Cold in July - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

Cold in July

Starring Michael C. Hall, Don Johnson, Sam Shepard, Vinessa Shaw and Nick Damici

Directed by Jim Mickle

From IFC Films

Rated R

109 minutes

Celebrate July early with crime stunner

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Modern crime movies don’t get much pulpier than Jim Mickle’s wickedly sinister Cold in July.

This rapturous and sweaty thriller, about a man’s journey into his own fear and obsession, crept up on me in an ambush of filmmaking and storytelling. It’s an electric film, one of my favorites of the summer.

It opens on big boxy cars, plastic coffeemakers, acid-washed jeans, floral-printed couches and rotary phones. “East Texas, 1989,” the screen says, and it feels it. Little time is wasted: Richard (Michael C. Hall) is asleep in bed when he hears a noise in the living room. He loads a revolver and creeps out in his pajamas. An intruder stands in the living room. A shot rings out. The intruder drops.

The police arrive and determine the killing was in self defense, but that doesn’t settle well with Russel (Sam Shepard), the intruder’s madman of a father, who was just released from prison. Soon, Richard and his wife and son are being terrorized by Russel — telephone hang-ups, bullets sprinkled in their house, break-ins. The police can’t do anything because there is little proof. An overnight stakeout reveals a terrible surprise, but it doesn’t end Russel’s campaign of terror.

Now, at this point I thought I knew what Cold in July was all about. But this is no Cape Fear, a point that is made abundantly clear after a huge twist remaps the landscape of Mickle’s crime universe. The twist is so delicious that I won’t be spoiling it here, but know that it is one of two major plot twists the film will whip you through.

Drenched in delicate nuance and so tightly woven I thought it would pop, Cold in July is based on a book by Joe Lansdale, and adapted to the screen by Mickle and Nick Damici, who plays a police officer. The script might be the genetic offspring — or from within the same psychosphere — of HBO’s True Detective and a movie like Winter’s Bone, or even David Gordon Green’s Undertow. It’s about men of low moral character, and how their actions bleed into the rest of the world.

The movie asks its audience to bite into some implausible plot developments that are almost too big to swallow, but the many payoffs more than make up for it. One payoff late in the movie has Richard, the suburban picture framer, shooting up at a man from the floor. Blood sprays up coating a lightbulb and bathing the scene in a deep crimson. Rarely is a man’s descent into violence more explicitly shown then here in this scene, as the blood literally changes the color of the world.

Blood is a frequent motif. Early in the film, at a point I knew Cold in July was something very special, Richard and his wife clear out the bloody couch from their run-in with the intruder. After moving the heavy load outside, they drop to the floor in exhaustion and look up at the blood splatter on their once-clean wall. The act of killing a man has drained them, and left them a twisted new piece of artwork.

Hall, so often wasted on Dexter’s repetitive plotlines and predictable meanderings, is given more to chew on here as the curious husband and father. Against his better judgment, Richard is propelled forward into the darkness; Hall plays it believably and simply. Shepard is appropriately vile, even as his character grows more sympathetic as secrets are revealed. Don Johnson, so great now in his later years, turns up as a private detective that steals every scene he’s in.

This is a legitimate thriller with a sophisticated presentation and powerful characters. The summer’s tend to produce a lot of big-budget dreck; Cold in July is not part of that heap.

Maleficent - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

Maleficent

Starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley and Sam Riley

Directed by Robert Stromberg

From Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG

97 minutes

Disney goofs up with awful Maleficent

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

And this is why you don’t needlessly tinker with franchises.

Never before in Disney’s history — at least, not its theatrical history — has a movie been so poorly constructed, so rattled, so lost, so hopelessly written and so inconceivably misguided. From top to bottom, Maleficent is a wreck heaped on more wreck, a smoldering ruin of what was once 1959’s Sleeping Beauty. Disney has been sitting pretty the six months since Frozen blew out the windows, and now comes this awful setback.

Fairy tales are known for their simplicity, but you’d never guess that here as a simple premise — an enchanted sleep, “true love’s kiss” and a demonic sorceress — is turned on its head and punted into the backfield. Angelina Jolie stars as the fairy Maleficent, a name that will challenge even the most gifted public speakers. I think the syllable-busting name is pronounced mall-eff-iss-cent, though it’s hard to tell since each character says it differently.

The winged and horned fairy lives in a tree kingdom called James Cameron’s Avatar, which is right next door to a human kingdom of stone and iron, presumably called King’s Landing based on its number of mindlessly cruel old white dudes. One day she falls in love with the human Stefan (Sharlto Copley), who is clearly just bored with life. When Stefan doesn’t show much interest, and later hacks off her wings, she goes on an epic bender that culminates into her publically cursing a baby in its cradle. You’ve heard the curse before: before her 16th birthday, the baby will prick her finger on spindle and fall into a death-like sleep. The movie gets that part right, though not much else.

This plot is a mess, one that begins with a 25-minute voice-over introduction and then flops forward in flailing lunges for the next hour. Once the film establishes Maleficent is a wounded lovelorn fairy, it doesn’t take long to make her a villain, first with a big Lord of the Rings-style battle and then with her creepy stalking of the baby, Aurora, as she grows up in a nearby forest. These Aurora scenes are unintentionally hilarious as Maleficent lingers outside windows and behind trees for 16 years. Other witches have glowing orbs or swirling cauldrons that will show them the things they want to see; Maleficent has to sneak through the bushes in black latex bodysuits and velvet robes. And with those horns, she better hope it’s not elk season.

Making matters much worse is the comedy relief, three fluttering bobbleheaded fairies played by Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton and Juno Temple. Of the dozen or so jokes they were given — including throwing flour, fidgeting with blue butterflies, and lots of ditzy cluelessness — only about two ever land a hit as the others fizzle into oblivion. Their heads are digitally cut and pasted onto little pixy bodies in a terrifying special effect right out of 2002. Another noteworthy side character is Maleficent’s henchman Diaval, a shapeshifting crow. He’s played by Sam Riley, who bears so much resemblance to another feminine-featured fantasy hero that his Rent-a-Bloom tag is showing.

Even Jolie, an Academy Award-winning actress, struggles. Aside from a few sequences of giddy delight as she hams it up, Jolie has the loosest grasp on the shoddy material. Her tortured screams early in the movie are especially cringey and in need of some overdubbing. Much of her role is about holding uncomfortable poses for dramatically long periods of time in forests, behind bushes, hovering with her wings high above the clouds, or in Stefan’s lifeless castle. and speaking of poor Stefan, this guy is simply the worst. First he snubs his lady and then the flubs roll one after another: he starts a pointless war, marries another lady, ditches his baby in a forest, spends more time burning spindles than being a father, and then he tries to kill Maleficent after she’s saved the day. This character literally does nothing right for an entire movie.

What irks me most about Maleficent is the dangerous branding that Disney is imposing on its vintage franchises. The premise here is that the evil sorceress isn’t all that evil; in fact, she’s the hero who’s been misunderstood all these years. By recasting the villain as the hero, Disney is invalidating its own movies.

What’s next, a movie about a gentle wildlife enthusiast who heads deep into the woods to shoot a deer to feed his starving family? They could call it Bambi Killer.

A Million Ways to Die in the West - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

 

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Starring Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Sarah Silverman, Giovanni Ribisi and Liam Neeson

Directed by Seth MacFarlane

From Universal Pictures

Rated R

116 minutes

Laughs, deaths about equal in MacFarlane western

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Filling in the long-dormant void of absurdist cowboy humor left by Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, Seth MacFarlane’s equally batty A Million Ways to Die in the West goes far at convincing us Saddles’ unchallenged dominance might be ready for a toppling. Just not quite far enough with this lesser, though still amusingly irreverent, western.

If anything, MacFarlane — the star, writer and director — restrains himself. If you recall, Blazing Saddles ended when the cowboys spilled out of the picture and into adjacent movies. A Million Ways to Die in the West seems poised for a similar feat, but then it reins back its galloping absurdity even as Neil Patrick Harris, mid-duel, fills a ten-gallon hat with 12 gallons of you’d-rather-not-know.

The Family Guy and Ted creator is a curious actor. He enters the Old west scenery as an oddity: suspenders, vest, impeccably smooth plastic-like skin, an anime-like tuft of hair above his forehead. He looks like he’s headed to an audition for Pinocchio, not The Searchers. And then that voice — it booms like he’s about to advertise for American-made pickup trucks.

MacFarlane plays Albert, a sheepherder with some confidence issues. In the opening moments he loses his girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried) because he’s perceived as weak and not manly enough for the West. This is the mantra of the movie: the Old West is so dangerous that literally anything can kill you. And if it doesn’t kill you — perhaps just wounds or maims — then the doctor will finish you off with his bizarre frontier treatments. We meet the doctor later when he lets a bluejay peck at an open wound on Albert’s face.

Albert isn’t a coward. He just values life, which is why he doesn’t take any risks, although he does have a few too many drinks in the saloon and then tries to ride home — “Don’t drink and horse,” his friends warn him. Later, Albert goes to the town fair, where an escaped bull skewers a man like a hot dog over a roasting fire. “People die at the fair,” he confirms to himself after a photographer’s flash lamp explodes, igniting the photographer and his two subjects. Two nearby cowpunchers “put out” the fire by shooting the burning victims. Yeah, people die at the fair.

The beautiful part of this deadly motif is that it allows MacFarlane to dredge up every western cliché, if only to lampoon it to the bar in his cynical tone and style. Gunfights, whorehouses, snakebites, horses, saloons, sheriffs, preachers, American Indians … if it’s been in a western then it’s desecrated here with MacFarlane’s vitriolic wit. Some of the jokes crack like thunder, including one where a man pulls out a dollar bill and the gathered townspeople bow their heads out of respect to a denomination they have not been privileged to see in the flesh. “Take your hat off, boy, that’s a dollar bill,” a father yells at his son.

Other jokes land with thuds, including a scene with a pot-laced cookie, Islamic death chants, a sheep with “retardation,” and an unfortunate line about women and the size of their butts in frontier fashion. White guys opening jokes with “If I were a black guy I would …” rarely goes well. Racial humor comes up several times, including at the fair where Albert plays a game called Runaway Slaves, with century-old imagery that is still shocking today. The arcade game turns up in the post-credit sequence with some vindication, but it’s a risky joke that almost derails the West’s forward momentum.

