The Iron Lady Movie Review
This film was kind of out of focus, and I don’t mean by the projectionist.
Meryl Streep is an exceptional performer in every sense of the term, and delivers another great performance. The problem is I can’t figure out if the director (Phyllida Lloyd-Mamma Mia!, Gloriana) actually likes or hates Margaret Thatcher. I went in kind of expecting a tribute to one of the greatest world leaders of the 20th century, with highlights and low points presented in an interesting manner that included contributing personal moments and insights. You know, what a good movie would have. Instead we got a disjointed series of vignettes that seem to gloss over her triumphs and linger lovingly over Lady Thatcher’s mistakes and failures while alternating to the present where we get to see an ailing woman dealing with dementia. It’s like if you made a movie about a family trip to Disneyland but had 2/3rds of the footage be of them looking for their car in the parking lot at the end of the day.
This looks like another chance to use my recently coined term script confusion, but a more colloquial and possibly accurate term might be fence sitting. Growing up in the 80’s Thatcher had a well deserved reputation as a ball busting bitch (I mean that term with enormous respect). As a staunch ally to our country she was always perceived as a good person, but she definitely had her issues. However, this movie takes her triumphs and makes them into miniscule points that bookend long exploration of her failures, including the decline of her career, while completely glossing over the majority of her very serious personality issues (her total contempt for the poor and unemployed, not to mention her attitude towards other women). The director seemed unsure if she wanted to praise or denigrate Margarette Thatcher, and consequently never really committed far enough in either direction.
Interspersed between these vignettes was the story of a lonely old woman dealing with dementia and the death of her husband that was as depressing as possible without actually featuring your ex girlfriend sleeping with someone else on screen. I’m not kidding here. We are talking Leaving Las Vegas depressing. This over story only managed to break up any decent momentum the historical story had going and cast a terrible pall over every scene in the movie. SPOILER ALERT INCOMING. And does the film end with a scene of Margaret Thatcher’s triumph and happiness? No. It ends with her political career ending in ignobility and failure, more or less wandering down a corridor in an Alzheimer haze.
As you may have inferred from my rant so far, the story is of the infamous Iron Lady, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. There are two stories going in side by side, but as the main one seems to be a go nowhere plot about her failing years, I will sum that one up with she gets old, deals with the death of her husband, packs up his things for charity, and wanders off. The rest of the movie is a Cliffnotes version of her career, starting as the daughter of a grocer and advancing her politically as she runs for office, gets married, and becomes Prime Minister. The highlight seems to be her actions during the Falklands War, when she kicked the crap out of major world superpower Argentina. The rest of the events all seem to blur together with no real resolution. Somehow she managed to turn the economy around, but there is no real indication how she did it. There are about 1,000 scenes of riots, and the image of rioters beating on the sides of her car recurs several times. When she first gets into office the story seems to be about the trade unions destroying the economy of Great Briton, but then two scenes later the unions are gone and the economy prospering with no word of how it was accomplished. With a few exceptions this story about one of the most powerful and influential women in modern Western politics seems to treat her more like a passenger on a bus than the person behind the wheel.
The other thing that fails miserably in this film is the fact that due to the disconnected pacing and editing at no time do we actually get to connect with Meryl Streeps character. Just as you start to feel something for the crazy old lady hallucinating about her husband it cuts to her bitching out another minister in Parliament, and just as you start to connect to her as a political savvy woman struggling to make her way in the boys club of British government we cut back to her asking about her son visiting when he is in South Africa. There is nothing solid for the audience to latch onto and connect with. Meryl Streep is such a good actress that to treat her performance with such disregard for the continuity of the story is almost a crime. It’s building a house with the best bricks money can buy and assembling them with spit and chewing gum.
The stars. Meryl Streep delivers the best performance possible given the flailing vehicle she was forced to drive. One star. Some of the history was interesting. One star. For such a mediocre script, the dialog was surprisingly good, although that might just be me once again being taken in by British accents. One star. Her husband Denis (Jim Broadbent-Moulin Rouge, Gangs of New York, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) was fun and entertaining, although definitely felt 
out of place like a clown at a funeral (clown image courtesy of the Science Fiction T Shirts category). I won’t black hole them for that, as I think the movie needed some kind of comic relief. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Really, really depressing to no purpose. Two black holes. Disjointed editing. One black hole. Pacing was awful. The scenes with Thatcher as a decrepit crazy woman dragged on and on, while the scenes with her as an effective and capable leader were rushed through at high speed, almost as if the director resented having to do them and was just trying to get them out of the way. One black hole. Meryl Streep really not given the proper treatment to deliver her normally great performance. One black hole. No sign of character development or anything for the audience to connect to. One black hole. The entirety of Thatcher as a senile old biddy was completely unnecessary and pointless. Normally I would give this one black hole, but since this seems to be the majority of the screen time I will bump it up to two. At the end of the movie I found myself wondering what the entire point of the movie was. I actually have a theory on the directors actual purpose that I will get into in the conclusion. One black hole. Overall I left the theater feeling like I had just wasted my time and money. One black hole. Total: nine black holes.
A total of five black holes. If you are a huge fan of the Devil Wears Prada and/or Meryl Streep see it just to see it, but I don’t think you will come away with anything worthwhile. While writing this review I did a little research and have come up with a theory as to what was really going through the director Phyllida Lloyds cranium on this on. You see, she is best know for directing opera, a genre not really known for its uplifting message. I suspect she was infused with a desire to make a film about a lonely old woman dealing with her dead husband and uncaring children. The scenes I wanted to see of Margaret Thatcher changing the face of Briton were rushed, stilted, and treated as secondary to scenes of her making two eggs, one for her and one for her eight year dead husband. Seems a shame. However, this production was entirely funded by the UK Film Council, and trying to hold a public commission to the same bar as a Hollywood production is an exercise in futility. I’m just surprised that the Britons wouldn’t want to see Thatcher painted in a more positive light. Of course, when we do a movie about an American historical figure we tend to look for all the dirt possible (most recently J. Edgar), so perhaps the attitude here actually reflects the prevailing attitude most Britons have towards her. I don’t know.
