I saw Silver Linings Playbook over a week ago and have been procrastinating saying anything about it because it’s tough to express my opinion without ruining the ending. I suppose the ads aren’t that coy about the gist of the film, but part of my enjoyment was derived from that rare feeling of having no idea what would happen next. Under the guidance of director David O. Russell (previously appreciated for The Fighter and Three Kings), I wasn’t sure if Playbook would be predictably atypical or deceptively Hollywood about the strange relationship between its May/December starring couple. Would it end in for-your-Oscar-consideration breakup and tears? Would it opt for the mushy happily-ever-after ending, complete with gratuitous dance party at the end? Would the payoff be just-good-friendship, like Lost in Translation? Would they both die horribly of movie cancer? My second-guessing was useless against it.
Tag Archives: reviews
2013 Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Shorts: From Best to Not-Best
Each year since 2009 my wife and I have made a day-long date of visiting Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not. A few of the past marathons have varied wildly in quality, but this year’s proved a superb bunch. To be honest, this is the first time in memory that I’ve preferred the live-action contenders to their animated colleagues.
Presented below are my rankings of this year’s five Live-Action Short Film nominees, from the most effective to the slightly flawed. None of these appear to be streaming online for free as the animated nominees are, but it’s my understanding they’re available on iTunes or on Video On Demand if your carrier offers the channel called Shorts HD (ours doesn’t). Links are provided to the most official-looking sites I could locate. Enjoy where possible!
Curfew: Writer/director/editor/star Shawn Christensen plays a deadbeat at the end of his rope, granted a fateful reprieve in the form of a phone call from his estranged sister, begging him for one night of babysitting the niece he hasn’t seen since infancy. The premise easily could’ve been expanded into a ninety-minute dumb-adult/smart-kid mismatch comedy starring Jason Bateman and a doomed child star. The tentative reunion, expectant life lessons, and mandatory cutesy musical number belie the sharp turns taken in the later scenes, when we learn more about the rift between siblings, and about how Mom spent her evening out. A charming, disturbing, sometimes intense drama about family, forgiveness, and our sad propensity for overlooking our importance to others who love and need us.
2013 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts: From Best to Not-Best
Each year since 2009 my wife and I have made a day-long date of visiting Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not.
Presented below are my rankings of this year’s five Animated Short Film nominees, from the greatest to the most head-scratching. Unlike last year, all five nominated animated shorts can be viewed online for free…as of today, at least. Links are provided for each, but may be subject to change without notice. Enjoy!
Paperman: You should’ve already seen this in front of Wreck-It Ralph. If you didn’t, it was unique in its use of Disney’s new CG/2-D hybrid system called Meander. The blend worked wondrously, and the meet-cute romance was sweet-hearted.
“Community” Returns, Makes NBC Thursdays Super Again, With or Without Ratings
Warning: those uncharacteristically dopey smiles are a LIE.
As of tonight, NBC is back in the business of catering specifically to me once again. For the next few months, my Thursdays have returned to form with all the right series back in the correct batting order as follows:
* Community: For dedicated fans like myself and my son, October 19th arrived at long last tonight with its fourth-season premiere, a full 111 days after NBC first promised it would be. The four-month drought was dispiriting, filled as it was with very little meta-humor, a complete lack of Troy and Abed in the Morning, and a heartbreaking parade of lost souls who keep telling me how much they prefer The Big Bang Theory, just to make me cry in my sleep.
“Zero Dark Thirty”: What Price the Pursuit of Earth’s Most Wanted?
After seeing Zero Dark Thirty as part of my annual Best Picture nominee binge, I exited the theater with just one thought on my mind: I’d hate to be a guy trying to start a new country in this day and age.
It’s a fun daydream, wondering what it would be like to find a deserted island no one’s yet claimed, plant a flag, invite a few friends to be charter citizens, and then declaring yourselves the new sovereign nation of YourNameHereLand. You build at least one impressive building to house your government. You write your own constitution that justifies everything you’ll ever want to do and lays down basic ground rules to protect you from any future jerks who emigrate inside your borders or grow up inside your school system. You figure out how your economy should function, discern your people’s industrial skill sets, plan for necessary imports, form relationships with all the right countries, fill out the proper UN forms, and you’re off and running. You could probably find how-to guides on the Internet that fill in your knowledge gaps, complete with instructional YouTube videos. How cool would that be?
