Beastly: A Review

BEASTLY

The Face of Love is an Ugly Thing...

If there is something good to say about Beastly, it is that is that the story made a good effort to update the fable of Beauty and the Beast.   For that, I can't fault it. 

For everything else, I can. 

Since Beastly is an update of Beauty and the Beast (based on the young adult book by Alex Flinn), we pretty much know the story.  Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) is a rich and arrogant young man, breathtakingly beautiful on the outside but a rotten person on the inside.  His narcissism and vanity irritate fellow classmate Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen) while merely puzzling another classmate, Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens).  

Kyle, however, doesn't have it all perfect: his father Rob (Peter Krause) is a prime-time anchor perhaps even more narcissistic than Kyle with whom he doesn't have the best of relations.  After Kyle humiliates Kendra, she puts a curse on him, turning him into a revolting-looking man.  If he does not find someone to love him for himself, beyond his appearance, he will be cursed to look like that forever.

The shame of it forces him to hide, and his father opts to put him up in a lavish penthouse and as far away from people (and himself) as possible.  Kyle's only companions are Jamaican housekeeper Zola (Linda Gay Hamilton) and tutor Will (Neil Patrick Harris), who is conveniently blind.

Kyle soon starts stalking Lindy, since she was the only one to show him any kindness.  Plot contrivances bring them together: her father is involved with some shady business, and after Kyle's actions lead to the thug's brother's death, Lindy has to stay with Kyle for her own protection. She at first wants to stay with her father, but eventually settles in.  She gets to know Kyle, calling himself 'Hunter' and a friendship develops. 

Eventually, Kyle falls in love with Lindy, but plot contrivances force her to leave.  Kyle, no longer caring about his appearance, goes to Lindy before she leaves for Machu Picchu, and they confess their love.  Right on time: not only is he restored to the gorgeous young man he was before, but Zola magically gets green cards for her children to come to America and Will gains his sight. 


I suppose Beastly could have been a bit of harmless fun, except that we get such awful performances and a weak and rushed script from writer/director Daniel Barnz.  All we have to do is look at our two leads to see where Beastly went wrong.

Pettyfer and Hudgens are so stiff and forced and unnatural throughout the film.  Again and again, every time they were on screen together they not only looked uncomfortable but they make audiences uncomfortable. 

There was an effort to make Kyle slightly sympathetic through his relationship or lack thereof with his father, but these efforts fell flat not just because we don't see them spend much time together but because especially Pettyfer was never able to express any emotion whatsoever.  Surprisingly, Krause, whom I consider a competent actor, couldn't express any emotion either.

Hudgens did herself no favors in Beastly either.  She was thoroughly expressionless throughout the film.  It was actually painful to watch Hudgens and Pettyfer not act.  Olsen, who looked like she was channeling Helena Bonham Carter through her wardrobe, was not threatening but almost comical in her witchcraft. 

In fact, the only real performance was from Harris, but he had the benefit of being a bit of the comic relief.  Will was the only character who was allowed any sense of fun, always ready with a witty remark on the situations.  I think this may be one of the reasons why Beastly just did not work: there was simply just too much effort in trying to make things romantic when the end result was really lifeless. 

And it wasn't just the performances that were lifeless and dull; the story itself, despite being one people would be familiar, was so sluggish with neither the urgency of Kyle's situation or the relationship between Lindy and Kyle being of enough interest for us to care whether either would be resolved. 

I'd also like to point out a few things that displeased me.  For example, on Halloween when Kyle's appearance wouldn't appear odd, we're suppose to believe that his ex-girlfriend Sloan (Dakota Johnson) would recognize Kyle's voice but Lindy wouldn't? 

Finally, some of the sets looked just like sets: whatever magic one could have had with the supernatural/romantic elements in Beastly were utterly lost.

The biggest failure of Beastly was to have two leads that were not compelling, not interesting, and sadly, not acting.  Hudgens may yet be an actress (I certainly thought she did a good job in the High School Musical films), while Pettyfer has yet to be good in anything (granted, I've only seen him in I Am Number Four--and in both films he was very dull, lethargic, and flat).  If anything went wrong with Beastly, the fault lies on their beautiful shoulders. 

Beastly isn't an ugly film, just a boring one.  It is so boring even the leads didn't show any interest, and in the end, no one else really will.

DECISION: F

The People vs. George Lucas: A Review

THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS

You Don't Know The Power of the Nerd Side...

I'll go on record to say I never cared who shot first: Han Solo or Greedo.  I also never dressed up for any screening of a Star Wars prequel, though I was heavily pressured to bring along a lightsaber for Attack of the Clones and have always regretted this lapse of judgment. I don't understand the entire subculture of the Star Wars fans.  All the things about the devotion many people have for the entire Star Wars universe is frankly a bit beyond me. 

I think the original Star Wars films (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi) are as a collection, one of the greatest series ever made, pushing science-fiction/fantasy to both a deeply emotional and even intellectual level.  I cannot say that for the prequels.

George Lucas is in one of the most unenviable positions of any filmmaker: a man both revered and reviled in equal measure for the same thing.  The People vs. George Lucas at first may, like the Star Wars devotees, may be dismissed as the ramblings of angry nerds upset at Lucas for doing/not-doing things in both the Star Wars trilogy re-releases and/or the prequels.  In truth, The People vs. George Lucas is a remarkably sober, even-handed exploration about the trials and tribulations Lucas has endured as well as inflicted on those thoroughly devoted to his stories, exploring the contradictory emotions his magnum opus unleashes on that rabid fanbase. 

We start with the man himself: George Lucas, interested in making films, good films, who hit on the idea for this massive space opera about this tale that occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  The first Star Wars film which, in a strictly technical sense, was called Star Wars, only retroactively called Star Wars: A New Hope, unleashed a mania that was unparalleled in the history of film. 

