Filmmaking is a tricky business.  There are roughly a thousand plates spinning at any given point, and it’s completely up to a small number of people to pull it all together into a coherent whole.  Sometimes they succeed and create great works of art, and other times they fail outright.  But what about the rest?  There are plenty of perfectly decent films that just don’t have what it takes to be considered among the all-time greats, there are mediocre films that aren’t worth expending any energy towards whatsoever, and then there’s this curious little slice of filmdom: films containing elements of genuine greatness that somehow can’t save the terrible movies in which they exist.  Such as…

Sliding Doors

The Film: Sliding Doors tells the story of Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) in two separate timelines, one in which she catches her boyfriend cheating on her, and one where she doesn’t, and the fallout from both.  It’s a movie that tries to break from the mold of your typical rom-com and try to examine the role small choices play in our lives.

The Greatness: That premise is undeniably brilliant.  The movie juggles the separate timelines well, finding organic ways to alter Gwyneth’s appearance so that the audience doesn’t spend the first few seconds of every scene trying to figure out what story we’re in, allowing them instead to focus on the unique story that’s unfolding; and the film resolves in a pleasant enough way that demonstrates the curious path destiny will take us all on.

Why I Hate It: The movie has no faith in its brilliant premise, or rather, it has no faith in its audience.  So rather than tell an emotionally complicated story about people with multiple layers, each character is painted in the broadest strokes imaginable.  So Karen is saintly to the point that actual saints would feel nervous about offending her, her boyfriend is a spineless, sniveling weasel, and the woman he’s sleeping with is the most hateful shrew this side of Baby Jane.  The one attempt the film makes at an emotional complication comes when Karen’s new love interest (John Hannah, playing an impossibly decent fellow, go figure) is implied to have been lying about his past, but the movie resolves this plotline as fast as it possibly can.  The result of all this is one of the most obnoxiously blunt movies you are ever likely to see, clever premise be damned.

The Haunting

The Film: One of the original haunted house stories told on celluloid, The Haunting stars Julie Harris as one of a handful of people contacted to research Hill House, a mansion with a mysterious, violience-ridden past.  The characters all display some skepticism at first, but gradually it is revealed that the strange occurences are anything but coincidence.

The Greatness: Look, I know I’m in the minority on this one.  The Haunting is considered a classic horror film, and not without reason.  There are several sequences that are legitimately terrifying, thanks largely to the marvelous sound design.  The film never reveals more than it has to, only letting us see what we absolutely need to, and it is with this that The Haunting creates a truly unsettling air…

Why I Hate It: … that is completely undone by the constant voice over from the protagonist.  The film lets us hear what’s going on inside Julie Harris’ mind as she slips further and further away from sanity, but by doing this, we are never allowed to process the terror being projected onscreen for ourselves.  The film is able to create lots of tension, but as soon as her ethereal voice over crops up, it all deflates, and delivers a death blow to this supposedly classic film.

The New World

The Film: Terrence Malick’s telling of the Pocahontas story follows Colin Farrel’s John Smith into the forests of Virginia on his quest to ingratiate himself with the Native Americans, and the settlers who fear them.  The film brings realism to a story we’ve all heard since childhood, and tries to get at what life was truly like for everyone in the early days of America.

The Greatness: Given that this is by the man who directed Days of Heaven and last year’s haunting The Tree of Life, you know it’s really saying something that The New World is Malick’s most absolutely gorgeous films.  The cinematography lends a majesty and grace to every piece of scenery Malick found himself in the mood to film on any particular day, leading to a final product that is breathtaking to behold.

Why I Hate It: Okay, this is kind of a cheat, because I don’t actually hate this film, but it is by far Malick’s most tedious and (unintentionally) incomprehensible films.  The dialogue mostly consists of offscreen whispers, making it near impossible to follow; Malick’s typically jumpy editing is in full force here, which should make the film more spastic, yet somehow slows it down even further; and the whole thing runs about a half-hour too long, and I’m not even referring to the Director’s Cut.

