Punk Rock Prom Queen (Josie and The Pussycats - 2001)

Every once in a while a movie comes out that is so incredibly, brilliantly satirical that the world at large misses the point and it is doomed to obscurity.  This is one of those movies.  (Starship Troopers is another.  Brilliant satire ruined by people going to watch a Sci-Fi War Movie.)  And it's a shame that this gem failed so miserably, but it's sort of understandable.

I mean - Josie and the Pussycats?  That cartoon/Archie comic that no one really read or watched anymore in 2001?  I'm guessing that people brought their kids to watch it thinking it would be a live action version of the cartoon and were disappointed.  They proceeded to tell all their friends how disappointing it was and the film never had a chance to catch on with its target audience.

Let's start this review with what this move is and is not.

It is not:

1.  A direct translation of its source material
2. Aimed at children
3. Covered in bees (I just wanted a thing bullet point.  I'm sorry)

It is:

1. Hilarious
2. Aimed at the late-teen audience
3. A smartly-written take down of consumer culture
4. Responsible for the phrase "inside the four-wheeled hellpit" entering my vocabulary.

The plot of the film (spoilers ahead) involves an Evil Record Company using pop music to brainwash the kids of America into chasing various fads to stimulate the economy.  When their most popular act discovers what's going on and starts asking questions, that band is eliminated and Evil Record Guy (Alan Cumming in his best role this side of the Earl of Rochester in Plunkett & Maclean) needs to find a new band to push the agenda which leads him to finding our titular heroines...and away we go.

Taken just on that description it sounds silly.  I know it does.  What follows it up is a massive riff on American Consumerism though.  It's filled with over-the-top product placement as far as the eye can see.  Every frame just reinforcing the idea that buying and selling is the ultimate goal of life.  It creates the feeling that the world is actually and literally out to get you.  You can't shut your eyes and look away because the urge to buy comes at you from all sides.

But it's done much more subtly than that makes it sound.  And with much greater comedic effect.  Added together with 90 minutes of in-jokes, call-backs and sly breaking of the fourth wall the whole thing comes across beautifully.  The three leads (younger versions of Rachel Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson and Tara Reid) have a great on-screen chemistry and throughout the run time seem to be having a great time inhabiting the world and characters they're in.

The villains are brought to ridiculous, hammy life by Parker Posey and Alan Cumming both of whom are taking the caricatures they're embodying and playing them to the hilt.  It's endlessly satisfying to watch them plot and manipulate their stars.  The final goal of the brainwashing scheme pays off in brilliantly in the show's final act.

If you like pop culture jokes, music or satire you are doing yourself a disservice by not seeing this film.  Get there, people.  Do it now.

Let's all watch Hermione Granger Cry (Noah)

Alright, boys and girls.  It's been a little while since my first official review.  Let's get back to it with a movie I watched a few weeks ago and have tried to let marinate in my mind to see how it goes.  In this case, Hermione Granger and the Boring End of the World.  Or as it was called in theaters, Noah.  As always, spoilers follow.

(Full Disclosure: I am not by nature a religious man.  I am, by nature a fan of Darren Arnofsky.)

I really wanted to like this film.  I really, really did.  I like all (most) of the actors in it.  I like the writer/director.  I like big spectacle movies.  With all these things put together how can this possibly go wrong?  Well as it turns out pretty easily - you make a bad movie.

The film starts with a ham handed voice-over explaining how God (the Abrahamic God, without a doubt.  But we'll never say the word God -they say "The Creator" instead- in the movie.  So that's ok.) created the universe.  The implication was that the big G sort of set the universe spinning and then let it evolve on its own.  The "7 Days of Creation" from the Bible become instead seven epochs during which the universe expanded and life came to evolve on Earth.  It just so happens that his favorite life evolved into his own image and were two people that he then spoke to directly.  Because although they make it clear that he could have just made them at any time and in any state he chose not to.  Because...reasons?

Then the serpent convinces Eve to eat some knowledge and they get cast out.  We get an explanation of Caine killing Abel and the further explanation that all of Caine's descendants have become evil.  We know they're evil because they live in cities and are omnivores, though they prefer meat.  Yes, they're evil because they function in the manner in which they were designed by the Creator and his wacky evolution to process food.

Good people (The Children of Seth - Caine and Abel's younger brother for those of you not familiar with the Bible) are vegetarians.  They are also led by a man with magical powers that he invokes by wrapping the snake skin of Satan around his forearm.  Magic Snake Man is killed by Evil Meat Eater while a helpless young Noah watches. Baby Noah flees and the plot, as such, begins.

I have to say "as such" here because in the entire run time of this film (138 minutes) very little actually happens.  For a little over two hours we watch the most boring Apocalypse ever. Noah gets a vision which he assumes (probably correctly) is from his Creator showing him that the world is going to end eventually via big flood.  He takes his small family of vegetarians to meet up with his grandfather (a magic-sword using Anthony Hopkins who is clearly phoning in every second he's on screen) and begin construction of a big boat so they can survive.