Thanks for reading. Not a lot coming out until Friday, so I will probably do more end of the year stuff tomorrow or just blow it off entirely. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu to get announcements of new reviews, or just subscribe to my RSS feed. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
Joyful Noise Movie Review
Here is a movie to make you wish human beings had never developed vocal cords.
And I’m not talking about the singing. In fact, the music was one of the few redeeming qualities of this film. I am not a real fan of Gospel, but can appreciate the sound and understand what a powerful tool it can be for the advancement of the Christian pantheon (I consider myself more agnostic than anything else, although if I were forced to choose a specific religion I think I would roll with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster). No, it’s not the singing that made me want to stuff chewing gum in my ears. It’s the freaking dialog. If I have to hear Dolly Parton or Queen Latifah spout out another hillbilly, earthy country platitude (“If the jury is full of foxes then the chicken is always guilty”) I will be forced to go on a berserk chainsaw rampage.
The story is the unnatural offspring of Sister Act and Footloose, with lingering eye contact made with the Bad News Bears during conception. The proud parents had their child and, because someone else had already used the name Glee, ran with Joyful Noise. The weird thing is when you make a movie out of two mediocre movies you normally only take some elements from each and combine them into a crappier movie. What director/writer Todd Graff (The Electric Company, the Abyss, Five Corners, Stranger Days) did was, with the exception of the gangsters trying to kill Whoopie Goldberg, take ALL the elements from those two movies and pile drive them into one script until the screen is bursting with badness like rancid corpse stuffed into a corset. I mentioned Glee because that appears to be Mr. Graff’s favorite show, and honestly this movie reads like an entire season of bad TV compressed into 117 minutes with each episode creating yet another 5-10 minute subplot.
Fragmented doesn’t begin to describe this story. It is even more fragmented that the horrible New Years Eve I reviewed last year, although at least all the characters in this film know each other. The sub plots are legion. There’s the “main” plot of the losing church choir winning the national Joyful Noise competition. There’s the competition between Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah to be the choir director. There’s Queen Latifah’s hot 16 year old daughter rebelling against her mother’s restrictive nature, as well as her romance with Dolly’s grandson. There’s her Asperger brother trying to deal with being different from everyone else, learning to play the piano, and taking his sunglasses off. There’s the small Georgia town suffering from economic collapse. There’s the choir singer who’s father’s hardware store is closing. There’s Dolly Parton dealing with the death of her husband by ignoring it completely. There’s Queen Latifah’s husband joining the army to get away from her and the two kids. There’s Latifah’s struggle to provide for her family. There’s the grandson’s checkered juvenile past. There’s another girl hooking up with a guy and killing him after the first night (that subplot resurfaces later and somehow hijacks the whole story at the end). There’s the preacher who doesn’t want to spend money on the choir. There’s the struggle that the grandson and Dolly have to update the choir with more than just traditional music in order to win the big contest (oh yeah, somehow winning the contest is integral to the survival of the town. Still not sure what that was about). There’s the preacher hating the new music and pulling out his support. There’s the other kid who gets into a fight with the grandson over the daughter’s affection but later joins the choir as the worlds greatest guitar player or something. The list goes on and on.
In the credits (I read online. I didn’t really stay for the credits. I couldn’t get out of the theater fast enough) it is revealed that Todd Graff’s mother was in a choir, which makes a lot of sense. This movie looks a lot like a self indulgent labor of love, and Graff wanted to stick every small town or choir story schtick he could find into it. Next time I would suggest he make a list of his 20 best ideas and get a third party to whittle them down to like three. Just because you have an idea doesn’t mean you need to execute it.
Before I go on I’d like to say a few words about Dolly Parton. It seems pretty obvious that she is single handedly supporting the plastic surgery and hair care industries. That being said, I can’t argue with the results. She is 66 and looks at most 42-45ish. She also seems to have a sense of humor about it too, and plastic surgery jokes come about in a scene with Queen Latifah that was one of two that I actually enjoyed. Also, while she definitely is a lady throughout the film, her outfits seem designed to emphasis the assets she is known best for, if you know what I mean (her singing voice, obviously. What were you perverts thinking of?)
The story reads like it was written by the second place winner of a 5th grade creative writing contest. I don’t know if I need to get into it too much, as I seem to have covered it in the sub plot rehash. The church choir director (Kris Kristofferson-Blade trilogy, Planet of the Apes(2001)) drops dead during a choir competition, leaving Queen Latifah (Bringing Down the House, Living Single, Taxi) and Dolly Parton (Sweet Home Alabama, Moulin Rouge, Transamerica) up for the gig. Latifah gets it with the goal of winning the big Joyful Noise competition. Dolly’s grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan-not much of a filmography. Looks like he was in Newsies on Broadway) shows up, falls in love with Latifah’s daughter (Keke Palmer-True Jackson, Cleaner, Akeelah and the Bee), who is a good church girl. At that point the story more or less explodes into the aforementioned subplots like a watermelon with an M-80 stuck in it. Church choir hijinks ensues. No real conflict arises. The story chugs along like a V8 with only three cylinders firing to the inevitable predictable conclusion.
The stars. The music and singing were actually pretty good. One star. The actors, working within the limitations of a bad script and horrible dialog, managed to deliver a decent performance. Kind of like winning a three legged race. One star. Queen Latifah is at her best when she is bitching someone out, and there were two scenes (one with Dolly in particular) that were entertaining that way. One star. Keke Palmer is super cute. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Dialog that made me want to never see another film again. Two black holes. 1 kazillian subplots that went nowhere. One black hole. 1 subplot in particular was especially cringe-worthy. One black hole. Pretty much all the rest of the subplots gave me an attitude that rhymed with “Eye Mont Bare”. One black hole. 
