Crimson Peak (2015)

Sometimes it's easy to figure out why you don't like a movie. I often don't like lazy characterization or a lack of female characters. When I didn't like Black Mass last month, I didn't like it because the centre didn't hold. It didn't make sense to me that anyone -- anyone at all in that movie -- would be loyal to a guy like Jimmy. Despite excellent performances across the board, Johnny Depp wasn't as magnetic or as menacing as he needed to be to develop the kind of over-the-top loyalty that, say, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) displayed. And, if you can't buy that, what can you buy about the rest of the movie? (Benedict Cumberbatch making eggs, as it turns out).

But not liking Crimson Peak ... that's been a little harder to put my finger on. 

I didn't like Guillermo del Toro's last outing, either. Of course, I don't remember all the much about Pacific Rim or why I didn't like it. The only thing that really stands out to me two years on is that all the fight scenes took place at night in the rain, and I couldn't tell the aliens and the humans apart. We kept cutting back to the boring people (so boring) swooping their arms around in the Jaegers, and I was like, "My kingdom for a daylight fight!" 

My initial reaction was to label Crimson Peak as shallow. Everyone's motivations are on the surface, and it takes nanoseconds to figure out what's "really" going on (hint: exactly what you think). 

I started to compare it to The Woman in Black in my mind (a movie which starred Daniel Radcliffe's sad eyes and some shadows), and then I realized what I really didn't like about Crimson Peak: it's not a haunted house movie.

Bear with me because I know that sounds like a YP. BUT! The movie's called Crimson Peak and the ghosts are all like, "Beware of Crimson Peak", and Tom Hiddleston warns that the house "starts holding onto things... keeping them alive when they shouldn't be", so you'd think that the very place presents a clear and present danger. 

I am here to tell you: it does not. 

Sure, there are ghosts, but they aren't even malevolent ghosts. Despite being black or bloody skeletons whose clothes go up in evaporating wisps (make no mistake - this movie looks wicked cool), those ghosts are simply trying to save Mia Wasikowska from getting her silly self murdered. Which makes them Caspar's creepy cousins. 

So even though the house is -- and again this is visually stunning -- oozing blood from the walls, the house is actually just a house. Jessica Chastain is a crazy killer, and Tom Hiddleston is her somewhat unwilling accomplice, and there you go. Run away, Mia! Run away!

Here's what I imagined, though: that Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston were, in fact, centuries-old supernatural beings that are kept alive by ritually sacrificing young girls to their spooky demon house. But with the advent of, I don't know, modern detection, it's getting harder and harder to marry ladies, take them away, and kill them every couple of years. Jessica Chastain thinks they should just keep going, Louise, but Tom Hiddleston -- 'cause he actually likes Mia Wasikowska -- thinks they should just throw in the towel. Mia, however, has other plans (agency!). She's been having encounters with ghosts her entire life, and she is not about to leave these poor tormented souls trapped in this hell house. She's going to put them to rest!

Not to get all choose your own adventure (although they do, briefly, discuss choose your own adventure books), but that five minute treatment I just dreamed up is easily more entertaining that the movie I saw. 

Fun alternative: Hiddleston is so anemic looking in this movie that you can pretend he's still Adam from Only Lovers Left Alive and is mere seconds away from biting these ladies, then writing an opera about it.   

Dare to dream, self. Dare to dream.

UPDATE: I just realized that, like the story Edith is initially peddling, this isn't a ghost story, but a story that happens to have ghosts. Nicely done, del Toro, but also no.

Noah (2014)

Hey, were you ever reading the Biblical account of Noah and thought to yourself, "You know, this story could be improved by . . . "

• Noah as a crazed vegan and environmentalist on a murder spree?
• Barbarian hordes?
• Giant rock monster-angels?
• Magic snake skins?
• Methuselah serving psychedelic tea?
• Ham's horny teenaged shenanigans?

BUT did you get to the part where Noah gets drunk and passes out naked, and his sons are like, "Gross, Dad" and think, "Now we're talking!" 

Then has Darren Aronofsky got a movie for you!

I don't really have anything else to say about this movie. It's Aronofsky, so it looks stunning, and I dig all prehistoric CGI animals (one of them had scales made of bark!).

But Russell Crowe plays the most dour Noah imaginable. He also ages a good 20 to 30 years over the course of the movie while his wife, Jennifer Connelly, looks exactly the same from beginning to end.

Mostly -- strangely -- it's about how Ham (Logan Lerman) really wants to get laid, world-ending-deluge be damned. I guess you could say it's a movie about the practical difficulties of faith and interpreting the will of God, about knowing who to trust when they say that they know the will of God, and about seeing your way through disaster for the promise of brighter future.

But mostly it's about how Ham's kind of a d-bag, and Noah's entire family should learn to recognize the opportunity to tie up a psycho killer when they have it.

 

12 Years a Slave (2013)

I feel like writing about the Best Picture nominees (that I've seen).

I don't think this movie could have been made by an American.

Or, I should say, I don't think this movie could have been properly made by an American.

It's an odd thing to say since I'm no big fan of Steve McQueen. His movies have left me cold in the past. There's a distance between creator and subject that prevents the audience from really feeling.

There's some of that here, too, and I worried early on as I watched the steamboat paddle-wheel spin (amidst some nagging The Master flashbacks) that this movie would be part and parcel with the rest. It's not. And while that's in large part due to Chiwetel Ejiofor, it's also down to Steve McQueen.

I almost can't believe I'm writing this, but . . . his subtlety and restraint do wonders here. An American director would revel in the viscera of every beating. He would flash chyrons on the screen with the passage of every year to make you feel the weight of them like bricks. He'd rub your nose in blood to make sure you really get how horrible slavery was.

McQueen, on the other hand, accomplishes the same task in a far more lyrical, ephemeral, and unsettling way. Years melt away without any understanding of where in the 12 you might be. It's made clear that Solomon is whipped daily under Epps (Michael Fassbender) for failing to pick the quota of 200 pounds of cotton, but you never see it up close. It's far off in a field, and you watch the other slaves react. You watch their lack of reaction.

Somehow, somehow, McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley and Ejifor turn it all around to make the movie not about the physical brutality of slavery but the heavy psychological cost. Benedict Cumberbatch does lovely work as a preacher whose heart rends at the thought of separating mother from child but still who prioritizes his pocketbook over the pricking of his conscience when Solomon reaches out. Solomon says over and over that he will not give into despair, and you watch him struggle to carry not only his own compassion but also to carry it for everyone else around him. They've given up trying, letting him stretch on a noose with his toes sliding in the mud for hours and hours.

The picture I chose comes from a scene that illustrates so exactly what I am talking about that it almost feels like a cheat to bring it up. You spend the entire time plastered to the back of your seat, breath caught in your chest, and just when it feels like the moment is finally going to let up, the camera pulls back to punch you in the gut. No American would have been able to go in for that shot without giving the game away first. No one but Steve McQueen could have pulled it off, I suspect.

