Some Quick Thoughts On A Few Titles

Highly Recommended

Big Game - It's a bit silly at times, but this film, starring Samuel L. Jackson as the U.S. President lost in a Finnish forest, is also great fun, features a coherent story, and manages to accomplish something almost every mega-blockbuster simply disregards - character development. I enjoyed it as an adult, and I'm pretty sure I would have adored it as a kid.

Amy - As this documentary begins you are immediately reminded of what an incredible, singular talent Amy Winehouse was. Even if you don't love her music - I like it but am not a huge fan - you can't help but acknowledge her gift. The movie then deconstructs how we forgot that in a haze of tabloid press, erratic behavior, and callous indifference (both from the public and some of the people closest to her). Winehouse is humanized but never in a treacly manner. A fascinating, intimate narrative portrait of a gifted but tragically broken young woman.

Recommended

Castle of Sand - This Japanese film is mostly a fairly straight-forward crime procedural where there isn't a ton of character development and the crime isn't all that compelling. Then the movie suddenly shifts gears into this highly melodramatic drama that re-enacts all of the lifelong drama of the man who committed the crime. It's a jarring shift, but also compelling. It's not an essential film, but an interesting one.

Forbidden Planet - The story isn't terrific, but it works in the same way that a decent episode of the original Star Trek might work (though inferior to most of what The Next Generation accomplished). The effects are fun to watch - while primitive, they also work and look good for the time. This is an influential sci-fi film and worth watching for sci-fi fans, but not necessarily worth going out of your way otherwise.

The Drop - This gangster film with Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini, and Noomi Rapace doesn't have a ton worth recommending, but I'm slipping it up to this line because you can pass the time in worse ways, there's an interesting (if not entirely unpredictable) twist, and Tom Hardy delivers a mostly credible performance that helps to make the final act a bit more plausible (Hardy's weird and inconsistent accent is another story, but it's not a huge problem).

Not Recommended

Tammy - The movie has a few decent gags, but not enough to sustain the inconsistent premise and even more inconsistent tone. Writers Melissa McCarthy (also star) and Ben Falcone (also director) spend the first half of the movie painting the titular character as a disgusting, idiotic loser and fool. Then halfway through they want her to turn into, actually, just a pretty normal gal who strikes up a romance with a pretty normal, stable guy. Yes, male comedians have been asking us for years to buy the premise that beautiful people fall in love with childish losers for no reason other than they are the star of the movie, but that premise rarely works all that well, and it gets no better or fresher merely for being a female-centric take on it.

Brainstorm - A classic example of a movie that got made because everyone reacted to the concept, but no one stopped to think about creating a plot. It is boring as hell. Douglas Trumbull's idea of shooting the brainstorm sequences in a different format and aspect ratio does not rescue the fact that what happens is visually dull (not to mention nonsensical, as the movie almost immediately abandons the first person perspective in these sequences as a shortcut). The ending is supposed to be a profound moment, but I was left saying, "Is that it?"

The Swarm - There are a few unintentional laughs to be had (the giant bee hallucinations, some indifferent actors), with Michael Caine at his career peak of, "Just pay me, I don't give a fuck." But the campy laughs aren't sustained, and the filmmakers are never able to find any meaningful thrills to replace them. Perhaps the most memorable part of this film is when the Air Force General in charge of eliminating the swarm of Africanized bees just starts referring to them as "the Africans." So he starts ranting on about how the only way to solve the problem is to "get rid of all the Africans," and makes several other comments in the same vein. I have to believe that someone on the set realized what they were saying; hopefully the writer and director didn't believe that this was some form of social commentary since the movie does ultimately celebrate the eradication of those bees (spoiler!).


Draft Day - I applaud the experiement of trying to make the draft interesting as a narrative film, but ultimately the effort here fails, primarily under the weight of the film's failure to ever once achieve a sense of plausibility. Other characters have to get stupid when the main character needs a victory, so they do, conveniently and repeatedly. There's zero chemistry between Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner, and Denis Leary never convinces as the head football coach. People run around holding their heads at Kevin Costner's character being some sort of crazy man, but I have no idea why. Costner himself is on auto-pilot.

Larry Crowne - I have to believe there's about another hour of this movie that exists somewhere. My guess is they looked at the film, realized it wasn't working, and decided to just carve it down as much as possible to just get it over with (and maybe get a few more shows in for opening weekend). The result is a character movie that feels like it is missing all of its character development scenes - everything happens because, well, it's just that time in the movie when it's supposed to happen. We're supposed to cheer for these characters but we're not given enough to even care.

Terminator:  Genisys - Stick with the first two Terminator films and forget this uninspired and, at times, nonsensical, reboot.



Jurassic World - There's not a single inspired or original moment in this film. The effects do not deliver any sense of wonder, which leaves us with a mostly paint-by-numbers premise and story. I obviously don't understand why this movie has connected so well with audiences this summer. To each their own.

God Bless America (2011)

Bobcat Goldthwait is Falling Down

Tara Lynne Barr and Joel Murray in GOD BLESS AMERICA,
a Magnet Release. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

Not long ago I had the chance to screen World's Greatest Dad, a sharp satire of American culture written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, a director, actor, and stand-up comedian. Goldthwait's film was dark and perhaps even a little bitter, but it captured one man's humanity amid a savaging of American celebrity culture and our tendency to want to turn someone else's loss into our own selfish experience. I saw it too late to check out Goldthwait's follow-up in the theater, but I hoped God Bless America on DVD would live up to the promise of the earlier film.

God Bless America does touch on at least some of the same ground as World's Greatest Dad, but it lacks the core of humanity, the discipline, and the skill of the latter. It is, to put it simply, a disappointment.

Streaming Picks - 3/19/14

Some picks to stream for this week: 

Warner Archive Instant
Hearts of the West (1975) - Warner Archive Instant seems to be having something of a miniature Howard Zieff festival, showing Slither, Private Benjamin, and Hearts of the West. Hearts of the West stars Jeff Bridges as a naive farmboy in the 1930s that dreams of writing western novels. He heads west, suckered in by some con men. When the con men try to rob Bridges, he makes off with their loot and stumbles into a western movie set. This leads to that and soon enough Bridges is starring in movies and running from the con men that want their loot back. Co-stars Andy Griffith and Blythe Danner. The film is amiable, if a bit uneven, and features a good cast. The movie seems like it is going to end on a dark note, but Zieff and writer Rob Thompson thirst for their happy ending, and Bridges gets what he deserves. If you're looking for some lighter fare, and particularly if you're nostalgic for Old Hollywood, this is a good option. Check it out with a Warner Archive Instant 2 week Free Trial