The pacing dragged like trying to pull a corpse to a shallow grave by yourself (not that I would know anything about that. Where did I put that body image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). One black hole. Glee ripoff. One black hole. Overall story seemed both pointless and dumb. One black hole. A movie that is supposed to be uplifting and heartwarming laced with death and sociopaths apparently not caring about it. One black hole. Two more black holes for generally wasting my time. Total: eleven black holes.
So a grand total of seven black holes. This is another one that was weird in that the audience around me seemed to be enjoying it and laughing. However, I suspect a lot of them came to see it from some kind of church obligation and had to pretend to like it otherwise their friends might think they were not the good Christians they like to think they are. A lot of the laughter sounded forced, like laughing at your bosses bad jokes. Speaking as a creepy loner who couldn’t care less about what the people around me think (if you don’t believe me just look at how I dress every day) the only prayer I was making was for the credits to start rolling. I don’t know. Was it better than tripping and falling into a tree shredder? In most ways yes. Was it better than spending those two hours working on my Doom Fortress in Minecraft? Absolutely not. However, if you are dating a girl who is Christian this could be a good one to see, especially if you are willing to wait until your wedding night for sex.
I’m back to scraping the bottom of the barrel on movies. Nothing to see tonight, but maybe I’ll see My Week With Marilyn. No way there is anything in that film to annoy me. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Contraband Movie Review
I really can’t decide what kind of movie this is or if it was actually good or bad.
I’m going to coin a new descriptive phrase and expect every other review who uses it to send me a $.25 royalty: script confusion. This describes a movie that can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be when it grows up. This film was torn between a crime drama and an action movie. The crime drama felt awkward and haphazard, especially when it is established 10 minutes in that the main protagonist is reputably the greatest smuggler who ever lived. Throughout the crime aspects of the movie the story seems to indicate that secretly it wants to be an action film but, like a transgendered man taking her first steps in high heels, when we actually get to the action scenes they feel awkward, comedic, and tacked on.
That’s not to say this movie is bad. I found that it’s many shortcomings were often times balanced out by it’s more virtuous aspects. The comical gunfight and getaway is balanced out by some very clever smuggling tricks. The over the top main bad guy is balanced out by the very entertaining ship captain. The continuous sequence of narrow escapes is balanced out by a decent plot twist that comes about fairly organically. In fact, the whole movie seems so perfectly balanced that I can’t help but think this was intentional on the part of the director, Baltasar Kormákur. I have in the last year become a big fan of Scandinavian film makers (check out my review of Trollhunter), and while is filmography lacks a lot of main stream releases (Jar City, A Little Trip to Heavan, the Sea) it looks like he might be worth keeping an eye on.
The story. A loser kid Andy (Caleb Landry Jones-X-Men First Class, No Country for Old Men, the Last Exorcist) dumps a cargo of drugs overboard a freighter when it gets boarded by customs agents and now owes a ton of dough to the local campy bad guy Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi-Avatar (the corporate guy), Saving Private Ryan, Gone in 60 Seconds), who is going to kill him in horrible ways if he doesn’t get his money. Andy is the brother of Kate (Kate Beckensale-Underworld, the Aviator, Pearl Harbor) who is married to the most famous smuggler that ever lived, Chris Farraday (Marky Mark Wahlberg-Boogie Nights, the Fighter, the Other Guys). Now it is up to Chris to find the money to pay off Briggs, and given that he has retired from smuggling in order to be a blue collar business owner, his only option is to go back into smuggling. He is aided by long time friend Sebastian (Ben Foster-the Mechanic, the Messenger, 3:10 to Yuma), who has also gone legit with a construction business. They plan to smuggle in a huge stack of counterfeit money (yay for supporting the American economy!) on another freighter.
Somehow he and Andy get hired onto another freighter headed to Panama and meet up with a number of supporting characters plucked fresh from the the ground of the stereotype farm. Once on board Chris catches the eye of the ship captain (the great J.K. Simmons-J. Jonah Jamison from the Spiderman franchise, Juno, the Closer. Spiderman image courtesy of the Marvel T Shirt category), who was easily my favorite character and knows of Chris’s history and is instantly suspicious. They get to Panama in about 45 minutes where Chris gets involved in some kind of local gang lord crime spree. At that point the movie shifts gears into 
what I like to call the Scooby Doo chase sequence, where the story and characters progress only by the most ridiculous sequence of perfect timing and coincidence, like when the bad guy in the rubber costume is chasing Scooby and Shaggy through the corridor with the six doors (you know what I’m talking about). This part feels more that a little hackneyed, which surprised me as most of the rest of the movie seemed pretty well put together. Either Baltasar (what a cool name. I want to name my hypothetical son Baltasar) was trying to convey something I am too dense to pick up on, or he caved in to outside pressure from the studio to make the movie somehow more exciting by hoisting the audiences disbelief a little higher up.
Anyway, smuggling hijinks ensues. A lot of time is spent looking into shipping containers. Some kind of interesting plot twists reveal themselves.
The stars. Decent story. One star. Direction was pretty good. One star. In spite of the whole Scooby Doo portion, overall the pacing was right on target. There was no time that I felt bored or that things were dragging or progressing too fast. One star. Mark Wahlberg delivered a credible performance, in spite of the occasional campy dialog. One star. Decent plot twists, although a perceptive person might have seen them coming ahead of time. One star. Captain Camp was great. One star. In total a decent film that was enjoyable in a kind of bland way, like chewing on gum that has already lost it’s flavor. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. A movie that is rated R for language is a huge waste of potential. It’s like going to jail for stealing socks. If you are going to eat the R rating anyway you might as well throw in more horrific violence, blood, and some nudity. One black hole. Some of the characters, Briggs in particular, seem really over the top. One black hole. Some ocean container sized plot holes. One black hole. Almost all the characters worked on having some kind of New Orleans accent except for Wahlberg, who in spite of the fact that his character supposedly grew up on the Big Easy sounded like he just got off the plane from Beantown. One black hole. While it seemed like a decent movie, I walked out feeling no real connection to the story or any of it’s characters, and honestly struggled this morning to remember the plot and my feelings for it. Definitely a forgettable film. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of two stars. Meh. You won’t feel like you wasted your time or money seeing this, but a week afterward it won’t really stick with you. If you can see it cheap cool. If you wait until DVD you won’t really lose anything. There aren’t any cinemagraphics that requires a big screen. Date movie? Sure. Exciting and interesting enough to keep her into it while being bland enough to not offend or overstimulate her. Marky Mark keeps his shirt on for pretty much the whole film so you don’t have to worry about the comparison factor too much. However, this movie is kind of neutral in that it will neither help or hurt you in your campaign to seduce her, so if you haven’t closed the deal yet try to find something more enticing (or better yet, do something more fun and exciting than a movie).
