The Haute Critique on Spout

Double Feature – Mall Cop Edition

hautecritique — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:01:06 GMT

Hollywood likes to work in pairs. Baz Luhrman had to cancel his Alexander the Great movie because Oliver Stone beat him to production. A couple of years ago there were two Truman Capote biopics. I’m sure if your search your subconscious, you’ll remember skads more.

We thought it would be fun to roll the clock back to Q1 of 2009 and watch such a pair. Two movies focusing on mall security guards (or officers?). Paul Blart: Mall Cop and the Seth Rogen starring Observe and Report.

On the surface, these two movies appear to be completely different… and they are. One starring a network prime-time sitcom star, the other an Apatow first-teamer. The first would seem to be cotton candy, and the second… special brownies. We, of course, start with the brownies.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Observe and report is listed as a comedy. It is funny, but not funny ‘ha, ha’. It really isn’t funny ‘huh?’ either. The more I think about it, the less sure I am that it’s funny at all. in fact, I’m starting to wonder if that’s the point. Let me think about ‘the point’ more and get back to you…

Click here to view the embedded video.

On to Paul Blart, a kinder gentler film. Paul is a socially awkward man with an intellect much younger than his years. He takes his responsibilities seriously, and even his co-workers give him flak for that. He is still aspiring to be a real gun-toting man of the badge, but can’t quite hack the physical requirements. Based on the movie’s format and ironic soundtrack, viewers can be certain that he will overcome and emerge heroic. I won’t say that doesn’t happen, but I’m not one for spoilers. What does happen are instances of awkward delusions, social interactions that can only be explained with the help of an abnormal psych book and slapstick/fat jokes. Run through the standard filters, it teeters between hokey and jokey. Thumbs up or thumbs down depends on your mood, and possibly your bud. With a refresher halfway, through, it was more than bearable, but not something I’ll be repeating.

What was more interesting about these two films was not their differences, but their similarities. Both cops are single, living with his mom, no dad, trying (and failing) to get a real law enforcement job, infatuated with a girl in the mall, overly serious about his job and unlucky in love. The similarities go way beyond that. From the opening credits all the way to the slogan painted on Paul Blart’s mall security bunker wall, part of Paul’s mission is to… wait for it…. ‘Observe and Report’. It really seems like both teams used the same research. And that is where things get Haute.

Paul Blart is a nice guy. Much nicer than Seth Rogen’s Ronnie Barnhardt. But they have so many similarities, how are these films so different? One so light and one so dark. As I noodled on my cotton candy, the movies flipped. I started to feel that maybe Blart was more cruel than O&R. In O&R, the personal and psychological struggles are laid out in a ludicrous, but almost relatable way. I don’t see myself in Barnhardt, not in a long shot. I do, however, see someone. Blart is laid out as the tinseltown polished clown version. Set side by side, you feel that everyone is laughing at the disenfranchised and marginalized, only no one is laughing in O&R. “Oh my GOD. Look at the stupid Mall Cop. He is SO funny.” O&R certainly leads you down tried and true ‘Ha ha… he’s so pathetic’ paths, but just before the punch line, they drop the pedal to the floor and go well past the border. In at least one case (and maybe more than once) this reveals the director’s poor judgement. Other times, the shock can cut right to the core. The more I think of it, maybe the fact that Observe and Report is marketed as a comedy, but is not funny, hints at a heart. I find that hint intriguing. I am still mulling my true feelings, but I enjoy that part of the journey. Many out there have better uses for there free time than rehashing movies in their mind. Hopefully, you know what camp you are in. If you have the hankering for a disturbingly unfunny, but tightly wound movie, roll the fattest one you got and Observe and Report. If you would rather laugh at the misfortunes of a quasi-charming, but sad mall cop, I won’t steer you away from Paul Blart, but you might as well wait until they air it on TBS this Christmas.

Double Feature – The Rugged Individuals

Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

G.I. Joe – Half a Battle

hautecritique — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 07:01:59 GMT

Studios regularly release movies without screening them for critics. Usually these are in the ‘B’ movie category, not their Mega-Hits. When it is a blockbuster, no screening pretty much always means it is a huge steaming pile. This time, however, Hasbro had an explanation. It seems they blame the fact that Transformers was a full load delivered in an adult diaper on the critics. Just to show the critics who’s boss, no advance screenings for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

So, I pack up and head to the multiplex on a Friday morning. A heart full of dread for the horror about to be photon torpedoed into my retina. And honestly, I found it isn’t nearly that bad. But time is a-wastin’, so lets get straight into exactly how bad it is…. That’s what you’re here for, after all.

Transformers may have been more than met the eye, but G.I. Joe was the Grande Dame of pithy sayings. For the first bit of the movie, it would seem that knowing them was half the screenplay… er, battle. They Kung-Fu grip the Government Issued cliches like real American heroes. Go Joe?!

