5 things about Taken 2

1. All I really wanted them to do was recreate Taken. If they had made the same movie, but with new fights, I would have been happy. What made Taken: The First Take is the Deepest so great was the straightforward premise, Liam Neeson coming out of nowhere (as far as I knew) as a late-life action star badass, and the gritty feel to the movie. This time around, they sacrificed a lot of the things that made the first one great. The premise undercut the effectiveness of the first film (more on this later) and Neeson was showing his age (still strong for 60!). Rather than keeping the look of the film grounded and gritty, the director opted for quick cuts and flashy camera tricks that only served to take me out of the film.

2. One of the things that made Taken 1: the Takening so effective was the randomness of the abduction. The feeling that this could literally happen to anyone, that we're all one bad event away from exiting middle class comfort and entering a nightmare world, is terrifying. The second film abandons this in favor of a revenge plot driven by the father of one of the human traffickers that Liam Neeson (I will not learn his character's name) killed in the first film. I've never savagely tortured or killed anyone, and I'm pretty sure no one in my immediate family has either. I will never be in a foreign country and, through no fault of my own, find myself in this situation. While this type of escalation made sense for a franchise like The Transporter (also produced by Luc Besson), which delights in its own ridiculousness and indulges in the necessity of a plot only to move the audience from one action set-piece to the next, it is clear that Taken wants us to care about its characters on some level. I suppose the upside of not being able to put myself in any of the character's shoes is that I no longer have to feel that the ability to savagely end lives with my bare hands is a prerequisite for starting a family.

3. Everything that wasn't Liam Neeson wrecking dudes was terrible. I don't expect great dialogue from a mindless action film, or even great acting, but when DREDD 3D has more believable characters than your film, you are fucking up. The characters might as well have stared into the camera and given testimonials, "This is my name. This is my one dimension showing I am good/bad. This is my relationship with Liam Neeson." Then they could have gotten right to Liam Neeson being Wolverine with no superpowers and cut 45 minutes out of the film that I could give a shit about.

4. Jesus Christ, the car chase scene. I can imagine the conversation in the editing room:

"I refuse to edit this scene to under 10 minutes. I love that it feels 2 hours long."
"But, we need to do something to make it more exciting. At least cut it down to feeling like 90 minutes."
"Fine... Oh, I've got it! In video games they sometimes have voice-overs of characters saying the same exact sound bite over and over again. What if..."
"I see where you're going! Let's have Liam Neeson say 'Go' and 'Faster' one million goddamn times to draw a stark contrast to how fucking slow this scene moves."
"Perfect!! If we pull this off, we'll have done the impossible: make the audience sick of Neeson's silky Irish voice!"
"Do you want to have them crash the car into the US Embassy at the end for literally no fucking reason?"
"You are a goddamn genius."

 

Please just pull the trigger, both of you.

5. If this movie is on FX, feel free to leave it in the background as you multitask. This will not be the movie you and your bros geek out about, the way you did for Taken. There is no awesome threatening monologue, though the speech from the first film is referenced often. But don't worry, it made its budget back in the first weekend and explicitly laid out the premise for a third film in the last ten minutes. See you in 1-3 years for Tak3n.

5 Things about Arbitrage

1. Arbitrage is a referendum on a transactional view of relationships. Robert Miller can only relate to people if he can buy them. His wife only stays with him because of the lifestyle it affords her. He can only relate to his children through his business- he reminds his daughter "you work for me," and his son, who has no business acumen, is referred to as an idiot and given minimal screen time. His daughter wonders what they would even talk about if they spent time together outside the office. His mistress is with him because he funds her art and provides her with a place to live. In each case, he gets what he wants by spending the massive amounts of money he has earned through his hedge fund, rather than through sincere interest or care for another human being. People are assets to be manipulated for gain. I know people, far less successful than Miller, that view the world this way and I could see their personalities reflected in Miller's relationship. 

What makes this movie cynical, and I think accurate, is that (*SPOILER ALERT*) Miller wins. Though it is at the cost of the relationships with his wife and daughter, the life of his mistress, and any integrity he might have once had; these things are secondary to the successful sale of his company and avoiding any direct personal harm.

2. Because Miller is purely objective-oriented at the expense of all else, he rarely exhibits sincere concern for another human being or regret. In fact he is often called out on it by the people closest to him. When he enters his birthday party at the beginning of the film he is handed gifts to give to his grandkids by his servants, missing the point that what matters is remembering the person and putting thought into their gifts, not the act of spending money. After giving a speech to his family about how they are "what's really important" his daughter observes that last time he gave a speech like that the company lost a huge deal and questions him about what is really going on. Whenever Miller says the word "sorry" it is always with the intent of getting something from the person he is talking to and often is followed by the promise of money or gifts to allay the anger being thrown at him.

He also uses the damage his actions would inflict on others as a way of avoiding responsibility for them. Whenever he is attacked for his illegal business practices he hides behind the damage that would be done to his shareholders, "real people would be hurt!!" Whenever he is taken to task for the way he is neglecting or mistreating his family for the sake of his business he claims that "everything I do is for this family!!" It is clear from the way that he sacrifices that his relationship with them that this is not a sincere sentiment. Concern and regret are nothing more than bargaining tactic to him.

3. That being said there are moments of sincerity for Miller. After the car crash that kills his mistress, Miller expresses sincere anger and frustration. None of this is in concern over the dead woman in his car, but rather over how this affects him and the pending sale of his business. In fact, he never expresses sincere regret over her death beyond how it affects his bottom line.

The only time he is truly happy in this movie is after negotiating the sale of his company at a table with a contract written on the back of a menu. After all the frustrations with the audit not being cleared, his car crash creating legal trouble, and his family falling apart; he has won what really matters to him- $525MM. He even tries to win the conversation afterwards: "What would you have paid?"