A note about the viscera: if you're sensitive about that sort of thing, I don't want you to read what I wrote and think, "Oh, it's fine. I can handle that." There is viscera. When it comes, they really make it count.

But also, don't give up on this movie based on what you can handle. It's worth the weight.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)

Jamie Campbell Bower and Lily Collins

© 2013 Constantin Film International GmbH and Unique Features (TMI) Inc.

There are two ways of looking at the latest YA would-be blockbuster adaptation: as a perfectly ordinary teen fantasy flick or as a truly dispiriting adaptation of one of the best kitchen sink fantasy series I've come across in a long time.

To be honest, I don't really want to get into the perfectly ordinary part of this convo. Aside from some super smart casting (I pretty much loved everyone in their roles, though Robert Sheehan as Simon is the standout), the movie starts to lose steam somewhere around Magnus' party and never really picks back up. The Mortal Cup becomes more and more of a MacGuffin (why do the vampires want it? And why would they kidnap Simon to get it?), so, by the time Jonathan Rhys Meyers and his insane hair/clothes/face come out of the puddle in the wall, you're just sort of over it.

I've been trying to puzzle out exactly what went wrong with this adaptation beyond the aforementioned Meyers and the completely baffling decision to reinvent his character from the ground up. I think I've finally put my finger on it: the movie pulls the book's punches.

[In honour of the return of Extra Hot Great!, spoilers ahead, fun ahoy!]

There's nothing more important than Valentine being Jace's dad. Not just as a reason to keep Jace and Clary apart (that's sort of secondary). It's that Jace's entire emotional arc over the course of all five of these novels is keyed into that one point. How he was raised and what that means for him -- the dichotomy between the man he was raised to be and the man he wants to be, and, yes, what that means for him and Clary, is tied up in one simple idea: Valentine as Jace's dad. Not as a trick suggested by Hodge (to what end?) or some sort of mental jiu-jitsu on Valentine's part. To look at the man who raised you and to realize what he is and to have to make difficult choices based not on pleasing him but on your own heart, that's the essence of growing up. And you can't really have a YA series where no one grows up.

The rest of it, I can sort of understand. Seraph blades are essentially angelic lightsabers. Bringing Alec and Isabelle to the Hotel Dumort allows for an action set-piece in the middle of the movie for the entire cast. Telling Luke's entire backstory would take forever (though the net result is that Luke ends up looking like a Jacobian interloper instead of a crucial component of Clary and Jocelyn's lives). Showing Jocelyn fighting and taking the potion serves the twin purposes of giving you a reason to care about her and justifying hiring Lena Headey for the role.

Of course, doing all that undoes the twin slaps of finding out that Jocelyn did this to herself and that she never wanted Clary to know anything about it. She's softened up, so Clary can have her cry at the end and tell her unconscious mom that she forgives her. Valentine's softened up from killing his whole family to maybe killing only two people. Hodge stays and fights (and dies?) instead of running the first chance he gets. Alec almost dies saving Clary's life instead of trying to impress Jace. So, while we're at it, why not let Clary keep the Mortal Cup instead of losing it to Valentine?

If you are going to mess something up, why not really, really mess it up?

Which brings me back to Valentine. If you are looking for a modern equivalent of the Valentine Morgenstern of the books, look no further than Vladimir Putin. He draws you in with a great deal personal charm and charisma, and you think it's so funny with his vigorous torso and bear staring. And then he starts taking away people's rights, and you realize he's a monster. Always has been, always will be. That's Valentine. Buttoned up cruelty. Not, you know, this:

The sad thing is that this movie is dying at the box office, which means it probably won't get the same chance The Hunger Games got to course correct. I was supposed to wrote a book vs film for that one, and I never quite got around to it. It wasn't even until the third time I saw the movie that I finally got what I didn't like about it: good is the enemy of great. Chasing a family friendly rating chases the greatness right out of that novel. You have to feel each death. What's more, you have to feel the way the entire system is rigged from start to finish, not just in the arena, but in every single district. The way Katniss wants to ask the rare senior in 12 how they managed to live so long. The way Rue describes how hard they work and how little they get in return, but at least they have music. It's all arenas all the way down.

I still don't think Mortal Instruments is as good, but it's still better than Twilight and that pile had hundreds of chances. Is it so wrong that I just want a chance to see the development of Jace, the greatest Shadowhunter the world has ever known? Jamie Campbell Bower's hair looks like it smells and his wardrobe is deplorable, but he does interesting things with his fingers that catch my attention despite myself. He deserves his chance to do a swan dive off the balcony instead of stupid faux-Valentine and his wet leather pants.

Besides, don't you want to see Clary tear that ship apart?

World War Z (2013)

Brad Pitt, Abigail Hargrove, and Mireille Enos

© Paramount Pictures

Turns out that if you are looking for an example of Hollywood's sexist attitude toward women, particularly in action movies, you need only cast your eyes back to last month's release of World War Z.

Poor Mireille Enos. By now everyone knows that the original ending of this movie was scrapped, and massive rewrites drastically changed its content. But since the other ending would have been pretty damn sexist, too, we might as well stick to what's made it to the screen.

So here's what we get: in exchange for keeping his family safe and fed, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) has to go back to work as a UN investigator to help put an end to the zombie apocalypse. While it's natural to not want to be separated in a time of crisis, his wife Karin (Enos) objects on the grounds that the job is too hard on Gerry.

I mean, women, am I right? Always nagging you to not go out there and save the world, thereby ensuring that your daughters can grow up without getting eaten by zombies. You know, if you can even survive that long. Because what about your feeeeelingsssssss?

Before you start to object that that is just one scene, it also includes her very passive-aggressively remarking that she will be the one to keep their family safe (because, again, ending the zombie apocalypse and provide them with safe passage until that end is totally the opposite of keeping one's family safe). And that would be the sum total of her scenes, unless you also want to count the time that she calls Gerry at the exact wrong moment, inciting a zombie attack. AmIrite?

By way of not-actually-achieving balance, the movie does feature another central, strong female character. She gets to occupy a role traditionally held by a man and by styled like a man as well. It kind of feels like a zero sum game.

I don't know. There's a fantastic opening sequence, where the whole world just goes crazy and you don't know why, and you run, run, run, trying to survive. But after that, the movie just deflates. Gerry flies around picking up clues (thanks, Michiel Huisman! Come back to Nashville soon!), and I'm sort of in love with the 10th man rule, but the resolution is so boring and abrupt that it's hard to believe it's happening, even as Peter Capaldi assures me it is.

It's just . . . alright, spoilers, you guys. If you had a pen and multiple pieces of paper, and you were about to inject yourself with a deadly virus because you have no play left but to test your theory that zombies don't bite the dying, and you wrote a message to hold up to the security camera, would you write, "Tell my family I love them"? Or would you write what you were taking and the dosage? Because it strikes me that a personal message is some page 2 stuff.

This whole movie is page 2 stuff.

Summer Jam 2013

I stole this from mouthonlinedotcom

In addition to being my fabulous brother's birthday (Happy birthday, John!), it's also the first day of summer, which means it's time to choose my summer jam.

