There may be no greater '90s action coming-of-age nostalgia mid-life crisis black comedy than Grosse Pointe Blank, and that is somehow not damning with faint praise. Indeed, the indelibly '90s trappings (dial up internet! car phones! shoulder pads and pant suits!) adds a second layer of nostalgia amongst the '80s callbacks; the action is sparse, in a good way, as characters take realistic damage and fight like...well, humans, not steroidal supermen hamstrung by a PG-13 rating (or, for that matter, goring it up to justify an R); the comedy is (mostly) not dated, and relies on recognizable human responses (if your high school flame deadpanned “I'm a professional killer,” wouldn't you assume he was joking?).
Grosse Pointe Blank operates from a doozy of a tagline premise: hit man Martin Blank (John Cusack) returns to the titular suburb of Detroit the weekend of his ten year high school reunion, with a job in the offing. While reconnecting with his long-ago-stood-up prom date Debi Newbury (Minnie Driver, whose improbably cool hometown job as a radio DJ delivers the pitch-perfect soundtrack of '80s classics), he circles around a rival (Dan Aykroyd), a mystery man (Benny Urquidez), two G-men (Hank Azaria and K. Todd Freeman), and a few old friends (most notably a pre-hairpiece Jeremy Piven). His secretary and Gal Friday, a hilarious Joan Cusack, teases and prods, while his therapist (Alan Arkin) despairs of ever shaking his murderous client. The screenplay by John Cusack, Tom Jankiewicz, D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink crackles along, balancing Breakfast Club-type high school reminisces with shoot-'em-up action and a refreshingly tart romance; George Armitage's workaday direction stays out of the way and lets the sharp ensemble carry the film.
Throughout, the sense of the world permeates, as Martin's demons evolve and resettle in his old home town. Grosse Pointe itself is an invaluable extra cast member, as the height of the Clinton years holds the decline of Detroit at bay, and the suburb reads now as the last gasp of the 20th century American Dream. When Martin sees his old buddy's BMW and cracks “In Detroit?! That's sacrilege!”, it acknowledges the town's glory days are in the past – the folks around here just haven't caught up yet. When Martin visits his old house to find it replaced by a convenience store, it's a kind of canary-in-a-coal-mine commentary on the cynical corporatism that would bloom with catastrophic results in the new millennium.
And then there's the violence. In a pre-Columbine, pre-9/11 world, the idea of an 18-year old kid disappearing on prom night and becoming a hit man seemed oddly romantic. “I'm a loaner, lone gunman...I like the image, look at the way I dress!” – Martin is a symbol of white, male American hubris (who cares about all the people he's killed, as long as he finds himself along the way), but an oddly sympathetic one, as he sees the world with a clarity lacking in those who extoll the ideals of freedom and democracy while turning away from the dirt done in their name. Martin has seen the ocean on fire in the Persian Gulf, has killed the president of Paraguay with a fork, is on his way to whack a whistleblower: he does the dirt, and when his moral compass kicks in (albeit belatedly), he bails hard, guns a-blazing because that's how he has learned to deal with things. While lacking truly tragic consequences, the moral bankruptcy on display lends a surprising poignancy to Martin's little lost boy returned home. His oft-stated maxim that “if I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there” is a cop out, but at least he eventually realizes it.
Perhaps the key to it's impressive staying power is in its solid execution of a concept that was the norm back in 1997: a self-contained universe that existed within just one film. Rewatching Grosse Pointe Blank, one is struck by all the lore that is alluded to, but never explored, because it doesn't have to be to tell the story. Martin and Grocer banter about past scuffles and snafus, but not as a setup to a prequel already on the release schedule – it's just because they're old frenemies with history. A weary Dr. Oatman spools out his and Martin's backstory with a weary repetition, because in the film's world, he has argued this many times before. Most importantly, Cusack and Driver radiate chemistry and slide right back into their arrested high school courtship, while learning about each other's intervening decade along with the audience. It's not part of a continuous cinematic universe, but a snapshot into a world created just for this film. When the closing monologue plays over credits, it's not a setup for something coming soon to a theater (or device) near you: it's a capstone to a rollicking caper carried on able shoulders.
It's the kind of movie that isn't made anymore, at least not with A-list actors and a solidly mid-size budget. It's not a self-serious Message Movie, nor a dumb action romp; it is tied to it's time in a way that still resonates, rather than dating poorly. As a chronicle of just how close the rot was to the surface in the seemingly-invincible United States of the '90s, you could do worse, and you would likely not be quite as entertained. You can't go home again, but at least you can shoot it up.
The Vacant Heart of Wakanda: Black Panther, Captain America, and Superheroes as Avatars of Righteousness
The existence and cultural clout of Black Panther is a triumph. Ryan Coogler's vision for Wakanda, the powerful performances by the cast, the billion-dollar grosses for a black superhero – these are great contributions to the MCU, and to our popular culture at large (which are quickly becoming synonymous).
BUT: After three viewings (one with an accompanying panel discussion with Coogler and composer Ludwig Göransson), I still couldn't reconcile that triumphant overall vision with the general sense of empty spectacle I was left with. I loved the production design, I loved the kid sister, I loved the villain – why couldn't I love the Black Panther? To try to figure out what I was missing, I went back to my favorite MCU character: America's Ass himself, Steve Rogers.
(Fanboy disclaimer: My only real context for any of these heroes is via the MCU; I have never really read comic books. And Chris Evans – Red Sox fan, outspoken ally, absurdly gorgeous – is who I want to be when I grow up. I also love the character he plays, as will shortly become clear, but my affection for the actor definitely colors my judgement. Chris, call me, you beautiful beefcake.)
Cap is always on a moral crusade. Hell, the guy is recruited by Nazi hunters, and immediately breaks the rules because they're not hunting Nazis hard enough. He is a paragon of staunchness, and yet he's constantly having to adjust to new information about what is “right,” a process only accelerated by his leap forward to a far more complicated present day. He never abandons his principles – rather, the tension between his Greatest Generation certitude (paired with actual inborn morality) and the exigencies of modern life animate every conflict he faces.
In Black Panther, the man on a mission is not the hero – it's Killmonger. He is convinced of his righteousness, and makes a strong case. The main critique he faces is “people will die,” to which his ready retort is that people already are dying – just the wrong people. He is, in some ways, the inverse of Cap, with pragmatism dominating his moral calculus. He is a perfect foil for a righteous hero, a champion of universal good who doesn't trade lives. Instead, he faces off with T'Challa.
T'Challa doesn't have a goal, an objective, a raison d'être: Is he avenging his father, or opening Wakanda? Is he protecting his people, or his throne? Is he anti-imperialism, or a soft-power proto-imperialist? He constantly struggles with what is “right,” but lacks internal conviction – the very thing that makes Killmonger such an engaging villain. In a different movie (one that I would absolutely see, with the same cast and director and everything), this waffling could fuel a searing allegorical character study about how one constructs a Self from a history of erasure. In this movie, it leaves the main character out-of-focus amongst all the brightly highlighted comic book archetypes.
Eventually, T'Challa defeats Killmonger purely by tactical superiority: he devises a better plan of attack, in the moment, and executes it. (Shout-out vibranium, the deus ex mineral!) He does not refute Killmonger's ideas, or present a viable alternative – the post-hoc soft-power opening of Wakanda comes as a suggestion from Nakia, not a grand strategy from the titular hero. T'Challa is a king without a cause, which might be a best-case scenario in a real ultra-technologically superior, hidden, hereditary/martial monarchy, but doesn't hold up well for a superhero protagonist.
Cap, on the other hand, has #goals. In his three “solo” movies (admittedly including what is essentially a co-headline with Black Widow and an all-but-name Avengers team-up), Cap doesn't once win by punching out the bad guy. His victories are always moral, the result of sticking to his convictions – and having the strength (physical and emotional) to survive the blowback.