"$600. What would you have taken?"

"$475"

"Then we made a good deal"

"Yeah.... actually I would have taken $400"

4. Though Miller cynically treats his personal relationships as transactions where he can maximize his return for minimal effort, he is successful because everyone around him has a similar worldview. He is just far better at the "game" than they are. The policeman spearheading the investigation of the car crash was willing to falsify evidence and send an innocent man to jail in order to nail a "rich bastard to the wall." Miller wins because he is smarter, used to being lied to, and has the resources to expose the falsehood. Miller's wife tries to manipulate their daughter when she is most vulnerable in order to strip Miller of everything he has and reassert agency in her own life. She is outmaneuvered by Miller and ultimately her will is broken. Mayfield is just as skilled as Miller in manipulating events to drive down the price of Miller's company before making an offer. Once Miller convinces Mayfield that their objectives align, Mayfield is more than willing to overlook a $400MM hole in the books for the "greater good" of his stock price.

Miller's daughter, Brooke, is presented as a contrast to this philsophy. She realizes the books are being cooked and confronts her father about the $400MM hole in their accounting. Miller asserts his power over his daughter as an employer and a father and frames her exposing the lie as a choice between her integrity/career and her family. Their contrast in worldviews is displayed in the contrasted between his dark suit and her light dress. As she mulls over this information she is shown wearing black. Ultimately she succumbs to his worldview, accepting it even if she does not believe it, and we see her in a white dress that no longer means anything.

5. Jimmy is an important counterpoint to Miller in the film, because he is the one character that is defined by his integrity and cannot be bought. Jimmy's father had been Miller's driver. Miller calls on Jimmy for help after the car crash after years of being out of contact because, as the detective points out later in the movie, Jimmy is expendable to Miller. Jimmy repeatedly turns down offers of money as he sees doing the right thing as it's own end and will not take payment for it or take money to compromise his integrity.

The screen-writer manipulates the audience into rooting for Miller when his interests align with Jimmy's. When Miller is trying to prove Jimmy's innocence the audience wants him to get Jimmy off the hook for obstruction of justice because Jimmy is a shining beacon of morality. The sinking realization after he succeeds is that this was not done for Jimmy's benefit, but for Miller's. The good guy benefited, but the bad guy won.

At the end of the film Miller offers Jimmy money in order to assuage his guilt for nearly ruining his life. Jimmy is the one character who is able to take money from Miller without compromising his integrity, in fact he swears to do something good with it (open an Applebee's). Because of this Jimmy is the one character able to end this movie with a positive ledger, both financially and morally.

Arbytrage

Audit report says: See this film immediately.

5 things about Looper

This is true for every review, but for this one especially: **SPOILERS ON**

1. Based on the trailers and general critical reaction I was pretty sure I would love this film. I was surprised by the reasons I loved it, though. I thought it would be hard sci-fi that left me thinking myself in circles, à la Primer. I was not expecting to feel so many things, so strongly. Bruce Willis has several scenes that got me emotional, but nothing comes close to the climactic scene of the film. When Syd is losing his temper and about to destroy everything and Sara calms him down telling him, "It's okay, I love you." Ripped my heart out. And then when they raised the stakes in that scene ever higher... my god. 

2. Joseph Gordon Levitt's performance was different than what I was expecting- in a good way. I've come to expect high profile actors to be the same character in every movie, but in different contexts. While Tom Cruise is sometimes a secret agent and sometimes a sports agent, he's always Tom Cruise. JGL was not himself in this movie, he was Bruce Willis; and his Bruce Willis impression was excellent. He either had prosthetics/makeup, CGI, or both altering his face but it worked. He was able to fully inhabit his character without me thinking on some level, "Hey, that's the guy from 10 Things I Hate About You."

3. Someone on Twitter made the point that Looper's portrayal of the future feels genuine- the future wouldn't come all at once, but in fits and starts. Huge futuristic glowing skyscrapers are juxtaposed against abject poverty and the same dingy brick strip clubs that we have now. Hoverbikes are available for purchase to those who can afford it, but people are still driving the aged versions of the cars we have today, retrofitted with pipes leading from solar panels on their roof into their gas tank. 30 years is too short a time span to completely obliterate our culture and aesthetics as we know them. The juxtaposition between old and new also seems to serve as a commentary on today's widening inequality. Aesthetically, it is what Dredd  3D attempted to be, but with far better execution.

4. Given that this movie seems to explicitly reject the idea of alternate time-streams (as evidenced by how Jeff Daniels deals with Seth not closing his loop), I struggle to make sense of the time loop that this movies plot rests on. The film addresses this confusion in the scene where Young Joe and Old Joe meet in the diner. Young Joe is trying to make sense of how he could affect the future of the man sitting across from him and Old Joe yells something to the effect of, "SHUT UP, IT DOESN'T MATTER!!" If this movie was any less entertaining I would call bullshit, but given how well done the film is I am willing to accept that as an explanation.

5. Looper is full of moments and revelations that re-contextualize what has come before. When you first hear Syd say that his mom died because he wasn't strong enough, you hear the common sentiment of a child who has experienced tragedy and can also see the groundwork being laid for his eventual life as a crime lord. Later when his powers are revealed, it seems as if what he is saying is that his powers were not yet strong enough to stop whoever harmed killed his "mother." In the scene where Syd kills the Gat and Sara tackles Young Joe out of the way to save him, we learn that what he really meant is he wasn't strong enough to stop himself, he lacked self-control. This completely re-contextualizes his earlier comments which gets to the heart of the nature vs. nurture and "would you kill Hitler as a baby if you could" debates presented in this film (along wiht many thers). In this same way, Old Joe is re-contextualized from hero to sympathetic villain. The way the plot is structured forces the audience to interact non-linearly with the events of the film, mirroring the time travel elements of the story. That my be a stretch, but I'm sticking with it.

