R.I.P. Michael Jackson

I’m not going to tell you something that hasn’t already been said (a LOT more eloquently) in the many tributes that have trickled out over the past 24 hours. I’m also probably not going to say something you haven’t already thought about or felt yourself.

The loss of Michael Jackson obviously means that we’ve lost one of the most unique, electrifying, mysterious and influential artists in American pop culture history. His influence on his fans and many of today’s pop stars is obvious, so I prefer to think of the unexpected ways he touched me over the years. (Insert your own child molestation joke, since it’s impossible to overlook that aspect of the man’s life, which actually wickedly adds to his enigmatic legacy.)

Growing up in Puerto Rico, one of the very first things I can remember being terrified of is the video for "Thriller." Actually, I think running away from my mom’s living room screaming for my life is one of my earliest memories period. Of course, I now appreciate and realize that it’s the best music video of all time (if you disagree, I’m truly sorry about you being so wrong.)

I also remember my mom scoring Michael Jackson tickets for a concert in the early 90’s, but MJ canceling the show a few weeks before. I remember being slightly bummed, but (in my eight-to-10-year-old mind) figuring that I’d get to see him eventually. I never got a chance to see him, which may have been just as well given that he started fading as a musical artist at that point.

Those are just two of the earliest Michael Jackson memories that popped into my head. I also have him to thank for my various attempts at doing a (busted) moonwalk, for annoying my little brother with "chmons", and countless other ways he influenced all our lives over the last 30 years.

Even with all the controversy and outright weirdness surrounding the King of Pop the last few years, my initial reaction upon hearing that he was dead wasn’t shock (the dude had been looking seriously ill recently) - it was, "Oh, that’s too bad."

I’m not going to say you HAVE to share your favorite Michael Jackson memory in the comments, but you’re more than welcome to.

(Quick note: Also, R.I.P. to Farrah Fawcett. I didn’t want anyone to think I was shafting her, but she was just a little bit before my time, so for me to try and write a genuine, heartfelt tribute would as phony as Jackson’s nose.)

"Why, Erica, Why?" Summer Movie Library Series: Castle in the Sky

You know what they say: things come in twos.

Ok, so I know that what they REALLY say is that “things come in threes”, but in the case of the “WEW? Summer Movie Library Series” things come in twos. First we had two movies from the British Senior Citizen Nudity genre. Now we have two Hayao Miyazaki Films Involving Mobile Castles. (Stay tuned for the second entry in the Actors Directing Laughably Indulgent Movies genre, coming soon.)

I realize “Castle in the Sky” came out almost 20 years before “Howl’s Moving Castle”, but since I saw “Howl’s” first, “Sky” had this unshakable whiff of leftovers for me.

Don’t worry — the unfairness in how I’ll judge “Castle in the Sky” doesn’t end there.

Once again, I decided to watch the English dub instead of the Japanese original with subtitles (I have nothing against subtitles, I was just curious about the semi-famous American actors in the English dub). Unlike “Howl”, the American dub in “Castle in the Sky” is fairly brutal.

The story opens as pirates led by a tough old broad named Dola (voice of Cloris Leachman — yes, THAT Cloris Leachman) try to get a crystal away from a young girl named Sheeta (voiced by Anna Paquin). Sheeta eventually teams up with a boy named Pazu (voice of James Van Der Beek — wha?!) to try and outrun the pirates and slithery government agents led by Muska (voice of Mark Hamill) who want the crystal. The crystal is the key to finding the mythical, sky castle known as Laputa.

Van Der Beek and Paquin are the worst voice actors in the cast by a mile, which is a bit of a problem since they’re our two leads. Van Der Beek’s whiny young adult voice is a terrible fit for Pazu, who doesn’t look like he’s any older than 13 or 14. For her part, Paquin appears to attempt a British at a few junctions, but abandons it just as quickly. A bigger problem is that both of their performances range from irritating (Van Der Beek) to completely ineffective and forgettable (Paquin).

