Reviews: Presto and Wall-E

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Genre: Animation Pixar's offerings from this year in film 2008 are certainly a step up from their offerings from last year, but they are certainly also not the best they are able to offer in general. While both Presto and Wall-E seem to have evolved from incredibly brilliant, ripe ideas and both are exquisitely technically executed in their animation, neither seems to have gone much past its initial conceit in a focused or well-prepared way. Comedy, born of gimmicks and slap-stickery, and a helpless vagabondery, given to bouts of wandering and turning about in circles, instead of clear and clever goals, seem to dominate the films and to break down ultimately what could have easily been the studio's best works to date. To begin with Presto, which is arguably the better of the two films for its brevity (i. e., for its self-contained status as a short film that prevents it from dragging out its supposedly comic escalations), the film relies mainly for its impact on the improv.-class-level, comedy-action dialogue between the two characters, the demanding magician and his bubbly-cute white rabbit. that doesn't really grow significantly each reprisal doesn't work. As the magician consistently denies the hungry rabbit his one desire, his large fresh carrot, the rabbit consistently thwarts the realization of the magician's one desire, the controlled awe-making of the grand theater's spectating audience. The rabbit does this to the magician by employing a series of physically comic gags mainly turning on the magical property of the magician's top hat and sorcerer's cap that as a pair allow for the teleportation of things through one and out the other. Now, I will admit, the gag is clever and, for the first few trials of it, does remain funny for the audience; but, I have to say, after escalating several times to a further level of physical humiliation for the coincidentally increasingly frustrated magician, the audience comes to expect more than just more similar escalatations. IN short, the gag after the first couple of times, like any gag, grows old. The continuous reprisals multiply, but fail to amount to anything, as the persistent multiplication of an argumentatively empty gag still leaves only emptiness (i. e., 0 x 10 still = 0). Of course, the rabbit in the end finally does get his carrot (and the magician, his adoring audience's applause) and, of course, the tormenting rabbit does come to his magician's rescue, to show that his smirking acts of cruelty weren't a manifestation of his true feelings for the magician; but then, without giving a word about why the audience should care about the events it has just witnessed - a word that would be reason for the film to bear weight beyond its status as just a slapstick-lover's dream or an adorable example of a love-hate relationship, the film ends, tyring up with its neat little Pixar bow another of the studio's increasingly less impressive animated shorts with a carefree and frankly vapid final shot. Disclaimer: While this paragraph may have seemed like a scathing negative review of the film, I must insist that it is not: In all truth, I enjoyed Presto about as much as it possibly could be enjoyed; it just chagrins me to my very core to see a studio that has produced such great shorts as Geri's Game, Knick Knack, and For the Birds fall into the creation of films that seem to be aimed at no more than mindless entertainment of the public. Grade (for Presto): B Now, for Wall-E: Wall-E is easily the most ambitious of all the Pixar films to date: Not just a simply story about a main character who dreams of experiencing something greater than himself (as consistently can be the description of each Pixar full-length release [and some of the shorts as well]), the film advances with zeal through tropes political, environmental, metaphysical, technological, and - yes - even romantic(al). While it does an admirable job at integrating all these various ambitions for an underlying message into one largely coherent screenplay, the sheer enormity that even a combination of one with another of these many ambitions into a skillful and significant screenplay would encumber on any screenwriter proves to be far too much for the film, which attempts to combine them all, and, as a result, the film, like its corpulent human characters, can barely stand on its own. The political forays that consist of several thinly veiled criticisms of the Bush administration (e. g., the repeated urgence by the film's live-action(?) President in his televised addresses that the nation should just "stay the course") and the environmental insistences that, despite the screenwriter's on-the-record denials, simply overwhelm the film with their An-Inconvenient-Truth-like messages are hard to miss by any spectator's standards. The technological partisanship for Apple, Inc. over PCs everywhere - a partisanship reinforced by the fact that the designer of the feisty attractress-robot EVE was the designer of many of the current Mac products - is probably harder for the average spectator to see on his own volition, but nonetheless vibrantly apparent to anyone made privy to that designing coincidence. The discussion and criticisms of social conventions regarding technology, the desk potato, corporation-domination, and the near-sighted techno-geek (i. e., the accustomed-to-instant-gratification Gen-Z member), brought to extreme - and frankly irrational - heights by the supposedly submerged societal fear it taps on, are - well - extreme and frankly irrational in today's increasingly health-&-fitness-minded world; they seem less contemporary and edgy than outdated and somehow that special brand of 80s-paranoid. The metaphysical conceit concerning the self and the body, strongly akin to the Cartesian theory of the body as a machine, runs largely ragged, popping up here and there regularly but inconsistently, as perhaps the strongest message of the film, but ultimately is destroyed for cheap theatrics, namely the "happy ending," in which tragedy is vaingloriously eschewed in the name of love; and - speaking of love - the romantic aspect of the film is perhaps the most contrived of all the ambitions the film sets forth, jousting for prominence, validation, and screen time: An obvious mish-mosh of celebrated (and perhaps a few uncelebrated) romantic storylines from the past, such as Titanic, The