Lucas, ever the shrewd businessman, knew there was a market for Star Wars-related products.  His films, including the Indiana Jones series, started meeting with both critical and public acclaim.  All was right with the universe.

Then, for reasons we know not, something began to grow amiss.  It could have been hubris: always the great man's downfall, or a sense that everything put down or thought was perfect; it could have been a loss of creativity or it could have been simply having expectations way too high. 

However, the public, and in particular the fans who had been deeply touched by all things Star Wars, began to lose faith and hope in the works of the Creator. 

Already stinging from the polarized reception of the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi (for the record I'm in the pro-Ewok camp myself, though granted I was a child when it came out), out came the Special Editions of the Star Wars trilogy.

The changes Lucas made to his films went from the cosmetic (adding new creatures to certain scenes), to the type that slightly altered the stories as first seen (introducing Jabba the Hutt in A New Hope instead of Return of the Jedi), and some were downright blasphemous (replacing Sebastian Shaw at the end of Return of the Jedi with Hayden Christensen, who played the younger Anakin Skywalker in the prequels). 

All the changes, both large and small, outraged the hardcore fanbase, who thought Lucas was basically screwing them over and did not take their devotion to the franchise into consideration. 

One of the questions The People vs. George Lucas raises is whether Lucas should have thought how the Star Wars fans would react to these changes, whether they had some say in how the films should remain as they were released or how the filmmaker wishes them to be seen: good questions all.


From there, things only got worse between Lucas and the Star Wars faithful.  The prequels were not only disliked, but elements were introduced that rendered the previous stories almost nonsensical, most notoriously having The Force be measurable in the bloodstream. 

Even more disastrous was the introduction of character Jar Jar Binks, still a source of fierce debate within the Star Wars enclave (as if the disavowed Star Wars Holiday Special didn't already sully the franchise).  Even if the affection fans had survived The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and/or Revenge of the Sith, Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls appears to have only been like waving a red flag before a bull. 

Yet, despite how often George Lucas has failed to please the hard-core Star Wars fanbase, despite how many times his work has disappointed those who can tell an AT-AT from an AT-ST, despite how, in a memorable ditty offered by two fans: George Lucas Raped My Childhood, the fans still love him.

As for George Lucas himself, he remains mostly silent, save for a few clips.  Lucas doesn't defend himself against all the minutia he's raked over the coals for, but he also has never taken any active steps against the fans making their own versions of any of the Star Wars or Indiana Jones films.  It hints at a more nuanced and complex relationship between The Creator and His Worshipers.

The People vs. George Lucas doesn't just deal with who is the ultimate controller of a series/saga, in this case, Star Wars: the fans or the creative force, but also delves into whether one side or the other should have ultimate control.  The most damning evidence against George Lucas is, ironically enough, from Lucas himself. 

Lucas is fierce in his defense of having the right to alter his films to fit his own vision of how Star Wars or any of his films, really appear.  However, in 1988, a good nine years before his own 'Special Edition' alterations, he went before Congress and said the following:

In the future, it will be even easier for old negatives to become lost and be 'replaced' by new altered negatives.  This would be a great loss to our society.  Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.

Yet, since speaking these words George Lucas has done the very thing he condemned and feared would happen: he took his 'old negatives' of the original Star Wars trilogy and replaced them with 'new altered negatives'. 

Moreover, for the longest time Lucas vehemently resisted bringing the originals back, almost demanding that people accept the changes to his work whether they wanted to or not.  The fans and I figure some impartial critics had emotions ranging from upset to downright inflamed.  Finally, Lucas either relented or was convinced to allow the unaltered versions to be released.

Whether anyone has called him on what appears to be a wild discrepancy I cannot say, but what I can say is that as time has gone by, one can't help get the impression that the more criticism Lucas gets from his fanbase for the changes he makes to the films or the story, the more intransigent and stubborn he becomes.  I cannot say what is in Lucas' mind, but The People vs. George Lucas does give people a chance to speak their minds about what they think.

Again, I have to point out the film is not a long rap session against Lucas himself.  Instead, it goes into a discussion about whether the changes made to the films both visual and story-wise actually work or even make sense. 

Take for example, the midi-chlorian business.  All the indications from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi was that The Force  was a vaguely mystical thing.  When The Phantom Menace was released, we found that The Force was really from midi-chlorians, which one can analyze from the bloodstream.  It had the effect of rendering The Force, something that had been built up to something almost spiritual, to a mere physical entity. 

How midi-chlorians become so integral to the story appears to have been a rejection of everything that had come before.  Even worse, how an experienced filmmaker like Lucas failed to perceive this one simply cannot explain away as an artistic choice.  He didn't appear to understand that once something had been established, introducing something that altered if not destroyed what had come before would be at least insulting to fans, at most an almost deliberate slap to the face.

Allow me my own gripe with George Lucas, when it comes to Star Wars.  When Lucas was doing publicity for The Phantom Menace, he was asked if we would learn who Anakin Skywalker's father was.  Lucas told the interviewer that yes, indeed, we would know from whom young Annie would come from. 

In comes the movie, where his mother Shmi  simply says, "There was no father.  He just...was"  (or 'is', I don't remember).  I felt insulted, and slightly perturbed; was Lucas suggesting Anakin was some sort of Virgin Birth and thus borrowing from a New Testament story? 

I think George Lucas, or any filmmaker, should not react defensibly whenever his/her work (in particular such a beloved work such as Star Wars) faces criticism for things as varied as story, acting, or characters.  In the end, filmmakers are putting out a product, and if something doesn't work, people should be called on it.

 If the characters in The Phantom Menace are seen as racial stereotypes masquerading as aliens, it should be mentioned.  If a particular character is almost universally despised, a filmmaker can make the case for said character, but reacting with umbrage and saying that basically everyone's wrong and that said character should be loved is really counteractive. 