In First Avenger, Cap doesn't really defeat Red Skull: Johann Schmidt banishes himself via the Tesseract, and Cap then sacrifices his own life to save his city, and the world. In Winter Soldier, Cap averts Hydra's mass murder plot, but nearly dies from the Winter Soldier's gut shot – and then he rescues his erstwhile bestie, refuses to fight back against Bucky's blows, and only survives when his ideals – his faith in his friend – are rewarded. Finally, in Civil War, Cap does beat down his foe: Iron Man, the other leader of the Avengers. Although Cap is, again, guided by his righteous conscience, he recognizes that Stark, too, has a strong claim to the moral high ground. In recognition of his compromised standing, Cap drops his shield – he acknowledges that his physical victory does not constitute a moral one.
There is inherent fascism in Cap's crusades – against his superior officers, against S.H.I.E.L.D., against Iron Man – a sense that Might Makes Right. But a parallel strain is present in the trial-by-combat ruling class of Wakanda. In the inherently fascistic wish-fulfillment of the superhero milieu, how do you like your Supreme Leader: constant striving to understand balanced with an underdog's righteousness, or diffuse in philosophy and governing by whim? Or, put another way, superhero movies are all about Big Ideas, clashing in the forms of invincible übermensches who battle for our souls. They are men (almost invariably men, le sigh) of action, decisive generals marshaling their forces to battle the existential crises of all mankind. There's nothing inherently wrong with having internal existential crises, too – but when your own movie has to dump you off a cliff and out of the way to bridge into the third act, the fun stuff might be getting lost.
Bitter Tea: Extras and the Exploration of Self-Loathing
Ricky Gervais is, in his own vernacular, a twat. Once hailed as a comedic visionary for the truly transformative work of the original UK version of The Office, it has since become clear – through years of tone-deaf comments, myopic responses, and simply increasing nastiness to anybody who would question his “comic sensibilities” – that Gervais' David Brent was not, as Steve Carrell's sublime re-interpretation would seem to be, a work of fiction, a joyfully vicious skewering of a despicable, petty man with no redeeming qualities beyond commitment to a bit. Rather, Brent is the ur-Gervais, a repurposed version of Gervais' inability to accept criticism and seemingly blanket insensitivity, who happens to wield his ill-gotten power over a small office in Slough instead of via the airwaves of BBC and Netflix. (Gervais' collaborator, Stephen Merchant, escapes some criticism, although his solo outing into the cringe-y comedy he helped popularize with The Office, HBO's Hello Ladies, is so mind-blowingly inappropriate for the #MeToo era that it's hard to tell if it was too prescient for its own good, or actually sinister creepiness dressed up in self-deprecation).
And yet, it seems (or seemed, anyway) that Gervais did have some modicum of self-awareness, an insight into the fickle nature of fame and his own distinctly uncomfortable place within that construct. Extras, Gervais and Merchant's follow-up to The Office, remains a fascinating time-capsule, not just of the pre-smartphone era of celebrity (Kate Winslet providing vulgar dating advice while dressed as a nun remains a quintessential and suitably squirmy-hilarious portrait of how a famous person's public persona could be utterly at odds with their private lives in those heady days before Peak Internet), but of Gervais' halting, fleeting, excruciating discomfort with his new celebrity – and, crucially, whether he deserved to be famous at all.
Belying the promise of it's title, Extras does its best work after Gervais' Andy Millman has left the background acting life behind for (nominally) bigger and better things. Series One is a confusing mishmash of skewed celebrity cameos like the aforementioned Winslet riff, half-baked jokes at the power dynamics on film sets, and positively boorish behavior from Andy. As Andy's good natured-but-dim pal Maggie Jacobs, Ashley Jensen is often the butt of his jokes, while being too sweet and simple to understand that his abuse comes from a place of deep, profound insecurity – or that it's really abuse at all. That his onscreen bestie is presented as hopelessly idiotic is a clue to the esteem in which Gervais holds himself; that his character's professional and personal life withstand the shockingly minimal blowback from his racism, insensitivity and – particularly and least-fictionally – homophobia indicates unabashed contempt for all the enablers who never called out his abrasive shtick.
While often a broad continuation of the punching-down/punching-self dynamic that made The Office a cringe-inducing revelation, Gervais' newfound position of power – and the implicit power dynamic within the show, where Andy is an extra, put-upon by forces beyond his control – makes the target of his satire opaque. A self-punch registers as punching down at the plebs he so clearly despises; a jab at the Hollywood (or BBC) industry reeks of “it's not my fault, it's their's!” By removing his own icky persona from critical examination, he points his finger squarely and consistently at his own petty grievances – and perhaps to Gervais' continued indignation and bafflement, his grievances aren't the biggest problems in the world.
Which is why Series Two – and particularly the hour-plus Christmas special that serves as finale – contain such intriguing seeds. Here, we see Andy rise to fame as a catchphrase-spewing sitcom impresario, a lowest-common-denominator cash grab that inverts the contempt for the audiences who consume such dreck (although such contempt is still clearly evident) into an almost-cogent skewering of the mindset of fame itself: the self-loathing, unhappy drive that pushes untalented people like Andy to debase themselves for a scrap of recognition, even as they cannot escape the fact that they don't deserve their accolades and remuneration.
Here, Gervais seems to point to his own dark soul. While Andy still isn't (really) punished for his bigotry and misogyny, he does feel the weight of his unrealistic expectations as they come crashing down, shepherded by his general dickishness. There is genuine pathos in Andy's eventual, inevitable landing place: on the Celebrity Big Brother couch, surrounded by tragic caricatures of the type of revolving fame-seekers who populate such fare. This, after all, is where Andy belongs. This is where he is his truest self: a fame seeker who lucked into his chance, only to realize that he had no talent, no work ethic, no friends and no prospects. He's doing Big Brother because, as a frantically tap-dancing Lionel Blair explains, “it helps to keep the profile up,” whether or not the profile deserves to continue.
For most any other performer, this would be standard “price of fame” fodder, a narrative about how the soulless industry churns through Bright Young Things and leaves them broken and alone. But because Andy – like, by all appearances, his creator Gervais – is such an insufferable asshole, it serves more as a karmic referendum on his worthiness, specifically. It's not just that Andy forgot the little people, ordered extras fired, acted like a prima donna. It's that he did all of that stuff before he became famous, because that's just who he is: a mean, small man, who blames the world and everyone in it for his failings.
Despite the de rigueur happy(ish) ending, where Andy epiphanies all over the Big Brother house and rides off into the sunset cracking (mean-spirited) jokes with (at) Maggie, the remaining sour taste of Gervais' presence is sufficient to reveal the rot underneath his patter. Intentionally or not, Extras weighs and measures its star, and finds him wanting as a human being. It is perverse that his natural ability to reveal his own darkness has elevated Gervais to be hailed for mirroring our society, but perhaps – with a reality star villain in the White House, the U.K. pushed to the brink by small men dickering over whom to blame for their troubles, and a culture of fame that praises authenticity above example – he was the canary in the coal mine all along. In Extras, the canary clearly, emphatically died. We all just didn't realize it.
Oh Zach Snyder was the keeper of the DCEU's light – slept with a mermaid one fine night! Out of this union, there came this: a wild-eyed beefcake who talks to fish. Yo-ho-hooooo, Marvel can breathe free – there is no threat to their hegemony!
You'll have to excuse the obscure sea shanty reference, but after two and a half hours of a cartoon light show – punctuated by dialogue more weightless than all the “underwater hair” effects – it is the highest level of intellectualism that can be mustered. Aquaman, the first DC film since the resounding “meh” of Justice League, dispenses with all pretensions and revels in it's B-movie trappings, from the omnipresent yet laughable special effects, to the hero of the oceans with his brow cocked and muscles rippling like the sea that birthed him. (Get ready for a lot of water puns.)
Technically, Aquaman is the product of Queen Atlanna and a Maine fisherman with an inexplicable and unplaceable accent (Temuera Morrison, the only actor in this film able to convey a sense of gravitas – admittedly, attempting a Mainer accent probably would've torpedoed that small blessing). But despite the endless monologues about his parentage, it doesn't really matter. The dude (and he is, unmistakably, a DUDE) can swim fast, punch hard and, yes, talk to fish. Other than that, his raison d'être is that he's played by Jason Momoa, flexing his hair alongside his muscles as he flounders through an overstuffed and inscrutable popcorn flick that is undeniably fun, while also being laughably ill-conceived.