5 things about Dredd 3D

"DREDD IS ANGRY"

1. A movie where lawmen are trapped in a building and have to fight their way to the boss on the top level while also dealing with corruption on the force? I liked this movie a lot more when it had martial arts in it and was called The Raid. ZING!!

2. I loved the look of the city and the general aesthetic of the film. It was clear that this was the future, but it did look as if it was "built on the ruins of the old world," a phrase Dredd repeated (seemingly) endlessly. Slums with giant towers the size of several city blocks dotting the landscape with people crammed into them to the point of bursting. The aesthetic was basically Blade Runner but dirtier and more worn down. I could imagine this aesthetic coming to pass, which is what made it effective for me. The visual effects when people were on the drug "Slo-Mo" were also really cool (especially in 3-D), but I would argue that anything shown in slow motions is visually appealing.

"THIS IS MY ANGRY FACE"

3. The hook of this movie was a dystopian future with over the top violence and awesome action scenes, but they completely bungled the tone of this film. What I wanted was something ridiculous and fun-The sensibilities of "From Dusk Til Dawn" and "Total Recall" in a "Blade Runner" setting with an action movie pastiche. But... this movie just isn't fun. It is very violent, but never so over the top that it's funny (see: Dead Alive), or so awesome that it has you leaning forward in your seat (See: The Raid, even The Transporter films). It is a ridiculous movie that asks you to take it VERY SERIOUSLY but never gives you a reason why. I realize the same can be said for superhero movies but at least those characters represent a higher ideal. If Dredd represents anything it's the right-wing reaction to paranoia about inner-city crime.

"NO, THIS IS MY ANGRY FACE"

4. The one way this movie did try to be clever was its zingers, but they were terrible. Not in a "so bad, they're good" kind of way either. When Dredd is about to be shot he says "Wait" and then the corrupt judge about to waste him goes off for a good 1:30 about how pathetic it is that the much-lauded Dredd only has that to say as his last words. Dredd replies "No, wait for her to shoot you," as his partner takes the dude out with a shotgun. Except... there's no pun there. There's no way he could have known she was coming (she's the psychic, not him!). It's not clever. There's no real "FUCK YEAH" moment. So, it ends up being much less than the sum of it's parts. And that's just one example! The movie is full of terrible moments like that. Not as bad as Guy Pearce in Lockout, but I wanted Schwarzenegger in Commando. Hell, even Schwarzenegger in Batman & Robin would have been better.

"MY FACE HURTS SO MUCH FROM AGGRESSIVELY FROWNING"

5. I hated, hated, hated the ending. At the beginning of the movie they show us Ma-Ma shoving two guys off of a ledge a mile up after giving them Slo-Mo, so they will experience their deaths in slow motion. This is supposed to show the depths of her depravity. Are we supposed to believe that when Dredd does the exact same thing to her it's somehow OK because he wears a badge? They did not do a good enough job of establishing her as an overwhelming threat or hate-able character (relative to how much I hated every other character, at least) for me to feel that this was justified. It wasn't cathartic, it was unsettling. And the shot where the camera is the floor and we watch her face flatten into it- gross, dude.

"GODDAMMIT, MY MOUTH IS STUCK!! FROWN LINES EVERYWHERE!!"

JUDGEMENT: Do not see this. Especially do not spend $16 to see it in 3D like I did. (disclaimer: I have poor judgement).

5 things about Lawless

1. There were so many strong performances in this movie. Tom Hardy continues to be excellent in everything he's in and I even warmed up to Guy Pearce's off putting portrayal of a corrupt Chicago lawman. I would have loved more Gary Oldman. The cast only had one weak link- Shia Labeouf- and unfortunately the script relies on him to serve as the emotional center of the movie. I'm not sure if it's the prejudices I brought into this movie before hand, I've hated all his non-Even Stevens work, or if it was a function of the character he played, but I could tell I was supposed to feel empathy for him, but only felt a mild disgust. Rather than thinking "Jack Bondurant is falling victim to the follies of youth, in fact I can see my own mistakes reflected in his actions." I thought, "Wow, Shia Labeouf really comes off like an asshole." I want to emphasize, this is the best performance I've ever seen him give. Given the central role LaBeouf's character has in the film, this directly undercuts its emotional impact. Because of this I did not like this movie nearly as much as I wanted to, or felt I should have.


2. In the film Jack Bondurant's older brother's challenge him to do whatever it takes to protect his family. At the end of the movie we are supposed to believe he rises to this challenge when he finally takes up a gun and shoots a crazed Guy Pearce to death. The nature of this action, however, is fundamentally different than what his brothers have been pushing him to do. When his brothers act, in a brutal and decisive fashion, it is always to protect their family from harm or limit further harm. What Jack does, does not protect the people he cares about- his best friend has been killed, his boot-legging business dismantled and he has just watched his older brother (and hero) presumably shot to death. He is not acting out of a sense of loyalty nor out of any limiting principle. At this point the actions taken against him are irreversible and Guy Pearce's character has already been rendered incapable of hurting them further within the bounds of the law. Since Jack has waited past the point where he can prevent or limit harm to his family, he is not protecting his family but only acting out of malice and a desire for revenge. While Guy Pearce's death is a moment of emotional catharsis for the audience, Jack Bondurant has fallen short of his brother's test.

3. The symbolism in this movie was heavy handed to say the least. Jack and Cricket are about to enter a violent confrontation- cut to two chickens fighting! Jack is taking the girl he likes on a care free ride in his new car- cut to horses galloping through the countryside, directly evoking the conversation he just had about his car's horsepower! A conversation about how the laws and rules in Franklin county are different then other places is wrapping up- cut to the bridge over the river that serves as the county line! Have the lighting darken... ominously. Have the final confrontation on that very bridge! I did not necessarily think it was a bad thing, but it's overbearing nature did sometimes take me out of the reality of the film.