Origin story: Amy and I once did a Saturday glass art course where we made table tops. The glass lady left some Galaxie station on in the background all day. Unlike the stations I listen to, this one only had so many songs, so the same ones popped up many times over the course of the day. At first, I didn't like Ben Lee's "Catch my disease." It's a pretty groody title, after all. Eight hours later, I was brainwashed. By the time it came on in the car on the way home, I declared it my summer jam.

So, what am I looking for in a summer jam? It's gotta be fun and upbeat and danceable. Danceable is a pretty flexible idea 'round these parts because it basically means that I boogie around my apartment while it's on. Summer jams get a very heavy rotation for the season and help me reset when needs be.
No depress-o feelings-y shizz allowed.

Here are some previous entries in the summer jam series:

Evern, "Do I Go"

Ida Maria, "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" (Not family-friendly, obvs)

The Gaslight Anthem, "Meet Me By The River's Edge"

The Gaslight Anthem, "Biloxi Parish"

Icona Pop, "I Love It"

They don't have to be new or even new to me. They just have to have that nebulous quality that tells me they are going to set the right tone for the season.

I'm not 100% yet, but here are the front runners so far:

Chuck Ragan ft Brian Fallon, "Meet You In The Middle"

The Gaslight Anthem, "Film Noir"

The Gaslight Anthem, "Handwritten"

Motion City Soundtrack, "Bad Idea"

Not that there's a pattern there or anything . . .

Anyway, I'll let y'all know when I finally get around to making a choice. Which one will I take, Rebecca Black?

Man of Steel (2013)

© Warner Bros Pictures

Word's out that I have some misgivings about the latest filmic Superman. So, before I get to those, let's hit on a couple of things I did like.

1. This movie is gorgeous. The moving, molten lead, art deco background that Jor El (Russell Crowe) conjures up to illustrate the history of Krypton is the most beautiful thing I have seen on screen this year.

2. I am in love with this score. I'm probably predisposed to like anything that leans on brass and electric guitar instead of just sawing away on violins (and I've been grooving on Hans Zimmer for as long as I've noticed scores), but it has that Beethoven's 5th quality that you want to go with a Superman movie: big percussive movements of isolation woven with a sense of hope.

3. Amy Adams could not be more splendidly suited to the role of Lois Lane. All her natural flinty perkiness is on full force, making her Lois whip-smart, capable, and compassionate. She didn't even have to dye her hair.

My problem, of course, is the biggest problem possible in a movie like this. It's the Man of Steel himself.

Man of Steel features Clark Kent at his most beatific and Superman at his most saintly. And that's a huge mistake.

Superman has always been and will always be a character that people struggle to write and interpret because he's forever on the cusp of being utterly boring. He's an angelic Boy Scout. He's always striving to do the right thing, and he generally succeeds because he's invincible. It makes him difficult to do correctly because why would you want to hang out with a guy like that for very long?

The answer isn't to gritty him up like this movie does with its near-midnight suit and burgundy cape. It's to find the tension that exists naturally within the character. It's to always ask which is the alter ego and which is the real self.

When Clark is 13, his father (Kevin Costner, perfection as a humble farmer with deep misgivings about his fellow man) tells him about how they found a baby in a field all those years ago. Clark wonders if he should reveal who he really is to the world, and, while Jonathan tells him that that his own decision to make, Clark at least owes it to himself (and the world) to figure out what his story is.

And what does Clark do with that information? Apparently nothing for 20 years. When we meet him, he's a 33 year-old with an assumed name and a job as a fisherman off the coast of Nova Scotia. He doesn't do anything to figure himself out until the exact information he needs falls into his lap.

And when he gets it . . . boy, when he gets it. A somnambulant hologram of a ghost appears and says, "Hey, I'm your father. Now put on my underoos and fly around because I sent you here to save the world." Who just accepts that at face value? He's never even flown before!

Not that any of this is a knock against Henry Cavill. He looks every inch the part. The Cavill is on full display (though there are, perhaps, some soy-induced issues up top), and I admit to swooning a little when that luscious chest hair peeked out of the top of the suit. And the movie had no less than three (3!) opportunities for him and his wolfish incisors to bellow "NOOOOOO" heavenward.

He's also, unfortunately, oddly sexless. When Supes and Lois started macking, I thought, "Oh, is he into her?"

I genuinely don't believe that Cavill got either the script or directorial support he needed to do anything other than exactly what he did. How can I be so certain? Because he showed more wit and spark in those final two scenes than he did for the length of the movie. If nothing else, I think Cavill knows who this character is that he's building.

Christian corner: Superman is often used as either a modern day Moses or Jesus, and this movie beats the Jesus drum hard. When Clark is considering turning himself over to Zod, he's literally framed by a stained glass window of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. (I groaned aloud at that one). It doesn't make sense, though, because Jesus practiced what he preached: non-violence, even in the face of certain and terrifying death. Moses, on the other hand, was a a war-time hero. He offered people the hope that if they stuck it out through this dark and violent trial, they would find something better on the other side. As far as character allusions go, it's Moses all the way.

I also have problems with Zod, but those are character problems that go far further back with me than just this movie. I will say that that was nothing special from Michael Shannon. Remember when you told me that rock and roll was a bloodsport? I believed you.

The movie pays lip service to the idea that Superman is a beacon of hope. If they're smart, and they give Cavill the chance to show more of what he did in those last two scenes, then I'll have hope that this crew will do better next time.

Pretty Little Liars is back! (2010 - present)

Pretty Little Liars is back! Pretty Little Liars is back! Pretty Little Liars is back!

If you watch the show, you know that only Jacob has the words to describe something so balls-out crazypants. Since I am not Jacob Clifton, let me show you a photo.

That's how the Liars dress to go to the funeral of someone they don't even like.

Left to right, let's break it down:

Emily's dress maybe looks a little too casual, but it's otherwise fine until she turned around and revealed it was backless. Emily just does not give a fuck.

Spencer is, as always, dressed like the most high fashion Puritan you'll ever meet. This is easily the dress she will wear to school next Tuesday.

Aria . . . actually, this is one of them more sane outfits Aria has ever worn or will ever wear. She wears black and white clown pants to get coffee in the same episode.

Hanna's beachy hair and attire (tits out, legs out) is just so perfectly Hanna that I can hardly fault her. Plus she wore an insane headband that is also a hat and caused heart palpitations earlier in the ep.

Then there's some random perfume model (who I briefly and dearly hoped was Jason) and then . . .

JENNA. Now, there's nothing really notable about Jenna's ensemble except the fact that she is wearing sunglasses again, the better to protect us from her freaky-ass eyeballs. I must say I am relieved that Jenna is going blind again, which is kind of a terrible thing to say, but it gets worse. Why is she blind in the first place? The Liars blinded her in a fire, of course! Those are our heroes.

Or, as my bestie put it to me to convince me to start watching the show, "A girl literally slaps the sunglasses off a blind girl, and that first girl is in the right."

Show, don't ever change.