Leachman and Hamill fare much, MUCH better. Leachman is the movie’s effective comic relief as the semi-grotesque older pirate who eventually takes a liking to Sheeta. You can tell Leachman is having fun with the character and that’s conveyed in the movie. Meanwhile, Hamill (an accomplished voice actor following his Luke Skywalker days) makes for an effective, scary, villain.

Still, not all of the movie’s faults have to do with the disappointing English dub. Though it has considerably more action than “Howl’s Moving Castle”, “Castle in the Sky” manages to be more boring (we lost Erica to a nap about 45 minutes in). That just goes to show that you can have all the action in the world, but if we don’t care about the people in the middle of the action, it can all result in a big yawn.

This movie still boasts some stunning visuals (pretty much all the aerial action sequences) and impressive imagination. However, it also features a few too many jarring headscratchers for my taste (why was everyone ok with the pirates hitting on Sheeta, who looked like she was 12 years old?)

In the end, I can see why Miyazaki is so revered and I’d certainly be open to seeing more of his movies (especially “Spirited Away”, which is supposed to be his masterpiece). However, I found them a bit lacking in the storytelling department.

Castle in the Sky…C (Probably a C+ or a B- with the original Japanese track)

"Why, Erica, Why?" Summer Movie Library Series: Howl's Moving Castle

I’d always heard about the great animated films (yes, “films” not “movies”) of Hayao Miyazaki, but I never actually got off my butt to check one out myself.

Enter my indispensible girlfriend Erica.

Thanks to the hit new “Why, Erica, Why?” Summer Movie Library Series, I’ve now seen two Miyazaki movies in the last couple of weeks. (The review for that second movie will be up as soon as I shake off this slacker dust.) I’m not really a fan of anime, but I was particularly interested in checking out a few Miyazaki films since finding out the Japanese filmmaker has been a huge influence on the people who work at Pixar, who just happen to be making my favorite and some of the very best movies today. (Pixar honcho John Lasseter pops up to give us a fawning introduction on the DVD.)

So after being exposed to the world of Miyazaki, all I’ve got to say is, “Oh okay.”

“Howl’s Moving Castle” — adapted from the novel b Diana Wynne Jones — involves a strong-willed, unconfident young woman named Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer) who is turned into an elderly woman (voiced by Jean Simmons) by a spiteful, tubby witch (voiced by Lauren Bacall). She eventually meets up with the vain, insecure wizard (voiced by Christian Bale) who lives in the titular structure.

Maybe it was the fact that we decided to watch the dub (which was actually pretty solid) instead of viewing the movie with subtitles, but I had trouble connecting to any of the characters besides beyond Sophie. (I decided to go with the dub since they went through the trouble of hiring relatively famous actors.) This helps explain why my favorite character was probably Turniphead, a helpful, mute scarecrow.

More importantly, I never really felt like the characters effectively connected with each other. I didn’t totally buy the connection between Sophie and Howl. It just felt like those two characters are thrown together because they’re the female and male protagonists.

I can’t really fault the performances. Simmons/Mortimer make for an admirable, strong heroine, Bale’s voice conveys his mix of creepiness and magnetism equally as well as his live action work, and Bacall makes for a compelling Witch of the Waste. I was considerably less impressed by Billy Crystal’s capital C Comic Relief turn as Calcifer, the fire demon who lives in Howl’s castle. His shtick just didn’t seem to fit in with everything else that was going on.

What works about this movie (and what I suspect REALLY earns Miyazaki all the adoration) is how stunning it looks. Computer animation and 3D technology can try to dazzle us all they want with their lifelike renderings, but they’re no match for the power of imagination.

Miyazaki simply visualizes and is able to realize on screen unbelievable and dreamlike/nightmarish images like a castle that walks along the countryside and a man who morphs into a bird to do battle. Most importantly, these images complement and sort of end up grounding his stories. Rarely have more fantastical things seemed more normal.

The filmmaker’s hand-drawn animation feels just as (if not more) fresh than any shiny Hollywood cartoon with marquee voice talent. I just wish I could say the same for the characters populating his movies.

Howl’s Moving Castle…B

What John Thinks...of the change to the Oscar Best Picture race

When I first heard about the Academy Awards expanding its Best Picture race to include 10 movies instead of five, I have to admit - I thought it was pretty great.

