laraemeadows Blog

Under discussion:

The Dark Knight  (2008)

The Dark Knight, the next installment in the Batman movie series, is unsurpassed, unmatched, unadulterated, unimaginable WOW! 

This is where I usually write my summary of the plot but to tell you anything would be to spoil it for you.

The Dark Knight is visual splendor.  Director Christopher Nolan and cinematographer Wally Pfister create such a dark environment without sacrificing the viewability for the audience.  There are amazing visual effects but some of the best visuals were not effects at all.  Nolan didn’t take the easy way out: there are actual exploding buildings and vehicles!  There are numerous chase scenes and none of them lose their edge or become dull.  There are gadgets and gizmos aplenty, who’s-its and what’s-its galore!

There is no way to mince words: The Dark Knight is all about The Joker (Heath Ledger).  It is impossible to take your eyes off of The Joker when he is on the screen because he so captivates the audience through fear and humor which turns the stomach.

Heath Ledger’s performance actually made me tremble and my mouth got dry because I left it open for so long.  I fear Ledger’s performance will be undervalued because of the genre of this film, but make no mistake, his performance is worth an Academy Award.  Even if there was no makeup on Heath Ledger’s face, he would still be the most frightening character I’ve ever seen on film.  Every opportunity to chill the audience, to frighten us with body language or vocal inflection are taken by Ledger.  Ledger has one hundred percent commitment to The Joker.   Ledger’s posture, his demeanor, his humor and his insanity are all obscenely captivating.  It took me a half of an hour to realize it was Heath Ledger at all because Heath Ledger is completely lost to The Joker.  

The makeup team, run by Sue Robb-King, increase the bone chilling effect The Joker leaves on the audience by making the scars and makeup subtle enough they look realistic but redoubtable.  The Joker makeup is especially freaky because it obvious the character would spend time to keep it up but messy enough to know he’s insane just by looking at him.

The Joker isn’t the only character that rocked in The Dark Knight.  Batman (Christian Bale) is faced by several situations where he is presented with two choices that are both right and both wrong.  The moral dilemmas don’t seem contrived or simple, a blessing in the world of super hero movies. 

Other than how he talks when he has the Batman costume on, Bale embodies the essence of Batman.  Christian Bale is strong, sad, and sometimes tragic in The Dark Knight.   You feel such weight on Bale’s shoulders as Batman but even heavier as Bruce Wayne.  It is hard to play two different egos in one character in one film and blend them as masterfully as Bale does.

Writers Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan have earned favorite writers status by their work in The Dark Knight.  All of the characters are dimensional and complex.  The plot is intricate and intriguing.

When a movie wraps the story in a beautiful package and ties it with a perfect acting ribbon, Christopher Nolan’s direction is without flaw!

The Dark Knight is exciting, emotional and evocative but the best word to describe it would be perfection.   See this in the theater, it is worth the money!

Under discussion:

Hancock  (2008)

Hancock is Los Angeles’s drunk, low-flying sometimes hero.  With all the exciting aspects of an action movie, sparkling comedy and a heartfelt plot, Hancock is the most honest super hero movie I’ve ever seen.

John Hancock (Will Smith) flies around Los Angeles, protecting innocent people from criminals and disaster, when he could be bothered or wasn’t too drunk.  Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), public relations specialist with a big heart, is one of the people Hancock has rescued from tragedy.  It was a lucky connection for each, because Hancock had earned a reputation for being a drunk bastard, whose reckless rescues often seem worse than the danger and Ray can’t get his idea to save the world off the ground.  Mary Embrey (Charlize Theron), Ray’s wife, hates, and Aaron Embrey (Jae Head), Ray’s son, adores Hancock.  Ray, Mary, Aaron and Hancock struggle to repair Hancock’s reputation by making him a hero worth admiring.

