REVIEW: Interstellar

Reviewed by Danny Sarnowski

What do we want from a movie?  How have our expectations of a film evolved in the last several years?  Judging by box office results, many of us want big, loud, action-oriented, special effects-laden adaptations of material that we've already consumed for decades.  We have been hungry for cinematic comfort food.  Familiar, and easy to eat, perhaps with a little zing thrown in to spice it up just slightly.  Judging by the films that have received most of the awards love recently, many of us are looking for more quiet, introspective, serious almost melancholy pictures.  We have been looking to try new things, but mostly those that remind us of something else we ate long ago and remember enjoying.  Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is, at times, both of these types of movies.  At others it is something else: the kind of bold, authentic, audacious, and original movie that we all deserve and should be trying more often.

The fact that Nolan was allowed to make and market a picture like Interstellar is a rarity.  His track record of producing commercially and critically accepted pictures has given him the power to push a movie like this one through the system.  Interstellar is arguably one of the most anticipated films of the year and comes with equally high expectations.  I, being a passionate fan of Nolan's earlier work, came with my own set of expectations.  The film met some, missed others, and turned some of those expectations on their heads.  

The movie takes place in our near future on Earth.  Our natural resources are waning and the planet itself seems to be working to reject our species like a body rejecting a transplanted organ (somewhere environmentalists are loving this movie already).  Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper a former NASA test pilot-turned-farmer-widower living with his two kids and father-in-law.  He's unhappy, restless, and while he is a competent farmer, he is not living his best life.  He knows he was fit for something else.  Something else comes along, via one of the film's less acceptable plot twists, which offers Cooper the chance to fulfill his life's ambition and to be part of the team working to save all of humanity in the process.  The kicker is he needs to leave his family immediately and may not be back for several years.

This is the crux of the film.  Nolan takes all of humanity's struggles, fears, bitter resentments, and emotional attachments and boils them down to Cooper and his kids.  In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick's unparalleled 1968 sci-fi opus (and a movie that Christopher Nolan has mentioned as one of his favorites and as one of his main touchstones for Interstellar), the astronauts are mostly ciphers.  They are the every man, they are all of us.  We know very little about them and we don't need to know more.  Their mission, and the challenges they encounter, are enough to carry the story.  Here Nolan looks to pair the grandeur, spectacle, and clinical detachment of Kubrick's film with the heart of a Spielbergian father/daughter picture.  This dynamic works at points in the movie - sometimes it doesn't.

The crew, made up of Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley, David Oyelowo, and a robot named TARS (who looks ominously like the monolith from 2001), shoot themselves off into space and head for Saturn.  There they plan to jump through a wormhole which was mysteriously "placed" there by "someone" and which serves as a gateway allowing interstellar travel to another galaxy where a more hospitable home planet may be found for mankind to inhabit.  Several pioneers have previously made the journey and have sent back data upon which the crew can determine which planet to visit.  

As expected in any sci-fi movie like this, things go wrong quickly.  The crew must quickly adapt and make decisions on the fly.  These decisions have consequences for the crew and for those they left behind on earth.  In one particularly harrowing sequence, the crew picks a planet near a black hole.  This proximity renders the experience of time on this planet different from that which we experience on Earth.  One hour on the surface is the equivalent to seven years for us.  A quick out and back jaunt to see the data from the pioneer and/or to rescue them could take decades of Earth time.  

Back home, Cooper's kids have grown and the world's problems have grown more serious.  Jessica Chastain plays his daughter Murphy who has never forgiven her father for leaving them behind.  His son, played by Casey Affleck, has given up on him entirely (and, perhaps, on the world itself).  These two struggle to bond with each other and with others as their father's mission drags on leaving them to question whether he and his crew are even still out there, still alive.

Consequences like the time shift, and the fantastic worlds the crew visit, are tossed off one after the other without giving them time to land.  We are shown two separate possible planets, each insanely wild in their own right and yet the crew barely reacts to the worlds around them.  Their tunnel-vision of mission has them missing the heart of it.  And, perhaps that is one area where the film fails.  It tries so hard to ground this mission in love - for Cooper and his kids, for Hathaway's Brand and her lover - that at times it is missing a heart.  Nolan's previous films have never been overly sentimental but he has shown he can telegraph emotion with a great deal of subtly.  Here he pounds it over the audience and, fore me, it landed too heavy handed.

The third act offers some action thrills for the space crew and a race-against-time scenario for Murphy back on Earth.  The final plot elements will test the audience's willingness to go along with Nolan and to set aside cynicism.  For some these events will be goosebump-level inspiring.  For others they will ring hollow and flimsy.  For all of us, the fact that Nolan has the guts and willingness to work this hard to put something this large and new and difficult and unwieldy in front of us is a reward.  When was the last time you lined up for a movie without already knowing most of the story?  Treat yourself to a new (old fashioned) movie experience.  See Interstellar and decide for yourself how you feel about it. 

What worked:

• The visuals.  Both the special effects and the practical sets and costumes are extremely well done.  Nothing looks or feels cheesy.
• McConaughey carries the film.  Some of his "alright, alright, alright"-ness comes out but he keeps it mostly in check.
• A surprise cameo turns into a deadly encounter for the crew.

What doesn't:

• The music is sometimes lovely and sometimes insane.  Some segments sound like Dracula banging on his pipe organ - while on ecstasy.
• Nolan's long time cinematographer Wally Pfister sits this one out and it shows.  Hoyte Van Hoytema (who has the best name in showbiz) does good work but Pfister's touch would have added a lot to the film.
• Some of the late in the game exposition between McConaughey and TARS.
• Much of the Earth-bound sequences with Jessica Chastain as the now-grown daughter Murphy.
• The ending will please those left cold by Gone Girl's final act but feels a bit forced and overly saccharine.