Finally, quality blockbusters (meaning movies that regular people actually watch) would get their shot at a prize more prestigious than a People’s Choice or an MTV Movie Award. This change even has precedent: in the 1930’s and 40’s the Oscars had anywhere from eight to 12 Best Picture nominees (that’s your movie trivia tidbit of the day).

However, the more I think about this new development, the less I like it.

My main problem is that this has a strong whiff of COPOUT. Instead of simply recognizing that films like "Wall-E" and "The Dark Knight" (two examples just from last year) are among the top 5 movies of the year, they've just changed the rules to placate more casual movie fans and try to grab a bigger audience for the Oscar telecast. By making this change, the Academy is basically admitting they could never accept that terrific animated movies and big-budget blockbusters belonged among the year's best under the old system.

Besides, this doesn’t get to the heart of the problem. The same old stuffy, out-of-touch Academy Awards voters are going to be voting on who actually wins, so it’s not likely any of the new, more-popular choices actually have a chance in hell of winning. In short, if someone says "it’s an honor just to be nominated", they damn well better mean it.

A smaller, more-irritating issue is that this makes me a little mad for all the deserving movies in recent years that missed out on this new opportunity for Oscar recognition simply because they had the misfortune of coming out before 2009.

Then again, better late than never.
All things considered, I like the change overall because the Oscars have become hopelessly stale in recent years. It was time for something drastic. Sure, the Oscar telecast could possibly balloon close to five hours, and this whole experiment could turn out to be a total disaster, but at least they’re doing SOMETHING.

When the most recent Oscar nominations came out, my main complaint was that they were depressingly typical. I think this change will mostly accommodate the general movie going public (i.e. people who aren't movie nerds like me) who can tune in and root for nominees that they’ve actually seen. It also has a chance of making the Best Picture race more interesting. "Interesting" is not really a word, I've associated with the Oscars in recent years.

"Why, Erica, Why?" Summer Movie Library Series: Romance & Cigarettes

What if I was to tell you that James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, Mary Louise Parker, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken and Mandy Moore were all in one movie? (That’s 3 Oscars and countless Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and wins) Is that something you might be interested in?

Of course, it is.

We were off to a 3 for 3 start with good movies in the "Why, Erica, Why?" Summer Movie Library series. That’s pretty remarkable when you consider that there’s just no way to predict what’s going to come out of Erica’s bag when she brings a new batch home.

I was looking forward to continuing the winning streak and then (needle scratching on record sound) we watched "Romance & Cigarettes."

Written and directed by John Turturro - the terrific actor from movies like "Do the Right Thing" and "The Big Lebowski" - the movie bills itself as a "down and dirty musical" and is set among a working-class cast of characters in New York. Nick Murder (Gandolfini and, yes, that’s his character’s real name) is cheating on his wife Kitty (Sarandon) with Tula (Winslet) - his seductive and "down and dirty" mistress - and we see the resulting fallout.

To be honest, the best thing about this movie is that you can watch it with a friend and try to figure out what the WORST thing about it is. Actually, scratch that - I don’t want you to think you should watch this movie (even to make fun of it).

Let’s get back to some of the things that make this movie so horrible. Why would Turturro cast two actresses in their 40’s (Parker and Aida Turturro) to play two of Nick’s three daughters (Gandolfini is also in his 40’s and Aida Turturro played his SISTER in "The Sopranos"!). Mandy Moore is the only one of the three who looks like she could be his daughter. If the director wanted to make this situation weird, he could’ve at least had it be CONSISTENTLY weird and cast three actresses in their 40’s. Finally, why were Parker and Aida Turturro instructed to act as if they were mentally handicapped? Ugh!

Though that’s a relatively minor issue, it speaks to a much larger problem I have with the movie - the nearly-perverse waste of talent on display. I get that respected actors don’t want to do Oscar-caliber material all the time (see the all-star cast in a trifle like "Mars Attacks!") and sometimes they just want to have fun. However, if it’s not fun for the audience too, what we get is something I’ll call the "Ocean’s 12 Effect."