4. This was a movie where terrible things happened to people constantly. After the the rape scene (off camera and implied, but chilling) I started bracing myself for something jarring every time a character had a smile on their face. The fact that these moments were not actually that predictable, and long stretches would go with relatively little hardship, made the moments of inhumanity that much more off-putting. This is not a movie that believes in the intrinsic goodness of man. It was... more than a little uncomfortable (which, of course, was the intent).

5. I don't know if this was intentional, but I think the climactic scene illustrated why gun control is important. The showdown at the bridge was tense but ultimately resolvable, especially as the local police were coming over to Jack's side in taking on Guy Pearce. The addition of the older Bondurants, armed with guns, is what elevated the situation to lethal. When the entire town showed up with shotguns any chance of this being talked through, or casualties being limited to just the villain, were dashed. Guns did not serve as a deterrent because there was no Mutually Assured Destruction. Instead they served only to escalate the conflict. In conclusion- guns are not nuclear weapons.

*Steps off soap box*

I would recommend this movie, but only on Netflix Instant.

LAWLESS!!

5 things about Celeste and Jesse Forever

As always, **spoiler alert**.

1. I almost cried during this movie. Multiple times. Having been through some pretty terrible breakups, this movie rang very true. Not to say it wasn't funny, because it was, but when it aimed for emotional sincerity it hit the mark. The three scenes that had my lip trembling were: When Celeste kept calling Jesse after the Ikea dresser incident; when Jesse came over, confessed he had no idea what he was doing and held Celeste on the couch; and when they said goodbye after finalizing the divorce. These scenes didn't feel contrived or manipulative the way a Nicholas Sparks movie might. They felt honest.

2. This movie had a stellar cast. My preexisting crushes on Andy Samberg and Rashida Jones were only strengthened. Ari Graynor, who's been pretty good in a lot of movies that were not very good at all, and
Eric Christian Olsen, who was great in Not Another Teen Movie and the underrated Fired Up (seriously, give it a chance), are great as Celeste and Jesse's best friends. The out of it weed-dealer is not exactly a groundbreaking new character type, but Will McCormack brings something new to it, by which I mean I actually laughed. Elijah Wood got some huge laughs out of me as Celeste's gay boss/friend trying really hard to be "sassy" and failing miserably. 

3. Both Celeste and Jesse were sympathetic and relatable. I saw myself (and exes of mine) in both of them. When Celeste insisted on being right- I've been her. When Jesse thought she would come around eventually and it wasn't weird they were spending a lot of time together- I've been him. This movie pulled off the difficult balancing act of having both characters hurt, and feel hurt by, the other without the audience ever feeling like either was the bad guy.

4. The reason Jesse decides to move on and be with another woman is that a one night stand turns into a pregnancy and, since he is compatible with her and feels the need to grow up, he decides to try and make it work. I would have preferred the same story but with no baby. It would have felt more true to life if he had just made the decision to move forward as an act of taking agency in his own life- rather than having the cover of an accidental life-altering event. It would have made the balancing act from point #3 a lot more difficult- the audience would be rooting for them to get back together so Jesse choosing to grow up and move on would make him the default villain in the audience's eyes. However, it would drive home the point that they didn't work because her big realization, to not take the people you love for granted, came too late. And sometimes, mostly, that's how things go.

5. The one thing I always wonder about in situations like this is how people soldier on and remain friends. The feelings involved in such a long-term and intimate relationship are huge and overwhelming. I realize that the casual nature of how they dealt with their breakup is the big joke at the beginning of the movie, but once they had been through the events of the film how do you remain friends and just meet up for coffee without this being foremost on your mind? Maybe this speaks more to a character flaw of mine or, in terms of the film, how invested I am in fictional characters. Regardless, see this movie.

5 things about Red State

1. I did not like this movie. I didn't like any of the characters, even the ones that I think I was supposed to (though maybe I was supposed to hate everyone). I didn't like the message (more on this later). I didn't like the script or the dialogue or that it took only 75 seconds before the first (unfunny) gay joke. It actually was not offensively bad, but it really rubbed me the wrong way. I used to love Kevin Smith in Middle- and High-School and essentially give him a free pass on anything he did. The last thing he made that I really liked was Clerks: The Animated Series. At this point I'm more likely to avoid something with his name on it.

2. The title Red State had nothing to do with the plot of the movie itself, which was essentially what if the Westboro Baptist Church was a militant organization. There was no point at which they said why an organization like this would be geographically constrained. In fact if you remove the accents, people didn't act much differently than they would anywhere else in the moments that didn't involve firing guns or being crazy. Fred Phelps' church is actually name checked in this movie as "suers not doers" and not "gun freaks" like the villains. I think part of the intent was that being gay is more marginalized in the south but I'm pretty sure that, rightly or wrongly, society is not particularly kind to people that have homosexual affairs outside of their marriage no matter what part of the country they are in. And this movie had far fewer gay jokes than Smith's "Jersey Trilogy"

I can only assume the title Red State was meant to inflame people and thus create press coverage but it comes across as the perspective of someone who hasn't traveled much, hates our last president and thus uses a southern accent as short hand for stupid. This used to describe me, but I've traveled a lot the last two years and while my politics haven't changed it's become pretty clear that people of varying intellects and with crazy beliefs exist pretty much everywhere. I do wish people in the south would drive like they had somewhere to fuckin' be though.