Brass Tacks:

• This movie will dazzle, confound, frustrate, excite, and move you.  An original, audacious film-making exercise which gives some of the comfort and some of the high quality movie food we've been looking for and a lot more. B+

REVIEW: Locke

Reviewed by Danny Sarnowski

In the newly-released to home video film Locke, Tom Hardy and writer/director Steven Knight work awfully hard.  They set out, I think, to craft a unique, inventive, highly structured film grounded in the real-life drama of one flawed man.  The movie follows this highly-determined man on an insanely stressful night as he drives along a busy highway surrounded by strangers.  Though he is constantly taking and making cell calls to family and co-workers, he is utterly alone.  To call this a one-man film is not an exaggeration.  Unlike Phone Booth, which bored us to tears twelve years ago and cheated by having tons of action and actors circle our man-in-a-booth hostage, Locke sticks with it.  Like Tom Hardy?  Good.  Because that is all you are getting for the duration.  No other actor appears on screen.  None.

I can imagine the pitch meeting now:  "I have an idea for a movie."  "Go on."  "It's entirely shot in one car, on one road, on one night."  "Ok..." "It follows one guy as he drives and talks on the phone."  "Look, Steven..."  "Wait, wait, the calls are sort of important.  I mean, some are to his employer and those aren't that big a deal, and others are to a co-worker and those mostly feel like filler..."  "Steven, you're great, but..."  "Wait, the guy is Tom Hardy.  Did I mention that?  And the entire film will be done shooting in 8 days."  "Oh, in that case, let's knock it out next week.  Does that work for you?"

The film feels small and intimate.  There is a high level of film making talent on display as this really is one dude in a car for 90 minutes.  The different angles, use of traffic or b-roll footage, and music combine with Hardy's valiant acting to keep us engaged for the duration.  Points to Knight for using all the technical tricks up his sleeve to keep the movie pulsing forward.

The script, however, is a let down.  Locke uses his commute to make calls and admissions to various players in his life.  He also works to solve some logistical challenges at his construction work site since he will be playing hooky the following day just as an "historic" pour of concrete is to take place.  Man, to hear Hardy talk about concrete is just spooky.  It is sacred to this guy.  He takes it all very seriously and is sort of aghast at the thought of anyone else not living and dying by "his concrete" for "his building."

Ultimately, there are ways that Knight could have tweaked this script to keep it interesting or to create more drama and interest.  In the end, it feels like you are stuck in the car with a pretty gruff guy working down his call log on a road trip.  If you have ever ridden in a car with your boss or someone on the phone and you just need to sit quietly, you have experienced this.  The movie doesn't offer any new insights for you.  Why they felt the need to keep things so mundane is a mystery to me.  With the "locked room" premise and engaging actors (Hardy and the quite-good voice cast on the phone), there should be more here.

What works:

• Hardy's acting.  He is intense throughout and really shows us the stress he's under
• The voice cast on the phone all do a good job with limited material

What doesn't:

• The drama.  There is just too little here to warrant 90 minutes of your life

Brass Tacks:

• As an interesting exercise in filmmaking: C-
• As a dramatic film: D-

REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy

Reviewed by Danny Sarnowski

Let me start by saying I have no affinity, nor deep-seated childhood love for the Guardians of the Galaxy.  Be wary of anyone who claims that they do.  While there must be someone out there who has been buying and reading the comic books these characters are based upon for the last several decades, you don't know any of them.  Anyone who tells you that they have always loved these characters or has read all of the comics or that they almost got a tattoo of Groot the walking, fighting, barely-talking anthropomorphic tree is lying.  Also, as a disclaimer, while this movie is based upon comic characters and released by Marvel Studios, it is not a superhero movie.  It is, as writer-director James Gunn would call it, a space opera.  And while that term is incredibly annoying, it is closer to what you'll get with this movie than not.

I have enjoyed most of the movies released by Marvel Studios (you can read my review of their last release Captain America: The Winter Soldier here).  I have also recently watched Slither, James Gunn's directorial debut (The Spoiler Alert Podcast recently released the episode on that movie here).  So I came into this movie very interested in what one part Marvel and one part Gunn would add up to.  The trailers had sold me on a silly, loose, less-comic-book-canon-reliant space adventure.  The movie, which certainly has its issues, delivers just that.  

The story is pretty standard sci-fi MacGuffin fare.  A mysterious relic is being sought by some extremely sinister people which may or may not contain fantastic powers and planet-destroying energy.  We are introduced to a ragtag group of strangers who meet each other by happenstance and who, almost immediately, band together for various stated reasons to retrieve the item (the real reason, for all of them, is that they are secretly very good people.  Or plants.  Or genetically altered, gun-toting animals.)  Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star Lord, a thief and rogue with a quick wit and an excess of charm.  Zoe Saldana plays Gamora, supposedly the deadliest woman in the galaxy.  Dave Bautista plays Drax the Destroyer, a large, tattooed, grief-stricken badass.  The team is completed by two CGI-created characters.  Bradley Cooper voices Rocket, a tortured soul in a raccoon's body while Vin Diesel voices Groot, the aforementioned tree.  (Also, can we admit that we have officially bottomed out in the celebrity stunt voice casting arena?  Diesel famously teased his participation in this movie and the opening credits give him a "featuring Vin Diesel" credit.  He says four words.  Four. Words.  Robin Williams as The Genie this ain't.)