Long-term answer: sooner or later, not very. Continue reading
If Only Social Services Could Save “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
My annual quest to see all the Best Picture Academy Award nominees continued last weekend with the scrappy indie competitor of the lot, Beasts of the Southern Wild, a magical-realism fable about stubborn penury-dwellers who do their best to ignore ripped-from-the-headlines natural disaster and do whatever they want whether it’s healthy for them or not. Not since No Country for Old Men has a film left me so depressed.
The film’s plot, as well as I can relay it without major spoilers:
Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Django Unchained” End Credits
I hadn’t originally planned to see Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Unlike many of my longtime Internet peers, his films aren’t an automatic draw for me. Though Reservoir Dogs has been a qualified favorite of mine since college, the rest have been a mixed bag. His previous work, Inglorious Badwerds, was a mature, complex, riveting film about WWII and about the role of film in WWII, but was hampered by Brad Pitt’s Kentucky-fried B-movie brigade who snuck in from the direct-to-video good-ol’-boys revenge flick next door. From the trailers, Django looked to me like a 2-cool-4-school blaxploitation Western. Call it Shaft in Texas or Black Grit. Despite the talented cast involved and the joyous responses from the critical majority, it didn’t really sound like my kind of movie.
Then it was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. As explained in a previous entry, I’ve watched every Best Picture nominee since 1997, whether I was enthusiastic about them or not. On this technicality alone, I checked Django out.
Advance Movie Screenings: Pros and Cons
The advance screening of Broken City I attended last night was made possible through a marketing promotion run by a social-event notification service, from which I’d considered unsubscribing months prior. Lucky for me, their very first useful offer crossed my path at just the right time.
Just so we’re clear: last night’s entry was not a paid product review. I’m not opposed to attempting one of those on principle, but for some reason no one submits such offers to the occasionally biased sarcastic guy, even one who sometimes enjoys the things he tries. Also, in blogosphere big-picture terms, I’m still small-fry. Dare to dream, though.
One of the advantages of living in a city of above-average size is that we have enough theaters and moviegoers to warrant sporadic attention from the major studios, who use advance screenings as one of the handy tools in their marketing toolbox. Theoretically the studio partners with a theater to hold one screening of an upcoming film to a full house of Average Joes before its official release date. Said Joes reciprocate the favor by spending the saved ticket money on refreshments instead; sitting through the movie, perhaps a little more patiently than usual since it was free; then sharing their love for the movie across their personal social-media outlets of choice. You become their li’l marketing assistant for an evening, and your paycheck is a flick of their choosing.
Advance Review: “Broken City”
Some evenings at the theater, the marquee only has two choices: $200 million action blockbusters and $5,000 found-footage camcorder flicks. If you’re yearning for a simple, mid-sized film with no CGI monsters and at least two famous actors, Broken City offers an R-rated option for fans of crime drama in general and tough-talking guys in particular. It’s a capable primer for anyone who’s never seen a film about political scandal or government corruption, and comfort food for those who can’t get enough of watching little guys taking down big dogs.
Mark Wahlberg is Billy Taggart, a former policeman who lost his badge over a controversial incident involving a homicidal rapist. He now runs his own PI business, though his clients are mostly deadbeats and his photos are amateurish. Russell Crowe is NYC Mayor Nicholas Hostetler, up for yet another reelection and riding high publicity on the sale of the low-income Bolton Village tenement area for a cool four billion bucks, nicely covering the city’s billion-dollar deficit and leaving plenty of surplus to earn him good Election Day will. Hostetler faces challenges on two fronts: his election opponent, smarmy upper-crust councilman Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper, who turns from stiff-upper-lip to unsettling devastation when things go wrong for him); and his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones, an Oscar-winning placeholder), who may be cheating on him. Or he may be paranoid. Or evil.
My 2012 Comic Books in Retrospect: the All-Stars and the Abandoned
2012 was my worst year for comic book enjoyment in the last fifteen years. I’ve collected them for thirty-four years, ever since the well-stocked spinner racks at Marsh Supermarket caught my eye at age six and opened new worlds of imagination and heroism. For the majority of my life they’ve been my primary hobby among all my hobbies. Once upon a time, friends could count on me to spout the occasional essay about a particular series, event, historical recollection, or rage-filled response to an aesthetic offense. When I launched Midlife Crisis Crossover last April, I thought the topic of comic books would inspire a lot more posts than they have so far.