Thanks for reading. I will eventually get the rest of my best of 2011 stuff done, but there are a bunch of new movies I want to see. My best friend tells me he wants my review on Joyful Noise. I will see it, but I suspect he is just screwing with me because he knows this film will drive me nuts. Also I am working on another huge project for work, so I might not get a lot done in the next week or so. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Devil Inside Movie Review
Most reviews seem to have panned this, but I kind of liked it.
This week is more proof that I have been secretly transported to Bizarro world and that in it most of Bizarro humanity is comprise of freaks and I am the normal one. Everyone loved Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and I thought it was sluggish and confusing. Everyone seems to hate this movie and, to be honest, I really enjoyed it. I found it fun, interesting, and honestly frightening at points, and when I get back to the real, non-Bizarro world I am sure I will find any number of people who agree with me (in the real world I also have a ton of money and women find me irresistible. Bizarro world sucks. Bizarro image courtesy of the Superman T Shirt category).
That is not to say this movie doesn’t have it’s flaws, and I can totally see where a lot of the criticism stems from. We will get into that shortly, but overall I found this movie to be a good time.
What I didn’t find this movie to be, however, was a good value for the money. It is a woefully short 87 minutes and the ending they pulled out of their asses with no sign of any kind of resolution, conclusion, or development. As it is a mock “found footage” documentary this is kind of understandable, but honestly this film looks exactly like a student film that the people working on it got bored and decided to just end it in one fell swoop. The film puts the “ow” in “low budget” and I think there is a distinct possibility they ran out of funds and decided to wrap it up quick.
The movie is presented as a documentary about a daughter named Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade-Why am I Doing This?, Fallen, For Love or Country; the Arturo Sandoval Story) looking into the demonic possession of her mother (Susan Crowley-Born of Fire, Cristabel) with the help of a documentarian named Micheal (Ionut Grama-The Whistleblower, Guber’s Journey, Closer to the Moon) who wants to do a film about exorcisms. They travel to Rome where the mother is locked up in a Catholic mental hospital. In Rome they meet two freelance exorcists, Ben and David (Simon Quarterman-The Scorpian King; Rise of a Warrior, Inside, Perfect Strangers and Evan Helmuth-Garfield, Fever Pitch, Franks Book. Wasn’t the Helmouth the name of the portal to Hell in the basement of the school in Buffy the Vampire Slayer?), both priests who do exorcisms without the consent of the Church. The mother killed three people when they last tried to exorcise her so the Church wants nothing to do with her.
At that point we get a lot of character development. Interviews go on with Ben, David, and Isabella that explore their reasons and motivations for being into exorcism. In a normal film I would be very pleased to see such character depth presented, but in a documentary format I can’t really give props for characters more or less saying “The reason I got into exorcism is blah blah blah”. Fish in a barrel, really. This section drags on a little but the pacing seemed appropriate for a documentary. We get to the actual exorcism and at that point the story kind of drops the character exploration in favor of some scary scenes. A few minutes later someone switches the record player from 33 to 45 (all my older readers should understand that last one) and the story thunders to the conclusion like it activated the booster rocket embedded in its ass. Demonic chaos (haw!) ensues and some stuff that was hinted at never gets revealed.
The stars. Well done, given the limitations that found footage movies must labor under. One star. While it was obviously derived from Blair Witch Project, I didn’t feel like it was really just a remake. One star. The actors were all pretty good, and I liked all the characters. One star. Fernands Andrade is super cute in a wholesome way that I really liked (also brunette, my personal fav). One star. This horror movie was actually scary at points, and presented some creepy and interesting concepts. I found myself jumping at times. One star. Good use of camera and lighting to help set the creepy mood. One star. Good character development and presentation, at least in the first half of the film. One star. The didn’t do the whole camera-man-jogging-so-the-screen-is-constantly-jumping-around thing, which meant I didn’t lose my popcorn. One star. Overall entertaining. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The movie ended so abruptly I expected the airbag to go off. One black hole. The film felt really, really short and had a lot of padding in the form of characters walking down hallways and so one. Not a lot of meat. One black hole. While the horror buildup was presented with a nice progression once we got into the actual scary stuff the movie was pretty much over. It’s rare that I ask for more gore, but this movie could have used something. One black hole. There was a large number of opportunities for further plot or character development that were left by the wayside. Each character, including the possessing demon, had something hinted at that would have been really interested had we been given a little more. One black hole. Total: Four black holes.
So a total of five stars, which is way more than I expected it to get going in. I had heard this movie sucked and was more or less salivating in anticipation of something really juicy to chew on, but found that it wasn’t bad. In fact, I spent the first 20 minutes really looking for the suck before settling into my seat to enjoy it. Is it worth seeing? Sure, especially if you can see it for $5 like I did. It will do OK on a TV scree, but some of the exorcism scenes might lose a lot, especially the first one. Date movie? For the right girl, yes. Don’t take someone who is religious unless you want to get a religious lecture and a firm handshake at the end of date. Actually, I think this is an excellent date movie. Scary enough to have her holding onto your arm but not so frightening that she gets creeped out on the ride home. There are a couple scenes involving things that might creep out a girl particularly, but for the most part if she has a brain and sense of humor it should work OK.
