The Other Summer Movies

Well, I see you've covered most of the big summer movies so far, but there are a few left for me to tackle.

Iron Man

Let me first say that I tried everything I could not to see this movie. I had no interest in this film, I've never seen a Robert Downey Jr. movie, I had no knowledge of who Iron Man was, and nothing in the previews or story sounded interesting to me. I managed to avoid seeing this for weeks until I was back in Denver and every other
movie sounded worse so I finally gave in. I went into the theater expecting to hate every second of it and already hating that I was seeing it at all.


To my complete surprise this movie was amazing. It begins with an arrogant, corrupt, sleazy businessman, Tony Stark, who gets captured as a prisoner of war. Instead of having that experience transform him and give him the morals and values of a "superhero," Stark remains a complete jerk! It's wonderfully refreshing to not only see a flawed superhero, but I LOVED that he didn't spend any time waffling about whether or not to do what he's doing (Spiderman, Batman, etc). He just accepts his flaws and embraces life! It's great.

There are many other things that are great about this movie. I love that he openly admits his alterego at a press conference without trying to hide it. I love that he makes mistakes and we get to see him learn. This is almost more a movie about inventing and mechanical engineering, with minimal focus on fighting crime or saving people. I also, again to my total surprise, loved Gwenyth Paltrow's character. She plays his loyal assistant who keeps busy to avoid thinking about her own feelings, and he totally takes her for granted. It's a great dynamic and the film does a great job of drawing out awkward moments, glances, too much eye contact, etc. Bravo!

I never thought I'd say it, but Iron Man is probably my favorite superhero film of the modern era.


Kung Fu Panda

Well, it's no Horton Hears a Who, but how can you compete with that? Actually, Kung Fu Panda was a lot of fun. It's not easy to tackle such movie cliches as martial arts, wise sensais, discipline-filled dojos, etc when so much has already been done. But this movie dove right in and made its own place in the East Asian mantra teaching films.

You will laugh out loud. You will like it. Jack Black's Po is a loveable character. They step around a lot of obvious holes you expect them to fall into. There are two scenes that make this movie worth seeing. One involves the best computer graphics I've ever seen as the villain, Tai Long, escapes from a mountain prison where he is being held as the only prisoner, chained over a bottomless pit with a thousand guards standing by. That was amazing, believable, and well-earned. (Also Ian McShane, Deadwood's Swearengen, is the voice of Tai Long- which is a great bonus!) The second amazing scene is the montage where Po tries to grab the last dumpling from his wise master. A more intense and impressive battle over one food item can likely not be found in movie history. Well done! Yeah, it's worth seeing.

Summer is here

I've seen a few summer movies in between unbearably hot catering jobs. I'll start with the most recent.  

Wall-E

I really. really loved it.  I saw it twice already and selectively downloaded bits of the soundtrack.  I must have a place in my heart for sci-fi robot love stories like Wall-E and A.I.  They seem to confirm my belief that even as the world as we know it changes (like the polar ice cap forecast to disappear in September) the capacity to love remains.  The little Wall-E robot is so freaking cute and sweet.  I wanted to hold him.  I wish I had his attitude.  There's a poem taped to the wall of the cubicle I'm working in this week at 1800-catholic that basically says life is all about attitude.  It's 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.  I want to paste a picture of Wall-E next to this poem, and the next time I have to make a decision I want to remember him.  I'm also envious of how deeply Wall-E loves Eve.  I want to love like wall-e loves!  I dare you to download "It only takes a moment" after seeing Wall-E and make it through without crying.  Somebody should play this at their wedding.  

Pixar has won me over two summers in a row.  Overall, I think Ratatouille is a better movie because it's just so Chinatown-ish-ly flawless, but Wall-E has it's share of wonderful moments.  Do you think I should go back and watch the Pixar movies I've missed? I boycotted Toy Story because of Tim Allen and what I perceived to be his culturally conservative Home Improvement baggage.  I saw Finding Nemo and liked it, but then I didn't like The Incredibles.  Should I now go back and rent movies like Cars and Monsters, Inc. that I never really considered?  

The Strangers 

This a horror movie about a couple tormented by strangers who invade the house.  The only reason I saw it was because I really didn't want to see The Happening (which I ended up sneaking into right afterwards anyway.)  Midway through The Strangers I decided that I was not scared anymore.  The masks that the strangers wear are creepy, and the idea of them sneaking into my house and following me around got me at first.  But soon I got tired of being scared, and to the annoyance of my friend John, I started whispering that I wasn't afraid anymore.  I decided that if I was in this movie, I would just go to the front porch and start singing, inviting the strangers to come kill me.  Dying didn't scare me.  I'm afraid of other things, I kept telling John, though I couldn't name what exactly these things were.  Thinking about it now, I can think of one thing scarier than being killed my masked strangers: me accidentally killing strangers. 

