Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Year: 2011
Director: Stephen Daldry
Writer: Eric Roth, Jonathan Safran Foer
Genre: Drama

I never read the book which the film is adapted from. I've wanted to for years but just have never gotten around to it. I've heard from people who read the book that this film really destroys the powerful narrative of the novel. Because I've not read it I was at least able to view the film without a bias. However, that didn't make me like it.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close had the chance to be something quite special. Instead, it imploded on itself due to the highly unlikable main character. I understand that the boy Oscar is supposed to have Aspergers and that explains a bunch of his behavior. As I went in without knowing that though I could assume something was meant to be up, but that he was just a precious little ball of nerdiness. There's nothing wrong with that though, as I love nerds. In a way the main boy in Hugo was also a nerd because of his scientific and technical mind. But Oscar was not cute or lovable or wonderful. He was annoying.

All children have the ability to be annoying, not just ones with Aspergers. Tons of them are just madness and in a lot of ways these days when a child "acts out" or is "different" it seems they get medicated for something which may be nothing other than their personality. Anyway, that's obviously not the point here. I don't know much of anything about Oscar's condition so I can't pretend to tell whether he really showed all the signs. Probably so. Either way, my point is you can be a wild little child with highly unusual and interesting thoughts and be likeable and wonderful. I just didn't feel that way toward him whatsoever.

In the film it felt like he didn't have enough of a character. There were things ABOUT him that seemed to mean to make us care. Like his tambourine which he would shake to calm himself down. That's a lovely trait but it just felt globbed onto the character, not something actually special or wonderful about him. There were a lot of things that felt like they were simply placed around him to try to make a character.

Anyway, with the narrative very tightly focused on this child's attempting to deal with the trauma of 9/11 I was forced to endure his not-at-all charming antics. I couldn't stand him. It made the whole movie feel overplayed and trite, like a cornball TV movie. Also, I am not sure this child could really act. He was good at memorizing lines I guess and good at YELLING but that doesn't make someone a good actor. Oh well, he's young and had the guts to take a huge role. Props to him.

So yeah, there are some movies with detestable characters but stories that still wrap you right up into it all. I could never get past that point with Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close because the narrative just wasn't my cup of tea.

Midnight in Paris

Year: 2011
Director: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Genre: Comedy, Romance

Midnight in Paris is a nice film but I don't see how it managed to garner acclaim with mainstream audiences. As a thinly-veiled love letter to Paris, you'd think typical moviegoers would be a little put off. Who cares about all this romantic junk that this guy is spouting about the city? It's just a city! Well, whatever, it turns out the movie is a nice one although it doesn't delve far enough for me.

If you know nothing about the film then you should probably skip this review because the main part of the plot is a nice surprise. So, you've got this American writer named Gil who is completely enamored with Paris. Fine, whatever, aren't we all. He's gone there with his fiance and ends up discovering a way to travel back in time to when Paris was brimming with famous artist types. He meets up with Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald, and a great deal of other people.

Once he's in this land of the past he finds himself swept away by everyone and everything. This time just seems so much better than his own, at least for a while. But every day he comes back to the modern age and sees his life just isn't turning out the way he'd hoped it would.

Personally I don't think it went far enough. It has a hint of magical realism with the time travel, but nothing further. Why is this all there is? I guess that's not a bad thing though, just rubbed me as a little bit silly. Secondly, here's yet another case of romanticizing cheating. At least for this movie we are able to see the disingenuous nature of Gil's engagement first hand instead of having to blindly assume it.

Overall the biggest turn off for me was that this film feels like a big love letter to Paris and its people. That is fine, but a movie lauding the place does nothing for me. It seems the film only exists to say "wow, look at all these cool people! I'm interacting with them - this is so cool!" and that seems the biggest point that the plot serves. It also seems odd to me that the film discusses our constant longing for a "golden age" - an age which truly doesn't exist. And yet, in the end, Gil basically finds his golden place, so to speak, in Paris. Wasn't the point of the film to show that nothing is perfect? The grass will always be greener on the other side? Oh well, apparently there is a truly golden place and age because Gil gets to bask in it at the end.