3. The cast was star-studded- John Goodman, Kevin Pollack, Anna Gunn (Skylar from Breaking Bad), Stephen Root (IMDB him, you know who he is). Michael Parks' performance as the cult leader was very strong, but the content of his dialogue was not. The problems with the movie were script and direction. Those were both entirely Mr. Smith's responsibility

4. Here's my main problem with the film- it is an argument for nihilism. Obviously one of the main tenets of the film is that one shouldn't hold crazy beliefs, especially of a religious nature, so strongly that you harm others. I can stand behind that 100%. I think there are few that wouldn't. However, every time someone in this movie displays any sort of conviction or resolve they are killed mercilessly shortly thereafter trying to act on it. "We can't execute everyone in here, there are kids" BLAM "My sister is only 3 years old, I have to get her out of here" BLAM "Even though your family has tortured me and killed my friends I will help you get out of here because it's the right thing to do" BLAM. Sure, all the people with crazy beliefs get shot too, but this seems to be a movie where the message is anti-conviction whether it be good or bad. John Goodman's character, one of the few that survives, gives a monologue at the end of the film that clumsily attempts to tie a story about two close canine companions violently wrestling over a piece of chicken to the lengths people are driven to when they believe. Not when they believe crazy things, just when they believe. Goodman is subsequently given a vacation and a raise. Everyone other character is in jail or dead.

5. How the fuck in a movie where literally no one smokes weed, does Kevin Smith STILL find a way to make stoners the heroes at the end? Also, I would like to point out, not out of any sense of conviction or purpose but as a byproduct of screwing around.

5 Things about Young Adult

I'm stealing this format from Eugene Ahn (aka Adam Warrock, the #7 standout Nerd of 2011) because it frees me from feeling like I have to make the definitive statement about whatever movie I'm writing about. With that monkey off my back I should hopefully write more frequently. Also, there are minor spoilers ahead.

1. I liked this movie. I'm not sure how much yet though. It was very uneven and I felt like it dragged a little in the middle but by the end it totally won me over. I would definitely recommend it. Hell, I'd see it again just to try and parse out my feelings over it.

2. Though this was written by Diablo Cody, it is not Juno. It's much darker, less quirky and the protagonist is also the villain. Well... kind of. It's not that black and white, and that is one of the things I really loved about this movie. I know that by the end (spoiler alert) Mavis was able to shed the weight of her past and start on her way to allowing herself to be happy. But the way she did it heightened the "fuck these people I'm better than everyone" mentality that I thought was a pretty severe character flaw. But then again maybe that's what you have to do to move past caring about being judged and defining yourself by how others see you. Haven't totally figured that one out yet.

3. Patton Oswalt's performance as Matt, a nerdy guy who was crippled in high school when "The Jocks" beat him with a lead pipe because they thought he was gay, was excellent. He wasn't exactly out of his comfort zone playing a smartass nerd, but all the best scenes in the movie (with one notable exception) had him in it. He had the perfect balance of sarcasm, morality and fuck-it-all attitude and often served to call out just how crazy Charlize Theron's character was being. I am actually going to go watch "Big Fan" right now on the strength of his performance.

4. The last 20-30 minutes of Young Adult were near perfect. The movie had felt like it was meandering and I was not clear on where it was going. To that point my opinion of the movie was Patton Oswalt is excellent, but the rest was kind of "meh." I think this is largely because any story having to do with splitting up a relationship makes me irrationally uncomfortable. But from the points Mavis walks out the front door of Buddy's baby's naming ceremony onward, the movie is perfect. Mavis grows in a way that is positive, but not "uplifting" in a way that would betray the character. Her rant on the front lawn, her scene with Matt, her conversation with Matt's sister are all spot on, well written and terrifically acted. Things are resolved but not everything. Just like in real life.

5. There were moments of this movie that I genuinely connected with and not always in a pleasant way. A saw a lot of pieces of myself that I'm not particularly proud of reflected in Marvin's behavior when she was at her worst. The scene where she is totally losing it on the front lawn had some lines I could see myself saying and that's not a good thing. The hug between Marvin and Matt towards the end of the film captured how I felt when my high school girlfriend and I started dating- I was convinced I was hideous and had no earthly idea what she was doing with me. I was being unfair to myself at the time, but the contrast between Matt's broken short body and Marvin's model physique, and their emotional states at that moment, brought back that feeling so strongly. The themes in this movie are probably universal- the weight of nostalgia and history, dealing with personal tragedy, the incongruity between how someone sees themselves and how others view them- but there were moments in that film where I felt like Diablo Cody had plucked things directly out of my brain.

Green Lantern

Note: This is my first post in a while. If it's a little rusty (read: shitty), please keep that in mind.

I knew from the first trailer that Green Lantern was going to be, from my completely subjective nerd perspective, either the best or the worst thing I'd ever seen. I'd heard all the negative hype but then again I liked Daredevil, so I knew I was the target demographic. Walking into the movie I was (extremely) cautiously optimistic.

Walking out I was underwhelmed, to the point of disappointment. The movie wasn't terrible, it just wasn't very good. In fact it was so very much not very good as to be bad. The performances were decent, and I walked into the theater already sold on the premise and in love with the characters, but I think what did not work boiled down to a couple things:

1. Pacing

The movie seemed designed to specifically undercut any tension or excitement that was building throughout the movie. An action scene would start to ramp up, placing our characters in real danger and then... they fly away and talk about stuff for 5-10 minutes. The all-too short training montage occurs giving us a sense of what the GL corps is about and then... Hal Jordan quits and whines about it for another half hour. Even the final action sequence goes: introduction of the final villain with a fight, fly to the outskirts of the city to watch him and talk about fighting some more, slow-paced scene showing how menaing the villain is, the fight. Why not cut out the fat in the middle? We know Parallax is scary, you spent the entire movie trying to show us that. Every time the movie felt like it was going somewhere, it just stopped dead in its tracks. And don't get me started about starting the movie with 7 minutes of pure exposition.

Despite the movie being two hours long I didn't feel like I got to spend significant time with any characters or that very much got done. I wanted to see more of the Green Lantern Corps. I wanted events to feel like they logically followed one another. I wanted people to do awesome things with their rings to really show the potential of the premise.

