World's Greatest Dad (2009)

3/3

The World's Greatest Dad is a smart and fresh comedy of the first class. It deals with life's realities in a funny way, which is certainly not something that's easy to accomplish. It makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. Interestingly enough, this movie tackles the same topic as my last review, The Lovely Bones, (coping with the loss of a teenage child), but from a completely different angle.

Robin Williams has dealt with depression and drug problems in the past, as well as recently. The character he played in this movie was a lot like him in real life: depressed from dealing with the stresses of life, yet funny. Williams has played diverse roles throughout his acting career (funny man, lunatic, family man etc), but I think this was his most heartfelt.

He was a writer who was mainly ignored. He was a teacher whose students didn't care. Most importantly, he was the father of a despicable son who was so awful that you wanted to punch him hard in the gut. But, everything changes when his son accidentally kills himself while self-asphyxiating and masturbating. What a way to go, and boy did he have it coming, no pun intended.

Since Williams' character loved his son, even if he didn't like him, he was devastated. And the scene where he finds his dead son would have been a major tear-jerker given Williams' raw and real emotions, had it not been for the director's insertion of an upbeat and seemingly out-of-place song (and actually the music throughout the movie did help keep the tone light, as the tone of any comedy should be). The only rational thing for Williams to do after having found his dead son would be to make this embarrassing (and grossly hilarious and almost deserved) accident look like an intentional suicide, right? So he zips up the kid's pants and sits down and writes his son's fake suicide note. It turns out to be so beautiful that the entire school is transformed by its message. Williams soon realizes that he has the power to rewrite his son's life and give him a new legacy.

So Williams can make his son all that he wished he was when he was alive: brilliant, compassionate, caring. What's more is that he finally has an audience for his own writing by literally ghost-writing through his son. He goes as far as reverse-plagiarizing his son's journal, which ends up getting national attention for its quality. It would seem like a dream come true to a father in this position. But oh how heavy the truth weighs on one's heart. You know that all the artificial good feelings must truly be empty because in reality, the son is dead and the son was a schmuck.

If it weren't for all that was subtly and overtly funny in The World's Greatest Dad, it would be a really sad drama. But Williams rescued us by making it his own, and kept us smirking. Thank God the tone wasn't too heavy. Other characters I liked were the son's best friend as well as the neighbor; I could tell that these were characters that the writer/director cares about and probably knows in real life in one form or another. The last minute of the film was my favorite. Watch this movie and you'll like it.

The Lovely Bones (2009)

2/3

 

The Lovely Bones is a hard one to rank because I both loved it and hated it.

First off, obviously it was going to contain some seriously awesome and stunning scenery because Peter Jackson was behind the directorial helm. And it did: the heaven scenes where our (dead) protagonist's imagination blended with beautiful nature scenes were amazing- like the tree whose leaves suddenly turned into birds that flew away (see movie poster) or the life-sized ships in a bottle that were crashing ashore. This movie may seem like an odd choice for Jackson to direct, given what it's about, compared to his other films. Actually though, I think his adept ability to deliver such powerful fantastical sequences made this movie work. It does the girl's tale justice.

 

Also, the acting was solid. I tend to like Mark Wahlberg because there's a soft side to his gruff manliness, which definitely shines through here. Our protagonist, Saoirse Ronan (try pronouncing that name), played it just right- ghostly and eerie yet sad and longing. Stanley Tucci played a complete 180 role here especially when you compare this part to that in Julie & Julia or Devil Wears Prada. Finally, Susan Sarandan was hilarious and provided the brief comic relief that we desperately needed half-way through.

Okay, now to the obvious parts that I hated about this movie. I don't think I'm going to be giving anything away by saying that Stanley Tucci's character was a sociopathic pedophile who raped and murdered little girls. And boy was his character a creepy, ugly, scary, and messed up weirdo. I just can't feel at much peace with this movie, no matter how it ends, after having seen a vision of him in a bathtub filled with dirt and blood right after he murdered that girl. I'll bet that many people don't even feel satisfied with the ending, though I won't say anymore.