Momoa has never been an actor with range, and here he's not asked to do much besides smirk, growl, and be unimpressed by the CGI schlock surrounding him. Far more interesting is the question of who tricked Nicole Kidman onto the green screen set, as she is laughably out of place as Atlanna, Aquaman's long-lost mother. Her best moment comes in the prologue, when she awakes to find herself alone with a golden retriever puppy: they proceed to shadow each other for a beat, providing the most realistic interaction between two warm-blooded creatures the film has to offer. She quickly disappears, until resurfacing for a couple of glorified pep-talks. One hopes that Kidman knocked her scenes out in less than a week, because Aquaman doesn't deserve any more of her time.
Kidman has no reason to be here. But it's the perfect refuge for overblown B-movie actors like Patrick Wilson and Amber Heard, who spout the inane dialogue with gusto. As much as Wilson was a bland dead-end as Night Owl in Watchmen, he's spot-on for the bombastic and motivated-just-because King Orm of Atlantis. With his aggrieved face constantly floating between digital hair and a cartoon body, he snarls and blanches operatically in the midst of incomprehensible shenanigans, the perfect paper tiger for Momoa's bro-cean king to brush aside. And spare a thought for Heard, who has not yet hit the A-list she so clearly strives for, and instead is stuck with lines like: “We're not dead yet, but I'm hoping he'll think we are.” With a live-action remake of The Little Mermaid on the horizon, we can only assume that Heard's red-headed Mera is a dud of a test-run, as her brief sojourn in Sicily is clearly this film's wannabe Ariel moment where a princess of the sea discovers the wonders of the land. It loses something in translation, however, if only because Mera is nothing but an exposition-spouting deus ex machina – eating roses is less an endearing misunderstanding than proof of her overriding lack of identifiable personhood.
It's not Heard's fault, though. It's hard to fault any actor here: even the estimable Willem Dafoe, who helped usher in the modern superhero film with his cackling Green Goblin, can't chew scenery that is this effervescently computer generated. The seemingly endemic lack of stakes in effects-heavy blockbusters reaches it's nadir with Aquaman, where a tidal wave intended to destroy a seaside village elicits a bemused “huh,” while the colorful underwater kingdoms waste splashes of inspired design in an overflow of anodyne throne rooms and faceless armies.
Speaking of: yes, there is a clash of Disposable CGI Armies, and it's actually not bad, as far as these things go. Unlike the DCEU's previous attempts as “grounded” visual palettes, the armies are helpfully color-coded, so at least it's generally comprehensible who is fighting whom. Unfortunately, the big, fun smash-up battle is short-circuited by the arrival of our hero and his de rigueur 1-on-1 smack down with Orm. It's all predictable, anti-climactic drivel – the fight scenes rival Super Smash Brothers in their cartoonish disregard for physics, stakes, or lasting damage. There is a brief spark of an interesting premise (the idea that a hero fights for everyone, while a king fights only for those who follow him), but it's too little, too late in this sea of nonsense.
And therein lies the failure of Aquaman, which (with a shorter run time and a campier tone) could have been DC's bouncy answer to Thor: Ragnarok. Instead, we're supposed to take this mishegoss seriously, and it's just too removed from any grounding to do so. For all the smattering of gorgeous shots from director James Wan (credit where credit is due: Aquaman and Mera leaping from a boat into a boiling sea, their way lit by a lone red flare, with lightning flashing and an army of undersea demons in pursuit, evokes a classical painting of an ancient myth), there's too much of a junk cartoon ethos to the whole endeavor. Despite volumes of backstory, the plot doesn't matter – Aquaman finally embarks on a quest at the halfway point, and it's resolved within 30 minutes – and the characters are insipid to the point of parody. But instead of leaning into camp (I can't emphasize this enough: Willem Dafoe RIDES A HAMMERHEAD SHARK, and it's played straight), we're supposed to gasp in wonder at the Arthurian myth transposed into water, a splashy spectacle down where it's wetter. It doesn't work, and aside from a both on-the-nose and out-of-nowhere cover of Toto's “Africa” complete with rap break, the whole enterprise could've benefitted from more singing crustaceans, and fewer delusions of grandeur.
Ed. note: I just had so many punny titles for this post, I had to share the rejects: Sea-GI Man. Release the Crappen. Aquabro. Swim Fanboy. The Rise of Vinnie Chase. Clash of the Tridents. Patrick Wilson's War. The Sword in the Bro.
Sorry to Bother You is phenomenal. It is a smashing, riotous, quirky, visceral, uproarious, insightful, vicious, bonkers fever dream of a film, which leaves your head spinning and your eyes wide and your mind full of answers impossible to verbalize to questions that you didn’t have when you first sat down to watch. It is the most important movie of 2018, and possibly the most entertaining. It is glorious. And it is mind-shattering in every conceivable way.
The very fact of this movie’s existence beggars belief. Written and directed by Boots Riley, a musician with no previous film credits, Sorry to Bother You teems with crackling creative energy. Riley clearly has Important Things to Say, and rather than miss an opportunity, jams his debut feature with each and every societal critique he can think of. The miracle is that this works: rather than coming off overstuffed, preachy or ponderous, the effect is one of grappling with a real world where too much seems to be going on at any one time, where forces too big to control take on lives of their own and the little people are left, reeling, to stagger through the onslaught as best they can. It is a monumental credit to Riley, as well as an indictment of nearly every powerful institution - cultural, economic, and political - in modern America, that as the credits roll, the endless disorientation of day-to-day life seems somehow both more comprehensible and less defensible. In a film suffused with urgency, its greatest gift may be a tender, hurricane’s eye type of peace.
Any attempt to recount the plot is a fool’s errand, both in avoidance of spoilers and the inevitability of flattening the innumerable layers of satire into any digestible description. Suffice to say, the tensions of modern life are pricked and interrogated in nearly every way imaginable: race and class; art and commerce; talent and work ethic; gender, romance and sex; family and friendship; technology and humanity…the list goes on. There are also insanely badass earrings, priceless windshield wiper hacks, sign-twirling showmanship, performance art that disappears down a rabbit hole of self-parody, and the longest lines of coke ever snorted. Plus telemarketing.
To heap praise on LaKeith Stanfield for his central performance as Cassius Green (get it?) is almost redundant at this point: he anchors the whole freewheeling enterprise, serving as the audience’s guide through the morass of moral depravity attributable to The Man, but insidiously weaving its way into Everyman’s day-to-day calculations. Steven Yeun also warrants mention as the steadfast - even square - moral center of the film, while Armie Hammer chews through his villain role with the relish of a wealthy white man acutely aware of his complicity.
But Tessa Thompson is a true force of nature, effortlessly dominating the screen while holding space for her vulnerability and needs as a human. The result is a portrait of Black womanhood untainted by caricature and unrepentant in power - a wholly realized vision of such brilliance, the main reason for her to not take center stage is that she would tear the whole rotten enterprise down by sheer force of will. In her eyes, she can do no wrong, and not because of a lack of self-awareness or introspection, but simply because she accepts her imperfect humanity as the inevitable condition of living, and forges ahead with utter resolve. She is perfectly controlled chaos, personified.
Which is the best available description for Sorry to Bother You as a whole, since no genre label or critical hobbyhorse could do it justice. The film is utter chaos, in the way that life is utter chaos – there are people pulling the strings, and people playing their parts, and a spark of transcendence shifting everything into something beautiful and cathartic and layered nearly to the point of oversaturation, but somehow crystally comprehensible. For viewers well-versed in the multitude of sociological languages deployed (race consciousness, labor agitation, feminism, artistic culture, etc.), there are seemingly-infinite instances of sublime in-jokes; for those with less experience in leftist discourse, Riley deploys staggeringly powerful blunt force to get his point across. There's something for everyone, yet it never reads as condescending or overwrought. Rather, the resulting tone is one of frantic yet focused insistence that everyone must be reached, awoken, and mobilized; that solidarity need not come at the cost of individuality; and that recognizing common humanity is not synonymous with giving quarter to those who deny the humanity of others.
If this sounds heavy, that failure is mine, as there are no sufficient words to capture the joyous anarchy conveyed in this film. Sorry to Bother You is utterly unique, and impossible to describe in its essence. There is no other way to experience it than to settle in and take the trip. See this film. And don't cross the picket line.
