Not a Review: The Fluffy Movie

141. The Fluffy Movie
I don't really feel like I should write an actual review of this, and I won't be assigning it a grade, either. It's not really a movie--it is almost entirely a filmed standup comedy routine. The usual elements of plot and structure I would discuss (the latter being a factor even in documentaries) are not a big issue here.

That being said, I did have a good time. The worst parts, appearing in the very beginning, were actually the most "movie" like. There were a couple short scenes that served as an introduction to the comedy. I found them to be unnecessary. In a "concert" film like this, I prefer they get straight to the concert or, in this case, comedy. Once the comedy does get started, though, it's a lot of fun. Gabriel Iglesias has a charming stage presence and I laughed a lot. It wasn't any better than some of the HBO standup specials I've seen with Ricky Gervais, though (and pales next to the YouTube clips of Jimmy Carr--look him up if you like "offensive" humour), so it's probably not something you'll want to pay to see in theatres. If it starts airing on a cable network in a few months, that would be the time to catch it.

Review: And So It Goes

140. And So It Goes
This is yet the latest example of a film released theatrically that feels more like a television movie. In fact, it may be the best example so far this year. It is perhaps too generous to even say it is of the quality one would expect from a below average film premiering on the Hallmark channel.

The script could have been written in a day. The only aspect of it that surprised me was how ineptly written and clichéd it was. Michael Douglas's character is the stereotypical mean and nasty man who will thaw over the course of the film, revealing the decent person beneath. The device used to accomplish this is when he's forced by his estranged son to take care of a granddaughter he didn't even know he had. Father and son are estranged, you see, because the son is a former drug addict. Now he's going to jail, though his sentence has nothing to do with his past addictions, and he is actually innocent of the current charges. This conveniently allows for a subplot where Douglas manages to get his son released at the film's end, leading to a warm and fuzzy family reunion.

The film's plot quickly becomes an unguided missile. Douglas receives help with the granddaughter from Diane Keaton's character who lives in the apartment next door and has been putting up with his curmudgeonly ways for years. She is also working as a lounge singer and, in another plot thread, Douglas decides to act as her agent, finding her a better paying job at a classier establishment. As all this happens, they (big surprise) gradually start to realize that the other is not so bad after all. Cue the obligatory "romantic" part of the "romantic comedy" (though in this case I use both words very loosely). While all of this is going on, Douglas is also trying to sell a large house that he owns, but no longer lives in, as he prepares to move out of the area. Extra credit if you predicted that this is all an excuse for him to, when the time comes, decide to stay, realizing that he has come to love everyone else in the movie. Throw in scenes where Douglas tries to track down his granddaughter's mother, and one where he is forced to deliver a baby, and you'll have the jumbled mess that is this movie. I would say that jumping between all these disparate storylines made it difficult for any of them to build up momentum, but I don't think any of them would have been at all good on their own. Going back to the theme of it being like a television movie, it really seemed like all this jumping around was so that at any point one of the plot threads could reach a dramatic (again, using the term loosely) moment to lead into a commercial break.

If this film did air on television, I would have flipped past it without a second thought. The script itself is bad enough, but there also didn't seem to be much energy put into the filmmaking itself. It's a lifeless, disjointed, unchallenging mess.

D

Review: Lucy

139. Lucy
A prime display of how style over substance can render that style meaningless, "Lucy" starts with some promise, but quickly descends into a hollow attempt to come across as "deep" without doing any of the necessary work.

The entire film is built on a false premise--that humans only use ten percent of their brains. Being scientifically inaccurate is not automatically a film's death knell. Almost all films are unrealistic in some way, and there are others, like "Lucy", that are entirely built on falsehoods. If the film didn't aspire to be more than a fun action movie, this wouldn't be a problem. I could suspend my disbelief and go along for the ride. But when the film expects me to take its story even somewhat seriously, it can be a hard thing to get past.

Everything starts off well enough. Scarlett Johansson's character is captured by an Asian Drug Cartel. They sew a bag of some new drug inside her so she can act as a mule. The bag leaks, and whatever is inside starts to make her capable of accessing increasingly large portions of her brain. When she then escapes, the seeds of a reasonably entertaining chase movie are planted, but they never really take root. Her powers grow too quickly, which removes almost all the excitement from the situation, as she is more than capable of dealing with any threat. We are somehow meant to believe that accessing larger portions of one's brain would allow them to defy the laws of physics and gain telekinetic powers.

The story from this point on largely makes no sense, either. Johansson's character quickly storms the drug cartel's base of operations, shooting everyone she comes across on her way to the leader, played by Choi Min-sik (who I enjoyed seeing in a mainstream production, and who delivered a good performance despite not having a single line of English dialogue). After reaching Min-sik and using her new powers to read his mind, however, she leaves without killing him. Why? There's no real reason. I suppose it's just so he can continue to be the main bad guy and show up a few more times. There are a few more action sequences thrown into the mix as Johansson makes her way to meet with a professor (Morgan Freeman as, basically, himself). These, and the final action bit (the cartel attacks while Johansson is going on some sort of cosmic journey to...I don't know...transcend time or something?) all fall flat, once again due to how overpowered Johansson has become. The ending is a loud collision of sounds and images that grasp for relevance but fall way short. When there's strange imagery in a film like "2001", you may not know what it means, but there's enough of a sense that it does mean something. I didn't get that sense here. It felt like half the time the filmmakers didn't even know what everything meant.

