Guy Richie's The Covenant", expect that early next week at the latest. I hope you enjoy the show.

[nothieflike]

The Avengers (2012)

★★★★☆

Directed by: Joss Whedon

Written by: Joss Whedon and Zak Penn

Based on the Comic Book Created by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

I said in my combo review for Captain America and Thor that I was ready to pull down my fanboy goggles for The Avengers after seeing what Marvel Studios was doing with their superhero movies in the last few years. I didn't know then that it would be such a literal statement. Circumstances dictated that the best showtime for my wife and I to see the film was a 3D showing.

This isn't really a review of the 3D effects in The Avengers or even 3D movies in general, but I should point out a couple of things I noticed from seeing a full 3D movie. One is that kinetic, high-movement action sequences don't look as impressive in 3D, at least not to me. Maybe my brain operates at half speed or something, but it looks very choppy and stilted to me when things move too quickly in 3D. The other is that the depth of field impression given by the 3D makes sequences of characters who aren't in close zoom appear incredibly small, such as when Iron Man flies around the city. And finally, I don't see very many points at which set pieces that weren't designed with 3D in mind should be in full 3D. Watching people stand around a table talking in 3D isn't exactly detrimental to the storytelling, but it adds zero to the equation and for that reason alone it should be taken out.

So anyway, The Avengers. In large part, the set-up here is not terribly necessary. If you've kept up with the Marvel Movie Canon, you have lots of familiar faces as Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Scarlett Johansson (Black WIdow), Gweneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts), Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) all reprise roles from earlier movies. Each plays his or her character essentially the same as they have before, so there are no real surprises. The only big newcomer is Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, standing in for Edward Norton. Honestly, I'm a fan of Norton as an actor, but I think Ruffalo is a better Bruce Banner so the singular change is welcome.

The plot involves a plan by Loki to steal the Tesseract, first seen in the original Thor film, which is a macguffin that permits the opening of a portal between an alien world and Earth. The real plot of the movie is the assembly of the Avengers team to combat Loki and the threat and the first act is largely a series of homages and personality clashes between the larger-than-life heroes that have filled whole movies themselves. I need to pause here and say that this part of the movie works, but it only does so on the strength of the script (which is, if you have any familiarity with Joss Whedon's other work, expectedly exciting and funny and cool). It is fairly clear early on that Whedon is the most comfortable when writing a select few of the characters: Agent Coulson, Tony Stark (Iron Man), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) and Steve Rodgers (Captain America), so they get the most dialogue and the best lines. Which is actually fine because from these four central characters, the others bounce witty exchanges and character or dynamic revealing exchanges off each other in a way that doesn't make them seem less important, just less assertive.

There are the requisite comic-book dream match-ups: Thor vs. Iron Man, Black Widow vs. Hulk, Captain America vs. Being A Total Square, etc. As the second act unfolds on an impressive S.H.I.E.L.D. air-carrier and a captured Loki begins to reveal his scheme, the discussions of teamwork and purpose and background fade and themes of heroism and sacrifice emerge. This is easy, familiar territory for Whedon and on this grand stage he repeats some of his favored insights in slightly different contexts such that his great talent is undeniable to the uninitiated but those who have followed along on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, etc. will nod with sage recognition.

The final action sequence is among the most spectacular I can remember, a long, exhilarating sequence of special effects that I think will stand alongside the epic scope sequences from films like Lord of the Rings (specifically The Two Towers) and 300 and The Matrix Reloaded (don't email me with 10,000 other movies that have great epic action scenes, there are a lot I know; assume that whatever your personal favorites are, this one stands alongside it). Interestingly, in these effects-heavy scenes it is the Hulk who mostly steals the show (I find once again, like in his own movie, Thor comes out seeming a little pointless and wussy) but each Avenger has at least a couple of scenes or moments to shine.

The hallmark of a good popcorn flick is one that seems to pass the time very quickly and that has you leaving the theater with a smile on your face. The Avengers did both of these admirably, and I can do little but recommend it, especially to those who have enjoyed other Marvel-based movies in recent years.