If you remember, "Ocean’s 12" was little more than an excuse for George Clooney and Co. to hang out in Europe and smugly celebrate how cool they are. Then again, even "Ocean’s 12" had a steady director (somewhat) guiding the way. Turturro seems content to let (encourage) his actors do whatever the hell they want, even (especially!) if it doesn’t make sense - which is probably the reason they signed on in the first place. I honestly believe gathering these actors and forming a softball team would've been a more worthwhile use of their skills.

It’s no surprise that the one cast member who really shines in this environment is Christopher Walken because Turturro basically brought him in to "do Christopher Walken" and the actor was happy to oblige. Unfortunately, the movie is basically filled with "Christopher Walkens." (And, no, I don’t mean everyone doing an impression of the man - I mean they’re acting as crazy as they possibly can.)

The highlight of the movie for me is Walken’s zany musical number to Tom Jones’ "Delilah." It would’ve been even better if I could actually clearly hear Walken singing.

Instead of having his actors sing the movie’s songs - tunes popularized by the likes of James Brown and Janis Joplin - Turturro had his actors sing ALONG to them. I hated this with the passion of 10,000 burning suns, while Erica actually preferred this method. Quick recap of our debate: I’d rather hear characters use their own voice, even if it’s kinda bad, while she thinks bad singing is simply too distracting. Call it, the "Mamma Mia Effect." (If we’d had this discussion on IM, we might have another "Great Debate" on our hands to rival our famed "Lion King vs. Toy Story Debate of 2006." But I digress.)

I still say Turturro is kind of a phony for dubbing this a "down and dirty" musical and then not letting his actors do their own singing, ESPECIALLY if they’re a little bad (what would be more "down and dirty" than that?). Look, I have no idea whether Gandolfini, Sarandon, Winslet and the rest can sing or not - and I still don’t. From an artistic and creative standpoint, this aspect of Turturro’s experiment is a waste of time, in my opinion. Then again, it’s entirely possible that Turturro has his actors sing along to these classic songs instead of performing them because it somehow saved him money in the end. (I’m not entirely sure how song licensing fees work). So he either made this disastrous artistic decision on purpose, or his production is too low rent to allow his actors to REALLY challenge themselves. Great.

Still, the worst thing about the movie is how painfully conscious it is in its quest to be offbeat and quirky. It’s like anybody who tries to be cool - you’re either cool or you’re not. Anyone who tries to consciously "act cool" comes off looking like a tool. This movie is kind of the equivalent of a tool.

If Turturro wanted to make a self-indulgent crapsterpiece (and his actor friends agree to help him) more power to him. (THAT might’ve actually been more interesting.) Unfortunately, he also tries to insert scenes of genuine emotion and drama, which turns out to be a complete waste of time since there’s no possible way we can care for any of these ridiculous characters. I’ll agree that there was a certain charm and intrigue in trying to figure out what insanity Turturro was going to throw at us next. (Gandolfini throwing Winslet into a lake = a great WTF moment). However, after a while you realize that it doesn’t really matter.

The more I think about this movie, the more I feel like it’s not even an interesting failure - it’s a tedious, self-indulgent failure. Right now I’m hoping Turturro sticks to showing us his talent in front of camera instead of behind it. (This is actually his third directorial effort.) Ok, that might have come off a little harsh. We’ll make a deal - I’ll watch another movie he directs if he agrees to get his head out of his ass.

Deal?

Romance & Cigarettes...D-

"Why, Erica, Why?" Summer Movie Library Series: Blind Mountain

There aren’t a lot of movies that I’ve never heard of.

I promise you that I say this with no ego.

I simply love pop culture - and movies, in particular. I love them to the extent that I spend hours on various entertainment websites reading about them, I feel perfectly comfortable just hanging out with my DVDs (they don’t judge me the way you just did), and I’ve decided to dedicate a summer series to the wonderfully random flicks my girlfriend brings home from the library.

One of those movies was "Mang Shan" (or "Blind Mountain" if don’t mind me getting all English on you). I’ll admit Chinese cinema isn’t my forte (is it ANYONE’S forte?), but I hear about most of the stuff that comes out, especially recently. (This movie came out in 2007.)