Shane

The Film: This Western tells the story of the eponymous gunslinger, played by Alan Ladd, who wants to leave his past behind him and make a life with a family of ranchers.  But as more and more seedy characters make their way into town, Shane finds himself forced with the decision of whether to do anything about it.  Accompanying him through most of this is the child of the ranchers, played by Brandon De Wilde.

The Greatness: Shane possesses something few other Westerns possess, and that is a sense of morality.  Sure, other films like High Noon or Rio Bravo will show people reluctant to fight, but that’s out of a sense of their own preservation.  Here, Shane is reluctant to get involved because he genuinely doesn’t want to be responsible for taking another human’s life, it’s an admirable trait that lends a thoughtfulness not often found within the genre.

Why I Hate It: Brandon freaking De Wilde.  I was able to tolerate the kid in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close because I knew in the back of my head that no matter how obnoxious he was, he doesn’t even touch Brandon De Wilde.  Towards the end when Shane (59-year-old spoiler alert) decides to intervene, Joey (De Wilde) sneaks out and follows him, and I genuinely hoped he would get caught in the crossfire, because A) it would fit in nicely with the morality I talked about earlier, and 2) I wanted his character to die.  Instead the film ends with a shot of his stupid face yelling for Shane to come back, and I was left with a desire to punch a child in the face, which is not something I’m comfortable with.

The Lovely Bones

The Film: An adaptation of the book by the same name, this is the story of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who is murdered and who witnesses the investigation and her family’s reaction from Heaven.  Her father and sister are relentless in finding her killer, who, unbeknownst to them, has been right under their noses the entire time.  Her mother, meanwhile, is devastated and can no longer handle her domestic life and leaves for California.

The Greatness: As George Harvey, creepy neighbor and serial killer, Stanley Tucci is phenomenal.  He nails the quiet menace and is absolutely chilling when talking to people who don’t know that he’s the one they’re looking for.  His performance is the kind that you rarely see, crafting a character you want to see get what’s coming to him, yet one to whom you don’t particularly want to say goodbye…

Why I Hate It: … because he’s the only good part of the movie.  All the rest of the film is able to manage is average at best, atrocious at worst.  I won’t harp too much on the rest of the performances, most of whom fall in the mediocre range (Mark Wahlberg is the exception, he seems to be giving a companion performance to his role in The Happening), so instead I’ll focus on the biggest, most insulting issue with the movie: it is one of the absolute worst adaptations in the history of cinema.  It begs the question, did Peter Jackson actually read the book, or did he get a quick summary from one of his friends?  So many little things are changed in the story, every single one of them to the film’s detriment.

For instance, the mother’s journey to California, in the book she is gone for about ten years, making it a significant occurence in her family’s life, in the movie she’s gone for about a month, and as a result it doesn’t pack any of the devastation it’s supposed to.  In the book, they never definitively get George Harvey, they have circumstantial evidence and his questionable behavior.  In the movie, they absolutely nail him and he flees, losing all the ambiguity that makes the film so wonderfully frustrating.  In the book, Susie has a companion in Heaven named Holly, she is there because they are of similar ages with similar interests and they died roughly around the same time, period.  The book is content to let some things go, because it realizes that life and death are messy businesses and sometimes things just are the way they are.  But in the movie, it turns out that Holly got murdered by George Harvey, too, because Peter Jackson wasn’t content to let any detail go that didn’t have some significance on something else in the film.  I could go on, but I won’t, because I’ll just get angry.  Just know that the book is bursting with serene beauty (seriously, read it, it’s phenomenal), and the movie is able to nail precisely none of it.

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture

Hey, it’s halfway through February, so that means it must be time for a recap of the films 2011 had to offer. (Just go with me here, okay?)  I have to say, 2011 was kind of a weaker year for films, although that may just be because it didn’t have many individual films that set the world on fire.  The films listed below all have their detractors, but they are great films and (in this reviewer’s mind) the ten best films of 2011 (note: in most cases I went more on my enjoyment of the films, less on their technical or artistic merits).