Taming of the Shrew, Beauty and the Beast, and Bicentennial Man, the romance tries to be the center-stage focus of the storyline and the struggles through which its characters must go but in the end only succeeds in trying to hard to be realized, at the severe detriment of all of the other of the film's ambitions, namely the metaphyiscal (for reasons aforementioned). In fact, considering the screenplay as a whole, the work seems to be nothing but a mash-up of popular and celebrated (and - again - some unpopular and uncelebrated) works of the past; mixing some of the more memorable scenes and suggestions from films such as One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, E.T.: Extra Terrestrial, BladeRunner, and 2001: A Space Odyssey in addition to the already mentioned other films (i. e., the romantic) in a way that far bypasses clever allusions and broaches on near-identical depictions, Wall-E is perhaps the most ambitious but least original piece to be penned by a filmmaker...ever. The reliance on these past films, in probable hopes to recreate their various iconic states of drama, makes the film out to be far less than what it could have been from the very start (i. e., the printed page) and seems to be a woeful handicap on the talents of the writer - sorry, Mr. Stanton - himself, in that he appears by having so written to be too unable or too uncourageous to venture out, as he implores his characters to do, and let his opus stand on its own. As I believe strongly that fatal flaws within the screenplay, the very foundation of any film, cannot ultimately be compensated for, as others may be, by excellent management of the other aspects of the film (e. g., cinematography, acting, art direction), I will not go on to comment any more on the flaws that inhere in Wall-E and demote it from its once-thought-great status to mere cinematic tomfoolery than to mention a few moments within the film that struck me as prominent and therefore worth mentioning. First, I was thrilled at first, when during the introductory scenes of the film, all was bare and sparse (i. e., beautifully constructed) and virtually silent(!) in the animated world in which Wall-E inhabits. The vacant space really began to give me the exact kind of feeling that would support a greater version of the film, one in which the sheer emptiness of Wall-E's life and world is made palpable for the audience by extensive durations of film displaying vast expanses of repetitive and unchanging soundscapes, scenery, and actions. Yet, as the first indication to me that this film lacked the guts to stand out them alone and be bold in its statement-making, this introductory period (in which Thomas Newman's beautiful score shone) was severely abridged from anywhere near the significant or impressive duration that I had hoped for. Things had to move and happen and change and explode apparently way before any sort of true impression had been instilled in the audience, imply the editors and the director, because true loneliness and exquisitely portrayed solitude is too general-audiences-unfriendly to be shown in the film. Boo for your lack of vision and boldness, Pixar. This goes for your inclusion of that forgettable, silent sidekick cockroach as well. Second (and perhaps on the other hand), Pixar, you bowled me over with your quite eery, extremely haunting, and perhaps even downright morbid display of the 'dead' Wall-E robots, scattered alongside the large highway that our main character Wall-E traverses regularly on his routine passes to and fro his home and his work. It bashed me over the head with the incredible tragedy that is that main Wall-E's life there, alone on that abandoned, barren, and aging planet and having to bear witness daily and without respite to the baking and void corpses of his fallen kin as almost manically aggressive reminders of what looks to be his incredibly forlorn and inevitable fate. O, gosh, the image, perhaps on screen for only a few instants, was so powerful, that it in itself is perhaps enough to redeem the film an entire grade point for me, and I must say, it reminded me candidly of the 'Elephant Graveyard' scenes from The Lion King in nature - an effect really neither a plus nor a minus, but more of an interesting tie-in that I was slightly disappointed was never redressed in the course of the film. Third, in any film, especially any animated film, I feel that the lead filmmaker must make, before beginning, a concrete and aboslute decision about whether or not his work will adhere to the basic and common technical, physical, and scientific principles of life in its realization; the decision must be consistent, must not flip-flop based on what seems opportune as he goes along, and must be accurately representative of the overall tenor of the film (e. g., a serious dramatic work should adhere to those principles at all times, whereas a comedy film may not). Wall-E presents itself as, if it must be categorized on such a dichotomy, the former of those two types of film, as its many ambitious messages and conceits seem to override the bouts of physical comedy that break up the film; correlatively, the film wants to adhere to the principles of physics and science etc. However, it does not; instead of consistence, it picks and chooses where and when the true results of sequences of events and of behaviors have real-world effects in its animations: While in space, Wall-E's propulsion by a fire extinguisher accurately represents the Laws of Motion but, while trying to stand up, the humans' extremely debilitated and weakened bodies do not, astoundingly, give out under the strain of their unusual exercises and tremendous weights. Aah: Be consistent, please! Do not ask us to sporadically suspend our disbelief! Finally, as is usual in most of the films I see, I must tell the cinematographer to BACK THE FUCK UP! There was such potential for exquisite wide-screen beauty in the animations in the film, but much of that potential was - again - vaingloriously squandered for maudlin close-up shots of the drama/action. Sigh. All in all, though, Wall-E wasn't the worst it could have been either. There were, like that graveyard scene, some significant redeeming qualities (that weren't special enough for me to enumerate) that brought the work up from complete catastrophe, but the case still stands: Grade: B- - For next time, Pixar and Mr. Stanton, try to accomplish less and maybe you'll succeed more.