“I Think I’m Kinda Gay”: Evil Willow and Duality in the Buffyverse
If you’re one of those people who sings through half of “Once More, With Feeling” in the shower, you may have found yourself dwelling on Evil Willow. To be clear, this is not Willow from the final two seasons - that baroque and self-contradictory jumble of ham-fisted addiction stereotypes and grief-as-anger manifestations warrants its own treatise. Rather, this is the alternate-reality Willow introduced in “The Wish” (S3 E9), after Anya grants Cordelia’s wish that Buffy had never come to town, and the world is transformed into Bizarro Sunnydale, complete with a leather-clad pansexual vampire version of Buffy’s bookish bestie.
First off, to state the obvious: Evil Willow is awesome. When she pops into the show’s restored reality in Doppelgangland (S3 E16), she serves as a counterpoint to Good Willow’s crisis of confidence. Appearing shortly after the unfortunate labeling of “Old Reliable,” Evil Willow’s swagger, style and unbridled sense of self causes her friends to sit up and take notice, to reconsider their treatment of her as a bland goody-two-shoes. She also turns the tables on a bullying jock, which is always good fun.
But therein lies the dichotomy and, indeed, the genius of the Buffyverse’s moral compass: Evil Willow is also, well, evil. She is a murderous vampire, one who tortures for her own pleasure, declaring “bored now” when a victim begs for mercy. The same lack of restraint that allows her to glory in her power and her sexuality, also frees her from even a hint of empathy. She is the negative framing of Spider-man’s creed: with her great power, she can elect to not take responsibility.
This blend of heroism and villainy, of kick-ass girl power and devastating consequences, is what always grounded the Buffyverse’s horror hijinks in recognizable moral reality. Reams have been written, courses taught, on Buffy herself as an inherently fascist avatar: like all superheroes who operate outside the bounds of law enforcement (or in Buffy’s case, Principal Snyder and the corrupt Watcher’s Council), her might makes her right, and she is unconstrained by societal strictures. When Faith goes rogue in Season 3, we see the damage that a slayer unbound can do, but we also root for Buffy (mostly) without reservation as she sets her own hierarchy of which demons must die, and which are more useful alive. With her blonde hair, blue eyes, and impressive roundhouse kick, she is the überfraulein, striking with the hand of God based on her own judgement.
This blurring of traditional roles is pervasive among the Scoobies: Xander is fiercely loyal and commonly coded as the “heart” of the group, while also being a sexist pig with a chip on his shoulder about being the only one without supernatural abilities; Giles manages to be both hidebound and a loose cannon, providing fatherly advice while eliciting childlike rebellion; Anya’s hilarious forthrightness about the idiocy of human customs highlights her other-ness and struggle to assimilate into humanity; and Spike is a master class unto himself on relative good within one person. Angel comes off as the simplest case, because his dividing line of a soul puts him squarely on the side of good, or bad, depending on how recently he’s experienced true happiness.
Which brings us back to Willow (Good Willow, the show’s in-universe Willow), and her last-second intervention to spare her doppelgänger from Buffy’s stake. Despite Evil Willow’s more outré tendencies, Good Willow still sees herself in her: she recognizes the loss of kinship and purpose beneath the soulless demon shell. Evil Willow serves as both warning and premonition, prefiguring Good Willow’s growing power, eventual fall from grace, and difficulty in separating boundaries worth breaking from those that cut her off from her innate goodness. (And the “I think I’m kinda gay!” foreshadow, a full year before Willow comes out, is still one of my favorite Whedonisms.) Like all the Scoobies – like all humanity – Willow contains darkness and light, and she has learned (through her lived experiences, her relationships, her faith, and her luck) how to tamp down the parts that don't fit her persona, or the ideals of her surroundings. When Evil Willow gives free reign to all of those sequestered traits, she releases the bad (murder, torture, lackey bullying) along with the good (her sexual identity, confidence, a taste for skintight leather). Good Willow suppresses her id to a fault; Evil Willow has let hers run free – and catches a splintered 2x4 in the heart for her troubles.
There is a not-insignificant part of me that just wants to launch into a Saving Silverman review. Ah, simpler times, when Jason Biggs was a comedic leading man and an entire movie plot revolved around a ball-busting harpy of Amanda Peet's caliber obsessed with banging him. Where did such inane pastiches of gendered idiocy go?
Thankfully, as at least part of the culture grows up, the void is filled with a truly marvelous outpouring of inventive cinema. The digital revolution of the last decade has democratized the medium of filmmaking, lowering the barrier to entry and encouraging striking new formal approaches. Belated foregrounding of what would have been dismissed in 2005 as “Black Movies” has opened a wider audience to the brilliance of Ryan Coogler, and the refreshingly bonkers Sorry to Bother You. Daniel Day-Lewis has mercifully hung up his Method schtick, opening the field for naturalistic (Mahershala Ali), operatic (Olivia Colman) and oddball (Adam Driver) luminaries to demonstrate the range of the possible in screen acting. Streaming services, for all of their (many) faults, have opened the heartland to the type of films that wouldn't have made it through the art-house doors last century. And you may have heard that superhero movies are a thing.
Allow me a moment of didacticism: it's been too long since I have jotted down my thoughts on the most recent flickerings of images to cross my cave walls, and it's high time this was remedied. While I am more likely to stray from a strict review format – essays on trends, juxtapositions, social positioning, and more will find a home here, as well – I have found that I am simply overflowing with Things To Say when I step out of the theater these days. It's your bad luck that you feel obligated to listen.
And so: what to make of the glut of imaginative films gracing our screens? Perhaps it's because I'm in the midst of revisiting the New Hollywood films of the late '60s and '70s, but the crackling creative spirit animating our screens reminds me of that brief watershed. Once again, the studios are caught flat-footed – rather than antitrust judgements and overwrought epics, this time it's #MeToo, #OscarsSoWhite, and the shift to streaming that have shaken the foundations. And while superheroes continue minting money for now, the impending end of the MCU cycle (to say nothing of the floundering Snyderverse) may finally bring us to a point of diminishing returns from the pre-existing property ouroboros. Auteurs like Yorgos Lanthimos and Alfonso Cuarón are defining their own genres, while Patty Jenkins re-structures the blockbuster world. And God bless whomever gave Boots Riley a camera.
But of course, the world we see on the screen is still a reflection of our own, and the civic unrest of the current moment mirrors the kaleidoscopic clashes of Chicago '68, Vietnam, Woodstock, Nixon and Watergate. We all fall prey to that apocryphal Chinese blessing/curse: “May you live in interesting times.” The times we inhabit are interesting to a fault, and overshadow us with anxieties ranging from the truly existential to the achingly personal.
All the more reason to transcend the grimy claws of reality, and seek refuge in the screen, no? Whether you seek to escape, understand, enhance, or challenge the world around us, the explosion of filmed images – some capital-A Art, some #content, some solipsism, some groundbreaking – provides a smorgasbord of possibility. Bon appétit!
Card's sci-fi classic is a skillful marriage of high-flying space opera, tender coming-of-age story, and philosophical jumping-off point, which works in no small part because the page allows him to describe the impact of experience on a young mind and body in a manner both childlike and preternaturally mature. Those words sound much less convincing when intoned by actors, and screenwriter/director Hood seems determined to saddle his most talented performers with the most absurd extrapolations. Given the gift of deploying Harrison Ford in a floating space station as a gruff-yet-lovable colonel, Ender's Game simply trots him out every 10 minutes or so to explain his star pupil's thought process, emotional state, and long-term goals. Poor Viola Davis fares even worse.
This is no doubt deemed necessary because Asa Butterfield, bless his heart, is incapable of embodying the soulful boy genius he must represent. In his defense, few child actors could. Ender Wiggin is bred into a futuristic household on special dispensation (he is a normally-proscribed third child) to be the greatest military commander of all time. Fifty years prior, an insectoid alien race attacked Earth and nearly destroyed humanity, only being repelled by one posthumous hero. Ender is intended to take the fight to them. Butterfield's quivering lip and deep blue eyes are adequate to convey Ender's intrinsic empathy, but the adults are left to explain his brilliance and savagery, and we have only their word to take.
