The Favourite (a movie review post)

To say that The Favourite is an odd movie, especially one coming out of Hollywood, and especially one that has Oscar hopes, would be an understatement. It is, in fact, a very odd movie. And extremely brilliant. And, amazingly, historically accurate, at least in the broad strokes. It's historical fiction, so the details have been filled in, but there are amazing bits in the movie that we were surprised to find were actual things that happened. Because, after watching the movie, I think you'd be surprised to find that any of it happened. My initial reaction -- because I didn't know anymore about the history other than that there was a Queen Anne and, vaguely, how she became queen -- was that this was more historical fantasy than historical fiction, so I'm just going to say it again: It is surprisingly historical.

The acting from the three primaries is amazing. I'm not overly familiar with Olivia Colman, but she was great. And she's going to be playing Queen Elizabeth in the new season of The Crown so, now, I'm really looking forward to that. Anne suffered a great many ailments, and Colman made them very believable, including what may have been a stroke at some point during the movie. They never make a thing of it but after a certain point in the film, one side of Anne's face becomes droopy, and I'm so curious as to how they pull that off. Even if it's just a shot of something, the actor still has to perform that way, so it's impressive.

Rachel Weisz was great but, then, she really is always great. She knows how to command a room, and she was the center of virtually every scene she was in. But, then, she is the protagonist. And she knows how to deliver a line. There's one point in particular where she says to Emma Stone's character something along the lines of, "I don't think we're playing the same game." It's brilliant. It's brilliant because Weisz controls that scene even though she could easily have handed that control over to Stone without ever meaning to.

Speaking of Emma Stone, and I like Emma Stone; I think she's great. But, in this, she's surprisingly great. It's one of those moments where you see an actor rise above the level of anything she's done previously, and Stone certainly does that in this movie.

So, yeah, great movie. I actually want to see it again, I think, which is a bit odd for me because, on  the surface, it's not the kind of movie I'm usually interested in. Period pieces and stuff about royalty are not, as they say, my jam. But this movie is intricate and puzzling, and I think there are things I will see on a re-watch that I didn't see the first time through.

Now, having said that, I'm not guaranteeing that you'll like it. It's not your standard fare, and I know a lot of people are put off by things that are even a little bit different, and this one is a lot different. But, you know, if different is your thing, your jam, you should check this out.

La La Land (a movie review post)

Let's have an honest moment: I really don't like Damien Chazelle. It's not a personal thing (Probably. Since I haven't met him, that's hard to say, but I did hear him on the radio, and he sounds like an okay guy other than the fact that he can't write and, so, should stop doing that.), but his movies need to go away now. (See my review of Whiplash.) No, I don't care that other people seem to like them. Actually, that's part of the problem. Chazelle's movies are like the Hershey's bars of chocolate: They're fine if that's all the chocolate you have access to but, once you've had good chocolate, you'll realize that Hershey's is kind of waxy and you won't want it again as anything other than a last resort.

Except I never want to see Whiplash again, even as a last resort.

Don't get me wrong, La La Land is a fun movie. Mostly. Fun in a cotton candy kind of way: It's all fluff and no substance. I like Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling just fine, and they do a fine job, but they never really gel. The movies feels like you're watching two people acting as if they are acting they are in love and having a relationship, which adds to the cotton candy-ness of the whole experience. None of it feels real. The whole movies feels as if it's about to dissolve under scrutiny.

I think the thing that most bothers me about the movie is the "message." Sure, it's an actual message, but it's a message that's endemic to our culture of positivity and to Hollywood in particular, so
1. It hardly seems like making a movie about this message anymore is worthwhile (especially since neither of the main characters have to go through any actual hardship (at least not within the action of the movie)).
2. It's a false message.
Oh, the message?
If you just follow your dream, if you're true to it to the exclusion of all else, your dream will come true. Even if it means giving up the "love of your life."

Maybe it's just me, but I'm really sick of that message, because it's not a true message. The problem, though, is that if someone doesn't succeed at achieving their dream, people take the stance, "Well, you just didn't try hard enough. You must have let yourself be distracted by other things." It's like the whole positive attitude with cancer patients, breast cancer especially. There's this pervasive belief that if someone just stays positive that she will beat the cancer. If she dies? She wasn't positive enough. The tragedy? Studies are showing that people who rely on positivity have a lower survival rate. (You can see my review of Bright-sided for more on this. Then go read that book.)

So, yes, the hype this movie is receiving makes me a bit mad. Probably more than a bit. It's so undeserving, especially in relation to all of the other movies, right now. Look, it's not that I have anything against people following their dreams. I'm all for it. I encourage it. However, this idea that if you are just steadfast in following your dream then it will definitely come true is a lie. Many people, people who are doggedly determined in following their dream, never see those things come true, because that's not all that it's about. To lead people to believe that it is is not just wrong, it's cruel. It leads people to believe that, somehow, if their dream doesn't come true then the fault is somehow inside of them, that they did something wrong, when, actually, they may have done everything right.

On top of all of that is this idea that Sebastian is some kind of white savior for jazz. Only he really appreciates it's true form, and only he can save it from extinction. If he can only manage to get his jazz club open. You know, if you "build" it, they will come and all that... wait for it... jazz. I find the whole thing kind of insulting. I mean, not only does he appreciate it more, but he plays it better. So, you know, you have all of these great black musicians in the movie, jazz musicians, but it's the lone white guy who is going to save them.

Give me a fucking break.

So, yes, I don't think La La Land deserved any of the Golden Globes it won, but Chazelle, especially, didn't deserve the awards for screenplay and directing.