I remember the cartoons through a haze, but a few nuggets stuck. There was the cast of characters that came across like rejects from The Village People. Gung Ho, Roadblock and Rock n’ Roll. Baby blue camo, Epicurean machine gunner and dude with bushy bushy blonde facial hair. The females. Lady Jaye, a little older. Scarlet, the sharp, girl next door type (one friend rubbed all the color off her action figure boobs). And The Baroness, a bit like Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle. And last, but not least, Snake Eyes. When little boys gathered to play ‘G.I. Joe’, Snake Eyes was the only Joe everyone wanted to be. All others were second best.

Enough memory lane. It’s time for Holly-fuckin’-wood. It’s time to bring the Boom-Boom! And they do. Not nearly to the magnitude of Transformers: ROFL, but once we leave Three Musketeers era France, destruction happens. Not enough to satiate my inner teenage ‘blow shit up’ lust, but enough to let me know it still exists. This restraint seems odd, however, considering how many times I cringed away from onscreen gruesomeness. That incoherence was a theme repeated throughout the film. Bad guys brutally lay waste to every nameless Joe in sight. Disemboweling them without any concern. With the same blade in front of a named character, it becomes the three stooges (and not in a funny way). A poke and a tickle, then move along.

I don’t want to get fanboy on this whole thing, but I will say, that the whole movie would have been much better if Duke had been decapitated by a helicopter in his first scene. His headless torso would have performed the part nearly as well and would have been much less annoying. In fact, the good guys were mostly forgettable. Other than Marlon Wayans, it was a full crew with very little spark. Snake Eyes was very effective and poised, but more like an olympic gymnast, focusing on not being deducted tenths of points by the judges. Turn the page and his nemesis, Storm Shadow, is completely badass. If I were suddenly 8 years old, I would gladly choose Storm Shadow over Snake Eyes based on this movie. And not just him, The Baroness gets a serious upgrade too. It is almost enough to make me understand the allure of skin tight leather. At least for the first 3/4 of the movie she is Femme Fatale. And she whoops ass too! Head to head, she slaps Scarlet around like they forgot the safe word. Without fancy technology, The Baroness surely would have had a new sub. When The Baroness and Storm Shadow combine, the glee of evil and murder swells. I found myself praying that these two would pair up and put all of those bitches (i.e. pretty much every other person in the film) in their place.

Of course that doesn’t happen. The movie is never able to turn the dial past six or seven (except with gross out visuals that will be giving tikes nightmares for years to come). Even with the herbal aides, it just can’t break through to the other side. While it is bad, it isn’t mind blowingly craptacular like Transformers: ROFL, If your goal is to see a mediocre action movie, G.I. Joe will fit the bill, but if you want a transcendentally terrible experience, you still need to go for the gold standard and hit Transformers: ROFL.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Drag Me to Hell

hautecritique — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:01:06 GMT

Drag Me To Hell was AWESOME.

It was the Three Stooges meeting the Excorcist on a train through Awesometown.

Sam Raimi has proven with Drag Me To Hell that he could direct Evil Dead 4 without it sucking.

Hold on. Let me start at the beginning.

Earlier in the day, my ladyfriend and I decided to go see Drag Me To Hell. I had been under the impression that DMtH would be a straight horror movie. I have a passing familiarity with Sam Raimi’s previous “horror” movies, but not until opening day of DMtH did I see it described as “slapstick horror”, and when I did see this description I started to get excited. I love… no, *love*… wait, LOVE the Evil Dead movies. I like horror movies well enough for the most part, but the comedy/action/horror of San Raimi’s older films tickles me deeply. I was a huge Three Stooges fan as a kid and Raimi manages to recreate that sort of mood mixed with his own gory, mystery goo-splattered flavor packet, and a dash of Dobbsian Discordianism. Overall, Sam Raimi is one of my favorite directors, I have just now decided.

So, after a quick hufflepuff of the ol’ quiddich pitch, we moseyed up, grabbed our tix from the automated kiosk and made for the gloom of the theater. What followed was not mind expansion, or sensory satisfaction, but total hilarity. As things get rolling, It seems like a regular movie, and kind of a cheesy one. The characters wear their motivations on their sleeves. It’s like a cartoon really. The characters don’t have much depth, but they couldn’t be allowed any depth. Could you enjoy a person’s comedic torture if you had any deep insights into their character? And they are tortured most exquisitely. I don’t mean the Eli Roth type of torture porn that has infected the horror genre of late. I mean old fashioned cartoonish, slapstick violence It’s almost Zennish in it’s purity.

Alison Lohman is the plucky heroine. Easy to root for at first, but becoming easy to leave to her comeuppance by the end. Justin Long overcame the stigma of his Mac ads. Ted Raimi popped up appropriately.

The only bad thing about Drag Me to Hell was that it wasn’t Evil Dead 4. Deep down in my fanboy heart, I kept hoping that in a particularly dire and hopeless moment a chainsaw would come tearing throught the fabric of reality and that Bruce Campbell’s Ash would step out of the portal, utter a pithy line and start stomping demon-ass. Alas, Bruce Campbell was not to be had. What was to be had was a movie with the same spirit. I enjoyed it completely.