The five of them band together, escape a space prison, and set about retrieving, then losing, then retrieving the MacGuffin.  It is desired by Thanos, the biggest, baddest, most powerful evil doer in the Universe.  Thanos is also the purple guy you may have seen if you stuck around through the very end credits of The Avengers.  Before Thanos can get it, it is stolen by Ronan The Accuser played with deep malice by Lee Pace.  Ronan is the kind of villain that is really, really evil and you know he is evil without really knowing or caring why he is so evil.  Just understand that he is really, really evil.  And scary.  But mainly evil.

The quintet of heroes put their personal problems and quarrels aside in order to band together to save an entire planet of innocent lives.  The movie devolves, as most Marvel movies seem to do, in its third act into a large CGI-created battle scene (see the last acts of Iron Man 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Thor 2: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Solider).  Much of this is noisier and busier and more generic than you need it to be.  The villain is dispatched in pretty underwhelming fashion and the day is saved.  So, the plot, set up, villains, and third act are all pretty standard sci-fi, comic book movie fare.  The characters themselves, and Gunn's tone?  Not at all.

The five heroes are, unlike the other Marvel heroes you've come to love, losers.  They are misfits and criminals.  This movie is like Goonies in space (complete with Josh Brolin!).  These outcasts and unloved space orhpans form an unlikely family and pool their damaged goods into one loud, raucous, unruly, silly team.  The chemistry is actually pretty good.  Pratt is very funny, as you'd expect, and has good heat with Saldana.  Bautista is wooden and stilted until you realize he is supposed to be wooden and stilted.  He is best in quiet scenes and tosses out some pretty funny throw away lines.  Cooper uses a strage accent with Rocket, which takes time to get past.  Once you do, you realize that the combination of his voice, the CGI-artistry, and the script help make Rocket the stand out character.  It is obvious that he is Gunn's favorite in the group.

The movie's tone is a double-edged sword.  This movie is funny.  It is silly.  The humor is ironic and jarring at times.  Unfortunately it also makes it difficult to really take the picture seriously.  The fate of entire planets, nay the Galaxy is on the line, but its hard to care because Bradley Cooper's character is making silly comments and teasing Groot.  There is a running joke that Rocket can understand Groot, which despite being used a few times made me laugh every time.  The use of 1970s/1980s pop music is also a bit jarring.  As are references to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Michael Jackson, and Kevin Bacon's portrayal in Footloose.  While explained in the story, it is so odd to have them included.  I had a good time seeing this movie but I am not as confident that this will be as mainstream a success as Marvel has enjoyed thus far.  

What worked:

• The pair of Rocket and Groot.  I thought I would like them the least but ended up digging them.
• Pratt as comedic adventurer.
• Visuals.  The movie is beautifully shot.  All of the visuals and effects are very well done.

What didn't work:

• The generic villains.  Karen Gillan's character is especially bland.  Disappointing for such a unique looking character played by a talented actress.
• Thanos.  I don't really get, nor do I care, who Thanos is.  I know he is the entry point to bring the Guardians into the broader Marvel universe and someday have a giant Guardians/Avengers crossover film.  But I just don't care.
• Michael Rooker is also in this film. 

Brass tacks:

• As a Marvel comic book franchise launching film:  C+
• As a silly, fun, space adventure: B+

PS - Don't bother sticking around through the end of the credits.  This movie boasts the worst post-credits tag in any Marvel movie.  Really.  Worse than Thor 2.

REVIEW: Best Picture 1947 - Gentleman's Agreement

Reviewed by Danny Sarnowski

Oy.

And I mean that.  Oy.  What a picture.  1947's Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Gentleman's Agreement, is a tough one.  This movie has it all: bland characters, slow scenes, weak & cliched dialogue, and an extremely forced plot.  Perhaps, in its day it was a powerful wake up call to movie goers about the dangers of intolerance.  Of course, movie goers of its day had just lived through WORLD WAR 2.  I hope, by that point, they had learned a thing or two about the dangers of intolerance.  Anyway...

The movie stars Gregory Peck as Philip Green, as a widowed magazine writer, newly arrived in New York after living his entire life in California.  He is in town to consider accepting a job at a prestigious and liberal weekly magazine.  His assignment is to do a series of articles on Antisemitism.  People of 1946 New York seemed to believe that intolerance and hate were the domain of zealots and overtly monstrous loners.  The secret hate for Jewish citizens, apparently just below the surface of every day life, needed to be exposed and discussed.

Green accepts the assignment without a clear bead on the story.  He works to crack it for a few days but is missing an "angle" that really sticks.  As he vents to his mother (who lives with him and his young son Tommy - a very young Dean Stockwell), he recounts that he usually "lives" his stories.  He becomes engrossed in them and enters the worlds that he writes about.  This takes Phil to the idea of pretending to be Jewish in order to write about what's like to be a Jew (why this took any time at all is not explained - this appears to always be his angle).  Thus, Phil sets about planting seeds with his new colleagues and friends that he is Jewish to see what happens.

He doesn't make an effort to go and "live the Jewish life" or really venture beyond his office.  The next hour and a half are really just Peck being in rooms with horrifically intolerant bigots who make seemingly endless Jewish jokes or horrible comments at the end of which he says "did you know that I'm Jewish?"  And then they seem sheepish.  I mean, the fact that anyone thinks that Antisemitism is not a problem has apparently never been in a room with anyone else in New York.  Every scene for the rest of the movie involves some sort of anti-Semitic content.  Phil is the subject of prejudice and discrimination, his son is beaten up, and so on...  In fact, being fake Jewish even costs Phil his new relationship.