The movie is all fun and games until Clinch (Liam Neeson) and his posse ride into town with the intention of killing and robbing before moving onto the next town. Little humor is written into this villain, which is such a shame considering that Neeson, with that classical cowboy face, seems like a sport for MacFarlane’s twisted sense of humor. Charlize Theron plays Anna, Clinch’s wife and Albert’s new love interest. Theron’s Anna is written some jokes, but Clinch is not — he’s a completely serious character in an otherwise wacky movie. It’s very strange.

Giovanni Ribisi and Sarah Silverman play a deeply religious couple in the middle of a very chaste courtship, even though she plays a rather accomplished prostitute who has sex with “10 men … on a slow day” but won’t go all the way with her man because God forbids it. Silverman is appropriately foul mouthed, and Ribisi feigns timid embarrassment — they are hilarious performances. Neil Patrick Harris plays a man who works in the town’s Mustachery; he has a largely perfect song and dance number about facial hair. The film has many fart jokes, including four in the first 20 minutes, but Harris will out-gross everything late in the movie with his painful hat maneuver. Keep your eyes open for many cameos, including Ryan Reynolds, Ewan McGregor, Gilbert Gottfried, Bill Maher, Wes Studi and Christopher Lloyd pulling a John-Hurt-in-Spaceballs appearance.

As rewarding as this western-themed comedy is, A Million Ways to Die in the West could have gotten away with so much more. The rambunctious farce, a horse hair shy of an outright spoof, should have went bonkers, yet came up a day late, but not — hats off — a dollar short.

Maleficent - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

Maleficent  

Director: Robert Stromberg

 Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, and Sam Riley

From: Walt Disney Pictures

 Rated PG

97 Minutes

By: Monte Yazzie (www.TheCodaFilms.com)

The 1959 Disney animated classic “Sleeping Beauty” is given a makeover with a new leading lady, the villainous Maleficent. The elements from the original film are still well intact but Director Robert Stromberg, a former production designer, guides his story on the sturdy shoulders of Angelina Jolie and the striking imagery of her character. While the film is filled with production allusions to the original, the special effects become more distracting than accommodating and the narrative has trouble finding the proper direction for such a captivating character.

Maleficent begins the story as a young girl who lives, and flies above, an enchanted land. She encounters a human boy named Stefan who tries to steal a valuable stone from the forbidden territory, though Maleficent shows charity towards him. A friendship develops between them and, after a movement in time, romance blossoms. However, Stefan has aspirations of making his own life in the human world where Maleficent isn’t accepted. More time passes and Stefan has moved into a position helping the king, who desires nothing more than taking Maleficent’s home for his own. Stefan, realizing opportunity, betrays Maleficent by cutting her wings off. Maleficent turns to darkness, hiding for some time until she hears word that the new king, Stefan, has had a child named Aurora.

Angelina Jolie makes an impressive villain. Her already beautiful features are modified with a stunning crown of horns and prominently framed wings, the attractive design makes some of the more mundane moments of the film watchable. The style incorporated into the wardrobe of the character is also finely rendered, while her mischievous grin and darkly enchanting voice only add to the commanding presence of her character. However, it’s during the more quiet moments between Fanning’s Aurora when Jolie’s character becomes more than just a striking image. The rest of the cast is merely playing catch-up with Jolie who commands nearly every scene.

The story is familiar though it begins with interesting promise. Introducing Maleficent as a compassionate and caring young fairy who is the protector of the moors, an overly computer generated world with all manner of glowing and murky creatures, and then immediately follow it with a swift love story that ends in betrayal and heartbreak gives the title character a fitting backstory. Maleficent survives the deception, albeit with retaliation directed at the offspring of her deceiver, and her coldness soon changes into something different over the course of Princess Aurora’s life. Unfortunately, once the familiar elements from the original story are presented, the film stumbles into a waiting game of expected developments. While Maleficent watches the vessel of her curse grow into a kind hearted young woman the retelling of the story makes a slight turn with elements that illustrate the significance of forgiveness, maternal love, and feminine confidence. Diversion returns to accustomed strides as the inevitable confrontation between Maleficent and the king takes priority in an action display of tedious visuals.

While “Maleficent” may not deviate from the original tale or delve deeper into the malevolence insinuated in her name, it does offer a new representation of a character that was otherwise unredeemable. Jolie is excellent in the lead, which makes it all the more frustrating that the script didn’t offer more to work with. Still, “Maleficent” even with its faults will undoubtedly find admiration from the Disney fans.

Monte’s Rating

2.50 out of 5.00

A Million Ways to Die in the West - Movie Review by Eric Forthun

A Million Ways to Die in the West  

Starring Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, and Liam Neeson

Directed by Seth MacFarlane

Rated R

Run Time: 116 minutes

Genre: Comedy/Western

Opens May 30th

By Eric Forthun of Cinematic Shadows

A Million Ways to Die in the West isn’t really a Western or even a satire of a Western, but more of an uneven critique of the American West and the myth surrounding it. The film is Seth MacFarlane’s second theatrical feature after 2012’s successful Ted, a merging of MacFarlane’s television talents and a genuine display of visual humor and heart. His latest effort showcases the abilities of the filmmaker to bring together a terrific ensemble and repeat jokes as if we did not hear them the first few times. It’s a staple of his humor, though, something that his non sequiturs on Family Guy accentuate. He’s not a particularly revolutionary comedian. Yet he’s always been funny when exploring the most absurd aspects of stories: the concept of a boy’s wish being extended to adulthood in Ted, a protagonist as angry, hostile, and conservative as the one in American Dad, and having bears as neighbors in The Cleveland Show. With Million Ways, he shows the deadly nature of the old West and debunks the myth that the West was a haven of success for everyone.

Cut to 1882 Arizona, where Albert Stark (Seth MacFarlane) is an incompetent sheep farmer that is too meek and passive for his own good. His girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried), breaks up with him because she wants some time to herself and, now that the life expectancy is around 35, a girl doesn’t have to get married right away. She starts up a relationship with Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), a mustachioed man who has a lot of wealth due to his mustache parlor. Albert, a jealous man, foolishly challenges Foy to a duel in hopes of winning Louise back, but he cannot shot a gun and knows he is doomed. So he enlists the help of Anna (Charlize Theron), a new woman in town who spends time away from her husband, Clinch (Liam Neeson), an outlaw taking advantage of newly found gold. A supporting plot also follows Albert’s best friend, Edward (Giovanni Ribisi), who is in love with a prostitute named Ruth (Sarah Silverman), yet their love has never been consummated.

The story is ripe for satire and occasionally handles its opportunities well. A strange conversation about kids playing with “stick wheel” leads to a mirror of children and technology in our age. The idea that Edward and Ruth are saving themselves for marriage because they are Christians and want to honor the lord’s wishes is hilarious considering every time they mention it, Ruth leaves to engage with a customer. The concept of a mustache acting as a true sign of manliness and status in society while everyone else stands inferior is ridiculous. Anna responding sarcastically when Clinch says that women must love and obey their husbands demonstrates a clear societal problem that the film revisits. Yet no matter how many times the film addresses these concepts, it often repeats the jokes for increasing effect but never delivers new laughs. Most of the humor that lies within the film originates from revisiting a joke made previously in the film and putting a twist on it. MacFarlane has a knack for beating jokes into the ground, no matter how funny they originally were, and he does that here.

The film often mistakes vulgarity and gross-out humor for exciting storytelling. There’s little imagination left to the audience: a joke about a sheep dealing with mental retardation is enough, but the mention of said sheep going on the roof and then seeing it on the roof a couple minutes later lessens the impact. Wouldn’t a joke about Albert’s poor herding naturally lead into a sheep being on the roof? I feel like some jokes would work better if the writers spent more time spitting out ideas. There are instances where a character poops into a hat, a character looks in horror at sheep penises, a man gets gored by a bull, an ice block falls on a man, and a character makes a joke about a woman being hairy in a certain spot. Yet what makes these jokes insufferable is the nature of repeating the joke and showing the audience exactly how the joke looks; there’s nothing to give the audience in terms of creativity and verbal prose. MacFarlane tends to do this through many of his works, some more effectively than others.

The performances are committed and the cameos are worthwhile. SIlverman and Ribisi in particular seem to be having a blast with their material since it is the most ripe for commentary, but MacFarlane feels a bit out-of-place in the lead role. He’s a much better off-screen presence when he can focus more on creative direction and writing, yet here he feels like a misplaced emotional anchor for a film that needs it. The story attempts to balance a respectable amount of drama with its comedy, but it never gels into a coherent narrative. The satire never works with the bouts of slapstick humor, and the drama never feels grounded in enough human emotion to work. The elements of the West being a cesspool of death and chaos work perfectly for the narrative, with MacFarlane delivering a great monologue about doctors, mayors, wild animals, diseases, and everything else that doesn’t work in the West. There’s a story to be told here, and it’s admirable to see MacFarlane hoping to achieve the level of success that Mel Brooks did with Blazing Saddles, a far funnier and smarter film. But for a new visit to the Western, it’s never funny or inventive enough to work as a unique story.

X-Men: Days of Future Past - Movie Review by Monte Yazzie

X-Men: Days of Future Past  

Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage and Halle Berry

Directed by Bryan Singer

From Twentieth Century Fox

Rated PG-13

131 minutes

The “X-Men” films have always been an interesting addition in the comic book film world. While most superhero films have one extraordinary figure, the X-Men are a wealth of exceptional people who are otherwise shunned by the bulk of society. They compose two very identified factions, one being protectors of mankind to promote their coexistence and other being survivalist looking for the advancement of their own kind with zero regard for humanity. It becomes a reflective mix of political and social commentary. Bryan Singer returned to the director’s chair and successfully combined the journey to the past established in “X-Men: First Class” with the characters that started the whole franchise fashioning a worthwhile summer popcorn film.