Drag Me to Hell on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127180/

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Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Funny People

hautecritique — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:01:41 GMT

So I’m watching a movie where Adam Sandler is playing a character who is obviously designed to closely resemble Adam Sandler (in fact, much real young Adam Sandler footage is used to backstory the character) *and* I’m at the premiere where the “real” Adam Sandler is in the audience. Oh, if only I had a blunt. Ah, well, onward and upward!

This is a movie about a bunch of comedians of different generations living the life of being a comedian. Three roomates: one is the sudden star of a lame sitcom; another is starting to get gigs at “The” Improv; the third, well, he has a “real” job at the food court. At first glance, this is a form of situational comedy about stand-up comedy and comedians. But that’s really just its cover, a lame-sitcom excuse for them to tell a different story. A completely different story about an aging comedian who (spoiler alert) discovers that he is dying from a rare form of leukemia and has suddenly to come to terms with his mortality and with his failed and dysfunctional life choices; to learn the true meaning of friendship and family and Christmas, and to become a better person. All well and good, but if you stare long enough you get the feeling that this too is really just a hook to keep you distracted while they do their real dirty work.

You see, the psychonaut goes into this film fully armed with the full oeuvre of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and crew. We believe in secret messages. We know that anyone who can make Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall is going to be leaving plenty of breadcrumbs for like minded patrons. So we watch Adam pop corn into his mouth six rows down and settle-in for a bit of nudge nudge, wink wink.

And then Mr. Sandler’s character, absurdly being “talked to sleep” by Mr. Rogen’s character, critiques Seth’s ability to be funny: “Your generation had divorce, I’m sure it was tough, but its a whole different kind of funny when dad is coming after you with a baseball bat,” bing, you are in and the whole thing starts to unravel. Comedy is a weapon. Invented by little kids who needed some way to fight back. And it all goes from there – every facet of life is some kind of battle and every way of living a kind of waging war. And our heroes, in spite of all of their flaws and weaknesses – indeed because of them – are engaged in some kind of extended warfare. Although one has to wonder and decode – where is this battle happening and who is doing the fighting?

This is a story written people born in the sixties who have become pop culture machines. Sandler can crank out hit movies with a signature everyman-dope-with-a-heart-of-gold-and-edge-of-darkness formula. Apatow has responded with a reflection of that kind of success, but with a twist and a slightly more subversive set of ingredients. These guys have all kinds of mojo. And then you have the younger crew. Rogen seems to have been going gangbusters since his partnership with Apatow in Freaks and Geeks and even Jason Schwartzman seems to be plugged into some kind of magic. How did they come to be in this place that they are? When they write a movie about themselves, what do they say?

The younger crew of Rogen, Schwartzman and Jonah Hill is commenting on its generation and sub-cultures. They are lite and trite and just beginning to get a sense of edge. Your roomate fucking the girl that you imagine you might ask out is a minor crisis and the worst thing you can imagine is choosing between a sell-out career and impoverished pseudo-authenticity (importantly, Rogen’s character has assumed a non Jewish name). Pretty par for the course in an Apatow film.

But then you layer in the older crew helmed by Sandler and Leslie Mann. Their painful reality crashes right into the not-yet-having-been-there imaginings of Rogen’s youthful playhouse and fantasies of what life might become. Sandler has achieved superlative success within the boundaries that his comedic weapons allow. He can defend himself but good and can command a world of shiny things and shiny women. He cuts through Rogens life like an exacto knife, simply by fiat hiring Rogen away to become his assistant and instantly immersing him in the life that Rogen imagines to be his ideal. But Sandler’s life tastes like dust and even faced with the crisis of death and a surge of an effort to correct his bad decisions, he still finds himself lost in a game that can’t really be won. To “reclaim” his “one true love” he must break up a family – and even while the flesh is willing it turns out the spirit is too weak for even this churlish act. Turns out that in the end, maybe he didn’t get as far away from Dad’s bat as he thought.

Its a bitter pill and one delivered nicely with the sugar coating perfected by the comedian. And this starts to dig. Remember, the haute critic doesn’t need to be reminded that these are the guys who have been the strongest advocates of the ganja since Bob Marley. If there is some signal to be received from the higher perspective, it should be here. So then you have to start linking the thing in stronger. Think about the total circumstances. Judd Apatow is a self-aware guy. He grew up Jewish in New York, rubbing elbows as a teenager among the rising luminaries of the 80’s stand-up scene. This is a guy who goes on the Daily Show and talks about masterbating to a Jon Stewart interview of neo-con Bill Cristol. He understands the dark art of comedy.

Funny People doesn’t exactly stare into the abyss. But it looks deeply into the eyes of comedy and reminds us that the people who are most capable of making us laugh are often brutally damaged. Folks like Bill Hicks and George Carlin and Richard Pryor were latter-day Frank Booth’s who gave us a shot of laughing-gas before they showed us the severed heads and tortured bodies that they were extracting from the subsurface of every-day culture. At its best, Funny People is an homage to this practice and its practitioners. A subtle reminder that there is something ancient and noble and dangerous in the role of Trickster.