"Blind Mountain" is a drama set in the early 1990’s about Bai Xuemei (played by Lu Huang), a young, college-educated girl who is unwittingly sold as a bride to a vicious villager in Northern China. The rest of the movie traces her various escape attempts from the village, where this sort of arrangement has become reprehensibly acceptable.

That’s actually all there is to the story - and it’s a pretty great movie.

Director Yang Li tells the story in a non-flashy, pseudo-realistic style that could’ve been boring but ends up being totally compelling and engrossing. A big chunk of the credit has to go to Lu Huang, who makes the transformation from excited college student to a terrified young prisoner fighting for her life so believable that I audibly groaned whenever one of her escape attempts were foiled.

In the previous paragraph, I described the movie as "pseudo-realistic." That means that I have no idea whether the movie’s depiction of sex slavery in a Chinese village like the one in the movie came anywhere close to resembling real life. Though I suspect some aspects are exaggerated, what matters is that it feels real. The fact that this sort thing went on (and still goes on) in certain parts of the world serves as a scary and exhilarating puncture in our American culture bubble.

When the movie starts, it almost feels like you missed the first three minutes as we join Bai on what she thinks is a school-related trip. That disorientation ends up fitting in perfectly with the moment where Bai is drugged, abandoned by her companions and wakes up with a brutal new husband and extended family. As horrible as the husband was, I actually felt myself getting angrier at the hubby’s mother, who calmly and cruelly tells Bai to accept her fate. (What happened to looking out for a sister?) There are no time cards to tell us exactly how long Bai was in captivity, which also helps us get inside of her minset a bit.

It all leads to a provocative climax that might lead some (Erica) to say, "Huh?" but that others (me) find surprisingly satisfying.

I’d also probably file an obscure Chinese movie I’d never heard of until recently under "surprisingly satisfying." (Even if it shockingly didn’t feature any British Senior Citizen nudity.)

Blind Mountain...A

"Why, Erica, Why?" Summer Movie Library Series: Calendar Girls

This is only the second movie I’ve reviewed in the popular (in my own mind) "Why, Erica, Why?" Summer Movie Library series.

How are we already 2 for 2 in movies that feature British senior citizen nudity?!

So many questions here: Why did Erica decide these would be the first two movies she’d bring home for us to watch? Is "British Senior Citizen Nudity" now as popular a classification as "Comedy" or "Drama"? (If it’s not, would you like it to be?) How long until the U.S. decides to launch its own inevitably inferior remake, "American Senior Citizen Nudity"? (We love to steal, I mean adapt, British programming.) Finally, the most important question of all - why, Erica, why?

Fortunately, we’re also 2 for 2 in good movies.

"Calendar Girls" is a fact-based dramedy about a group from the Rylstone Women’s Institute in North Yorkshire, England, who decide to do something a little more unconventional for their annual (and often-boring) calendar - they decide to pose nude.

Their motives - like this movie - are surprisingly modest: the women wanted to raise the money to help one of its members (Annie Clarke, played by Julie Walters) buy a couch for the family waiting room in the hospital where her husband John died of leukemia. John always said that "the flowers of Yorkshire were like the women of Yorkshire - the last phase was always the most glorious", and the women set out to prove that point.

Oscar winner Helen Mirren stars as Chris Harper, the free spirit who ends up being the driving force that puts the calendar together. Mirren gives a very good, light performance, but there’s one problem: Helen Mirren is hot! I thought part of the point was that these women were supposed to be people we don’t necessarily want to see naked in a calendar. Do we think that a Helen Mirren calendar wouldn’t become a best-seller?

Other than that, I appreciated the relatively understated way the movie handled the rest of the group. There’s a natural, initial hesitation from some of the ladies, but the movie doesn’t waste too much time on the "will they or won’t they" question. Even the recreations of the calendar shots (I’m assuming they’re recreations since I haven’t seen the actual calendar) are handled in a tasteful, entertaining way. The best thing the movie has going for it is that it’s a funny movie without ever making fun of these women.