10. X-Men: First Class

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first sign that this was a strange year, if a comic book movie makes the list.  But let’s face it, comic book movies don’t come much more entertaining than X-Men: First Class.  This is easily the most rewatchable film on this list (I’ve seen it three times), and its cleverness never lets up.  Setting the advent of the mutant exposure against the Cuban Missile Crisis, and going to great lengths to humanize all the characters, First Class accomplished two things: it redeemed the X-Men franchise after the truly abysmal Wolverine, and it proved that after Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn can actually make a consistently entertaining flick.

9. The Tree Of Life

Arguably the purest artistic vision of 2011 (give or take an Uncle Boonmee), Terrence Malick examines his own childhood in Texas in his typically Malickian way.  With a free-flowing timeline that shifts from present day all the way back to the beginning of time itself, The Tree of Life‘s haunting portrayal of the world we live in contains some of the most beautiful cinematography yet commited to film, while also telling a story that has no clear resolution.  It’s a film that trusts the audience to keep up, to figure it out for themselves, and ultimately, to just experience, because that’s all we as humans can really do.

8. Young Adult

The most acerbic entry on this list finds Jason Reitman teaming back up with his Juno screenwriter, Diablo Cody, to tell the cringe-inducing story of Mavis Gary (brilliantly portrayed by Charlize Theron) on her quest to rekindle the love between her and her high school squeeze, regardless of the fact that he’s already happily married.  It’s a different kind of coming-of-age story (complete with a jaw-dropping rallying speech from a former classmate that needs to be seen) that finds Theron teaming up with the similarly fantastic Patton Oswalt as a means to stay sane by unleashing her pent-up crazy.  It’s a film that’s caustic, devastating, and, most importantly, really and truly funny.

7. Winnie the Pooh

This one kind of flew under the radar, which isn’t hard to understand; excitement is not really the point of Winnie the Pooh.  The Hundred-Acre Wood-set film serves as more of a comfort blanket, with its easy-going nature, almost threadbare plot, and a tremendously undaunting runtime of 63 minutes.  But what it lacks in visceral frenzy, it makes up tenfold with warmth, sheer cleverness, and a genial sense of humor.   Put another way: if there was a more delightful film to be released in 2011, I didn’t see it.

6. Shame

An honest depiction of sex addiction on screen is a dicey prospect; lean away from the seriousness and you end up with crass titillation, lean in and you land in maudlin territory.  Which is why Shame should be commended: it doesn’t try to stamp a prefabricated opinion on the subject.  The film plays it perfectly straight, letting the characters and their emotions do all the heavy lifting.  So when they descend into darkness, we understand and feel for them.  Their emotions become our emotions, and we wonder what we would do if placed in a similar situation.

5. The Descendants

The beauty of Alexander Payne’s films lies in the details: like the way clothes don’t always fit perfectly, or how running in clogs is just inherently awkward, or how sometimes (SPOILER) you gotta wack the container to get all of your wife’s remains out.  The Descendants takes all of these details into consideration as it crafts the lovingly detailed, heartbreaking, yet humorous story of a husband dealing with the impending death of his comatose wife who, as it turns out, wasn’t entirely faithful.  George Clooney has never been more nakedly emotional as a father out of his depth, and it’s all in service of a film that proves that sometimes happiness can be found in ice cream and The March of the Penguins.

4. The Muppets

Finally answering the question, “Can pure nostalgia coalesce into the form of a satisfying movie?” with a resounding “YES!” Jason Segel’s The Muppets takes the cake as the most fun to be had at the cinema this year.  Giving each character their due while treating them with respect and throwing in some phenomenal music on top of it all, The Muppets was both a wonderful throwback and a fitting update for everybody’s favorite felt friends.  And if you didn’t get choked up at Kermit the Frog plucking the first few notes of “Rainbow Connection,” well then I think we can answer the question of whether you’re a Muppet or a Man.

3. The Artist

Can you think of anything more heartening in recent memory than the public’s acceptance of a silent film, shot in an outdated format that functions as little more than an elaborate homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood?  I can’t, which is why I’m so thrilled to see The Artist as the frontrunner for all the major awards this year.  The story of a silent film star struggling to make his way in the era of the talkie, The Artist goes for broad strokes and big emotions, and it’s all the better for it.  I won’t say that this is how movie-going should be, given that it hasn’t been this way in 80 years, but Hollywood would do good to look to its own past a little more often.