In the end, it reminded me a bit of an essay from F. Scott Fitzgerald quoted by Gilles Deleuze: “The Crack Up“. [Now that, my friends, is a link - if you came back from that in one piece, more power to you.] Sadly, Funny People is not quite to that level. It is not a Divine Comedy (Unless my being in the actual audience with the creators themselves, the very people I am writing about implied something spookily more fundamental in its efforts), but it is a nicely crafted mainstream-with-an-edge postmodern comedy. And, as I’m walking out on the red carpet surrounded by famous faces that I recognize but don’t know, I’m quite certain that the entire experience would have greatly benefitted from some of Saul Silver’s best stuff. Cheers!

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Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

hautecritique — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:01:14 GMT

I’ve seen all the Harry Potter movies, but I am decidedly a muggle. In fact, if you are not a muggle, you have already seen this movie and discussed it ad nauseam with fellow wizards. I don’t mean that pejoratively. My wife, Mrs. Gravity, is pure magic. It was with her and a few other magic folk that I went to the matinee showing of Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.

Six posters lose the plot

For a weekday showing, it was well attended. Once the strains of the familiar score started dancing in the dark, the theater was ready, more like longing, to be entranced. The familiar feeling doesn’t stop with the score. We begin with cryptic warnings of danger and doom from Professor Dumbledore. Harry, feeling cryptic warning fatigue, goes along with Dumbledore compliantly, and without a great deal of concern. And, so does the audience. Yes, there will be danger and the fate of the world will be decided in the balance. We understand all that, now let’s get on with the movie, shall we?

It is a great first pitch. Movie after movie we start with a similar setup. We are older and wiser. So is Harry. This matched emotion between viewer and Harry, however, is quickly betrayed. In the first real scene of magic (Other than warping around Britain and turning a wand into a flashlight), Dumbledore goes Mary Poppins and cleans up someone’s house. Harry is *stunned*. Speechlessly he dodges plates returning to the cupboard. His jaw drops as light bulbs change themselves. Surely not! This can’t be possible!?! What happened to that world weary teenager that was a scarf and some eye-liner away from writing some brutally insipid emo poetry? Suddenly he is acting like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. This kid has fought demons. He has seen death. He owns a flippin’ invisibility cloak, but somehow an automatic garage door opener suddenly looks like the work of some unicorn woodland nymph fairy.

That rant aside, the film looks great. The slick polish and epic transitions really do build an enveloping world. And whether it is Charlie’s Angels or Iron Man, all blockbusters look a little better through the green filter. The fantasy world looks fantastic, which by some mathematical principle distributes a genuine feeling of place. The stone walls are massive and the snow, pure white.

Post production twinkle isn’t the only fairy dust on screen. There is a smorgasbord of puppy love and subdued horn-doggery. The giggling, flirting, crying and pouting are actually really well done; and so many flavors. There are more ‘love’ stories than I can enumerate. Each arc trickles through the first half of the film, like a Plinko chip on The Price is Right, it bounces playfully from peg to peg. Even when the outcome is formulaic, our inner school kid cracks a little smile. Eventually, Dumbledore sighs,”Oh, to be young and feel love’s keen sting.” (or something like that)

All of the Sadie Hawkins romance does squeeze any momentum out of the macho storyline. Remember how the fate of the world hangs in the balance? Yeah, that thing.

The straining balance totters back and forth. Once the doom and gloom really gets marching, the mushy bits are put on pause, never to be revisited. But the oscillating tone truly does damage to the crown jewel of the whole Harry Potter series. Like I said, I never read the books, but, almost everyone I know did. And when Half-Blood Prince came out, one scene was read and re-read through tear filled eyes. Not just eyes of babes, but adults who felt magic had been left behind long ago. In that moment, the Harry Potter spell was its most tangible. On the road to this revelation there are many scenes of graphic, jarring action and juiced up puppy love presented with flair and acumen. Then, when the time comes, the film simply doesn’t include the books climax. Oh, it happens (and if you have the faintest idea of the plot of this volume of the Harry Potter saga, you know what ‘it’ is). The team that made this picture gets to check that box. The deed is done. However, for someone that didn’t read the book, even being lit up with the spirit, primed for empathy, it seemed pedestrian. For my party of magic folk, it was simply heretical. To me, it was boring.

Before we close the book, a couple of parting shout outs. The brightest spot for me was Luna Lovegood. She pops up as if she is a shared hallucination. An ephemeral, and not completely there, sprite. A bubbly lemon-lime refreshment that pops up when the rest of the plot starts getting dry. A bit of lunatic charm that says,”Don’t worry. You’re just as sane as me.”

The other part worth mentioning is the liquid luck. It is a potion that brings success in all endeavors to whomever drinks it, until it wears off. We quickly imagine that the potion transforms the drinker into the toast of the town. The director then hints deeper that the effects include a hyper alertness and a suave macho aggression. Then a funny thing happens. We learn that the potion, in truth, gets you totally baked. That’s right. Drinking liquid luck is like pigging out at Willie Nelson’s brownie bar. And, for some viewers, it is another glimpse of the talent this director has with perfect empathy. Unfortunately, that too wears off.