[nothieflike]

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012)

★★☆☆☆

Directed by: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath and Conrad Vernon

Written by: Eric Darnell and Noah Baumbach

Sometimes you go to a movie just for the company, just to engage in leisure with someone you like or love or enjoy company. I think this is often the case with kids: parents endure children's entertainment for the sake of seeing the delight in their offspring. I like taking my daughter to the movies because it helps confer the love of the theater experience to her, to watch as she delights in the spectacle of the darkened room, the larger-than-life screen and sound, the dedication to sustained activity. Plus, when it's done right, kid-friendly movies can be enjoyable for adults, too. I liked Tangled and Despicable Me and I often enjoy Pixar movies; everyone wins.

Of course, sometimes you have to endure stuff like Madagascar 3. The series, which I've never really thought had much to offer (I've seen snippets of the original and labored through the second), returns to wear out its continually thinning welcome with uninspired art design and a curiously talky script that has the lion, the zebra, the giraffe and the hippo (who have names, but I can't ever seem to keep them in my head, nor does it appear to matter) loose in Europe after yet another credibility-straining mishap, trying to duck a relentless French animal control officer by hiding out in a traveling circus.

The jokes are abundant but few are really funny and after awhile the "comedy" dissolves into a one-note repetition of the trailer-highlight "Circus Afro" song. Eventually the refrain is remixed with the "You Got To Move It" power dance track that so annoyingly worms its way into ears from the first two flicks, resulting a sort of unholy brain-sticking über-irritant that cannot be scrubbed clean even with hours of quality redirection in the form of Arcade Fire or Blind Pilot. Take it from someone with experience.

I think the principal issue with Madagascar 3 is that it tries to find the magic formula that Pixar has developed for blending memorable characters with touching, affirming plots and avoiding too much dip into traditional, slapstick cartoon formula. The problem is that Madagascar 3 is really only noteworthy when it trades on its Saturday Morning roots because the characters aren't memorable and the script isn't that good. Similar to the well-tread Ice Age franchise (notably also executed by Dreamworks Animation), the funniest parts are those that channel Friz Freling or Chuck Jones, not Brad Bird and John Lasseter.

Madagascar 3 isn't so bad that I felt I needed to walk out of the theater, and my daughter said she enjoyed it so it's hard to feel like it was a waste of time. Somewhere, though, in the back of my mind, is the list of movies coming out this year that I want to see and I note how ridiculously long it is and I think that no matter how many of them I see, I'll still miss a few and I'll have to review the list of theater experiences I had in 2012 and note that one or more of those is not present, while Madagascar 3 is.

[nothieflike]

One For The Money (2012)

One For The Money

★★☆☆☆

Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson

Written by: Stacy Sherman, Karen Ray and Liz Brixius

Based on the Novel by: Janet Evanovich

Up front, I need to clarify that I have read the book this movie was based on. However, I'm not what you'd call a huge fan of the series; I've read the first few and I'll probably read some more. The books are fun, not fabulous; good, not great. So unlike some other adaptations, I didn't really go into this with sky-high expectations, fearful that the filmmakers might ruin my beloved stories and characters. It felt like all they needed to do was capture a few key notes from the beach-ready books and they'd be fine.

Well, they didn't really do that. I mean, the one thing the books aren't is boring, and I found this movie to be surprising in how uninteresting it was. It sort of meanders along, missing a lot of the flavor that gives the book its heart, and then right at the end it floods the narrative with too much happening at once. Don't get me wrong, the plot of the first novel is hardly stellar to begin with, but what makes the book work that is lacking from the screenplay is the dynamic secondary characters. But where the book can devote enough time to making each of them shine, the movie feels compressed and rushed so none of the fun supporting cast is ever really given a chance to shine.

But the worst problem with the adaptation is that it gets two characters wrong who need to be right. One is part of the supporting cast, Grandma Mazur, who in the books is specifically non-judgmental of the protagonist. Here, Grandma (played with too much camera-winking by Debbie Reynolds) is sort of an uninteresting hair-tousler which basically ruins her character from the book. Even more egregious is the depiction of heroine Stephanie Plum, herself. I put a lot of the blame on Katherine Heigel, who plays Plum as this kind of smirking, gun-toting, poorly-Jersey-accented tough gal. My umbrage is that isn't how Plum is presented in the books at all. She's far less certain of herself, less casually accepting of the mayhem that unfolds around her, and it endears her to the audience. Here, Heigel's blasé Plum eyerolls her way through the caper and there's never a point at which you really feel the tension between her and Morelli (played with washboard-stomached inconsistency by Jason O'Mara) that kind of drives Evanovich's novel.