Thanks for reading. Nothing to see tonight, so I will continue with my end of the year awards tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Have a good night, and I will talk to you all later.
Dave
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Movie Review
Ugh. I’m afraid this is going to be another review that makes me look and feel stupid. You see, if I were the type to use analogies in my reviews I might say a movie is like an engine. In most cases of mainstream Hollywood movies the engine is a simple and crude coal burning one piston steam engine. Low energy output, prone to breakdowns, and they create a lot of smelly smoke and pollution. By comparison, a movie like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a nuclear power plant, creating abundant energy at high output with a minimum of moving parts and a complexity that could be considered beautiful to a technophile. If I were to beat my analogy further into the ground, I could say that, while I understand the principles behind a simple steam engine (and, to be honest, if I were sufficiently motivated I could probably build one that would either work or blow up horribly) the complexities of a nuclear power plant are far beyond my ken.
Thus we come to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It is a beautiful movie, amazingly shot and well crafted, but so complicated and convoluted that I kept losing track of what the hell was going on. Characters kept appearing, adding a little more complexity, and then vanishing back into the fold. It didn’t help much that, to a man (and in one case, woman) almost all the characters looked like they had all been pressed out of the same Playdoh mold using slight variations in the color white. Honestly, they all looked like they had been dredged up out of a river. Keeping track of any one character was like trying to watch a specific tuna in a huge school. Even the main character, the great Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordan from Batman Begins and the Dark Knight) I kept getting confused with John Hurt (Alien, V for Vendetta, Hellboy).
It seems pretty obvious to me that this is a movie adaptation of a wonderfully complex spy thriller book, but suffered from a lack of screen time to deliver the story. Ironically, there was also a lot of time spent on stuff that could be considered at best insignificant. Honestly, if they had dropped the five minutes exploring the romance between one spy and a hot Russian defector (all of which could have been delivered using about two lines of expository dialog) and used that time to further explore the relationship between two of the other spies I might have not been scratching my head so much on the way out. As this is a mystery (of sorts) I really don’t want to go into it too much as it might blow part of the ending, but if I had had a better understanding of what was going on between them I might have been able to figure out the motivation that seemed to be lacking.
That being said, the film is really well done. The costuming and lighting scream Cold War Era. The acting was good for what was needed (it’s not that tough to play an emotionless, acerbic anti-socialite, which is pretty much what the entire cast was composed of). However, in a weird twist this really complicated story described as a spy mystery had little to do with mystery at all. The puzzle, when solved, seems to be from the most mundane maneuvers possible. The movie could easily have been about discovering the source of an accounting discrepancy in a huge British bureaucracy, which is effectively what this was about. While there were definitive plot points that were critical to the story, the pacing between plot points dragged on and on. It was like traveling from oasis to oasis through a bleak desert. I wasn’t looking for car chases and gun fights, but a little more focus on the characters and/or motivations would have been well received.
Like I said, I won’t get too deep into the story as I don’t want to spoil anything. Gary Oldman is Smiley, an aged spy pulled out of retirement to discover who a mole is in the British intelligence community during the Cold War. He is aided by Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch-Sherlock Holmes (the new, really good BBC one, which I highly recommend), War Horse, the Other Boleyn Girl) and some other old guy who barely registered. He is at odds with most of his suspects, mainly because he was part of the old guard that the current heads swept away. Some detective work happens, although not as much as you would expect, and a lot of seemingly pointless flashbacks surface and more or less pad out the run time without contributing a lot. (Russian Spy image courtesy of the Political T Shirt category)
The stars. Gary Oldman. One star. Very complicated story. Two stars. For all that the movie was almost entirely shot indoors, there were some amazing camera angles and shots, very different from modern movie production. One stars. Acting was very good. One star. The director did a great job making you feel like you were in the 70’s in London. One star. If his intention was to show you what it would be like to grind through a massive, Brazil-esque bureaucracy than my hat’s off to him, for he totally succeeded. One star. Overall well done. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. My head hurt from trying to keep up with what was going on and I left the theater totally confused. Sure, call me a moron but this is my blog so one black hole. The pacing at multiple points felt like trying feed a bike chain through a hand cranked meat grinder. One black hole. No real attempt to explain what anyone’s motivations really were. One black hole. For most of the movie nothing really happened, and when it did it had all the emotional impact of a minor breaking of wind. Even the final dramatic scene was delivered like a mechanic changing your oil. Deadpan and emotionless don’t even begin to describe this film. One black hole. A complicated mystery that was solved using techniques from the Scooby Doo school of detective work. One black hole. Did I mention confusing? I guess I did. Five black holes total.
So a total of three stars. Not great, and not what I would expect based on the quality of this film and what I heard about it. Once again I am at odds with the greater movie reviewing industry, but I won’t lie just to look like everyone else (in fact, that sounds like exactly the wrong reason to lie about anything). I found the movie plodish and confusing. If you are of a higher intellect you might get more out of this (or, if you like to pretend you are of a higher intellect, go see it and tell everyone else how great the film is. That way they will all assume you are some kind of super genius). There is nothing on the screen that really requires a theater. Not only do I recommend you wait until it comes out on DVD, but if you really want to enjoy and understand it odds are you should buy the film and watch it every night for a week or so. Date movie? Hell no. She will be bored stupid and will want to get as far away from you as possible. On the other hand, with the possible exception of Benedict Cumberbatch everyone in this movie is to good looks what Cheez Whiz is to fine dining, so you might gain some points by comparison. I wouldn’t take the chance.
More end of the year stuff tomorrow, I think. Kind of dry for new movies right now unless I want Bollywood, and I am Singh kind of burned that out of me. I might have to go off on other tangents once the awards posts are done. Maybe finish off that Star Trek rant I had going. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Best and Worst Movies of 2011 Part 2
And so I continue.