Overall, The Lovely Bones was a powerful and sad movie that certainly brought out a lot of emotions (including real fear) and hit home for everybody who cares about children and families-- well, for anybody who cares about people. It was written without fear and directed with talent. It's not an easy or really enjoyable movie to watch, but it does do a good job of showing how families struggle to come to terms and cope with such awful tragedies. If you watch it, you will certainly feel digusted and sad with a lesser chance of feeling uplifted.

Wall-E (2008)

3/3

I've been an unashamed fan of Pixar movies ever since Toy Story came out and changed cartoons forever. Since Pixar has had Disney's endorsement (and has more recently been purchased by the film mega-conglomerate), its movies have all held the same charm and top-quality story. And one of the guys behind Pixar's success is Andrew Stanton, writer/director of Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Finding Nemo. His latest is Wall-E, which is one of his best.

Now I've heard mixed reviews of this from friends. One friend said that their parents walked out half way through because it was awful, while another said that their parents watched it twice in the opening week. I knew that I had to see it for myself to find out what was up. Naturally, I was drawn to this movie (no pun intended) not just because it was a Pixar movie, but because its story takes place in a post-crisis Earth, and I have a thing for movies about the end of days.

Wall-E, this small cleaning robot, is the only thing left on Earth because every human abandoned the planet for a luxury spaceship when the Earth became too full of trash. So every day Wall-E gets up with the sun and goes to work, collecting and compacting mountains full of trash all by himself, working to help make Earth inhabitable once again. Obviously it's going to take some time.

Since Wall-E is geared towards a children's audience, our main character is loveable and everything ends happily. But there is so much depth here. For starters, somehow our man Stanton has written the protagonist without one word of dialogue, yet we know his thoughts and feelings based on facial expressions (if you call a pair of robot goggle-eyes a face) and machinery noise intonations. That's quite an accomplishment and it's unique, so major props.

Also, the animation is spotless and exciting. The images of an Earth buried under huge piles of trash very powerfully counteracts the clean beauty of unpolluted space. The ship where all of the humans are is quite creative, yet sad. In the many generations that humans have been away from Earth, on board this luxury cruiseline spaceship, they've gotten fat and dumb, even more so than they must have been on Earth. Even though the director claimed in his commentary that he didn't write this story to try to get across a political agenda, I can't help but see one. If we continue on this course of messing up our environment, we're going to be in big trouble one day.

Wall-E, because he has a true heart and fights for the right thing, ends up saving humanity and falling in love with a newer, high-tech girl robot. There are some great heart felt moments as well as some honestly funny scenes. Stanton remembers that grown-ups go see his movies too, so he throws in a few comedic 'carrots' for adults here and there (i.e. Sigourney Weaver does the voice of the ship's computer). Overall, I thought it was a great movie for everybody; Wall-E is an unbeatable story that makes you feel happy for watching, yet it carries a powerful message.

300 (2006)

2/3

In a way, 300 was both a huge surprise and something of a let down at the same time- thus it averages out to be two stars.

I thought this movie was seriously cool because of the way it was made, its calling card. It felt like an exciting comic book come to life. The intense artistry and unique special effects made the legend and the story of the battle simply awesome (both beautiful and gruesome).

I'd say 300 obviously appealed to my demographic (young male); we've got action and fighting not just in the third act, but all over the place. Gerard Butler is a badass killa with a bad attitude. Not to mention the fact that there were a couple steamy love scenes that were equally comicbook-icized. All the Spartans were glorified to the max and, since I'm a young male I can't help but say that it was a lot of fun watching them kill thousands of Persians. (Wow, that is messed up to say, isn't it?)

But my main complaint about this movie is the predictability of and lack of interest with the stock secondary characters and their flat/action-blockbuster dialogue. Everybody else in the movie other than our protagonist Leonidas was plain old, run-of-the mill boring. Okay, perhaps it was intentional to make all secondary characters as common as possible as a way to emphasize the legendary feel of the story. Maybe they wanted to make it feel like we've heard this tale before, because it has been told time and time again for centuries.

