The Peanuts Movie

I finally got around to seeing The Peanuts Movie, and I'm glad I did.  It was charming and emotional and nostalgic in all the best ways.  They really nailed all the characters and gave each one just enough screen time (though Linus probably could've used more).

It's been a long time since I've seen a move that gets remarkably better as it goes on.  By the third act, you are invested in Charlie Brown's dilemmas, and it is so satisfying to see him score a win.  Snoopy's Red Baron sequences are intercut at great moments to parallel the Charlie Brown story.  They don't distract from it, and the find a way to draw you in and get you emotionally invested in them as well.

There's just enough Vince Guaraldi music to satisfy classic Peanuts fans like me and just enough modern music to hook a younger generation.

The comedy was that great blend of slap-stick humor for young ones and existential heartache for adults.  It has plenty of references to the old jokes, but plenty of new owns to let it stand on its own.

One thing I've always respected about Peanuts is its ability to create drama without any real antagonist.  Sure Lucy can be a little intense sometimes, but she's never "the bad guy."  I normally don't like stories without an antagonist, but, for some reasons, Peanuts has the charm and existential insight to pull it off.  Life itself is hard enough for Charlie Brown;  he doesn't need some villain actively working against him to give him challenges.  Charlie Brown represents many of the best qualities in all of us, and that's what draws us back, what makes us cheer for him again and again, no matter how many times Lucy pulls that football away.  Charlie Brown keeps trying, and, if he can keep his outlook positive, so can we.

Spectre of Disappointment

I knew that Spectre couldn't live up to the awesomeness that was Skyfall for me.  I knew that, but gosh was I still disappointed.  Now, there are good Bond films and bad ones, and there are ones that are just okay.  Spectre was still better than films like Quatum of Solace or A View to a Kill, but it suffers from a couple of major sins.

A movie can be bad; it can be downright terrible, but the one thing a movie should never be is boring, especially a James Bond movie.  Spectre had a great opening shot.  That one-er was beautiful, interesting, and really well-done, unlike everything that came after it.  Bond's hanging from a helicopter over Mexico, and I didn't care.  Bond blows up a Spectre base in a sequence so carelessly put together that it only lasts a minute.  There's no dramatic countdown.  No self-destruct sequence.  He basically tosses a cigarette aside as he walks away and lets the base Michael Bay itself to death.  Almost every action sequence in the film receives this little emotional investment.  I cared so little about anything happening throughout the entire film, and it felt like Daniel Craig and Sam Mendez felt the same way.

I'll be honest, I wrote some myself some bad fan fiction when I was in middle and high school. . . but I never tried to sell it as a Hollywood feature film.  [SPOILER ALERT] Blowfeld in Bond's adopted brother?  Seriously?  Let's just rename him James Coincidence or Fraternal Bond.  Oh, and let's just retcon the last three movies so Blowfeld was pulling the strings all the time.  Quantum was a part of Spectre?  I guess I could buy that if I didn't know that Quantum was invented to replace Spectre during the whole Spectre/Blowfeld rights debacle.  Silva is a Spectre agent?  I could maybe buy it, again if it had actually been set up instead of retconned later.

Also, I was not impressed with Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall."  It set the tone for the whole move:  BORING.  I know Bond films don't always work the name of the film into the song.  A lot of the time it doesn't even make sense when they do.  But you couldn't work with Spectre?  Seriously?  Even just as nonsensical as "Your love is like a Spectre."  Boom.  Bond song.  Uses the title of the movie.  Done.

Basically, I wish we could all just pretend this Bond film didn't happen, let it fade away like a spectre.

Bridge of Spies

There's a reason Steven Spielberg has the reputation he does. The man just understands storytelling. He understands characters. He understands film. There's a certain caliber of director where even their weakest films are proficiently crafted and still a cut above the average flick.

Bridge of Spies is incredibly engaging. Stellar performances by all the cast (even the kids!), along with Spielberg's superb directing help you care about these characters. Good writing and use of set-up--pay-off structure create a level of tension that keeps you in the world of the movie from start to finish. You may already know the ending; you know Tom Hanks is never in any real danger, because you know how movies work. But Spielberg keeps us wondering "How is he gonna pull it off?"

Bridge of Spies also uses its themes of Constitutional values and what we believe in as Americans to transcend time and keep a modern audience invested in this period piece about a time that many would (incorrectly) argue is behind us.  It calls on one of humanity's favorite stories: the underdog, the man who stands up even when his closest friends and family members beg for him to sit. In a greatly appreciated reprieve from today's nihilistic film and television landscape, Spielberg uses Bridge of Spies to present us at our best, to make us all see how good we can be if we stand by our principles. I can really see why it's being compared to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and why Tom Hanks is being heralded as "the James Stewart of our time."