Ah, the relationship.  After arriving in New York, Phil meets Kathy, a wealthy, WASP-ish divorcee.  After two dates and one kiss, they apparently decide to get engaged.  She is his partner in the secret of his plan with writing the articles and sees the hate all around him.  She also silently watches others make anti-Semitic comments and sits idly by while her exclusive, gated community refuses to admit Jews.  There is no formal rule against Jews, you see, just a "gentleman's agreement" that they will not be welcome.  And there you have it.  The hate is everywhere.  The film ends with Phil publishing his article and us getting a few sermons about our need to speak up and fight for those who are being discriminated against.  I wonder how the African Americans who saw this film felt the rest of the country was doing at all of that.

What works:

• Celeste Holm plays a spitfire fashion editor who is a colleague of Phil's at the magazine.  Her quick wit and been-there-done-that attitude is refreshing in every scene she is in.  She took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role.

What doesn't:

• Pretty much everything else.  

Brass tacks:

• Ultimately, this movie is slow and boring.  It condescends to you.  It lectures you - D

REVIEW: Lucy

Reviewed by Danny Sarnowski

In Lucy, his "philosophical action movie," Luc Besson has officially given up on any adherence to genre movie structure.  Besson, best known to American audiences as the writer-director of Taken and The Fifth Element, has been quietly saturating the global film market with rote, by-the-numbers flicks for years.  For every Taken or Leon: The Professional he has made, we've also been hit over the head by From Paris with Love and 3 Days to Kill.  His movies are usually made for relatively little money (by Hollywood standards), feature aging stars or up-and-coming talent, and are shot internationally.  While his earlier films packed real punch (Leon is a pretty great picture and The Fifth Element is eclectic fun) his recent films have become a paint-by-numbers affair.  As the opening titles begin, you know exactly what to expect, when to expect it, and how things will shape up by the end of the picture.  If you've seen a trailer or a poster, you get the idea.

With Lucy, Besson fell in love with an idea.  He took that idea, ran with it, and convinced some talented people to come along for the ride.  He also assembled a pretty incredible marketing team, as the film's domestic opening weekend box office gross would attest.  In his defense, the idea is intriguing: What would happen to a human who could suddenly utilize 100% of their neural capacity?  Unfortunately, the answer that Besson provides grows increasingly more ridiculous as the tale unfolds.  And, like stage magicians for decades before him, Besson disappoints us with what is ultimately a tame trick.

The opening is good.  Lucy, played by Scarlett Johansson, is pretty and sort of dumb.  She has begun dating a skeevy, dirty-looking, pathetic creep who is some sort of bag man or drug mule.  He tricks her into carrying a suitcase into a drop with a mysterious businessman.  Besson uses cut away shots to a nature scene of a leopard stalking its prey intercut with the action as Lucy tries to deliver the package.  This film assemblage is oddly affecting.  Its a trick that the director uses throughout the film and, honestly, I dug it.  

The drop quickly devolves into a full-blown nightmare complete with the loser boyfriend being killed, Lucy being abducted, and dead bodies being desecrated by a highly creepy crime boss.  Johansson is great in these first 30 minutes.  She plays terrified very well and it is sort of a treat to see her play a weak, frightened character.  We have become so used to seeing her play strong, badass women who fear nothing and beat the snot out of larger foes.  As you've seen from the trailer, Lucy is knocked unconscious and awakens to find that she has become an unwitting drug mule.  She has a bag of a mysterious new drug sewn into her stomach and a mission to take the drugs out of the country.  This whole set up is pretty scary and Besson has built a satisfying base upon which to play out the rest of the movie.

Lucy, instead of being taken to the airport so she can transport the drugs, is (for some reason) chained to a wall in a back room of a nasty restaurant.  She gets the crap kicked out of her and has the bag of drugs inside her ruptured in the process.  As the drugs cascade through her system, she undergoes a radical transformation.  Besson suspends gravity throughout the scene to drive home how foreign this radical evolution is.

When Lucy awakens, she has already begun using more of her brain than any human in history.  The effect of this is to remove her, slowly, from her humanity.  This causes Johansson however, to drop back into nearly mute, monotone, badass-ery mode that she has played before.  Her distant, robotic, fearless heroine just looks bored.  And her mission - to retrieve the other packages of drugs sewn into the other mules, so she can use all the drugs before she dies - is less than inspiring.  Morgan Freeman pops up, looking really old, as a neural scientist with theories about brain capacity utilization and the impact a jump could have on human beings.  Lucy connects with him and, while a French police force ineptly tries to "cover her" from a Taiwanese mob of trained killers armed with machine guns and rocket launchers, she explains the mysteries of the universe.  Oh, she also becomes a black sludge which can eat computers while building advanced ones to store all of her incredible knowledge.  And she can teleport.  And time travel.  And explore the birth of man and the dawn of time and the reaches of the universe.  
 

So.....yeah.....

Besson had me going.  I was keeping up as Lucy began her mission and her increased brain power gave her a lack of fear, freedom from pain, and the ability to manipulate her body.  I was even, somehow, OK with her having control over magnetic and radio waves, and other humans' bodies.  This seemed a strong set up for a director who has sporadically shown he can navigate a pretty decent action scene.  This should have provided Lucy with a "certain set of skills" that we could watch her unleash on various sleezebags for the next 90 minutes.  Instead, he lost me around the time she freaks out on a plane and becomes a loosely connected pile of dust/ash/particles that blows away.  Apparently, accessing more of your mind means that your entire physical being just disintegrates.  So, you know, there's a downside to consider. 

The rest of the movie is just her working to get in front of Morgan Freeman and some colleagues so that she can teach them.  And then grow into/hatch a supercomputer.  Which grows a USB drive with stars on it.  And then vanish into time and space.  To add insult to this serious injury, there is a lack of action in this action movie.  It's like a whole movie about a fantastic Ferrari which never gets driven.  This movie is premise and no pay off.  The last 15 minutes are like outtakes from The Cosmos (a show you should have watched, by the way).

