Monday at the Movies - January 28, 2019

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, two films wildly different in tone and yet unmistakably British in their sensibilities.

The Death of Stalin (2018) – Few people can make me laugh as hard as Armando Iannucci, he whose British series The Thick of It can’t be enjoyed on a single viewing because you’ll miss half the jokes while splitting your sides at its creative profanity and monumentally madcap antics. After Iannucci ravaged the mundanely moronic ("All roads lead to Munich") in the lead-up to the Iraq War in Thick of It’s spinoff film In the Loop, he turns his satirical eye to the Soviet Union in the wake of Josef Stalin’s death and finds the Communist Party in chaos, beginning with the puddle of urine in which the party leader’s corpse is found. The cast is as unpredictable as the punchlines – we now live, folks, in a world where Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev (and yes, Virginia, there is a “bury you” joke). Meanwhile we’ve got Jeffrey Tambor as the melancholy Georgy Malenkov, ill-suited to the leadership role he inherits; noted Shakespearean Simon Russell Beale as the oily Lavrentiy Beria of the secret police; and Jason Isaacs as Georgy Zhukov, all too eager to lead his army into open revolt. It’s a cast of all-stars (including Rupert Friend and Andrea Riseborough as Stalin’s children), but the biggest draw is the film’s pitch-black humor, depicting Stalin’s worst atrocities as something akin to a Karl Marx Brothers film. There are moments when one is not quite sure whether to laugh or recoil in horror, as when an executioner just gives up halfway down his line of victims, but Iannucci is quite successful at capturing the ambient paranoia that comes from not knowing who to trust in a totalitarian regime – and the absurdity when a brood of vipers is forced to try to trust one another.

Paddington 2 (2017) – With the benefit of hindsight, Paddington 2 might well be one of the best films of 2017. A film like this has no right to be as charming, intricately constructed, or genuinely emotional as Paddington 2 manages to be. Now that the well-mannered Paddington (Ben Whishaw) has taken up residence in London, he goes in search of a birthday present for his Aunt Lucy, only to find the perfect pop-up book out of his price range. After a series of odd jobs, Paddington is framed for the theft of the book, landing unceremoniously in a Victorian-era prison where he befriends the entire population – including prison cook Knuckles McGinty (Brendan Gleeson) – through the powers of civility and marmalade. Paddington 2 is even better than its predecessor, somehow more earnest now that it’s dispensed with the need to explain how and why an affable bear is living with ordinary people. Instead the filmscape is opened up to boundless adventures where Paddington’s relentless cheeriness persists, undaunted by his circumstances. Whether he’s shoved into the role of accidental barber or whether he finds himself teaching a prison how to make orange jam, Paddington is so endearing that it’s almost a personal offense when something unfortunate befalls him; “how dare they,” I said aloud at one point, “how dare the filmmakers do this to such a nice bear!” For all the antics and charm that the film possesses – really, I cannot overstate just how charming this movie is – it has an astonishing emotional depth rooted in Paddington’s love for his Aunt Lucy, and the film’s final moments are guaranteed to get you teary-eyed in a way that I thought only Pixar had been able to capture with computer-generated characters.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” Stay tuned for Wednesday’s final Batman animated review!

Monday at the Movies - July 29, 2013

Welcome to another edition of “Monday at the Movies” – this week, we backfill some of our missing Pixar coverage.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) – After A Bug’s Life didn’t inspire audiences the way Pixar might have hoped – although Toy Story 2 did – Pixar’s third original idea had a lot riding on its shoulders.  Aw, never mind, you know it worked; we’ve had Pixar movies galore since then, including a Monsters, Inc. prequel back in June.  But the one that started it all?  The original monster-buddy picture finds Sulley (John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal) tearing up the Scare Floor, racking up the big screams in a private competition with slithery serpentine Randall (Steve Buscemi, in a wonderfully scummy villainous role).  The movie’s real soul, though, comes when an adorable toddler named Boo wanders into the monster world – a strict no-no for the creatures from our closets.  Though the animation isn’t as astounding as recent turns, the deliberately cartoonish nature of the characters engages us in an endearing way, especially (once again) the innocently chubby cheeks and spastic arm movements of Boo.  It’s not that she’s the only ray of light in a dismal feature film; Goodman and Crystal are perfect as the opposites-attract team of scarer and engineer, and Buscemi is a revelation as always as the antagonist.  But Boo is that one character in ten thousand who completely eclipses the rest of the movie; like Heath Ledger’s Joker or the monkey puppet Monk on HBO’s Family Ties, Boo steals not just the film but your very gaze in every one of her scenes.  She’ll make you laugh, and if she doesn’t make you cry that Randy Newman score almost certainly will.