As we wandered out of the multi-plex, back towards parking spot 9 3/4, the magic folk cooly dismissed the effort. For my part, while liquid luck helped some of the film succeed, it wasn’t enough to catapult it into haute cinema.

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Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

420 Hangover Cures

hautecritique — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:01:37 GMT

It’s mostly a blur. At some point, there was someone’s house. One guy was laying on the floor with a tiny dog licking his face while he giggled uncontrollably. A friend of a friend was picked up and creeping everybody out, and Heather Graham might have called the police on him. That is when I left. Was that my bachelor party or someone else’s? Or, was I watching The Hangover?

In comic book jargon, it is the gutter. That blank space between the sequence of images that allows your brain to fill in the gaps. Your imagination searches through the universe of possibilities based on the visible evidence.

The Hangover translates this to the big screen. The main difference is he Dali-esque absurdity of the evidence. You see, Doug is getting married on Sunday. He and a couple of friends, along with the bride’s brother, head off for Friday night in Vegas (baby). We see them toasting to the night to come, then the film breaks and resumes late Saturday Morning. The writers take a crack at what would be the most perplexing evidence to wake up to, and then let it slowly ravel.

There are times when it is so funny, you can’t keep your eyes open. There are also times where it is so cringe inducing, you can’t keep your eyes open. For all the shut eye, however, there is a fair amount of the movie you will actually watch. And with a little buzz to stretch one chortle to the next, it can be a belly-aching experience.

I can strongly recommend blazing it up for The Hangover, but be warned. While it does have the boundary busting humor of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it is thin on charm. The movie is all about alcohol and date-rape drugs. Where the mushroom Vegas trip in Knocked Up toys with the senses, Jaegermeister leaves the rust on this razor blade.

A special shout out does go to Zach Galifianakis. His turn in this movie is special. Not special like Leonardo DiCaprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Ok, a little like that. He owns the character to a terrifying degree. After this film, I wouldn’t want to meet either of them without their parole officer present. No asylum, insane, political or spiritual, could hold him. Alan (Galifianakis) is excruciatingly cracked and honest. He is a never ending barrage of words and actions that range from brilliantly stupid to utterly revolting. His challenge to decency forces you to define lines that are, otherwise, never pondered. And, at altitude, that feeds the munchies in your subconscious.

If you have worn out your copy of Old School and don’t feel like watching Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up or any other in that litany, give The Hangover a spin. With a bit of herbal seasoning to cover up the tasteless bits, it’s a yummy, if not wholly, just desert.

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Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Up, but not so high

hautecritique — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:01:57 GMT

I can’t say that Up was a bad movie. It was, in many ways, good.

When Chicken Run came out, it was 90%+ on the Tomatometer. Over the years I’ve noticed this across the board. Animated movies can be very high (with a few exceptions).

Waiting for Up, we saw trailers for two horrible looking animated features.

Up, however, didn’t look horrible. The Pixar/Disney film looked great. The styles, shapes, shading and color were fantastic. They’re not done with a realist’s eye, but with true inspiration. And the writing! It was nail on the head. When they needed a sad beat, it was at their finger tips (failed at child-birth, forcing your wife needlessly up a death march of a hill to give her a poignant present, killing her before she reaches to bow on the box, a boy whose douche bag father’s new woman berates him for longing for paternal acceptance). If they needed cute, oh, that came out of thin air. Baby chicks, Seth Rogen in dog form (seriously cute)…

And the Tomatometer shows it. Another 90+ for Disney/Pixar. Most of their pictures are in that range. Places usually reserved for Best Picture Nominees. Are these production companies the greatest motion picture artists of a generation? Since Beauty and the Beast danced across a psychedelic chandelier with Oscar, can they do no wrong?

Beauty and the Beast (1991) – 93%
Aladdin (1992) – 91%
The Lion King (1994) – 92%
Toy Story (1995) – 100%
Antz (1998) – 95%
Toy Story 2 (1999) – 100%
Chicken Run (2000) – 98%
The Incredibles (2004) – 97%
Ratatouille (2007) – 97%
Wall-E (2008) – 97%
Up (2009) – 97%

I think that the format and style lends itself to a low bar. Leaving Up, we re-conjure the part of the film we like and, if we laugh some, check. If we are sad, another check. Shed a tear? Check plus. Laugh with that tear still on our cheek and awards season isn’t that far off. The child in us does a little victory dance.

Up seems to try a little too hard for that tear. Defeats are brutal and relentless, and they are executed with a sadistic exuberance. If this were recreated in live action it would be beyond disturbing. Early on we would watch the main character start as a darling little boy and build a beautifully charming life with the love of his life. After she passes, THE MAN comes and tries to squeeze our ideal grandfather out to make way for some horrible tenement. The plucky hero, courageously stands up for his heart. Picture Ernest Hemingway or the Dos Equis guy in your head. Then, a couple of construction goofballs (think Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez) accidentally knock over his mail box. Suddenly plucky old man goes all Falling Down on the guy. The cartoon naturally softens the violence, but the fall from grace becomes too realistic and breaks the spell.