At least Butterfield fares better than Ender's siblings—Jimmy Pinchak is nearly invisible as elder Peter, Ender's antagonist and greatest fear; Abigail Breslin continues to prove that she is incapable of subtlety or naturalism as the middle-child, Valentine. At least she fits in: Ender's Game is quite possibly the least subtle film of the year, at least amongst those not specifically aimed at the five-and-under crowd. Spelling out the hero's mental process is only the beginning; there is also the omnipresent mood music that signals each emotional turn, statements of intent as opposed to foreshadowing (Ender is warned by at least three different people, including the assailant himself, that “Bonzo is going to kill you” before he inevitably attempts to do so), and a total disregard for subtext in dialogue. (A sample: Valentine, escorted to visit her brother by Ford's Col. Graff, turns to him and says “You just want me to convince him to re-enlist.” Well put, Val.)
In a way, it's a shame, as the latter quarter of the film makes a valiant stab at redemption. While the space station's Battle Room—a zero-gravity training ground that should be the central spectacle—has already been overshadowed by Gravity's effects, the spaceship battles that Ender directs with his compatriots are actually engrossing and approach excitement. Once Ford is replaced as Ender's mentor by the Maori-tattooed Ben Kingsley, even Butterfield's acting improves. Alas, it is too little, too late.
Perhaps most perplexing is the approach taken to the invading aliens, labeled in the film only by their formal designation of “Formic.” In Card's original story, Formics are almost universally referred to by the derogatory slur “bugger,” which helps mightily in establishing the level of fear, revulsion and hatred that the human race has for them. This automatically sets the stakes for everyone involved, and imbues the Ender quote that (weirdly) opens the film with such philosophical importance. Absent such a clear divide, the bloodthirsty enmity against the Formics in the film is just one more piece of the puzzle that we must trust to the endless exposition, yet another part of Ender's world that is told rather than shown. In the far more inscrutable words of a truly great mentor of warriors: “That is why you fail.”
For Glen Randolph (David Cross), that is one of the metaphorical questions suddenly rendered very, very literal in It's a Disaster, an absolute triumph of a parlor comedy with the minor twist of being set amidst a terrorist attack. Or a Three Mile Island-style accident. Or the Biblical End of Days. Regardless, the larger world and it's impending end intrudes oh-so-rudely on Couple's Brunch, leaving Glen and his would be girlfriend Tracy (Julia Stiles) stranded in a locked box of old friends, long-simmering grievances, and discussions of survival necessities over mid-range merlot.
From Glen and Tracy's arrival (scored, like the rest of the film, to well-known classical compositions playing over diegetic radio waves) through the inevitable Last Brunch tableau, the suddenly intersecting realities of banal Yuppy existence and actual biological existence clash with a sublime mundanity that perfectly tweaks all of the minutiae that make up our daily lives. In addition to Glen and Tracy, three couples attend the fateful brunch: the hosts, Pete (Blaise Miller) and Emma (Erinn Hayes) have a difficult announcement to make after eight years of marriage; Lexi (Rachel Boston) and Buck's (Kevin M. Brennan) lack of social filters are bound to poke at sore spots; Hedy (America Ferrera) and Shane (Jeff Grace) seem to not be quite on the same page, from his eBay auction obsession to her refusal to set a date for the end of their six year engagement. Without exception, the ensemble cast is on point and hilarious, with Miller and Hayes forming the emotional centerpiece around which the other performers add poignant accents and hysterical counterpoints.
For when the VX (or whatever) hits the fan, thoughts turn both to survival and score settling, where to find flashlight batteries and what to wear for a flattered corpse. The group has a mix of skilled characters familiar to any disaster movie: Tracy is a doctor, Hedy teaches chemistry, Shane is positive that Buck would be handy with a rifle based simply on his name. But rather than actively making a run for it like their HazMat suited neighbor (Todd Berger, the film's writer and director), the group flits around from garage to attic, from bedroom to sitting room, coming to terms with their fate and revealing truths from their past.
Berger uses the space afforded by the single house set admirably, adjusting pairings and tableaus with a nudge and a tweak that feels both utterly natural and satirically symbolic. When the free-spirit (and occasionally swinging) Buck and Lexi descend upon Glen in the bedroom, it juxtaposes perfectly with Emma and Pete's detente in the garage. Dark deeds are revealed in dark spaces, while a homemade drug cocktail from the kitchen intrudes on the bedroom with potentially catastrophic consequences.
The great triumph of It's a Disaster, however, lies largely in how utterly normal everything seems. While we, the middle-class denizens of Anywhere, USA, love to watch disaster flicks and believe that, in such an extreme situation, our machete-wielding and chasm-leaping abilities would make us survivors, It's a Disaster reminds us of how we would most likely react. “It's gonna be fine, I just need my Adderall,” is Tracy's response; Hedy gets her Walter White on with a kitchen concoction of “poor man's Ecstasy.” While the rest argue over the correct pronunciation of duct tape (Buck is unaware of the “t”) and the etiquette of late arrivals, Shane opines on the likelihood of North Korea or Iran being the agent of his impending doom, and laments the lack of internet.
It all makes for a Couple's Brunch for the ages, and an exquisite modern re-appropriation of the comedy of manners. Filtered through our current social modus operandi of political correctness and passive aggressiveness, an eight-person survival squad seems just as odd as any creation of Jane Austen or Oscar Wilde, and just as applicable. The fact that the world is ending is but one of many stimuli that this octet must process, and they are far better equipped for an argument concerning the pros and cons of satellite radio—that such a debate seems utterly natural is the triumph of Disaster, and the gut-check of our lives.
Because Fruitvale Station, as you no doubt are aware, is a true story, and the short, grainy clip that leads off the film is actual footage of Oscar Grant III being shot in the back by a police officer, as he lays on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station. This lead-in, as blunt and shocking as could possibly be contrived, is an absolute necessity to frame what comes next: a chronicle of one thoroughly normal New Year's Eve day in the life of a young black man living in the Bay Area. One thoroughly normal day, that would culminate in a gunshot amid fireworks.
For much of the film, Oscar is simply a struggling father, trying to throw his mother a birthday dinner without antagonizing his girlfriend, get his daughter (Ariana Neal) to daycare so he can try to make ends meet. Embodied wholly by Michael B. Jordan, Oscar is certainly flawed—a brief flashback to a previous New Year's spent in prison is ample evidence, as is his sometime-dalliance with drug dealing and an unfortunately short temper. But he's also a very normal guy, who frets about providing for his family while keeping up appearances—he splurges for an extra crab for his mother's (Octavia Spencer) birthday dinner to show he is a good son, not because he has an extra twenty in his pocket.
Oscar is also, unmistakeably, a black man, and his normal day includes plenty of reminders. His sister exhorts him “Don't get me no fake-ass card with no white people on it” when picking out a birthday card for their mother; he is immediately, reactionarily viewed with suspicion by the young white woman (Anha O'Reilly) he endeavors to assist in a supermarket. Fruitvale takes on racism by not calling attention to it, but instead viewing the world through eyes that have gotten used to being judged harshly, and have learned to stare back impassively.
And always, hovering in the background, is the gunshot. For all of the mundanity that Coogler wanders through, all of the daily chores that Oscar bounces between, there is always the heavy knowledge on the audience that the characters do not yet have—this is Oscar's last day on Earth. Coogler uses this weight lightly, as an accent; when a BART train pulls out of a station, the rhythm of the passing cars gives a brief vision of eternity, of endless motion, suddenly ended when the last car whips by.
On that train, Oscar is returning to the East Bay after a New Years evening in the city with his girlfriend Sophina (Melanie Diaz, wonderful) and a gaggle of friends. An unfortunate encounter (like so many of Oscar's movements, his last wander through the crowded train is clouded by the destiny of coincidence) gets him into a scuffle, and at Fruitvale Station, he and his friends are detained by police. There is no actual suspense in the outcome, but when the shot is finally fired, it is almost more of a blow than if it had come out of nowhere—because for more than an hour, we have been watching such a simple family story, it seems impossible that it should end like this. A 22 year old man, facedown in a pool of blood, gasping “I have a daughter” over and over.