It’s the future and mutant-hunting machines called Sentinels are defeating the X-Men. Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellan) devise a plan to send the Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) into the past to motivate their past selves into an alliance to change the future, one that involves the participation of the now self-sufficient Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and her motivations for Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), the inventor of the Sentinel program being offered to the U.S. government.

Focusing the transition of the storyline on the sturdy shoulders of Hugh Jackman, and his time weary Wolverine character, was a great choice. The character, already solidified in the franchise history through his stand-alone films, had an established relationship with every character, which made the chemistry work between the past and future teams. Peter Dinklage was a great antagonist, his motivations were none too complicated but instead were reasoned as a strategic move for humanity. In one exchange he complimented the powers of the mutants, in a way envious of them, while at the same moment discussing his intrigue for experimenting on them for his Sentinel program. In this film the mutants were unified against a common foe, making the character Magneto (played by both Ian McKellan and Michael Fassbender) embrace a whole new level of complication. Fassbender, in a calm and monotone presence, particularly blurred the line of Magneto’s true motivations and was consistently enjoyable to watch on screen. Some characters were unfortunately shorthanded screen time and relinquished to glaring stares at far off foes, the overpopulation gave a few great actors only minor occasions to shine.

While the narrative may seem complex the film did a great job of never feeling confusing but instead remained interesting in ways that other comic book films struggled. Most try to incorporate a steady amount of action; this film had some stunning sequences, in particular an exchange with speedy character Quicksilver (Evan Peters) amidst a perfect choice of music, but it was far more restrained than other films and instead forwarded the story with character altercations that were more for development than extravagance. While the time travel aspects began to fall apart in the finale, amidst back and forth transitions between the future and past, it was not enough to hurt anything established before it.

“X-Men: Days of Future Past” organized a great ensemble of characters familiar to fans of the X-Men chronicle. With the addition of a good script and solid performances from leading characters, this film is the comic book experience to beat this summer.

Monte’s Rating

4.00 out of 5.00

The Love Punch - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

The Love Punch  

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie

From Ketchup Entertainment

Rated PG-13

94 minutes

Mischievous couple score big in slow-moving comedy

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Charm is a valuable currency in movies. Where action, humor and drama might be deficient, charm can swoop in and make a bankrupt film much more solvent.

That little feat happens several times in The Love Punch, a movie that frequently rewards your patience in its plodding plot and overacted gags.

The film, written and directed by Joel Hopkins, is a slightly madcap comedy about white-collar banker Richard (Pierce Brosnan) and his ex-wife Kate (Emma Thompson) teaming back up many years after their divorce to go on a covert mission to rescue their stolen pensions from a swindling venture capitalist.

Brosnan and Thompson, James Bond and Nanny McPhee, play their roles as bickering children with long-healed wounds. These are mostly hammy performances — especially Thompson, who overacts in several agonizing scenes — although they’re occasionally very fresh and funny, like when the divorced couple share a tense dinner from across a courtyard; their conversation involves the comparing of cholesterol numbers.

The action takes the film to France, where their crook is going to be married to a sweet-natured French woman with a diamond that could double as a boat anchor. Spy-movie clichés get goofy makeovers, including car chases, elaborate heists, climbing fortress walls via grappling hooks and ropes, and the hijacking of some Texans’ identities. “Who are we now, the Pink Panther?” Thompson says as their stunts get wilder and more dangerous.

Late in the film, Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie turn up as Kate’s neighbors and fellow wannabe spies. Spall’s character brings a gun to a dinner and, of course, everyone has to see it and point it until someone shoots a hole in wine barrel. These jokes feel old, but the giddy looks on everyone’s faces is light-hearted and fun. After they grapple their way up a castle wall, Imrie suggests they all break for lunch; she’s packed sandwiches into her scuba suit. In another scene, Brosnan suggests they all synchronize watches: the numbers said out loud are 7:28, 7:32, 7:32 and 6:30 — Spall’s face looks deeply, and hilariously, troubled at his misplaced hour.

You can see the writing on the wall as the film draws closer to its finale: Richard and Kate have never gotten over each other. And their wanton mischief sparks new life in their dead romance. It’s a predictable turn, but one that works simply and effectively. The Love Punch is not a great comedy, but it has its occasional charms. And that goes a long way.

X-Men: Days of Future Past - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

X-Men: Days of Future Past  

Starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage and Halle Berry

Directed by Bryan Singer

From Twentieth Century Fox

Rated PG-13

131 minutes

Days of Future Past course corrects the X-Men franchise

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

After six stupendously scattered X-Men movies, someone at Twentieth Century Fox finally straightened a paperclip and poked it into the back of this overcooked franchise. That much-needed hard reset is a refreshing development here in X-Men: Days of Future Past, a flail-free action bonanza that proves less is almost always more.

Right off the bat, you’ll notice there are fewer mutant superheroes. At first, though, it doesn’t feel that way as they are paraded out in their ridiculous outfits. There’s a fire guy, an ice guy, some sort of hawk man, a Thor clone, portal girl, metal dude and a mutant that needs to be charged like a cell phone before he goes into service. These are the future X-Men, the X-Kids perhaps, and they’re in trouble as giant robots descend on their corner of a futuristic wasteland. My expectations sunk as the film trotted out each character, introduced their superpower and then discarded them within a mindless action scene reminiscent of any action scene from any other X-Men movie — “More of the same,” I grumbled.

But then Days of Future Past jumped the rails and did something very risky: it went back in time. And it might have saved the entire franchise. The setup is rather simple, which is notable even in a film without time travel: Because of toxic mutant-human relations, an elite race of robotic future cops called Sentinels have been allowed to police the planet, which is now a gloomy apocalypse-strewn field of rubble. Our team of X-Kids have survived only because Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) has learned to take the group back in time in brief spurts.

When the real X-Men — Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry), Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the reformed tag-along Magneto (Ian McKellen) — turn up, they hatch a plan to send Wolverine back much further in time to stop the events that lead up to worldwide catastrophe. Only Wolverine can go, because he’s basically immortal, a convenient superpower (especially when he only takes his claws out like three times). The plan is to stop a mutant-hating scientist before he builds the first Sentinel prototypes. It’s a Terminator mission, and it allows the film to switch gears and detour away from the trappings of the last films.

Wolverine is sent back to the 1970s, presumably not long after the events of X-Men: First Class, where he finds young Professor X (James McAvoy) and blue teddy bear Beast. Other notable mutants are young Magneto (Michael Fassbender), shapeshifting Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and the speedster Quicksilver, who can run so fast he can play ping pong with himself. Five mutants. That’s it. And it’s a perfect amount.

Much of the drama in the plot comes from Professor X trying to convince Magneto that, while they’re enemies now, in the future they’ll be best buddies, and they have to unite to stop the world from sinking into an anti-mutant hysteria that will doom them all. Mageneto, though, is a surly little bugger. Villainy just pours from him, and he can’t help it. We first meet him underneath the Pentagon, where he’s being held for the JFK assassination, which is likely a legitimate conspiracy theory according to someone somewhere.

His incarceration sets the stage for a break-out and what is ultimately the best scene of the film, and quite possibly the best from any X-Men movie. The scene stars Quicksilver (Evan Peters) as he zips through a Pentagon kitchen repositioning security guards, gently altering bullet trajectories and taste-testing airborne soup. The whole sequence, shot in extreme slow motion to show us Quicksilver’s time-bending speed, is scored to Jim Croce’s “Time In a Bottle.” The scene is a howler — the audience gave it a rousing round of applause and, for once, I felt compelled to join them — and it's easily worth the price of admission all by itself.

Other scenes, of Wolverine fighting the Sentinel prototypes and of Mystique doing her naked blue iguana kung-fu, aren’t as rapturous, but they serve their purposes. Fassbender and McAvoy are gifted actors, which is obvious as they split the seems on their respective characters. Magneto seems to be checking his watch until he can do his final-act supermove — hauling some really really big piece of metal around for no reason whatsoever. This time he flies in a baseball stadium to drop over Richard Nixon’s White House.

I’m not an X-Men fan. The previous movies were jumbles of bland characters, wandering plots, utterly stupefying comic minutiae, and horribly staged action centerpieces. X-Men: Days of Future Past doesn’t reinvent the wheel here, but it does not succumb to the problems of the previous films. The story is clean and concise, the characters and their motivations are easy to follow, the action is restrained and never zany, and the film ends in a way that allows for some very interesting possibilities for later entries in the X-Men story.

This movie seems to have righted a sinking ship, an exhilarating development for a franchise I had all but given up on. Until now.

Blended - Movie Review by Michael Clawson

Blended

Starring Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Bella Thorne, Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Nealon and Joel McHale

Directed by Frank Coraci

From Warner Brothers and Happy Madison

Rated PG-13

117 minutes

Sandler slumps through another mediocre comedy

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Measuring one Adam Sandler movie with another is like ranking the world’s worst sewer systems, or death rows, or wars — the futility of that endeavor is just too vile to stomach.

Yet, here we are, with another tone-deaf Sandler movie that’s so awful you can’t help but get out a ruler to compare it to all that came before it: Mr. Deeds, Big Daddy, Little Nicky, Grown Ups or the brown standard, Jack & Jill, in which two Sandlers pummeled the life out of the theater’s real estate.

Blended is no Jack & Jill, though it certainly aspired to be — a terrifying thought. The comedy begins with a set of jokes that do not give much hope for the rest of the film: a babysitter is blasted with a fire extinguisher that is likely filled with vanilla frosting, the perplexing phrase “like Weird Al starring in Weird Science,” and a gag that ends with someone saying “you should roofie her and shave her head.” Even the crickets were cringing.

The setup is that Jim (Sandler) and Lauren (Drew Barrymore) go on a terrible blind date, but the next day they score some discount tickets to Africa from a man who was going to take his five kids and girlfriend on a “blended familymoon.” Jim takes his three daughters and Lauren takes her two sons, and off they go to Africa. Where in Africa, though? I’m still not sure, because the movie never says. Hopefully director Frank Coraci knows Africa is a continent made of many countries, but that might be wishful thinking.