Ratatouille (2007) – There comes a moment every time I rewatch Ratatouille where I sit back in my chair and think to myself, “My God, I really love this movie.”  It’s not always the same moment every time – usually it’s Remy’s silent plea not to be drowned or it’s Anton Ego’s big monologue evaluating whether or not anyone actually can cook (which, yes, still brings a tear or two of aesthetic sublimity) – but there’s something about Brad Bird’s second Pixar film that just hits you right square in the feels in a way that The Incredibles never did.  That’s not a slight to Incredibles, which I love, but Ratatouille manages to transcend a hokey conceit (talking mice?) and a clichéd message (follow your dreams) in one of my favorite Pixar movies.  Patton Oswalt voices Remy, a mouse with sensitive taste buds and a desire to cook, while Lou Romano plays Linguini, the clumsy but well-intentioned janitor-cum-chef who brokers a deal with Remy so that both can achieve their goals and feed Paris.  Naturally, the plan butts heads with Head Chef Skinner (Ian Holm), who resents both Linguini and the rat infestation, while top critic Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole, in a brilliant performance) fumes at the resurgence of a restaurant he once damned.  There’s so much this film does right – the friendship between Remy and Linguini, the familial bonds amongst the kitchen staff, the characterization of Ego – that makes Ratatouille an A-Number-One feature, topped with a score by Michael Giacchino (Pixar’s best, for my money) so perfect that you’ll be downloading recipes and wishing you had a “lil chef” to help you out.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monsters University (2013)

Aside from Cars 2 (which, if we’re being honest, felt a little like a cash grab), Pixar’s made a name for itself for high quality original material, only dipping a second time into the well when the story merits it.  We go all the way back to (before) 2001’s Monsters, Inc., which gets the prequel treatment with Monsters University.  And like a matriculating monster, Monsters U stumbles at first but finds itself and recovers by film’s end.

Set to fulfill his lifetime dream of becoming a professional scarer, Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) heads to top college Monsters University.  There, studious Mike meets James P. Sullivan (John Goodman), son of a top scarer and more party-hearty than study-buddy.  Antagonized by the stern Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), the two enter into the college’s olympian Scare Games, with their reputations and their standing at the college on the line.

Entering prequel territory for a buddy picture like Monsters, Inc. verges on predictable in the sense that the film has to cover the “adversaries turn amigos” plot beat in order to feel narratively fulfilling.  Monsters U hits those moments without feeling too forced; remember, Mike and Sulley were hardly birds of a feather in Inc.  Monsters U does not, however, spend too much time making Mike and Sulley polar opposites that meet in the middle, casting them more as contrasting types who begrudgingly work together.  (More interesting for the prequel enthusiast:  the way that Monsters U recasts the tension between Mike and in-crowd wannabe Randall [Steve Buscemi], now college roommates divided by fraternity loyalties.)

There are lots of very interesting things going on in the movie, which aren’t explored at much length in order to focus on the intramural Scare Games.  I see the value in concentrating on the Scare Games; the episodic nature of an event-based competition helps us to see how Oozma Kappa (Mike’s fraternity) improves, and it allows the filmmakers to expand the Monsters world by showing various other creatures (plus it boosts the toy line significantly).

But even in spite of the parts where Monsters U feels paint-by-numbers – which, in Pixar’s hands, is still plenty enjoyable if more generic than usual – there are moments of pure genius that remind us why Pixar movies are still the pinnacle of animated film (or, perhaps, even above most live-action storytelling).  I’ll pit the last twenty minutes of Monsters U against any of the other great Pixar moments for genre-bending imagination and exuberant pathos.  It’s almost too good to spoil where the movie goes, but the film quickly shirks that cliché you feel it’s embracing before contorting 180 degrees into a monster-inflected take on the “Play nice” scene from Toy Story. 