It is no simple feat to make a character multi-dimensional, but to make him supernatural and believable is no less than applause worthy.  Writers Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan should be credited for creating a character, Hancock, rich in complex emotions, veiled under an alcoholic veneer, which shields him from his sheer loneliness and protects him from the hate spewed on him by the public.  In the beginning of movie, it is hard to like Hancock, even when he is mid-heroic act.  As the movie progresses, so does Hancock.  He grows, he learns and he tries.  Ngo and Gilligan’s accomplishments don’t end with Hancock himself.

Hancock the character was not the only great part of Hancock.  The comedy leaves the audience in high spirits, so the moments of sincere tenderness and disturbing scenes land especially hard in the laps of those watching.

I won’t be ruining it for you to tell you there is a surprise so huge in Hancock, it couldn’t fit in a fridge.  The entire audience gasped and sat in stunned amazement as the plot unfolded in a way none of us saw coming.  Calling it a jaw dropper would not be an exaggeration.

Will Smith is sinfully sinful as Hancock.  He gives such a raw dirtiness to Hancock, but does not make him unlovable.  Smith’s comedic timing was flawless.  His attention to the emotional details at the end of the movie make Hancock worth the audience’s forgiveness.

Charlize Theron goes toe to toe with Smith in a thespian tug of war that ends in a tie.  Her performance brought tears to my eyes and made my heart break.  Theron should be locked up for how often she steals the scene in Hancock!

Jason Bateman is no slacker either.  His wide-eyed, bushy-tailed enthusiasm portrayal of Ray cheers up the audience when it’s his turn on screen.  Look to Bateman to make you laugh more than any other actor.

Hancock has sensational visual effects.  There is no shortage of explosions, destroyed streets, and buildings falling down.  In the opening scenes there is even a scene inspired by the Flintstones but done with such great visuals, there is nothing stone aged about it.   I had completely suspended my disbelief, lost myself in the story and became entranced in the visuals.

Heck, even the music is good.  There is a song in Hancock with all of the brass a super hero deserves but is fresh and original.

When the music, acting, writing, and visuals all come together to become one great movie, not separate things from each other, the director should take all the credit.  Peter Berg’s direction in Hancock is deserving of merit and earns my acclaim.

My only complaint is the shallow villain.  While his part is small and simple, it was not given the same care the other characters were and there was a missed opportunity to create another layer of depth.

I have had serious problems with typical tight wearing super heroes and their tactics.  The tax payers have to clean up after them, they are never accountable to anyone once they kill and the topic of loneliness is often ignored.  Hancock addresses all those points and does it in a way that leaves the audience nearly in tears, high from laughter and wanting to know more.

Hancock is heartfelt, funny, abrasive, and fantastic with eye candy that captures the audience and doesn’t let go.  Don’t miss Hancock.  It’s time well spent.

Under discussion:

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things  (2004)

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things tells the story of a small boy passed around from person to person but always haunted by his mother.  There were a lot of aspects of this movie that resonated deeply with me because I had a similar upringing but strange visuals ruin any brilliance the movie may have reached. 

After being in a loving foster home for several years, Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett, Dylan Sprouse, Cole Sprouse) is returned to the care of his narcissistic drug addicted mother.  When he tries to return home, his mother, Sarah (Asia Argento), convinces him his foster parents don’t want him anymore.  She also leads him to believe that if he were to return to his foster home, he’d end up dead.  She leads him on an escapade through several moves, several boyfriends, a few husbands, and endless abuse.  She goes as far as introducing him to drugs at a very young age.   Jeremiah looses himself through time and begins to fall into his mother’s insanity. 

My biggest complaint is the director/writer, Asia Argento creates such a great gritty movie with such realistic elements of emotional malnourishment and physical abuse but dashes them away when there is a visual effect using red crows that shattered my complete submission to the story. 

Argento splashed the screen with honest depictions of what happens to abused children.  When they moved using black garbage bags I broke down in tears because most of the dozens of movies I’ve had to make were made using the illustrious garbage bag.