This is a lesson the production team of Doctor Who should take to heart.

The People vs. George Lucas taps into the passion people feel for the series.  It is about the fan's conflicting emotions with a remarkably creative writer/director whom they feel at times has betrayed them even as he gives them more of what they want.  It is also a shrewd investigation of the Industrial-Marketing Complex as I call it, how the quest for merchandise has financed great works but also turned the films into almost adverts for toys.

Finally, I see The People vs. George Lucas as a tragedy.  Here was George Lucas, a man who wanted to make movies, good movies.  His reputation began growing with THX-1138, with American Graffiti, then with Star Wars, he becomes a titan.  Then, like Orson Welles, once he created his own Citizen Kane, he found himself inexorably tied to that. 

From that sprang other things such as Industrial Light and Magic, but there was no escaping the shadow of Star Wars for George Lucas.  The prequels would, perhaps, never have matched the greatness of the original trilogy, but they appear to have been made by someone with a tin ear for dialogue and no sense of bringing life to characters.  It appears that the prequels brought down not only the reputation of George Lucas, but a great deal of affection for him.

The best way to sum up The People vs. George Lucas comes from another great filmmaker: Francis Ford Coppola.  Star Wars, in essence, brought an end to George Lucas as a filmmaker.  What non-Star Wars or Indiana Jones-related film has Lucas made since Star Wars' 1977 premiere?  How many great movies, Coppola laments, have we been robbed of because of Lucas' ties to Star Wars either the story or the merchandising? 

To add insult to injury, so many people think they could have done it better.  Could they, really?  Could anyone truly put himself in Lucas' position?  It is possible that George Lucas became too stubborn, up in his own Xanadu of Skywalker Ranch, convinced the world would accept whatever he brought them in the Star Wars saga (be it midi-chlorians, Jar Jar, or the now-infamous "NO!" from the newly-created Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith) the fans be damned.

It is tempting to give in and go on my own George Lucas diatribe, going off about the things in the revamped Star Wars trilogy or the prequels that I did not like.  Up to a point, I did. 

Once I finish a Star Wars retrospective, I might do so, and indulge to my heart's content. 

It's that passion for Star Wars that motivates both the love and hate for Lucas, one that The People vs. George Lucas chronicles so well.

Born 1944

DECISION: A-

Horrible Bosses: A Review

HORRIBLE BOSSES

They Work Hard for the Funny...

You take three clearly deranged employers, three fed-up schlubs who are thoroughly inept at planning out crimes, and the result is Horrible Bosses, one of the best comedies of 2011. It restores hope after such horrors as The Hangover Part II and Just Go With It that films made to bring laughter can actually do so. 

Nick (Jason Bateman) has been plugging away at the company for seven years, but his boss, Mr. Harken (Kevin Spacey) has no regard for his work.  In fact, Harken always manages to take anything Nick does or says, no matter how trivial or insignificant, and twist it to make Nick look almost psychotic.

Dale (Charlie Day) is thoroughly devoted to his fiancee, but as a dental hygienist he works under dentist Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston).  Literally under Dr. Harris: she is shameless in how she sexually harasses Dale, at one point appearing in front of him wearing only a lab coat and panties, but because Dale is on a sex offender list due to urinating in a park after dark, his job prospects are dim.

Side note: so is he, but I digress.

Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) doesn't have it too bad: he likes his boss Jack Pellitt (Donald Sutherland), but almost immediately the elder Pellitt dies, and the business is taken over by his coke-snorting sleazy son Bobby (Colin Farrell). 

What are these three guys to do?  Simple: they must kill their respective bosses. How are they do do that?  Simple again: find a hitman.  After failing spectacularly courtesy of a cameo from Ioan Gruffudd, they do the next sensible thing: go to the sleaziest part of town to find a hitman.  They fail in that endeavor, but do find M.F. Jones (Jamie Foxx).  As their 'murder consultant', Dean Jones (which is M.F.'s real name) gives them a solution: swap murders a la Strangers on a Train/Throw Momma From the Train.   With that brilliant idea, how could these three WASP guys fail?

Surprisingly, things don't go exactly as planned, but in the end, the three do manage to if not get rid of their respective bosses to at least put them where they belong.  Our three 'heroes' not only manage to triumph over their respective horrible bosses, but come out all the better for it.

Granted, Horrible Bosses has at heart a pretty wild premise, but one of the benefits of the screenplay by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Dailey, and Jonathan Goldstein is that it embraces its premise and allows the situations to be if not realistic at least logical to the story.

If you are going to try to kill your boss, it makes sense to break into their respective homes to get some 'intel'.  If you go online to find a hitman, you can't really complain about getting your money's worth or in their case, not quite understanding what one pays for.

What makes Horrible Bosses truly funny is a combination of a relatable situation along with the total ineptness if not downright stupidity of all the characters.  Throughout Horrible Bosses, Nick, Dale, and Kurt are such absolute morons when planning anything that their plans inevitably are bound to fail due to their own ineptness.

However, it's their total clueless nature that makes them both exaggerated and likable as people.  We know they shouldn't be attempting this murder spree, but because we know them, and know they will inevitably fail spectacularly at it, we don't think they are terrible people.

There isn't a bad performance in Horrible Bosses, something that is rare in any film.  It's a credit to director Seth Gordon that he managed to allow each of the characters their moment and kept the pace brisk at a mere 98 minutes, thus not overstaying its welcome.

The villains are terrible people, but Spacey, Aniston, and Farrell are smart enough actors to know that their evilness comes from being both highly exaggerated while maintaining a realism within their loony behavior.

Spacey maintains a great balance between the cold and insensitive boss and a pathologically jealous husband, albeit with justification.  At one point, Harken laughs at Nick when he tells his boss that making him work late forced him to miss saying goodbye to Nick's grandmother.  Harken doesn't laugh because Nick's grandmother died, but instead because he's hung up on Nick referring to her as his "Gam Gam".  When Harken is unfeeling, he's cruel, but when he is menacing as he is later in the film, he's downright frightening.