It ends with a callback to a bit of Inc. you didn’t expect to see, but the real heart comes when Dean Hardscrabble – in a turn delivered strongly by Mirren – warms up ever so slightly to our heroes.  It’s comparable to Anton Ego’s change of heart in Ratatouille, and as with Peter O’Toole it’s a reminder that the film needs as much of these top thespians as we can get.  Otherwise, the voice cast is what you’d expect from Pixar – pitch-perfect and full of aural treats (like Aubrey Plaza’s laconic sorority president, though Nathan Fillion’s swagger is more distracting because of how larger-than-life his voice tends to be).

In the end, I find myself having written a more positive review than I anticipated, in part because there’s nothing about Monsters University that is entirely irredeemable; even when they’re not pulling out all the stops creatively, the Pixar team is still lightyears (pun intended) ahead of the competition.  But when they do, Monsters University is a real scream.

Monsters University is rated G.  A few monsters have tricks and skills that might scare the wee babies, but overall most kids can handle it.

Monday at the Movies - October 1, 2012

Welcome to Week Thirty-Six of “Monday at the Movies.”  In recognition of the impending release of Django Unchained, and having already reviewed some of his films here before, we’re going to take a look at the rest of the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) – The auteur’s debut film, Reservoir Dogs is an odd case for me.  I’ve seen it at least twenty times, and when I was younger I was madly in love with it.  It’s the story of a jewel heist gone wrong, with the bandits interrogating each other to identify which is a police informant.  The plot is not quite original, but it’s an entry point for audiences into the oddball flair of Quentin Tarantino – the snappy dialogue, the unflinching violence, the romanticized nostalgia for the Seventies.  Honestly, this time out the film seemed more boring (but not unwatchable) than I remembered; there are long stretches where the characters do nothing but talk, and while this is fabulous for an enthusiast of the written word it doesn’t make for the most engaging moving pictures (this in a post-Avengers world, which also used an ensemble cast, but to more thrilling success).  What I must have loved as a young’un is Michael Madsen’s turn as the cold psychopath Mr. Blonde, which still works, as does Steve Buscemi as the rattled Mr. Pink.  But on the most recent watch, the real treasure isn’t the trademark Tarantino screenplay; it’s the performance of Harvey Keitel as Mr. White, whose dedication to the dying Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) meant more to me now than it could have as a child.  Looking back on Reservoir Dogs as a “first film,” it does what a first film ought to – demonstrate the potential of a new filmmaker with promise but without peaking.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Youth in Revolt (2009)

It's been said that Michael Cera only plays the same character - the gangly, awkward teenager with his unrequited emotions on his sleeve and a mouth full of verbose non sequiturs. In a sense, Youth in Revolt is a response to that theory; here Cera plays a character desperate to reinvent himself as a "dangerous" casanova. This reinvention is fascinating, but much else about Youth in Revolt is otherwise fairly forgettable, marking potential but leaving the audience with little more than in-the-moment laughs.

Cera stars as the unfortunately named Nick Twisp, the standard Cera character, forced to relocate to a trailer park after his mother (Jean Smart) and her lover Jerry (Zach Galifianakis) are involved in selling a dud car to a few sailors. There Nick meets Manic Pixie Dream Girl Sheeni (Portia Doubleday), a girl he recognizes instantly as the love of his life despite the fact that she's already seeing someone. Sheeni's less convinced, encouraging him to "be bad" so that the two can move closer together once Nick is forced to move in with his father (Steve Buscemi). In order to be Sheeni's dream man, Nick crafts a "supplementary persona," Francois Dillinger (also Cera) - a chain-smoking, mustachioed arsonist. Oh yeah, and Fred Willard shows up a few times as Nick's uber-liberal neighbor Mr. Ferguson, who's more often than not eating those kinds of mushrooms.

First, the bad news. Zach Galifianakis isn't even in this movie. Sure, he has screen time, but his trademark stage presence is nowhere to be found; he plays a much more subdued, muted version of himself for the twenty minutes he's in the movie. That's right; it's sort of a spoiler, but the-man-who-would-be-Alan disappears from the film before we've had a chance to get to know his character. It's sort of a letdown, but it's a problem that plagues the rest of the film, too; Buscemi is almost a non-presence in the film, Justin Long peeks his head in for a bit of overplayed stoner humor, and the only thing genuinely funny about Willard's near-cameo is that Fred Willard is on the screen - otherwise, it's a part that could have been played by anyone capable of lying face-down on shag carpet. I haven't even mentioned Ray Liotta, who's also here. Liotta plays another cop, this one a potential paramour for Jean Smart's character, yet my problem here is the same one I had in Observe and Report - namely, that Liotta seems to be slumming. He's obviously talented and does a good job with what he has, but between this and a bit part on Hannah Montana, I'm close to putting Liotta on the "could have been" pile.