TLDR: It's a damn good movie that should make you want to be a better person and make this world a better place.

"Beware of Crimson Peak!" Like, seriously, it's really disappointing.

I would have thought it highly unlikely that I could be bored to death in a Guillermo del Toro film that starred Charlie Hunnam, Tom Hiddleston, and Jim Beaver, but then I saw Crimson Peak.

I would warn you that there are some spoilers ahead, but this was one of the most predictable films I've seen in a long time, so do spoilers really matter?

The film opens with a shot from the end of the film and the main character's voice-over narration takes us from that shot into the first "real" scene of the movie.  Lazy screenwriting.  "But, Brad!  Great films like Sunset Blvd open with the end of the film!"  Yes, but Sunset Blvd opens by showing you that the main character (who is also the narrator!) is dead!  It opens with a twist.  It shows you something jolting, a mystery, a tragedy that is slowly revealed over the course of the film (so masterfully so that you almost forget that William Holden has to die at the end).  Crimson Peak just shows us a shot of the main character in the snow with blood on her face.  There's no context.  There's little-to-no intrigue.  It's a cheap flash-forward attempt to try to hook you, but there's no bait (or hook for that matter).  It's like the writer lacked confidence in what was really the first scene.  NO!  That's not how movies work.  If you don't think your first scene is good enough to hook your audience, re-write that shit.

Second: Narration. "But Sunset Blvd had narration."  And so do a lot of great movies.  You know what their narrators do?  Add something to the plot.  The gist of her narration is "Ghosts are real. My mom died."  1) No shit. I saw a funeral scene with young you with your father.  I know how  movies work.  I understand context clues.  Film is a visual medium; I don't need you to tell me these things.  Images are more powerful than your stupid words anyway.  First rule of screenwriting: Show, don't tell.  2) It doesn't even matter if ghosts are real or not.  In the end, they don't physically affect anything anyway.  They could all be in [whatever the protagonist's name was]'s head and it wouldn't change a thing.  She could be following her schizophrenic hallucinations to find clues and piece together the "mysteries" of Crimson Peak, and it wouldn't change a thing.  The only other character who ever sees a ghost is Tom Hiddleston's character's sister, and she's very well established as clinically insane.  So, again, it doesn't matter.  Also, there's this scene where Charlie Hunnam talks about ghost photography, and that never comes up again.  Never.  When it comes up, you feel like there was a scene that contextualized it that got cut out, but it never comes up again later, so now I really don't understand why the scene is in the final cut of the film at all.

Let's all remember that movies like Sunset Blvd are the exception.  Flash-forwards and narration do not a great movie make, and I'm so freaking tired of focus groups and studio execs shoving that shite down our throats as if we're all too stupid to understand what's going on with out help from a friendly narrator.  Can you imagine how stupid some movies would be if they tried those cheap tricks?  Picture Up opening with a shot of the house burning, then cross-fading into that brilliant love-story opening while Carl narrates, "This is crazy.  I finally meet my childhood hero and he's trying to kill us."  It's cheap.

So now you've shown me the main character alive and well later in the film.  That's such a mistake.  I know that movies technically already lack tension because, if we're following Hollywood rules, the protagonist can't die (and stay dead, at least until the end).  But now I know she can't die until we've reached the point we saw at the start.  There's no tension.  I know she gets out of everything okay.  She's even narrating the thing, and, unless you're Sunset Blvd, you can't have a dead narrator.  And Crimson Peak has the balls (or complete lack of respect for it's audience) to throw some fabricated "tension" at us barely five shots later!  The protagonist's mother appears as a ghost within the first few minutes.  Great.  Fine. Whatever.  But del Toro tries to make the apparition's appearance suspenseful and tense, as if there's a real danger to the young hero.  THERE CLEARLY F@#KING ISN'T!  You just showed me her as an adult.  She's narrating the damn picture.

First Act crime number 4: The protagonist is writing a book.  A story with a ghost.  She takes it to a publisher who says, "A ghost story?"  She replies, "It's more a story with a ghost.  The ghost is really a metaphor for the past." (See!  Even the movie admits that "Ghosts are real" DOESN'T MATTER.)  He tells her it needs a love story.  Great!  Within the first five minutes we know that this movie isn't really about the ghosts, and it's going to be a (forced and melodramatic) "love" story.  Just what I wanted.

