Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
June 15, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: New Monday Morning Quarterback bi-weekly feature - Have you seen any movies recently? What did you think?
Brett Beach: About a month ago I had 34 films checked out from the library (the max as it turns out). I am now down to 15. This weekend, to "prep" for seeing this year's Palme d'Or winner The Tree of Life - which I hope to do Thursday - I watched the 2009 winner, The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke's chilly vision of a Pre-WWI German town beset by an escalating series of unexplained and disturbing violent incidents that threaten the village's economic and psychological well-being. The physical violence was left fairly implicit while the emotional violence packed a wallop (esp. a scene where a callous doctor effectively cuts off a long-standing affair with his assistant by going on at great length about everything he finds revolting about her.) Hanecke's narrative style may inflame some - the film ebbs and flows along for much of its 144 minutes. In the final 20 mins he finally begins assembling the rumblings of a climax, only to end on a fadeout of indeterminancy - but by resolutely refusing to answer anything, he is able to maintain his air of unease long after the film ends.
To wash that down, I watched Cars for the first time. It's easily the least of the Pixar films I have seen (I still have not viewed Ratatouille). Paul Newman's understated vocal performance helped maintain my interest in the storyline, but unlike the earned sentimentality in WALL-E, Up, or Toy Story 3, I rebelled against the over-orchestrated paeans to small-town Main Street and 1950s car culture. I was caught up in Lightning's touching gesture at the race-off (and surprisingly, Larry the Cable Guy's Mater didn't make me want to gouge my ears out) but the most enjoyable moments for me were the silly credit cookies, especially John Ratzenberger's moment in the sun.
Max Braden: Of the big titles I've seen this year to date, I'd rank them from best to worst: Super 8 (regardless of my grade, I just love that this film was made), X-Men FC (Fassbender was great), Fast Five (good heist and pairing of Diesel/Johnson), Rango (pretty but trippy), Green Hornet (harmless amusement), Kung Fu Panda 2 (unflawed but also uninspired), Thor (popcorn with margarine), Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (no charm), and Sucker Punch (insultingly awful). My favorite performances year to date are Elle Fanning in Super 8, Fassbender in X-Men, Portman in No Strings Attached (because she's at her most relaxed and natural for this role), and Billy Burke in Drive Angry (saving an otherwise truly awful movie).
Direct to video movies usually don't make it into theaters for good reason, but there are a few recent ones I can say are worth watching. Spin (starring Amber Heard and Michael Biehn) has a Pulp-Fiction-esque vibe for a younger crowd, and I liked it so much I bought the DVD (my last purchase before that was Easy A). A few films that had very limited releases earlier this year and are now on DVD are Waiting For Forever (Rachel Bilson), Daydream Nation (Kat Dennings), and Black Death (Sean Bean). Waiting and Daydream both depict the darker side of romance, which can be a downer, but are effective. And Black Death depicts a group of Catholic soldiers investigating a village practicing witchcraft in the 14th century - a genre might have put it among SyFy channel fare, but the production values and story turns in this one are pretty good.
Jason Lee: I loved Bridesmaids. I habitually use the line "it's happening, it's happening, it happened" in my everyday life. I have also started calling my friend "Steve" by the name "Stove."
Edwin Davies: The last film I saw in the theater was X-Men: First Class, which I left feeling positive about but, when I sat down and thought about it, I actually wound up really disliking. There are plenty of things in it that I liked a lot, namely Michael Fassbender, who looks like he'll be very comfortable switching from indie-hero to blockbuster star, but there were so many little bits of it that I found aggravating; the leering, PG-13 lasciviousness of having more or less the entire female cast strutting around in lingerie for most of the film; it tried to fit too many characters in yet focused so much of its time on Charles and Magneto that important characters like Mystique were left shortchanged (and Jennifer Lawrence, who I loved in Winter's Bone, was so flat and tone-deaf); and it didn't do what I think any good X-Men film should do, which is engage with the subtext of the mutants' struggle. Bryan Singer did a great job of making his entries in the franchise into exciting, engaging blockbusters that also commented on issues like racism and gay rights, whilst this one just kind of cursorily mentioned them then moved on to be a bit stupid. The last 20 minutes were great, though.
On DVD, I rented Black Dynamite, which I enjoyed so much I rushed out and bought it on DVD and have now watched four or five times in the last two days. For those who don't know, Black Dynamite is a blaxploitation spoof starring Michael Jai White as a sort of Shaft/Superfly/Dolemite former CIA agent who gets drawn into clearing up the streets when he learns that someone has killed his brother and is putting smack into the orphanages. It is such a brilliant recreation of that kind of film, yet it's also got plenty of jokes that work whether or not you are familiar with the genre. White's performance is something to behold, and I would recommend that everyone look up "Black Dynamite I threw that sh*t before I walked in the room" on YouTube to get a sense of just how funny and insane his line deliveries are. It's up there with Airplane, Hot Fuzz and Walk Hard as one of the most consistently hilarious spoofs/parodies that I've ever seen.