Another Exciting Trailer

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So, this trailer is for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a perhaps gimmicky (despite its origins in Fitzgerald) but nevertheless beautifully cast, physically realized, and scored - thanks, Mr. Desplat! - fantasy romance set to debut this holiday season by virtue of Paramount and Warner Bros. I'm not entirely certain about the prospects for this one, but I'm going with my gut and saying that Cate couldn't make two flop choices this year in film.

Check the trailer in HD here.

:)

Two Fun Trailers and Brief Review: Kung Fu Panda

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Without any ado whatever do I present you two fun trailers that made me excited about the comic possibilities for film this year 2008:

1. Religulous - A snappy, Bill-Maher-esque documentary on the realities of religion in the world featuring no one else than Mr. Maher himself
2. Burn after Reading - The Coen brothers' radical little follow-up to their straight-faced No Country for Old Men produced by Focus Features(!!) and featuring a rockstar cast of everyone who matters - a clear exaggeration but I'm flowing here - and an A-game(?!) Brad Pitt - a clear statement of fact - indeed, sir, indeed.

:)

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And now for Kung Fu Panda:

Genre: Animated / Comedy

Let me say, first and foremost, that Kung Fu Panda, like so many other animated summer hooks, felt sure to be a major bomb to me from the first instant when I caught its teaser trailer in front of the equally abysmal Atonement in December. A bizarre computer-generated-(CG)-animated throw-away tale about a country whose mythology and heritage these creators have surely maligned in one way or another, the film, I thought, would scarcely scratch the bottom surface of the plane of the truly, genuinely, heartily good animated fare that I've seen grace the screen, fare like 2003's The Triplettes of Belleville and Finding Nemo. Well, how blown away was I when I turned out to be...wrong?!?!
Yes, blog-readers, you read your blog correctly: I was horribly mistaken about this one, the fault of which mistake I'm attributing to the penurious bias the majority of the animated fare that is released into theaters today has infused into me. But, seriously though, a Jack-Black-led film about a Jack-Black-like panda who loves kung fu more than the guys in Office Space in whose book is an expected 'money film'?
Anyway, the point is, the film was for its type and category in a word awesome. Beautifully animated, especially during its 2-D, CG cut-out prologue (which, if you ask me, took a note or two from the exquisite closing credits sequence of 2005's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events), nicely written, and sharply voiced by actors such as Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie (aside from the exuberant Mr. Black himself), Kung Fu Panda was a sheer delight that had me laughing (to the utterly bewildering surprise of myself), not at it, but for it! Let me just keep it short and quick and say nothing further than Pixar and Focus Features have their work cut out for them, if they aim to better Dreamworks this year and walk away with the animation world's top honors (for their much anticipated Wall.E and 9 [and also Coraline], respectively).

Grade: B+

Stay tuned, to see what happens!

Review: Sex and the City

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Genre: Drama / Romance

O, I knew it all the moment when I saw that horrible tagline, "Get 'Carried' away," and - believe me when I say - rarely in my life have I ever come as close to so accurately predicting the content and the quality of a new piece as I have done this time, for this sassy and unsubstantial adaptation of the popular former television series Sex and the City.
Indeed, Sex and the City the film(2008) was, as I entirely expected (see my post on this summer's most anticipated films from early May), nothing more than a slim and transparent excuse for the familiar girls of the series to get back together one last time, to hang out and to look fabulous amidst each other and their perpetual backdrop, New York City, and do absolutely nothing else. One half vapid to the extreme and the other half chokingly maudlin, the film if it means anything only downgrades the remembered regard for the series one may have had before venturing into the theater, and to be sure it did so for me to such an extent, that I doubt now whether any respect for the series as an artwork (other than a fashion venue) was ever appropriately held...by anyone...ever. I mean, hello - did they even try to write a decent screenplay, or were banal fashion montages, overshadowed by pop hits from the 80s and today, enough for the executives, who seem to have envisioned this project as nothing more than a for-sure cash cow? And the same sentiments go for the editing and the directing of the film as well.
In fact, the only intelligence/cleverness that I did see in the playing of the film was one which I'm not even sure was done on purpose - and, if it was done on purpose, the doing was sardonic and subliminal and probably by a resentful writer who foresaw that the intended degree of substance for the film was somewhere between lace and cappuccino foam: that is, the ever-dawdling presence of the children as aside and choral-like characters, silently commenting on and criticizing the whims and the fickle, unreasoned, and often unbridled emotions of these supposedly mature and cosmopolitan women who, having endured the many tribulations that trying to find love in the city over the years has impressed upon them, nevertheless whimper and whine worse than children and continue to parade about, after only glitz and glamor, as clueless and directionless about the real matters like themselves and their own identities as they appear to be about actually finding love and making a relationship work with another person. And therein likely lies the problem.
So, that said, after ten years of watching these characters fuck up, have experiences, and then never really learn or grow (as people who have experiences do), I'm completely done with and far beyond tolerating their at this point redundant mistakes and childish drama. As far as my opinion may go, they've worse than been static: They've actively regressed; and the fact that the one interesting part in the film is the twenty-something assistant (played well by Ms. Jennifer Hudson, a surprise as the breath of fresh air in a film) who offers sound advice to the double-her-age-also-her-boss-and-yet-somehow-still-less-mature 'icon' Carrie Bradshaw, is only further confirmation of this, the level of absolute silliness that the characters as creative media have reached. I mean, how on earth is Carrie with that temper and level of emotional awareness and maturity believably supposed to be making in her reality a living being a guru on anything even close to relationships? (Really, tell me; I'd like to know.) Ugh, grow up, girls; you're celebrating a 50th birthday as we last see you and that's about 20 years late to be still just trying on the big-girl shoes. Call me again when you actually buy a pair.