Like I said, I'm not a superfan of the book series which is why I actually had some hopes that this adaptation could streamline some of the clumsier elements in the early Evanovich novels, but instead director Robinson, who seems to have mostly worked in TV prior to this, amps up the pace to an attention-deficit level that the script can't keep up with and leaves the actors untethered to create shadows of what they ought to be.

I'm actually a little surprised I didn't hear more outrage about this film. I know the books are well-loved by a lot of people and as I watched I couldn't help thinking that I'm just glad they didn't do this sort of disservice to a book I actually liked a whole lot, such as The Hunger Games. Best to skip this one and read the book instead.

[nothieflike]

City Hall (1996)

City Hall

★★★★☆

Directed by: Harold Becker

Written by: Ken Lipper, Paul Schrader, Nicholas Pileggi and Bo Goldman

This tightly-packed thriller reminded me a bit of a newer movie I reviewed here, The Ides of March. This is a movie about politics, choices, courage and convictions, with workman performances by John Cusack as the Deputy Mayor of New York City and Bridget Fonda as the representative of a slain cop. The standout is the layered work done by Al Pacino as fictional mayor John Pappas, a nuanced character who is both pragmatist and idealist. I particularly liked that the movie had a lot of intrigue and life-or-death elements, especially as the powerful men behind the scandal try to cover up their tracks, but at no point did it descend into silly or outrageous territory. Worth watching.

[nothieflike]

The Host (2006)

The Host

★★★☆☆

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong

Written by: Joon-ho Bong, Won-jun Ha and Chul-hyun Baek

Rarely do I find myself so torn between star ratings. I refuse to dip into the namby-pamby arena of half-stars, extending my five (or technically six) point scale to ten points just so I can split the difference between "It Was Okay" and "Didn't Like It." But let's just say that while I'm settling on three stars for The Host, it's really a two and a half star movie, one which I just barely tolerated above dislike but which I also came just short of feeling like I wasn't sorry I had spent the time to watch it.

The real issue with The Host is that I admire it for trying something different. This is a movie that could have gone a half dozen different directions: Full blown monster horror pic; creepy enviro-action flick; tense suspense drama; political satire/allegory; subversive genre send-up; dark character drama with supernatural framework. Instead of picking one of these paths, The Host picks them all. I respect the moxie of the filmmakers for doing something that is so un-Hollywood (obvious guy says duh, this is a Korean film). However, in dividing the film's—and the audience's—time and attention into all these things, we end up with a mishmash of a picture that can't seem to decide what, if anything, it wants to say.

There are pivot points in the movie where the filmmakers could have selected their vehicle and ridden it to whatever destination lie down that path. But each one is meticulously sidestepped so that we can have key (undeveloped) characters that aren't introduced until well past the halfway point, a curiously unsatisfactory conclusion, a bizarre character event near the end that seems to have no impact on the protagonist, a lot of pretty rough CG effects and an awful lot of the main characters running around aimlessly for long stretches of the film. There is a metaphor in the characters actions for the writer's intents, but like the writers themselves, I can't be bothered to make it work. So my final recommendation is go watch The Host. Or don't. Really, it doesn't matter either way.

[nothieflike]

The Expendables (2010)

The Expendables

★★☆☆☆

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone

Written by: David Callaham and Sylvester Stallone

What amused me the most about The Expendables is how there is zero emotional heft to the film, and the protagonists are never in serious danger. You might think, in a film like this where there are a half-dozen roughnecks as the principals, that one or more of them was destined to croak in your standard action/buddy formula to provide a reason for the survivors to rally and defeat the odds. But no. Everyone lives. I guess that's a spoiler? The thing is, it's never really even implied that one of these guys might not make it. They take down literally hundreds of apparently highly-trained soldiers with the realism and nonchalance of saturday morning G.I.Joes, only with more blood and shorn body parts and stuff.

I guess this is supposed to be an old-school action film with practically every 80s and 90s action star under the sun, but even though we're supposed to care that Jason Statham's Lee Christmas lost his girl to a douchey jock, it's not possible because Lee Christmas is not a character but a tool for the script to show that even guys who stick knives into people's necks for a living feel sad sometimes. There's some sort of claptrap about these mercenaries doing things for a greater cause, but it's muddy and uninteresting. There's one scene that could be decent but it's like something from another movie, where Mickey Rourke as Tool reminisces about the darkness that weighs on a conscience from senseless brutality, but whatever power could have come from a monologue like that is comically undone by the senseless brutality the movie traffics in to sell itself. I guess it's okay to watch people being cut apart for entertainment but if you have to do the cutting it makes you wax poetic in a blue light? I didn't really get what it was all about. Really it's just some random words to make the audience feel like there is a moral imperative for Stallone and Statham and Jet Li and some other people to go slaughter people.