None of those things happened. God willing, this makes a ton of money so we can see a sequel that is better-written.

2. Shallow character development

Ryan Reynolds version of Hal Jordan is a bizarre mix of Hal from the comics, who is a self-absorbed brash asshole, and Kyle Rayner, who is more insecure in the Spider-Man "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" Mode. What we get is an "Immature adult, Insecure asshole, so if you fall on the concrete, that's yo ass fault" (Kanye West- See Me Now), whose personality seems totally incongruous. Are you all the asshole who charges in with no regard for others or the guy who is paralyzed by the fear of commitment? Can you be both?

I'm not sure if anyone changed from the beginning to the ending of this movie in any way that made sense. And I'm not sure that I cared about any of the character that I met. Also, given all the time they spent designing the Green Lanterns on OA, I would have liked to spend more time with them. I love Kilowog in the comics. In the movies I can muster apathy at best, mild distaste at worst.

Sinestro, on the other hand was fucking awesome. I want an entire movie about Sinestro. In fact I'm pretty sure thats what Green Lantern 2 would be. Please make this movie. Hector Hammond was also fairly well-done but not given any room to grow beyond his one dimension. It was also unclear if he was supposed to be creepy the entire time, or if his physical transformation was intended to transform his personality as well as his appearance. I believe they were going for the latter, but I didn't feel I got to know his character well enough pre- giant forehead to be sure.

3. Dialogue

Painful. So painful. Geoff Johnsian even. I half expected Kilowog to go "Face it, you're just too Green, Lantern" during the training session.

And the scene where Hal Jordan makes an appeal to the guardians to help earth- GAH! And then (spoiler alert), when they reject him and he begs them to at least let him go and defend his planet- something that they were in no way preventing him from doing prior to his arrival on OA... Come on guys.

4. Show, don't tell

So much talking. So little doing. I don't even know how to expound on this. (The joke is that I'm doing it too)


What did work:

1. Sinestro

I said this earlier, but if this movie was 90% less Hal whining and 180% more Sinestro being badass and a total dick, I would go to see it 3 times in theaters. Also, that scene during the credits? So many nerd-boners.

2. Final Action set piece

(spoilers on)

Most of the final action scene was pretty much crap. In fact, I thought most of the action pieces in this movie were lackluster and boring. But the end, where he was throwing Parallax into the sun (A scene that makes no sense given that this entity is powerful enough to consume entire planet-sized civilizations), was just beautiful. And the image of two jets tied to a belt, pulling him away from Parallax in space struck that perfect balance between silly and awesome. I think my affection for it grows largely out of my unadulterated love for the movie "Sunshine," but it was the first thing in the movie that made me that little kid in me sit up and take notice. Watching Parallax succumb to the Sun's gravitational pull really felt like a win

(spoilers off)

I'll grant you that OA was somewhat cool, but after seeing Asgard done so well in Thor, it really just looked lackluster in comparison.

3. Potential

I honestly believe that there are amazing Green Lantern movies waiting to be made, even if this isn't that movie. If a terrible and racist franchise about cars that transform into giant alien robots and are friends with Even Stevens can be a billion dollar enterprise, surely we can glean some success from intergalactic space cops with alien wishing rings? Green Lantern is one of my favorite characters of all time and there is so much rich history to be mined for future films. This film wasn't good, and that's too bad. But most films that make obscene amounts of money are mediocre at best, so I feel that the lack of quality can almost be viewed as an asset.

If this movie makes tons of money, which I hope to god it does (but looks like it won't), then hopefully we'll start to see studios taking risks on more obscure weirder characters. How amazing would a well-made Blue Beetle/Booster Gold movie be? Or a Thunderbolts movie? Or a 4th world movie?

Actually, leave that last one alone. I couldn't bear to see it fucked up.

My point being, if they could build up enough goodwill with this movie's success, they might be able to bring other relative unknowns to the big screen. As a comics fan, I think that would be awesome.

Red

Red, the action-comedy starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and that chick from Weeds, is not very good. It's also not terrible. On a continuum with "Epic Movie" on one end and "Road to Perdition" on the other, I'd place it somewhere near "The Rundown"- A movie you'll watch on a Sunday if you catch it channel-surfing and you're too hungover to get off the couch. Except, "The Rundown" is a lot more fun.

When I first read the comic book "RED" by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner I thought it was mediocre. It was only three issues long and fairly decompressed, leaving me wishing that more time had been taken to flesh out the world and characters. In the book the main character is targeted for assassination, survives, sets out to figure out why, then kills everyone responsible. It was straightforward and direct. What was especially note-worthy about the comic, was the experimental way that Cully Hamner tackled "bullet-time" in sequential art. Interestingly, the weaknesses of the film have highlighted the strength of the comic in several ways.

1. Focus

The movie decided to expand the cast, and in order to do this, needed to expand the plot. Unfortunately the movie had nothing driving it forward. So, a problem would arise, which would lead to Bruce Willis deciding he needed to contact the next actor that needed to be shoehorned into the plot somehow. There was usually no logical reason for him to do so. He would then interact with them, solving the problem. A new problem would conveniently arise, time to bounce over to Helen Mirren! None of these problems serviced the plot except to shuffle the characters to the next place they needed to be. The final conflict did not feel like a culmination of everything that had come before it, but rather grew out of information introduced 15 minutes earlier in order to lend some gravitas to the final scenes.

Warren Ellis's comic, no matter what faults it had, was laser focused. This is because it knew what it was trying to say and wasn't trying to be cute (something which the movie failed at, miserably). This brings us to the...