I'll concede the fact that Leonidas' dialogue was allowed to be bellowing and short-winded and angry. Sure, he had to talk like Charlton Heston to pull off the role ("Tonight, we dine in Hell" and "This is Sparta!" etc etc). But why did everyone else have to? The only other even remotely interesting character in the movie was the story teller with one eye (a tip of the hat to Homer perhaps?) because he spoke in sentences longer than four words.

So then. If you're a young male and don't care about how the characters talk or develop, and you're only interested in some blow-your-mind action sequences, then definitely see this movie. If you're a graphic artist or appreciate some great work on the computer, you'd also like 300. If you're a historian, I'm not so sure what you'd think.

Avatar (2009)

3/3

Avatar was destined to be one of those movies that was 'too big to fail,' but, unlike Wall Street banks, it didn't actually fail. All in all, this movie was a really spectacular occurrence and will turn out to be the jewel in James Cameron's directorial/writing crown, truly his best accomplishment yet.


Yes, there was a mountain's worth of hype building up to its release, but I think it made the movie all the better. Sometimes lots of publicity is only a feeble attempt to glaze over a flimsy movie product, but this wasn't the case here. Well, on the contrary, most of the time, I like seeing movies that I've been excited about seeing for a long time. I've heard people compare Avatar to Star Wars and other life-changing, industry-revolutionizing film experiences that had similar hype; they are worth all of the buzz because they were so well made. Actually, I can't remember the last time I've been to a theater that was so packed. It was really an event.

The CGI/special effects were simply amazing. How does a director make a movie this stunning and beautiful? It was impossible to tell where the live action started and the computers took over, seriously. Pandora and everything on it was so real and awesome that it was sometimes hard to remember it was all fiction. The nature (both the plants and animals) was really neat and the Na'vi themselves were cool. Describing it like this doesn't do it credit, I don't think, but I'm no English major.

I couldn't help reading the larger message of the film that humans can be bad if they're driven only by profits and are too careless to see the good in nature. It was sad that Cameron's future Earth doesn't have any green, yet it was interesting that there's going to be a war with Venezuela and Nigeria.

The Na'vi seemed to be based off of a mix of Native American and African tribal culture. I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with the theory that humanoids from another planet would evolve culturally so similarly to humans. But, it also makes them recognizable and easier to swallow story-wise while at the same time parallelling the tragic history of human nature (i.e. the European destruction of indigenous populations in America and Africa).

Come to think of it, why do the Na'vi have fingernails? Are we supposed to buy that they evolved physically in the same way as humans too? What are the odds that foreign evolution would be so similar and would happen at the same time? I need commentary from a scientist. Also, I'm doubtful that humans will be so advanced (space flight to foreign planets, cryo freezing, curing spinal paralysis etc) in only 130 years yet the same clothing styles are still being worn. Other than these nit picky details, Cameron's Pandora and future were both very creative and I give him major props for thinking up such an awesome setting for this story.

I sort of lament the action/fighting third act. Ebert commented on it too (here), but felt that it was better than some. I mean it was such a cliche way to end it, but I suppose it had to happen. Why take a risk on making the third act unexpected with so much money at stake? I mean, I'll admit that I'd be upset if things didn't turn out in the romantic way (i.e. bad guys beaten, guy gets girl, good lessons learned etc etc). I guess I'm at peace with the ending, but definitely preferred the introduction when we are experiencing the new world from the eyes of our protagonist.

As with any major creative feat, there were many nods to other important films; the not-so subtle hints were fun to pick up on. The gung-ho colonel drinking a mug of coffee as he approaches the attack point in his bomber certainly reminded me of a similar scene in Apocalypse Now (which certainly exposed the many attrocities committed against native populations in the Vietnam War). Sigourney Weaver is an icon and reminds us of the sci-fi revolution that was Alien (and of her voice cameo role 30 years later in Pixar's Wall-E). The main character's adventure reminded me of a young Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. The list goes on...

