John’s Movie Musings

Usually when I write a review, I try and throw a joke or two in.  Michael Bay.  N-n-no, that’s too low.  The joke is that Michael Bay gave an interview a few days before Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF) came out.  In it, he said he was tired of being judged harshly prior to the release of his movies, so he was ditching the big blockbusters in favor of small art-house films.  If you’re like me, your ass is ROTFL.  Just imagine Michael Bay’s version of Juno. Frightening.

I went into Transformers: ROTF with extremely low expectations.  I’m not a fan of Bay, I didn’t like the first Transformers, and Shia LaBeouf makes me want to cut myself. Normally, going in to a movie with that kind of anti-anticipation (cipation?), I come out somewhat surprised.  “Well, it wasn’t that bad.”  Transformers 2 was worse than I could have dreamed.  Just how bad?  My friends and I caught the late show that ended around 1AM.  We then stayed outside for another hour venting at the 2.5 hour insult we just witnessed.  This crap caused sleep loss.

There are so many directions I could go to explain why ROTF is so bad.  Let’s start with the plot.  It’s the simplest as there is none.  In the first Transformers, you could procure a little satisfaction from giant fighting robots.  Here, Bay must’ve ran out of ideas on how to use them.  Optimus and Megatron disappear for most of the movie.  Think about that.  The two lead characters in Transformers are MIA for most of it.  Who does that?  When Bay realizes he has a conversation between characters no one cares about, he spins the camera and hopes people will be too dizzy to listen.

With no main characters to entertain us, we get more Shia and Megan Fox.  I will give credit to Shia as he’s grown a bit as an actor.  Instead of using “No-no-no!!” in every line, he’s changed to “Go-go-go!!”  Progress.  Megan’s scenes are lifted straight from the Top Ten Pinup Poses Handbook.  Had there been a pizza-making scene, I’m sure she would have had a leg or two in the air.

I could go on and on about racial stereotypes, transforming humans (yeah, no explanation given), stupid dialog, plot holes, and confusing robot fights (Good guys and bad guys, despite already looking alike, get all mixed into a confusing mash of metal).  But you get the idea.  There’s nothing worth seeing.

Earlier in the year, I declared Wolverine as the worst movie of the year.  I was wrong.

Grade: F

Here’s what I did not know about Changeling:  Clint Eastwood directed it.  And it was written by J. Michael Straczynski, who you may recognize as the man behind Babylon 5.  None of you know what I’m talking about, I know, but Babylon 5 was a Sci-Fi series back in the day that had some of the best writing of anything on TV – as well as the worst.  If it were a Baskin Robbins flavor, it would be Awesome Crappy Swirl.  Or something.  Yeah, that joke sucked.

Changeling, however, does not suck.  Angelina Jolie plays a mom who loses her son one day.  After several weeks, the cops find a boy halfway across the country and say he’s hers.  In a history-making moment, Angelina turns down an orphan and says the boy isn’t hers.  But this is the 1920s when men could smack their women and be thanked for it.  A time Jon Gosselin would appreciate, I think.  …Too soon?  Anyway, the cops tell Angelina she’s crazy.  The boy is hers and she just needs to accept the fact that the LAPD is awesome.

Thus begins an absolutely insane story.  By now, I’m sure your BS Meter is going off the charts.  This can’t have possibly happened, but sadly it did.  History is even more bizarre than what’s in the film, if you can believe that.  At several points during Changeling, you will take your favorite four-letter word and use it in an exclamatory question.  Trust me.

The third act drags on a little too long, but this is definitely worth a rental.  I wished there was some bonus features about the real case, but no luck.  I had to turn to Wikipedia.  That’s fine, though, because you’ll end up at the same place.

Grade: B+

With every Pixar release, you can be guaranteed of a few things:  great animation, a solid story, a funny intro movie, and John Ratzenberger.  Back in the 80s, if you would have told me Cliff Clavin was gonna lend his voice to some of the greatest stories ever, I would have poured you another drink to help you forget your embarrassment.

Up is Pixar’s latest and their first in 3D.  Thankfully, they stay classy with the third dimension.  No one spits in your face, pokes your eye out, or throws something out of the screen.  I’ve heard some complaints that they’re too conservative with it, but my eyes thanked the gentle depth.