Coogler could not have known that his film would premier the weekend of George Zimmerman's acquittal. But the amount of time that Oscar spends shrugging into and out of a large, dark hoodie serves as an eerie mirror to another death, in the unseen future for Oscar and the past for us. Fruitvale Station makes it clear that Oscar was not entirely innocent in his life, or even in that evening—he is at the center of the fight on the train, his temper gets the better of him with the police officers—but none of his offenses deserved the bullet through is torso. There is nothing uplifting about Fruitvale Station, no ray of redemption or hammer of justice. But perhaps that is why it needed to be made.
Even the classiest of parties can be made to suffer fools—any caterer can spin you thirteen stories of rich men fallen down drunk, socialites reduced to screaming vulgarities, the occasional appearance of weaponry. That these occurrences have merely persevered through time and the theoretical progress of culture is both alarming and comforting: we are linked irretrievably to our forbears, whether we like it or not, in something resembling a line of unbroken humanity.
Having only to contend with the outdated but easily digested vernacular of Shakespeare, Whedon assembled his by now stock company of actors for a two week shoot before post-production work on The Avengers (only adding to his legend as a multi-tasker extraordinaire) and quickly set about bringing The Bard's zippy wit to supple black-and-white life. Were it not for such deliciously framed shots as the reveal of conspirators joining Claudio (Fran Kranz) in the pool, it would be tempting to ascribe the success of Much Ado simply to the casting. Amy Acker is such a perfectly wry Beatrice that it is a chore to not simply melt into her solipsistic denigration of men and marriage; the fact that she, like the rest of the cast, plays drunk so well you would swear that wine isn't grape juice is merely a bonus.
Thankfully, she is paired with her stunning equal in banter and benighted romanticism, as Alexis Denisof sinks his oft-bared teeth into every needling adjective in Benedick's arsenal. Equal parts Lothario and yuppie condescension, he is a card that you can't help but love, at least insofar as you want to join the plot against him. For as you may remember from English class, Benedick and Beatrice are maneuvered together by the raucous connivings of his patron Don Pedro (Reed Diamond, debonair) and her uncle Leonato (Clark Gregg, stupendous). The reluctant lovebirds are also herded along by Pedro's brother-in-arms Claudio and Leonato's lone daughter and heir Hero (Jillian Morgese), whose pure and (perhaps too) passionate love is worthy of unending ridicule in the eyes of the B's.
This talented ensemble, many of whom have worked together before, unwind before Whedon's camera, coexisting with the ease of old friends who have gathered for a respite from the world. They drown in wine and song (the music is by Whedon's brother Jed, and you may recognize the party singer from a Horrible web series), play match-maker and -fixer, and are perfectly in tune as they parry each other's wit and wisdom. Sean Maher provides a surprisingly dark and sensuous accent as the villainous Don John, and the less said about Nathan Fillion's inept Dogberry, the better—simply because no words could do justice to the sublimity of his idiocy, which puts even the able efforts of the BriTANicK Watchmen to shame.
The story is familiar, and although Shakespeare's era demanded a fainting damsel of a Hero, Beatrice's lashing tongue and the idiocy of her male counterparts easily settle Nothing into Whedon's gender-equality comfort zone. The true trick comes in the utter familiarity of the whole undertaking: despite the seemingly ponderous overhang of marriage, betrayal, and even death, the undercurrent of joy and love is so strong as to carry the story along with the lightest touch, and the audience as well. The little moments—a fist-bump at a plot's success; an impromptu workout to draw attention; a father requiring rousing when the wine has gone to his head—ground these creatures with exotic names and alluded exploits as simple men and women. In a house. Trying to get their prideful friends to hook up. Just like it has always been.
There's something to be said for genre constructs. Expectations help to craft reactions, guide emotional arcs and yes, sell tickets. The familiar is important, both in our entertainments and our day to day lives—keeping an even keel helps our society function.
There's no villain quite as engrossing as the Joker, although Tom Hardy's glowering, implacable Bane holds his own. The fights and chases seem brief and perfunctory, as if they are requirements to be fulfilled and then discarded. Even Batman himself tends to flit around the edges, a minor piece of a greater collage of humanity, battling not just bad guys but badness itself, painted in textures all the more terrible for their plausibility.
As when the Batman began, fear must be feared itself; as when Gotham's white knight fell, the bonds of strangers are strained and stretched. Right and wrong exist as two sides of the same truths, placed before the masses for ultimate justice; amongst crowds and in shadowy alleys, faith is the only weapon that can be deployed against the darkness.
That faith animates orphan billionaires and orphan cops alike. It blinds an old friend, and weighs on the conscience of a city's protector. It's a quixotic pursuit, nearly dismissed as weakness by a well-heeled denizen of the slums; and it drives a child of poverty and violence to the spires of power. Every character is fully formed, but none truly take center-stage; instead they weave in and out of each other's sight, feeling, and lives, sacrificing specificity for perspective.
Never before has Gotham been such a glowing character in and of itself; the use of the actual New York skyline (complete with a half-finished Freedom Tower) certainly helps to ground the city in a reality that still feels expandable. And as legacies build and crumble, tension crescendos and rests, Hans Zimmer's driving score has never been more at home. The staccato violins seem to drive darkness and light equally, building the battles beyond the individual bodies involved and pushing them towards an almost unbearable catharsis, which never quite leaves the blackness behind.
The details of the plot seem almost incidental in such a whirlwind of souls. A city at peace becomes a city at war; the monied classes find themselves suddenly reduced to pawns, while the unwashed take to “freedom” with all the coherence we have come to expect from sudden revolutions. There are notes of the Arab Spring, the Tea Party, and Occupy wrapped up in one giant teapot, and the resulting tempest nears universality as none of these paradigms holds any one key.
Instead, the faiths diverge, and come to blows, and threaten a cataclysm that could tear the social fabric to shreds. The fires that rise are beyond the power of one man to change; instead, the power of tarnished symbols is tested against falsified idols, the prize being Gotham's soul. And true to form, Nolan offers no easy answers for where that soul can finally rest. Those who were incensed by the waffling of Inception most likely won't be pleased; likewise those that hoped The Dark Knight was building towards a new gold standard for the superhero genre.
Because Rises isn't a film about a superhero—if anything, it pounds us with reminders that a man in a cape can't simply fly in and solve our problems, whether we hate him or love him for it. Instead, it is a paean to our shared humanity, and to the bonds that (hopefully) remain between all of us. For the same reason the boats weren't blown last time, for the same reason that the city didn't dissolve into madness before that, the hope remains that something as simple as faith in our fellow men and women is all that we need to deliver us from whatever evils lurk in the world.
Off-screen drama aside, much has changed in the world of Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce. And Matthew Weiner's breakneck season premiere (only the first of two parts, no less) seems positively Benny Hill-esque compared to the show's usual sedate pacing. Yes, the resolute gentlemen (and we use that term loosely) of the 1950s ad world have finally been dragged, sullen if not screaming, into the brave new world of the '60s, and there is much to catch up on. Men talk about their feelings now; husband and wife drive to work together; folks smoke grass at company parties. Divorce is openly discussed, not hidden under euphemisms and meaningful glances. Don Draper turns forty, and a rival ad agency has a race relations problem.
The hallmark of Mad Men has always been attention to detail, and whether by necessity or invention, Weiner has outdone himself. The SCDP offices, already modern in Season 4, have taken on a nearly flowery tone; Draper's hip digs are downright Warholian by his spartan tastes. His new wife is as a youth in the throws of revolution; the only hint of his ex is an all-too-brief appearance by his daughter Sally, blossoming inexorably into her mother.
Pete is balding and, just noticeably, a bit heavier. Roger is suave as ever, although his air is now of seriousness, as disconcern has become his primary mode. Joan is sequestered, adrift without a gaggle of man-boys to mother.
And Peggy is a grown-up. It is instructive to remember that when the show premiered, she was a twenty-one year old, fresh from secretarial school—the tribulations of the intervening years aside, from twenty-one to twenty-six is enough of a maturity jump in and of itself. And she knows herself in a way that Don's endlessly pampered wives and even Joanie the Hardscrabble Cynic could never imagine.