The film belongs almost entirely to the two Ceras, who are more than capable of supporting a movie on their own weight (it's just that I hate to see people like Buscemi, Liotta, and Willard reduced to being extras, when they're capable of so much more). Though Cera's definitive role for me will always be Superbad (George Michael on Arrested Development garners a close second), he does a very good job here, mumbling his way through the more awkward parts but doing it all with a sincerity that almost makes you forget this is but a variation on the same character he's been playing his whole career. His turn as Francois Dillinger is the more inspired of the two roles, since Dillinger is cool and confident (inspired, the film implies, by the iconic Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard's Breathless), and it demonstrates there's a little room for growth in Cera's resume. Indeed, Dillinger provides the most laughs in the film, both because it's slightly incongruous for Cera to be speaking lines like "Thanks for breakfast" before overturning his cereal bowl and spitting on the carpet and because Dillinger is so cool about it that he himself seems almost a non sequitur in the movie.

So Dillinger is the star, and his role alone is worth the price of admission, but there are serious problems with the film's own identity. I referred to Sheeni as a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" with my tongue firmly in cheek and a note of disdain because I'm growing tired of this stock character that's overstayed her welcome. Perhaps, then, that is the best thing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did for me - put nails in the coffin of the MPDG by exposing her as a fallacy. Early in Youth in Revolt, Nick tells us that the difference between real life and movies is that "In the movies the good guy gets the girl. In real life it's usually the prick." Fair enough; one might expect the movie to go the route of (500) Days of Summer, deconstructing the conventional plot threads while grounding the film in a sense of realism. And it seems to do that for a while; Nick remains obliviously in love with Sheeni while she seems to be willing to dismiss him as a "summer fling," but somewhere near the halfway mark the film becomes the same old story we've seen a million times before - boy overcomes obstacles to be with girl happily ever after. It's frustratingly inconsistent, both because of what the movie has already told us (these endings don't happen) and because of what the movie has already showed us (Sheeni is unwilling to leave her boyfriend Trent for Nick). I'm not averse to changing gears mid-stream, but here it seems purposeless, forced, and implausible. (See Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist for a way to do this shift correctly).

Youth in Revolt, then, is a little like a chocolate chip cookie. When you look at it on the shelf, it looks like exactly what you've been craving. As you're indulging in it, it's delicious. As you're almost done with it, you start to become disappointed. Once it's gone, it doesn't wash so well because you realize it's insubstantial - almost exactly like all the other cookies you've had. But it tasted good doing down, so perhaps that's all that matters.
Not for the kiddies, Youth in Revolt snagged an R rating "for sexual content, language and drug use." Frank sexual dialogue and implications and F-bombs fly freely, and a few scenes revolve around psychotropic mushrooms and marijuana.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

To say that I'm a fan of the Coen Brothers is something of an understatement: they're among my favorite filmmakers, abundantly entertaining and deftly profuse. So to say that The Big Lebowski is my favorite Coen flick is probably also an understatement (though Barton Fink kind of muddles that statement).

There are two Jeffrey Lebowskis - The Dude (Jeff Bridges), amiable stoner hero extraordinaire prone to swilling White Russians, and The Big Lebowski (David Huddleston), a prime mover in the L.A. region. When the two are confused by a pair of nitwit goons - and one micturates on The Dude's rug - looking for The Big Lebowski's wife Bunny (Tara Reid) and the money she owes to one Jackie Treehorn, that's where the trouble begins. It only gets worse when The Dude tells bowling buddies Walter Sobchak (a perfectly over-the-top John Goodman), a Vietnam vet obsessed with his service and his religion ("Shomer Shabbos!"), and Donny (Steve Buscemi), who can't seem to get a word in edgewise, Walter convinces The Dude to petition The Big Lebowski for rug compensation. After all, "that rug really tied the room together."

That's all in the first ten or so minutes. The rest is a tangled web of mystery, blackmail, kidnapping, Creedence Clearwater Revival, pornography, deceit, and bowling. Eat your heart out, Raymond Chandler. Speaking of Chandler, this is the best adaptation of The Big Sleep since Bogart and Bacall bantered back in the Forties. It's also the most comprehensible, although I'll admit it took me a second viewing to fully understand just what had happened. This is a top-notch screenplay from the Coens, poetically profane and tantalizingly tangled.