Joshua Pasch: My sad sack list of recent viewing includes: The Karate Kid remake, Killers, Chasing Amy, Something Borrowed, Fast Five, Salt, and Hangover II. I have almost never been as embarrassed as I am right now. The strongest of the above, maybe Salt? Maybe Chasing Amy? None of them will leave a lasting impression, and yet none of them were overtly bad. That's probably the highest praise I can muster. I've really got to stop slumming it. I hereby resolve to see something akin to Midnight In Paris very soon.
Kim Hollis: I've recently seen Bridesmaids and Super 8. I thought Bridesmaids was sort of a glorious mess, one that started off kind of blah but then became completely endearing the more we got to know the characters. I never liked Kristen Wiig much, but she's won me over with this film (as well as Whip It, Extract and Adventureland). I'm also very happy that Melissa McCarthy is the breakout star - she was absolutely wonderful on Gilmore Girls and it's fantastic that she's captured the attention of a broader audience. Her character could have been so one note - but she does a lot of unexpected things that unfold in creative ways. Chris O'Dowd (as Officer Nathan Rhodes) makes the movie for me, though. I absolutely fell in love with him and his character and I look forward to seeing more of him.
As for Super 8, here was an exceedingly well structured film, with an excellent pace and a nice sense of nostalgia. I thought there were occasionally some dubious motivations (primarily amongst the adults in the film) and I also don't think all of the kid actors were particularly good. With that said, the two main kid performers (Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning) were terrific. I'm always up for seeing Kyle Chandler in anything. I've seen some people say that Super 8 is lacking in wonder, and I think that's not really true. The wonder comes not from the "surprise" but rather the interaction of the kids as they create a movie and work together to make it happen. I can remember doing fake radio shows with friends at that age, and that sense of creativity is what gives the movie a spark.
David Mumpower: I very much enjoyed Kung Fu Panda 2 as a character driven story with a ton of heart; it just wasn't very funny. As long as you know going in that the jokes are few and far between, it's a movie I highly recommend. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Bridesmaids since I've been anti-Kristen Wiig for the most part. Her SNL work did nothing for me, but I've been looked at her differently since Whip It. Bridesmaids asks a lot of her and she's largely up to the task. This is a movie with three major comedic scenes that all deliver tons of laughs. It's uneven but the high points are brilliant.
Super 8 is a movie I liked more than I had expected. I had mentioned in our trailer debate that this looked much more like batteries not included* than Cloverfield or E.T. This proved to be the case as the monster movie aspect largely fell flat in my estimation. Everything else about it is quite good. The two child leads both hit it out of the park, particularly Elle Fanning, and I very much enjoyed the fond sentimentality directed toward the children of the '70s and '80s. I do wish Kyle Chandler had been used more, but I understand why the kids needed to be the ones investigating the mystery. I'm not sure how well Super 8 will hold up on repeated viewings but I very much enjoyed it the first time.
I recently re-watched Beautiful Girls and I remain awed by Timothy Hutton's ability to flirt with a coy 13-year-old without the whole thing feeling too creepy. The usage of Natalie Portman's character is exceptional in identifying the depth of his arrested development. This is one of my favorite movies of its era and I'm pleased to see its quality is standing the test of time. I also re-watched Mulholland Drive and while the movie still doesn't make a lick of sense to me (I vividly recall Reagen Sulewski explaining the pre- and post-cowboy story elements after I left the theater upon initial viewing), it still has one of the best movie scenes in modern cinema. No, not that one, you perverts. Okay, that one too...but the one I mean involves a cuckolded director, jewelry, paint, and Billy Ray Cyrus. I crack up every time I watch it. The Hollywood player's method of revenge is wonderfully impulsive and the wife's outrage is somehow both justified and woefully misplaced.
Finally, I watched The Good Thief for the first time in a couple of years. This had been one of my most frequently watched movies of the 2000s, but it got lost in the shuffle of our having so many thousands of movie and television options. The incorporation of Leonard Cohen's music is sublime and I maintain that this is one the best movies of the 2000s to date. If you have yet to watch it and enjoy character pieces/tour de force acting performances, Nick Nolte's work in this project is every bit as good as Jeff Bridges' much more heralded outing in Crazy Heart.