Weekend update: Brave, Take This Waltz, Magic Mike

©Disney/Pixar

Yeah, I just invented another new series that I may or may not follow through on. The first post is the first step, peeps!

Brave (2012)

Though this will sound like sacrilege to some, I actually went to see Brave because I was spoiled for it. The tight rein on the ads meant that it felt like there was no story there, and my interest in these things is already middling at best. But then I got spoiled (intentionally so), and they were spot on: the part that you don't know about, the middle part that I am going to keep to myself, is easily the best. It saves Merida from being one-note (to a realistically teenage insufferable degree), and it provides the funniest gags and most moving moments. And then there's a conclusion, whatever. Aside from Act II, there's not much going on there. B

Take This Waltz (2012)

Take This Waltz is the movie I think I was supposed to see when I saw Blue Valentine. As good as it was, it was also freighted by actorly tics and what's supposed to be meaningful. When old Ryan Gosling opens a door and sees young Michelle Williams standing there, it's beautiful and symbolic and completely not answering the question of how they got there. Waltz manages to do that without having to go back -- you can see it in the way Seth Rogen obliviously ignores Willams' advances and how ill-formed and half-hearted those advances are. You can see how Luke Kirby's merciless mocking wouldn't be a put-off so much as an invitation to reveal more. At least he sees her.

Sarah Polley's already drowning in critical love for this one, and she should be. I found the interiors as crammed and fussed over as any Wes Anderson movie, but that doesn't stop Waltz from being deeply felt, as melancholic as it is hopeful, and as in love with its subjects as it is its setting. A-

Magic Mike (2012)

© Warner Bros Pictures

Steven Soderberg can do no wrong in my eyes this year. First he gives me Haywire and a protagonist worthy of the title badass, then he goes 100 miles in the other direction for that male stripper movie that everyone's talking about. And talk about it they should because Magic Mike is amazeballs.

If Polley (and Anderson's) interiors seem crammed, Soderberg flips the switch: there's always something to look at in the background. If Channing Tatum is a compelling dancer (and, oh, how he is. Look at him flip right off that stage!), then Kevin Nash is the most compelling non-dancer I've ever laid eyes on. The more effort Matthew McConaughey and his short-shorts put into training Alex Pettyfer, the more you wonder why he keeps ol' Nash around. And then you see him up on stage again: pure entertainment.

It's odd: as much as the movie is concerned with the commodification of sex (the kinds of people who sell it, and what happens when you do), it's equally concerned with the entertainment value of what's on stage. The guys can't just come out on stage and take off their clothes; they have elaborate costumes, props, and characters. They are wonderful. Sexy CPR, any one?

The movie is so comfortable with and fascinated by the world it's exploring that it's no wonder it takes so long to get to the central conflict. It's so late breaking and ill-conceived that it's next to impossible to credit, save Tatum and Pettyfer's characters beats. Less so for Cody Horn, who isn't as bad as you've read but also isn't nearly good enough to elevate her character beyond the page (turn your dictionaries to the bitc-s if you want to know which specific page). Too bad they couldn't have switched her out for Olivia Munn, who found real emotional depth in her small role.

The best of the best, though, has to be McConaughey. Between this and The Lincoln Lawyer, we finally have a career resurgence befitting his overly tanned skin, laconic drawl, and alternative steely and manic gaze. Take everything you've ever liked about McConaughey, chop it down to a supporting role, and you've basically got this performance. And it is a gem. B

P.S. No one shoots in DV better than ol' "Peter Andrews."  

P.P.S. I love this picture. It looks like they are involved in a caper.