Aniston appears to be having a ball letting it all hang out, metaphorically for the most part.  Her almost obsessive derangement to schtup poor Dale is so wild one can't help bursting out laughing.  She goes beyond sex kitten to pure super-slut, but here again both the script and the performances bring out the laughter.  You have that wild dichotomy between Julia's sex-crazed behavior and the almost Puritanical reactions of Dale that make it even funnier.

I'd argue that Farrell has the smallest role in Horrible Bosses, but his scenes as the wild, over-the-top Bobby (complete with the gut and shameful comb-over) shows that not only is he truly one of our best actors around but that he is perfectly capable of being in on the joke.

With his high voice which grows higher and more strained whenever his character is stressed, Day is among the best in this ensemble.  He has some of the funniest scenes in Horrible Bosses, in particular when he inadvertently saves Harken's life.  Day's performance in his stumbling, eager but fearful Dale, makes the character both oddly endearing and thoroughly funny.

I also would be remiss to not mention the cameos by both Gruffudd and even Bob Newhart, both playing against type but making their small scenes funny simply because they are playing against type.  Even Brian George (who is the Navigation Guide voice of "Gregory"--real name Atmanand) has funny moments; in fact, he has some of the funniest moments with our three main characters.

What I will find fault with Horrible Bosses are some things I'm not fond of in almost any movie.  We begin and end with voiceover which I didn't feel was necessary, and at times we get a repetition in the dialogue to something we've already seen.

Also, I didn't think that Dale would be marked as a sex offender merely because he once had drunkenly urinated in a public park after dark.  At the most, I imagine he would have been charged with disorderly conduct and/or public intoxication (if anything really).  Constantly repeating that this remarkably sweet character was a registered sex offender was the one note that I felt didn't strike right in an otherwise funny film.

Finally, there wasn't much look at the lives of the guys outside either work or themselves.  As much as Dale may protest his undying devotion and love for his fiancee, we don't ever see them interact.  Small flaws, but flaws nonetheless.

Horrible Bosses succeeds not only because the situations and characters are funny, but because audiences can relate up too a point.  I figure most people have thought their boss is a jerk and figured life would be better under someone else.  They may be merely unaware of how things really work, or not appreciate all the work you do.

For the most part, people may not like their boss but at least know he/she is not a psycho, a man-eater, or a tool (to quote the poster).  Horrible Bosses, thankfully, is not horrible at all, but one of the better if not best comedies of the year. 

Problems at work were never so funny.

DECISION: B+

I Melt With You: A Review

I MELT WITH  YOU

I've Seen The Difference And It Only Gets Worse...

It was Henry David Thoreau who wrote about how most men lead lives of quiet desperation.  Not so Richard, Jonathan, Ron, and Tim/Timmy, the four main characters in I Melt With You.  These guys can't apparently shut up about their empty lives.

That in itself would be irritating if not intolerable.  What makes it all even worse is that the only way to get them to shut up about their failed lives is for them to actually die one by one.  It can be said that few films aspire to so much and fail so spectacularly as I Melt With You, a movie that shifts in tone from inner desperation to psychotic.

Richard (Thomas Jane), Jonathan (Rob Lowe), Ron (Jeremy Piven) are all reuniting in a beach house, ostensibly to celebrate the birthday of Tim (Christian McCay), which from what they say is an annual reunion.  However, this birthday is a milestone: Tim turns 44.

How is 44 a milestone, you may ask.  Well, that would mean that it's not only these four entering middle-age, but it marks 25 years since they all met at college.  If one keeps count, that means the four of them became friends at 19; all this is important to the story, so be patient.

Each of them comes heavy with emotional burden.  Richard is a writer who has been reduced to teaching English (shades of Miles from Sideways).  Jonathan is a doctor who has become a pill-pusher for bored Real Housewives-types and whose son looks to the stepfather as "Dad".  Ron is relatively-happily married but as a trader has gotten into shifty business dealings.  Tim has yet to recover from the loss of his sister and boyfriend in a car accident he was responsible for.

During this week, our gruesome foursome do nothing but indulge in heavy amounts of drinking and drugs both prescription and illegal while waxing philosophical thoughts about how miserable their lives are.  It's only after Day Four of this Week in Hell, where the still-hot Richard managed to get some girls and boys for a drug-enhanced party, that we have a particularly nasty turn of events: Timmy, the most emotionally unstable of the four (which is saying quite a lot given how all of them are so screwed up), hangs himself in the shower.  That, I imagine, would ruin this drug-fueled indulgence in adolescent behavior.

At this point, I Melt With You becomes totally unmanageable.  It appears that twenty-five years ago, at age 19, these four made some sort of suicide pact where if their lives were horrible twenty-five years from then, they would kill themselves.  Well, it's been twenty-five years since their literal blood-oath, so, one by one they have their Final Exit.

A bar fight brings the attention of Officer Boyde (Carla Gugino), who stares at the surviving men blankly as one by one they tell her unconvincing things in an unconvincing way.  At last, this Week of Hell ends, for these four guys, and for the audience.

After I finished I Melt With You, I truly was amazed that given the copious amounts of pills, drugs, and booze these guys consumed that they hadn't dropped dead by the time we got around to the suicide pact.  I could say that is where part of the problem lies with I Melt With You, but that would be short-changing what is one of the most misguided films and one of the most unpleasant experiences in film-viewing all year.

We can start with the story itself courtesy of screenwriter Glenn Porter.  We know these guys are terribly unhappy from the get-go, but we never get an idea as to why this particular week would have them disintegrate so massively and/or quickly.  From what we understand, they do this every year except for the killing themselves part, so I imagine that every year for perhaps twenty-some-odd years they go, get high, get drunk, then part ways, yet go on about their miserable lives.