Plus

Leads to this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of course, he is booked, tried in a court of law, found guilty, and forced out of his home, by Agent Smith from The Matrix, no less.

If it is so obvious that these situations are just previous motion picture archetypes playing twister on a story board somewhere at Pixar or Disney, why such hard charging positive reviews? It has to be that victory dance. The appeal of a dog telling us the reason he fell asleep next to us on the couch was because he loved us. What kid doesn’t love that? One issue with Up is that this well honed vernacular seems too technical. Technical can be beautiful, and often has been for Pixar. Up, however, lacks the pitch perfect balance that turns something technical into what the french call technique.

I can’t wave you off seeing Up. In fact, I can guarantee you will see something you like. And, maybe that is enough. (But, I prefer Miyazaki.)

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Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Pack and Play – The Breakup Breakdown

hautecritique — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:01:22 GMT

This week it is going to get a bit heavy, but sometimes heavy is good. To go along with each track, I wrote a short blurb as a companion. When you are ready, press play and read along. Take a break and wait for the song to finish before moving down to the next entry.

The following are true stories. Only the names, places and facts have been changed.

It starts here:

Can I Sleep In Your Arms by Willie Nelson from Red Headed Stranger

A desert canyon. A circling eagle. Willie Nelson spins up on the ipod. I look down and see a breaking news alert.

A murder suicide, the worst of all breakups.

We can’t know what drove them together. She had dropped out of high school and moved to Nashville, home of country music, four years earlier. She moved there to live with her boyfriend, Kieth. Those four years had come crashing down as their relationship fell apart. It wasn’t long before, working as a waitress at Dave and Buster’s, she was swept away by Steve McNair. Vacations, gifts, and even a car.

So why had she left him so cold and alone? Shooting him in his sleep.

At Least That’s What You Said by Wilco from A Ghost Is Born

That night, Steve McNair had spent out with friends. When he arrived at the condo, she was already there. She had left work early.

When I sat down on the bed next to you, you started to cry.
I said,”Maybe if I leave, you’ll want me to come back home.”
“Or maybe all you mean is,’Leave me alone.’”
At least that’s what you said.

You’re irresistible when you get mad.
Isn’t it sad, I’m immune?
I thought it was cute for you to kiss my purple black eye.
Even though I caught it from you, I still think we’re serious.
At least that’s what you said.

Wilco was having problems. There was another drummer, and rumors that Jeff Tweedy, the lead singer, was having clandestine relations. Effectively cheating on Jay Bennet. Things weren’t exactly all flowers and moonbeams between Jay and Jeff. The resulting fights and finally, the breakup were caught on film in the movie I’m Trying to Break Your Heart.

The opening track to the first album after the split is this plaintive song of a love frazzled and maybe already gone.

It was Las Vegas. Steve was going to meet her there. She had suspected he, 36, was already trading her, 20, in for a younger model. It turns out the Escalade, the one she told her friends Steve bought her for her birthday, she was responsible for the payments. She was still making payments on that KIA that no one wanted to buy off her. Her roommate was moving out, so she had to pick up that too. Now this. The Vegas Vacation never happened. She was stood up, alone in Las Vegas.

The guitars sound like a rusty chainsaw cutting through a wedding dress.

He is leaving his wife and four sons. He said they would get married.

At least that’s what he said.

A few days ago she listed her furniture on Craigslist. She bought a gun in the Dave & Buster’s parking lot. Her mind was falling apart. The swell of joy she felt in her chest turned to deep pain. The kind you try to exhale, but for every breath out, you draw one more back in.

Fucking Boyfriend by The Bird & The Bee from The Bird & The Bee

It wasn’t all grim. The pictures of the pair parasailing, creepy age difference aside, look like a smashing time. She told her friends they were in love. Captured and enraptured.

His house was up for sale.

But, he told no one. She was in the wings ready to step on stage with her man. Months had passed and she was still his side thing, and even that was slipping away. Maybe, if they just talked.

She’s Lost Control by Joy Division from Unknown Pleasures

Curtis’s last live performance was on 2 May 1980 at Birmingham University. He was staying at his parents’ house and attempted to talk his wife into staying with him, to no avail. She left him in her house overnight while she left to do some errands.

In the early hours of 18 May 1980, Curtis hanged himself in the kitchen. At the time of his death, he was attempting to balance his musical ambitions with his marriage, which was foundering in the aftermath of his affair with journalist Annik Honoré. His wife found his body the next morning.

Curtis’s memorial stone is inscribed with “Ian Curtis 18 – 5 – 80, Love Will Tear Us Apart”.

We don’t know what was said. Was it over? Was he leaving? However the talk ended, McNair was asleep on the sofa.

Stay Together by Suede from Stay Together[EP]

In February 1994, Suede released “Stay Together”, which became their highest charting single. Released only as an EP, it captures a crystalline moment for the band. The moment when they were at their peak, even though it was already over.