The Descendants

Year: 2011
Director: Alexander Payne
Writer: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon
Genre: Comedy, Drama

Why didn't this film win more awards? Simply put, it is far from an astonishing film. It is a good movie, but not even great. I'm not sure how it even managed to be up for Best Picture. Of course, I'm not quite sure how half the movies selected managed to make it up there (War Horse). That's not to say The Descendants is bad, because that's not the case either. Average is more like it.

I enjoyed watching The Descendants for one reason. I loved the two daughters. They were very real characters and their banter was wonderfully crude. Somehow even Clooney was outshined by these young actresses. It seems odd considering, but maybe the character he portrayed just wasn't lively enough. Maybe hen's not meant to be the important one. It's hard to tell sometimes.

The reason I think this film was nominated was for its plot. In it, annoyed, unconnected, and uncaring husband Matt suddenly is forced to re-evaluate his marriage when his wife is in a life-threatening accident. As a result, she ends up stuck in a coma from which she will never wake and the husband is forced to mull over the tough decision of whether or not she should be kept this way or let free to die. All this is played alongside Matt also having to decide who to give his massive share of Hawaiian land to because for some reason he is a descendant of some powerful people.

This is all some serious stuff but the movie plays everything off in a rather amusing fashion. The approach is certainly valid but to me at least it left things feeling less important. It's just a happy go lucky film with some dipping points. It is a very modern film with very modern jokes too and for that it feels weaker. Maybe that's just me though because I am more used to films which don't try so hard to plant themselves firmly in the moment.

Check the film out and see how it works for you. I enjoyed it I just don't see it being Oscar-worthy. Perhaps you'll view it differently.

The Artist

Year: 2011
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Writer: Michel Hazanavicius
Genre: Comedy, Romance

The Artist walked out of the Oscars with a boat load of awards, and with good reason. It's a wonderfully solid and fun film. It brings us back to a cinematic experience that is purely joyful to experience and not bogged down by excessively complex plots of multi-million dollar effects. If you haven't had the pleasure of watching it yet then that's highly suggested, although all the praise its received may dampen your own perception of it a bit.

For me, it was a solid picture. However, I wish it had done something more creative or daring. You might say that releasing a silent film in this age is daring, and it is in a way. However it certainly isn't the only modern silent film out there. Many other indie films have employed the same effect and many others will continue to do so in the future. They just don't happen to garner so much acclaim with the general public.

Now, what is it about this film that I don't exactly appreciate? Well, I don't know, maybe it's better to go over what was good first. The acting was solid and in a way it definitely out does the old silent films. It manages to tell a story and get dialogue across without forcing characters to overact too far. It mostly falls within the realms of modern acting, just with a little extra to make sure the viewer understands. The story is cute too: A silent film star finds himself unwilling and unable to compete with the new-fangled talking movies.

What I didn't enjoy was the fact that this movie plays it so entirely safe. Yes, it's a silent film but you don't have to place a silent film in the set of the era where they were popular. It would be much more impressive to me to see a movie taking place in our "current world" done silently. There's no reason that you have to stick it in one specific era just because that's where it originated. I also don't really appreciate the romanticizing of cheating, but of course that's common for many films. It just seemed a bit more out of place here because, to me, initially the interactions between the husband and wife seemed to be relatively happy ones.

So that's my two cents about The Artist. It's great fun and will probably make a lot of average film fans feel cultured. Hopefully it ushers other filmmakers to try their hands at something different.

The Help

Year: 2011
Director: Tate Taylor
Writer: Tate Taylor, Kathryn Stockett
Genre: Drama

I liked The Help. As a mostly comedy with dramatic asides, it has some strong characters and a lovely narrative. There is also a lot wrong with this film, in my eyes. Despite that though it still manages to be a wholly enthralling narrative that kept my attention all the way through. Also, I loved the character of Celia. Yes, I loved her enough to state that in my first paragraph.