Making matters worse is Africa itself, which looks and sounds like one of those safari movies from the 1940s, with lots of ivory chairs and stuffed zebra heads. Coraci — whose comedy credentials include The Waterboy, Click and Zookeeper, an unholy trinity of cringe-worthy cinema — puts all his African characters in dashikis and then promptly gives up at portraying the culture or its people with any nuance or respect. Apparently, all of Africa is a theme park for white tourists. Blended isn’t overtly racist; it’s just obnoxiously negligent.

Jim and Lauren start out hating each other, first at their date (at a Hooters) and then during an embarrassing run-in at a pharmacy. Jim is there to get tampons for his daughter; Lauren is there to get porn for her son. It’s an interesting visit that ends with the pharmacist revealing something they teach in pharmacy school to never do. By the time they get to Africa, they’re still bickering, but it’s shortlived as the two fall in love amid scenes of rhino humping, warthog evisceration, and Terry Crews and his harmonizing a cappella group photo-bombing every scene.

Sandler seems to have transferred his trademark rage onto the child actors, who channel Sandlerisms through comedy so unfortunate that I was secretly hoping Rob Schneider would pop up to slow the descending momentum. Hilary (Bella Thorne) plays the oldest daughter; her dad calls her Larry. She wears an awful pageboy haircut and boyish clothes, which spawns some uncomfortable transgender jokes. “All the kids think I’m a lesbian,” she says after she stuffs her training bra with some Dr. Scholl’s foot inserts. The middle daughter is called Espn (pronounced ess-pen), after Jim’s favorite TV channel. The youngest daughter makes it out mostly unscathed aside from a demonic little growl she gurgles out “in the name of Lucifer.”

Lauren’s boys have their own brand of issues, including the elder son, Brendan, the serial masturbator. There’s a recurring joke about him taping a picture of their babysitter onto his porn. This actor seems too young for jokes this crude. His brother spends much of the movie asleep so we can get repeated shots of Lauren bonking his head into walls and doors as she maneuvers his sleeping corpse into bed.

This is Barrymore and Sandler’s third movie together after 50 First Dates and The Wedding Singer. No significant improvements are made on their chemistry, which can be gentle and rewarding at times. Like most Sandler movies, there is a tenderness hidden within key scenes — if only the jokes that lead into and out of it weren’t so tonally destructive. Mostly, Blended is just amateur and juvenile. It’s the kind of movie that names a character Dick so another character can say things like “I miss Dick so much” or “I can’t get enough Dick,” because that’s never been done before.

Sandler is an acquired taste, and American audiences are an acquiring bunch. The audience I saw the movie with howled in approval. Maybe it was the free movie, or maybe they’re just Sandler True Believers. Either way, Blended is a largely terrible comedy from my point of view. It made me miss Eddie Murphy in fat suits, Tyler Perry in drag, or Ryan Reynolds in anything. I guess I should be grateful it wasn't Jack & Jill.

The Immigrant - Movie Review by Eric Forthun

The Immigrant  

Starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jeremy Renner

Directed by James Gray

Rated R

Run Time: 120 minutes

Opens May 23rd

by Eric Forthun of Cinematic Shadows

The year is 1921. In the aftermath of World War I, many Europeans fled the war-torn region to find a more hospitable, accepting society on the other side of the Atlantic. Arriving at Ellis Island, these immigrants hoped to achieve the ideal of the American Dream and encounter upward social mobility to make for a better future for their families. The Immigrant's protagonist is one of these, a woman named Ewa Cybulska (Marion Cotillard) who stands on the outskirts of a boat in the film's opening shot looking at the Statue of Liberty through the fog. She and her sister, Magda (Angela Sarafyan), wait in line to receive citizenship after arriving from Poland; Ewa speaks some English but her sister cannot understand a word. When the inspectors notice that Magda might be sick, they insist that she must stay on the island for at least six months in detox to ensure that she doesn't contain a harmful disease. Ewa has to find a way to help her sister since they are supposed to meet with their aunt and uncle and begin their new lives. Ewa struggles, though, when she finds out that her relatives aren't there and that, because she is single, she cannot be sent off alone. She's going to be deported.

Along comes Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), a man looking for English-speaking women who finds Ewa and takes her with him. He seems to be a kind man, treating Ewa with respect and providing her with a place to sleep and live temporarily. She cannot trust him, though, as evidenced by a lingering shot of her holding a knife underneath her pillow while she sleeps her first night there. Ewa has no money and no way to communicate with anyone since she knows no one in the U.S., so Bruno provides her with a job working at his peep show. Women parade around naked on stage while Bruno introduces them as exotic beings from different countries: Egypt and China are the most evident, but all of the women are white and dressed in the stereotypical garb of their lands. Ewa works as a seamstress until Bruno lets her work in the show. She later finds out that prostitution is just as much a part of their job as the dancing. Through all of this, Ewa encounters Orlando (Jeremy Renner), a magician that has a beef with Bruno but falls in love with Ewa at first sight. Their love triangle dominates the film’s conflict.

James Gray’s film explores the morally corruptible nature of achieving freedom in the United States. There’s a perversion underlying the system, with the film’s opening scene on Ellis Island emphasizing the oppressed nature of women and their inability to stand on their own. Gray emphasizes the distrust and hopelessness surrounding Ewa’s journey, demonstrating that men are animalistic and women are treated as secondary citizens and deserve a better life. The emphasis of most women in the film being prostitutes would generally insinuate that women are promiscuous and dangerous in relation to men, as per usual readings in film, yet Gray’s film is stronger and wiser than that. It showcases that Bruno, as a pimp, is an uncontrolled, violent sociopath who has clear underlying psychological issues. He’s a drunk, emotionally unhinged man that fits Phoenix’s ability as an actor perfectly. This is him and Gray’s third collaboration (after Two Lovers and We Own the Night), and there exists a sense of Phoenix showing the corruptibility of the soul in the pursuit of the American Dream. While Bruno has success, he collapses because of his seedy ambition and instability.

Marion Cotillard is fantastic in the lead performance, fitting the time period with ease and providing Ewa with a strong emotional center. She brings subtlety to scenes that would otherwise ask for obvious emotional cues. A great scene in particular shows her adjusting to her life as a prostitute, dressing herself as a man prepares to leave and creating small talk with seeming ease. But the camera lingers on her face as her wide eyes suggest that she feels none of what she says. Ewa’s descent into morally reprehensible behavior never feels insincere due to the script’s hints to her lack of options. She’s alone in a big city attempting to start a life and have children, but working as a prostitute for an out-of-control man who is driven largely by lust and jealousy does not bode well for her happiness. Renner is equally affecting in a role that asks him to love uncontrollably and convincingly, which he does well. The film takes a few dramatic turns in the final half hour that feel a bit strained in plausibility, but the story’s emphasis on immigration and its effects remain distinctly important and haunting.

Godzilla - Movie Review from Monte Yazzie

Godzilla  

Starring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-John, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins and David Strathairn

Directed by Gareth Edwards

From Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated PG-13

123 minutes

Review by Monte Yazzie

The most iconic of monsters returns to the big screen in Gareth Edwards’ larger than life “Godzilla”. Edwards, director of the unexpected though satisfying “Monsters”, pays proper homage to the legendary Gojira, once he finally makes an appearance. Focusing more than past incarnations have on character development, Edwards’ rendition may not be consistently packed with action, but once the “king of the monsters” tramples front and center, it’s something impressive to behold.

Godzilla is a secret to the world, hidden in history under nuclear testing done by the U.S. in the Pacific Ocean that was actually an attack on the monster. The film introduces two scientists, Dr. Seriwaza (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins), who are investigating a massive mine in the Philippines where two large insect-like pods have been discovered. In Tokyo, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) are working in a nuclear plant that sustains deadly damage during what is said to have been an earthquake. Fast forward a few years and Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the son of Joe and Sandra, is on military leave with his family in San Francisco when his father is arrested for trespassing in Tokyo. Ford picks up his father and they soon find themselves detained in a research facility that is investigating strange anomalies reminiscent of a past secret.

The Godzilla mythology, originally presented as a global warning against nuclear production after the destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was born in 1954 by director Ishirô Honda. The original film wasn’t overlooked but instead familiar elements were utilized that allowed for a great setup that introduced the film. While Edwards delicately handled the lore, his film was much different than most of the titles in the long running series, focusing extensively on narrative and character developments in this version. The story was interesting at first mostly due to Bryan Cranston’s turn as the vigilant Brody, providing a sincere and strong performance even though he was only given minimal screen time.

Whatever incarnation of Godzilla you appreciate most, it’s the monster that you want to see. It was near 60 minutes before the title character made a full appearance on screen. Most of what was seen initially was glimpses of a massive tail being dragged through wreckage or spines peeking through water, it helped in building excitement but those looking for carnage will need patience. Once Godzilla made his impressive visual appearance, accompanied by that iconic roar, it was easy to justify the wait.

Unfortunately the story began to drag after the first full scale encounter as routine plot devices took over as scientists and soldiers who planned for the protection of population and shaped the nuclear strategy aimed at stopping the colliding monsters. Additionally, the story of Ford returning to San Francisco to save his family felt forced, though Elizabeth Olsen was given a few moments to shine. When the final battle commenced in San Francisco, the imposing visual aspect took hold. Whether it was the parachuting soldiers against the massively scaled Godzilla or the destruction heavy battle finale, the film came together to give the audience what they came for.

While this Godzilla may feel more like a supporting character than the leading star, director Gareth Edwards’ utilized an exceptional visual presence and attempted to add some interesting character and narrative attributes which made “Godzilla” a worthy entry into the monster genre.

Monte’s Rating

3.50 out of 5.00

Godzilla - Movie Review from Eric Forthun

Godzilla

Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Juliette Binoche

Directed by Gareth Edwards

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 123 minutes

Genre: Action-Adventure/Sci-Fi

By Eric Forthun of Cinematic Shadows

Godzilla is a remake of the 1954 classic that helps audiences forget all about that 1998 incarnation of the monster. The film takes much of the political nature of the original and infuses the story with a modern touch that basically articulates how arrogant and forceful the world has been with its destruction of the Earth. The allegorical nature of Godzilla and America’s belligerent use of nuclear weapons on Japan during World War II allowed for the original story to carry more meaning than standard monster fare. This new film is modernized in every way while retaining that same urgency about the forceful use of catastrophic weapons, twisting the story to insist that the nuclear weapons were being used to kill these creatures, creating them stronger due to their dependence on radiation to grow. Godzilla and the other creatures in the film have been lurking underneath the ocean floor and surface of the Earth, stealing away radiation from the world’s core and using it to stay strong.