Now You See Me (2013)

Alright, Now You See Me, you got me.

I've seen The Prestige; I've been trained. When Morgan Freeman assured Michael Caine (who really ought to have known better) that this was all just a distraction for the main event, I thought I knew what he meant. So imagine my surprise when the prestige turned out to be . . .

[Spoiler-adjacent. I'm not going to talk about it any specifics, but I thought I'd give you the heads up anyway].

Bupkis.

Right up until the bubkis, I was into it. Not so much the maybe-flirtation between Jesse Eisenberg and Isla Fisher (who cares?). Not so much the twirling-whirling non-stop camera (though that in itself was a great distraction). Not so much the . . . did Mark Ruffalo have a fake tan in this? I don't think I can deal with a tanned buffalo, you guys.

Obviously I was into Mélanie Laurent because I love her, and I love how smart and funny she gets to be in this even though her character gets no explanation at any point. Just none, whatsoever. I wasn't even aware of her character being named at any point in the script.

And no one thinks, "faith can move mountains" is a French saying, right?

So that right up until. The movie moves along at an excellent clip, and all the performances are keyed at exactly the right level -- it's all levity and fun and exploration and adventure. Which is exactly what you want, so there's no faulting the movie there.

And then the bupkis. I don't know. I expect more from a prestige. It's odd because the movie does exactly what it tells you it's going to do, so it's a little unfair of me to feel let down by it. But I do. Randomly disappearing and reappearing on the same building, then going to the park just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Of course, that isn't the prestige, not exactly, but getting more exact would require 1) spoilers and 2) exposition, which this movie is seriously lacking. Which is something I never thought I'd write. But if you are going to make a point about how these guys are so good at magic that they are ready for the next level, you really ought to do a little more table setting to show that they actually are, you know, at the top of their game.

Ah, well. At least now I have the sight of Common miming a violin solo.

Wait, why is Henley always wearing gloves? No, no, I am not going to do this.

Shadowhunters, Downworlders, and Mundanes: The Mortal Instruments series (2007 - present)

 . . . and I'm back.

It's been so long since I blogged, so long since I wrote anything, really, that I should probably do a little table setting.

Eff it. It's a blog, you guys.

Thanks to every movie studio and their brother looking for the next Twilight, I now rate all young adult fiction aimed at the fairer sex on the following scale: Twilight (the pits) to Hunger Games (top of the charts).

Better than Twilight?

That setup's a little facetious because, really, how could anything be worse than Twilight?

In answer to my own question, yes, it is better than Twilight.

Here's how:

We've sort of been down this road before, so you might guess the main reason I like these books -- young Clary Fray is a woman of action. I've got a soft spot for brave little toasters.

We meet her standing in line at an all-ages club with her obviously-crushing bff Simon. Clary notices a cute boy in line, then again in the club. She thinks nothing of it when the cutie heads off to the supply closet with a beautiful girl. But Clary's wise to the tattooed teens following the couple with knives and dispatches Simon to get the bouncer. Still, her curiosity gets the better of her, so Clary slips into the closet to spy . . . the tattooed teens and the beautiful girl teaming up to gut the cutie right then and there.

Soon she's discovered, but Clary bravely insists that the police are on the way and the kids are going down. Of course, it doesn't help that the dead cutie's body disappears. The trio bounces, and Clary's forced to make up a lie when the bouncer finally arrives. 

The next day, Clary responds to a distress call from her mom. When she gets home, her mom is gone, and the apartment is torn up. Clary barely has time to register the loss when she's attacked by a demon. She manages to fight it off and even kill it but not without suffering a grievous wound.

That's the first three chapters. Just imagine how much more incident author Cassandra Clare packs into entire 400 page novels.

Don't get me wrong -- following kids with knives into a darkened, enclosed space is dumb. Running home when your mom tells you not to because it's not safe is a bad idea. Clary's mind is a bad idea circus at which the Starks are sitting ringside.

But they're her ideas. She's fiercely loyal and believably teenage, full of rumbling passions and angry fits that have no real source or direction. She's brave and more than a little reckless, but it comes from a good place.

Being better than Bella isn't much of a challenge, naturally, so Clare goes one further: she experiments with other viewpoints to actual success. Yes, it can be done!

It starts out small in the first book - just a page or two from a couple of different characters. Clare grows in confidence and style as she builds her spellbinding world. By book three, City of Glass, there are whole sections from other POVs that neither directly involve Clary nor comment on her. Yes, other characters with desires, motivations, and actions of their very own! It's pretty cool, actually. (Mostly 'cause I love Alec and Magnus).

Better than Hunger Games?

The series isn't finished yet (the sixth and final book comes out next year), so it's a little early to tell. I've just finished book three and am taking advantage of its natural conclusion before getting swept up again. (If it were an old-school TV season, it's the March break before the back nine).

That said, it's hard to imagine anything could have the bone-crushing impact of Katniss' climactic decision in The Mockingjay. (Trying to stay as spoiler-free in this one as I can).

Best guess: probably not. The stakes are equally high, but Clare's world of demons, vampires, werewolves, fairies, warlocks, and the half-angel, half-humans who police them, while rich, drops you in medias res and never really gives you a sense of what or who these people were before their lives blew apart. Suzanne Collins', however, absolutely nails the soul-crushing despair of living in District 12, and the world building of Catching Fire lends real gravity to the world destroying of The Mockingjay. Plus, no human alive nails the chapter-ending cliffhanger as well as she does. The Hunger Games would make THE BEST tv series.

The Movie

If you're looking for the next Twilight, you've got to have the movie. The Vampire Diaries is a killer tv show (even after the uneven fourth season, I'm still hooked), Beautiful Creatures slipped in and out of theatres in the dead of winter unnoticed, and The Hunger Games is another beast entirely.

To be honest, I've got my doubts here, too.

Not that I'm not glad to see Magnus, but remember those two action items way, way up there in this post that made me fall in love with Clary? Well, it looks like they botched both of them. And let me tell you, it's pretty hard to come back from botching the heroine.

If Clary doesn't save herself from that demon (or die trying), just who will she be to me? Because the world doesn't need another damsel in distress. It needs a hundred woman warriors, then a thousand more, and a million more after that. We shouldn't settle for anything less.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Christian Bale

© Warner Bros Pictures

I've already written 1000 words on this picture, so I don't think I have it in me to craft anything resembling a complete essay with a narrative though-line. I do, however, have a lot more thoughts and reactions to the movie as a whole, which will now take the form of bullet points. This probably goes without saying but, just in case it doesn't, SPOILERS.

• I must be the only person alive who loves Hans Zimmer's score. I love the tribal beat of Bane's theme and the way it goes crashing up against Batman's bombastic horns. I love the sneaky switcheroo when you realize that Bane's theme is like Bane himself -- not at all who you (or even he) thought but something entirely different. Above all, I love that when Bane and Batman come head to head for the first time, there is no score whatsoever. Just bone crunching and breathless anticipation in one of the most knock-down, drag-out fights I have ever seen on screen.
  