2. Message

The message of the comic was that bureaucracies, especially government ones, do not care about you. They use people and spit them out. Despite years of loyal service, a combination of blind ambition and paperwork oversight can lead to you being the target of a wetworks team. To those in power, people are just a means to an end and numbers on a spreadsheet. It gets this across clearly and succinctly. 3 issues- setup, heighten, conclude, bloodbath.

As I mentioned before, the movie is all over the fucking place. The CIA is trying to kill them! No, wait it's the Vice-President, he's the bad guy! Actually, the weapons contractor is the real bad guy all along! The guy ruthlessly murdering people before grew a conscience for no reason! Now let's plant some evidence, frame some people, and call it a win for the good guys! Hurray!?!?!??

This movie has no idea what it is trying to say. A good twist re-contextualizes everything that came before and makes you re-evaluate character's actions and motivations. Think "The Usual Suspects" or "Memento." I think the people that wrote this script had seen these movies but were nowhere near as competent as Christopher Nolan or Bryan Singer (admittedly, a high standard). The whole thing just smacks of laziness. By which I am referring to the gaping...

3. Plot Holes

They were huge! Infuriatingly huge! Ranging from continuity errors to central plot points.

There were several smaller things that bothered me. Such as a scene where they are being chased by FBI agents shown to be literally, ten feet behind them. They get through a tunnel, the agents hot on their heels, and stop to have a fucking 5 minute conversation. This is not how time works! It's just not! And what's worse the way they end the chase is by getting in a car and driving away. This would be fine, the people chasing them had no automobiles nearby, except that in a prior scene it had been established that the government can track you anywhere with extremely powerful spy satellites that can read over your shoulder. Did they just turn them off for this specific pursuit, despite utilizing them for the previous ones? Is this a subtle commentary on the quality of government work? No. It;s not. It's just lazy scripting.

What is more infuriating is the central flaw at the crux of the plot. What is revealed during the course of the movie is that all the Olds were targeted because they were involved in an operation in the 80's to cleanup after a massacre in Guatemala. A massacre, they discover, perpetrated by the current VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WHO NOW WANTS TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT OMGWTFBBQ!!

Here's the thing. None of the olds had any idea why they were there back in the day. None, whatsoever. And apparently no attempt was made to assess whether they had this knowledge or were planning to use it before performing highly public acts of murder. Murder which lead them to seek revenge and eventually attempt to KILL THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!! It is also unclear why, even if they had this knowledge they had not chosen to act when he was running for Vice President, but would suddenly be spurred to action during a president campaign. I guess the evil guy assumed that they would find nothing scary about having a psycho as the 2nd most powerful person in the world, but as soon as he moved to #1 WATCH OUT!!

In other words by literally doing nothing, the CIA/Vice President/Weapons manufacturer that was pulling all the strings, could have saved millions of dollars, dozens of soldiers lives and limbs, and (spoiler alert) the VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES FROM GETTING SHOT IN THE CHEST AAAAARRRGGHH!! And, furthermore, his vaguely defined super-evil Manchurian candidate plot would have succeeded! Has he learned nothing from dealing with AARP in Washington? Don't fuck with the Olds!! They always win!

The thing is, I'm willing to forgive shit like this, I really am. I love movies with plot holes much larger than this. But the thing is they are...

4. Fun

And the movie RED is not.

The comic is! Each action scenes continue to top the one before it and the art is gorgeous. The book is far more grim in tone but you cannot stop flipping the pages because it is compelling as fuck and WHOA, did you see how that guys head just exploded!!! In the movie, I could not stop checking my watch.

It's clear the movie wants to be fun. There are dozens of attempted jokes, 3 of which I laughed at. There's a lot of travelling and each scene transition consists of a SUPER-WACKY postcard that becomes animated and then fades into the scene. There are also "hilarious" touches, like using super-racist chinese music when they go to Chinatown. All those Chinese immigrants and their MSG, AMIRITE!!

The problem is the content doesn't match the intent. It's clear that Bruce Willis and that chick from Weeds are trying but they just don't have anything to work with, so they fall flat. John Malkovich was supposed to be offputting, and he was (he always is), but it wasn't in a charming way. blahblahHelen Mirren was greatblahblahblahThe Queen blahblahGMILF. The worst performance of the movie was Morgan Freeman. If you are being paid millions to play an assassin, you need to be able to pretend you have ever punched anyone before ever. And also that you want to be there.

The movie was chock-full of lines like "Looks like we're getting the band back together" which only work if you are invested in the characters or have a working knowledge of their history and can attribute historical significance to their reunion. I could not have cared less for these characters making much of the dialogue cringe-worthy.

That being said Karl Urban is going to be an awesome Judge Dredd.

5. Action

There were two good action scenes in this movie and you saw them both in the trailer. The first is the scene where John Malkovich shoots a rocket as it's being launched at him with a revolver and hit's it right on the nose. The other is the scene where Bruce Willis gets out of the cop car as it's spinning and calmly walks forward as the rear bumper just misses hitting him. That was it. In a two-hour action comedy, there was very little of either. Blegh.

This was the strength of the comic. Balls-to-the-wall action from start to finish. Also it was cooler. Also, it was prettier. Speaking of action, this brings me to my final point...

6. Morality

The main characters, the "good guys" refrain from shooting the weapons manufacturer mid way through the movie because he is "not worth the bullet," even though this would have almost certainly ended the conflict with far less bloodshed and difficulty. It is clear he is a bad person at this point, as he has confessed to several crimes and literally referred to himself as "the bad guy." YET, they have no problem with cold murdering soldiers and policeman who are just following orders and have every reason to legitimately believe that they are doing the right thing to protect their country. What the fuck!

In the comic, this happens too. However, Ellis make no attempt to paint him as a person that is particularly moral or cares who he kills. He is a machine. Bruce Willis, on the other hand is supposed to be a "good guy." oops.