One truly wonders if Porter thought that after one of them kills himself, there would even be a debate about whether to call the police (for the record, they didn't).  Instead, we're really suppose to accept that these three adults would seriously go through with a death-pact made when they knew nothing about life. 

I digress to say that whenever I reunite with any of my high school or college friends, we may have a bit more to drink than we should, but by and large we actually take time to catch up on each others lives, not to commiserate on how awful our lives are.  In I Melt With You, it never comes off as anything other than self-absorbed whining.  These guys drown in their own self-centered 'woe is me' thinking that they soon become thoroughly annoying.  Frankly, it's not a good thing when you are cheering when a character dies.

I further digress to point out that in one case, it was more murder and a particularly gruesome one at that. 

The script also goes the heavy-handed route with the metaphors.  On Day 3, a wise old fisherman talks to Timmy about his late wife and the love they shared.  We get it's suppose to be about Timmy's lost love, so we don't need to have it spelled out.

Director Mark Pellington not only had an obsession with making all the seedy aspects of their Lost Week sound rather pompous, but he drowns the visual aspects of the film with grandiose imagery.  Take for example when Jonathan kills himself by injecting himself with poison.  The window becomes a television of sorts where we see his son and ex-wife in happier times.

Curiously, two of the guys have children, but they don't seem to really care about how their deaths will affect their kids, only interested in keeping some pledge that no person in his right mind would keep.

Then again, given that they were nearly always high on something, maybe they weren't in their right minds.

Putting aside just how loathsome these guys are, the performances are altogether awful.  There were times when I felt genuinely sorry for them and didn't want to watch the screen.

Worst off is Gugino, who has to be one of the dumbest cops in film history.  It's bad enough that despite all the clues to there being something wildly wrong in the beach house, she never appears to think that these guys were up to something.  A cop who had one ounce of brain power would have either asked to investigate three mysterious disappearances or at least figured out that these guys were on something.

However, she just looks like she doesn't genuinely understand what is going on.  Moreover, when any sane person would have called for backup and/or arrested a clearly deranged and unstable Richard, she appears to have no problem leaving him, making her irresponsible and just as bonkers as the guys.

As for the guys, they really appear to try to be doing their best in their performances, but none of them could make us care about these characters or their predicaments.  Too much time is spent on indulging their drug-and-sex antics to make their pseudo-philosophizing either interesting or intelligent.

McKay probably was the best off, since he was the first to die.  You could never get over the idea that these four would find time with each other as insufferable as we did, only we didn't have the benefit of drugs to dull our boredom.  One might have thought their friendship would have helped but in the end it only appeared to have fed their own narcissism.

The best way I can sum up I Melt With You is thus: it's The Hangover plus Grown Ups meets The Jonestown Story crossed with And Then There Were None.

This is just a horrible film on all levels, shaming the Modern English classic.

DECISION: F-

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. A Review (Review #300)

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011)

Circus Frolics...

I have yet to see the 1979 television adaptation of John le Carré's espionage novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but despite that handicap I am fully aware that Sir Alec Guinness basically owned the role of master spy George Smiley.  In fact, apart from Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars trilogy, I'm hard-pressed to find a role so identified with Guinness as much as that of Smiley.  It would be daunting for any actor to try and capture a part that I figure has been done definitively.

Fortunately, Gary Oldman isn't any actor: he's one of our best; therefore, I figure it won't be a smear on Guinness to see another actor take on George Smiley, and do it so well.

It might be a disadvantage to have not read the le Carré novel either, but despite the talk that the plot is highly complicated I found Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy flowed rather well given that the television series was seven hours compared to the two hour film adaptation and this, I trust, will be the last time I bring up the 1979 version.

Control (John Hurt) is the head of The Circus: the British spy agency MI-6.  He suspects there is a mole within the highest levels of The Circus.  However, after a bungled attempt to bring in a Hungarian general, he and his right-hand man, George Smiley (Oldman) are forced out.  Control dies, but held to the idea that one of his top lieutenants worked for the Soviets: Percy Alleline (Toby Jones) whom he nicknamed "Tinker", Bill Haydon (Colin Firth): "Tailor", Roy Bland (Ciaran Hands): "Soldier", or Toby Esterhase (David Densick) "Poorman" (it goes without saying one of them is "Spy"). 

In retirement, Smiley is brought in surreptitiously by the government to find whether there is, in fact, a mole buried deep and high in The Circus.  Of course, he can't just go in himself, so he gets the assistance of Peter Guillum (Benedict Cumberbatch) who works at The Circus, as his inside man.  Tinker Tailor Soldier Poorman, who now run The Circus, have a faith in what the call Operation Witchcraft, where they get information from their Soviet mole.  Smiley and Control have always doubted Witchcraft, but since they are no longer there the program goes on. 

Smiley discovers, through careful investigation, that Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), believed to have turned against the British, was in reality loyal and knew about the mole, while Jim Predeaux (Mark Strong), is not a turncoat either, but had been tortured by the Soviet master spy known as Karla.  Karla is Smiley's nemesis, one with a history with him.

Eventually, the mole is discovered, the traitor gets his just desserts and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ends with George Smiley brought back to Circus, as Head.

Watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I never felt lost within the byzantine story, though at times Dino  Jonsater's editing did make me wonder whether it was a flashback or not regarding Predeaux's character. 

On the contrary, Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor's screen adaptation flowed smoothly, if not perfectly.  I can say that on the whole the story was not confusing or hard to follow. 

Another great quality in the script is in the character's ability to talk shop as it were, use the language they understand to explain things for themselves, such as highly-valuable information being "treasure".  The use of The Circus' vernacular may throw some people off, but if one pays attention it won't be too difficult to follow.