• My best friend's already made remarks to the extent that she is over Christian Bale, but I think he's my mafia: just when I think I'm out, he pulls me back in. It's not just the streaks of grey hair, the hollows under his eyes, or the fact that he is visibly thinner and more fragile than previous incarnations that break my heart to realize that he may have "aged-out" of the role he defined for himself. It's the way his voice softens when he's speaking with Alfred about Rachel. There's not only sorrow in that voice but innocence, like Alfred is a time machine that brings Bruce back to a moment when he was truly himself. It's the way you can tell, even at first blush, that there's no way Bruce/Batman could ever be more interested in Miranda Tate (though Marion Cotillard has never been more luminous) than he is in the Cat/Selina Kyle. It's not just the challenge that thrills him but the possibility of finding a single human being who may also understand.
  
• Speaking of Anne Hathaway, could she be any more killer in this movie? Sure, her first scene with Bruce when she flips from ingenue to seductress to criminal and right on out that window is gangbusters, but so is the moment in that scene when she hikes her skirt from just under her knee to just over her knee so she can climb (no one would wear those tights or the shoes to cater a party). Her dancing body can go from purring to ready to pounce in nanoseconds, but it's never campy. Above all, she gets to go through Harvey Dent's arc in reverse -- from apathetic to finally having some skin in the game. It was never really a matter of which side she would chose. It was just a question of how long it would take her to get there.
  
• If it weren't for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I think I would have fainted right out of my seat when Blake told Bruce he knew Bruce's secret identity 'cause he was also Batman (essentially). Mind you, it highlights the essential difference between them and further makes my point that you have to be a fuckin' weirdo to not become a cop or a prosecutor or the world's most dedicated lobbyist, but it also really smartly sets up the whole structures becoming shackles stuff and the way the movie lets you imagine that Blake just knew Bruce would leave him a little something special in his will. Of course, what I would really like to see is the "Becoming Batman" journal that would go along with it, full of handy tips like Lucius Fox's direct line, the best way to appear out of a shadow, and a guide to better growling.
  
• Actually, I'm also probably the only person who doesn't hate the Batman growl. On PCHH Glen Weldon posited that the movies could be a solid 10% better if it weren't for that growl, but whatever. He's got to disguise his voice somehow. Maybe he should have sunk some money into those Mission: Impossible voice patches.
  
• For that matter, I don't mind Tom Hardy's lilting based-on-an-Irish-Romani-'cause-he's-that-guy voice either. It took me right out of the movie the first time, I started to groove on it the second go 'round. It's just on border of being too silly, but, when you introduce a voice like that and follow it up with an impossibly menacing* hostile plane takeover, you start to see the character behind it. You see it in Bane's strut. You hear it in lines like, "What a lovely, lovely voice," followed immediately by mass murder and destruction. In fact, when you hear his voice for the first time, it's overwhelming loud - not just coming from behind you but in front of you and below you and in the seat next to you. Unnerving. 
  
• I don't really get Talia's point -- she hates her dad for disowning her protector but decided to follow through on his plan to destroy Gotham because his murder liberated her from her hate? That's pretty much what she said, I know, but I just don't understand. Why not enjoy the freedom to make your own decisions or reform the League of Shadows or use philanthropy to save the world like you've been pretending to anyway?
  
• To the nit-pickers who want to know how Bruce gets from the unspecified prison location and back to a secured Gotham in an unspecified amount of time, I say, "Did you not watch Batman Begins?" He spent seven years figuring out how to get from A to B without any money or notice. I'm sure he had it in the bag.
  
• How weird is it to see Batman in the daylight, though, right? It's a testament to both how broken the city is yet how accustomed they are to his presence that there are no double takes during that climactic showdown at City Hall. Gotham's just like Bruce in that regard -- they take Batman for granted.
  
• The song/video that inspired my article title.
  
  
  
  
• Besides the above, I think this is my favourite image that I came across in my research:
  

  

  Christopher Nolan

  © Warner Bros Pictures

A touch too long and a touch too reliant on Michael Caine's moist eyes to carry the emotional beats, but otherwise a near masterpiece. A-

 *I was going to say "badass" here but decided against it in part because I think the term is overused, in part because I don't want to associate any positive connotations of the term with the character, and in part because I heard a very convincing argument against the very character of Bane (in that he is a less product of storytelling needs and more of a need in the 80s and 90s for more "badasses" in comics).

Weekend update: The Amazing Spider-Man and Cosmopolis

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

© Columbia Pictures

Shortly after I saw The Amazing Spider-Man, a friend asked me how I would rate it. I gave her the letter grade, which she didn't get (she went to a school that didn't use them, apparently), so I gave her a percentage instead. She was shocked by my answer. First I tried to explain it away as the movie starting at a deficit with me because 1) I love Spider-Man and 2) I love the Sam Raimi Spider-Mans. That doesn't really explain it, though, and it's not really fair. It's more like this.

Anything other than the acting in this movie kind of sucks.

It has all the right elements: Peter developing the webs 'cause he's such a super-smarty, Gwen Stacy as his first love, Curt Connors doing wrong by trying to do right. All of those things work because the people playing them are so phenomenally well-cast (if you weren't already in love with Andrew Garfield, I don't know how much longer you will be able to hold out). It's all as it should be: Peter realizes a little something about himself and about growing up, and it gives him a confidence he never knew was always waiting inside him. But he's still a spaz who has to bury his head in his hands because what did he just say. And that Footloose-esqe moment of discovery . . . man, oh man.

But it's not right. Marc Webb's an excellent people director, but he doesn't have the visual elegance to craft an action sequence worth following. The score is horrendously distracting (really, James Horner, banging on the piano keys? Have you grown bored?). The plot is sketchy and oddly suggests that we really need to know Flash's back story. Flash! I live Chris Zylka and wish him well, post-Secret Circle, but c'mon. Forget about Richard Parker's amazing scientific discoveries and his dun Dun DUN!

It's like this -- if you don't put a crocodile snout on The Lizard, he risks looking like a turtle without his shell. B-

And, quite frankly, Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire own the New York Subway. Don't even go there. 

Cosmopolis (2012)

It's probably not a good sign when you start to wonder, "Why is this happening? Why is this happening to me?" while watching a movie. It's happening because I paid for it to happen. It's possible that I'm a masochist.

I'd be lying if I pretended that anything other than morbid curiosity drew me to this project. Von Pattinson? Cronenberg? Are we flipping maps again because that is some topsy-turvy shit.

I'll never fully fail a Cronenberg movie because I can't argue with the man's technical gifts or high level of commitment to the messages of his products. But beyond that, man. If I wanted to watch a movie that required so much work and delivered so little pay off, I'd probably watch Haneke again. D

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.  

The Avengers (2012)

Thor and Captain America

© Marvel

I gave The Avengers a second chance.