The human story of Godzilla focuses on the Brody family, picking up in 1999 Japan as Joe (Bryan Cranston) and Sandra (Juliette Binoche) work at a power plant. After a freak accident leads to Sandra’s death, Joe becomes convinced that something else went wrong at the plant that the government is not telling them. The readings aren’t consistent with his previous findings and demonstrate that the accident wasn’t created by humans or the elements, but something…else. Dr. Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and his student, Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins), meanwhile, are discovering an ancient skeleton that looks like a monster no one has ever seen before; after the accident at the plant, they are sure that these accidents are the signs of an awakening. The story jumps 15 years later to follow Brody’s son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), dealing with his father’s delusional state and attempting to balance his military career and his personal life. His wife, Elle (Elizabeth Olsen), is a nurse who encourages Brody to visit Japan with his father when everything is unleashed.

Godzilla doesn’t need a human story as well rounded and resonant as the one found here, but it’s a welcome surprise in a feature that only demands high octane action. That’s a testament to Borenstein’s screenplay and its ability to navigate human characters alongside the monster action at the center. While the script would hold up fine in another person’s hands, director Gareth Edwards’ minimalist sense of storytelling is tremendously impactful on the film’s effectiveness. His previous effort, the independent feature Monsters, emphasized characters and plot over flashy visuals and monstrous special effects. Yet he is given the opportunity to combine both here to surprising effect. Edwards uses a perspective that is quite rare in blockbusters, helping the audience visualize the scope of these monsters and their place in the cities. Most of the film’s action shots are from the POV of an innocent bystander or the central characters, making the film feel all the more awe-inspiring and spectacular.

And Godzilla himself. How could I forget? It’s a marvel of special effects and the first sight of him in full is reminiscent of the reveal of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Godzilla’s stature is towering and powerful and downright terrifying, although the film does something special we rarely see in monster films. Godzilla is a creature we cheer for because he is integral to humanity’s survival; his need to kill these creatures to save himself also works in way of him saving everyone on Earth. It lets the audience marvel and relish in his destruction of buildings and landmarks and enjoy his utter carnage. The performances in the film are also strong, with Cranston providing a terrific anchor in the first half before switching to Taylor-Johnson’s humanist approach to his character. Edwards emphasizes the way that this story affects humans, a rare accomplishment in the age of the mindless summer blockbuster. He creates a film that looks stunning in IMAX and 3D, sounds tremendously powerful on a great sound system, and stands to be about something while delivering all the goods we need from an $160 million epic. Simply put, Godzilla is awesome.

Godzilla - Movie Review from Michael Clawson

Godzilla

Starring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-John, Elizabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins and David Strathairn

Directed by Gareth Edwards

From Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated PG-13

123 minutes

Godzilla reboot a smashing success

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Spider-Man whimpers and pouts. Captain America is burdened with terminal nostalgia and guilt. Iron Man cracks jokes to hide his various insecurities. The X-Men might as well be a weepy soap opera sandwiched between commercials of Dove chocolate and furniture polish. Modern superheroes have a terminal case of the feels.

And now here’s Godzilla, the Gary Cooper of reptilian megabeasts. He doesn’t require love, or acceptance, or even, apparently, food. He simply shows up, stomps the monster poop out of rival titans and calls it a day. The scaly skyscraper-sized dragon is the existential answer to a generation of overwritten superheroes who are given only enough story to get them from Explosion A to Explosion B. Finally, here’s a superhero that requires none of that. He has no dialogue, no girflfriend (or boyfriend?), no history, no origin story, no comic tic, no witty banter — he is gloriously two-dimensional.

You’ll be forgiven if you didn’t know Godzilla was a superhero. I didn’t either. This little twist is the big new addition to Gareth Edwards’ nifty Godzilla reboot: he’s taken the Kaiju genre and skewed it a little in humanity’s favor by making Godzilla mankind’s savior. In the Japanese films, and the mediocre American remakes, Godzilla would stomp on humans, flatten nun-filled churches, crush elementary schools, vaporize whole city blocks and snack on commuter-filled traincars like pistachios. That kind of bad behavior is frowned upon in the new Godzilla in favor of placid acceptance of man’s dominion.

The film begins with energy honcho Joe Brody attempting to stop a catastrophic emergency at a Japanese nuclear plant. Irradiated steam blasts through the industrial corridors and the cooling towers crumble, and he can do nothing but watch as workers, one of them his wife, are trapped in a toxic plume of radiation. Fifteen years later, Joe returns to the disaster’s exclusion zone — now an overgrown and unpopulated city of vines and rubble — to poke around for buried secrets. He’s joined by his skeptic son, Ford Brody, a name that is far too interesting for a character this bland. Papa Brody suspects authorities are keeping a secret in the footprint of the old nuclear plant … and of course they are.

Sucking off the old reactor cores is a giant cocoon that has been having mild contractions for years and then, on the very night Joe and Ford show up, it hatches. The MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) that smashes out of the cocoon looks like the abnormally large baby of the Cloverfield monster and one of those Klendathu bugs from Starship Troopers — thankfully, a sex scene doesn’t illustrate the MUTO’s lineage. The giant creepy-crawly proceeds to destroy the exclusion zone before flying to Hawaii and then to San Francisco on his American destructo-tour.

Joe is played by Bryan Cranston, the sympathetic Breaking Bad star who is more likable and engaging than Aaron Taylor-John (Kick-Ass), the piece of soggy cardboard playing his son. Not since any Taylor Kitsch movie has an actor been so unfit for a leading role. Really, though, lots of actors are given pointless roles: Ken Watanabe spends much of the movie on the verge of tears; Sally Hawkins, so great in quirky British comedies, spends a lot of time looking off camera; David Strathairn plays the obligatory military commander; and poor Elizabeth Olsen, the critical darling, is trapped in a subway shelter with nothing to do.

The human characters chew the scenery for much of the first half of the movie as Edwards obscures Godzilla off screen, in shadows or in clouds of dust made of building materials and, presumably, human bodies. In an early scene, the frame is filled with Godzilla’s giant toeless turtle/elephant foot and that tiny glimpse feels like a generous gift. Hiding the monster is Edwards’ devious little ploy and it mostly works. Godzilla geeks will cry that the film didn’t feature a Playboy-style pictorial with 40-minutes of freezeframes and camera pans up the monster’s huge body. I enjoyed the mystery, and found that the effect made the final battlecry more fist-pumpingly magnificent.

It is funny, though, how Godzilla just kinda shows up during the first fight with MUTO and then the camera cuts away, denying the audience that first big battle. After MUTO flees to the West Coast, Godzilla goes for a swim that is basically a very long morning commute. He’s flanked by battleships, aircraft carriers and Navy destroyers as he casually lizard-paddles through the Pacific while MUTO and his recently hatched girlfriend terrorize California. And, aside from those jagged armor plates cutting through the Pacific Ocean with their Navy entourage, that’s all you see of the iconic monster for like 40 minutes. It’s a tease. An effective one.

Despite not knowing how to utilize its actors, Godzilla is not overly complicated like so many other big-budget action extravaganzas. The humans try some questionable stunts with nuclear weapons, but otherwise there is little holding the movie together other than the familiar faces the movie has chosen to follow and the lure of monster-on-monster boxing. That simplicity is a refreshing element to its composition. It also helps that Edwards, who cut his teeth on the noteworthy Monsters, provides some clever sequences, including a Spielbergian scene with soldiers checking radiation vaults in Yucca Mountain. They walk through a hallway opening little hatches that look into dark nuclear storage lockers. After several uneventful vaults, one soldier opens a port and light pours out revealing a terrifying segue into the next sequence.

In another scene, this one from 32,000 feet up, soldiers skydive into the gaping maw of MUTO’s hellish destruction. Red smoke trailing from flares attached to their ankles, the soldiers punch through the first layer of clouds as Alexandre Desplat’s haunting soundtrack — reminiscent of György Ligeti’s score from 2001: A Space Odyssey — builds from a gentle whistle to a seismic scream. These images served as early poster art, and you can see why here in the larger context of the film: it’s the first moment we finally see Godzilla doing his thing and the skydiving build-up serves as an appropriate red-carpet entrance to the event.

I’m not a Godzilla purist, so I can’t speak to how Godzilla’s legacy is protected here. I always liked the nuclear paranoia of the original films — a result of American atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II — and that’s all mostly absent here, though I don’t think it hurts the overall canon. If anything harms the Kaiju legacy, it’s the way Godzilla is seen as the world’s hero, not its villain. The people of San Francisco pretty much give him a sloppy valentine for his role in the destruction of their city. A shot of the mayor drafting a comically long bill for the damages, sadly, does not appear in the post-credits sequence.

Still though, I’m thoroughly impressed at Godzilla's overall size and power, and the breadth of his destruction and ruin. It felt like a Godzilla movie in almost every way, including that scene where he spews electric-blue atomic barf into the broken mouth of his adversary. That moment, punctuated by that trademarked roar, is the high-water mark of the movie’s sonic awesomness.

And any time you can write “spews electric-blue atomic barf” in a positive review is a film worth celebrating. Cheers, Godzilla.

Neighbors - Movie Review

Neighbors

Starring Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Dave Franco, Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Directed by Nicholas Stoller

From Universal Pictures

Rated R

96 minutes

Suburbia disrupted in Neighbors

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Hollywood has this need to take simple stories and overwrite them, saturating them in too much plot, too many characters and then whip-snapping through it all in a whirlwind of scenes. Last week, the victim of this tragic phenomenon was The Amazing Spider-Man 2. And here we are again with the same problems in Neighbors.

The premise is perfect: a married couple with a new baby wake up to find a college fraternity moving in next door. Thus begins the rapid slide of the neighborhood, from quiet suburb to raucous university hang-out. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play the couple, Mac and Kelly, who were young and hip not all that long ago. They show up to the Delta Psi front door with a peace offering — a carefully rolled joint in a Mentos tin — that sparks an early friendship with their much younger, much hipper neighbors. After one too many parties, the peace accord crumbles, causing a feud that escalates so quickly the movie is jerked out of its shoes.