The most damning thing I can say about this film occurred to me about halfway through writing this. The film did such a bad job at establishing its characters and being memorable that I kept using the words "Johansson's character" when discussing her character because I couldn't remember off the top of my head what her name was. It's the title of the film. I could see it out of the corner of my eye on the image of the poster. But most everything about the film was so unmemorable that I didn't realize this for several minutes.

C

Review: Hercules

138. Hercules
Let's get one thing out of the way upfront: this is by far the best Hercules movie to come out this year. The value of "The Legend of Hercules", released back in January, was that it reached levels of "so bad it's good". This film, simply titled "Hercules", is legitimately good, and I had a lot of fun with it.

The movie's take on its main character is that his mythical exploits we know of through mythology are just that: mythical exploits. While he is a genuinely strong and courageous fighter, we learn that tales of his famed "12 Labors" are greatly exaggerated. In some cases the threats he defeated were not all they were cracked up to be. In other cases he had help from his band of followers. The character embraces the legend to further his reputation, but in reality this is a world in which mythical creatures do not exist, even though many still believe in them. I enjoyed this take on the character. The filmmakers found a way to pay homage to the traditional Hercules story while not being beholden to it. This is the best approach to take with such a character. "The Legend of Hercules" almost completely ignored the actual mythology, to its detriment, as it was a Hercules film in name only. Likewise, a film that sought to faithfully retell the traditional story beat by beat would have felt boring and rote, much like "Son of God" did as it trudged through each of Jesus' exploits in an obligatory manner. By recognizing the existence of the myth of Hercules, then using it as inspiration to go off in their own direction, the filmmakers liberated themselves and the audience from preconceived expectations about the character.

The new adventure the film has for Hercules isn't by any means sensational or groundbreaking, but it's a lot of fun and even has a couple nice twists. As much as I'm capable of analyzing a film after seeing it, I'm also pretty good at shutting my brain off while actually watching, allowing myself to enjoy the film in the moment, without trying to figure out what the next "surprise" might be. Because of this, while others might find the twist midway through the film predictable, I found it to be clever. I knew something had to happen to keep the movie going, and the twist didn't shock me or anything, but it did make me think, "Okay, that's cool. Let's see what happens next."

There are several action sequences in the film, which is to be expected. They are shot and edited well, providing adequate entertainment if no true jaw-dropping moments of spectacle. They benefit from an uncertainty as to exactly what will happen. I've mentioned this before, but it's really becoming clear to me that the best way to make an action sequence boring is for the audience to know how it will end. If the sequence revolved around a MacGuffin like: The hero has to hit the button to stop something bad from happening (this was the gist of  the climax in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"), then most anything that delays him is pointless unless the filmmakers build up adequate tension. We know the hero is going to succeed in hitting the button, and it feels like killing time to delay the inevitable. "Hercules" doesn't feature any action scenes with drastic levels of tension or uncertainty, but it has a large enough supporting cast that I was willing to believe it might kill off one of them at any time. That small bit of not knowing what's going to happen was enough to make the action more interesting to watch. The actual climax is not a huge scale affair as summer movies go, and perhaps it underwhelms a bit. Still, it leaves room for growth in any potential sequels. After all, there are action sequences in the first act of "Iron Man 2" that dwarf the original film's climax in scale (and prove that bigger action does not always equal a better movie).

Finally, I want to briefly mention the film's cast, as it has a few standouts. John Hurt and Joseph Fiennes give reliably decent performances playing fairly thin characters. Dwayne Johnson is naturally charming and brings a nice edge to the role of Hercules. He bulked up more than usual for the part, and it shows. This Hercules is a man, not the boyish character played by Kellan Lutz in January's film. The real scene-stealer, however, is Ian McShane who plays Amphiaraus, a member of Hercules' crew and a man who receives occasional glimpses of the future "from the gods". He claims to have had a vision of his own death, which emboldens him in battle since he knows his time has not yet come. McShane gets a lot of the film's best comedic moments, but also manages to get serious and deliver a dramatic, intense, and effective pep talk just when Hercules needs it the most.

This is definitely a film worth seeing. It's not high art, but its creative take on the title character and the combination of action, comedy and other elements should make it a real crowd pleaser.

B+

On a side note, I wrote and posted my review for "A Most Wanted Man" yesterday, but decided I wasn't happy with it and rewrote the review a few hours later. If you're interested, check to make sure you've read the latest version.

Review: A Most Wanted Man

137. A Most Wanted Man
One of the best seasons of television I have ever seen was the first season of "In Treatment", an HBO show starring Gabriel Byrne. Byrne played a psychologist, and each episode featured a session between him and a patient. Seasons two and three of the show were good, but the first season was truly extraordinary. Many episodes consisted of nothing but two characters sitting down and talking, but it was absolutely riveting.

The second season of "Homeland" included one of television's greatest scenes. It was a fifteen to twenty minute long, unbroken interrogation scene between Claire Danes and Damian Lewis. It slowly takes Lewis, under suspicion of terrorism, from a position of full denial, to a confession, and finally an agreement to switch sides. It is the gold standard for how to do such a scene, involving callbacks to events from the first season and feeling wholly grounded in the reality of who the characters are--their strengths, their flaws, and their shared history.

I mention these examples to illustrate that large scale action scenes are not necessary to create fascinating filmed drama. Extended scenes of conversation can be more interesting than chases and explosions, even in the espionage/government intelligence genre (of which "Homeland" is a prime example). "A Most Wanted Man" features a lot of dialogue heavy scenes (an understatement, by the way), but, in what I believe is an attempt to strive for "realism", it fails to imbue them with the energy necessary to avoid being an incredibly boring film.