Yeah, that's right: second. I thought it was merely okay the first time around, but some smart people convinced me that I was missing something, so I did it again. Verdict? It's very good, but I wouldn't go further than that in part because you basically don't have the space to develop that many distinct characters in an ensemble piece whose main goal is kicking ass and in part because some characters, no matter who you get to play them, will never lend themselves to character development (yes, Hulk, we're talking about you). I'm going to skip talking about all the delicious Whedon-verse-ism, though, because that's been done, and better, in about 1 million other places.

I was, however, thoroughly enthralled by what they had going on with Captain America, right down to the make-up and wardrobe choices. He's so alien to them; so different in his approach to how and Why We Fight that ends up standing out far more than the actual aliens. If he seemed (intentionally, I would wager) flat in Captain America, then he comes into sharp relief here. He never needed as much push as the rest of them to do the right thing, but he needs a lot of help to figure out what the right thing is these days (or if it even matters). Plus he gets to be part of one of my fave visual gags. Well played, Chris Evans.

Well played to . . . pretty much everyone, let's be honest. I love The Hemsworth (though I seriously considered calling in a Wig Cop on that thing) (also, he got to deliver what might have been my actual favourite joke of the movie, so good for him); I love The Buffalo and his Peter Falk impersonation; I love, love, love Robert Downey Jr. (especially as Tony Stark); I don't understand why people have a problem with ScarJo in the role; I especially don't understand why people have a problem with Jeremy Renner (it's not his fault his character was in a coma for half the running time). Besides, if anyone was having a breakout movie, it was Tom Hiddleston, so clearly relishing the narrow pettiness of his particular goal. Will we ever not fall for that? Solid B+.

P.S. I do feel bad for Cobie Smoulders, as I don't think anyone had a kind word to say about her in the role or even about the role's existence. Probably because it was flatter than flat.

P.P.S Those aren't shawarmas.

Your Reality Isn't Real: Sucker Punch (2011) and Source Code (2011)

I'm just going to issue a blanket SPOILER ALERT now, okay? Okay.

Sucker Punch

© Warner Bros Pictures

I used to think that I knew the difference between a good trailer for a good movie and what's simply a good trailer, but Sucker Punch (and, subsequently, Priest) proved me wrong. Well, not "wrong," exactly. It's not like I thought that Sucker Punch was going to be some kind of masterpiece. I thought it would be stupid and fun, and it turned out to be only one of those things.

Props where props are due: the wordless opening is the movie's high point. It's scary, atmospheric, and moving in all the right ways. And then her horrible step-father? guardian? lawyer? hauls her off to the insane asylum. Now, right away we hit an issue for me: I get that she's aggrieved, but just keep shooting, okay? The bad man wants to hurt you, so keep shooting until the gun runs out of bullets.

Our protagonist (Emily Browning) doesn't have a name at this point, just a nickname she picks up further down the rabbit hole. And since that nickname is Baby Doll, I'm not all that inclined to use it. Lacking better options . . .


As a result of the abuse heaped upon her in Level 1 (asylum, a.k.a reality), Baby Boll creates Level 2 (cabaret). I want to be very clear about this: Level 2 exists in Baby Doll's mind. It's an escape. So you might think that it would be, in some way, an improvement over the first level. It's not. It's better lit and possibly cleaner, but it's in no way better. Instead of being abused by the employees of the asylum, the girls are sex slaves at a cabaret/burlesque club.

That's where Level 3 (anime/WWII mash-up) comes in. Because of all the sex slavery, Baby Doll creates a third level within her mind. The movie is very clear that Baby Doll knows it isn't real and can enter this level of her own volition. It's all sailor scouts and dragons and zombies, which is pretty cool. A movie still filled with gaping plot holes and random infantilization, but I guess an elite squad of modern day Amazons can't be perfect. Here's the the part that I don't follow. Level 1 is horrible, so she needs an escape. Level 3 exists within her mind, and she has the power to access it. So why does the equally horrible in-betweener Level 2 even exist? Beyond giving Oscar Isaac something to do, that is. He's fantastic as dirty David Krumholtz, but that's neither here nor there.

Two reasons. One has to do with the plot, and the other reason, which I suspect is of greater significance, has to do with objectification. See, when people are unjustly institutionalized and abused, you feel bad about objectifying them. Same goes for the cabaret. They're being forced to dance (only dance, in Baby Doll's case, though it's a metaphor), but she still needs to escape the escape of her own creation. So she goes to another world where everyone is still in skimpy costumes. On the plus side, they know kung fu. So when they're running around in short skirts and garters and skin-tight everything with a samurai sword or bazooka, you don't have to feel as bad about objectifying them because they're empowered (except for the part where they're not) and because hey, it's not real anyway.

It's Level 3 and Level 3 ALONE that Baby Doll gets the instructions/picks up the tools to help her escape the cabaret. At the very end of the movie, we find out that they were actually using them on Level 1 to escape the asylum like it's some big significant REVEAL. But we already know that Level 2 doesn't exist, so it must bear some relationship to Level 1 or else what's the point of everything we just watched. Maybe I put too much stock in the audience's intelligence, but I'm pretty sure if the girls ran around picking up a map, fire, a knife, and a key in Level 3, we could guess what they would be used for. But then we'd have to watch them escape (and in some cases die) in the grungy real world instead of the bustiers and sparkly tights of Cabaret Land, so we'd be right back to feeling guilty about the objectification. As reasons for getting away with leering at pretty young things go, that's pretty gross.

The worst of it is that I think Zack Synder's a fairly talented visual stylist, so I wish I could go to his house with my crayons and construction paper and storyboard a simple tale for him (like how in the world I found his house in the first place). At the end, I would say, "And that's a narrative," and it would blow his mind. But until then, his fundamental lack of storytelling skill will never make up for his letting his fanboy salivating run wild. Down, boy. D

© Summit Entertainment

When I saw Source Code, I thought it was the movie Sucker Punch should have been. Which I realize doesn't make sense on its face with the terrorism and the using someone else's memory and the 8 minutes, but it's there nonetheless. Source Code is about putting a guy into a situation that ends violently every time and daring him to find a way out limited resources and a whole lot of imagination.

Since that guy is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, you've got a delightful amount of imagination on display. When you pair him with Michelle Monaghan, you get a nice little lesson in chemistry as a bonus.

The movie has this fantastic built in cheat: because they need Captain Colter Stevens (love that name) to stop an imminent terrorist threat, they don't have time for his questions or his Swiss cheese memory. It's 24 by way of Quantum Leap, and Dr. Samuel Beckett himself gets a voice cameo complete with signature catchphrase. The "they" in question is Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright, who shows up to say stuff like, "The mind is like a light bulb," which makes just enough sense that you think, "I get that . . . wait, what?" BOOM! The bomb goes off, and we start all over.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't go quite go like gangbusters, and gangbusters is what you need in this situation. There's time-outs for pseudo-science, and eventually Monaghan runs out of new ways to say, "I took your advice. It was very good advice," without making you want to slap someone.