The Delta Psi members include actors Dave Franco, Jerrod Carmichael and McLovin’ himself, Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Their leader, Teddy, is played by Zac Efron, who radiates charm and likability. Mac comments on his looks, “He looks like a gay guy created him in a laboratory.” Teddy, like all his brothers, is a deeply wounded kid petrified of his future and of what the overweight Mac represents — adulthood. These two, the core of the film, don’t share much chemistry. Efron, who was battling his own personal demons during the filming of this movie, does not seem altogether present, which only exacerbates Rogen’s sloppy aim with many of his jokes. Rogen has so much dialogue that I have to wonder if Neighbors was originally written for Vince Vaughn. Many of the jokes have the unscripted feel of spontaneous jam sessions, which will be revealed in their entirety on the DVD release.

Luckily, Byrne and Rogen do have chemistry, even as their paranoid characters abandon every principle in their bid to destroy Delta Psi. In one marvelously well executed sequence, they decide the only way to destroy a fraternity president is by forcing his best friend to break the “bros before hoes” code. In retaliation Teddy removes the airbags from Mac’s station wagon and booby traps them into his office chair, the living room sofa and other places. Watching Rogen’s plump form ragdoll through the sets … I’ll admit, that was a joy I had not anticipated in Neighbors. It’s counter-punched into oblivion later when Mac has to milk his wife’s swollen breasts. (Yeah, you read that correctly.)

Mostly, though, the movie can’t keep itself together. Between the flaccid Rogen-Efron pairing, a handful of missed jokes and the abbreviated ending, Neighbors is lopsided and crudely formed. It starts early in the film: the rivalry goes from zero to 60 in the space of about two scenes, with no build-up or ratcheting of tension. Mac’s first tactic is to bust a water pipe and point it into the frat’s basement, because apparently that’s a measured response to a loud party. (The frat pays for the repairs by making molds of their penises to sell on campus as sex toys. The joke’s on Mac when his wife buys one.)

And not only do many of the jokes bomb, but they’re of questionable taste and tone. In one scene, a white man impersonates Barack Obama on a phone call, a call that he ends with the N word. I’ve heard this word in movies before, but never from a white person pretending to be America’s first black president. The mostly-white audience I saw the movie with roared in approval, which says more about them than I care to diagnose in a movie review. Mac and Kelly’s baby is a frequent victim. In an early scene she chews on a used condom she plucks from the front yard. When the parents take her to the hospital, the doctor says, “Your baby has AIDS …[long pause] … is one way this could have went, but she’s healthy.” Because toddlers and AIDS are hilarious. When that baby actress grows up she’s going to have some tough questions for her parents.

One joke was more prescient than it realized: Mac, brainstorming revenge fantasies, asks how a frat gets kicked out of school. His buddy giddily exclaims, “Rape!” The movie couldn’t have known this at the time, but a number of schools are now being investigated because rape and sexual assault actually don’t get you kicked out of schools. The irony of the joke is almost too devastating.

I like movies that push buttons, but this one falls asleep on the buttons. All that being said, though, Neighbors does have some funny moments. But like much of everything else in theaters now, it buries the best parts in mediocrity.

Hateship Loveship - Movie Review

Hateship Loveship

Directed by Liza Johnson

Starring Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Nick Nolte and Hailee Steinfeld

From IFC Films

Rated R

104 minutes

Wiig ditches comedy for cerebral character study

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Teenagers trick a homely live-in maid into thinking a down-on-his-luck man with a drug problem has a crush on her. The teens keep the ruse going through an elaborate series of letters and emails, each of which ignites the passion of their victim, who eventually steals some furniture, cashes out her bank account and relocates hundreds of miles away to start a new life with her unsuspecting pen pal.

Hateship Loveship isn’t a comedy, though I certainly thought it was, especially when I saw Kristen Wiig’s name in the opening credits. The first scene shatters your expectations: an elderly woman turns to her caretaker and says she wants to wear her blue dress. When the caretaker returns with the dress, the woman is dead. Before she calls the police, the caretaker dresses the woman in the blue dress in a final act of humanity and love.

The caretaker is Johanna (Wiig) and she finds another job caring for a widowed man (Nick Nolte) and his granddaughter, Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld), who treats her with a mixed bag of petulance and boredom. Sabitha’s father, Ken (Guy Pearce), comes around every couple of months, though he’s not welcome to stay over because he’s a drunk and an addict. After one of his visits, Sabitha and a friend hatch their plot to fool Johanna. The trick works marvelously: after a dozen or so letters, Johanna shows up to Ken’s place in the middle of the night and finds him passed out in bed. She doesn’t know what to do, so she starts cleaning. The next morning he’s in for a shock.

Liza Johnson’s delicate film, based on a short story by Alice Munro, plays out in what can only be described as a funereal crawl. It’s the kind of movie that shows Johanna unpacking her bags, but doesn’t cut away to abbreviate the scene. No, you see her take out a sweater, find a place for the sweater, and then return to the suitcase for more items. When she shows up to meet Ken, she wanders through the dumpy hotel he owns and the movie goes to great lengths to show her knocking on each of the doors, turning on doorknobs, hollering through windows. Some of it feels like unnecessary padding to the runtime, but other parts open a lonely window into Johanna’s soul.

Wiig, wearing her best June Cleaver outfits, mumbles much of her dialogue in quiet little bits. Her Johanna doesn’t seem entirely aware of the world around her; the word “aloof” comes to mind. Early in the film, she tries on a dress at a clothing store and whispers to herself, “It’s probably what I’m going to be married in.” At this point you’ll think she’s either emotionally unstable or just terminally sad and alone. The film begs for your empathy, though some viewers will feel pity — neither emotion is wrong.

This slow-moving, deeply nuanced picture’s turning point is at Ken’s hotel, where he slowly finds himself won over to Johanna’s kindness. There is no promise of a relationship, or marriage, or commitment. Johanna shows up, realizes she’s been tricked and then never leaves. And Ken never asks her to leave. The bond they form is pure, even if what led them together was not.

Central to the story is Wiig, who doesn’t really act in the film — she mostly witnesses. I think she smiles twice, and maybe frowns once. She gives Johanna no personality because Johanna doesn’t have one. She simply lives, and feels, and admires — everything — from an internal mechanism that the viewer is not granted access to enter. It’s an honest performance, one that will stump some viewers and obliterate others. I think it’s exquisite.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Movie Review

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Directed by Marc Webb

Starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHann and Sally Field

From Sony Pictures

Rated PG-13

142 minutes

More of the same in Spidey 2

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

The problem with every Spider-Man movie is always Peter Parker and the awe-shucks science nerd they get to play him. In Sam Raimi’s films, we were given Tobey Maguire, whose doughy face and dead eyes seemed to punctuate the actor’s limited range and depth. Some audiences discovered his shallow presence in the first Spider-Man, while others only realized it after Spider-Man 3, the lowest of the low in Marvel’s web-slinging comic franchise.

Now here we are again with Andrew Garfield, tall and lanky with a punky poof for a hairdo — the fourth Beastie Boy. He’s hipper and more likeable than Maguire, but so is a bluefin tuna. In the first movie, Garfield tripped over every line. Here in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it’s more like every third line, which is a noticeable and commendable improvement.

But like the first Amazing Spider-Man, this one is a wreck of a story, filled with false leads, dead ends and sequel baiting. And, like all of Marvel’s franchises, the movie is simply a piece of a larger puzzle to be consumed “next summer” every summer. Characters are introduced and filed away, plotlines are unearthed and promptly reburied, and new villains are crafted from the ash of the old ones. It’s a vicious cycle of capitalist calamity that won’t end until we demand better stories, not more.

When we pick back up with freelance photographer Peter Parker (Garfield), he is still fighting crime as Spider-Man, though the police and public are still skeptical of his motives. In early scenes, police aren’t sure if they should shoot or deputize him. In the first action sequence, a plutonium theft in an armored car, he web slings to the side of the truck to make wisecracks to the crooks. The jokes are so bad that the production company could make an insurance claim on their delivery. The scene ends with the de-pantsing of the villain, who’s left standing in the street wearing these comically baggy boxer shorts with some kind of cartoon print on them. Jerry Lewis had subtler gags.

Parker is as strong and agile as ever, but trouble is brewing on the homefront: the mysterious death of his parents is eating at him, his relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) is on the fritz, and a troublesome friendship with Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) is slowly lurching forward even as warning signs are hammered to his face — so much for Spidey Senses. Harry will eventually become Green Goblin to the surprise of no one. DeHaan, who could use clips from this movie to audition for a young Adolf Hitler (thank the haircut), is an afterthought to much of the plot as he mopes around his billionaire bachelor pad because Spider-Man won’t share his blood. Boohoo!

It’s a weak justification for a villain, but not the weakest; that honor goes to Electro, a bio-science worker (Jamie Foxx) turned human sparkplug after he falls into a tank of electric eels, which makes me wonder what happens when workers fall in tanks of peanut butter at the peanut butter factory — Marvel franchises have been started with less.

Electro, his skin is a fluorescent blue glow, is a Spider-Man fanboy. So when Spider-Man shows up to stop Electro’s spontaneous zapping of the electrical grid, he does what any fanboy does — he geeks out. And Spider-Man doesn’t want hugs from creepy fanboys, which makes Electro rage-quit into villainy. The message of this development is clear to me, but not to the film: fanboys ruin everything.

The movie does have a renewed urgency to its special effects, which were just kind of meh in the last picture. The action is peppier, more precise and better choreographed. It’s also lightning fast, which just feels oh-so-right as Spidey goes swinging down Fifth Avenue, hurling manhole covers in webby slings and catapulting over roofs and down alleyways. Remember in some of the later Christopher Reeve Superman movies, when it was obvious that Superman was dangling from wires in front of a rear-projected picture. There was no speed, no momentum, no rush. This film embraces rush in a way I was not expecting. It only slows down for the occasional slow-motion sequence, including that spectacular final scene that will have everyone talking.