The Happening

There's a big scene in the movie when everyone is at the train station escaping the mysteriously deadly plants.  The scene made me wish we traveled in trains more often, boarding them in places as awesome as Philadelphia's Union Station.  Pennsylvania always looks so freaking gorgeous in M. Night Shamalan's movies.  That is all I remember thinking about The Happening.  

Sex and the City

I thought Sex and the City was fun, you just have to approach it with a little sense of humor. The movie is so ridiculously over-the-top that the only real way to appreciate it is to sit back and relish it's insanity.  I read in reviews that the movie's jokes were flops, but I saw Sex and the City twice, and both times the audience laughed start to finish.  We laughed at the unintentionally funny parts and we laughed even harder at the intentionally funny parts.  (Yes, that sentence is correct.)  We laughed at the unintentionally funny parts because we enjoyed the camp of it all.  We laughed at the intentionally funny parts because we went into the movie determined to enjoy it.  (Just like Wall-E, we were good sports with great attitude, and it paid off.) 

Shortbus

After I saw Indiana Jones I came home and watched Shortbus, a non-pornographic movie about sex by John Cameron Mitchell. Pretty much the only reason I rented it was because one of the stars, Jay Brannan, lives in my building.


I watched it on my computer with an internet explorer window open the whole time. and so I wasn't really paying much attention to it. The best part about it is how in between scenes, the camera flies over this really cool animated model of New York.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I'd intended to go to see a new play by Neil LaBute tonight.  It was sold out, so I thought, why not Indian Jones instead?  

My verdict? Phantom Menace is to Star Wars as Crystal Skull is to Indiana Jones.  

I'd leave it at that, except I want to add that my heart aches for Karen Allen, who seems so happy to be in a movie again.  My only comfort is that she's probably making a lot of money.  

Prince Caspian

Well, one of us had to see it and take one for the team. This just happened to be my turn.

Being in no way a fan of the first Narnia movie, I'm not sure what possessed me to give this one a try. I think I was hoping the movie would focus more on Prince Caspian and that he'd be a more interesting character than the four annoying children. I also vaguely remembered that Prince Caspian sails this high seas quite a bit, so I thought that might be cool to see.

Well, no luck. No sailing or ocean scenes in this movie. The closest we get is a few moments of the children playing in the ocean when they're first transported back to Narnia. I happened to recognize this place as actually being Cathedral Cove, an amazing place on the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand. I haven't been there, but I definitely heard about how amazing it is from my time traveling in New Zealand. It was pretty exciting to actually recognize a film location in real life.



At any rate, I was able to pinpoint a bit more about why the Narnia movies fail so completely. My latest theory is that the main four children really have no camaraderie. They are constantly saying to each other "I told you so" or "See, you're an idiot" or "Why should I trust you?" or "I'm going my own way, see you later." At no point do we get the sense that they care for or support each other. It made me realize that, in Harry Potter movies, even when Ron and Hermione are fighting, there's still a deeper feeling of connection and love beneath it and you know those characters would do anything for each other in heartbeat. That's what makes the Narnia movies so hard to get into, if the main siblings don't trust each other, why should you, as the audience, trust them?

It doesn't help matters that their acting is rather weak as well. Especially the youngest girl- blech.

Another thing that ruined Prince Caspian would have to be the accent of the title character. It's a mix between a Russian spy and Inigo Montoya ("you killed my father, prepare to die"), and it's by far the most distracting thing of this whole film. I couldn't help remembering the story about how Mike Myers filmed all of Shrek is a normal voice and then they went back and redid it with a Scottish accent. I spent most of this movie trying to imagine what it would be like if Prince Caspian had a Scottish accent, and decided it would have been vastly improved.

The one scene that was decent in this film involved a surprise attack of a castle by griffins air-lifting Narnians onto the towers. The camera angles really worked in this scene and it really felt like you were flying in as well. It was exciting and interesting. Otherwise, the rest of the movie was pretty mediocre. The CG mouse was way too similar to Shrek 2's Puss in Boots. I won't even bother ripping on the rest of the CG animals.

Anyway, skip it. And let's stop seeing Narnia movies from now on.

Rose part 2

Hey Lee,
I never did get to watch La Vie en Rose.

Nick

La Vie en Rose

Hey Lee,

I rented La Vie en Rose and also Charlie Wilson's War. I have until Tuesday to watch them. I looked into showtimes for Horton Hears a Who, and it's only playing on 42nd street. That's not far. It's just not, you know, pleasant. But I'll do my best to get there and see it and honor your recommendation.

Nick