I have no plans to wave farewell to the medium altogether, but my personal backlash started during the last half of 2011, when DC Comics purged their continuity yet again and rebooted their entire universe with the “New 52” initiative. The first time they rebooted after Crisis on Infinite Earths, I was fourteen and the combined talents of John Byrne, George Perez, Marv Wolfman, Mike Baron, and others were more than enough to convince me that this new direction was right up my alley. Twenty-six years and countless post-Crisis emendations later, DC and I are no longer the same entities under the same conditions. I can handle reboots to a certain extent, but when the new versions are poorly thought out — or worse, prone to twice as many crossovers as they used to be — I exercise my right as a consumer to opt out.
Marvel’s response was to concentrate on crossovers for a while longer, then roll out their own restarts without rebooting. I’ve found their results a little less alienating, but they’re still leaving some of my money on the table. Image stepped up mightily for a while and snatched some of my leftover Big Two bucks, but their titles have varied in quality and performance. I was glad to see other publishers continue earning attention from me as well — Dark Horse, BOOM!, IDW, Red 5, Valiant, and even Aspen. Again, results varied, but I appreciated the alternatives they offered.
Even though I’m increasingly disappointed with the current majority readership’s predilection for overspending on prequels, crossovers, and do-overs, my year had several bright spots in the world of monthly titles. (For purposes of personal categorization, I treat original graphic novels and trade paperback collections as “Books”, which are grouped and ranked separately from “Comic Books” in my head. Those might be fodder for a separate MCC list.)
The following were my favorite comic book series throughout 2012:
* Journey into Mystery — Kieron Gillen, Rich Elson, and other artists delivered one of the very few series that inspired any MCC thoughts at all, and ended their two-year storyline on a note of epic tragedy. After seeing the reincarnated Kid Loki and his best frenemy Leah through so many misadventures (not to mention the only A-plus crossover tie-ins of any crossover by any company in the last two years), I felt helpless and bereaved to see it all coming crashing down ’round his ears. Marvel’s formerly unrepentant trickster god was so close to redeeming himself for his previous lifetime of treachery and lies, albeit by finding clever ways to wield treachery and lies as forces for Good, only to see everything fall apart because of the lies he told himself and us. I wish every series aspired to thematic examinations this complex and riveting. More fire-breathing angry puppies like lethal li’l Thori would also be welcome.
MCC Request Line #6: “Les Miserables”
Welcome once again to the Midlife Crisis Crossover Request Line, in which recommendations from MCC fans send me reading, viewing, and reviewing assorted art and art-like objects, either because they want a proxy to evaluate the damage, or because my life won’t be complete without seeing them. Today’s suggestion came from Niki, one of MCC’s most dedicated fellow Bunheads fans. (Believe it or not, I hadn’t forgotten!)
Today’s subject: The world-famous Les Miserables, the mammoth French novel turned immortal Broadway play turned Hollywood film (not for its first time), today nominated for twelve Academy Awards. Niki’s original suggestion was for any version of the tale, but for some reason our local big-box stores have yet to be flooded with copies of the previous Liam Neeson/Geoffrey Rush version. The touring version of the musical performed in Indianapolis at some point, but that was before I received the suggestion. Blame the timing.
What I knew beforehand: It’s a big, famous book. More people have probably seen the musical than read the book. I knew it had characters named Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert, whose cat-and-mouse routine was an early precursor to The Fugitive. A tiny girl was prominent in all the musical’s ads and best-selling merchandise. That’s really all I knew before walking in.
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”: Thoughts on Old Friends, Orc Stats, and End Credits
Of all the movies I wanted to see most in theaters this year, none required as long a wait as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey did. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to sit quietly and wait until its third whole weekend of American release before all schedules properly aligned. Those of you who wait to catch movies on DVD or via basic-cable hatchet job may roll your eyes at my impatience if you must, but I like keeping current on my movies, especially those that have been pinned on my mental calendar for months.
To place my anticipation in perspective: I was required to read The Hobbit in seventh-grade English class. Our teacher was such a fan, we received extra credit if we completed our assignments in green ink. I also have the Mind’s Eye six-cassette audio adaptation and the Chuck Dixon/David Wenzel graphic-novel adaptation. I read The Fellowship of the Ring for a ninth-grade book report, but didn’t read the other two until after the movie trilogy had commenced twenty-five years later. I abandoned the Return of the King appendices after five pages, and once owned a copy of The Book of Lost Tales, Volume 1 that I don’t recall ever opening.