Other parts of the movie aren’t so refined. For starters, the movie is scored like a Disney made-for-TV movie, with lots of instrumentation to punctuate visual markers: jokes get hammy string plucks, action scenes get overly energetic “action music,” and scenes of reflection are scored to schmaltzy numbers. All of the music too loud, as if to drown out the sound effects and dialogue. And later, when a dubstep mix gets thrown into a Times Square attack, I was sure the music department had been replaced by middle schoolers. The movie also has too many plots and characters, each of them given screen time that takes us away from the film’s emotional core: Peter Parker is incapable of falling in love without hurting those close to him. That plotline is one that will resonate with audiences, and yet it’s given second billing to everything else.

Mark Webb’s sophomore attempt at a Spider-Man movie is better than his first, but he’s not showing as much growth as should be expected from a guy who’s done two of these things. He still has larger-than-necessary plots, bloated casts and Marvel’s franchise meddling. It doesn’t help that his Spider-Man, the perpetually boring Garfield, could be ridden like a surfboard. Webb has perfected the look and feel of Spider-Man’s movement, which is a big deal that won’t go unnoticed within the franchise. Aside from the Spidey’s physics, though, the next strongest piece might be Emma Stone, who is the film’s secret weapon — she’s just lovely in every scene.

It’s just frustrating that with so much going on, there still so little to like. Perhaps in the next reboot they’ll get it right.

Dom Hemingway - Movie Review

Dom Hemingway

Starring:  Jude Law, Richard E. Grant, Demian Birchir, Emilia Clarke

Directed by Richard Shepard

Release Date: 4/25/14

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Dom Hemingway is an amplified speaker. A firing machine gun. A cannonball pounding through a reinforced wall. A rocket launch. A sonic boom that shatters windows. It’s a motorcycle gang screaming down a highway. A jet engine. An erupting volcano. A pyrotechnic explosion. Dom Hemingway is whatever shakes your bones and makes your ears pop.

And it is stupendous and mesmerizing, every vile and irreverent second of it.

The movie opens on the most talked-about scene: Jude Law’s Dom Hemingway, with his porkchop sideburns and gold teeth, getting “serviced” in his jail cell. Never one to just stand there and simply take pleasure in the little things of life — like, for him anyways, prison blowjobs — he addresses the camera about his most favorite body part, his penis. He doesn’t say penis, though. “They’ll write sonnets about it,” he says in way that can only be called verbal swagger. “They’ll study it in schools.” As crudely as its presented, the scene is a deviant work of art.

Dom Hemingway, we learn, is about to get out of prison. He was sent there for a robbery he most definitely did commit. But he never welched on his bandit buddies because Dom is bound to a code of honor so screwy that the first thing he does after getting out of prison is put the guy that married his ex-wife into intensive care. Only then can he celebrate with three days of hookers, cocaine and some sort of naked Olympics in one of those hotels where you wrap items in plastic before touching them with your bare hands.

As Dom jumps on a train to go meet his kingpin boss, the movie starts poking at your crime-movie expectations. It does this so repeatedly, and sometimes with pressing urgency, that the ultimate payoff — Dom pulling an epic heist — seems to be around almost every corner. But the movie, and director Richard Shepard, know they have something better than a heist movie on their hands. They have a character study that is so wickedly rewarding that a heist would only muddle the brilliance of Law’s career-jumpstarting performance.

Demian Bichir plays the kingpin, Mr. Fontaine, who is the most dangerous guy in all of Europe as long as he’s not sharing a room with Dom Hemingway, who’s so confrontational that murder seems to drip from the screen. Dom and a buddy (the sad-looking court jester Richard E. Grant) meet Fontaine at his hunting estate, in a room decorated with post-modern furniture and floor-to-ceiling pictures of monkeys. Dom wants money for the prison sentence he served without naming names. Fontaine gives him money. Unsatisfied, Dom asks for more: “I want a present. I want your girlfriend.” The tension ratchets so tight it becomes almost unbearable.

The movie’s plot also involves another criminal underboss, a timed safe-cracking challenge, a rowdy pool party, a fortune-altering car crash, and a nude stroll through a French vineyard, but Shepard, who also wrote the screenplay, keeps a laser-focus on Dom and his eventual redemption. The film goes out of its way to shock you with its uniquely offensive dialogue and to prove how awful a human being Dom is, but it has a gooey center involving Dom and his adult daughter, who is resentful of his imprisonment. At the end, we realize this isn’t a crime drama — though it certainly resembles a Snatch or a Sexy Beast — or a even a heist thriller.

It’s about a man, and his sonnet-inspired penis, breaking a chain of very bad decisions. It’s the best movie I’ve seen so far this year, and one that will likely go down in history as the turning point — hopefully for the better — for Jude Law, who is unnervingly brilliant as he portrays his lovable meatheaded thug. The film has opened in other markets already, and reviews have been mixed. People either love it or hate it. I’ve yet to read anyone who said it was boring, though.

We talk to the team behind "Oculus"

“Oculus”, a new supernatural horror film, arrives in theatres on Friday, April 11!  The Phoenix Film Festival also featured this movie on its crowded schedule, and I had a chance to sit down with director/co-writer Mike Flanagan, executive producer Jason Blum and producer Trevor Macy.  We talked about the film’s mysterious mirror, Katee Sackhoff’s performance and what movies scared them growing up.  

Q: I love the idea of a supernatural force coming through a mirror.   I saw “Prince of Darkness” (1987) years ago, and mirrors creep me out anyways.  Why did you choose a mirror becoming a portal for the supernatural?

MF:  I did all the stuff you do in front of the mirror when you are a kid, like play Bloody Mary.   It always freaked me out too.  I think the thing that brought the portal to it was there is a tradition of the Jewish faith where at funerals, the mirror is covered to prevent the spirits of the deceased from coming back.  I thought that was pretty chilling.  Going back to “Prince of Darkness”, they used it to great effect as well.  Looking at a mirror as a window or a door I think is always really upsetting.

Q: “Oculus” originally was short film.  What was the decision to make it a feature length film and how easy was it to do?

MF: It was really hard actually.   When the short came out and people liked it, there was immediate talk, “Is this going to be expanded?”

It took seven years to figure how to do that.  Besides (deciding) what to preserve in the short and how do we expand it to feature length - and not just making (the movie) really long and boring - it was really hard to find producers who didn’t want to go to “found footage” with it.  There are cameras in the room, and the minute people saw that, pretty much every company in the world was trying very hard to replicate what Jason was doing already (with his “Paranormal Activity” franchise).

(Many producers) were like, “Oh, can we do this in the “Paranormal” style?”

No, they are already doing that and kicking butt with it.  Why would we?  And this (film) was just not the story for that anyway.  It took a very long time to find people who were behind it.  It didn’t happen until 2011 when I had a meeting with Intrepid Pictures, and they were the first people in seven years that said, “Let’s try to do something really unique with the narrative structure.”

Q: Jason, you are involved with the “Paranormal Activity” series, “Sinister” (2012), and “Dark Skies” (2013), and you are known for creating movies on a micro-budget for wide release.  What’s the recipe to accomplish that?  

JB: Sometimes the movies have wide releases, and sometimes they don’t.  It doesn’t always work, but it works a good percentage of the time.  It is very hard to do.  There are three secrets.  The most important secret is the production company’s fee, and the director, the writer, all the actors, and everyone work for the minimum possible.  That’s the biggest thing, and after that, not too many speaking parts and not too many locations.  The low budget parts are those three things, and it is got to be a high concept movie.  That is the short answer to the ingredients to a micro-budget, wide-release movie.

Q: Trevor, you’ve been involved with action pictures (“Doomsday” (2008), “Safe House” (2012), “The Raven” (2012)), but you’ve also dabbled in horror (“The Strangers” (2008)) as well, so what attracted you to this project?

TM: After I did “The Strangers” (2008), I started to see every horror script in town.   The thing that prompted me to want to this film next is you care about the characters.  In “The Strangers”, it’s a relationship.  In this case, it’s a family drama, and (the characters) form the spine of the movie.  That’s the thing that makes you care, relate and think about when you leave the theatre. All of which I think make the best horror.  I’ll make as much horror that satisfies those conditions as I possibly can.

Q:  Katee Sackhoff (“Battlestar Galactica” (2004), “24” (2001), “Riddick” (2013)) stars in this picture.  What can her fans look forward to with this movie? 

MF:  You are definitely seeing a side of Katee you’ve never seen.   I am a huge “Battlestar” fan as well, but this isn’t a part where you naturally go, “Oh my God, that’s where you go to Starbuck.”

So, it’s actually two very different sides of her in this movie.  You have a real maternal and thoughtful side of her that isn’t the bad-ass, kick-ass character (who) people know her as.  Then you have another side that I don’t want to spoil.   It’s a complete departure from everything she’s ever done.  She brought this whole other side to it.   So, you are going to see Katee doing two things you’ve never seen her do before.

Q:  From a horror film perspective, what are the differences between a serial killer and a supernatural force on the loose?

TM: I think they are relatable in different ways.   It’s easy to go back to “The Strangers” for this one.  With a ‘knock, knock’ late at night at your house, well, that could happen to you.  It is relatable in that particular way.  I think one of the reasons, for me anyway, supernatural horror (works) is they are taking that same base fear that everybody has. In our case, it is reflecting the worst part of you, but there’s an external force that’s magnifying it.  I think that’s what makes supernatural horror so good.   Every single good supernatural horror movie is exploiting a flaw in a human.

MF:  I think another major difference is - there are exceptions to this - but most times, when you watch a killer in a movie, deep down, we are rooting for the killer.  Deep down, we are waiting to see Freddy or Jason (or whoever it’s going to be) kill the next person, and we want to watch how they do it.  There’s a celebration of it somehow.  When it’s supernatural, you’re rooting for the poor mortal humans who are at risk.  So, I think you are on slightly different sides of the line when you commit to that.  That is why when you see a movie that’s all about different murders, you get big applause.  You get this weird rush out of the audience.

If it’s a supernatural movie, you aren’t watching “Poltergeist” (1982) and say, “Yea, take that kid!!  Yea!  Whoo hoo!”

It’s a whole different thing.