Basically in the film you've got a young woman who seems to rebel against every norm in her world. She's not really interested in getting a man - she's getting a job! She's also not taken aback by the idea of African Americans being equal to everyone else. Whatever she drank really should have gotten into the bodies of the other gals, but of course, if it did then we wouldn't have a movie.

Anyway, it's a film about this journalist who wants to get the true stories from "the help", or maids. So she goes for it and slowly gains the trust of the women she wants to interview. It's quite entertaining most of the time, so I'm not sure why exactly it's tagged as a "drama" on IMDB.

There's nothing wrong with a movie having fun, even for a semi-period piece. It just feels kind of bad to watch because of how it seems to push aside the harsh realities of the time. It might have been the 60s but damn if that wasn't practically a world away from where we are now. It was an extremely turbulent period for civil rights and nearly completely glossing over that was a huge failing, in my opinion. Yes, there's are a handful of moments in the film which attempt to bring this reality home. It never quite reaches though. There's a point where a young black woman is beaten by an officer, but then the fear of the moment is quickly dissipated by a new scene filled with patented sass.

The points the film seem to make are filled with good intentions, but that doesn't mean the film itself is pure. To me the things it teaches are that African American maids really were living a mostly fine life. Oh sure, they couldn't even use the same toilets but other than that they just had so much fun gabbing with their friends and making fun of white ladies behind their back. Oh sure, their friends were getting beaten by those who are supposed to protect the town, but what does it really matter when you can bake a pie with poop in it and serve it to your old employer?

Despite the failings that I felt exist because of how it downplayed the reality of the situation, I still found myself captivated by the silly narrative. I laughed at many jokes and liked the ending. I felt the end was actually focused on a maid character, not the journalist, like many have said. It's a great film that you can watch as long as you turn off the analytical part of your brain.

Hugo

Year: 2011
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: John Logan, Brian Selznick
Genre: Adventure

I'm not usually one for family films. I'm also not usually interested in 3D films. However, this one was both and I was stuck in a theater watching it. As it turned out though, it ended up being really nice. I must say though that the 3D effect seemed lost on me. That, or it was just so masterfully done that I didn't even notice it. Well, what I'm used to is hokey 3D where things are jutting out at you. I don't recall any of that. This is a plus.

The film was very beautiful. This is the first thing I noticed, and probably the first thing my theater compatriots also saw. You'd never expect dust floating around to look marvelous but this movie managed it. Everything seemed just a bit too bright and pretty to be real. It all added to the playful atmosphere and that was great. Even though the story itself wasn't award caliber, the visuals sure were.

In Hugo you're greeted with a young boy who has lost his father. The poor child is stuck tending to the clockwork in a train station and hopes to never get caught (orphans get sent off). He's also trying to fix a broken mechanical person which his father had attempted to fix before his untimely demise. It's a sweet little tale that gets slightly convoluted, but mostly nice. It's also got a big focus on the love of film. I'm surprised that two films this season were feelin' the love in that way (The Artist being the other).

I don't think that this movie is incredible. The story is cute but not much more than that. What makes it worth a watch is the excellent visuals. Or, if you have a child they'd probably get a lot more out of it then I did.

Best Picture Showcase

So, last weekend I went to AMC's Best Picture Showcase. This is something that goes on every year for the past few years. Basically, it's an event where you go to a participating theater and watch all the Academy Award best picture nominees for that year. A few special theaters show them all in one big marathon. That's what I went to.

I fell asleep for most of Moneyball as well as War Horse. Beyond that though there were some nice little films. I didn't like these nominees as much as last year's but they can't always be great big winners. Anyway, for the next few days I intend to write posts for a few of the films. Not all of them, but some. Unfortunately none are horror but what can you do?