Final Thoughts

This movie basically defines mediocrity. This probably means it will be uber-successful and spawn at least one sequel in theaters before going to Direct to DVD spin-offs with lesser known aging actors whose careers are on the decline. Also, they will be made by National Lampoon and feature cameos by Betty White, who I'm pretty sure does not have action star on her resume (yet).

On one hand this makes me really sad- why the hell can't the American media consumer reward quality with more frequency? For every successful Inception, we have 5 Scott Pilgrim's that are awesome but don't make their money back. And Jackass 3D was the #1 movie in America this week. COME ON!! #thisiswhytheyhateus

On the other hand, I really like the creative team on this book. If this movie does well, maybe we will see more Warren Ellis stories turned into movies. He is one of the best writers in fiction today, so assuming future movies don't pivot 180 degrees from the source material like this one did, we are bound to see something good come out of it.

Verdict

If you were intrigued by the premise, you should buy the comic. If you are hungover on a Sunday and it's on FX, why not I guess.

MACHETE!

The first thing you should know about Machete is that it is awesome. This movie knows exactly what it is, which is hilariously over the top and incredibly violent. Robert Rodriguez continues to excel in the genre of slickly made pastiches of trashy genres (Planet Terror, From Dusk Til Dawn).

For example at one point Machete(played by Danny Trejo "The Hardest Working Mexican in Hollywood") stabs a guy in the neck with a turkey thermometer. After the house he's in blows up, the thermometer boils over and shoots blood out the top. Sounds disgusting, but in context it is hilarious.

Lindsay Lohan's character is the embodiment of the this ridiculousness. She plays a parody of herself- the villain's daughter who is obsessed with doing whatever self-destructive stunts it takes to drive page views on her website. Despite her privileged life, she sneaks off every weekend to have drug-fueled sex romps in crack-houses (which her father ends by shooting everyone and reminding her that if she needs any drugs, all she needs to do is ask). After shooting illicit video for her website ("It's what my viewers want!") she is kidnapped and held in a church. She wakes up to see televisions stacked in the shape of a cross. This is a religious experience for Lohan, which in this movie means she dresses up like a nun and shoots a lot of anti-immigrant militia members with a .44 Magnum. Symbolism!!

The second, and more important thing, that you should know is that this is a movie that wears its politics on its sleeve. It's bloody, bloody sleeve. There are stand-ins for "America's Sheriff" Joe Arpaio, every race-baiting politician in America (Robert DeNiro, having a great time), and corporate interests who exploit illegal labor privately while publicly decrying it. These three characters like to go out in the Arizona desert and shoot immigrants and their families for sport. They take special joy in shooting the pregnant ones, because if their kids are born here they "get the same rights as us real Americans." Kind of scary how prescient this movie is, considering that it was in the can before Senators were publicly debating repealing the 14th amendment.

The evil Senator's plan is to frame Machete for an assassination attempt and then ride the wave of anti-immigrant hysteria into office. His campaign ads are essentially grindhouse movie trailers featuring over-the-top disturbing renditions of immigrants and labeling them parasites(flash to a shot of writhing maggots), and terrorists (flash to a shot of a terrorist attack), etc. They have that great deep, gravelly narration that every great grindhouse trailer has.

Ultimately DeNiro is shown to be just an opportunist. When circumstances change he is happy to throw on dayworker clothes, faded jeans and an oversized flannel shirt and fight alongside the illegals. The message is clear: fear-mongering politicians are not acting out of any conviction, just their own desire for power.

Other highly political events:

-Cheech Marin plays Machete's brother, a priest. There is a scene where he is literally crucified by the head of the corrupt Politician's PR team.

-Michelle Rodriguez is Shè(pretty clever), the leader of "The Network" which provides basic human services and support that are denied to illegal immigrants in America. She also organizes the immigrants in their tricked out low-riders (they shoot missiles and the hydraulics allow them to crush anti-immigrant militants- see it's functional, not stupid) when the inevitable conflict comes. This is, I'm sure, an exaggerated version of support networks that actually do exist, but it also strikes me as the right-wing nightmare. In a lot of racist's minds I'm sure it makes perfect sense that if illegal immigrants can provide each other basic support off the grid, they probably also have caches of weapons stored, ready for violence just in case.

-Deniro, dressed as a day laborer, ultimately killed by the anti-immigrant sentiment he created.

-Jessica Alba, the former immigrant turned Border Patrol agent, standing on the hood of her car rallying the day laborers gathered around the taco truck.

-"We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us"

-Machete ultimately rejecting the citizenship of a country that has mistreated him and others like him.

-American militants filming and broadcasting executions exactly the way Al-Qaeda has.

Other awesome things about this movie:

-During ultraviolent scenes the film will turn grainy and yellow, with cigarette burns, like it's an actual aged grindhouse reel. It's something that gives the film a level of detachment from the heightened reality while giving a nod to it's roots. When the bad guys commit ultra-violence, it is shown through a computer screen that goes digitally grainy.

-Machete rarely speaks and when he does, it is only in one-liners. "Machete don't text."

-"I just received a text." "What does it say?" "You just fucked with the wrong Mexican"

-There is a scene where Machete is locked in the backseat of a car by people pretending to be cops. He stabs the driver through the back of his seat with a Machete (go figure), and steers the car from the backseat by twisting the blade in his guts.

-Steven Segal commits Seppuku with a machete.

-Machete kills racist security gaurds with pruning shears and a weed-wacker that has knives instead of plastic wire.

-This movie has a Luchadore assassin, a Dog The Bounty Hunter character (played by "Sex Machine" from "From Dusk 'Til Dawn"), and Sopranos security guards

-Motorcycle with a minigun strapped to the front.

-Get Ready for the sequels: "Machete Kills" and "Machete Kills Again"

As for how I feel about this issue, I think Stephen Colbert put it best (out of character):