Grade: Abysmal but for the fashion (which was good, Ms. Fields, but frankly you've done better [e. g., in the TV series and in The Devil Wears Prada]), a woeful D+.

P. S. As a shockingly scary afterthought: O, god, what if the film's characters are accurate depictions of the average levels of emotional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal maturities reached by adult women today? A!

P. P. S. I'm recognizing that the more I think about this film, the worse I find it really is. It wasn't even internally consistent! Carrie cheated on Aidan years ago - where was Miranda's facistically extreme vituperation and extirpation then? Shouldn't one's moral principles and coordinated reactions apply to every and all situations, not just to some based on whether or not the situation be convenient? Furthermore, Carrie fucking threw up herself the first time when she was confronted with marriage; so, how could she seriously react so strongly against Big's comparatively civil qualms and uncertainty this time around? And - best of all - the woman who knows who she is and what she wants better than anyone, Samantha throws away her incredibly healthy relationship with Smith for the completely artificial reason that she's become psychologically confused as a result of his temporarily busy schedule?!? Absurd!! I'm officially docking my grade a fraction of a point: This film now ranks a D. Let's see if I find a reason to make it go any lower.

Review: Speed Racer

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Genre: Action / Drama

O, Speed Racer. Streaming with lights and colors the equivalent of the {pop} of a little girl's juicy pink bubblegum and cracking its turns in just as sharp a manner, Speed Racer is easily categorized within the Red-Bull-lined walls of hall of the summer blockbusters. Its archetypical "good v. evil" plotline, fueled by high-octane - o, forgive me the automotive word-play - visual effects, is sure to delight any movie-goer who seeks only the blast-and-thrill of a harrowing ride through treacherous but ultimately surmountable terrain. Predictable down to its very core and fashioned together in a rather rapturous, rather than intelligent way, the film fails to be - well - it fails to be...anything other than what it ought to be. (Take a moment here to pause, if need be.) Seriously, people, why ought we automatically switch to 'decry mode' when a film like Speed Racer decides not to present us with a perspective that is novel or in any way subversive of the notions we had of it before its theatrical release? Is there something so inherently wrong with the good, old-fashioned summer blockbuster that fruit cannot be redeemed from its frame? I heartily stand by the answer "no" (to that second question). Speed Racer in my opinion accomplishes exactly what it set out to accomplish: a colorful and attractive revitalization in pop culture of a lore that has lain dormant since the end of its childhood hey-days back in the late 1960s - early 1970s - for that is exactly what Speed Racer is, a franchise mostly unplumbed and unknown by the masses of today's society. To offer up anything else would have been a consciously esoteric mettle, toward disregarding the majority of the film's potential audience - because, really, how many people can raise their hands today and then dutifully recite everything about the Speed Racer chronicles, how many especially from the generations of people born after the franchise's original hey-day? No, to offer up a different glimpse into Speed Racer would have been a mistake; as always, context must be first provided, in order to set the stage for a grounded and non-partisan debate about the more profound reaches of a matter. So, I applaud Speed Racer for this its orientation and all the more for the juicy plums and pears and apples and lemons with which it was able to paint its new adaptation, fruits that place it high as the bar for this 2008 summer season.