The following things become very obvious and predicable very quickly:
1) Ghosts are benevolent.  This becomes obvious so early, in fact, that I couldn't feel scared or tense at all in the entire film.  Which just leaves me with bored.
2) Tom Hiddleston's character and his sister are clearly incestuous.  It's obvious from damn near the beginning.

It's like I kept waiting for a twist to come up, for the filmmakers to do SOMETHING different.  I was so bored and tired of the stupid characters that I was actively rooting against them.  I wanted the ghosts to grow as annoyed with the humans as I was and off them all.  But that moment never comes.  There is no twist, no grand reveal.  Everything is exactly as predictable as you think it will be.

The audience I saw it with was laughing by the end.  There were collective groans and sighs of frustration throughout the second half.  Eventually, the film just became laughable.

I will say that it's visually very pretty, and the production design was very cool.  However, my favorite parts of the film were all the times Loki--I mean, Tom Hiddleston talked about how shitty the house was: There's a hole in the roof; the water is colored red from the clay; the house is sinking; wind blows in through the chimneys; etc. . .  I'll be honest, the twist I was really hoping for was for Crimson Peak to turn into a remake of The Money Pit. . . but with ghosts!  That would've been entertaining.

Black Mass: or I still can't stand Boston Accents

I went into Black Mass having seen no Trailers. I'd seen posters and heard a little hype from friends and NPR, so I knew it was the "Whitey Bulger" story. Not knowing very much about the Bulger story, the historian part of me was pretty engaged.

The acting was just as good as you'd imagine from that cast list. Johnny Depp gave an amazing performance, breaking out of the Jack Sparrow rut he's been in since 2003. Benedict Cumberbatch does a Boston accent that's very nearly believable, and he does a great job in a supporting role, never stealing the screen as he often dies. It's neat to watch Adam Scott hold his own amongst so many accomplished dramatic actors, however he doesn't get enough screen time to truly cut his teeth.

That said, none of the characters are deeply explored. They're barely shallowly explored. No one has a character arc. No one changes. The movie suffers from classic biopic syndrome, presenting a series of factual events and failing to present them within properly structured plot arc. You find yourself watching a brief history lesson rather than a story. Like most biopics, the film cuts off with little resolution.

While Depp's performance and the history aspect were enough to keep me engaged for the duration, overall I found the movie entirely forgettable. If I want a compelling, "true-life" crime movie, I'll watch Goodfellas again.

The movie was also a constant reminder of why and how much I dislike Boston. Their accent, their culture, their arrogant, xenophobic, exclusionary sense of self-entitlement: Sorry, Boston, but you have yet to win any affection from me.

My one sentence review:
"Black Mass" is two hours of great actors playing disappointingly-written characters in little snippets of some of a plot.

"Live Blogging" Movies You've Probably Already Seen: Unbreakable

So in the first scene I'm already finding a few things unbelievable in this movie about "superheroes."

1) Why would two people talk to each other through a mirror in that way?  Unless both of them were thinking, "Gee, this would sure be a cool shot.  I sure wish/hope someone was filming this."

2) If movies have taught me anything, it's that there is probably not nearly enough racism happening in this scene involving black people and white people in the 1960's.

I like the character development of Bruce Willis figuring out he's "unbreakable," but he's supposed to be, what? 40? minimum.  You're telling me a man has gone at least 40 years and never found it odd that he hasn't been sick or hurt?  What was that childhood like?  Boys do dumb shit. They get hurt.  This is asking for some major suspension of disbelief.

Oh my God. Within the same scene M. Night says "F--- You" to his audience..
1) The Action Comics issue's price of "still 25 cents" just rubs in the price of comics today. Ha ha.  Because inflation is funny.
2) Sam Jackson's mom says, "This one has a twist ending."  Ha ha, M. Night.  Wink wink, nudge nudge.  Here's a twisting ending: the "next Spielberg's" IMDB list after this movie.

Also, I'm just going based on what I've heard about this movie, and what I've seen in the first 15-20min, but did we really cast a white hero and a black villain?  Heavy-handed good-guy/bad-guy casting is heavy-handed.  Oh, there's the racism they left out of the 1960's scene; it got misplaced into the casting department. . . in real life.

So, believe it or not, this is the first Shymalan movie I've ever seen.  Yes, I know, Bruce Willis is a ghost, and his weakness is water, and it was the trees that killed him.  That said, I'm surprised to find how much dialogue is actually just exposition.  Seriously, it's like half the movie so far.  AND, I'm pretty sure if you break down the scene formula, each scene might end with it's own twist.  It's like this script is a series of little twists within twists within one big twist.  Jeeze, watching M. Night write must be like watching a teen girl braid her hair on prom night.