What worked:

• The first 30 minutes are pretty cool.  Terrifying situation, good acting from Johansson.
• The Taiwanese villain, played by Choi Min-Sik, is creepy and affecting.  
• A few cool scenes of Lucy using her powers.  Although the moment she shoots a patient on an operating table so that she can borrow the surgeons was the highpoint of the movie for me.  

What didn't:

• The last 30 minutes.  While there is ostensibly action taking place around her, it is a total let down to keep Lucy locked away in a class room.
• Her growing into a black, Venom-like glob eating and then pooping out computers.
• Lucy time traveling back to the dawn of man to interact with "Lucy" the first human female.  Oh, then almost getting eaten by a dinosaur.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Brass Tacks:  

• For a movie about a character who uses 100% of her brain's capacity, it was disappointing how much of our own we needed to use to enjoy it.  Besson sets up a cool genre premise and loses his mojo in the middle of the film.  Grade: C

REVIEW: Godzilla (2014)

By Danny Sarnowski

So...I have seen worse movies than Gareth Edwards's Godzilla.  I have seen movies that are much worse.  Heck, I have seen worse Godzilla movies.

But not many.

Let me also say, right up front, that I do not believe that the world needed another Godzilla movie.  We simply did not need one.  I think anything important that could have been said through a Godzilla movie has been said before.  This movie has been re-booted and re-made and had so many sequels that it has been come the definition of generic.  The character's ubiquity has robbed him of any significance.  He has been reduced to a computer-generated image.  Nothing more.  There is a scene from Friends where Tom Lovitz says the word "tartlet" so often that it loses all meaning.  That is what has happened to Godzilla.  He has become a tartlet.

When Toho Co. LTD debuted Godzilla 60 years ago, just ten short years after the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it must have been elementally scary.  The vision of a city-destroying force created by nuclear power and raging against their country must have terrified Japanese movie goers.  Then the character was co-opted by Hollywood, stripped of that power, and packaged as a movie monster like something from the video game Rampage.

I had hoped that Gareth Edwards and his team had a good reason for doing this movie.  That they would be putting a fresh spin on it.  I had hoped that the cast, headlined by Bryan Cranston (fresh from Breaking Bad glory) would give us great performances to ground the movie.  I had hoped that the monster fight scenes would improve upon the bar set by Pacific Rim last summer.  Ultimately, I simply hoped that this movie would be more than a CGI mess of falling buildings.  These hopes were raised by the incredibly good trailer (check it out HERE).  

Well, you can hope in one hand....

This movie is a disappointment from the get go.  There are flashes of originality and genuinely frightening images, but they are few and far between.  The movie attempts to be earnest and moody and gritty but just plays as boring and obtuse.  By the time we get to see monsters destroying cities, we are already checking our watches wondering when it will be over.

All the standard cliche tropes are there:

• Characters pensively staring out of windows whilst caressing antique pocket watches?  Check.
• Characters who say things like "It's not the end of the world," "I'll be right back," or "let's make this quick" right before something awful is about to happen?  You bet.  (Note: "something awful" does not necessarily mean "something exciting.")
• The U.S. military offering up ideas that have no hope of solving the problem and are almost guaranteed to cause more harm and kill more innocents?  Yup.
• Talented actors slumming it, hoping to fill the void of a poorly-written script with pure gravitas?  Oh boy, yes.
• Fresh-faced new stars launching their careers and establishing their resumes with a blockbuster under their belts?  Ummmm.....I guess so?

Unfortunately, all of the standard script and story limitations are there as well.  Every beat of the script is obvious.  Every character is skin-deep and meant to move the story along (only Cranston makes his paper-thin character interesting).  Every step along the way is meant to drive us closer to monster mayhem.  The filmmakers, in an effort to tease out Jaws-like suspense hold back on any monsters for almost half of the movie and they don't reveal Godzilla himself until well past the 60% mark.  This effort fails and only slows down the fist half of the movie.  

Plot holes are, I suppose, besides the point with a movie like this.  But they sting just the same.  Why kill off a marquee character so early?  Why set any scene with monsters at night?  Or in the rain?  Or in fog?  Or surrounded by smoke?  Are the filmmakers ashamed of the monsters?  They should be.  Why use TV news broadcasts as such a crutch to move the story forward?  Why rely on every single disaster movie cliche ever but try to make yours slightly more highbrow (and fail)?

Why have a cast of about four characters who must be in every scene?  For example, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the star of the movie.  Oh, you don't know who that is?  Tell me about it.  You didn't see him in the trailer linked above?  I know.  Well, actually you did.  He is in exactly TWO shots in that trailer.  Anyway, he is the star, not Bryan Cranston.  So, after arriving home in San Francisco from active military duty he heads to Tokyo (where he meets a monster), makes a stop in Hawaii (again, monster), travels to Nevada (to fight a monster), before returning home to San Francisco for the big monster showdown.  Why make this one character do all of that?  It makes every single transition ridiculous.  (How long does it take to fly from San Francisco to Tokyo? I checked.  The average is about 15 hours.)  Why give his character a child?  The kid does nothing in the story.  He adds nothing to the story.  I don't recall if he has any lines other than "Daddy, will you be here in the morning?" Spoiler alert: he isn't.  Also, if you do the age math on Taylor-Johnson's character and try to determine how old he must have been when his son was born it is seriously icky.  Really.  Not good at all.