You are saying, “Oh God, is she okay?”

You are rooting for different teams.

Q:  Lastly, what were your favorite horror movies growing up?  Not necessarily something inspirational, but something that really scared you when you were kids.

JB:  I’m going for “Rebecca” (1940) these days.  Not quite a horror movie, but a thriller.  I really loved that movie.

TM: The first horror movie I ever watched was “Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954).  I think I was eight years-old and I made my mother sit on the couch with me and watch that movie.  It just scared the hell out of me.  Later, growing up, I got to say, “Alien” (1979).

MF:  I have the boiler plate answers for that which are, “Jaws” (1975), “The Shining” (1980), “The Exorcist” (1973), but the first thing that really freaked me out was an episode of “Fraggle Rock” (1983).  They had this thing called The Terrible Tunnel and any Fraggle who went in would get lost and never come out. The little Fraggles would go in and all the little ghosts of the Fraggles were trapped and that just freaked me out.  Yea, I had nightmares about that tunnel for years.

Muppets Most Wanted - Movie Review

Muppets Most Wanted

Directed by James Bobin

Featuring the voices of Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta and Matt Vogel

From Walt Disney Pictures

Rated PG

112 minutes

Brings your smiles to new Muppet movie

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

The Muppets give me great hope for humanity. Their very existence is cause for celebration; their longevity and persistence an added triumph. Certainly, if our civilization can create Muppets, then there is good in the world, and that goodness runs deep.

This might soundly grossly overstated, to give such power to little felt hand puppets, but look at what those puppets represent, look at the spirit in which they were created, consider the reason they have thrived for this long — they are, from top to bottom, inside and out, stitch by stitch, happiness.

That happiness explodes from the screen in Muppets Most Wanted, a silly and rewarding follow-up to the great Muppet return in 2011 with the charming, plainly titled The Muppets. That movie’s last scene is this movie’s first: as soon as the Hollywood lights flicker off, the Muppets are once again hunting for an audience to entertain. Out of nowhere Dominic Badguy, pronounced like “badgey,” turns up and whispers the magic words — “world tour.” And off the Muppets go.

The movie is infused with all varieties of comedy bits and musical numbers. The first song is fantastically weird and unabashedly meta as the Muppets sing about how sequels are never as good as the original films, a statement they mostly render false. In one of the verses, they even hint at how Most Wanted isn’t really a sequel because, after all, this is actually the eighth film since 1979. One of the recurring bits involves Gonzo pleading to do a stunt called Indoor Running of the Bulls. It goes off in typical Muppet style, about as well as one of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s experiments, one of which is a bomb-attracting vest. Of course, Beaker is wearing it.

As the world tour travels through Europe — the German stop includes the towns of Vomitdorf and Poopenbürgen — it’s revealed that Badguy (comedian Ricky Gervais, as wooden as the Swedish Chef’s cutting board) is actually a master thief following a series of clues that will reveal a way to steal the British crown jewels. He enlists fellow thief Constantine, who perfectly resembles Kermit except for a mole on his froggy lip. After a stealthy switch, Constantine infiltrates the Muppets while Kermit is sent to a Russian gulag in Siberia — or, as the prison guards call it, a state-funded hotel.

In the gulag, Kermit meets a Russian guard (Tin Fey) who says his name like she’s training for some kind of over-pronunciation contest — key-herr-meat, she says struggling. Other prisoners are played by Ray Liotta, Jemaine Clement and Danny Trejo, who other characters simply call “Danny Trejo.” (What a sport: Trejo plays Thug #1 and Inmate #2 in more movie than can be counted and here he does it again as a gag on his career.) In prison, of course Kermit puts together a spirited gulag variety show with musical numbers, sets, props and a prison break that somehow escapes Fey’s Kermit-smitten guard — “I have Netflix and I see every prison-break movie ever,” she says earlier.

Back on the Muppets tour, Constantine is botching up the Muppets careful dynamic by saying yes to every terrible sketch, including Gonzo’s Indoor Running of the Bulls, Miss Piggy’s Celine Dion covers and Animal’s “DRUM SOLO! DRUM SOLO!” Kermit, it seems, is the glue that holds the troupe together. There are many celebrity cameos, including Lady Gaga, Salma Hayek and, inexplicably, Christoph Waltz. None of them are as invigorating as the actual Muppets, most of whom get choice scenes, including Beaker and Honeydew, Animal and Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Pepe the Prawn, Rowlf the Dog and Fozzie, who is threatened with a fantastic line — “You’ve just wocka’d your last wocka.” Another great line that requires no context: “He’s too stupid to be stupid so he must be a genius.”

Two unlikely stars are Modern Family’s Ty Burrell playing a French INTERPOL detective and Sam the Eagle playing his American counterpart. In their first scene together they start comparing badges, a game of one-up that ends with an endearing payoff. Later, in a scene that simultaneously laughs at the French and ‘Murica, Burrell sips from the tiniest of coffee cups while Sam chugs on what must be a 10-gallon cup of joe.

This is not a perfect Muppet movie, if only because too much emphasis is placed on human characters, who frequently can’t keep up with Jim Henson’s adorable Muppets. It does have lots of jokes, and many of them are clobbered out of the park with spectacular send-offs. The movie has a Pixar feel with it’s humor: it caters to adults and children, and frequently finds middle ground as well. Take your family, they’ll howl through it.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows? Because they make Muppets smile. And smiles are the currency this world should trade in.

Divergent - Movie Review

Divergent

Directed by Neil Burger

Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Tony Goldwynn, Jai Courntey and Miles Teller

From Summit Entertainment

Rated PG-13

139 minutes

Incredible setting, broken plot compete in new YA movie

 by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

In the race to get young adult books turned into movies I feel like roadkill as the studios speed to get their hot properties, with plots involving warring schools/houses/factions/districts/classes, onto the screen to woo in Hollywood’s most fickle audience — teenagers.

This week alone, we’ve already seen the release of trailers for two more, The Maze Runner and The Giver. Between them, The Hunger Games and now Divergent, you would be forgiven for not telling them apart with all their angsty teens, dystopian settings and perilous class warfare.

Divergent, like Hunger Games before it, benefits for looking absolutely stunning. It takes place in a fully realized and crafted science-fiction world, with scarred skyscrapers serving as wind turbines and drained harbors as farming land. Around the city is a fence, it’s electrical countermeasures humming ominously in the soundtrack, that would break the morale of Kong. Early in the film, we’re shown cables criss-crossing the city and later we get a payoff: the cables serve as an exhilarating and impractical transportation system. The production designers must have had fun creating this world; I had fun taking it all in. (On a side note, notice how the most futuristic prop in every sci-fi movie is a syringe.)

And that’s where my praise largely ends. This is a broken movie. It’s plot simply can’t sustain itself. It takes place in a time after mankind has apparently destroyed itself because “people had choices.” I would roll my eyes and say “whatever” to that reasoning, but this plot point is so important that it’s the basis of the entire film and others beyond it. And it ruins the movie.

Divergent begins with Tris (Shaileen Woodley), a sweet-natured girl who questions her less-than-sweet thoughts. She lives with her parents in nearly complete segregation in a destroyed version of Chicago, which is divided into five social classes or castes: Abnegation, the selfless and charitable; Amity, peaceful farmers; Candor, the brutally honest types (and comedians?); Dauntless, the warriors; and Erudite, the intelligent bureaucrats. At a certain age, teens are required to attend the reaping … wait, wrong movie … they’re made to take LSD-fueled tests and then pick the faction that they want to serve for the rest of their lives.

After a lengthy choosing process that involves the most disease-ridden knife, Tris picks Dauntless, a class so laughably dopey they are nearly cartoons. For starters, Dauntless faction members run everywhere, and they climb on everything like spider monkeys. And when they arrive at train stations, they wait for the train to leave so they can board it by jumping into the open doors. I’m pretty sure Dauntless’ creators were born from a Mt. Dew overdose sometime during a mid-’90s X-Games broadcast. Remember Poochy, from The Simpsons? I’m pretty sure he was Dauntless, as was the cast of Point Break, all those Mentos commercials and the Neverland boys in Hook (“Bangarang, Ruffio!).

And this is where the movie gets screwy. See, the factions maintain order. How or why is never really explored; you’re just expected to buy it, ludicrous price tag or not. Some exposition is offered by Erudite mastermind Jeanine (Kate Winslet), but it just made my head spin faster and in the other direction. Most troublesome is how the movie seems to encourage people — teens especially — to choose a team and stick with it. In high school, these factions would be called jocks (Dauntless), nerds (Abagnation), cheerleaders (Candor), student council (Erudite), and cowboys (Amity). Fans of the books will argue that the classes don’t really matter, because the point is that the classes need to be thrown out, which is what Tris eventually tries to do. But why then do fans show up happily proclaiming their faction of choice, and why does the Divergent website proudly let you pick your faction, like segregating yourself into some miserable little Dystopian subgroup was a worthwhile endeavor?

It’s clear the factions are part of a flawed social system, but no one in the movie sees that, even as one faction is chemically programmed to exterminate another faction. The rationale for the genocide: fear … of free agency, of peace, of an open government. None of it makes sense. Yeesh, this is just bad writing. At least Hunger Games made sense: there was a war, a tyrannical ruler and a punishment for choosing the wrong side in the war. You could connect the dots and get an idea of what kind of story was being told. Divegent’s dots lead to a scrambled mess.

When Divergent isn’t tripping over itself, it spends much of the movie with Tris as she is pummeled through Dauntless’ training program, which involves laser tag, train hopping, freefalling through condemned building and public beatings, lots of public beatings. She has one nice instructor (Theo James) and one awful one (Jai Courtney), both of whom seem to make kissy faces in the mirror when they look at their tattoos. Woodley, who does wonders with her sub-standard material, deserves a better young adult movie franchise. This one is beneath her talents. Divergent does reunite Woodley with Miles Teller, who shared some lovely and heartbreaking scenes in last year’s much more rewarding film The Spectacular Now.

I read online yesterday that Veronica Roth’s book franchise falls apart after Divergent, and even the books’ fans are keenly aware of this problem. If this is what the first movie looks like, imagine what’s in store in the later film. Or not.