There's really no point to this movie, which I say knowing full well that when I started watching it I just wanted to watch a big dumb action movie. I guess it barely succeeds at that, but nothing else going on is worth much of your time, except to remind yourself occasionally that Stallone is old enough to be Jason Statham's dad, is old enough to be the grandfather of Giselle Itié (who is the sorta love interest, Sandra) and yet somehow manages to not be comical just on a surface level as he engages in cinematic fisticuffs with Stone Cold Steve Austin. It's pretty impressive, really.

[nothieflike]

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Hot Tub Time Machine

★★☆☆☆

Directed by: Steve Pink

Written by: Josh Heald, Sean Anders and John Morris

Admittedly, you can't go into a movie called "Hot Tub Time Machine" with high expectations. But I did kind of think that it had the potential to be a stupid/silly good time, and attributed the fact that it doesn't have much community love to the fact that the premise is ridiculous. I was in a mood where ridiculous premises were okay by me, so I gave it a shot. The thing is, the premise isn't the problem here, and in fact it's a medium entertaining dude-oriented romantic comedy (which is to say it's very bromantic). That should be enough to earn it a modest three stars. The main problem is that it isn't very funny. I could forgive almost everything else that Hot Tub Time Machine struggles with if only there had been some decent laughs, but there are really none.

The truly distasteful aspect of the movie, though, is that it seems like the moral of the story is that the only way you can change your life for the better is by going back and doing it all over again, making completely different decisions. Apparently, it also helps to have the deck stacked heavily in your favor. There was even the potential for something along those lines to be said in a funny, ironic or ridiculous fashion considering the means for the shift comes from the character who seems to be the most stuck in the past at the start of the film. But never mind all that, because Hot Tub Time Machine may have potential, but it squanders all of it at every opportunity and leaves in its wake a silly trifle that is safely and easily skipped.

[nothieflike]

Captain America and Thor (2011)

Captain America: The First Avenger

★★★★☆

Directed by: Joe Johnston

Written by: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely

Based on the Comic Book Created by: Jack Kirby and Joe Simon

Thor

★★☆☆☆

Directed by: Kenneth Branagh

Written by: Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Don Payne, J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Protosevich

Based on the Comic Book Created by: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby

I mentioned in my review of Iron Man 2 that Tony Stark and his alter ego were underdog favorites of mine as a kid. The same cannot be said of Captain America or Thor. Something about Captain America's pseudo-sissy non-weapon of choice and his principal focus of patriotism made him a big yawn for me. Thor on the other hand, I just didn't get. His costume was lame, he was based on Norse mythology which was kind of cool but then he was somehow involved in the rest of the Marvel continuity and he just felt like a Superman ripoff somehow. I dunno, I guess I'm funny about superheroes.

But the thing is, the characters themselves don't really matter. What makes a comic book story interesting is not the origin story or the costume or the powers, it's the story and what you do with the character that makes the difference. And from everything I ever tried, Thor and Cap always had boring books. However, as I also mentioned in my Iron Man 2 review, I've gotten pretty amped for the upcoming Avengers movie so I felt it my duty as an occasional comic book nerd and frequent movie dork to "catch up" as it were with the in-movie continuity. I rented both and watched them back to back.

What struck me initially was the difference in quality between the two flicks. Had you asked before I watched them both which I was likely to enjoy more, I'd have probably put my money on Thor as being the better of the two. The surprising thing is, I enjoyed Captain America immensely more than Thor.

This is a double review so let's start with the weaker of the two. The principal problem with Thor is that it had way too many writers involved. Any time you see more than one or two names on a writer's byline, it's worth being cautious. Thor is a mess because it has too many characters, tries to cover too much ground and can't possibly cram everything into its two hour running time. Now, lots of characters aren't necessarily a bad thing, but lots of characters who have to portray believable relationships with themselves and lots of characters that need compelling arcs means you have to be laser focused to get it all into a standard length film. Consider: We have our title protagonist, Thor, who must have a principal arc himself, plus he needs relationship arcs with each of the following: His father Odin, his brother Loki, his band of warrior-friends (ideally this would be individual, with so much else going on it has to be collective, which means these characters ought to be combined into one or two at the most; here there are four) and his Earthly love interest, Jane. There is also the matter of his mother, Frigga, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson, the transporter guardian Heimdall and the leader of the sworn enemies of Asgard, frost giant King Laufey, each of whom should have some kind of purpose in the film but whom for various reasons can't possibly get enough development to ever matter.