Then out of nowhere, a crappy red crow.  The crows look like they were physically painted with acrylic paint, photographed, pasted in a flip book and filmed.  After they were filmed they were placed in a scene in the most bizarre way possible.  It felt like Argento slammed on the breaks while driving 100 miles per hour for no reason in rush hour; it causes a pileup.

Most of the acting in The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, is phenomenal.   All of the actors do a great job of showing true packaging in which evil comes.  Most of the actors know when to pull the character back from obviously monstrous and make the character so incediously subtle they would be hard to spot by normal people in the real world. 

I admit, I was too let down by the visuals and some herkey jerkey camera work to enjoy this movie.  I will recommend it as an explanation to why being bounced from place to place, from home to home is damaging to a child and how a child can become very good at survival techniques. 

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (2004)

Under discussion:

The Incredible Hulk  (2008)

“Where is the gunship?”, is the theme of The Incredible Hulk.  Edward Norton stars in this smashing (get it?)  story of love, guns and really big pants.

After exposure to gamma radiation, whenever his heart rate skyrockets, Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) turns in to a huge, green, uncontrollable destructive machine, dubbed “The Hulk.”   Desperate to rid himself of the radiation poisoning, he begins a relationship with a scientist he calls Mr. Blue (Tim Blake Nelson) to find a cure.  He has to do this while in hiding because he is being hunted by the military, who believe he is property of the United States Government.  He has to come out of hiding to get data before his accident and the only person he can get it from is his former girlfriend Betty Ross (Liv Tyler).   A dangerous excursion, The Hulk is forced out.                                                                                                                                                 

There are attempts to make The Incredible Hulk about more than explosions and crushing things, but none of the plot points are enough to make the movie about anything other than bent metal.  The Hulk is so strong, he can split a car in half.  The Hulk is so tough, bullets don’t pierce him.  The Hulk is so crazy he destroys everything.  Yeah, yeah, we get it, Hulk Smash!  I could get the same effect from a Gallagher show.  A memo should be sent to all writers in Hollywood that guns and explosions are not plot. 

The notable exception to the plot shallowness is the humor.  Well timed jokes are spread evenly throughout The Incredible Hulk save it from abysmal failure.   The chuckles were my favorite part of the movie because they were the only remarkable thing about The Incredible Hulk. 

Even given the fact that it is difficult to imagine visually how a person would become The Hulk, the transitions in The Incredible Hulk does nothing to help.  The computer generated graphics looked last generation.  The Hulk character is often flat, lacking any significant distinctions of light and shadow.  The villain is equally unvaried.  The two make The Incredible Hulk feel cheap and in places, downright awful. 

Some of the dialogue may cut it in a comic book but can’t be said out loud without sounding as natural as polyester wigs.  “Is that all you got?”  Yes, Mr. Villain, it is all I’ve got.  You have maxed out my allotment of stupid lines in one movie.  It would be best if, when writing the dialogue, Zak Penn had a few of his friends over to actually say the lines out loud and see if any of them laughed out loud in his face.  I suspect there would be an endless night of laughter and the next day would be full of rewrites, Potentially saving the audience from the dull and creating a polished script.

Edward Norton and Liv Tyler are supposed to be over the moon in love with each other but their performances could not send them over a cow.  Their chemistry is so badly mixed it couldn’t blow the top off a third grade science project volcano!   

There is nothing special about The Incredible Hulk.  It doesn’t even get the heart pumping.  The Incredible Hulk may be a comic book best left in paper form.

Under discussion:

Kung Fu Panda  (2008)

Kung Fu Panda, an animated story about a panda, noodles, duty and laughter.  Kung Fu Panda made me “blind from an overexposure to awesomeness.” 

Po (Jack Black), a clumsy panda, son of a noodle vendor, dreams of meeting “The Ferocious Five.”   The Ferocious Five, composed of Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Crane (David Cross) is a band of kung fu masters that protects the valley.  The Ferocious Five are led by their master, Shifu (Dustin Hoffman).  Fear of previous foe Tai Lung (Ian McShane) brings Po in direct contact with the Ferocious Five. 