Anderson's directing task is an enviable one: he has a cavalcade of some of the best British actors around both established and up-and-coming.  Each of the characters by and large are not emotional save for whenever a character is caught doing something he shouldn't; it should be noted that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is primarily a man's film with only Svetlana Khodchenkova's Irina, that woman of mystery, having any major part of the story. 

However, this is a plus in that we see these agents as what they really are: bureaucrats whose department in espionage.

Of chief attention is Oldman.  Oldman's Smiley doesn't really take action as he does react to everything, and he does so with a calmness and steadiness of someone who is an old hand at his job.  I can only recall once when Smiley was anywhere close to explosive though now I can't recall at exactly what point this happens. 

Oldman does, however, give a brilliant performance throughout Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, in particular when he remembers his one encounter with the Soviet agent who would become his archenemy, Karla.  It's just him, talking about their encounter, but Oldman holds your attention throughout the scene that it becomes almost intimate, or as close to intimate as Smiley will ever get.

I would argue that Cumberbatch as Guillum has a smaller role, but not without him creating moments of tension and even sadness.  I would argue that this particular strain in the story is one of the few flaws within Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. 

Without it being too overt, the understanding of what is going on is that for his own safety, Guillum has had to send his boyfriend away.  It is never made explicit that Guillum was gay though that's the conclusion one draws from what one is shown.  Guillum's sexual orientation, which I understand was changed from the original novel from hetero to homosexual doesn't add much or appear to be altogether relevant to the overall story.

The actual members of The Circus are so brilliant that it becomes fascinating to watch all these actors, highly talented, show their skills, from the amorality of Firth's Haydon to the stubbornness of Jones' Alleline and the fear of Densick's Esterhause.  We don't have long backstories about them or really know which one is the actual Spy until the end, always a plus to have us figure it out, even though the traitor appears to be a logical choice.

Among the finer technical aspects are Alberto Iglesias' dark and tense score and Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography, capturing the dark and moody nature of the story with its gray skies and dark rooms.  I'd also throw in the excellent 70's-style costuming of Jacqueline Durran and the set designs of Tom Brown and Zsuzsa Kismarty-Lechner (the main control room where Control operates is one of the few openly bright rooms in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, serving as excellent counterpoint to the darkness all around it).

Granted, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy may be a bit opaque in terms of story, plot points, and look, but on the whole this is not a hindrance to the film.  The film is so good that even the tiny hint of a suggestion that there may be a sequel when Smiley returns to sit at the head of the table doesn't bother me. 

In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing another film of a George Smiley story.  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is complex, but not complicated, well-acted (if a bit too self-seriously so) and highly intelligent. 

It's a great Circus act.

DECISION: B+

Abduction: A Review

ABDUCTION

Taylor-Made Disaster...

For the longest time I have wondered about Taylor Lautner.  I wondered whether once we got past the rippling abs and the screaming girls who lust after Jacob Black from the Twilight franchise (and by default, for Lautner himself) we could find either an actual actor or at least a star within our buff buddy's body.

Abduction is his first foray into carrying a film on his own rather broad shoulders.  Now, I need wonder no more: not only is Taylor Lautner completely inept as an 'actor', he can't even make something as lousy and stupid as Abduction interesting or even funny.

I should note for the record, in case anyone is interested, that it takes about five minutes into Abduction for Lautner to show us what he's good at: being shirtless.  I know it's completely idiotic to actually think on how any of that is relevant to the plot of Abduction; it's like what Larry the Cable Guy said about his catchphrase, "Git-R-Done": you gotta hear it at least once in his shows. Likewise, you gotta see Taylor Lautner shirtless at least once since the audience expects it.

Nathan (Lautner) is your average teen: getting drunk at parties (hence how he ended up shirtless on the front lawn), looking at the girl across the street, Karen (Lilly Collins) with barely hidden love, and his loving parents Mara and Kevin (Maria Bello and Jason Isaac) just looking on.  Nathan has anger issues, which require him to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Bennett (Sigourney Weaver).  As luck would have it, Nathan's teacher assigns him Karen as his partner on something about websites.  Well, Nathan finds one where the photographs are digitally aged, and one of them looks a lot like him!

When he gets in touch with this site,  it alerts two groups: the CIA, in particular Agent Burton (Alfred Molina) as well as the creators of this website: a gang of Serbian dealers in state secrets, headed by the nefarious Kozlow (Michael Nyqvist).  The website itself was a ruse to get Nathan's attention, and now Kozlow's agents are after him.

Needless to say, as part of their plan, they off Mara and Kevin who were Nathan's 'guardians', watching him in place of his real father, a super-agent.  In a real humdinger of a twist, Dr. Bennett herself is another 'guardian', while poor Karen gets caught up in all the mayhem.  Nathan & Karen get directions which lead them to Pittsburgh, a final confrontation with Kozlow, and the faint appearance of Nathan's father.

Would it be fair to say that Abduction is an absolute mess?  I truly wonder whether Shawn Christensen's script was meant to be a parody of action/thrillers.

So many things in Abduction make no sense, starting with the title itself.

If we believe the story, Nathan was not technically abducted by anyone.  Mara, Kevin, Dr. Bennett, and Bolton all knew Nathan's parents, and after Kozlow offed Mamma, the first two took him in.  For the rest of the movie, Nathan was chased by people, but no one ever actually abducted him  No one else is abducted, with only poor Karen being the closest person in the entire film who can claim to have been taken against her will.

Another point of contention with Abduction is the lengths Kozlow and his henchmen go to find Jacob...I mean, Nathan.  We're really suppose to believe that he set up a series of missing persons websites knowing that Nathan would eventually stumble across one of his and discover his parents weren't his parents?  The phrases 'far-fetched' and 'highly implausible' come to mind.

I haven't even thrown in the bit about Nathan's dreams being suppressed memories of when he was just a baby, or how everyone can track him down with the greatest of ease, or the bomb in the oven.