It is easy to spotlight Weiner's script for veiled references to his own labor difficulties, the rumors of firings and the freezes on expenditures. Or it could be read as a nod to the ostensibly less decadent time most of the country now inhabits. Or it could just be historical accuracy—the post-war boom hadn't ended, but the clouds were on the horizon. Regardless, it paints a sometimes-heavy handed patina of shame and desperation over the continuing shenanigans of the men (no longer boys) of Madison Avenue.
There may simply be too much going on. Mad Men has never been a hasty show before, usually unspooling over a season what many shows would give a half an hour. But in a way, the restlessness fits—the jet-set '60s where Don dipped a toe in California are making their way to the East Coast, complete with français chic and secretaries who talk back.
Yes, much has changed inside the walls of SCDP, but they continue to mock and avoid what has happened outside of it. Two years after Pete saw the potential of sales in the African American community, the water-bombing of a civil rights picket line by a rival agency leaves the partners racing for their notebooks—to contrive a suitable jest. It's inevitable backfire may finally drag the agency cloaked in modern garb into actual modernity—but I wouldn't expect anything to change too quickly. After all, it took them two years to jump this far.
It may start with Paul Simon playing the music, after lights have dimmed rather than lit, but the message behind The Muppets is clear: these people (critters? The debate may never end) are back. Raucous, rambling, loud and spectacular, the reboot of Jim Henson's all-too-venerable creations gets it right by not being so reverent, and by recognizing that the Muppets are all about having fun, even if it means the occasional slip into chaos.
That this movie was intended to be something other than standard kiddie-distracting holiday fare is clear from the team behind the scenes: writers Jason Segal and Nicholas Stoller worked together on the superb but very R-rated Forgetting Sarah Marshall, while director James Bobin built his career on TV shows like Flight of the Conchords and Da Ali G Show. Their cumulative experience with adult-targeted comedy certainly informs a film that sneaks in the sly grown-up references that the Muppets were always good for, including inventive ways around some lewd lyrics from pop hits.
The key to The Muppets success, however, lies in the frenetic pacing that might seem to be aimed squarely at today's Ritalin-addled youth, but which in fact hearkens back to The Muppet Show and the puppets' original home, Saturday Night Live. With no time wasted, we are introduced to Walter (voiced by Peter Linz), the diminutive, fuzzy twin brother of the equally amiable Gary (Segal). Walter has never felt quite normal in his tiny hometown of Smalltown, but he found his heroes watching The Muppet Show with Gary as a kid. Now they're all grown up, or at least Gary is, and whisking off to L.A. with Gary's long-time girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) in tow to visit the hallowed ground of Muppet Studios.
But as any Henson aficionado can tell you, the Muppets ain't what they used to be. Muppet Studios is in shambles, and about to be sold off to the brutish oil magnate Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), to be demolished in the quest for the black gold that has, apparently, been hiding beneath the City of Angels all this time. To save the studio and the Muppets themselves, Walter and co. must enlist the help of Kermit, Miss Piggy and the rest of the gang to (what else?) put on a show!
As has always been the case, The Muppets lives in a universe of pop culture. The putting-the-band-together motif is lifted from Blues Brothers (not to mention the original Muppet Movie); Miss Piggy's current circumstances recall The Devil Wears Prada (guess which character she is); and the troupe's show pitch is interrupted with a skewering of inane reality TV. And the celebrity cameos, while perhaps not as impressive as in the Muppets' '70s heyday, still bring chuckles to those in the know (Dave Grohl gets the win here, with an honorable mention to NPH). While one might wish that Cooper left the singing to the pros—a sentiment seemingly shared by the rest of the cast—the overall atmosphere of Muppet wackiness is lovably intact.
The film gets the most mileage, however, out of simultaneously embracing and skewering Hollywood cliches—the candy-coated utopia of Smalltown, USA is both a hilarious post-modern ribbing of the Our Town ideal, and a nostalgic homage to the uncomplicated world of '50s TV. Here, lovers of 10 years kiss chastely on the cheek and old friends burst into song to celebrate their lives, before casually mentioning their dance number in the next breath.
As is noted by the villainous fat cat, we live in a cynical time, where much of popular culture is built around poking fun at the kind of wide-eyed belief that fuels the best family entertainment. But the Muppets are products of the '70s, arguably the closest our culture ever came to the doldrums we now inhabit—with economic malaise, the loss of national innocence and a lack of faith in our political leaders, the puppets came about as entertainment for escapist adults, and later turned to a more wholesome, but still subversive, children's entertainment. The Muppets had a bit more on their mind—and some would argue, in their systems—than Saturday morning cartoons, and that is why they endured in our memories for so long; these characters live in the real world, and their tenacity and friendship in the face of adversity helped to make them role models to generations of kids.
This being a Disney production (complete with a pre-show Toy Story short about coping with rejection), the Muppets aren't let completely off the chain. But Bobin, Stoller and Segal have put together an imperfect, yet wholly satisfying return to form for everyone's favorite felted creatures. By being themselves, Henson's brain children stampede back into our hearts and minds, and we can't help but beam and bop along to the Muppet Show theme song. For while The Muppets might not be able to give us the greatest gift of all (per Kermit himself: children), we get a pretty good consolation prize: for two hours, we get to feel like kids again.
In many ways it's easy to mistake Super 8 for The Goonies; the progenitor of that particular brood of rapscallions, Steven Spielberg, is at the top of the poster as an executive producer, after all. Given the band of plucky and physically varied kids on an otherworldly mission, the comparison is more than easy to make. But whereas The Goonies was a celebration of childlike wonder and imagination, Super 8 is about growing up, leaving fantasies behind, and facing the real world—even if that world holds some truly fantastical challenges.
That this particular amalgamation of creature-feature and nostalgic coming-of-age story originated from the mind of J.J. Abrams should be no surprise. While, at times, he seems too enthralled to his Spielbergian mentor, Abrams puts his own distinct character-driven spin on his third feature, his first from his own original story. He also strikes a decidedly autobiographical note, focusing on an intrepid collective of would-be filmmakers; it is nothing close to a stretch to imagine Abrams, a boy in the late '70s, traipsing along with an 8mm camera in one hand and bare-bones makeup kit in the other.
And yes, Super 8 is most definitely a period piece. Unfolding as the malaisical '70s draw to a close, with reports about Three Mile Island on the tube, Joe (Joel Courtney) sets out to make a zombie movie with his friends, both to avoid the memory of his recently departed mother and as a last fling of freedom before his taciturn deputy father (Kyle Chandler) foists more macho pursuits upon him. His friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) seems destined for an Orwellian ego, if not necessarily the wunderkind success; Cary (Ryan Lee) is a barely-controllable effects artist with a bag full of M80s. Their leading man Martin (Gabriel Basso) can't remember his simple lines, and Preston (Zach Mills) is not one for adventure.
One fateful night they all troop out to the town train station, ferried by Charles' ingenue Alice (Elle Fanning), who enchants Joe even as her family troubles are inextricably linked to his own. With camera rolling, a late-night train rumbles by in the background, giving the ecstatic director “production value” beyond his wildest dreams—especially when the train, with some help, derails, blowing sky high and showering the fields with thousands of strange metal cubes.
To give more details would only detract from an excellent marketing campaign, but suffice to say strange things start happening, from the descent of swarms of Air Force brass onto a sleepy Ohio mill town to the unexplained disappearance of a host of small appliances. While shaken by their proximity to the crash, the boys largely go about their business, taking advantage of the commotion to add a sense of realism to their zombie flick.
And that is where Super 8 truly shines—not as a sci-fi blockbuster or gory horror film, but as a tender tale about growing up. The kids are all in middle school, and suddenly, the gang of boys starts noticing girls. The death of Joe's mother and his father's subsequent withdrawal force Joe into self-sufficiency; conversely, Charles' over-loaded house means he is often forgotten in the bustle. Alice has her own demons to work out, helped enormously by a doting yet tempestuous alcoholic of a father (Ron Eldard).