Stupid spoiler alert - The filmmakers do make two genuinely new, unexpected, and unappreciated changes with the story.  First, they kill off Bryan Cranston before Godzilla even hits the screen.  And they make Godzilla the HERO OF THE MOVIE.  That's right.  He's not the villain.  The villains are a pair of giant radiation-eating M.U.T.O.s (don't ask) intent on breeding a colony of radiation-eating monsters.  Godzilla is an ancient alpha predator who slumbers within the earth only awakening to "restore balance to nature" by killing these giant monsters.  Then he goes back to sleep.

Seriously.

What works:

• There are a few genuinely creepy visuals.
• An image of a pilot silently parachuting through a forest of skyscrapers and fog before his plane smashes into a building.
• Bryan Cranston.

What doesn't work:

• The plot.
• The monsters, or M.U.T.O.s, or whatever you want to call them.  They look horrible.  Like I drew them.
• The TV news headline "King of the monsters: savior of our city?"  I could actually feel the audience all growing dumber for having read it.
• The idea of this movie as a franchise starter.  Godzilla will just wake up, beat the monsters, and head back to bed each time.

Brass tacks:

As a moody, highbrow monster epic: D-

As a scary, blockbuster summer monster movie: D+

Special note: Mike and I will be using this movie and the 1998 Godzilla film by Roland Emmerich to discuss re-boots, re-makes, and sequels on an upcoming episode of The Spoiler Alert Podcast.  Feel free to leave any suggestions, comments, or questions in the comments section of this post.

What do you mean I die before the monster arrives?!?  What am I doing here?  Why did you build the whole trailer around me?!???

REVIEW: Happy Christmas

Reviewed by Mike Palovcsik

If your idea of a happy Christmas centers around Jimmy Stewart or Chevy Chase, you're in for disappointment. If your idea of a good time is an indie film with humorous dialogue, a cast at the top of their game, a heartwarming story, and a born-to-act infant who knocks his feature-film debut out of the park, you're in for a real treat! My sister and I were lucky to get standby seats at a sold-out screening of this chestnut at the Wisconsin Film Festival, on a very Un-Christmas-y spring day.

Premiering at Sundance earlier this year, Happy Christmas is a barely-feature-length narrative that tells the tale of an average young family in present day Chicago as the New Year approaches. Jenny (Anna Kendrick, who I have not been a big fan of in the past, but has never been better than here) arrives in Chicago raw after a painful breakup. She is planning to be in the Midwest for an extended stay with her brother, Jeff (filmmaker Joe Swanberg, the best of the talented cast) and his family. She has good intentions, but is highly immature. She parties too hard with her friend Carson (Lena Dunham), and unintentionally drives a rift between her brother and his wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey). In a series of hilariously touching scenes, Jenny attempts to repair the damage she has caused by mentoring Kelly on the nuances of writing an explicit adult novel as a means for Kelly to make some money while "working up" to a real novel.

What this movie lacks in Christmas tree girth, it makes up for with quality improvised free-form dialogue.

If you are not familiar with Swanberg’s body of work, this one is a great primer. Using ad-libbed script direction -- deployed with less success in his 2013 romantic comedy ‘Drinking Buddies’-- he lets the audience “peek in” on a week in the life of his characters: their banal day-to-day first-world problems, authentic marital conflicts, and brother/sister arguments.

[Check out our Spoiler Alert Podcast review of 'Drinking Buddies' here]

Despite using a similar stylistic feel to that film ('Drinking Buddies' had a climax where the lead character cut his hand on a nail; In 'Happy Christmas' it was burning a pizza) and utilizing some of the same cast and crew, this time around most of the characters are less self-involved, more sympathetic, and generally more real.

Swanberg with real-life son, who has lost some pudge since the filming...probably in preparation for another role

What worked:

• Swanberg shot this movie on 16mm film, so that in the audience I actually felt like I was watching authentic grainy home videos that are so often captured at the holidays.
• The director was a fantastic actor, who also wrote, produced, and edited the movie. He’s done some cameos a la Hitchcock in previous films, but truly owned his scenes here.
• Using his actual home as the primary set for the film, and his actual baby boy as the child star of the show kept a very authentic vibe intact (and probably saved a bunch of cash).

What didn't work:

• The aforementioned adult novel brainstorming was hilarious in the feature; It did not warrant an ultra-extended treatment in the closing credits.
• I love Christmas movies. For two months at the end of every year, they are all I watch. So, the Christmas morning scene could have been a little "Holly Jollier" for my taste.
• The indie rock soundtrack, preferred by Swanberg in other films as well, could have at least been spiced up with some holiday standard covers for this one.

Brass tacks:

The character stories keep you interested longer than some other "outlined script" movies shot by Swanberg, and it was easy for the the viewer to draw parallels to their own friends and family. If you have the opportunity to see this movie, do so.

B

RANT: So....How strange is this!?

By Danny Sarnowski

The method for selecting films for The Spoiler Alert Podcast has been...less than scientific.  Random would be a fair word.  To be sure, we haven't resorted to throwing darts or drawing titles randomly from imdb.com (yet).  We have bounced around a bit with the result being an eclectic assortment of movies.  There's something in there for everyone.  This week, however, some of the picks have felt....prescient.

This week we posted our episode featuring My Fair Lady.  As a reminder, we chose this movie because we have committed to watching all of the Best Picture Oscar winners and this was the randomly-chosen pick that came up next.  The movie itself is nearly 50 years old.  Neither of us have ever seen it.  While My Fair Lady has been a beloved film for decades, it has not been circulating in the public consciousness.  Or has it?  

According to an article on playbill.com (read it here), there was to be a new film version produced.  It was written by Emma Thompson and was to star Carey Mulligan in the Audrey Hepburn role.  There is, however, a Broadway revival coming soon from Clive Davis.  Strange how I haven't seen or heard anything about this movie in decades and the week we post the episode - Bam!