No, let's tackle that 'bomb in the oven' bit.  When Kozlow's hitmen find Mara and Kevin, Nathan comes across his mother being murdered, then he and Karen see Kevin knocked off.  In all this, one of the hitmen had time to plant a bomb in the oven?  Not only that, but he preset it within seconds of him revealing this bit of info and thus, giving our heroes scant time to escape? 

I know we're suppose to have some suspension of disbelief, but the story becomes more and more ludicrous, idiotic, and downright silly to take seriously let alone plausible.  If could keep piling on more and more laughable moments, you pretty soon won't take anything seriously.

Topping off just how lousy the script of Abduction is, we have something that is completely irresponsible in any movie: repetitive exposition dialogue.  We see the house blown up (see "bomb in the oven") after Nathan's parents have been murdered in front of his eyes.  When the call Nathan was making to 911 is taken over by Burton, Nathan tells him, "I just saw my parents murdered before my eyes; how do you think I am?"

The dialogue was bad, but Lautner's staccato and dead delivery only heighten just how awful it is but more on that later. 

For myself, the moment when Burton catches up with Nathan and Karen is the highlight of laughable and painful moments of the Cinema of 2011.  "Why don't I buy you a burger and milkshake?" he tells them, and I freely confess I burst out laughing at such awful dialogue.

If all that weren't bad enough, Taylor Lautner either decided or was directed to channel William Shatner at his worst.  "Whose idea...was it...to put me in foster care...or whatever you want to call it?" he tells Burton, over a burger and milkshake, mind you.  As I saw the scene and heard Lautner deliver his dialogue, I truly wondered why he decided to do his imitation of a Captain Kirk from Star Trek line reading.

I should note that the ellipses are all pauses Nathan takes while saying this one line. 

For all the build-up Lautner has been given as the next great star, he truly is either the worst actor working today or he decided to not even try here.  Throughout Abduction, his delivery was one-note: that of someone who was repeating words given to him.  There was never a drop of emotion from Nathan, as if nothing ever registered with him: not the killing of his parents, not the recurring dreams, not the discovery of him not being Kevin and Mara's natural child, not facing off against Burton or Kozlow.

Nothing.

If he had been trying to be the Terminator, it might have worked because Taylor Lautner was robotic as Nathan.  Actually, I think a robot expresses more emotion than Lautner did in Abduction. 

Even if the dialogue had been as witty and clever and on the same level as All About Eve, Lautner somehow manages to screw up even the most basic reactions.  At one point, he's suppose to push himself away from the image on the screen which he knows to be him.  His face expresses nothing except a mad desire to try to act, but it only comes off as funny, as does whenever he tries for anything requiring emotional range, as when he confronts his mother about knowing he's not her child.

Of course, his partner in crime, Miss Collins, does not help matters.  Maybe she knew Abduction was junk, and a vehicle for Lautner and not her, therefore, she decided not even to try.  I truly hope that is the case, because if not, she shows herself dangerously close to Lautner-non-acting level. 

We also can't forget or perhaps forgive the cavalcade of truly talented performers who found themselves in this maelstrom of a misfire.  Weaver has at most three scenes with a character that is both highly implausible and shockingly omniscient (how else to explain how she suddenly knew what hospital to turn up in to spirit our heroes out).  Molina had nothing to do but stomp around, barking orders at everyone (even Nathan).  Poor Bello and Isaacs had nothing to do in the film that when they are killed off, it almost comes off as a mercy killing.

Side note: perhaps the most shocking moment in Abduction is when we find out that Nathan is only 5'9" which makes me wonder if Taylor Lautner is really that short in real life. IMDB has him at 5'10 1/2", so it might be a quibble, but for some reason this detail stuck out at me.

(APRIL 2018 UPDATE: IMDB now lists him as 5'8 1/2", which puts Abduction into a little more context in making Nathan's height closer to Lautner's versus before when it appeared to make him shorter).

The final nail on the debacle that is Abduction comes from the fact that the director is John Singleton.  The youngest and first African-American Best Director nominee apparently has decided not even his talents could get anyone on screen to act.  Therefore, he decided to focus on the action aspects of Abduction (the sequence on the train was, granted, good if again not believable).  Even here, the entire scene at Pirates Stadium would have you thinking, 'come on, this is flat-out nonsense'. 

Abduction really asks for far too much from us: in terms on non-acting, non-story, non-sense. 

In the end, Abduction can be enjoyed, with one proviso: one must be drunk while watching it.  That way, one can admire just how pretty Taylor Lautner is without having to try and figure out either what is going on or endure Lautner's lousy "acting".

Son, stick with what you're good at.

DECISION: F

Mayhem Most British. Alfred Hitchcock: The Great Directors Retrospective



1899-1980

ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Alfred Hitchcock holds a very dear and special place in my heart, and I use the occasion of my birthday to express my thoughts about this Great Director. 

How I came to love Hitchcock wasn't, interestingly, via his films.  Rather, it was through his television program: Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  There was something both endearing and macabre about that rotund yet courtly gentleman introducing these twisted tales of murder and mayhem with the perfect British voice. 

I was highly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock Presents in my writing by working to have twists in them that were logical.  Sometimes my efforts failed spectacularly. I remember one particularly ghastly story where the murderer was in two locations at the same time! At least I didn't make the butler do it, but serves me write for mixing Hitchcock with Agatha Christie. 

Two of the best episodes from Alfred Hitchcock Presents are two of the few he personally directed.  Lamb to the Slaughter was a remarkably tight story where a mild-mannered housewife and expectant mother murders her husband with a large frozen leg of lamb when she wants to leave her for another woman.  Throughout the episode, the police always appear to come close to finding who done it, only to have her find a way out.  With the usual Hitchcockian twist, the murder weapon itself is served to the unsuspecting officers, much to her amusement.