Now for the good stuff: Indeed, the makers of Speed Racer were able to find remarkable riches within their project that lifted the film out of its tried and tired categorization and deftly and jauntily placed it on the truly admirable level. The colors and contrasts that burst with all the exciting "Eek!" of pop art are truly beautiful decorations of the story and perhaps one of the two highlight-features of the film. They immediately nod to the high-energy and rapid, racing-directed focus of the plot as well as pay homage in their artful combinations to the era that bore them in origin, while simultaneously they amp up to date that original color palette and signal the planar situation of the reality within the film as somewhere beyond dreams (and perhaps adjacent to Roald Dahl's Wonka-land). Nowhere else could the phrase "Holy cannoli, Speed!" be uttered in seriousness and not receive an obligatory eye-roll or chuckle in response. They work well as a conceit too, for they epitomize the clash of the gaudy and immoderate and the wholesome and true in a way that is fantastically engaging; for they progress from blending and flowing and generally dazzling in the early stages of the plot, when it is difficult to parse the good from the bad, to astutely discriminating certain character sets and atmospheres from certain others in the later stages, when the natures of things are clear. As Speed and his team buzz with the sleek and rich combinations of navy blues with sunshine yellows, cherry reds with ripe oranges, and crisp whites with oil blacks without blowing out, the underhanded evil-doers reek in vomiticious combinations of sour apple with brick orange, garish gold with peacock purple, and thick turquoise with mud brown. I haven't seen such a good use of stylized, super-saturated color since another latent comic-book adaptation took to the screen: 1992's Dick Tracy (which coincidentally took home the Oscar for Art Direction that year - ahem). And of course the races would be nothing without them.
Speaking of the races: They were another great unexpected feature of the film. They were wonderfully choreographed and read much more like passionate dances than NASCAR trials. I suppose, this elegant choreography could be attributed to high-art ambition of the film-makers who were not so shy enough to prominently display within the dialogue of the film said ambition toward being more than just fast and loose imagery (see Susan Sarandon's Mrs. Racer's private conversation with Speed), but I'm not above appreciating the quality of something that is true quality, even if it be presented heavy-handedly in context. The flips and jumps, twists and turns, especially when performed in series on one of those narrow curves, were wonderful absolutely.
However, not everything about the film was wonderful; this is not a gushingly positive review after all. Among those things I found fault with were most prominently the cinematography, the introduction, and the directorial choices about certain things. Taking them in that order: I found the distance and the framing of the cinematography to be incredibly off. Why must everything be inspected so freaking closely all the time, Mr. Tattersall? It is a terribly one-sided move on your part and denies the spectator any real chance to orient himself within the new spaces we encounter, for even your so-called "establishment shots" are frequently crunched up from one side of side of the frame and incomplete. I found myself mentally shouting, "Pull back!", a lot while watching as well as "Be still!" during the non-racing scenes. It would have been nice to give your viewers those breaks from the constantly roving camera and - not only that but - it would have been smart to give your camera the same contrasts in motion and range as you and the art directors did in color and light, especially within this movie so hitting on sharp contrasts. However, I must commend you, Mr. Tattersall; at least your lighting and your angles, which were often soft and flat respectively, did aid the 2-D over 3-D composite feel that the film did (brilliantly) display (interpolating direct references to manga, comics, and the original Speed Racer among the contemporary effects while simultaneously sticking to the conceits of fantasy and high contrast throughout). But really, check your framings; your odd croppings did not go unnoticed either.
In fact, the introduction (i. e., about the first 7 or 8 minutes) was marred by your bizarre clippings as well as by other things - namely, the editing and the acting. Spliced too close together, such that the jumps were jerky and the actors practically stepping on each other's lines, that introductory period, which is designed to graciously induct the audience into the world of the film, was more like a series of sharp jabs to the face than a gracious induction. Fortunately that quality went away, but no one likes a sloppy, uncomfortable, and jittery start - especially not Speed. It leaves one feeling dizzy and rather like the other party was trying too hard.
The responsibility for this factor lies in no hands other than the directors'. The Wachowski brothers were able to keep their hands on this boiler-maker for the most part with a minimum of awkward hiccoughs, but there was a significant couple. That introduction was one; the switch-off during the Casa Cristo race was the other. Being unable to get Christina Ricci to really deliver during this her most active scene during the movie was the least of it. While the fight was happily choreographed and buzzed along as usual, the end results of it, the posture and the possession of the weapons, was something different altogether. Bear in mind, please, that this film is (as was said) a happy and non-subversive revitalization of a childhood-geared comic-book series! Do not give the firearms to Speed Racer and his team, the wholesome image of morality and decency!! It is soooo not in keeping with the message or the tenor of the entire Speed Racer franchise. It is just disturbing - jarring even - and cacaphonously dissonant from the flow of what they, the Racers, purport to be all about. People who say things like "Holy cannoli!" and "Jiminy!" have no business brandishing pistols and machine guns at their enemies. It's just not cool. (That said, I feel like I should address here the "shit" uttered by Speed during the Grand Prix, finale race. A far cry from issues like mortality and homicide [which subjects in a film that has its wiped-out racecar drivers whisked safely off of the course in a protective bubble are foreign matters anyway], one small instance of verbal 'impurity' on the behalf of the wholesome Racers is not going to crumble the keystone of their collective character. In fact, if used appropriately [as it was], it can become symbolic in this updating adaptation of their breaking away both from the clutches of Speed's greedy competitors and from the constraints imposed upon them by the reckonings and expectations of our society [i. e., from their original shoe-polish-shiny source material]. In other words, it gave them a non-calamitous edge at an instant when it was really sharp to do so. So, directors, take note: one "shit" = good, multiple loaded weapons in the hands of our model heroes = bad.)
In any case - putting aside these needling comments about morality - the film was a surprising success for me, a success I feel that can mostly be attributed to its other highlight-feature: Michael Giacchino's brilliant(!) score. Mr. Giacchino's music, made well-known in this bang-prone milieu of cartoons and cartoon adaptations (e. g., The Incredibles, Ratatouille), works fabulously well as the vroom behind Emile Hirsche's engines. Spiking and cascading at exactly the right moments and just generally placing a huge, positive bang! at the end of every major phrase, whatever the tenor, the score was the standout point of the film. I would not be surprised if its excellent work went out to garner more official acclaim at the end of this 2008 year in film. It was truly spectacular.
And, because I can't not address him, Mr. Hirsche was a sheer classic too. A great decision to expand himself, now off his Into the Wild success; he was the perfect man to step into Speed Racer's signature white jacket and visor. Good work (and great clothes).
Go, Speed Racer, go!