"A Most Wanted Man" includes a scenario vaguely similar to the scene I mentioned from "Homeland". Gunther Bachmann (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) has in custody an attorney (Rachel McAdams) who he believes can help him. He goes into the room where she's being held, they talk for a few minutes, and he leaves. A while later, one of his colleagues goes in, talks for a few more minutes, then leaves. A while after that, Bachmann again enters the room, talks for a few minutes, makes a few new points, and leaves. Within a few minutes, the attorney knocks on the door, now willing to help. There are no real dramatic moments, and the characters have no background with one another to lend multiple layers to the scene. I'm sure this is probably closer to how these kinds of things actually go down than the version portrayed in "Homeland". It also nearly put me to sleep. Movies play fast and loose with reality for a reason: Reality, in its purest form, is not always interesting. This was just one example. The film is full of them. It's obvious where a scene or series of scenes is ultimately going to go, but in the interest of "realism" it takes forever (step by agonizing step) to get there. I know that some people like this type of film. That's why they've made movies like this before (the two previous films based on John le Carre's novels, "The Constant Gardener" and "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", I found to be similarly tedious), and it's why they'll make more in the future. I, however, kept wishing that Jack Bauer would show up and make things interesting. Everything that gets accomplished in this film, he could have pulled off in half an episode.

I will admit that there is a small payoff to the film's slow pace. There is a genuine sense of tension when something finally happens. The events of the finale have more weight to them because of the slow burn that led up to them. Unfortunately, this payoff is not nearly big enough to justify the two hours of boredom that precede it. Had there been a sense of tension slowly building throughout the film, it could have been effective. But the tension was almost nonexistent until the final few minutes and was ultimately too little, too late.

C-

July 25 Weekly Preview

This is going to be a very busy week for me at the movies. There are six new films opening in local theatres today. I'm not even sure I'll get to see them all this week. There are also a couple foreign films opening as well, but my chances of making it to them are slim.

I'm going to be trying something new this week: adding a ratings system to my reviews. At the end of each review I'll assign the film a letter grade. I considered going back and doing this with my previous reviews as well, but I don't think those films are fresh enough in my mind to ensure accurate ratings.

Hercules- The second Hercules film released this year, unrelated to the first which attained levels of "so bad it's good" back in January. Like that film, this one appears to be playing fast and loose with mythology. My best guess is that it will be a slightly below average action film.

Lucy- I don't hold high expectations for this film. It's concept, while potentially interesting if done right, does not seem particularly compelling based on the trailers. The movie also seems to feature Morgan Freeman playing what, even without him in the part, would be considered the "Morgan Freeman role". He's proven in the past that he has a wide acting range, I just wish he'd use it more often. I am, however, excited that Choi Min-sik has a role. He was fantastic in the South Korean film "Oldboy", and I'm glad to see him in making an appearance in an English language film.

The Fluffy Movie- I think this is less of a movie and more of a filmed standup routine, but it's getting a release in theatres, so I'll go see it. I'm unfamiliar with Gabriel Iglesias aside from his appearance in the abominable "A Haunted House 2".

Wish I Was Here- Not really looking forward to this one, as I don't consider myself a Zach Braff fan and his line readings in the trailers feel like he's condescending towards you with every word he speaks. I'm predicting a desperate attempt for profundity that falls flat on its face. At least Mandy Patinkin is in it.

And So It Goes- I think I might have seen a trailer for this, but I'm not sure. It's Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton in what I'm guessing is a romantic comedy aimed at older audiences. They're good actors, though, so it could be fun.

A Most Wanted Man- This will probably get more media attention for being one of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's last films than for the merits of the film itself. I had trouble getting into "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", the last film based on a John le Carre novel. There's a fine line between "deliberately paced" and "boring". For me, that film fell on the wrong side of the line. Hopefully this one fares better.

Review: Persecuted

136. Persecuted
If those making message based, right-wing films want themselves to be taken at all seriously, they need to make better films than this. "Persecuted" starts out with an unrealistic premise, then seeks to become a political thriller, but does so with such a lack of finesse or energy that there isn't a single span of even thirty seconds that would keep me from flipping past it if I'd encountered it airing on television.

The film follows a popular televangelist (James Remar) who opposes "Religion Reform" that is on the verge of passage by Congress. Apparently he alone has enough clout to ensure either passage or defeat. A single televangelist having this much power is the least of the film's implausibilities. The reform movement itself is ridiculous. From what I was able to gather, it was something about providing "equal time" to all religions in all locations, basically combining every religion. The senator behind the movement (Bruce Davison) assures the preacher that this bill is good for him, because it will get him coverage in temples and mosques, widening his viewership. I'm not one to summarily dismiss conservative claims about a war on religion, but when they take it to such a ridiculous level, they undermine their own cause. There's such a thing as exaggeration to prove a point, but when the exaggeration is this extreme (I'm convinced any liberals who think about trying to pass such "Religion Reform" will have gotten the idea by hearing about this movie), it makes other, potentially more valid arguments, lose credibility.