Bang! You're Dead is a thriller in the good, traditional sense of the word.  It's a remarkably simple and straightforward story: a little boy in a cowboy outfit unwittingly has a real gun, fully loaded, with him.  There is a frantic search for the boy, who comes dangerously close to firing it at people. 

If one sees just Lamb to the Slaughter and Bang! You're Dead, you can see pretty much many of the themes in Hitchcock films.  In the first one, there's a fascination of bringing in the violent into a familiar and supposedly safe surrounding.  What could be more wholesome than the home, the family?  However, it's here where the most shocking acts of violence take place. 

In the latter, the suspense, the fear, comes not from a foreign source but something as mundane and sadly not-too-uncommon than a child playing with a weapon.  Again, a mixing of innocence with danger.  Note that in Bang! You're Dead, the fear comes from what could happen, not from what has happened.

Here, Hitchcock shows his hand, as it were.  He always argued that suspense and fear come from the anticipation of something rather than the actual act.  This is a lesson that is lost on many filmmakers today, especially given how 'torture porn' has become more popular.  People today don't seem to appreciate the waiting for something to happen: they want it now, and they want it explicit.  This is a terrible disservice because part of the fear and fun and greatness of a Hitchcock film comes from the anticipation.

Take one of his best films: Rear Window.  The whole film could be seen as a commentary of film viewing.  We go beyond being mere spectators and become full participants in the goings-on because we become wrapped in the story, one that we can relate to.  When the beauty faces danger, we are just as powerless as the hero, and we soon become just as terrified for her as he is.

I think Hitchcock could, more than any other director, manipulate the audience expertly.  He loved playing with our emotions and what we expect from the stories.  There are just so many examples.

Psycho: we expect it to go in a certain direction, and when we get a certain twist we're not only thrown for a loop but get something that is supposedly quite violent but if looked at carefully we see there wasn't all that much there.

Strangers on A Train: there is something in the idea of 'swapping murders' that is both gruesome and oddly attractive.  Granted, Patricia Highsmith always had a penchant for creating situations where the criminal had to find a way out and like Hitchcock, create a complex moral situation for the audience, they becoming tense to see how he gets out of it; with his adaptation of her novel, many become worried when the villain comes close to losing the key piece that will put the 'hero' in peril.  We should be hoping he does lose it, but because of Hitchcock's direction and the common factor of 'we've been in something like that', audiences sometimes forget he's the bad guy and actually want him to get at it.

Vertigo: I wrote that there was a strange sense of necrophilia in the film, and while I don't mean literally the idea that the dead can be brought back to life in some way, that we can hold on to a love that cannot die, is one many can relate to.  Curious that in both Vertigo and Rebecca, we have an obsession with a dead woman, beautiful, but dangerous.

Again and again, I find that for all the Master of Suspense title that is applied to him, there is also another running theme in Hitchcock films: the dangers of love.  You see it in Vertigo, you see it in Rebecca, and even in Notorious, one of my personal favorites.  Here, the danger comes from both love granted and love denied.

I've always argued that Notorious is not a thriller or a spy film, but a love story in the guise of a thriller or spy film.  It is the love Claude Rains grants to Ingrid Bergman that puts both in danger, and the love that Bergman is denied by Cary Grant that is more torturous than anything the Nazis can put her through. 

Again, Hitchcock plays with us in identification: Rains' character truly loves Bergman and, minus being a collaborator, he's really a nice guy.  He's nicer than Grant's Devlin, but while we might be put off at how casually he torments Bergman, we still should know he's the man for her. 

Alfred Hitchcock knows how to get at us, knows how to scare us.  Note what I think is his final Great Film: The Birds.  Here, it's the ultimate of another of his themes: the total loss of control.  We don't know why the birds have gone mad, why nature has declared war on us.  We only know that we are totally at its mercy.  It's how we interact with people, the end might say, that there might yet be hope.

In terms of visuals, I love Hitchcock.  In terms of story, I love Hitchcock.  In terms of cinema, I love Hitchcock. 

His is an extraordinary body of work. There is the silent The Lodger and his British films: the danger The Man Who Knew Too Much faces for his child, the confusion and danger an innocent man faces when wrapped up in the intrigue of The 39 Steps. There is his transition to America going on to the spookiness of the Gothic thriller Rebecca, the romance of Notorious and Spellbound, even the humor in North by Northwest or The Trouble With Harry (a black comedy, but a comedy nonetheless), concluding with The Birds, and I think few directors have ever achieved such a consistent level of quality in film.

I thought that his post-The Birds films weren't good, but I've had a mild reevaluation. While I think they are not as good, I found Family Plot a nice romp. However, the latter films aren't as well-remembered.  Part of it may be that he was trying to be 'modern' with the dumping of longtime composer Bernard Herrmann not helping: for example, he was trying to be more graphic in the depiction of murder, particularly in Frenzy, and the depiction (I'd say, brutalization) of women such as in Marnie. 

Still, my love and passion for Alfred Hitchcock is unabated and true.  Even the films that truly were bad in my view (Suspicion, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) I count as noble failures.  Of all the directors, it is Alfred Hitchcock that I turn to for inspiration.

With that, I close my Great Director retrospective for 2011: Twelve Directors in Twelve Months.  I'm sure there are many brilliant directors I left out, and note with rueful admission that of all the directors, only two are living (Werner Herzog and Martin Scorsese).  I might pick up more Great Directors next year: I'm certainly spoiled for choice.  I welcome all suggestions.

To explore all these great filmmakers both foreign and domestic has been a great joy for me.  I love cinema, I love movies, and I so admire those who can make truly memorable experiences, who can make art out of moving pictures, and who can tell great stories. 

I look forward to seeing who will join these illustrious men and hopefully more women in the ranks of The Great Directors.