Grade: A solid B.

Summer 2008

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Wow; so, I've just taken in the long list of summer fare that awaits us for this year in film 2008 and, I have to say, things are looking better than ever. Not only are we to be treated to films the likes of which seem distant in our memories (e. g., Wall-E, Brideshead Revisited), but we are also lined up for the more mainstream films (i. e., the summer blockbusters) that this year have forgone the exclusively special-effects driven route of years past and actually garnered themselves quite impressive casts and hopefully therefore similarly impressive screenplays (e. g., Mamma Mia, Speed Racer, The Hulk). Of course, there are the few rotten-looking apples in the bushel - ahem, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, ahem - but as with any summer stock the heat is bound to addle one or two in the bunch and these minorities are acceptable losses. So, without anymore aplomb or ado, here is my brief list about the films that I'm excited to see this summer 2008:

1. Iron Man (2 May) - Robert Downey, Jr., bringing back that "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" sardonic wit-bravado - only this time with eye-candy techno-toys - there's nothing more to say. (All right, Terence Howard, Gwenyth Paltrow, and Jeff Bridges are pluses too.)
2. Speed Racer (9 May) - A blown-out, no-stops, FX-driven movie for sure, but with Emile Hirsche at the wheel (i. e., our Best Actor from 2007) and a somehow catchingly quirky supporting ensemble of Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, and Christina Ricci I say that this chariot is going to give a much sharper ride.
3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull (22 May) - Sure, the Jones franchise has been dormant for the last - er - several years and, sure, our leading man Mr. Ford has eclipsed into full-on senior-citizen status (i. e., he's 65); but Cate Blanchett in that fabulous jet-black bob says, "Shut the fuck up; it's going to be awesome." Here's to hoping she's right.
4. Sex and the City (30 May) - OK, so I'm not going to make any excuse for the extremely "Gag-me/Did-they-even-try-writing?/This-is-all-so-predictable" apparent nature of this, the most stylized, film of the summer career (mostly because it is blatantly clear that there is none and they basically made this film so that the girls could hang out together and look pretty one more time [or so that the Zeitgeist of girls in the real world will not come to a crashing demise after four-years without their elect quartet of models for behavior]) - whichever - but I will say that it is sure to be entertaining for at least that quality/reason. The glitter and glamour that was the iconograph of the SATC franchise is there in full flush and Ms. Fields may be looking at another potential Oscar nomination. (Too early to call?)
5. The Incredible Hulk (13 June) - Edward Norton is a class-A actor who knows how to pick his scripts. His being on board, especially in the leading role, as well as Mr. Hurt's involvement look to solidify this FX-pic into at least an Iron-Man level of quality (which gets a B from me by the way).
6. Wall-E (27 June) - Pixar sets itself up for another major hit, both critically and popularly, with this innovative storyline about a rather Zen, little robot. The trailer at once put me in mind of the greatness that was the studio's last amazing project Finding Nemo - a huge plus, since I was less than thrilled by the interstitial films between then and now - and, moreover, it put me in mind of that Walt Whitman poem "A Noiseless Patient Spider" (from his Leaves of Grass [1900]) which is an endlessly more promising link. Any inspired connection like that one immediately sets my mind on the greatness track. (I wonder if the Pixar people were actually jumped off from that work. Anyone?)
7. The Wackness (3 July) - Admittedly probably the least solid of all these films, but Ben Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen in a performance that the Times has already called one of the summer's best (Durbin, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/05/04/movies/20080504_DURBIN_FEATURE.html) could tip the scales in this boutique film's favor.
8. The Dark Knight (18 July) - Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Heath Ledger do not just sign onto a project together because they think it may be cool to hang out, especially when Mr. Ledger is stepping into Jack Nicholson's very weighty shoes. No, they mean business; the Batman is back and is looking quite thrilling.
9. Mamma Mia (18 July) - Meryl Streep, similarly to the The Dark Knight's cast, does not just join a project on a whim. She has to see the potential in it, despite whatever maternal impeti she may have to provide fine family entertainment for her daughter - um, that means you, Ms. Kidman. I mean, Ms. Streep rocked that otherwise fluffy The Devil Wears Prada two years ago, when it was in a very similar spot to where Mamma Mia now finds itself: the bubbly, fun-loving adaptation niche of the summer spectrum, a position more recently held by a one Hairspray; and so who is to say she hasn't done it again? Like its predecessors, Mamma Mia looks like it will at least be a well-acted, decently done sensation of entertainment.
10. Brideshead Revisited (July) - Another new-century Waugh adaptation - huzzah! I'm incredibly excited by this one - for several reasons, namely the president presence of the great Emma Thompson, the smart source-material that is the Waugh text, and the swift and becoming featuring of Matthew Goode (of Match Point fame) in the leading role. I can't wait to touch this one! I'm predicting it will be at least as enjoyable as was 2003's Bright Young Things (taken off Vile Bodies).
    