When Remar announces his intentions to fight the legislation, he is promptly framed for murder by a "vast left-wing conspiracy" complete with a President inspired by Bill Clinton (way to be timely). If the suspense and thriller elements that this leads to were of high enough quality, they could have saved the film from its ridiculous premise. If it were entertaining I wouldn't be such a stickler for realism. But it is very far from entertaining. The film goes through the standard "man on the run" scenes in an obligatory fashion. Many of those scenes feel ripped directly from "The Fugitive", only with all of the energy squeezed out, replaced instead with moralizing, Bible quoting monologues. Remar does his best with the material he's given, but he's not given very much. Even the plot "twists" feel rote and uneventful.

I can think of nothing in this film to recommend. Even with the actors often doing everything they can, the film's somber tone prevents them from elevating it to a campy level of entertainment. There's a good right-wing political thriller out there, waiting to be made. But as long as producers are content to keep making films like this, that thriller will be waiting a very long time.

Review: Planes: Fire and Rescue

135. Planes: Fire and Rescue
"Planes: Fire and Rescue", a movie aimed squarely at a child audience, opens with a dedication to those who risk their lives fighting fires. Both the children and the firefighters deserve better than this film which wouldn't have even passed muster as a straight to DVD release.

In previous reviews I have accused films of feeling more like television movies than genuine theatrical releases. This film takes that to a whole new level. It doesn't even feel like a TV movie, but rather a single, half hour (22 minutes without commercials) television series episode stretched out to 84 minutes, blessedly short as far as movies go, but it sure didn't feel short while I was watching it. Even with the extended runtime, each of the new characters introduced gets no more development than you'd expect from a guest star character in a one-off episode. Making characters fit a specific archetype can assist the audience with quickly getting to know the character, but when they are never developed or given a single trait outside of that prescribed "type", they fail to truly be characters at all. The plot is just as thin as its characters, not offering a single unexpected moment. It takes every beat you're expecting on its way to a conclusion you could see coming before you bought your ticket. If it only took 22 minutes to get there, that would be one thing. Stretched out to this length, though, it's a colossal waste of time.

Even if this were edited down to the length of a television episode, it would be an average episode at best. Better to find a good show and watch four episodes in the time it would take to slog your way through this. The one plus I will give this movie is that it looks like it probably has some decent 3D effects. I saw it in 2D, but there were enough moments where the foreground and background were utilized to create a good sense of depth that would probably translate well to 3D. Unfortunately, in the service of a story so ineptly told, what's the point?

Review: The Purge: Anarchy

134. The Purge: Anarchy
This was a better than expected movie, and a definite improvement on the original film, though still probably best left unseen until late one night when you spot it showing on cable.

I enjoyed the original film well enough (late at night on cable), though it was largely unremarkable aside from the basic premise and an intense performance from Ethan Hawke. This film doesn't have a single performance quite at that level, but Frank Grillo still makes for a good lead, playing the rugged badass with a  heart of...not quite gold, but maybe silver. The film makes good use of its budget (triple the original's) to expand its scope. While the first tried to elevate itself through its concept, it was at heart a home invasion movie, nothing all that original. While I wouldn't go so far as to call this film original, either (it has echoes of--better--dystopian films like "Escape from New York"), it does offer a deeper exploration of the franchise's concept, showing what goes on in a city when all crime is legal for one night. Another improvement over its predecessor: while it does, as is almost required in this genre, feature some its characters behaving foolishly at times, there is no one as outrageously stupid as the son character who was the most annoying part of the first film.

I also appreciated how the film aimed for a little relevance by trying to inject some social commentary into the proceedings. It's not the most nuanced message, but they manage to tie their rich vs. poor dichotomy into the plotline fairly well, actually more smoothly than a lot of "message movie" dramas that beat you over the head with whatever point they're trying to make. I think we're long past the point where the typical horror movie actually has subtle yet profound political messages within it (like the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "The Thing From Another World", etc.), but I still give the filmmakers credit for having the ambition to try to say something.

In some ways I am even hesitant to classify this as a horror film. I feel that its suspense and thriller elements are stronger than its horror elements. Yes, the genres frequently overlap, but aside from some of the antagonists wearing creepy masks, there wasn't much that screamed flat out "horror". The death count among the main characters is surprisingly low. The film has five main characters and it is takes a very long time for any of them to get shot, and even longer for the first one to die--unheard of for a horror film. While this takes away some of the "someone could die at any moment" factor, it also provides the film with a genuine moment of surprise when there finally is a casualty.

I enjoyed seeing this film in theatres, but I'm also getting my tickets for free. If I was a paying moviegoer, I don't think this would quite be worth a trip to the theatre, unless you're really in the mood for a thriller. Once its out on DVD or cable, though, and you're looking for something to watch on a night in, you could do a lot worse.

Review: Sex Tape

133. Sex Tape
While it had its humorous moments, there is nothing in "Sex Tape" to justify seeing it in theatres. Even spending the time to watch it once it comes to cable would be a questionable decision, because in today's age of Netflix and On Demand, there are so many better options to pick from.

The film isn't terrible. It has an actual plot, saving it from comparisons to something like "A Haunted House 2", which was a movie in only the loosest definition of the word. It's also not off-putting and offending to the senses like "Tammy" (which, were the brevity of my review not enough of a hint, the less said about it, the better). Still, sitting here writing this the day after seeing the film, I cannot remember a single great joke. There were some funny moments, because I remember smiling a few times, but I don't think I ever actually laughed. Sadly, most of the times a good joke did make the film, you could tell the filmmakers knew it, because they proceeded to keep it going. There were four or five times when gags went on for way too long, far past the point where they had ceased to be funny. I am curious as to whether or not they were struggling to stretch the film out to feature length.