All in all, Avatar was really cool, lots of fun, and exciting with a positive message and I'll leave it at that.

Polar Express (2004)

1/3

 

I feel like Scrooge or the Grinch for giving a kids' Christmas movie just one star. But compared to the classics in the Christmas film "cannon" (like A Christmas Carol, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Christmas Story etc.), Polar Express just didn't stack up in my opinion. This puts me at a minority, since most people seem to enjoy it.

For one thing, I thought the animation in Polar Express was somewhat elementary in comparison to other CGI films, lacking the finer touches of Pixar or of Dreamworks or even of some of Zemeckis' other films (like Monster House or his version of A Christmas Carol). I guess I found the relatively poor quality of animation, of the characters' faces especially, distracting.

Another thing is that both the story and the physical setting of the plot were dark and kinda gloomy (literally and figuratively) for a kids' movie, especially for one about Christmas. Sure kids' movies can get dark as the characters encounter difficulties in the story, but there just didn't seem to be many bright or happy moments here to counterbalance. I wanted to experience more of the magic of the train and of the North Pole instead of getting bogged down in the foggy, eerie, and dark roof of the train or in the abandoned inner-workings of Santa's shop. There was plenty of opportunity to show us some neat Christmas excitement and I felt let down.

Finally, I didn't like the Oscar-nominated original song. It was too much like the storyline and setting and animation in that it lacked zest for the fundamental joy and exhilaration of Christmas.

Tom Hanks certainly did a great job doing so many diverse voices throughout. I'll bet he enjoyed doing something like this, something quite unique for him. But Hanks could not keep this film afloat all by himself (like he did in Cast Away, another Zemeckis film, one which I liked). Overall, I wanted and hoped for more than I got with this movie. Zemeckis has done better.

Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

2/3

I probably wouldn't have gone to see Law Abiding Citizen if it hadn't been for my next-door neighbor. I didn't think that I would like it based on the commercials, but he wanted to go see it, so we went, and I liked it enough to give it two stars.

I think it succeeded in being suspenseful. We constantly wanted to know how Gerard Butler's character was able to carry out his deadly plans while he was locked away in jail, under constant surveillance. The stakes got higher and so did the mystery and intrigue. There were also several "wow" scenes that made me jump and say 'wow.' They were mostly disgusted wows, but they were still wows. So that's what prevented this movie from being a one star, because it's fun to watch exciting, suspenseful movies.

On the other hand, Law Abiding Citizen fell into some standard Hollywood blockbuster writing traps. In the quest to make the movie suspenseful, the screenwriter made a few things a little bit ridiculous and unbelievable: like how the mayor of Philadelphia shut down the whole city because she was afraid of one criminal. Secondly, a few lines of dialogue meant to be serious and dramatic came off as majorly cheesy- in fact, some audience members laughed out loud a couple times at what were supposed to be serious moments. Also finally, Butler's character was basically godlike in his abilities and I'm just not so sure one man, no matter how angry or genius he is, could have planned out so many details of this plan. Okay, so obviously it is a movie and we're supposed to remember that in order to enjoy it better.

But I must mention one final disappointment with the film before I critique its take-away message. I was pretty let down by the revelation of how Butler's character carried out his plan while in jail. I won't spoil the surprise, but it was simply too hokey and cliche to fully satisfy the curiosity that built throughout the entire movie, in my opinion.

To the overarching theme now. I don't know if it was meant to be ambiguous of if we were supposed to sympathize/side with Butler. Bad men broke into his house and killed his daughter then raped and killed his wife all in front of Butler's eyes, then nearly killed him. When Jamie Foxx, the District Attorney, decides to make a deal with one of the bad guys to really nail the other one in court, Butler feels betrayed by the judicial system, gets irate and plans to get even with everybody ten years later. Anyway, Butler mercilessly tortures the bad guys to death, kills judges, blows up lawyers, and stabs inmates with sporks in jail as payback. The audience in my theater cheered at the torture and applauded when the female judge got shot in the face.