11. The House Bunny (22 August) - And, semi-limping in as this list's only late summer entry, this easy farce of a film has one significant redeeming feature: the comic brilliance that can be Anna Faris. A beautiful addition to the casts of such A+ films as Lost in Translation and Brokeback Mountain, Ms. Faris here delivers up one of her probably less significant pieces but nonetheless seems to shine in that quirky but endearing and captivating way that made her the staple of the Scary Movie franchise. And, because it must be repeated as it was said quite deftly by Manohla Dargis of the Times in her recent article "Is There a Real Woman in This Multiplex?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/movies/moviesspecial/04dargi.html), Ms. Faris who "tends to do the dumb-blonde thing with sizable quotation marks [...] could [very well] be the next Judy Holliday [... with] the right material." So, look out for this film; it could surprise you as well as me.

Cheers, film-goers. I'll be with you throughout this season 2008.

Post "The Big Night": Oscars 2008

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I don't really have much to say about this year's Academy Awards; most of the ceremony went as was expected (e. g., Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Joel & Ethan Coen, Diablo Cody, even Tilda Swinton) and, the few times when it didn't (e. g., cinematography, visual effects), those nominees who probably should have won (e. g., Roger Deakins, the team from Transformers) don't really need golden statuettes to validate their works or their talents. The only comments I do want to make are words of congratulations to those nominees from tonight whose wins showed the Academy really getting it right - which is most definitely something to acknowledge - ahem, CrashRobertoBenigniChicagoCharlizeTheronHappyFeetJamieFoxxCrash, ahem - sorry, something in my craw. Anyway, back to the kudos: Congratulations are well due to Christopher Rouse (Editing), Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman (Animated Short), and Marion Cotillard (Actress in a Leading Role!), who looked beautiful and whose win made the night for me.

So close a Year in Film (2007); so open a Year in Film (2008). I'm excited! Are you?

The SpyGlasses Full (2007)

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Seeing as Valentine's Day has now ended and the Academy Awards' televised ceremony is now less than 10 days away, I think it's time clear for me to start announcing my little 'award' recipients. To begin, I'll start with some of the visual categories; and I shall add to this list every day preceding the Oscar telecast, for - after all - anything announced afterward, I feel, does run too close to looking either deferential or oppositive.

Best Costuming
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Juno
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
La Vie en Rose

Best Make-Up
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
La Vie en Rose

(16 February: Tonight two of the audial categories:)
Best Sound Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Ratatouille
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Transformers

Best Sound Mixing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
La Vie en Rose

(17 February: Tonight Editing(!):)
Best Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Darjeeling Limited
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon

(18 February: Tonight the shorts:)
Best Animated Film (Short)
Everything Will Be OK
I Met the Walrus
Madame Tutli-Putli
My Love
Peter & the Wolf

Best Live-Action Film (Short)
Hotel Chevalier

(19 February: Tonight tonight is all about the music:)
Best Original Score
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Alexandre Desplat, Lust, Caution
Eddie Vedder, Into the Wild

Best Original Song
"To Be Surprised" by Sondre Lerche, Dan in Real Life
"That's How You Know" by Alan Menken, Enchanted
"Guaranteed" by Eddie Vedder, Into the Wild
"Rise" by Eddie Vedder, Into the Wild
"Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Once

(20 February*: Tonight the writers:)
Best Screenplay (Original)
Diablo Cody, Juno
John Carney, Once
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Don Hertzfeldt, Everything Will Be OK
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Andrew Dominik, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Ronald Harwood, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
John Logan, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Sean Penn, Into the Wild
James Vanderbilt, Zodiac

*An interesting note that I just myself recognized: No film has yet garnered more than a single 'award' from me. What a diverse year this has been. Perhaps the tally will change tomorrow?

(21 February: Tonight the rest of the visual categories:)
Best Art Direction
The Darjeeling Limited
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

Best Cinematography
Robert D. Yeoman, The Darjeeling Limited, Hotel Chevalier
Slawomir Idziak, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Roger Deakins; The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, No Country for Old Men
Janusz Kaminski, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon**
Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood

Best Visual Effects
The Bourne Ultimatum
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I Am Legend
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Transformers

**And Le Scaphandre et le Papillon becomes the first film this year to receive more than one recognition.

(22 February: Tonight the supporting players and the foreign-language film:)
Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Phillip Seymour Hoffman; The Savages, Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Jennifer Garner, Juno
Evanna Lynch, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Samantha Morton, Control
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Best Foreign-Language Film (Feature-Length or Short)
Lust, Caution
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
La Vie en Rose

(23 February: Tonight the lead actors and the director:)
Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Ryan Gosling, Lars and the Real Girl
Emile Hirsche, Into the Wild
James MacAvoy, Atonement

Best Actress
Amy Adams, Enchanted
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Best Director
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Andrew Dominick, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Sean Penn, Into the Wild
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon

(24 February: Tonight the feature-length films and my top ten of the year:)
Best Live-Action Film (Feature-Length)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Into the Wild
Juno
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Animated Film (Feature-Length)
Persepolis
Ratatouille
The Simpsons Movie

2007's Top Ten:

• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
• The Darjeeling Limited
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Into the Wild
• Juno
• Michael Clayton
• No Country for Old Men
• The Savages
• Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

(Bold denotes winner; italics, a noteworthy second.)
Great work!