Were this the first comedy I'd ever seen, I might have found it hilarious. But it's not. That's really where the movie fails--not by itself, but in comparison to everything else that's available. I last saw "22 Jump Street" almost a month ago, but I can remember both specific moments from it and the movie as a whole better than I can remember "Sex Tape". If there were nothing else worth seeing and you were desperate to see a comedy, this might be enough to cut it. But when you can do a lot better, what's the point?

Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

132. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
I had predicted the possibility that I'd find this film to be overhyped, but I had no idea just how overhyped it would be. I really can't understand the glowing reviews and word of mouth a lot of people seem to be giving it. They seem to be ascribing a level of "deepness" to what I found to be a predictable, often thematically shallow film.

Possibly the worst thing that can be said about this film is that while seeing it for the first time I felt like I'd seen it before. By this I mean that the plot was so predictable that within a half hour into the film, it was blatantly obvious, at least in broad strokes, exactly how everything would progress. And that is precisely what happened. There were no clever twists or unexpected moments whatsoever. In rare cases, leading the audience towards an inevitable, tragic ending can work. But to pull this off, it's necessary for the film to have strong, multilayered characters with strengths and flaws that are so incompatible with each other that tragedy is the only possible outcome. That's what this film aims for, but it falls flat in the attempt. The characters that most drive the plot (both on the ape and human side) are secondary, supporting characters. They are written so thinly as "bad" that they function more as plot devices than as characters. It's as if the filmmakers first decided how they wanted the film to end, then designed cookie cutter characters to drive it towards that ending rather than working with a full cast of complex characters who would take the story in a natural direction.

The "main" characters fare slightly better in characterization, but they are also frequently thrust into generic roles: that of the "good guys". We are meant to feel a sense of tragic loss at the film's end when it becomes obvious that their dream of peaceful human/ape relations will not come to pass, but the movie's timeline makes this hard to do. The whole film takes place, at most, over a couple weeks, and even that's a liberal estimation. Had it taken place over the span of years (as the previous film did) and followed extended attempts by the lead characters to forge and maintain peaceful relations, there may have been some impact when all those efforts were for naught. When the entire period of contact between the two groups can be measured in days, it becomes impossible to mourn the "loss" of something that never truly existed.

Ultimately, I think this film should have been set much further in the future. If the aim is to eventually get to the point where a "Planet of the Apes" film will once again actually feature a Planet of the Apes, taking baby steps like this is just killing time. I would have set the film at least 100 years after the previous one, giving the filmmakers the chance to really explore how the world might have changed and what a world was like in which everyone (both human and ape) had been born into this new reality. Instead, we're given a stereotypical post-apocalyptic community of human survivors and a slightly more interesting ape community, both full of the thinly written characters discussed above. Even more distressing, the film's ending gives the impression that its sequel will just be more of the same, with new humans showing up to fight the same ape characters. I hope this isn't the case. The filmmakers needn't be afraid of jumping far into the future and exploring something new, even if it means leaving Andy Serkis' character of Caesar behind (on a side note, I'm really starting to get sick of people who throw around the words "Oscar worthy" every time he delivers another motion captured performance--I mean, he's fine, but any actor worth their salt expresses emotion through facial expressions and body language, and not all of them need a crew of special effects people to get noticed for it).

This film tries to be both a Summer Blockbuster and something "more". It's blatant predictability and weak characters make it fail on both counts. Even the action beats, while staged with skill, inspire no real interest when the conclusion they're leading towards is so obvious. I really enjoyed "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", and was looking forward to this, but it ended up being a true disappointment (and features the most criminal underutilization of Gary Oldman's talents that I've yet seen).

July 18 Weekly Preview

The Purge: Anarchy- I saw the first film a couple months ago on television. It was nothing special, but kept me entertained for an hour and a half, and I did enjoy Ethan Hawke's performance. I doubt he's back for this sequel, but it does look like the budget has been increased and that the film will explore the same concept as the initial film, but on a larger scale. Chances that it will be great cinema are low, but I've had a tendency to enjoy the horror films I've seen this year (they aim lower than serious dramas, so it's easier for them to meet my expectations), so I'll probably have a good time.

Sex Tape- I'm sure this will have its moments of good comedy; I just hope that there are enough of them. Sometimes a single, brilliant joke can make a good comedy if it's something you can't stop thinking and laughing about once the film is over. Few comedies have that, and I tend to doubt this one will.

Planes: Fire & Rescue- The sequel to a film which is itself a spinoff of Pixar's "Cars" franchise. I have not seen any of the three movies to which this one is related. This release comes less than a year after the first film, making me skeptical about its quality.

Persecuted- I saw the trailer for this online a couple weeks ago, but don't remember it very clearly other than that it starred James Remar and Fred Thompson.

Review: Third Person

131. Third Person
I'm not often a fan of films that tell several different stories as this one does. I said in my preview that I wasn't sure if the stories in this film were connected only thematically or if they had more tangible ties. They are certainly related most strongly to each other by theme, but there are stronger connections, though they are generally fleeting until the very end when everything comes together. I think what happens is meant to be a twist ending, but it is very predictable. I won't say that I had it called for certain, but the possibility of the twist had occurred to me weeks ago while watching the film's trailer. This doesn't mean that the twist was not effective--it was, and it made more intriguing a film that I'd already found myself enjoying more than expected.