The animation in Kung Fu Panda is phenomenal.  The lighting glimmered as the sun moved across the day.  I could almost feel most of textures on my fingers.  There are hysterical stop motion sequences that shamelessly draw the attention of the audience right into the story.  Dan Wagner, the head of character animation, earned every penny as the head character animator because the characters sparkled with life.  My one exception would be Tigress, often comes off flat.  All in all, my eyes were remarkably satisfied by the exceptionally beautiful animation.

The dialogue was equally pleasurable.  While there are a few one line jokes in Kung Fu Panda that come across my taste as sour apples, most of the script is bright and appealing.  Silly, memorable, and entertaining verbal parlays will make even the most serious in the audience chuckle out loud.  The plot takes every opportunity to sprinkle the delightful spices of sweetness and sincerity.  The characters were a bit shallow but considering the age of the target audience, the slightly less complex character development is appropriate.  Don’t be afraid though, the shoal nature of the plot doesn’t detract for adults.  It is a nourishing respite from any case of the doldrums and hum-bugs.

I find it important to watch and listen to children as they see a children’s movie, I’m not young enough to truly judge how good it is for a little one.  The youngsters responded in awe because Kung Fu Panda combines two things kids love, adorable animals and high jumping, fist flying, round house kicking martial arts.  As I scanned the audience, I saw seas of little smiling faces leaning forward, completely enraptured but more surprising was the look on the bigger faces.  Even the unaccompanied grown-ups looked like they wanted to cuddle the characters but hesitate out of fear of their martial arts skills. 

I was utterly surprised by the quality of the voice acting in Kung Fu Panda.  While none of the scenes are emotionally challenging, they are comedically challenging.  Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman and Ian McShane each give such a glimmering energy to their characters, it made the entire movie a delightful story, easy to get lost in, and sure to rise your serotonin and dopamine levels. 

I think the most sociologically exposing movies a society creates are their children’s movies.   They always show the basest values of a society.  Kung Fu Panda’s message is one I love; “You’re good enough.”  Couple that with two butt kicking girls, Tigress and Viper, who don’t show their boobs or have ridiculously narrow waists and are treated just as equals to their male counterparts, I am so happy about what this movie says about us.

An unexpected surprise, Kung Fu Panda made me laugh audibly, it made giggle and made me hopeful.  Mostly, it just made me feel good as I found myself completely lost in the story.  I would suggest this movie only for those who enjoy lovely visuals punctuated with laughter.

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

Under discussion:

Speed Racer  (2008)

Speed Racer, the popular cartoon, races his way onto the big screen.   Speed Racer is a fantastical, whirling, spinning, psychedelic abomination with almost no plot, horrific sets and one-liners that would be rejected by Laffy Taffy.

Speed Racer (Young:  Nicholas Elia, Old:  Emile Hirsch) grew up wanting to race cars and looking up to his racecar driving brother, Rex Racer (Scott Porter).  At the first chance he got, Speed became a professional race car driver.  Heading up the crew is Pops (John Goodman), Speed and Rex’s father.  Rex is tempted by money to leave his father’s team and live the life of luxury by joining a larger racing team. 

My husband and I have been playing a free race car game called TrackMania.  We’ve become addicted.  You fly off ramps, go upside down and avoid obstacles.  It is fun because it is just realistic enough to be believable but novel enough to be fun.  Movies have to find that same mix of novel and realistic.  Andy and Larry Wachowski mix Speed Racer as well chlorine and ammonia go together (look it up).

Green screens are a double edged sword.  Green screens can offer us a world of altered physics and take the audience to worlds we would never see.  Green screens are also cheaper, in many cases, than building a set, so directors like the Wachowski Brothers use it when they should be building proper sets.  The pseudo sets, as I call them, are a horrific cinematic malformation.  The wash of spinning colors are newfangled but there is nothing familiar about them, so they are hard to wrap your mind around.   When the track looks like the best driver would end up dead on their first go round, there is no way to suspend your disbelief long enough to choke down the abysmal dialogue. 

Speed Racer is one of the most impeccable examples of why the writer and director should not be the same people.  If there had been a proper writer or director, someone probably would have noticed there is only a Saturday morning cartoon episode amount of plot, taffy-pulled to 129 minutes.  The plot, which was so horrible, is challenging for me to summarize, was only slightly more complicated than creative writing projects completed by seven year olds in Ms. Smith’s second grade English as a second language class.   I guess the Wachowski brothers thought if they threw the vomitous dialogue between infinite montages, we might not notice the bad taste in our mouths.

If a wise audience member left the theater to go get popcorn, a soda, make a pot roast and give birth to triplets, they would return during the same racing sequence.   After twenty minutes there was no plot progression, and we hadn’t met most of the characters.  Most of what we saw was Emile Hirsch in his car as the green screen spins a Spirograph race car track behind him.

There was one funny line in all of Speed Racer, delivered by John Goodman.  “It’s terrible what passes for a ninja these days.”  That is funny, even out of context.

Speed Racer is a live action cartoon, with all the quality visuals and writing.  Instead of watching this AV Club whack off, stay home, play TrackMania and drop some acid.  It will have the exact same affect on your brain.

Under discussion:

Son of Rambow  (2007)

An isolated child and victim of bullying, a young British boy creates the Son of Rambow in his head and is encouraged to put his vision on film.  Unbelievably funny, insanely charming and blissfully irresistible, Son of Rambow will make you smile, reminisce and live your childhood again. 

Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), pure, innocent, and adorable, has been segregated from the rest of 1980’s British society as a member of the strict religious group The Brethren.  The Bretheren have strict rules, one of which is a ban on any T.V. viewing.  When hiding at another boy’s house Will is exposed to a pirated version of Rambo: First Blood, the Son of Rambow, an ass kicking child hero, is born.  The class bully, Lee Carter (Will Poulter), sees Will’s Son of Rambow doodles and encourages him to make it into a movie.  A French exchange student (Jules Sitruk) shakes up the school and the lives of both Lee and Will.  Much hilarity ensues, child antics, funny stunts and hilarious recreations of Rambo scenes are aplenty.

Have you ever watched children in a playground, their imaginations as real to them as the grass they are rolling on.  Sometimes, if they are truly in the moment, their descriptions are so vivid, even an adult can find themselves frolicking with that child.  The Son of Rambow made me feel like I was dancing wildly through a child’s imagination.

Garth Jennings, the writer and the director, has a brilliant insight into a child’s mind and its beauty.  Jennings either has children or has not forgotten what it was like to be a child.  There are scenes where a child’s inability to make rational decisions gets him in trouble, scenes where they forget their limits, scenes where what is important to a child is obviously different than that of an adult, scenes where the characters need a hug, and scenes where they so freakin’ cute you just want to pinch their cheeks. 

Some of my favorite parts of Son of Rambow are when Will disappears into his imagination and outrageous animations or other cinematic styles take over.   The animation is often based on his sketches, so the animated scenes run from childish to childlike but are always entertaining.

Look out for when the kids start filming Son of Rambow.  I nearly wet my pants.  I literally had to cross my legs to prevent any drainage.  The scenes are so ridiculous and zany, but appropriate to a child.  Where else can you get a flying dog taking out a science teacher at a British elementary school?  I think you’ll find other options for that scenario lacking.

Children often make great scene stealers but can’t pull off the weight of a lead actor part.  Bill Milner, with his skinny little knees and captivating freckles, steals every one of his scenes and handles the spotlight with hilarious levity.  I wish I could bottle Milner’s charm to use at my own disposal.  It is hard to think of a sweet Rambo knock off but Milner, as Will, does just that. 

Lee Carter is a complicated character, bullies usually are deeper than they seem.  Will Poulter is able to pull off the emotional complexities, with only the occasional flinch.  Poulter saves the day at the end of the movie though, his rich, sincere emotions made the insides of my glasses fog up.

The Son of Rambow is a British rib tickler with moments of true brilliance.  I advise avoid drinking before seeing Son of Rambow because I promise, man or woman, you’ll be laughing hard enough your bladder will become an issue. 

Under discussion:

Horton Hears a Who  (2008)

Horton Hears a Who is the animated cinematic adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ universally loved book about an elephant who believes people are people, no matter how small.  With the exception of the actor who plays the main character, Horton Hears a Who is a touching film with real heart. 

While teaching his small jungle students on day, Horton (Jim Carrey) hears what can best be explained as a small voice floating through the air.  He realizes it is coming from a speck, at the mercy of the wind.  With great care Horton catches the speck on a clover.  With a little ingenuity, Horton is able to communicate with the mayor of the Whos, the people on the speck.  When the crusty know it all Kangaroo (Carol Burnett) finds out about Horton’s “discovery” she is quick to insult and berate him.  Undeterred, Horton sets off on a quest to save the people on the speck from his world. 

Writers Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, wrote Horton a quirky sincerity that is both tender and humorous.  Jim Carrey takes that sincerity and puts it through a cheese grinder.  His performance was noticeably unnatural and often pathetic.  He and his dialogue seem to be constant tug of war over Horton.  The animators didn’t do anything to solve the problem, often wavering between the directors’ and Carrey’s Horton with animation that sometimes feel like it is based on a Carrey expression and sometimes completely absent of his influence.  I started to loathe when Horton was talking. 

When the visuals, writing and acting work against each other, there is only the director to blame, without question.  The directors, Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino , are responsible for the continuity of his film.  Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino better show up for their noodle-lashing because their inability to properly direct this aspect of the film seriously damages the feeling of the movie.

The supporting cast of Horton Hears a Who far outshines the main character.  Flawless, sparkling performances by Steve Carell as the Mayor of Whoville and Carol Burnett as the cantankerous Kangaroo put a thespian shine on this story.  Carell was Whotastic as he gives such believable life to such a unbelievable looking character.  Carol Burnett really gives Kangaroo a creepy essence but doesn’t make her too frightening for small children nor too simplistic or annoying for the adults in the audience.

The animation in Horton Hears a Who is so crisp, clear and beautiful it made me feel like I was wandering through the wilds of my imagination.  Backgrounds, foregrounds and dimensional renderings that would make many video game developers jealous, ease the audience into a magical world of the slightly off familiar.  There are rich textures on the walls of the Mayor of Whoville’s home.  The depth of field in the forest made the chase scenes treacherous and exciting.  Much to their credit, though, the animators didn’t go so far into the realistic as to rub the shine off the essential magic required to slip deeply into the Jungle of Nool or Whoville. 

The characters are so lively you feel like you are living in the moment with them.  Knowing how to animate creatures that are both in our world and in their world as well as completely new creatures must require strength of imagination I could only enjoy as an audience member. 

There is a subtle message running through the plot about questioning authority.  Kangaroo is the self appointed leader of the Jungle of Nool.  When she realizes Horton’s speck challenges all the long held beliefs of Jungle leadership she refuses to ignore it as an eccentricity and instead decides his belief must be publically annihilated.  It would be impossible not to draw the conclusion that Kangaroo is a symbol of the harmful effects of established religion or the overreaching danger of an unchecked government.  To this I say, HORRAY!  Teaching children to think for themselves and to be a good person even when it is hard or unpopular, that’s a moral I can get behind!

Even though there is an obvious taffy pulling going on with Horton’s direction, Horton Hears a Who’s supporting cast, the writing, the moral and animation is strong enough to make it an utterly lovable movie for Seuss fans of all age.