Is it okay to take the law into your own hands when you feel unjustly treated? Is torture okay? Is it okay to kill innocent people to make a point? Do criminals deserve to be put to death? I answer no to all of these questions, but I think it puts me in the minority in my country. (And, according to the reactions of my theater, I know it did in my audience too.) Sure, what the bad guys did was seriously awful and despicable and of course I'm disgusted by it, completely against it. But torture is never ever okay, in my opinion, no matter how bad of a guy the torturee is.

Plus, as Foxx's character says in the movie, the US judicial system is run on the concept that it's not what you know, but it's what you can prove in court. This is the only way that innocent people on trial are protected, and even then we still end up putting away (or executing) the wrong person. Butler's character failed to understand that. In the end, he turned out to be just as messed up and crooked as the people who killed his family, I think.

So I'm skeptical about the meaning behind Law Abiding Citizen and am uneasy with the fact that it made money because people in this country agreed with its principles. Hopefully many moviegoers questioned some of this stuff and thought, like I did, that Butler's character was seriously messed up. Again, morality aside, this movie succeeded in being suspenseful.

American Splendor (2003)

1/3

I seriously wanted to like this movie. It is an indie classic and it starred Paul Giamati, so it was supposed to be right up my alley. But American Splendor was not my cup of tea.

The main character, Harvey Pekar (based on the real life guy, who made a few cameos throughout the film), was about the most vile and obnoxious protagonist in the history of protagonists, in my opinion. He was a whiny, disinterested, ungrateful slob who spent all of his time complaining about his life rather than trying to fix it. When in reality, he was actually a pretty lucky guy- he had a job, friends, a loving wife, fame, he survived cancer, people made a movie about his life etc.

From a writing standpoint, this movie was slow. Pekar's character was, as has been mentioned, very passive (at least from his own perspective). Things happened to him instead of him making them happen. No wonder I didn't sympathize with him. It seems like the only thing he actually did for himself was start to write comics, but even then, it was only after he stumbled across a random person who happened to be a cartoonist.

Another thing that annoyed me about American Splendor was the sort of artsy director thing of plugging cartoons into the frame. The technique may have been well received by critics who are more appreciative of that sort of thing, but I found it distracting. I think it reminded me of Hulk, which has made it to my worst-movies-of-all-times list.

So I can understand why Pekar's comics earned their acclaim; I'll admit it. His readers took all of his depressed insights with a grain of salt and found them funny as opposed to annoying. They might even be able to identify with one or two of his thoughts. But put into the context of his life, every single one of these pessimistic ideas every single second of this guy's life was just too much for me to handle. His depression and whining is so constant and overbearing that it's beyond funny for me. I get that the title of his comics and of this movie is sarcastic, but I think our way of life in America deserves a little more credit that the way Pekar views it all.

Thanks but no thanks on American Splendor. Sorry Giamati, not your best movie.

Sideways (2004)

3/3

Sideways is a tragic story about middle-aged depression and the feeling of loss of value and love that comes with getting older. I liked this movie a lot, however, despite its sadness. It is expertly written and very smart. The acting is great too: I'm a huge Paul Giamati fan, not to mention great acting by the irresistible Sandra Oh and the funny Thomas Haden Church-- Virginia Madsen was charming. I also find the overall take-away message to be something meaningful.

On the surface, it was kind of enjoyable listening to all the wine aficionado stuff. The writer obviously knew a lot about wine tasting in California and passed it on to Paul Giamati's character via flowery descriptions of pinots and cabernets.

The subtle, wry humor throughout, mixed in with some slapstick laughs (like the golf course scene, one of my favorites) was also great in this movie. I'm sure that this sense of humor isn't for everybody, but I admit that my movie taste is slightly offbeat.