Following the EP, singer Brett Anderson isolated himself and wrote songs for Suede’s next album. During the making of the album, the songs were stretching longer and longer. The band thought it was the result of guitarist Bernard Butler trying to wind the band members up. The tension built until they were unable to record at the same time, each member recording their parts separately. Eyes turned more and more towards Butler. Staying together was an echo from the past.

She took the gun. Next to his sleeping body, she squeezed the trigger. He didn’t wake. He was dead with the first shot. Then a second. Then a third. Then a fourth.

Sitting by his side, she placed the barrel to her temple and pulled one last time. She had hoped to be framed together on the couch forever. As the bullet sealed the scene, her limp body fell from the couch, leaving her laying across her dead lover’s feet, lifeless.

They wouldn’t be discovered for hours.

Through all of the excess and drama, eventually the song swells. It keeps going. Brett starts rambling, Bernard drives madly forward. then a reconciliation happens. Something resembling peace. But it won’t, no, it can’t last.

While recording the follow-up album, Butler took a break to get married. Days after the wedding, he returned to the studio to find he was not being allowed in.

Months earlier, when they recorded Stay Together, they tried harder and harder, It sliped away. More, more, more. As hard as they try they can’t let go and they know they can’t hold on. Bring it back. Horns. Fanfare. Romance. In the end, just a twisted echo of passion escaping this world.

Stay Together would be the last full recording Anderson and Butler would produce as Suede.

Just two months after Steve McNair taped a youth suicide prevention public service announcement, his lover shot and killed him as he slept and then turned the gun on herself.

It was the last act of a life that was beginning to fall apart.

Pack and Play – Build the Beat

Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

Transformers 2: The Megan Fox Show

hautecritique — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:01:11 GMT

I remember seeing the first trailer for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (T2:ROTFL?) in the theater. It was loud, and that was the best I could say. Everything that followed that first impression accelerated expectations in a death spiral.

Obviously, I wasn’t the only one, Reviewers around the world sharpened their pencils and got jiggy with it, sometimes with magnificence.

”’Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“Few elements of Fallen are completely odious unto themselves, but rolled together it becomes a wave of inescapable proportions – a literal tsunami of shit.” – Rob Humanick, The Projection Booth

“It’s a wad of chaos puked onto the big screen, an arbitrary collection of explosions and machismo posturing and frat boy assholery.” – David Cornelius, eFilmCritic

“If it sounds as though the script was written in serial-novel form during an all-night mescaline bender, well, I have no evidence that it was not.” – Chrostopher Orr, The New Republic

“I know there are still 17 months to go, but I’m thinking Transformers 2 has a shot at the title Worst Movie of the Decade.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

All of this piling on, however, pales in comparison with the masterpiece spawned on io9. Charlie Jane Anders drops the mother lode of a review, defending Transformers as a subtle work of post modern art. The truth is, it is her review that is art. If you haven’t read it, you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing. For now, let me quote a few choice moments.

Imagine that you went back in time to the late 1960s and found Terry Gilliam, fresh from doing his weird low-fi collage/animations for Monty Python. You proceeded to inject Gilliam with so many steroids his penis shrank to the size of a hair follicle, and you smushed a dozen tabs of LSD under his tongue. And then you gave him the GDP of a few sub-Saharan countries. Gilliam might have made a movie not unlike this one.

LaBoeuf projects a pathetic, wall-eyed dorkhood, when he’s not babbling like a tumor removed from Woody Allen’s prostate that somehow achieved sentience.

And he has the hottest girlfriend in the universe, Megan Fox, for whom banality is a huge aphrodisiac. The more pathetic Sam gets, the more Fox’s lips pout and her nipples point, like little Irish setters.

…part of your brain that thinks it would be awesome to see robots with giant dangling testicles, or hot chicks turning into robot tentacle monsters, or “ghetto” robots that talk in inept hip-hop slang and smash each other playfully, or funny Jewish men who talk about their “schmear” and randomly strip to their G-strings. Is that going too far? Then let’s go 100 times farther than that and see what happens!

Transformers: ROTF is so long, you’ll need to wear adult diapers to it. But the movie’s pure celebration of the primal urge, and unfiltered living, will make you rejoice in your adult diapers. You’ll relieve yourself in your seat with a savage joy, your barbaric yawp blending in with the crowd’s screams of excitement.

…after you fall into a brazen despair that the walls of reality have become toxic ice cream of a million flavors, you will gasp with a greater realization: that once the world is reduced, forever, to a kaleidoscope of whirling shapes, you are totally free. Nothing matters, effect precedes cause, fish spawn in mid-air, and you can do whatever you want. Let yourself go in your adult diaper, Michael Bay invites you.

Then there is Megan Fox’s own contribution. She’s dropping quotes to Entertainment Weekly like:

People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting. Once you realize that, it becomes almost fun because you can go, ‘All right, I know that when he calls action I’m either going to be running or screaming, or both.

Then speaking of her stardom as a result of her attitude:

I think if I had been a typical Hollywood actress and I said all the right things and I had been a publicity android, it wouldn’t have escalated to this level.