The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (or Birdman) (a movie review post)

Remember the 80s and how Michael Keaton was "the man"? My first Keaton movie was Mr. Mom; now, thinking about it, I want to see it again. He was perfect in the role as this rather disheveled husband shoved into being the stay at home dad. He had this persistent look of panic that was appropriate.

But then came Tim Burton's Batman, and the look shifted from "panic" to "vacant," which really wasn't appropriate for Batman. He failed completely to pull off a believable Bruce Wayne, the reason he was chosen for the role. Then after Batman... well... nothing. For a long time. Nothing "real," at any rate.

All of that to say that on a certain level I love this movie for the sole reason of having Michael Keaton as Riggan. It brings with it a certain amount of awesome. But he was also excellent in the role. He brought with him just the right amount of desperation to make you wonder wether Riggan is completely sane or not, something necessary for the film to work. In fact, it's this question that elevates the movie from just being about a washed up actor trying to revitalize his career to being a great magical realism story. Keaton was terrific.

In fact, all of the cast were great. Some of them in the ways they normally are, like Emma Stone and Amy Ryan, but a couple of them really stood out.

Zach Galifianakis did not do his normal eccentric weirdo; instead, he was a rather fretful lawyer too heavily invested in Riggan's show. He did a good job. A really good job. If he wasn't so physically distinctive, I might not have known who he was.

But the real surprise of the show was Edward Norton. I should point out that I am not a fan of Norton. At best, I find him annoying. Rarely do I find that he lives up to his own vaunted opinion of himself. Okay, never do I find that he lives up to his opinion of himself. Except this time. His first scene is priceless and I have to think intended as a bit of self-mockery. Whatever it was, it was genius. His portrayal of Mike, a character who can only really be human when he's onstage (not a good human, mind you, but that's the only place he becomes real), is amazing. I would actually love to see Norton pull a best supporting actor nomination for this.

The camerawork is worth noting, too. It has a continuous flow to it leaving you to feel as if you are moving along with the actors, possibly stopping to glance at things that grab your attention along the way. It's not always a smooth flow, lending to the feeling of walking with the actors. The change of character perspective is often accomplished by two of the characters running into each other and the camera following the new character when the two separate.

If you want something with a clear story and no unanswered questions, though, this is not your movie. There are pervasive questions about what is real and what is imagined, and the movie doesn't really answer those. Or even try to. It's the kind of film that will leave you questioning and wanting to see it again just to see if you missed anything. Or to see the Keaton/Norton scenes again. Or to figure out the jellyfish. That's the one I want to know, so, yeah, I'm going to need to see it again.

Amazing Spider-Man: Shockingly Emotional (a movie review post)

Let me just state right here at the beginning that I am still not in favor of Sony's reboot of the Spider-Man franchise; however, seeing that they have, and that this movie is based off of the previous (un)Amazing movie and not Raimi's series, I have to say... okay, I'll sum it up like this: This one made me tear up.

I think I've mentioned before that I don't cry at movies.

I'll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but I am going to talk a bit about the set up. More movies need a good exposition; it sets up the emotional impact.

There's a significant difference between "starting in the middle of the action" and starting in the middle of some action. Increasingly, "starting in the middle of the action" is a bad thing to do. AS2 chooses to start in the middle of some action, the obligatory car chase. This action scene, though, serves as the setup for much of the rest of the movie: we see that Peter is haunted by the death Captain Stacy (and his admonition to safeguard Gwen by staying away from her), Spider-Man saves Max Dillon (though, in one of the few just nonsensical moments in the movie, he stops to save this one guy from getting hit by a car while doing nothing to stop the dozens of cars that are being destroyed), and we are introduced to Aleksei Sytsevich.

This scene sets up two of the three major conflicts for the movie: the romantic conflict between Peter and Gwen, and the physical conflict between Spider-Man and Electro. The third conflict revolves around Peter's continued exploration into the deaths of his parents, a story line they are developing at a nice pace and are handling better than expected. [This is spoilery, but, being someone who never knew his father, the scene between Peter and May was excellent. His assertion to her in the face of her reluctance to tell him anything that "it's not about you" is so right.]

And that's as far as I can go without giving things away but, from an emotional standpoint, this movie is way beyond the first one. Garfield really brings you along on his emotional ride as both Peter Parker and as Spider-Man, and I don't think that's a small thing. Like I said, I teared up.

Emma Stone put in a great performance as Gwen Stacy. Jamie Foxx was much better as Max Dillon than as Electro, although it's hard to tell how much of anything he did as Electro. Dane DeHaan put in a convincing enough Harry Osborn [although I'm not sure how I feel about them bringing that character in as Peter's "best friend" when they hadn't seen each other in a decade]. And Paul Giamatti was almost unrecognizable as the Russian thug Aleksei Sytsevich. Sally Field continues to not really do it for as Aunt May, but I'll give her a pass, sort of, for that one scene with Peter about his parents.

Also, kudos for introducing us to the character of Felicia, whom I have to suppose is Felicia Hardy and the future Black Cat.

The only real flub of the movie is a stupid science thing they did during a discussion about spiders and how spiders have cells that can "self repair" while humans don't. If humans' cells couldn't self repair, we'd all die the first time we got a cut or a broken bone or whatever. Sure, they're trying to talk about the rapid-style healing/regeneration of, like, Wolverine, but they do it in a piss-poor manner that makes it sound like people can't heal from, well, anything.

But that moment aside, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a much better movie than its predecessor. This one has all of the emotional impact that the first one was missing, possibly because they are no longer relying on what we ought to already know about Spider-Man and telling us what we don't know about Spider-Man. Their Spider-Man. So, again, if you like super hero movies and lots of action, this movie is for you but, unlike with most of these kinds of movies, you might want to bring a tissue for this one.