And then. Oh, boy, and then. It's not that Gyllenhaal couldn't earn that conclusion though sheer force of charisma, and it's not that the movie as a whole doesn't do a far better job of earning its happy ending than The Adjustment Bureau. It's that I can't figure out what makes Captain Colter Stevens better than the rest of us or what will happen next. If I could find the pulse of one of those ideas, I might let the other one go, but I can't on either point. I don't feel like they broke free and created a new mirror world (the bean, the bean, always back to the bean). I feel like they created a cycle that will carry forward every time America faces such a crisis. Send in Captain Colter Stevens (can't stop saying it) and his wily imagination, and he will get to Farmiga every time. She'll let him alter reality every time. And there he will be, loose, stealing yet another life from someone who . . . ceases to exist? No, seriously, where is Sean Fentress? Is he trapped inside while Colter Stevens gets the girl, à la Being John Malkovich? Or is dead dead in any reality? And how is Stevens going to fake being a middle school history teacher? Doesn't Fentress have a family and friends who will notice a significant shift in his personality? Don't show me a movie that wants me to think then tell me stop thinking beyond the end credits.

There's a read on this movie as an inferior product to director Duncan Jones' last offering, Moon (in fairness, he didn't pen this one). It's the same story of multiples and doing a job you can't fully understand, guided by a voice that may or may not have your best interests at heart. But what it makes up for in explosions, it somehow loses in plot. It sounds obvious, but setting the story in the future is a pretty good way to get the audience to suspend disbelief. If they had picked up the pace a little and dropped some of the malarkey, they probably would have gotten away with it. B

X-Men: First Class (2011)

© 20th Century Fox

Though he may have directed the lackluster Kick-Ass, Michael Vaughn was also responsible for Layer Cake, and it's hard not to imagine he had creating the next Bond in mind while polyglot Michael Fassbender slinks through exotic locales, his impeccably tailored ensembles never quite concealing the malice in his movements. X-Men: First Class isn't quite the Magneto movie we were once promised, but it's awfully close.

Of course, Erik Lehnsherr isn't the only character whose origins we must explore this time around. Charles Xavier as able-bodied womanizer gets play, too, and James McAvoy is having a helluva time doing it. His delight in his fellow mutant is as genuine as it is joyful, and none makes him more so than his new bestie.

But since this movie isn't X-Men: Besties, Erik and Charles have to pick up a few friends along the way. Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) and Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) acquit themselves well (particularly Hoult, whose American accent is flawless), but the rest threaten to disappear into a two dimensional melting pot of "ooo, look, powers!" (Is Riptide mute?) Combined with a slightly too long running time and a bizarrely paced trilogy,* the flaws keep the superb performances from transcending the movie. B+

*SPOILER ALERT Here's what I mean by bizarrely-paced trilogy: EVERYTHING happens in this movie. Magneto branches off on his own, Charles loses the use of his legs, Hank turns blue . . . it just makes me wonder what's left. Wouldn't you have the Charles/Erik relationship dissolve in part 2 and come to a head in part 3?

Also, and this is unrelated, hiding out at your own house is pretty obvious. Where ever will they look?

UPDATE: I meant to say that I also saw The Hangover Part II this weekend and can tell you with near-certainty that you would be far better off renting The Hangover than paying to see that garbage in the theatre. 

Thor (2011)

© Paramount Pictures

I was more confused than excited when it was announced that Kenneth Branagh would be directing Thor. The fact that he didn't cast himself in it was a positive sign, but the trailer and tv spots made the movie look more dull than anything else. Though it's not a top shelf Marvel adaptation (not as sprightly as Iron Man or as deliciously weird and weighty as Spider-Man 2), the movie's pretty good. Don't bother with the 3D, though; at one point I asked my viewing companion if anything was even in 3D. Maybe Mjölnir came at us at some point?

What took me by surprise was how much I like Thor, the character. Here's the thing about the god of war: he's remarkably angst-free. Sure, some stuff gets him down, but he bounces back awfully quickly. He's not a orphan, nothing tragic happens to give him his abilities or drive, he wastes no time in adapting to Earth, and, when he likes a girl, he just goes ahead and lets her know. None of this "can't be with you in order to protect you" malarkey. He learns a few necessary lessons, and it's all derry-doing from there on out. He's practically Errol Flynn, if Errol Flynn were a giant war-mongering Labrador retriever. Depending on who you read, Chris Hemsworth is either serviceable or turning in a star-making performance. I was going to tell you to split the difference to find something closer to the truth, but, given how much I like the role, a good part of that must be down to Hemsworth (or as I initially typed, "The Hemsworth"). I should just admit that I love that big slab of beefcake. Seriously, though, he is huge.

Juxtaposing him with teeny Natalie Portman makes for an effective sight gag, but it's the lovely way that serious scientist Jane Foster comes undone by the courtly colossus that really makes the relationship (and the movie) tick. Stellan Skarsgård is equally up for some good old fashioned Norse fun, and I bet he had plenty of Viking advice to pass on the Hemsworth, given that he is the father of one. The vision of Asagard as a 1930s golden wonderland presided over by Anthony Hopkins is just icing. 

Though it could do with a little more substance, it's a decent first outing and an excellent addition to the rapidly expanding Marvel movie universe. B

The Adjustment Bureau (2011) and Never Let Me Go (2010)

© Universal Pictures

When David Norris (Matt Damon)'s Senate campaign goes belly up because he mooned his frat brothers at a college reunion, it's hard to believe that the State of New York would be so deeply offended. It's not exactly like they have the best taste in morally upright politicians. Still, Damon sells the crushing knowledge that the election is over long before the media calls it, so, when he meets cute with Elise (Emily Blunt) in the men's room before he gives his concession speech, it's not hard to believe that he would get this buzzed from something positive happening in his life.

The movie lives or dies by this meeting. Either you buy that these two attractive people, high on the unlikeliness of the situation, pheromones, and maybe something more, would get this intimate with each other this quickly, or you don't. Fortunately Damon and Blunt's chemistry is palpable, so it's easy to buy.

The next bridge this movie has to sell you is its premise of a group of nattily attired men who make "adjustments" that help guide people toward their destinies. Since one is Anthony Mackie and one is John Slattery, it's not so bad. When David accidentally sees too much, they level with him but caution him to carry their secret to his grave and to stay away from Elise. The former proves a lot easier than the latter.

Again, this isn't so hard to believe or follow, but longer it goes on, the more ridiculousness writer-director George Nolfi has to pile on, and the further away the movie strays from credulity. Suddenly David's a fool for love and Mackie's a Magical Negro and Elise is a damsel in distress. All of this could be tolerated if not for the complete cop out that is the ending. Associate Producer Eric Kripke, I'm looking at you.

The cop out put me in mind of last year's Never Let Me Go, which featured a similarly doomed couple kept apart by forces beyond their control. For the most part, those "forces" are Ruth (Keira Knightley), though there's a lot stacked against Kathy (Carey Mulligan) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield). Mostly that they are (SPOILER) clones grown for their vital organs.

© Fox Searchlight

Though director Mark Romanek's yellow tinted lens does it best to draw you into the hazy half lives of our protagonists, it's difficult -- especially after the fact -- not to ask basic questions like, "Why don't they just run away?" Maybe that idea is better addressed in the novel, but there's no reason here why they accept their fate.