None of the film's three storylines are particularly exciting on their own. The one featuring Liam Neeson as a writer who has lost his edge is probably best, simply because Neeson is a consistently watchable screen presence. It's ultimately a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts as the stories, especially early in the film, are edited together with an energy that keeps things moving. There are a few moments in the middle where it does drag, but they never last for too long.

A second viewing, now knowing how the stories are related, would probably give me a better idea of how good a job the filmmakers did at constructing a complex narrative. Hopefully there are more frequent and deeper symbolic connections between the stories than is immediately obvious after a single viewing. I can't get much more specific than that without giving away the film's twist, so I won't try.

This isn't a great film. It could have really elevated itself to another level if each of its stories had been compelling on their own merits alone. Still, in the end they tied together in a satisfying way, which was enough to garner the film a rating of "good".

Review: Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania

130. Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania
A lot of the movies I've seen this year I've been able to enjoy even while recognizing that they've had serious flaws or could have been a lot better. This was another such film. There were several funny moments, some of the performances were endearing, and, like most Indian cinema I've seen, the musical/dance sequences were energetic and well constructed. There were two big problems, however, and they are what I'll be discussing.

The first, and more major of the issues, is that the male lead character was just not likeable enough to root for. The first half of the film follows Kavya (Alia Bhatt, who has me wondering how quickly they shoot films in India, as this is her third starring role I've seen this year) as she goes to another city for a few weeks, hoping to make enough money to buy an expensive, designer dress for her wedding. She first meets Humpty (Varun Dehawan) when she finds him terrorizing her Uncle, hoping to threaten his way to a better grade on an exam. Their paths cross several more times during her stay and, as he helps her get the money for dress, they (predictably) fall in love. In the second half of the film, Humpty follows Kavya back to her hometown, trying to convince her father to let her marry him instead. Her father agrees, on the condition that Humpty can provide a single reason why the seemingly perfect Angad (Siddharth Shukla) is not a good match for her. In order for the audience to be invested in this part of the movie, they have to rooting for Humpty to succeed, something I was not able to do. A single scene earlier in the film would have been enough to solve the problem. They needed to show, at some point, Humpty doing something nice for someone purely out of the goodness of his heart. Instead, every single benevolent action he takes can be traced back to his desire to make Kavya like him. This made me suspicious of the character, as it seemed like he could easily just be trying to get in her pants. Scoundrels can be likeable characters, but we need to believe there is a deeper layer underneath, which I never got from this character. He has two friends who help him throughout the movie, and the extreme lengths they will go to, just to help their friend, make them far more likeable and pleasant characters to watch.

The film's second problem is a result of making Humpty's task of proving Angad an unsuitable match incredibly difficult. I said earlier that Angad is seemingly perfect. Eventually it becomes obvious that he is genuinely just as perfect as he seems. Not only does he have the "movie star" good looks to put Humpty to shame, but he is also by far the nicest character in the entire film. I don't think I'm giving away any true spoilers by saying that, at the end of the film, Kavya's father relents, and she is allowed to marry Humpty instead. The problem is that the effect this will have on Angad is never explored. The filmmakers probably thought it would be too depressing to show something bad happening to the nicest guy in the film. They may have been right, but the sudden disappearance of the character is a glaring omission. Even if it didn't occur on screen, the scene where he was told that his wedding was off must still have happened, something I was well aware of while watching the festivities at the film's end. I felt that it was a cheat for the film to shy away from this reality. Would it have been too cliché to reveal that he also had someone else he would rather marry? Maybe. Is anything too cliché for a run of the mill romantic comedy? Either way, at film's end, Angad became the giant invisible elephant in the room, begging for some sort of resolution.

No matter how silly or clichéd a romantic comedy is, it's off to a good start if both of its leads are likeable and you are able to root for them to be together. While I enjoyed this film, it lacked these crucial elements.

Review: Begin Again

129. Begin Again
It's taken me longer to get around to writing this than it should have. I've been putting it off since there just isn't a lot I feel I have to say. The film is good. It tells a reasonably uncomplicated story in a pleasant way, but never quite becomes anything truly memorable or transcendent.

There are moments of promise. Some of the musical sequences, while not as vigorous as the full blown numbers featured in many musicals, do have a great energy to them. That energy isn't always consistent, though, and it doesn't build throughout the film.

The characters are typically well drawn, but some aspects of the storyline feel, if not clichéd, at least too convenient. The main character, for instance, finds himself fired from an independent record company that he co-founded. The film never really addresses the question of how he can be ousted from his own company. I don't want a lesson on business practices, but the brief throwaway line that was offered as explanation didn't cut it for me. The real reason, of course, is that it's necessary for the film's plot to be set in motion, but I think it could have been handled in a more elegant way. There's also a moment later on where part of the same character's backstory is revealed, making him more sympathetic and some of his faults more understandable. The reveal is done by the character himself relating the story. It would have been better if the filmmakers had made the reveal more gradual and found a way to show it to the audience. Having the character verbally relay the information in its entirety is lazy storytelling. Other moments like these don't sink the film by any means, but they do play a part in making it largely unmemorable.

I also had a problem with the scenes shown during the end credits. They were actually important to the plot, clarifying and even changing my ideas of what happened once the film had faded to black. The original ending is fairly open ended, with plenty left up to interpretation. The filmmakers should have picked one approach. Either go with the open-ended conclusion, or provide closure before the credits roll. I have nothing against scenes during or after the end credits of films, but I don't think they should be important to the plot--scenes like that belong in the movie proper. At least they didn't do what a couple other films have done this year: put the words "The End" on the screen, then immediately cut to another scene before the credits even begin. That really baffles me.