Gotta say, though, I am really enjoying the performances from Willis and Jackson.  They're pretty solid and fairly divergent from their typical on-screen personalities.  And Robin Wright; I might actually like her better here than in House of Cards.  One thing I'll give Shymalan, he knows how to get great performances.

"These are mediocre times.  People are starting to loose hope."  And this movie came out BEFORE the recession.

Did Bruce Willis just racially profile Shymalan in a pre-9/11 world?

There are so many things wrong with the scene where the kid tries to shoot Bruce Willis, but I know better than to try to tell people how to raise their own kids, so. . . skip!

Oh shit!  I was just making a Signs reference when I said Bruce Willis' weakness was water.  I retract my obnoxious joke.  Touché, movie.  Touché.

However, I'm gonna sin this movie for over use of cross-fades.  Or for cross-fading out of scenes too early multiple times.  For a movie that takes it's time with long, artsy shots, it sure likes to rush us out of scenes with these dissolves.

And this room is an orgy of evidence that Sam Jackson's character is a super-villain.

Seriously? That's how it ends?  No third act?  Are all Shymalan movies like this?  Insert joke about unsatisfying sex due to lack of climax.  And what's with the American Graffiti ending?  We could show you these events, but we feel it's more cinematic to put some text on the screen and let you read it.

I think I'd have liked this movie more if no one had hyped it up for me.  But that's also the only reason I watched it.

Let's have someone write and shoot those last 30 pages.  You know, Sam Jackson is on top of a the Baxter Building, about to evaporate all of Gotham's water into a hallucinogenic drug that, when inhaled, will make audiences think the Avengers movies are good; then all the cranes turn so that Bruce Willis can get there in time to trap Sam Jackson in the sun with Parallax, possibly through the use of air bending (too soon?).

Okay, you're right.  Let's give Unbreakable all the points for subverting the genre and removing all the action and spectacle from a super-hero film.  It's actually pretty clever and deserves some recognition.  I guarantee you won't see a Marvel or DC film attempt anything this ballsy.

Inside Out's Existential Crises

Let me start by saying Inside Out is cute and fun with a lot of clever psychology jokes. However, I felt there were some major holes, unanswered questions, and strange implications that were side effects of the film's premise.

First off, Inside Out could be a great example of the things you're not supposed to do in a screenplay. Like narration. Occasionally narration can be okay, even good, but, far more often, it's either lazy storytelling or clearly added because some idiots in a focus group were confused, so execs added narration to spell things out for lowest-common-denominator Americans. At its best, great filmmaking doesn't even require dialogue to tell the story. Inside Out's narration is completely unnecessary, and is worth a sin.

The other screenwriting no-no that bugged me is something I hate any time I see it: internal conflict. Having characters struggle with internal conflict is fine, even great character development, as long as there is some personified antagonist representing that conflict or drawing it out. But when a film lacks an antagonist, I find it lacks conflict, and becomes boring for me personally. Now, I realize I'm basically faulting the movie for its basic premise, so shame on me, I guess.

And, remember, this is coming from a guy who loves Pixar and typically applauds them for their generally clever writing, emotional storytelling, and overall higher quality than DreamWorks.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get into some existential plot holes and paradoxes.

How does the relations between the emotions and Riley work? Joy and friends have a control panel with which they make Riley feel emotions, and they give her ideas. They seem to be controlling her like pilots of a ship. The same is true of all the other humans we see. So are people merely vessels controlled by these emotions? Joy and gang constantly refer to Riley as if she's a separate person. They care about her wellbeing as if it's different from their own. It's not "I" and "me", but "she" and "her." This language suggests that Riley has a separate consciousness from the emotions. Is that part of head not personified? What exactly is the relationship here?

I might be faulting the movie's premise again, but let's talk about the emotions. Each of then seem to experience the full range of emotions. We certainly see Joy experience sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Which is fine. None of them would be able to undergo any sort of character arc if they were completely one-dimensional representations of their respective emotion. However, if they themselves are capable of feeling other emotions, why do Disgust, Fear, and Anger have so much trouble running Riley while Joy and Sadness are adventuring? Shouldn't they operate more like the Faceless Men of Bravos and be able to switch places willy-nilly? Or what's the point of having the five emotions in the first place if they are all capable of having other feelings? Does Joy have a team of emotions piloting her? Is life just an endless paradox of emotions controlling emotions?