Noah decides eventually that the Creator intends for all humans, even the vegetarians, to die.  So he forbids his sons from finding fertile wives.  Hermione ends up magically pregnant.  He wants to kill the babies because they're girls and can reproduce with their cousins.  He can't do it.  Movie ends on a happy/hopeful note of humanity beginning afresh.  The end.

There's some more stuff that happens, obviously, but none of it matters.  The film allows exactly zero character growth.  Every single person ends up in exactly the same situation and attitude as they have when they're first introduced.  You would think that possibly, just maybe, being the only human beings to survive the wrath of your god would have some sort of impact on someone.  But nope.  Even Noah's mid-film decision to murder his own grandchildren is hand-waved away in the end when the family decides to just be cool together again.

The most nuanced performance is probably given by Logan Lerman who plays the middle child of Noah's family, Ham.  He has a little bit of conflict since he doesn't want to die alone in the new world and gets to watch as his father callously decides that a woman he's fallen deeply in love with after knowing her for fifteen minutes has to die.  Because she's not worthy of being saved.  Because if she were worthy Noah would already have invited her to the boat.  QED.

Ham is actually the only person in the entire film to decide to stand up to Noah in his plan to destroy the human race.  Others in the film complain about it mildly but don't do anything other than cry.  The only thing that stops the complete annihilation of humanity is that he has a hard time knifing cute babies.

The movie is a meandering mess.  Every character (except Ham) is a cardboard cut out who does nothing but waste the talent of some truly great actors while they go through the motions.  There are a few moments where you can sort of see a little bit of Arnofsky's signature style trying to bleed through.  Something that pushes boundaries and makes the audience ask some questions of themselves and the material they're watching.  But these moments are lost in a morass of bland, uninspiring tripe.

In the end, the movie plays to neither people looking for an engaging, alternate conversation regarding Creationism nor folk looking for a standard biblical message of Godliness.  Somewhere in the middle it muddles along with a God who's there and actively involved in creation, but let's things evolve according to current scientific thinking.  Who punishes, but doesn't instruct.  I don't necessarily expect a Hollywood film to answer all of the world's religious questions but if you're going to engage in the debate at least do it with a point of some kind in mind.

If you're a fan of Mr. Crowe, Ms. Connelly, Mr. Arnofsky or any of the other people involved do yourself a favor.  Skip this and go rent one of their many, many better projects.

So...that de-escalated quickly? (aka Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

According to the Internet I most recently posted to this blog on June 17 of 2013.  And that was me swearing I was definitely going to get this project started this time.  For reals, though.

Obviously, I didn't.  I could come up with all sorts of excuses.  Deaths in the family.  Buying a house.  Lots of travel needs, in general.  But at the end of the day it comes down to me not being as motivated for this little vanity project as I should have been.  That's on me.  If you happen to have ever seen this page before and actually were hoping for me to continue, I apologize.  That said, let's stop the pity party and get to our first actual review.  I speak, of course, of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (I say "of course" because it's in the title of this post.)

In the interest of the fact that this movie is coming out in wide release today, I will keep this first review relatively brief and entirely spoiler free.  I will say that those of us who are not big Comic Book Fans (tm) will be in for a surprise or two along the way and that those surprises are played beautifully.

I also want to take a moment and just say: Chris Evans is the greatest thing to happen to Marvel Productions casting department since Robery Downey Jr.  Possibly more so.  RDJ took a roll that he had an obvious connection with and made it his own.  Our movie Iron Man is suave, he's funny, he's got a vaguely troubled past.  He's in many ways RDJ turned up to 11 and with super powers.  That is not a bad thing.

Chris Evans takes a roll that's hard (and with the way we're continuing to get further from WWII, increasingly so) to play straight and inhabits it completely.  His Cap is haunted by being so far out of time but never in a way that overshadows the optimism that Captain America embodies.  He's old fashioned without being irrelevant.  He's by turns polite, forceful, respectful, gentle and strong.  He is, really, a character that is allowed to show all the best parts of being here in America and he does it in a way that doesn't beat you over the head with the imagery that America is the BEST EVER or constantly chanting USA USA!  That takes talent.  I've heard it said that he's looking to transition out of acting and I hope that he reconsiders.

The movie itself - in a word, is great.  Using the events of Marvel's The Avengers as a starting point it plunges us immediately into a world that is confused and scared.  A world that's looking for security and possibly willing to make some compromises to get it.  A heavy handed 9/11 metaphor?  Possibly.  But it's also the cause of serious debates these days as we try to strike a balance between safety and freedom.  Again, it's a relevant message that doesn't overshadow the big, comic-book-y world that the characters are in.

The film starts with a crew of mercenaries hijacking a ship to steal a SHIELD McGuffin and Cap, Black Widow, and some Normal Dudes(tm) fighting to get it back.  The action is tense and well-carried, and leads to the first conflict.  We find that Black Widow has been assigned to retrieve data from the ship and she breaks off from the hostage-rescue team to do so.  Cap and she have a disagreement and discover that spies have trust issues.