Regardless, I’ve been pacing back and forth, waiting for the chance to see Martin Freeman win as Bilbo. Freeman met all my expectations with the proper combination of exasperation, humility, whimsy, and plucky determination. For that alone, I received my money’s worth and then some.
MCC Request Line #5: “Gossip Girl”
An All-Star Salute to Big Bad Bart Bass
Today’s subject: The long-running CW series Gossip Girl, whose two-hour series finale is scheduled to air Monday, December 17th. Rather than endure a potentially lethal double dosage, I’ll be watching last Monday’s penultimate episode called “The Revengers”. I presume this episode will not contain a single reference to the obscure 1980s Neal Adams/Continuity Studios comic book of the same name.
What I knew beforehand: Rich, promiscuous, young adults in upscale Manhattan are plagued by the menace of an anonymous blogger who writes annoying things. The stars of the show are Blake Lively (Green Lantern, The Town) and some actor name Chace, which may or may not be pronounced “Chachi”. That’s literally all I know off the top of my head.
Why I hadn’t tried it before: I go to great lengths to avoid the subgenre of young-adult softcore soap opera. But a reader suggestion is a reader suggestion.
The above intro was written before pressing “play”. And then this happened.
“Lincoln”: a Multi-Purpose Crossover of History, Morality, and All-Star House Party
Despite a few dissidents who wished for something more, Stephen Spielberg’s new film Lincoln has received a host of rave reviews and much name-checking in articles about Academy Award predictions. The film aims to operate numerous levels, which may or may not work depending on what set of preconceptions and expectations you hope to see fulfilled:
* Historical drama: Based on the nonfiction book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the script by Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner (Angels in America) is a meticulous chronology of January-April 1865, when our beleaguered sixteenth President sought to end the Civil War and legislate abolition, but struggled through his negotiations with Congress to ensure that each occurred in the correct order, lest one set of dominoes send the other sprawling into chaos. Dozens of historical figures vie for screen time and take turns having their shared moment with either Lincoln or his henchmen. The result is a lot of nineteenth-century trivia compacted into a series of staged conversations, some of which are drier than others. Chances are, though, very few viewers will be able to say they’ve heard all of this before.
“Life of Pi”: A Bittersweet Symphony of Survival, Syncretism, and Surrender
Pi the spiritual drifter.
Ang Lee’s most recent adaptation of a novel I haven’t read, Life of Pi, pops with visuals that dazzle and astonish even without the 3-D upcharge, but many viewers who’ve already chosen their walk in life may be less enthusiastic about the film’s broad presentation of its spiritual themes. Since childhood, our young hero Pi has never adopted a religion he didn’t like. He doesn’t favor any one particular faith over another, instead enjoying the wide latitude of the “Everyone’s right, everyone wins!” pluralistic approach to religion that assumes anyone short of Hitler will be in Heaven if everyone’s excellent to each other, and God is merely an elderly greeter at the gates, waving politely and passing out “Participant” ribbons. As long as a belief system mentions God and endorses unlimited happiness for one and all, it’s on the “nice” list.
Unfortunately for Pi, other characters struggle to accept his lifestyle choice, particularly his pro-science dad, who lectures Pi on behalf of Hollywood’s God-hating half about the merits of siding with Reason as if it’s an option mutually exclusive from religion altogether. In the film’s framing scenes, an older Pi (Irrfan Khan, last seen Stateside as a lackey in Amazing Spider-Man) tells his incredible tale to an earnest skeptic with writer’s block (Rafe Spall, last seen dying stupidly in Prometheus). Beyond these token nods to nonpartisan balance, Pi is otherwise a passionate, stubborn, welcome argument for choosing theism over atheism. In limiting the debate and the viewing experience to that simple baseline context, I was on board and enthralled to that extent.
Yes, There’s a Scene During the “Rise of the Guardians” End Credits
For anyone who ever pined for a children’s version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Dreamworks has answered your odd prayer with Rise of the Guardians, an adaptation of an ongoing book series by Rolie Polie Olie creator and Academy Award-winning author/animator William Joyce, whose WikiPedia entry names a surprising number of other works in which he had a hand.