Something else that confuses me is the gender assignment of the emotions. Riley has a mix of masculine and feminine personifications of her emotions, which is fine. I just find it odd that every other head we see in the film has all of their emotions match their body's gender. Men have their emotions personified as a being men. Women's emotions are 100% women. Is is some intentional commentary on Riley's character? Is it suggesting that Riley is still discovering who see is and her emotions will change as she becomes an adult and discovers her identity? Is it some commentary on her future sexuality (the film does keep away from the debunked works of Freud)? Or is it just a gag, because having all the females in Mom being annoyed with all the males in Dad is funny; because gender conflict!

My final existential question is about the opening of the film. Joy comes into existence at Riley's birth. I don't mean to start a religious debate here, but the film is certainly making some statement about a person's perception or lack thereof in the womb vs out. I like to believe Pixar wasn't trying to make such commentary, but, rather were cleverly referencing Lacanian psychology or someone similar with the theory that you don't develop a separate identity from your mother until you've left the womb (and seen yourself in a mirror, according to Lacan).

Sure, I'm a heartless, cold miser for hating on this adorable children's film. But, in my defense, it was also boring and predictable. If it weren't for the clever humor, I probably would've been really disappointed. However, the witty psychology jokes do give Inside Out enough points to earn this one-line review:

"It's still a better movie than Cars."

Why Jurassic World Is Actually Brilliant

The more I reflect on Jurassic World, the more I realize how much I enjoyed it and how brilliant it really is. This review isn't about nitpicking the movie; it has it's fair share of flaws as well as details that I really liked. I also don't want to summarize the film, and I'll try to do this without spoilers.

First off, I was never bored. The action begins early, is really fun, is well shot, and, through very good editing, pacing, and cinematography, the filmmakers effectively created a world of suspense where the dinosaur could be lurking just off-scene at any time. While the plot points were predictable (set up, payoff) like in any Jurassic Park film, the action was not; this suspense kept me guessing and kept me metaphorically on the edge of my seat.

Jurassic Park has always maintained a good track record of making dinosaurs into scary villains that will eat you (Raptors in the kitchen. Need I say more?), but JW is the first entry that has made me actively root against a dinosaur. The movie's hybrid creation Indominus Rex is effectively presented as a homicidal, sociopathic, character, achieving a level of pure hatred among the audience so strong that, when Indominus finally met her demise, a Sunday morning crowd actually cheered. If that's not great character development, I don't know what is.

Also on the well-developed dino list are the raptors. Thanks to Chris Pratt's relationship with them, the raptors are, for the first time in the franchise, truly presented as animals, as opposed to movie monsters. They were scary in the way a trained wolf or tiger is scary; seemingly tamed, but their wild side could come out at any moment. This was something new and refreshing for the JP franchise. While I could offer endless complaints regarding JW's CGI, which doesn't hold a candle to the animatronics of the 1993 original, I will say the raptors looked damn cool when they got to run out in the jungle. Their movement and behavior as they leap over dead trees and scurry along the jungle floor was captured perfectly, adding to the sense that they are animals.

What really made me appreciate Jurassic World was when I realized the movie was an allegory for itself. In the world of the movie, executives order the creation of Indominus Rex to "up the wild factor" and attract an audience who's bored with regular dinosaurs. That's exactly what the movie did! The writers concocted Indominus to attract movie-goers who could be bored with the previous JP films. And all the while, Chris Pratt's voice-of-reason character keeps reminding us, "They're dinosaurs. Wild enough." It's like the whole movie is a big f#@k you to some Universal exec! The film is full of tongue-in-cheek nods to the other films as if to say, "We know we're a cash-in, so we're just going to have fun being  a cash-in." The action is fun and ridiculous, while the humor and nostalgia are well-played and self-aware.

Jurassic World's greatest selling point could possibly be the way it treats its audience. Like this summer's most amazing blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road (seriously, go see it), Jurassic World doesn't treat us all like idiots. JW trusts that we've all seen its predecessors and that we don't need a refresher course. Well all know who John Hammond and InGen are, and the movie knows that. Little details like that make Jurassic World and Mad Max refreshing exceptions in our current, unbearably oversimplified blockbuster climate.

Is Jurassic World a good movie? No, not at all. Is it as good as the original? No, it might not even be as good as The Lost World (but I like Lost World). Is it a fun, awesome thrill ride that can kick the pants off a Marvel or Transformers film? Absolutely. By far the best dinosaur movie you'll see this year.

My one line review: "Jurassic World is the dinosaur movie I've always wanted and never should've existed."