Can you imagine Carey Mulligan under this huge hat?  Me neither.  

If that doesn't give you goosebumps, try this.  The prior week, for Episode 014, we discussed the movie Bernie.  This independent black comedy from 2011 starred Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey and told the true-life story of admitted killer Bernie Tiede.  It was announced today that the real Bernie Tiede has been released from prison.  

So a story that resulted in a small, indie film three years ago was updated today.  One week after we chose to discuss the movie on our podcast.  It just seems like a lot of crazy coincidences.  Speaking of crazy, one of the stipulations of Bernie's parole is that he must go and live in director Richard Linklater's garage apartment.  How odd is that?!  What did Linklater do to deserve this odd form of punishment?

Anyway, doesn't this make you wonder a little bit about what movies we'll choose next?

Gaze upon the mustache of an admitted killer.

REVIEW: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

By Danny Sarnowski

So..............I don't get it.  Perhaps I am honestly just too old or something.  I do not understand why, in an era of movies where 20% of the films are based upon comic books, and an era where a film studio is willing to re-boot a franchise less than five years after the last title in the series, the Spider-Man movies keep getting worse.  Now, before you say anything, I agree - Spider-Man 3 was truly the worst of the bunch (it being the Batman & Robin of the Spider-Man series).  That film, which killed the first set of filmmakers' ability to continue the franchise was horrific.  But please trust me, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is almost as bad.  Let's call it the Batman Forever of the franchise.

Make no bones about it - this movie was designed to get your money.  The marketing has been non-stop and the licensing efforts are dialed up to eleven.  This thing was built to sell toys, video games, and Happy Meals.  What it wasn't designed to do is entertain moviegoers.  

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 follows its predecessor and blithely disregards the somber note that movie ended on within the first moments.  This movie is for kids, get it?!  Spider-Man says silly jokes as he bumps around defeating the bad guys!  And he's almost late to graduate high school because he was stopping a theft of plutonium!  Oy.  It doesn't get much better from there.  We are also dropped back into the relationship between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy.  The one he swore to her dying father that he would end (remember that?  Me neither).  This back and forth, off and on, goes on and on and on and on....It does not get any cuter. 

Jamie Foxx, playing the Jim-Carrey-as-The-Riddler role here, hams it up in (what I think was meant to be) a comedic portrayal.  His Max Dillon is so lonely and pathetic that he has an imaginary Spider-friend.  He is so snivelingly loser-ish that when he asks for basic safety support at work he is told "too bad."  His colleagues think so little of him they will honestly not provide bare bones help to make sure he does not die in the office.  That, my friends, is feedback.  Max should pay attention.  Instead, being the brilliant electrical engineer that he is (and we know he is brilliant because he walks the streets of New York burdened by rolled up blue prints and tells anyone who will sit still for a minute that HE designed the new power plant in town) he decides to stand on a wobbly railing, grab a bunch of sparking raw wires, whilst DANGLING OVER A GIANT VAT OF ELECTRIC EELS.  You heard me.

Obviously the tragic accident which inevitably follows renders Max a super villain who immediately decides that Spider-Man is a sworn enemy.  The movie adds Harry Osborn, the gloomy scion of the brilliant yet wicked Norman Osborn.  Dane DeHaan plays even the healthy Harry like a troll.  He slithers and slinks around penthouses and boardrooms like an anemic Grinch who is sad because he has too much money.  His billionaire playboy haircut also makes him look like Gary Oldman from The Fifth Element. I bet the chicks go wild for it.  Later, of course, he will go insane, turn all scaly and gross, declare Spider-Man a sworn enemy, and partner with Electro.  Did I mention that Jamie Foxx gives himself a super villain name along the way?  No?  Huh.  He also guesses Spider-Man's secret identity in about three seconds.  

Now, this may all sound like a lot of comic book exposition and action-action-action.  You may be asking yourself "wait, where is all the high school drama and young love?"  Don't worry.  About 60% of this movie is dedicated to ridiculous, vapid, overly-dramatic relationships.  None of it rings true; all of it is silly.  Andrew Garfield, who plays Spider-Man and Peter Parker, must love these scenes.  I think he would prefer being in a straight up romantic drama where he can stare pensively, or cry, or listen to dramatic music in his room.  Or bicker with his Aunt May about who will do the laundry.  

Another 25% of the movie is dedicated to a new and unnecessary back story where we learn what happened to Peter's dead parents.  Were any of you wondering what happened to them?  Me neither.  These excess plot "twists" do not enrich the story.  They do, however, lay the ground work for an over-elaborate "mythology."  (Reviewer's note: I have not read enough Spider-Man comics in my life to know if this is something from the books or an invention of the several credited screenwriters.  Either way, it is just bad writing.)  Again, Garfield eats this up.  The last movie he spent reeling from his Uncle Ben's death (he seems to barely remember him here).  This time he is all-consumed about his parents (p.s. his father apparently hides subway tokens in a concealed compartment inside a graphing calculator - why?!????).  The other 15% is devoted to CGI web-slinging and mild action sequences.  Most of those involve Spider-Man swinging around streaks of lightning or pure (blue) electricity. 

Emma Stone, whom I find charming and extremely funny, gives it her best shot in a stupidly written role.  She is funny and sweet and also, I guess, a genius.  She is studying "molecular medicine" and, despite having JUST graduated from high school, works in a cubicle at Oscorp. She is close to moving to England to attend Oxford on a scholarship.  She also has reviewed the plans for the new power plant in town and - just in case - knows how to re-boot the system.  You know, in case that ever comes up.

This scene will just hurt your feelings.  This is what the screenwriters think of you.