Helped along by a positively superb group of young actors, Abrams manages to conjure a very real sense of being caught in the middle—between childhood and adulthood, between authority and intuition, between duty and the desire to let the grown-ups deal with it. While the tentatively blossoming relationship between Joe and Alice is more overt, Joe's evolving friendship with Charles is perhaps where the soul of the film truly lies. Best friends forever, they are suddenly thrust into a world where they are losing every other touchstone they could rely on, and have to determine just how much stock they can put in each other, to finish the film and solve the mystery. Every guy who has fought with his best friend will recognize the mixed-up, probing re-definition of roles that these two kids are fumbling through.
While the adults are largely immaterial, they do show up to move the plot along and provide a sort of grounding for the kids to define themselves against. Kyle Chandler essentially transplants his Friday Night Lights character back a few decades, but to good effect; no one would ever doubt that he is a father who loves his son, he just hasn't quite bought into the New Age parenting thing. Eldard rages and weeps convincingly, and not too often. But naturally, the other star of Super 8 is the special effects.
They stand out, however, not in the splashy way that most summer films bombard you with explosions, feats of aerial prowess and CGI creatures galore. Instead, Abrams and his effects team are sparing, especially at first, building suspense about what kind of force is being deployed. Again taking a cue from his exec prod (in addition to The Goonies, Abrams has clearly seen Jaws, E.T. and Jurassic Park a few times too many), the director allows us to remain uncertain about what is actually behind the mayhem. And unlike oh-so-many sub-par thrillers, the payoff actually lives up to the hype.
If Abrams has a sin in Super 8, it is that he is too indebted to the movies he grew up with; when a film deploys direct visual quotes to a whole decade's worth of one director's work, perhaps the shine is off the apple. But no one can fault Abrams for his execution in telling these familiar stories. And just as notably, for acknowledging their familiarity, and twisting his story into a fried chicken-comfort food type of film. For all the shocks, tears and ennui, the prevailing emotion evoked by Super 8 is one of camaraderie; watching those boys have such a time onscreen makes you want to call up your old buddies, break out the camera, and go make some more memories.
For the god of thunder, Thor doesn't really make a ton of noise. Sure, there's bellowing, whimpering, the odd outburst of melodramatic screaming. And things go “boom” with a clockwork regularity whenever the mythology of Asgard and the delicate family politics of royalty threaten to overtake slam-bang Marvel action. But on the whole, this comic book extravaganza from a Shakespeare-bred director, starring two Oscar winners, two nobodies and one gratuitous-yet-hilarious Kat Dennings, is a surprisingly sedate affair, an experiment in opulent maneuvers that belies the beguiling depth of its fraternal connections.
The meta-fraternity of Marvel superheroes is certainly felt, as Thor joins the most recent incarnations of the Hulk, Iron Man, and this summer's upcoming Captain America launch in presaging The Avengers, Paramount's answer to next summer's Dark Knight Rises. That will truly be a battle royale, a matchup of titans the like of which is notably lacking in Kenneth Branagh's blockbuster. Rather, his Thor is a straightforward origin story deeply couched in the politics of kingdom and kin, and the lowly humans of the Marvel universe are simply grafted on.
It should come as no surprise that Branagh, he of the four-hour Hamlet, is most enamored of the heroic impulses and all-to-human failings of the royals of Asgard, and he wisely follows his instincts, centering his story (the team of five screenwriters merely provide some risible dialogue) on an aging monarch (Anthony Hopkins) and his two ambitious sons. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is the golden boy, his shining blonde mane and flowing red cloak anointing him as heir apparent; Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is dark-haired, pale and furtive—though he harbors hopes of ascending to the throne, he is marked from the beginning as trouble.
It is a credit to both Branagh's sympathetic treatment and Hiddleston's nuanced portrayal that Loki is so much more than a stock villain destined to be Thor's first great conquest. Instead, Loki and Thor are genuinely close, best friends and brothers who go adventuring together and playfully compete; Thor's sin is always winning, and even his great affection for his towering sibling can't keep Loki from stewing in his shadow. All the while their father Odin, played to both mammoth grandeur and deflated defeat by Hopkins, cannot muster his youthful vigor to guide his wayward offspring.
The developments once Thor, goaded into foolish action by Loki's scheming, is banished to Earth are largely immaterial. While Dennings launches zingers, Natalie Portman continues her post-Oscar losing streak as some sort of scientist who apparently just wants a big hunk to carry her away. Seeing her throw herself at Thor, after all of his glory and pathos, just makes her seem unworthy. Stellan Skarsgård is there as a token Scandinavian and father figure to Portman—he will apparently be in The Avengers, where he will hopefully have more to do.
It is in Asgard, the mythical realm of the Norse gods, where everything of substance lies. The towering CG buildings are certainly impressive in their splendor, although Branagh's blatant visual cribbing from The Lord of the Rings robs some of the majesty. Likewise, the extended voyages through kaleidoscopic space intrigue, but pale in comparison to the stately vastness conveyed in 2001. Rather than attempt to remake himself as a special effects virtuoso, Branagh should focus on his abilities as a storyteller and director of actors, for that is where he shines. Hemsworth and Hiddleston more than hold their own against their be-statued cast mates, finding depth of character in the midst of their comic book brawling. The fights tend towards the abrupt, devoid of imagination or meaning, until the inevitable meeting of the two brothers.
Unleashed, as they should be, in their shining paradise built on the backs of conquered foes, Thor and Loki are a sight to behold; and their feud hits harder than any recent Marvel pairing, simply because we believe they love each other. Thor might be missing the pure entertainment of the Iron Man franchise, but at least Branagh and his team are able to harness a measure of feeling, of humanity, into his tale of gods. Oscar-bait it ain't, but for a summer popcorn flick, the saga of Asgard takes a bold step towards true heart; it may not quite hit the mark, but certainly falls close enough.
Once upon a time, in the magical land of California, two men created a TV show. That show, Eastbound & Down, was a profane pipe bomb of outlandish comedy, a gleefully masochistic skewering of ego, fame, and full-bore delusion. This show rocketed it's star and co-creator, Danny McBride, into the uppermost tier of Hollywood funny men; it was only a matter of time before he and his faithful companion Ben Best made a movie together.
Oh, if only that movie had not been this one. Your Highness, promoted into being by the combination of McBride, Best, and two of McBride's collaborators from the far more entertaining Pineapple Express (director David Gordon Green and star James Franco), is a painfully boring attempt to graft comedy onto a fantasy adventure, all while playing to the usually forgiving stoner crowd. Although, given it's surprising dearth of toking, Your Highness may quickly fall out of favor with even that audience.
It's hard to imagine who else this film might appeal to for viewers. The turgid, oft-recycled plot will surely not rope in the Lord of the Rings fantasy buffs; neither will the subpar special effects that are given show-stopping prominence in multiple battle scenes. Fans of McBride might find something in the gratuitous profanity that seems to be this film's only avenue towards humor, although after the umpteenth version of “olden thyme speech, medieval gibberish, SWEAR!”, the effect and affection wears off.
And Lord help those who tune in hoping that Franco can follow up his Oscar nod with another zany turn à la his role in Pineapple—here, he is given nothing to do but grin broadly, brandish a sword, and pine hopelessly for his abducted (and utterly useless—hooray for strong female characters!) love, played to spacy extremes by Zooey Deschanel. You see, Franco is the golden boy prince of a make-believe kingdom, and he must rescue his betrothed despite the annoying, but never really all that distracting, hijinks of his doofus brother (McBride).
Along the way they encounter another slumming Oscar refugee, Natalie Portman, who is just as unfunny playing straight as Franco is clowning about. Indeed, she seemed to be cast more for her pre-pregnancy physique than any affinity for stupid comedy; also, it should be horribly painful for any cinephile to watch her attempt to conjure a romantic attachment to McBride's oaf.
There is also some nonsense about courtly betrayal, a disgustingly hyper-sexed puppet, and a few unfortunately proportioned naked men running about; for those more interested in the fairer sex, a scene is included replete with topless babes. It would seem on the surface (and from the trailers, which included each and every actually funny joke) that McBride and Best nailed everything their target demographic could desire. When the gauntlet is thrown down, however, Your Highness is only tolerable under the influence of, shall we say, magical wizard herbs. And even then, don't expect to be blown away.