And then ludicrous stuff:

I don’t understand why people don’t have a f—ing sense of humor. Always assume that I’m being sarcastic. Like when I said those things about High School Musical. I didn’t really mean that it’s about pedophilia. But if you get high and you watch it, that is what that f—ing movie is about!

Q: Did you watch that high?
A: Yes, and it blew my mind.

With the stage set between a phalanx of reviews and this faint glimmer of self awareness from Fox, I strapped on that adult diaper and dove headlong into Transformers 2: Revenge of The Fallen.

Ambition is certainly not lacking from this picture. We start, just like Kubrick’s 2001, with pre-sapien hominids. This grandiose wankery permeates what is otherwise a pretty straight forward Saturday morning caliber story line.

Spoiler Warning (like you really care.)

Many reviewers claim the plot is impenetrable, but it is really quite simple. There is some bad **** Decepticon buried on Earth. He is going to destroy the sun, but there are two things in his way. First is that he can be killed by a ‘Prime’. Second, he needs a widget to do the dirty deed.

Of course, Optimus Prime is the last of the Primes, so they whack him. Then poor little Sam (La Boeuf), goes Beautiful Mind and is the only one in the universe that can find the widget. Oh yeah, and the widget can bring Optimus Prime back to life. A race ensues to decode Sam’s brain. The good guys get the stuff and bring Optimus Prime back to life and…

That’s right. Dot, dot, f’ing dot. Roll credits. The ever escalating boom and gloom, all heading for an anthropomorphic death battle of epic proportions, fizzles. Two and a half hours and they couldn’t even fit it in. Sure, OPrime gives you the hollow platitude at the end, but that’s it.

Maybe the baroque CGI mayhem (and there is enough that this might qualify as an animated feature) isn’t the point. In fact, not a single flickering frame catches the best performance and only reason to see the film, and that is the performance Megan Fox has been giving on the press tour.

The one thing that is mentioned in every review, no matter how snarky or scathing, is the fact that Megan Fox is quite the woodland nymph fairy. After being buried under a pile of men’s magazines rushing to crown her ‘Hottie #1’, she started doing interviews. The attention pointed at her has given her a chance to say some silly things, but also, to craft a persona out of her puttified male interviewers. She hasn’t quite got it all together, but it was enough, combined with my own private reasons, to try and summarize it in this set of clips.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Alone, these comments are fairly banal, but paired with this steaming heap of a movie and the drool drenched pages of every male targeted magazine, it starts to make sense. In some cases, is down right genius.

So, the final verdict is pretty straight forward. Under no circumstances allow yourself to be subjected to this movie sober. Terrible idea. Also, don’t see this movie unless you have a borderline obsession for Megan Fox. Blazing through this fiasco, one thing becomes evident. Her screaming and running, mixed in with her otherwise slutting it up fused her wicked, if sometimes annoying, off screen presence spins a seductive intrigue.

I don’t think this formula is unknown to the studio either. I’m pretty sure their accountants added it up. How many stoners are there? And how many people are obsessed with Megan Fox right now? Shit. This is going to be the biggest movie of all time.

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Originally posted on:The Haute Critique

In Bruges

hautecritique — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:01:28 GMT

In Fucking Bruges!?!

My wife has been there, and that is the only reason I know it is in Belgium. The movie garnered a fist full of ‘Best Screenplay‘ nominations, including an Oscar nod. And it is… both set in Belgium and well written.

We get the gist pretty quick, two Brit mob killers are sent to cool their heels in Bruges after a hit goes awry. One is an older sensible fellow, the other the brash young one who was obviously responsible for whatever the ****-up was. The odd couple pairing could play like every other incarnation… Oh, the sensible one likes culture and the oafish one doesn’t. The traditional formula is quite simple. Circumstances force opposing personalities together. They clash in humorous ways until a challenge appears for both of them. By embracing their differences, they overcome and gain a great appreciation for each other. For ‘In Bruges “>In Bruges‘, you might as well stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, because that isn’t the gig. Somehow, through the cunning use of Collin Farrell’s eyebrows, In Bruges “>In Bruges escapes that cliche. And having conquered the cliche, it embraces Belgium, and what it is famous for. That is, it gets a bit weird. They are filming midgets.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first signal you will be leaving the station is the dog. If you are in the right frame of mind, you’ll know. When the black dog looks up at you, something freaky stirs in your cranium. The director puts little clues there to say,”Ok, my green thumbs in the audience, you aren’t forgotten.” By the time it degenerates into a rehash of suicidal midget karate race wars doing cocaine with strippers you are well settled.

What was a bit laborious in the first half of the movie becomes snappy dialog by Act III. Improbable plot twists limbo just beneath the bar of implausibility. By the end, even those enormous eyebrows become believable.

There are some laughs to be had. Not gut busters, but more like David Mamet style chuckles. The wordy style and plot driven indie fare isn’t for everyone, but if those are in your sites, this film will not disappoint.

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Originally posted on:The Haute Critique