This review seems harsher than my reaction to the film actually was. I think it was good and I did enjoy it. I was just frustrated by a feeling that it could have been something better, yet was content not to be.

July 11 Weekly Preview

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes- I liked the first film in this series reboot and this one is getting very good reviews, so I'm expecting to like it. There is a chance that those reviews are over-hyping it, though, which is bad news if it doesn't live up to them.

Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania- The latest release from an Indian studio. I know next to nothing about the film aside from that it looks like a romantic comedy. I watched the trailer on Youtube, but it didn't have subtitles, so I didn't have much to go on.

Third Person- From the trailer, it looks like a film that sets out to tell multiple storylines. Whether they actually weave together or only complement each other on a thematic level I am not sure. It does have Liam Neeson in it though, and he's always sure to deliver a good performance.

Review: Ek Villain

128. Ek Villain
I enjoyed this film a lot--it was always interesting, if not entirely satisfying, and hit the ground running from the very beginning.

Within its first few minutes, the film brutally kills off who I had presumed to be female lead (it turns out she was--much of the film is made up of flashbacks). It caught me off guard, and I've found that if a film can surprise you in some way early on, it's a great way to grab your attention and get you invested in the story. After this, the film is split fairly evenly between flashbacks leading up to the murder and scenes exploring the aftermath. In the flashbacks, the male and female leads fall in love, which lures him away from his life as a gangster. The general idea of this storyline is clichéd, to be sure, but it is given enough time and handled deftly enough that the scenes feel genuine, not contrived. Knowing what is ultimately going to happen makes these flashbacks walk an extremely fine line between bittersweet and flat out depressing, to the point that I was sometimes unsure which was the dominant emotion. Regardless, this added an extra dimension to the scenes that I was able to appreciate.

The present day scenes follow both the male lead (as he seeks to track down the murderer) and the murderer himself (exploring his life and why he does what he does). These scenes have their fair share of plot twists, but bring little new to the table. The question of whether a hero will fall back into his former bad ways when confronted by evil is a question that has been asked by many other films, and there is little original in this film's approach. The film ends up going for a bittersweet happy ending. A lot of plot threads have to come together in a particular way to make this ending possible. They're all set up, so I wouldn't say the film cheats, but much of it seems a little too convenient to be fully satisfying.

While the present day scenes do not have much originality to them, they are still done competently and are entertaining. It is the surprising opening and the unique quality of the flashback scenes that make the film stand out.

Review: Earth to Echo

127. Earth to Echo
About the nicest thing I can say about this film is that it wasn't boring...for the most part. It is an obvious homage to 1980s "kids go on adventure" films like "E.T." While I have nothing against those types of films, they've never been my favorites, failing to capture my imagination like they did with many others. This, perhaps, makes me not the ideal audience for "Earth to Echo". Films that seek to pay homage to other films often (though not always) pale by comparison. If I'm not a fan of those other films in the first place, odds are against me enjoying the homage.

The film's fatal flaw is that each of the main characters is more of a "type" than an actual character. While this may be fine for the intended audience of children whose tastes may be less discerning, I found it to be a major problem. While the child actors themselves weren't terrible, their roles were so underwritten that I found it difficult to find the characters likeable or care very much about what happened to them. This made all of the manufactured "emotional" moments in the film feel artificial and annoying.

There was nothing original about the film. The ending especially was drawn out too long (and was where things started to get boring). If there's any doubt about what will ultimately happen in a film, it is much easier to be invested in the events that precede it. When you basically know how everything is going to end, the scenes leading up to that ending (whether they be action scenes or dialogue driven) start to drag, and you just want them to get to the end already. I found myself thinking during this film that there was one way it could be salvaged: if, in the end, the cute little alien the kids had been spending the film trying to help turned out to be evil and completely destroyed their town and everyone in it. That would have been awesome. Of course, I knew this would never happen, and the film proceeded down its listless, predictable road to the end.

Review: America

126. America
I'm not going to spend a lot of time discussing this film, as I'm trying to stay as apolitical as I can.

The film is split into two very distinct parts. An attempt is made to transition between the two, but the transition is quite jarring. The first part is the better and more effective. It concerns itself with laying out several of the complaints that people today sometimes make about America's past and present, and then tries to refute or at least mitigate the charges. The arguments the filmmakers make are often well thought out and interesting.

The film's second part shifts into an attack on those it believes to be politically dangerous, at points singling out Hillary Clinton (clearly trying to warn against her election should she run for president in 2016). This part of the film falls into the "preaching to the choir" category. This is unfortunate since it will alienate most liberals and some moderates who might see the film, losing credibility in their eyes, and undermining the better arguments it made previously.

In all, this is a better film than its predecessor, the anti-Obama documentary "2016" from two years ago. That rise in quality is almost wholly attributable to its first part. It's refreshing to see something being argued "for" rather than "against". I just wish the filmmakers had kept that in mind when working on the second part.

"Review": Tammy

125. Tammy
An unpleasant, aggressively unfunny movie from beginning to end.

Review: Deliver Us From Evil

124. Deliver Us From Evil
Like most of the other horror films I've seen so far this year, this one had some genuinely creepy/scary moments, but did not pass the true test--those moments did not follow me home and keep me up at night (the best example of a film that did pass this test is the original "The Omen"--when I closed my eyes that night the only thing I could see was Billie Whitelaw's creepy, evil stare, and I ended up sleeping on the floor of my sister's room).