The retrieved files eventually bring us into the main plot of the film.  Here's where the Winter Soldier becomes a sort of comic book Mission Impossible/Bourne movie.  Our heroes are determined to save the world and our villains are going to stop them.  There may or may not be a mole in SHIELD to contend with.  I know, that's very top-level stuff but without getting into specifics that's about as far as I can go. Trust me, though, the plot is far more engaging than you might suspect from that brief overview.

On the Bad Guy front, we are soon introduced to the titular Winter Soldier.  This is a long-haired, masked gentleman with a robot arm and a penchant for assassinations.  He and Cap end up in a number of fight scenes throughout the film (three, I believe) and each one is more visceral and impressive than the last.  I have to give it to the fight coordinating team, the actors and the stunt people that the action is tight, believable and looks both really cool and really painful.  These aren't fight scenes that you'd get in a lot of sci-fi movies; the kind where a guy makes an exaggerated movement and 14 mooks fly across the screen. This is two highly trained, highly motivated soldiers/fighters trying to put one another down.  For a movie that includes a lot of action pieces, it doesn't glory in the violence itself.

Our heroes end up underground trying to take on a Bad Guy much bigger than themselves and in the process end up making friends with Sam Wilson, the Falcon of comic's fame.  Here, he's a former soldier now working as a counselor in the DC VA Hospital system.

The addition of the Falcon was one of the things that worried me about this movie when I heard about it.  Not because he's not a cool character but because it's very easy to do something like that wrong on screen.  However, Marvel Productions has this knack that I've discovered.  Every time I think they might be pushing just a little too far into comic book territory; every time they take a concept that works well on the page because fans are willing to look past a silly outfit in a sea of silly outfits; every damn time I get concerned it will be too far and will lose the mainstream audience they go and make it work.  Anthony Mackie does a phenomenal job in the role - and his character has a line that sums up what I was saying earlier about Captain America being a great symbol for the best parts of our country.  "I do what he does," he says, "just slower."  Just like a young Steve Rogers showed in The First Avenger, you don't have to be a Super Soldier to take a stand for what's right.  Visually, the Falcon outfit and abilities are played better than I would have ever dreamed.  In a way that 20+ years of reading about the character never did it made me honestly think of the Falcon as a valuable, adaptable and co-equal partner for some of the biggest names in comic books.  Seriously, give Anthony Mackie a contract for one million movies.  I will watch them all.

I'm running long here, and will be closing soon.  Because without spoilers I won't be able to talk too much more about the plot itself or why I liked certain things.  I'll sum up one more time and then let you go.  I'm happy to discuss more particulars in the comments section if anyone has any questions or wants to talk specifics.  Those comments will be spoiler-y.

The Movie is good.  Really, really good.  The direction, cinematography, and performances are all top notch.  The cast is a mix of A-listers (Robert Redford! Samuel L. Jackson! Scarlett Johannsen) who are clearly enjoying their work, not just phoning it in and not-quite-household names (Chris Evans! Anthony Mackie! Sebastian Stan!) that carry a film with surprising depth of character and cultural relevance.  The action is exquisite without taking away from the characters, the challenges they face or the very real and human interactions and decisions that they are dealing with.

It is a movie that I encourage everyone to go see.  See it right now and see it often.  That's it for my first review.  If I'm lucky I'll do more as the year continues.  If you're lucky, I'll learn to stop rambling quite as much while I do them.  Thanks for watching.

One Year, One Hundred Movies.

Alright, ya'll.  Let's kick this pig.  In the most metaphorical way possible, of course.  I wouldn't really kick an actual pig.  Unless it was, like, eating my leg or something.  Then I would straight kick a porcine in the face.  But enough about me.  Let's talk about this blog instead.  Which is still about me, in a way.

What is it?  That's easy - it's a blog in which I will be reviewing movies.  Lots of movies.  Lots of different kinds of movies.  Everything from Grade A Triple BlockBuster Superfilms (Your Star Treks and your Men of Steel) to classics (Ala Citizen Kane, Casablanca, et al.) to Horrible Grade-Z "Exclusive to Netflix" 3:00 am finds (Looking solidly at you, there, Ticked Off Trannies with Knives).

I really enjoy watching films and talking about my opinions.  So I've decided, like peanut butter and bacon, to add these two delicious treats together to inflict this blog on the world.

Note - There is literally every chance in the world that I will fail at actually reviewing 100 movies in my first year.  Especially since I won't be getting paid for this service.  The 100 movies is more an ultimate goal than a concrete promise.  I'm assuming right now that I'll be able to get to 50 this year.  That will keep my wife's sanity a little better even if it does make a liar out of my title.

Although it should probably go without saying, reviews will be laden with spoilers as I will be discussing things that happen in the movies and my reactions to them.  You've been warned and I will do my best to repost that warning on all or most (tm) of my reviews.

There we go - the premise is established.  The ride begins...soon.