But on a deeper level, I liked this movie because of what Giamati's character learns over the course of his adventure: to be honest and true to oneself, to not give up despite failure, and to cherish good relationships.

I think that the scene where Giamati and Maya are talking about why they like wine is pivotal. Their descriptions symbolize their own views on life. Paul says he likes good wine because it takes a lot of persistence and tough work to make it. It's not too difficult to see that his character is struggling to make his own life a good one through a lot of tedious, painful trying. Maya says she likes wine because a bottle is always changing and evolving in flavor over the years, as it ages. It must be taken advantage of while it's at the peak before it goes into a decline, she says. Their two perspectives on life mesh and Maya shows Paul that his life isn't over when you're middle-aged, rather, it's changing for the better.

In the end, good prevails. Giamati's friend (Haden Church) learns that he's actually very lucky to have a loving fiance and how he needs to mature a lot before he gets married. And Giamati gets over his failures and turns a new leaf over, though it takes an adventure and some pain to do it. In this way, I find it similar to the Spanish movie Lucia, Lucia, in which the middle-aged main character discovers joy in her life again after an adventure.

This was nominated for 5 Oscars and rightfully so.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

2/3

Even though Fantastic Mr. Fox was a stop-action movie allegedly meant for children, you could still tell undeniably that it was a Wes Anderson production. It's fair to say that throughout the years Anderson (who is only 40!) has garnered a strong cult following (other notable films of his include: The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and The Darjeeling Limited). Though his movies are often offbeat and a bit funky, I think they pack a lot of heart. They give a perhaps skewed yet sincere perspective on the world and on basic human relationships. Since I'm a sucker for strange movies, I'm a fan; I have a lot of respect for his interesting, unique style and I was pleased that Fantastic Mr. Fox kept the same feel.

One of the most obvious reasons Fantastic Mr. Fox is similar to his other movies, is that the same ever-present group of Anderson's favorite actors made their appearances (albeit in cartoonish animal form this time): Bill Murray as a badger-lawyer, a Wilson brother (Owen this time) as a gym coach, and Jason Schwartzman as Mr. Fox's son, Ash. These friends help make Anderson's movies what they are and I can't imagine not having them.

In a similar vein, I was impressed by the number of other big names doing voices (George Clooney, Meryl Streep, William Dafoe, Michael Gambon AKA Dumbledore). This probably points to the fact that Anderson is getting a lot of street cred in Hollywood these days, as he deserves, and people are really taking him seriously. Though I'm sure everybody in LA has known he's a genius from the very beginning.

As far as dialogue goes, Fantasic Mr. Fox retained Anderson's subtle humor and cool-headed/almost passive/laid-back observations of life. How can I explain this? Sentences are short and super-condensed. They are to the point. There were many quirky obsessions, like the word "cuss." Though naturally there was action and drama, the way the characters talk makes it seem like everything is under control. Or maybe it's that all his characters have resigned to the fact that life is life and we can't change things. Do we take it seriously or can we laugh at it? Both maybe:

Ash: You should probably put your bandit hat on now. Personally, I- I don't have one, but I modified this tube sock.
Kristofferson: You look good.
Ash: Yeah, I do.

Finally, even though it was via a new medium, the movie maintained Anderson’s interesting way of shooting scenes. I may also lack an accurate way of describing it, but I certainly know it when I see it. His shots are slow and the camera stays in one place and lets the small things happen. In a way, we see things in the same way his characters talk- quiet/still.

Which brings me to another interesting point about this movie: Stop-action animation. The eyes of the characters were strange. It felt like the color scheme was brown and orange, making it seem straight from the 70's. Most films using this medium are meant for children. And, although there were lots of kids in the theater, I'm not so sure they connected with this story as much as they would, say a Disney movie. I think lots of the subtleties of the dialogue and many of the jokes were lost on them.

The story was amusing and felt like an old fashioned fable with a lesson involved (something the kids may have been able to pick up on): don't be greedy. Also, be yourself. So, I for one enjoyed watching this movie, quirks and all.