The film follows a strange structure, starting out disjointed, then gradually coming together before kind of falling apart again. Early on it is a series of seemingly unconnected police investigations by police officer Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) and his partner (Joel McHale). Bana plays a highly fictionalized version of the man who the film is "inspired by". The fictionalization is so great that the end of the credits bears the traditional "This film is a work of fiction.." disclaimer. Each of these investigations has moments of creepiness, some greater than others, but it takes a while for the "demonic" connection between the cases to take shape. This wasn't a problem for me, as I don't mind films that take a slow-burn approach, so long as they ultimately pay off. Here, in some ways, it does, as Bana's attempts to uncover the truth about what is going on is a genuinely compelling mystery. Edgar Ramirez, as an unconventional priest who at times joins Bana in his investigation is a welcome presence. This middle section is the best the film has to offer, though it does have its problems. The screenplay often doesn't know what to do with Bana's partner, leaving him off screen for long stretches of the film with little explanation. The film also saddles itself with a cliched "family drama" storyline about Bana's work interfering with his home life. It doesn't derail the film and is not horribly done, but it is unoriginal and takes momentum away from the primary narrative.

The film doesn't fully fall apart towards the end, but it could have been a lot better. The possessed man Bana is hunting doesn't seem to have any ultimate goal in mind beyond recruiting more people/demons to its cause. An exorcism scene, basically the film's climax, goes on for way too long, offering nothing we haven't seen done better before in "The Exorcist". The film also resolves the cliched family storyline by using the equally cliched "family gets kidnapped" storyline. For a film boasting about being inspired by real events, much of it feels written by a Hollywood focus group.

In the end, the film's slow start pays off, but only to a point. Until the final third it tells an interesting story from a sometimes fresh perspective, but when it comes time to wrap it up, there's nothing that hasn't been done before.

Belated July 4 Weekly Preview

A couple of the movies coming out this week ("Deliver Us From Evil" and "Tammy") I can't effectively preview, since I've seen them before writing this, making it difficult to predict what I'll think of them. Their reviews should be coming soon, though one of them will be my shortest review yet, as I don't plan to waste my time devoting more than a sentence to it. The other movies that came out this week are:

Begin Again- What I presume will be a "real life" musical, meaning that all of the songs are diegetic, actually taking place in the world of the film as opposed to stylized breaking into song common in traditional musicals. I think I'll probably like it. The cast seems to be made up of a mix of well established actors and well known musicians who don't have much acting experience. I hope that the latter are able to hold their own.

Earth to Echo- This film looks like its trying to recreate the style of some 1980s kids movies, though not entirely successfully based on a few reviews I've skimmed. Those movies it is paying homage to have never been my favorites to begin with, so I'm not optimistic.

America- A pro-conservative, anti-liberal documentary. Like most politically themed documentaries, it will probably preach to the choir more than it will change anyone's mind. I just hope it's better than "Fed Up", which should not be hard.

Review: Ida

123. Ida
I can't say much about this film in the way of criticism. It's less a case of it not being a well made film (I think it actually was made reasonably well), and more a case of it just not being my cup of tea stylistically.

The film has its moments of interest, but for the most part it maintains a distance from its characters and events that made it hard for me to connect. Being in black and white and subtitled didn't help, either, accenting the drab atmosphere that seems to come as a prerequisite to any Holocaust related film.

It follows a young girl who was raised at a convent and is about to take her vows as she discovers she was born Jewish and seeks (along with an Aunt she'd never before met) to find the bodies of her parents and lay them to rest. There's lots of emotional potential there, but it is rarely mined. By remaining so distant from its characters, I was unable to truly feel for them beyond a general sense of sympathy. I don't really mean this as biting criticism, though. It was clearly deliberate and is the way the filmmakers wished to tell their story. It may not have necessarily even been the wrong way--it's just not my cup of tea.

Review: Obvious Child

122. Obvious Child
My best guess is that in two weeks time my memories of this film will be pretty hazy. There was nothing in it that was particularly profound, nothing that made me sit up when the credits started to roll and say "Wow." Still, it was a fun, clever, diverting little film that, while it never made me outright laugh, frequently made me smile at its witty dialogue.

The film does have a plot, of course, but it's a meandering one which ultimately leads to more of  a low key conclusion. There is technically rising action and one or two places where the plotting seems a tad formulaic, but for the most part the film is just a series of scenes of its characters having funny, witty, awkward conversations. This makes the dialogue the most important aspect of the film and, fortunately, it is written and delivered well. Each line rings true, and much of the humor frequently comes from how relatable a lot of it is--moments where a character makes an observation and the viewer realized that they've thought something similar in the past but hadn't been able to put it into words. The dialogue here felt especially fresh with memories of the priggishness and pomposity of the so-called "witty" and "realistic" scenes from "The Fault in Our Stars" still stuck in my head.

I'm unsure of how much of a political point the filmmakers were trying to make with this film. It features the main character getting pregnant and then getting an abortion, but the moral philosophies of either side were never addressed. I'm glad that the film didn't come across as a propaganda piece, but the plot point also didn't make a huge impression on me and I don't know if it was even meant to. In all, the film was a fun comedy, just quirky enough to make it stand out. I'll know in a couple weeks if it's actually memorable.