Vanity Fair on Hitchcock

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Vanity Fair just recently printed a photographic (and textual) retrospective on Mr. Hitchcock's work, a pictorial series of stills representing some of the director's best known films reimagined and reshot with actors from today's Hollywood by photographers Art Streiber, Julian Broad, and Norman Jean Roy. The printed photos, which collected embody a beautiful revisualization of the included films, feature actors like James MacAvoy and Emile Hirsche in scenes like the dining-car conversation from Strangers on a Train (see included) and attempt to recast the Hitchcock allure onto those some of today's most prominent filmmakers. The series is a thoroughly enjoyable endeavor and a glad recommendation: do check it out (here).

Review: Cloverfield

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Genre: Thriller (Apocalyptic)

Cloverfield is the latest attempt at an uncommonly popular subgenre of the thriller. Like past attempts (e. g., 28 Days Later, Godzilla), it follows the same basic structure of the subgenre, in which a contemporary, perhaps somewhat idealistic, reality is relatively early in the film shaken to its very core and practically thus upturned entirely by the sudden and fatalistic intrusion of an mal du force outsider into it. Whether that outside force be creature, illness, or even environment (e. g., Deep Impact), the resultant plot details are always the same: People freak, panic ensues, and tragedy generally befalls anyone - and everyone - involved. Yet Cloverfield, unlike its predecessors, attempts to go rogue on this apocalyptic quest, by ushering in a first-person, though largely narrated, camera as the sole vehicle for filming. Furthermore, it abandons the typically wide array of character types and cast members, in favor of a more concentrated and tidy four - five, at most. These two tweaks, as well as the utilization of (for the most part) realistic/credible dialogue, do to distinguish the film from its fellows; however, they are not enough to fully bring the subgenre out from B- - even C-movie hell. The novelty of the slight redesign diminishes completely as soon as the apocalyptic outsider arrives and, instead of expanding and becoming more complex, the characters too diminish, winnowing down dimensionality to its flattest and simplest, as the plot drags on. Thus, predictability quickly emerges, out of a plot also eschewing dynamism, and tone and balance are shaky at best, despite the obvious attempts at jokes to, if only for a moment, "keep it light, keep it gay, keep it fragrant." The argument of the film becomes halved, half focus on the 'carpe diem' motivation and the other half on the question-of-the-greater-good motivation, and the dichotomous ending does in no way resolve the two. Subtexts about a subconscious Zeitgeist of terror for potential impending doom(s, on various fronts and for various reasons) are premature at best, and the metaphor of the intrusive outsider does not congress well with any of the options (e. g., the demon inside oneself that is irrational anger and/or reticence, the pressing of a moral question, the general need for catharsis), with the slight exception of its auxiliary creatures (that attack people as individuals and whose bites force 'expression'). Finally, does no one get it that films in this subgenre are always less powerful (i. e., both less significant and less scary) when the impending doom, the intrusive threat, is completely revealed?? (Hello, M. Night Shyamalan!) All that said - and despite its intrinsically apocalyptic bend - Cloverfield falls short of utter catastrophe. Its special effects are some redemption and its quick, yet fixed, instants of focused photography are at times significant. Plus, the acting was certainly above the level usually found (though less frequently of late) in films of this subgenre (or genre general). Nevertheless the bottom line remains, in a word: prosaic.

Grade: C+/C

(After writing this review, I checked out Manohla Dargis' review of the film on the Times' website. I felt compelled by the insight of her words to post these few extractions here:

"For a brief, hopeful moment, I thought the filmmakers might be making a point about how the contemporary compulsion to record the world has dulled us to actual lived experience, including the suffering of others — you know, something about the simulacrum syndrome in the post-Godzilla age at the intersection of the camera eye with the narcissistic “I.” Certainly this straw-grasping seemed the most charitable way to explain characters whose lack of personality (“This is crazy, dude!”) is matched only by their incomprehensible stupidity. Smart as Tater Tots and just as differentiated, Rob and his ragtag crew behave like people who have never watched a monster movie or the genre-savvy “Scream” flicks or even an episode of “Lost” (Hello, Mr. Abrams!), much less experienced the real horrors of Sept. 11.

And, so, much like a character from a crummy movie, Rob hears from an estranged lover, Beth (Odette Yustman), who, after the attack, begs for help on her miraculously working cellphone. Against the odds and a crush of fleeing humanity, he tries to rescue her (unbelievably, ludicrously, the others tag along), which is meant to show what a good guy he is. But heroism without a fully realized hero proves as much a dead end as subjective camerawork that’s executed without a discernible subjectivity. Like too many big-studio productions, “Cloverfield” works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt.

Rarely have I rooted for a monster with such enthusiasm."

Manohla, I completely understand.)