The “Dressing a Pig in a Wig and Ballroom Dress” award for the most worthless, unnecessary, or misapplied use of CGI or special effects. The candidates are Transformers Dark of the Moon, The Immortals, The Three Musketeers, Conan the Barbarian, Green Lantern, and I am Number Four. There wasn’t actually a lot of mental debate on my part for this one. The inexplicable and completely unnecessary pyrotechnic special effects in Transformers Dark of the Moon make it the clear cut winner.
The “We Might Have Actually Done a Better Job With Claymation” award for the worst CGI effects. The candidates are Season of the Witch, Dylan Dog, Dead of the Night, Green Lantern, Troll Hunter and Attack the Block. I hate doing this as I honestly enjoyed the movie, but I have to give it to Attack the Block for the midnight black bugbears. A little depth and shadow is not that hard to render, guys.
The “My Trophy Wife is Actually a Real Doll” award for the most obviously tacked on unnecessary or worthless supporting character. The candidates are Erin Sadelstein (Katie Holmes) from Jack and Jill, Walter from the Muppets, Milady de Winter (Mila Jovovich) from the Three Musketeers, the entire cast of New Years Eve, Riah (Oriah Acima Andrews) from Abduction, Brawny Smurf from the Smurfs, the kids from the Change Up, Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington Whitely) from Tranformers Dark of the Moon, and Tom Kalmaku (Taika Waititi) from Green Lantern. With such a plethora of candidates it was really tough to narrow things down (I’d like to give a special mention to Hal Jordan’s entire family, especially his nephew, in Green Lantern as well) but the award has to go to Rosie Huntington Whitely for her worthless portrayal as a love interest in Transformers. I think they could have had the same result had the filmmakers just streamed internet porn into a picture-within-a-picture in one corner of the film, and we wouldn’t have had to put up with her acting.
The “$3 More Buys You a Headache and a Cheap Pair of Souvenir Glasses” award for the worst or most unnecessary 3D effects. The candidates are Drive Angry, Green Lantern, Priest, Fright Night, the Three Musketeers, the Immortals, and Hugo. I think all 3D sucks, but given a choice I think I will have to give this one to Priest. Literally did nothing for the quality of the film.
The “George W Bush” award for the movie that makes the most mockery of science. The candidates are the Darkest Hour, Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part I, the Three Musketeers, Tree of Life, Captain America: the First Avenger, Transformers Dark of the Moon, Super 8, Source Code, and I am Number Four. God I want to give this one to the Three Musketeers. The problem is, while every single invention in that movie was like a stupid sandwich served up with extra stupid and a side of dumb, they were all theoretically possible. Therefore I have to give this award to Source Code for the inane concept that a computer hooked up to a dead man’s brain can alter the space/time continuum. Saying the words “quantum physics” does not really mean you understand quantum physics. (image courtesy of the Nerd T Shirt category)
OK, enough of the negative awards. Let’s do some positive ones.
The “Sex With a Crazy Woman” award for the movie whose 3D effects were good enough to eclipse the headache I got. The candidates are the Muppets, Arthur Christmas, Transformers Dark of the Moon, the Adventures of Tintin, and Conan the Barbarian. I am going to give this one to the Smurfs. I think 3D works best when done on fully rendered animation, and having it included in a live action film helped the CGI figures really pop out nicely.
The “Square Peg Into a Square Hole” award for the best, most effective, or must seamless use of CGI and special effects. The candidates are the Darkest Hour, the Thing, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Real Steel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Cowboys and Aliens. This was a real debate for me, boiling down to Real Steel and Planet of the Apes. I thin I am going to go with Real Steel. When you look at a giant robot in that film it really looks like there is a giant robot on the screen. You could easily say the same for Planet of the Apes, but honestly I just like robots better than apes.
The “Wonder Bra” award for the best supporting character or sidekick. The candidates are Kato (Jay Chao) from Green Hornet, Clive Gollings (Nick Frost) from Paul, Wise Man (Scott Glenn) from Sucker Punch, Hobson (Helen Mirren) from Arthur, Dr, Carolina Aranha (Frieda Pinto) from Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Chet (Aziz Ansari) from 30 Minutes or Less, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) from Moneyball, and Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt) from Young Adult. This is a tough one too as I would want any one of these people backing me up. However, if I had to choose one to be my go to guy in a tight spot I think I would go with the Wise Man from Sucker Punch.
That’s it for today. More later on, although I might see a movie tonight. I have been meaning to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It looks really good. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you tomorrow.
Dave
The Nerdy Awards: The Best and Worst Movies of 2011 Part 1
Time to get into this. First of all, this is actually the best and worst movies of 2011 that I actually saw and reviewed, for the most part. If I missed something you think is supposed to be here, my apologies. I am going to do this Oscar style by listing the candidates for my fake awards and then let you know the winner. I think each post in this series I will give a few of my bitter joke awards and end up with one or two good one.
The “Who Brought This Guy Award” for the most unnecessary, worthless, or unasked for sequel of the year. The candidates are: the Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part I, Johnny English Reborn, Columbiana, and The Hangover Part II. Johnny English seems to be the obvious choice, but when you think about it the reasons for this sequel make total sense: ripping off as many foreign viewers as possible. The bitterness that resides deep in the heart of the voting Academy (one member, me) makes me inclined to go with the Hangover, but I think if the movie going audience had been poled prior to this abortion being released most people would have said a sequel was a good idea. Yes, the winner of the Who Brought This Guy Award goes to Columbiana. It was originally written as a sequel to the Professional, a film that in no way ever needed a sequel. Also it was pretty miserable as a stand alone movie.
The “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” award for the flattest, most robot-like emotionless performance(s) of the year. The candidates are Nicholas Cage for Season of the Witch and Drive Angry, Ryan Gosling for Drive, Robert the tire from Rubber, the dead cosmonaut from Apollo 18, and Atom the fighting robot from Real Steel. The winner, barely beating out the dead cosmonaut, has to be Nicholas Cage. Congratulations.