Much as Sweeney Todd was for Tim Burton, this is the movie that the Coens have been aiming to make throughout their whole career. It's got all the Coen staples - both plot points and cast members - and it's their pinnacle film. Nothing before or since - not even No Country for Old Men, Oscar-winner though it may be - has matched The Big Lebowski.

The film takes place in a world populated by classic Coen characters, The Dude and Walter not least among them. There's John Turturro as pederast bowler Jesus Quintana, who talks a big game; Philip Seymour Hoffman as bootlicking sycophant butler Brandt; Julianne Moore as feminist artist Maude, who wants The Dude in more ways than one; Ben Gazzara as mysterious smut peddler Jackie Treehorn; Arthur Digby Sellers, a classic TV writer now confined to an iron lung; his son, a sloppy juvenile delinquent; and Sam Elliott as The Stranger, a narrator soothing enough to give Morgan Freeman a run for his money.

It's difficult to say much more about The Big Lebowski beyond "It must be seen." This is a wholly original movie that really escapes description. Relaxed and entertaining, The Big Lebowski is certainly my favorite Coen Bros. picture - and may even land a spot on my irregular-around-the-margins Best Movies of All Time list.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007)

Dennis Dugan's 2007 so-called comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry offended me on a lot of levels. No, the plotline of two heterosexual firemen (Adam Sandler as Chuck and Kevin James as Larry) who pretend to be homosexual to collect one's insurance benefits isn't at all offensive. It's a lot of other factors that troubled me to the core.

Take first the fact that, as comedies go, this one isn't terribly funny. If we're being honest with each other, I did laugh at a lot of points in the film. Yet these were quick laughs, brief "Ha!" moments interspersed between scenes that are terribly unfunny. Not because they're offensive or crude, just because there simply isn't a joke in sight. Or if those pass for jokes, I missed a memo somewhere.

Also patently offensive: Adam Sandler. Kevin James is great here (and in the sitcom that made him a star, The King of Queens), but it's unfortunate that he's not the lead in a movie that could have been saved by giving him a larger role - and replacing Sandler, who continually seems bored. Sandler seldom makes eye contact with his costars, leading me to believe that he's either practicing some new tick of method acting, or he's reading cue cards because he's not interested enough in his part.

That might be the fault of Jessica Biel, who's supposed to be playing the sexy lawyer defending Chuck and Larry, with whom of course Chuck falls in love. Did I miss a meeting somewhere? Are we giving Miss Biel acting roles because she has some talent? Because she has some endearing physical characteristics? Because to be honest, I don't see her possessing either. Forgive me for needing more in a movie than She-Hulk in wet lingerie (a scene that I'm convinced was used as a trick to get straight men into the theaters without feeling "gay").

Also forgive me for being patently offended by Rob Schneider's uncredited role as the wedding chapel owner who weds Chuck and Larry. Did I mention he's supposed to be Asian? Uck. Steve Martin's Frenchman in The Pink Panther was funnier than Schneider tries to be, which is admittedly not saying much. I'm not sure which is more offensive - that Schneider tries to revive the antique tradition of "yellowface" (a term originally used to disparage the Charlie Chan film series), or that he tries to be funny. He fails miserably on both counts.

The final offense this film commits is wasting perfectly good actors in this muck of a mess. I've already shed a tear for the misuse (I should probably say underuse, since he makes the best of his part) of Kevin James, but note Steve Buscemi who has a sum total of three scenes - an insult to a talent of his caliber. Dan Aykroyd... well, maybe not a talent, but he's reduced to giving the preachy "message" of the film in an eye-rolling climax. And Ving Rhames - oh, poor Ving Rhames. The man tries his best to redeem his largely inconsequential role as a closeted homosexual fellow fireman. Rhames is over-the-top, but I feel sorry that the man who embodied Marsellus Wallace (please, no jokes about Zed here) is stuck in movies nowhere near as funny as it could have been.

Oh, and I almost forgot. It's not even original. It's remarkably similar to a 2004 Australian film, Strange Bedfellows (similar to the point that the first film's makers are in legal combat with the second's). The original might be funnier, but after this one, I'm not exactly inclined to find out.