I’m still amazed that Pixar has not fallen into the easy animation story formula.  Most lesser companies will take a shallow plot, throw in some pop-culture jokes, and call it a day.  Usually a $300M day.  But no, Pixar continues to take the high road and release solid, non-formulaic stories.  Up is a goofy story about a grumpy old man who floats away with his house.  But at it’s core, there’s a genuine story of loss and the role of a father.  If you missed it this Father’s Day weekend, catch it soon.

One finally word of warning.  If you tend to tear up at shampoo commercials, bring lots of tissues.  Even the normally funny intro movie serves only to crack that cold dead heart of yours.  By the time Up starts, the tears will come flowing within the first fifteen minutes.  Remember, Disney was the one who killed Bambi’s mom.  The rat bastards.

Grade: A

For the most part, I enjoy WWII movies.  In those stories that rely on the battle between good and evil, you can’t get any more evil than the Nazis.  Everyone knows this.  Godwin’s Law even states that the longer an argument persists, the probability of someone making a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

In Valkyrie, we’ve got a movie filled with Nazis.  But this is a Tom Cruise movie, so he and his Nazi friends can’t be bad.  The movie tries to point this out by them trying to kill Hitler, but when was the last time you saw Tom Cruise as a bad guy?

Project Valkyrie was the real-life covert mission to assassinate Hitler from within the Nazi ranks.  It failed, obviously, but that doesn’t mean an interesting movie can’t come from it.  There have been plenty of botched caper films that turned out great.  Reservoir Dogs, for example. I’d argue that failed attempts can make for more interesting movies because they don’t follow the formula.

Unfortunately, Valkyrie’s first two acts are sleep-inducing with only the assassination attempt and its aftermath worth watching.  This is really tragic,because after watching, I did some online research and the real story is pretty interesting.  The truth is stranger than fiction, with some bizarre coincidences so maybe the writers avoided history to make the story more realistic.  Oh who am I kidding?  When was the last time Hollywood cared about getting facts right?

My biggest gripe about Valkyrie is the choice of actors.  The director stole a page out of Star Wars and made all of the evil Nazis British.  Well, all of them but Cruise.  Don’t get me wrong, the actors are great, but when King Theoden starts talking about how the Nazis can drive the British out of North Africa, complete with English accent, it kills the impact a bit.  I finally lost it when Eddie Izzard shows up later.  The man makes a better woman than a Nazi.

The story is interesting, just poorly told.  Go find a good documentary on Claus von Stauffenberg.  You’ll be more entertained.

Grade: D+

Ever have a movie make you angry?  Sometimes, that’s the appropriate response because that’s what the director intended.  Movies are meant to draw out our emotions.  That’s why we like ‘em.  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button made me angry.  But I don’t think the director intended it.  I was angry because the movie offers a very self-centered look at humanity with no consequences.  I felt I had to accept his self-serving characters as doing the right thing, when they very obviously were not.

Let me back up.  As you know, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about a man who ages backwards.  It’s an interesting story – almost Gump-ish in its pacing.  The characters are flawed and interesting, but the real treat is the special effects.  The technology used to age Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett is superb.  The movie is almost worth seeing just for that.  But since it’ll piss you off, I would stay away.

Let me explain my beef with this film as spoiler-free as possible.  Every character (and I mean all of them) intentionally hurts the people close to them out of “love.”    I put love in quotes because saying things like, “You would be better without me” is not love.  It’s control – the complete opposite of love.  This is what suicide victims use to justify their deaths.

Now it’s completely fine to have characters act this way.  In fact, it’s a good flaw to explore.  But here, the director forces this down your throat and wants you to accept it as true love.  Now maybe I’ve got some deep abandonment issues that decide to board the bandwagon at times like this, but to sit through three hours of people behaving this way without consequence (or worse, having it accepted as right) is like Chinese Water Torture.  Every beat motivating a fantasy of punching the director in the face.  Yes, I know he probably needs a hug, but he needs an ass-whoopin, too.

Basically, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a love story without love.  For that, I can only recommend you stay away.

Grade: D