2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Quiet, tense, and gripping, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy gets at the heart of what being a spy is (probably) all about.  This is not a film of car chases, love scenes, martinis, and bacarat, but more of stern glances, fitful violence, and motives kept close to the chest.  A film where even the most powerful emotions can only be released away from prying eyes, where the right evidence is more deadly than a Walther PPK, and where the world hopefully, finally learns that Gary Oldman is one of the best actors on the planet.

1. Drive

Right off the bat, with its eerie electronic score and hot pink title sequence, Drive lets you know that you are not in for a tradional action film.  It’s a movie about a driver that features very little driving, a violent film that spends most of its runtime in quiet conversation.  Featuring a main character as enigmatic as they come, like if Vanishing Point was part of the Man With No Name trilogy.  The film lives in the lengthy spans of quiet that come with a life of crime.  That’s where it lives, but it’s alive when the action kicks in.

It’s true that the film features little driving, but the driving it does contain is so beautifully choreographed and shot, that anybody complaining about the lack would do well to just shut up.  But the real charm of the film (using that phrase lightly) is the violence.  Used sparingly and without warning, the viewer gets lulled into a calm so that when the blood starts to flow, it is far more horrifying than a constant barrage could ever hope to be.  And the perpetrator of a lot of that violence is the surprisingly beautifully cast Albert Brooks, who takes the genial goodwill his comedy has built up for him and twists it to create a truly terrifying villain.  And it all came together to form a truly phenomenal film.

Honorable Mentions

Simultaneously crafting a technological fairy tale and a love letter to the early days of cinema, Martin Scorcese’s Hugo was a fun and beautiful film that unfortunately didn’t find as big an audience as it deserved.  Featuring truly clever effects and characters that were recognizably human, films didn’t come much cooler than Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block.  Finding himself in a more playful mood than usual, Woody Allen may not have intentionally crafted Midnight in Paris to be a companion piece to The Purple Rose of Cairo, but he succeeded at it all the same.  Quirky, without being cloying, sad, without turning to melodrama, and featuring absolutely outstanding supporting work from Christopher Plummer, Beginners was a funny, clever, heartbreaking movie.  Utilizing brutal violence and a tone befitting said brutality, Super was the film Kick-Ass should have been.

Underrated

Any film that sits on a shelf for any period of time for reasons other than quality is inevitably going to have built up a considerable amount of hype when it finally gets released.  For a film to which “epic” could be ascribed, this isn’t as much of a problem, but when the film in question is a lightweight comedy, the results can be disastrous.  It happened to Fanboys four years ago, and it happened again this year to Take Me Home Tonight.  Is this Topher Grace-starring, 80s retro comedy the funniest thing to come out in recent years?  No.  Is it a fun, humorous, and perfectly acceptable way to spend an hour and a half?  Absolutely.

Overrated

Bridesmaids.  Hang on!  Yes, I think Bridesmaids is overrated, but I also think it is genuinely funny.  But people latched on too hard to the notion that women can be funny in a way that seemed to discredit all the numerous examples of women being funny that came before it.  Not to mention that the movie doesn’t have a satisfying resolution, it kind of just fizzles out; and the fact that it suffers the Apatow-bloat.  Seriously, no wedding comedy needs to be longer than 100 minutes, let alone the 2-plus hour runtime found here.  But again, it was pretty funny.

Biggest Surprise

For as much as it looked like it was going to just be The Fighter in an octagon, Warrior found a way to transcend all of that to become one of the most gripping sports dramas in recent memory (I think I actually liked it more than The Fighter).  Nick Nolte gives a great grizzled performance as the father of two sons entered in a UFC match for their own reasons, and Tom Hardy continues his path towards acting dominance with his quiet, seething role as a fighter with a mysterious past.

Full Disclosure

I think this list is pretty solid, but I still haven’t seen A Separation, which, based on its reputation, would probably make the list, or Martha Marcy May Marlene, which I am almost positive would definitely make this list.  And my unabashed love of Pedro Almodóvar means The Skin I Live In could probably find a place here also.  Oh well.

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture