Moody's Movie Blog

Under discussion:

Be Kind Rewind  (2008)

Some critics are slamming director Michel Gondry’s sweet new slipstream comedy Be Kind Rewind for being excessively heartfelt and overly sentimental. I caught the film this weekend and was quickly wooed by its oddball humor, charming story about a neighborhood full of cuddly wackos, and warm message about the power of community spirit.

Those hoping for a thematic sister film to Gondry’s 2004 drama Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (written by Charlie Kaufman) might be disappointed. Rewind wears its heart on its quirky sleeve, and it leaves little room for existential angst or scenes of heartbreak. Still, fans of Gondry’s narrow sense of humor and visionary music video work should find a lot to like in Be Kind Rewind.  Most people reading this have no doubt seen the trailers with Mos Def, doing a great job playing a spacier version of his Ford Prefect from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, and Jack Black remaking, or “sweding,” movies like RoboCop, Rush Hour 2 and Ghostbusters. The duo’s imaginative zero-budget remakes are an essential part of the film, but they don’t start making them until way after the twenty-minute mark. First, Gondry sets up a story about the gentrification of an historic - to its residents anyway - East Coast neighborhood.

Mr. Freeman (Danny Glover) is forced to make expensive repairs to the building that houses his neighborhood video store. City hall threatens to demolish it and build condos on the site if he can’t bring the building up to code. Freeman takes a vacation to spy on a nearby Blockbuster-like franchise, hoping to ape the business model, and leaves Mos Def’s Mike in charge. Enter Jerry (Jack Black), Mike’s annoying, conspiracy theory-spouting buddy who lives next to the neighborhood power plant. Jerry gets himself zapped (with some cool lightning effects) and magnetized during a failed attempt to sabotage the power plant. Jerry’s newly magnetized body erases all the tapes in Freeman’s store, causing a desperate Mike to start remaking the store’s video catalog with a bulky, circa-1989 video camera.

The remakes are hilarious and, although low-tech, endlessly creative. Mike and Jerry use fishing poles and tinsel to recreate the Ghostbusters’ proton streams, and saucy pizzas stand in for blood pools in their version of Boyz N Da Hood. The sweded movies are a testament to Gondry’s unlimited imagination and charming, singular visual style. (Check out his music video and TV work at Youtube).

Mike and Jerry’s remakes are a hit with the neighborhood residents, who soon become part of their movie-making exploits. The creative projects unite the community and, spurred by the spirit of neighborhood jazz hero Fats Waller, the local Joes and Janes make a bid to reclaim the town from urban developers.

The right kind of person, namely the movie buff, will probably go home loving this movie, especially for its bizarre Sesame Streettone, its championing of the dirty underdog, and the delightful performances by the main cast (especially Mos Def and Glover) and a funny Mia Farrow. Yup, Mia Farrow. Sigourney Weaver even pops up in the third act, a possible signal that the A-listers are lining up to work with Gondry. I’m looking forward to his next project, a true sci-fi film based on the Rudy Rucker novel Master of Space and Time. I’m not sure what to make of his idea for a sequel to Rewind, though.

Review originally posted at SciFi Observer.

Under discussion:

Beowulf  (2007)

I was kicking myself for not catching Beowulf in 3-D as soon as the movie’s titles started flowing across the screen. The Cinemark in my hometown of Brownsville wasn’t offering the 3-D experience director Robert Zemeckis had in mind when creating this animated take on the ancient long-form poem. It’s too bad, since the 3-D gimmick probably would have made this awkward and unlikeable movie worth watching.

Unlike the Lord of the Rings trilogy or even the Harry Potter flicks, little in Beowulf is thrilling, visually arresting or awe inspiring. The filmmakers’ take on the mostly shapeless classic story is dull, one-note and sometimes laughable. The animation and art design is unremarkable and often ugly, especially when the human characters look and move like dead, manipulated meat puppets. There are two scenes — only two — that I found potentially engrossing and fun to look at, but that’s a sad tally for a movie marketed as a rousing holiday spectacle.

Beowulf  opens in King Hrothgar’s (Anthony Hopkins) mead hall with the king and his knights doing an Anglo-Saxon take on Caligula. It’s a gross display, with the vulgar animated knights slobbering all over themselves and a Hrothgar so drunk and undiginified that he doesn’t care if his robe slips off to reveal little Hrothgar in front of everybody. These characters never become sympathetic or interesting at any point in the movie’s 113-minutes.

Eventually, the monster Grendel bursts in and kills most of these guys and the “hero” Beowulf later answers Hrothgar’s call to kill the monster. The mistake made is that Zemeckis’ Beowulf, along with most of the other human characters in this thing, is about as heroic and likeable as a boasting jock or an obnoxious brute. Instead of turning the classic character into a classic pop hero, Zemeckis and crew (including writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery) deliver a boring braggart no one can relate to. Ray Winstone’s voice acting is fine — and loud — but this movie had me rooting for Grendel not Beowulf.

The monster Grendel’s design is too overcooked to be appreciated, but the script turns him into a sympathetic character here, and Crispin Glover’s performance had me wanting to see more of him. Too bad he’s snuffed in an early scene that’ll be remembered, more than anything else, for a ridiculous game of hide-the-exposed genitals, ala Austin Powers.

In a lazy attempt to unify the original text’s disconnected halves, the movie grossly diverges from the poem and goes on to further kill the idea of Beowulf as a hero, leaving the audience with no one to root for and little to invest in. I won’t give away the details here, but what happens after Beowulf meets Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie) really sinks this thing.

Beowulf seems less concerned with telling a good story than it is with delivering cheap cartoon thrills and a kinda-sorta naked and spiked-heel sporting Angelina Jolie. The character close-ups look good, and the final action sequence is fun, but that’s not enough to recommend this half-baked movie. And don’t get me started on the music …

Review originally posted at Screen Time.

Under discussion:

Transformers  (2007)

Michael Bay’s fun but bloated epic Transformers hits stores today in a single-disc DVD, a two-disc DVD set and a high-definition HD-DVD version. Did they include bonus features? You betcha. There’s tons of ‘em on the two-discer, including featurettes about the Autobots and Decepticons backstory and the movie’s special effects.

Great, but I think the good people at Paramount missed an opportunity to include the ultimate special feature on the two-discer, 1986’s animated Transformers: The Movie.

Was Paramount afraid to include the two films in the same package? Did they figure that Bay’s flick would pale in comparison to the 1986 Sony Wonder Video classic? Well, of course not. They just didn’t care to do it. But what do you think, die-hard Transformers fan? Is the 1986 version better, or at least more fun, than Bay’s CG crunch fest? In the interest of serious scientific debate, cultural progress and killing time, let’s compare ‘em.

ACTION:

2007: That 30-minute blast of mindless urban destruction that ends the movie is almost worth the ticket and DVD price alone, but the flick takes way too long to get there. Plus, all the short bursts of action before it are cut in between long stretches of characters just standing around or, worse, trying to be funny. The special effects are amazing though.

1986: This one is all action all the time. The thing opens with the brutal killing of a bunch of beloved characters and the fighting never seems to stop. If the Autobots aren’t battling the Decepticons, they’re racing each other, blasting other alien robots or flying through outer space. Of course, it’s all animated in that flat, ’80s, you-gotta-be-pushing-30-to-love-it style.

Winner: Tie

DRAMA:

2007: Shia Labeouf tries to get it on with Megan Fox and seems to have a disturbing relationship with his pet Chihuahua. That’s about it. Oh, and there’s something about a “cube” or “all-spark” (they never stick to one name) that’s gotta be found to save humanity. The drama gets bonus points here since everything Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) says sounds awe-inspiring.

1986: This movie is almost too dramatic. Prime dies in the first act, as do other favorite Autobots, Megatron has a disturbing identity crisis, Hot Rod goes through robot puberty, the noble Ultra Magnus realizes his limited potential, and everybody has to fight an evil planet-eating robot monster voiced by Orson Welles. (More points for Cullen’s voice here).

Winner: 1986

COMEDY:

2007: Um, Bernie Mac is in it. He’s funny right? Like in most Bay flicks, most stabs at comedy here are all too obvious or awkward (Example: What’s the deal with Josh Duhamel getting the runaround by an unfriendly phone operator during an intense battle scene?). The scene where the Autobots try to hide from the Witwickys is good for a laugh, though. Labeouf is funny throughout too.

1986: Two words: Robot mustaches. Seriously, watch it again. Also, there are tons of laugh-out-loud scenes featuring the Dinobots, the funniest and dumbest robot dinosaurs ever. Oh yeah, there’s also robot sharks controlled by a floating brain with tentacles. Funny, no? Sure, but you laugh at it, not with it.

Winner: Tie

MUSIC:

2007: Linkin Park. Disturbed. Goo Goo Dolls. No thanks.

1986: Stan Bush’s ‘The Touch.” There’s never been a better theme song for a young robot Pinto’s evolution from scrub to savior of the universe.

Winner: 1986. You can’t beat “The Touch.”

Originally posted at Screen Time.