There is enough story inherent in the Thor/Loki/Odin dynamic, along with the frost giant threat and King Laufey, to make for a full and complete movie. There is also enough story in the dynamic of Thor losing his power, being cast to Earth and having to prove himself while he learns to love humans through the proxy in Jane for a complete movie. What you can't do is take two entire arcs and try to interweave them or overlap them and hope that somehow, magically, they end up being complete as the sum of their parts. It's too much to ask of everyone involved. Some of the things that get lost in this particular shuffle: a believable relationship between Thor and Jane; a believable character arc for Loki; a purpose for the frost giants and/or King Laufey; a coherent connection to S.H.I.E.L.D.; an explanation for why Heimdall has so damn much screen time and development when other characters like, say, Odin or Loki, do not.

It's not easy to pinpoint the exact source of the problem, apart from an overly ambitious script. Chris Hemsworth—well, he certainly looks like Thor, I'll give him that. He's pretty good at portraying the cocky bravado of the pre-exile Thor, but he struggles to convincingly display character growth so that when he inevitably learns to deserve his powers it kid of feels like, "Uh, yeah, sure. Okay." And bless Natalie Portman's pretty heart: she is one of the most inconsistent actresses around. Given challenging, dynamic, expectation-busting roles (Closer, Black Swan, The Professional) and she can stand up with the best in the biz. But she advertises her satisfaction with the shoot and the script on her sleeve, and if she's asked to come across as the girl next door, or she's asked to put impact into flat dialogue, she struggles to even be believable as a human (Star Wars, Mars Attacks). Anthony Hopkins and Renee Russo are wasted as Odin and Frigga, and Tom Hiddleston gamely gives his Loki what he has, but he's no match for a script that can't seem to decide what he's supposed to be from one minute to the next.

What really frustrates about Thor is that it gets so caught up in its story that it forgets to even be big dumb fun. There are precious few special effects-laden action sequences, though there are an awful lot of scenes of people getting teleported in the Bifrost portal. I mean, there are so many that it starts to get funny. The Bifrost ends up being the most well-rounded character in the whole film, and its demise is the one that had the most emotional impact. Actually, I take that back because excepting King Laufey and the non- or semi-sentient Destroyer robot thing that Thor and friends fight at the end, everyone else makes it out alive. Not exactly high stakes for the good guys, you know? One early battle sequence between Thor's warriors and the frost giants is pretty visually stimulating, but after that all the action is far inferior to even the Black Widow infiltration scene from Iron Man 2. If you can't outdo Scarlett Johansson in spandex and you're a friggin' GOD—

Well, actually, I can see how that would be hard to stack up against. Anyhow.

So after Thor, I wasn't really having high hopes for Captain America. But I was amazed to find that it was actually much, much better than Thor. The main thing Captain America does right that Thor doesn't is it sets up the Rip Van Winkle bit at the very beginning and very end of the movie, but 98% of it is all origin story set in World War II. Now, I'll grant that the set up of Steve Rogers being this wimpy little pencilneck and having beefcake Chris Evans play him with CGI kind of like a reverse Hulk effect is a bit transparent sometimes. But, I'll be honest. You can tell in The Hulk that they got away with some cartoony effects because typically when the big green guy is onscreen, he's jumping around, flinging Mack trucks and dodging tank shells. These are action scenes and we've trained ourselves as the audience to let go of some of our visual disbelief when the fightin' starts. So it's impressive that nearly every effects shot of Steve Rogers is a slow, lingering, well-lit shot and it almost always works.