I don’t know how closely the movie hews to the books’ original premise, but the big-screen version is an all-star supergroup featuring the world’s most popular public-domain holiday icons — Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman (not, alas, the Neil Gaiman version), and impudent new recruit Jack Frost. Under the guiding light of the mysterious Man in the Moon, Our Heroes are tasked with preserving the precious beliefs of children worldwide who lend each icon their powers and make their respective holidays possible. The foe that unites them is the Boogeyman, who plots to dispel all that belief, render the Guardians moot, and divert the world’s thoughts unto himself so that he might rule with terror and nightmares. Presumably this radical shift in the status quo would leave the Gregorian calendar depressingly blank except for Halloween and Tax Day.
“Revolution” 11/26/2012 (spoilers): Mustache Dad vs. the Cape
“It’s been a long trip.”
Charlie summarizes the series to date with five simple words during the long-awaited family reunion that comprises this week’s fall-finale episode of Revolution, “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” (title taken from another Led Zeppelin track, because last week’s tribute episode demanded an encore). After a 760-mile walk from Wrigley Field in Chicago to Independence Hall in Philadelphia for the sake of her brother Danny, she’s calm and resolute all throughout, even when everyone but Miles is naturally taken captive in the first ten minutes. Blame Miles for putting his trust in an ineffective friend named Kip (special guest Glynn Turman — ex-Mayor Royce from The Wire!) who’s useless against the brute competence of Major Neville’s henchmen. Everyone is spirited away so they can be bait in Neville’s obvious trap for Miles.
“Skyfall”: My New Favorite James Bond Film, Says Lifelong Bond Hater
Historically speaking, the average moviegoer loves James Bond films a lot more than I do. I have nothing against the spy genre itself, but the Bond concept never appealed to me. Based on the trailers, the TV commercials, the very few Bond films I caught, and the same five scenes constantly referenced throughout pop culture, my impression of the scripts for most Bond films went like so:
PANICKY POLITICIAN: Ladies and gentlemen, a deformed billionaire Dick Tracy reject has a preposterous plan to take over and destroy the world, and we’re not sure in which order. We need our best man to stop him.
BRITISH CIA HEAD: How about James Bond? He’s a millionaire who knows a lot about sex, bartending, and tuxedos.
PANICKY POLITICIAN: Brilliant. Send him a million-dollar car and a box of our latest, deadliest, billion-dollar single-use Sharper Image toys.
BOND JAMES BOND: There’ll be sex, right? I was promised sex.
FUNNY-FACE VILLAIN: I’m killing your sex partner and stealing your scenes! And also incidentally detonating things and ruining world peace because of issues.
BOND JAMES BOND: Not my sex partner! You fiend.
[Bond chases or runs from henchmen, using up his toys one by one. There are explosions.]
BACKUP SEX PARTNER: Job well done. Join me in my lair.
BOND JAMES BOND: Way ahead of you. Do you like expensive booze?
“Revolution” 11/19/2012 (spoilers): Charlie vs. Imagination Station
As this week’s new Revolution episode “Kashmir” opens, Our Heroes have commuted a full 280 miles from last week’s endpoint in Ford City, PA (or wherever the Allegheny rapids dumped them south of that), all the way east to West Chester, twenty miles west of destination Philly, and home of a Rebel Alliance faction led by special guest star Reed Diamond. The costar of TV’s Dollhouse and Homicide: Life on the Street was a welcome change of pace from the long line of guests I haven’t been recognizing. I presume this means the show’s mighty ratings have finally earned it a higher casting allowance.
“Revolution” 11/12/2012 (spoilers): Charlie vs. the Annoying Little Sister
In this week’s new Revolution episode, “Ties That Bind”, it’s finally Nora’s turn in the flashback spotlight. Intense situations evince memories of her post-blackout childhood in Texas. Her mother was murdered by home invaders in San Antonio; her father was last known to be in Galveston; and her younger sister Mia was close by her side. Throughout the ensuing years of chaos after the blackout, the two orphans would learn to rely on each other and no one else, not unlike last week’s gaggle of gun-toting independent orphans.
(Incidentally, said orphans are nowhere in sight this week. Presumably Our Heroes inspected the abandoned half-building where they were dwelling, deemed it safe enough for them to raise each other, and bade them a hearty farewell with no fear whatsoever that the Monroe Militia would come mow the rascals down.)
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 