The “Accidentally drank from the Drano can instead of my beer award” (AKA the George Inman (my father) memorial award) for the movie that I thought was going be great and instead felt like I was being shot naked with a paintball gun for two hours. The candidates are The Green Hornet, The Green Lantern, Conan the Barbarian, Battle Los Angeles, The Hangover Part II, the Killer Elite, and The Adventures of Tintin. In terms of biggest level of anticipation followed by biggest fall, this Nerdy can only go to the Green Lantern. I had so much hope for this movie, and was so bitterly disappointed. (Green Lantern image courtesy of the Comic Book t shirt category)
The “Purposely drank from the Drano can” award for the movie that I totally expected to suck and it did. The candidates are New Years Eve, Jack and Jill, Footloose, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, What’s Your Number, the Change Up, and I am Number Four. This Nerdy is near and dear to my heart, as it is my chance to feel good about how smart and perceptive I am. Bucky Larson was a contender, but I have to give it to Jack and Jill, the movie equivalent of passing a baseball sized kidney stone.
The “Dave is an idiot” award for the movie I expected to suck and turned out great. The candidates are Fast Five, Bridesmaids, Friends with Benefits, Our Idiot Brother, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Warrior, and the Thing. Honestly, I am going to have to go with the Thing. I thought it was going to be another mediocre remake of a great movie, and instead it was a brilliant prequel to a great movie. Kudos.
The “I wish I had a hot car and girlfriend” award for the best driving movie. This year there were only three eligible. Drive, Drive Angry, and Fast Five. I am going to have to give this Nerdy to Fast Five. I was really surprised how much I enjoyed it. The other two were retrospectively a boring arsty noir film and a bad grindhouse spoof.
That’s it for today. Warhammer tonight and I have to compose a new list. More awards tomorrow. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. By the way, I saw the trailer for the Hobbit and, while it looks decent like detecting a lump in my testicles I am starting to see signs that the cancer of remaking great stories to suit Hollywood creeping its way into this film. It’s been years since I read the Hobbit, but I don’t recall Bilbo Baggins spending a lot of time in Elrond looking at the Shards of Narsil. He was there, but it was pretty brief. Also, I couldn’t be sure but I think they stuck a human into the party besides Gandalf with the dwarfs. Also someone told me they managed to crowbar Arwen into the the story. You know, in a story as rich as the Hobbit I think it’s OK to not have a pretty face in there worthlessly. I don’t know if any of this is true, but I hope they aren’t going to ruin this in order to make a few more bucks. I’ll let you know what else I hear.
Dave
We Bought a Zoo Movie Review
The sappiness dial on this movie goes up to 11.
Yes, this movie was sappy like Natalie Portman is hot or the general movie going population is dumb. Does that hurt the movie? In one sense yes. However, if you saw any of the trailers and expected to be anything other than heartwarmed then your problems with perceptions run so deep you wouldn’t notice that your hair was on fire until someone shot you in the face with a fire extinguisher. This movie will play your emotional heartstrings like a cheap ukelele, evoking sadness, happiness, cuteness, frustration and (in the case of Scarlett Johansson and, assuming you are into men, Matt Damon) horniness. (11 Dial image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
The story is, as the title subtlety implies, about a family that buys a zoo. It starts off with the father (Matt Damon-Good Will Hunting, the whole Bourne series) and his kids dealing with the recent death of his wife (Stephanie Szostak-the Devil Wears Prada, Dinner for Schmucks). His annoying 14 year old son (Colin Ford-Jack and the Beanstalk, Push) is dealing by acting out in passive aggressive ways and by drawing disturbing pictures all the time. His daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones-Footloose) seems better adjusted but prone to telling strangers that her mommy died.
Let me just go on an aside and talk a bit about Maggie Elizabeth Jones. In this movie she is comprise of 100% pure weapons-grade cuteness. I can’t stress that enough. She is so cute your face will hurt from smiling every time she is on the screen or says something. Until she turns into another annoying teenage actress she will probably have a lock on every super cute child role for the next six years, and deservedly so. I am not really into other people’s kids, but was smiling every time she said something.
Anyway, the son Dylan gets booted out of school for stealing and the father Benjamin (who by the way, is being stalked by every hot woman in whatever town he lives in. I guess being a hot single widower with super cute kids is quite the turn on for women) decides they need a new start. He ends up buying the zoo based on his love of the house. He opts to get the zoo running again and meets the staff, including the super hot zookeeper Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson-Match Point, Iron Man 2, the Prestige) who falls into the Hollywood pit of the amazing girl who dedicated her life to animals rather than dating and getting a life, as well as a host of flat, two dimensional stereotypes ( just imagine the kind of hippies who want to work on a zoo for no money and you will have them nailed down). Her younger 13 year old sister Lilly (Elle Fanning-Super 8, Deja Vu, the Door in the Floor) lives there too and gains a crush for emo-Dylan. At that point the story more or less follows the very typical family-business-struggling-in-the-face-of-adversity Hollywood script. They are obstructed by a cartoonish antagonist in the form of USDA inspector Walter Ferris (John Micheal Higgins-Wag the Dog, Fun With Dick and Jane, Bad Teacher) who has to certify them before they open and a host of other incidental problems.
The stars. The movie does what it set out to do, which is yank your emotions around like a fish on a line before landing you in the heartwarming boat. One star. Rosie was painfully cute. One star. Good dialog. One star. Good direction. One star. The main characters in the form of Benjamin and Kelly felt really real, although their on screen romance felt a little artificial. One star. Lots of cute animals to look at. One star. At the end of the film you feel good and don’t feel like your time and money were wasted. Two stars. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. As real as Benjamin and Kelly felt, almost all the supporting characters felt really flat and artificial. The supporting characters in the Muppets felt more real. One black hole. Pacing really seemed to drag at times. One black hole. The story was predictable enough to set your clock to. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of five stars. Not bad. Worth seeing with the qualifier that you are not looking for any chases, fights, explosions, or surprises of any kind. It really earns it’s PG rating. I don’t think any of the scenes are of such cinematographic brilliance that they require a large screen, so NetFlix is fine. On the other hand, this is a brilliant date movie, as your girl will love it and the little girl will have her thinking about a family for sure.