The story follows über-patriot Rogers as he tries to enlist in the army but is constantly thwarted by the bad genetic hand he was dealt. A German expat, Dr. Erskine, working with the US Army against the Nazis, selects Rogers to be part of an experimental program to make super soldiers. The result of the serum and some tech help from a young Howard Stark (father of Iron Man's Tony), the transform the scrawny Rogers into a muscle-bound badass with strength, speed, agility and stamina beyond any normal human. A saboteur from a fringe occult research branch of the Nazi party, Hydra, infiltrates the experiment and tries to steal Erskine's serum. Rodgers stops him, but Erskine dies in the process, setting the program back. Rogers is then facing two options: settle for life as a professional lab rat, or try to do something to help. He agrees to become a pitchman for the Army, doing traveling bond promotional shows, and seems to be more or less into it until he goes to do a show for some actual front line troops who are disgusted by his phony showboating and boo him off the stage. When he realizes they're so hostile because he's a pretend soldier while they just got practically wiped out by Hydra, Rogers, aided by skeptical love interest Peggy Carter (played with smooth British charm by Hayley Atwell, channeling Eva Green's Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale), stages a daring rescue.

Rogers begins to embrace his abilities and the Army falls in line, granting him leadership over many of the rescued POWs to form a task force specifically designed to combat Hydra, who are growing immensely powerful under the leadership of Johann Schmidt, also known as Red Skull. Red Skull happens to be the only other person to have received the serum, albeit in an earlier form that left him deformed with a blazing red, skull-like visage.

The nice thing about Captain America is that it uses a straightforward, classic hero's quest tale to give a sense that you're really watching an old comic book come to life. The action is stylized and unrealistic, but believable despite and it never goes so far off into lunatic territory that it feels it has to somehow out-tech Iron Man, set some eighty or ninety years in the future. Hugo Weaving turns in a toothy, fun performance as the generically megalomaniacal Red Skull, and the screenwriters resist the temptation to have Captain America rewriting history by getting in a fist fight with Hitler or something. Evans as Rogers is convincingly napoleonic when necessary and does some nice physical acting work early on after getting his powers, showcasing his excitement and glee at finding out what his newly juiced body is capable of. He has legitimate chemistry with Atwell and Tommy Lee Jones turns in a classic performance that is tailor made for his brand of deadpan delivery.

The movie does bog a little right before the climax with some extended montages of Captain and his pals busting up Hydra, and the Bucky character felt kind of shoehorned into the plot to give Cap a bit of emotional turmoil, but all of it is forgivable. My one complaint is that, in spite of my appreciation for them only bookending the film with the present day connection, Evans's acting stumbles a bit right at the end when he's supposed to be in awe of the modern world, so different from the one he remembers. Perhaps the script is what fails here, not giving him enough time to react, but there is just something about the whole scene that doesn't work, and I'd almost expect it to have been something that occurred early in The Avengers film, not as a sour note to leave an otherwise very good movie on.

 I think, somewhere between the excellent first two Iron Man films, a half-decent Hulk movie, a very good Captain America vehicle and a mostly bad Thor, there's enough reason to be  incredibly hopeful for the forthcoming Avengers. Maybe I'm also biased because Joss Whedon is behind the team-up flick, and I happen to think he rarely goes wrong, but Marvel Studios has been doing a lot of things right lately, and I think even though the average of these two movies is only three stars, I'm ready to pull down my fanboy goggles and line up opening weekend for The Avengers.

[nothieflike]

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

★★★★☆

Directed by: George Roy Hill

Written by: William Goldman

The well-deserved Oscar William Goldman received for writing Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid wouldn't have amounted to much without the smooth, masculine chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who sell the hell out of the roles. As an overall film, the movie is a bit measured for modern tastes, with the extended chase scene in the middle setting up a montage before skipping down to Bolivia where the third act unfolds. The subtle love triangle between Butch, Sundance and Etta Place is probably the second best part of the film, behind the cool and funny banter exchanged by the two principals.

Oddly, the thing that sits the most awkwardly, at least to my modern eyes and ears, is the Burt Bacharach score (which also won an oscar) and the 60s pop tunes that bubble and fizz over the top of the film. I guess the general cheesiness associated with "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" in 2012 may not have been so freely associated in the late 60s, but it (and the other syrupy scoring) glares like a bubblegum chewing beast of a child within the context of the stylish cool of the performances and cinematography. I guess it's simply a part of the film and you have to take it as a package (after all, its not like musical atmosphere is a new development; movies have been scored with tonally appropriate background music for decades before and since) but for me it mars an otherwise excellent film.