Marc Webb, who directed the previous film and who has committed to the next one, spends much of his time playing with trick shots, slow-motion, and granting his performers unwarranted amounts of improvisational comedy (none of it lands).  He also works to sprinkle "Easter eggs" throughout which will plant the seeds not only for future films but for the already greenlit spin offs focusing on the "Sinister Six" and Venom characters.  Sony only has the film rights to the Spider-Man characters.  Legally they can just keep making them over and over.  

Trivia point - Since Sony owns half of the rights to the James Bond movie Thunderball, which they already re-made once as Never Say Never Again, there was a plan in the late 1990s for them to remake it again.  They were planning an entire competing James Bond franchise which could ONLY re-make Thunderball over and over.  This honestly almost happened.  So...that is Sony.

Finally, Hans Zimmer, the Oscar-winning composer responsible for Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and dozens of other movies, has truly lost his mind.  He collaborates with Pharrell Williams and Johnny Marr to produce what has to be one of the weirdest and worst scores in a LONG time.  

Also, Paul Giamatti embarrasses himself.  

What worked:

• There is literally one funny moment that Emma Stone must have improvised.  I laughed a little bit.

What didn't work:

• Everything else.  
• Any scene in which "real New Yorkers" demonstrate their support of, and love for, "'Ol Web Head."
• Most of the time when two or more characters say something to one another.  Or when they pensively pace around rooms. Or throw stuff. Or solve mysteries.  

Brass tacks:

This movie is one I will never forget.  And for that I will always be regretful.

As an action-adventure film designed to thrill and delight the audience: D-

REVIEW: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

By Danny Sarnowski

Captain America: The Winter Soldier wants to be The Parallax View meets Three Days of the Condor meets a Marvel superhero film.  It does not achieve that feat, but it drives the superhero movie to new and exciting places.  The pace is more deliberate, the characters are given actual things to say, and it steps up the action thrillingly.  

The story finds Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, still finding his footing in the twenty first century.  He has survived the battle of New York in The Avengers and found a calling working for S.H.I.E.L.D.  While he does not approve of Director Fury's tactics, he believes he is doing good work - at least as the story opens.  A daring strike in the mid-day in Washington D.C. kicks off an adventure that leaves Cap wondering who he can trust and where his loyalties reside.

New characters are introduced, including Alexander Pierce the head of the World Security Council played by cinematic legend Robert Redford and Sam Wilson (a.k.a. Falcon) played by Anthony Mackie.  Much will be made about Redford's casting and the fact that the famously liberal actor/director/filmmaker/activist is playing against type as a shadowy, security-focused, Republican government official.  More should be made of the fact that he commits to the role as seriously as his other work.  Rather than chew the scenery like Anthony Hopkins or ham it up like Stellan Skarsgard in Thor, Redford treats the material with more respect.  And the respect is reciprocated.  Directors Anthony and Joe Russo, along with writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, give him material to work with.  Mackie is a welcome addition to the Marvel team and his easy rapport with Chris Evans makes him a believable sidekick for Cap.

The respect shown to Redford is also given to Samuel L. Jackson, who after six Marvel movies is finally given something interesting to say.  He isn't simply onscreen to be a "bad ass" and drive story exposition.  He also sits center stage at a harrowing action sequence and holds his own.  Scarlett Johansson has a few scenes which also allow her to make her character less of a caricature.  We also see her Black Widow flex a few of her "spy muscles" as opposed to just fighting the whole time.  Chris Evans captures the humility, warmth, and righteousness of Captain America and grounds him in ways I never thought possible while suffering through his performance as Johnny Storm in the dreadful Fanstastic Four movies.  

To all the haters who saw The Avengers and said "Captain America isn't really a superhero" I invite you to view Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  The creative team behind this picture have amped Steve up.  He's fast - really fast.  He jumps out of planes without a parachute, takes out boatloads of terrorists with his bare hands, and literally runs through walls.  It is clear from this outing that Captain America has fully thawed out and is ready for action.

The action in Captain America: The First Avenger was fairly weak.  Many of the battle scenes were told in montage or glossed over so we never got the satisfaction of watching Captain America really do much.  This movie allows the action to be much more visceral, urgent, and cruel.  While the movie doesn't have the intellectual weight of the 1970's political thrillers it emulates, it does portray the story more maturely.  The violence in this movie is more severe, the fight sequences brutal.  Hand-to-hand fighting with knives, close-in gun battles, and heavy artillery are brought to the table.  The action is head and shoulders above the other Marvel movies until late in the film when the inevitable, CGI-choked, death-from-above-chaos fills the movie's final act.  If only the Russos had trusted us to stay interested and to care about the outcome of the story without reverting to the cliches so typically found in superhero blockbusters.  

What worked:

• The tone of the film is darker, tighter, and a little smarter.
• The script allows for more dialogue and better acting from the capable cast.
• The humor, while spare, hits home.
• The fight scenes and general level of action.

What didn't work:

• The conspiracy is thin and everyone over the age of 11 will see the "twists" coming from a mile off.  Probably before you even hit the theater.
• A bit of mid-movie exposition featuring Toby Jones awkwardly reminds you that you are watching a comic book movie and dumbs things down a tad.
• The obligatory sensory-overload CGI battle that ends the film.  It just wasn't necessary.
• The violence may actually be a bit too much, especially for younger viewers.  I would stick pretty close to the PG-13 rating here.

Brass Tacks:

This is the Captain America movie that fans were looking for, though we needed The First Avenger to set up the character and ground him in his "man out of time" existence.  This film is a welcome step in the right direction for the Marvel movies.

As a paranoid, trust-no-one, 1970s political thriller: C+

As a more intelligent and fun superhero movie: A-