That’s it for now. I am working on my Nerdy Awards and think I will start them over the weekend. Nothing to see tonight, but I might actually do some nerd dating advice tomorrow. Some things that happened over New Years kind of got me thinking about it again. Look for that tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Happy New Year.
And a 2011 movie recap.
So I have been working on my movie awards (the Nerdies) and in preparation for this created a data base of all the movies I reviewed last year. It was a lot. 90 movies, to be precise. Kind of a staggering amount, and I saw a lot of crap and a lot of good stuff. If you are interested in any of these reviews (most are pretty good in my less than humble opinion) you can choose the month on the right and scroll until you find it, or just search it out on Google. Here is the list:
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War Horse Movie Review
Decent movie, but don’t see this if you actually love horses.
This movie was actually better than I expected. Sure, it’s Spielberg, but I had just been disappointed with Tintin and as masterful a storyteller as he is, he has a tendency to let his story dip into the sappy zone and hover there, like in E.T. However, while the sap was there (lots of young boys snuggling horses) the story, after a sluggish start, really drew you in.
Spielberg appears to be using this production as a tool to show the horror of WWI like he did with Saving Private Ryan. However, in spite of a much more terrible war (WWI was way more brutal than WWII. WWI is why they created war crimes) it does not come even close to how well Private Ryan did. The blame for this I put firmly on the PG-13 rating Spielberg bends bars to maintain. I am not one of those guys who feels the need for gore and blood in everything, but the impact of a battle scene loses something when nothing brutal is shown. Guys get shot and just fall to the ground. One of the main characters gets caught in a gas attack and in the next scene, instead of showing him lying in a cot coughing himself to death (mustard gas) he has a bandage over his eyes. There was none of the horrific desperate attempts to hold your own entrails in, or guys getting their limbs blown off. It was almost sanitized, like a video game, and that sensitization kind of washes away a lot of the impact.
However, as kind as Spielberg was to his human characters he makes it up in his treatment of the horses. Through a series of really good puppets and camera work with very little CGI he shows all kinds of horrible things happening to horses. To be honest it was more than a little stomach turning, and I had to look away during a couple scenes. A horse is a noble creature, and should not be shown in extreme pain and horrible situations. I can’t actually call anything that happened animal cruelty, as none if it was malicious or intentional, but just really hard to watch. This goes out to my horse loving friend Lauren in particular. Don’t see this if you have a love of horses.
Anyway, the movie, with a few spoilers. It follows the life of Joey, a thoroughbred horse born on a Scottish farm prior to WWI. His birth is witnessed by young Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine-no other film roles), who takes an instant bond with him. The horse goes up for auction and Alby’s drunken father Ted (Peter Mullan-Trainspotting, My Name is Joe, Boy A) makes the mistake of buying him for a very large amount. This is going to cause them to lose the farm, literally, unless Alby can train Joey to pull a plow and can then plow the most rock filled field in all of Scotland. He does so and all seems well until the crop is ruined from a storm. Ted is forced to sell Joey to a cavalry officer (Tom Hiddleston-Loki from Thor, Midnight in Paris, Conspiracy), who takes him to France where he learns what happens when sword wielding cavalry charges machine guns. Joey is captured by the Germans and put to use hauling ambulances. He then goes through a long series of owner changing, from two German deserters, a French jam maker and his granddaughter, and a German artillery officer who seems to relish putting down injured horses. He finally breaks free in a panic and runs out into No Man’s Land and gets caught up in the one scene I had the hardest time watching. He gets rescued by a Scottish corporal with the help of a German infantryman (a love of horses supersedes the need to kill each other) and is eventually reunited with Alby, who apparently joined the infantry while all this was going on. Some other drama goes on before the end.
The stars. Decent if sappy story. One star. Amazing camera work and visuals. Two stars. While not graphic enough to really impact, the fighting did illustrate a lot of the horror of WWI. One star. The uniforms and equipment seemed correct, including the German spiked Kaiser helmets, and the entire film was very well within period. One star. This is something only a treadhead would appreciated, but they actually did show a rhomboid tank (I think it was a MkV Heavy, but they didn’t really show it off entirely). I don’t know if they found a functional unit (there are a few in the world) or just built a replica, but really cool. One star. The horse handling, puppets and special effects were stunning. One star. I don’t want to get into it too much, but this movie did manage to draw out an emotional response from me. One star. Overall good movie. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Stomach wrenching horse-in-pain scenes. One black hole. For the most part, all the characters seemed flat and uninteresting. I don’t know if this was the writing or the fact there doesn’t actually seem to be a real protagonist. The focal character changes every 15 minutes or so, never allowing you to connect with any of them, and Joey the horse does not show enough of a distinctive personality to really connect with. For the most part he acts like a horse and a horse is a horse (of course, of course). One black hole. Each sub-character seemed to have a whole new sub plot that disappeared with that character. One black hole. What could have been a great R rated war movie got a PG-13 rating tied to its feet. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a grand total of five stars. Decent movie in all regards, and well worth watching. I will also say that the visuals are amazing, and if you don’t see it in a huge theater you will not get the full effect. Go out and see it. I don’t know how this would work as a date movie. Sure, it has horses, but it also has a lot of other stuff that might turn a girl off. She might respond well to the ending, but I personally don’t like to leave stuff like that to chance.
That’s it for now. I have a freakishly busy weekend coming up (party, party, dinner with friends) and don’t know if I will get to see anything. It might be Monday before I blog again. (Party Like a Vulcan image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts). Thanks again for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