[nothieflike]

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

★★★★☆

Directed by: Sidney Lumet

Written by: Kelly Masterson

Let's start off with the two fairly minor things that didn't work very well for me in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. The first is the unnecessary POV-shifting, scene-revisiting, flash-back-and-forth construction of the film's narrative. When a film like Pulp Fiction, which had lots of characters who all had individual arcs and criss-crossing story lines, fiddles with chronology, it makes sense because the narrative isn't particularly linear or, more to the point, it isn't as effective if told linearly. But in Before The Devil, there's no point at which you can say, "If we already knew what was going on behind the scenes here, this would be less effective," or "If we hadn't gotten the other characters' perspective on the scene with the current point of view character, we wouldn't have as much empathy for what is happening." The result then, is a gimmick. And there's no need for a gimmick in a movie as riveting and powerful as this.

The second thing that didn't work is Ethan Hawke. No disrespect to the actor, who does what he can, but I read that his character, Hank, was originally supposed to be a 19 year-old and was cast older to make him seem more tragic. Except it doesn't make him seem more tragic, it makes him seem more unbelievable. Part of it is that the script, intending for Hank to be youthful, doesn't ever have a chance to deal with the circumstances that might make a nearly forty year-old man into such a sniveling, un-worldly pantywaist. We're just supposed to accept that Hank is this way but Hawke has too much soul in his eyes and too much natural presence in the world to sell the level of incapability he's supposed to. Perhaps it was bad casting, perhaps Lumet just needed to leave the original script alone more, it's hard to say.

But beyond this, we're treated to a slow-motion train wreck of self-implosion and a study on causality that is gripping and delirious. The film follows Andy (played with an almost frightening amount of emotional range by the brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman), an exec with demons to spare who comes up with a plan to help himself, his weak-willed brother Hank and his drifting/distant wife, Gina (played for the first half of the movie by Marisa Tomei's breasts, then for the second half by Marisa Tomei's bitten bottom lip). He concocts a victimless, nonviolent robbery of their parent's jewelry store and tasks Hank with executing the plan. Through a series of sloppy preparations and sheer misfortune, the robbery goes bad and the impact of Andy's plan sends shockwaves through their extended family. As things careen wildly out of control, the movie flips back and forth between Hank, Andy and their father Charles (played with mush-mouthed ardency by Albert Finney), showcasing the top down collapse of all three.

It's a crime film that is more about family than glorifying lawlessness. It's a movie that is, more than anything else, about the cost of decisions people make. These are not hardened criminals, they are desperate people who don't seem to understand Newton's Laws apply to human behavior as well as the natural world. It's a family drama that plays out on a whole different scale than something more subtle, like perhaps Rachel Getting Married. Not that the two films are thematically alike at all, but the dissection of darker family secrets runs a connective thread between them and similar films, but where emotive dramas culminate in characters that rise above or grow beyond or simply take their leave, Before The Devil climaxes with the most complete depiction of a man pushed over the edge as I can recall seeing. Hoffman owns the last fifteen minutes of this movie, if he doesn't own the entirety of it.

This is worth watching for his performance alone, and the rest of the movie is pretty good as well. I do wish they had made a couple of better decisions on the directorial end, but I can't help but recommend watching, especially if you need to remind yourself that no matter how insane your family may be, it always could be worse.

[nothieflike]

Red State (2011)

Red State

★★★☆☆

Directed by: Kevin Smith

Written by: Kevin Smith

I decided to watch Red State after finishing Writer/Director Kevin Smith's book, "Tough S--t." It's a bit difficult to know whether it would have been a different experience to see Red State without the contextual framework provided by the discussion in the book. And, to be honest, some of that is even dependent on the facts of my familiarity with Smith's other work, because I was a big fan of Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and to an extent Dogma, but starting with Jay and Silent Bob Strike back, I haven't been as adamant about following along with Smith. I did get around to seeing Clerks II and Zack And Miri Make A Porno, but unlike the previous films which I practically saw on opening weekends, they were grudging, not-in-the-new-releases rentals. I never did see Jersey Girl or Cop Out. And I probably wouldn't have bothered with Red State either, except Smith, in his book, describes it as his homage to Quentin Tarantino. And, well, I sort of masochistically wanted to see what a Smith-does-Tarantino flick would look like.

But this is why I think if I didn't know that's what Smith was doing, I wouldn't have had the same reaction. Because Red State is a very different kind of movie from anything else he's done. Oh, sure, Dogma had its scenes of intense violence and religious themes, but it was still essentially Mallrats with a much grander concept. Gone are a lot of the aimless asides and the shock-schlocky, replaced instead by a script that is curiously focused while at the same time never quite being pinpoint. It's never easy to tell who the protagonist is in the story, though the villain is sort of obvious, except that it is really circumstance that propels most of the deplorable actions, not all of which are done at the hands of the "bad guy."