The prevailing air of fatalism doesn't stop the movie from being affective nonetheless, particularly early on when the school received a "bumper crop" (that's a punch to the gut) and later when Kathy and Tommy finally, finally, finally get out from under Ruth's thumb. Her reason why is so obvious that when she says it, "durr" seems the appropriate response, but the spark of hope it lights in the others carries over to the audience. The ending's not quite as crushing as it should be, but it's close and certainly a blueprint for what Nolfi et al. should have done. The Adjustment Bureau, B; Never Let Me Go, B+.

In other news:

• The Adjustment Bureau did make me think about how people always say that Slattery gets all the best lines on Mad Men and how it's not fair, but c'mon. His delivery is the best in the business. He makes "son of a bitch" a laugh line.
• Never Let Me Go: the song of the title, if you're interested.

The Lincoln Lawyer, Paul, and Limitless (all 2011)

The Lincoln Lawyer

© Lionsgate Films

I'll admit, however much I should be embarrassed about this, that I was most excited to see The Lincoln Lawyer this weekend. I'm no Matthew McConaughey fan. Heck, I'm not even a McConaughey apologist. But I do remember a time when there was a chance McConaughey might make a good movie instead of, say, The Wedding Planner, and that chance was roughly 15 years ago, so it's good to see that guy back again.

Because, between this and A Time to Kill, is there anything he does better than lawyer? He's so damn charming as a unscrupulous defense attorney because, hey, even scum deserve the full measure of the law that you root for him. You root for him because McConaughey makes it clear that there's a man behind the charlatan. Of course, he doesn't keep his shirt on the entire time (the 80s are making a comeback), but it's a step in the right direction.

Sadly, Ryan Phillippe took a step in the wrong direction, away from acting and toward smirking, as did the ad department by including a near final scene in the trailer.

Still, the movie deserves full points for the way everything, just everything, comes together in the end (even the walking 50s anachronism), and for the way this is not a redemption story. Don't get me wrong -- McConaughey's Mick struggles to put right an injustice over the course of the film. But he doesn't turn into a better, decent, pro-bono for the poor lawyer or any such thing in the end. He deals with the specifics of this case and moves on. I like that. I didn't like the spiny camera of insanity, but I liked that. B

Paul  

© Universal Pictures

I wasn't sure entirely what to expect from Paul except that Pegg + Frost - Wright would never be as good as Pegg + Frost + Wright. No offense to Pegg and Frost, who are delightful, but Wright's visual wizardry not only adds panache to the proceedings but mines every aspect of comedy so that the visual isn't just a delivery mechanism. Director Greg Mottola, whose work I liked for Superbad, doesn't bring it in the same way here.

I don't know how to put this except to say that it's just not that funny. It is funny, there are laughs, but there's no hysterical "did you see/hear that" arm-clutching action. There's more like smiling, guffawing, nodding funny. Part of it is that the script is smart without being particularly clever in its ribbing (fundamentalists = broad side of barn, but the devil's in the details on that one), and the other part is the direction/cinematography/editing doesn't fully support it.

What surprised me was how much I liked Seth Rogen's voice work, especially after The Green Hornet practically threw me into fits. His anger is toned down, and, without the teddy bear exterior, a greater nuance of emotion gets through. It's very sweet, really, how this goofy, fun-loving, chain smokin' alien just wants to get home. And can't drive. B

Limitless 

© Relativity Media

There's a time and a place for that bane of my movie existence, narration, and Limitless is almost entirely it. It's hard for us to understand exactly how NZT functions just by watching Eddie (Bradley Cooper), other than knowing it's Adderall times a million, without him explaining that he's not wired, just focused. Stop for science: you already use all of your brain (just not consciously), and being able to cut down distractions wouldn't necessarily give you the ability to understand everything. Science break over.

Cooper is perfectly cast as a smugly handsome overachiever, though he starts out in sad-sack Will mode: a struggling, scraggly writer who bumps his ex-brother-in-law (Johnny Whitworth, aka A.J. from Empire Records, who's apparently been in other things I've seen over the years without my noticing) during a particularly low moment and naturally gets hooked on a drug that, at the very least, makes him feel limitless. When said ex-BIL ends up with a bullet in his head, Eddie grabs the drugs and gets out, but it's really only a matter of time before the same fate catches up to him.

Of course, how he gets there involves some camera work and murky storytelling I could have done without, so it's not perfect. It's fluff: well cast fluff but fluff nonetheless. A little more emotional heft, and we could have gotten there. Ah, well. At least I like Abbie Cornish now. B-

Pop Culture Round-Up: January 29 - February 11, 2011

Tyranny of the Alphabet - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine
You might be like, "Huh?" but, as a Y, let me tell you that I read this entire thing nodding and going, "This is SO TRUE." Also very disappointing for five year-old me to learn that you never get over it even if you change your name since as I child I truly thought that marrying someone whose name came higher up (look, even that!) in the alphabet was my ticket to happiness. 

A Golden Age of Foreign Films, Mostly Unseen - NYTimes.com
Aw, I see them! Also, Carlos is really long. Less so when you realize that it was originally a two-parter, but still.

Narcissus Regards a Book - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Hmm, I don't actually remember why I wanted to read this, so it will be surprise to all of us.

The Tyee – Frugging Lycanthropes! - The Sadies make the great Canadian music video.
How could dancing werewolves not be a good thing?

Separating Fact From Film - WSJ.com
It's time for Black Swan backlash, no?

CBC News - Books - Canada Reads names 2011 winner
It is sadly not there any longer, but this article was originally published with the subhead (and I am not making this up): SPOILER ALERT: Prize winner revealed below. I'm spoiler-averse, but are things so off-kilter that articles clearly announcing winners need spoiler alerts? WARNING: This article contains news!

‘Black Swan’ Deconstructed, Film’s Many Faces - NYTimes.com
And there it is. Odd, because even as I was watching it I thought an apropos subtitle would be "Nina's failure to orgasm," but I didn't make the link, "And also sexism."

FFWD - Calgary Screen - Film Features - Romantic movies for the fellas
Or the Aprils. 

FFWD - Calgary Screen - Film Features - Rom-com romp
I haven't seen four out of five, so let's talk about numero cinq. Lars and the Real Girl should totally make you barf. It's cute enough while you are watching it but not cute enough to stop you from thinking that what Lars is doing isn't radical therapy. His "solution" to ending his surrogate relationship -- so that he can have a real one -- is to kill his girlfriend. That's not going to help him having happy, functioning relationships in the future. His prospective human girlfriend should run for the hills.

'Twilight' Writer Melissa Rosenberg Takes Over Summit's 'Highlander' Script (Exclusive) - Heat Vision
As my best friend put it when she sent this link to me, "Best. News. Ever." But how can anyone improve on the Kurgan? 

1968-75: How 'X-Rated' Became Synonymous With 'Porn' - James Fallows - Culture - The Atlantic
X-rated is so overrated.