Let me give you an example of one of the many unusual decisions Smith makes in the construction of this film: Following the initial set up and the introduction of a few key characters, Smith films almost the entirety of a sermon, delivered by Abin Cooper (played with a pitched charisma by Michael Parks) that starts off as a genial, inviting, small-congregation fireside chat but slowly—almost laboriously—descends into a seething roil of hate and hellfire, culminating in an uncomfortably unflinching ritual murder. Smith describes in his book a desire to never take the obvious path with his story and this comes through as the winding narrative feints this way and that, suggesting at various stages a campy sex romp, a torture porn thriller, a straight up horror slasher, a cop siege procedural, a dark morality tale, a supernatural allegory and a political potboiler. It's sort of all and none of those things.

What it definitely adds up to is a Tarantino-esque indie shootout talker. On that level, knowing that's what Smith wanted, it succeeds. From a pure storytelling standpoint, Red State is gripping and unpredictable, which is what I liked most about it. On the other hand, Red State also struggles in its effort to be unexpected, to have a sense of purpose. It seems like it might be fairly obvious that Smith is demonizing hate-in-God's-name publicity morons like the Westboro Baptist Church (or any other unpleasant organization using warped ideals to judge or detest others) but aside from a base despicable-ness to their convictions, the Five Points Church (led by Cooper) respond to the circumstances the film throws them into with a peculiarly understandable motive. The "good guys" of the ATF, led by Joseph Keenan (played with superb, nuanced inner conflict by John Goodman), are the ones who, though ostensibly in the right, often make the most unconscionable decisions.

Most of the neutral parties caught in the middle are never really given a place in the theme, which means they become expendable to the script. Smith tries to make a certain amount of sense of it in retrospect with an overly expository interview scene. To an extent I like this choice because it cements the fact that tense, adrenaline-fueled scenarios like this only ever have context after the fact, but the highlight passage from the script in this scene suggests that Smith's moral is the same as he leveled in Dogma: be wary of faith without reason.

And then the part that ultimately dropped the film an entire star for me comes in the epilogue. Note, this is (I guess) spoiler territory, but understand that the linear construct of Red State isn't really that important; in any case, you can skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. Anyway, the final scene in the film is Cooper in prison, wearing an orange jumpsuit and singing a hymn in his cell. It's a long, intentionally ponderous shot and then finally, just before the credits roll, someone off camera (presumably a fellow inmate) hollers, "Shut the f--k up!" My problem with this is that it seems to be a semi-symbolic part of Smith's message, hinting strongly that what he really has to say to misguided faith-based lunatics is "just go away." I have a big problem with a film that is as thoughtful as Red State going for either a laugh or a frustrated outburst or both as its closing statement, especially coming from a guy who has made a career out of being overly honest, whether that's with his character mouthpieces in his films or his podcasts or his spoken word public speaking or his book. It's so simplistic and glib and counter-productive to summarize an issue like reconciling the troublesome nature of deplorable ideas that are so easily translated into antisocial actions with a simple gag order, even played for (non) laughs. The film, sadly, would have been at least 20% better without this final, 30-60 second scene.

All told, Red State is a promising new direction for Smith. Unfortunately, if you believe what he says in his Tough S--t book, it will be his penultimate film. Smith has been uneven as a filmmaker, even from the start, often accidentally achieving greatness. Here, he accidentally misses greatness and showcases a potential for something grittier and different from what others might say with similar material. And that's exactly what you want from a filmmaker, I think.

[nothieflike]

The Call of Cthulhu (2005)

The Call Of Cthulhu

★★★☆☆

Directed by: Andrew Leman

Written by: Sean Branney

Based on the Story by: H.P. Lovecraft

A very low-budget film done in the style of classic silent films, this is an incredibly faithful adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft tale, including all the flashbacks, multiple characters, the framing device and the creepy sense of dread that Lovecraft was so good at—well, not good at writing since Lovecraft was a terrible writer. But good at inspiring, I suppose. Mythos fans should enjoy this movie a lot, though the stylistic choice worked well for me, I can see how people unfamiliar with Lovecraft may find it a bit plodding. Mostly the film just makes one realize how amazing a really well done modern update would be on screen.