In fact, I’d say the movie is almost understated to a fault. On one hand, I appreciate the movie for mostly avoiding the predictable clichés a movie like this could easily bring (Chris’ husband, for example, is actually supportive and proud of his wife, when he could’ve just as easily been jealous and tried to stop her). On the other hand, that doesn’t make for a terribly dramatic or exciting story. The worse thing that happens is Chris’ head gets too big when the Calendar Girls threaten to go Hollywood. I’ll usually take a realistic, understated plotline over manufactured drama. (Though the movie DOES manufacture a bit of drama in portraying the Women’s Institute as not being supportive initially, when in real life they were sympathetic from the beginning.)

Actually, most of the dramatic heft is placed on Penelope Wilton, who plays Ruth - the one Women’s Institute member who DOES have a jerky unsupportive husband. Other than that, we don’t get to know too much about the ladies beyond the fact that one of them has a tattoo, suggesting a surprisingly wild past. In my opinion, this is what really places "Calendar Girls" a peg below "The Full Monty", in which almost every main character had significant development.

I generally try not to compare one movie to another when I do my reviews, but "Calendar Girls" does kind of have the reputation of being the female "Full Monty." I’d say "Monty" was even more of an ensemble piece than "Calendar Girls", which really focuses on Mirren and Walters’ characters.

More importantly, both are good movies, despite the fact that the characters in "Monty" are mostly too young and too male to make the cut in the WEW series.

Calendar Girls...B+

Up Review

I’ve kind of fallen behind on my summer movie watching.

It’s been due to a combination of less-than-inspiring choices ("Terminator: Salvation" doesn’t have the best word of mouth; it feels like I’ll be watching "Angels and Demons" on TNT two years from now), sheer laziness and economic restraints. I suspect I’m not the only one.

However, what if I were to tell you that the funniest/most exciting/most touching movie of the year (so far) could all be found in one package - is that something you might be interested in? (I’m saving you time AND money here people!)

Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that a Pixar production is the closest we have to a sure thing as far as quality filmmaking is concerned. (I don’t feel like ranting once again about how the Academy wrongfully excludes Pixar films from its major categories simply because "they’re cartoons" - and I’m sure you don’t want to hear it.)

"Up", the studio’s latest triumph, is the story of Carl Fredricksen (the voice of Ed Asner), a lonely widower who ties thousands of balloons to his house and floats away to embark on the adventure he never got around to having while his wife was still alive. Along for the ride is Russell (Jordan Nagai), a young wilderness scout in search of his final badge (for "Assisting the Elderly") who stows away on Carl’s trip.

As is always the case with Pixar productions, "Up" has just as much material for adults as it does for their children. In this case, the movie explores the way most grown-ups eventually compromise their childhood dreams when life gets in the way - Carl and Ellie’s marriage is portrayed in a magnificent, wordless sequence with composer Michael Giacchino’s terrific music doing most of the storytelling - and how sometimes the best moments in life are the more mundane instances shared with a loved one. In fact, I’d actually say that this is Pixar’s most grown-up movie. (The brief depictions of blood, not once, but twice actually startled me a bit, but ultimately served to enhance the story.)

The sneaky way in which Pixar hits the sweet spot for us non-kiddies is by keeping it simple. Meaning their movies take us back to a seemingly simpler time when, for example, people drove off the highway for fun ("Cars") or played with Army men and pull-string dolls ("Toy Story"). By finding brilliant, ingenious ways of telling old-fashioned stories, these movies make us nostalgic for stuff we may not even have been exposed to. In "Up", I was a little jealous that Carl as a young boy could be so wowed of newsreel footage of his hero, explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), and watching him play outside (what a concept!) with young Ellie reminded me my pre-Playstation days.

At the risk of sounding too heady, let me remind you that this movie is also hilarious. In their travels, Carl and Russell encounter a gigantic, chocolate-loving exotic bird (the simple fact that he’s called Kevin makes me laugh) and a pack of dogs outfitted with collars that allow their thoughts to be expressed through words. Both of these things could’ve been one-note/cheap jokes, but the filmmakers (led by "Monsters Inc." director Pete Docter) have a great time with it, especially the dogs. (I laugh to myself thinking about Alpha - sweet, dim-witted Dug is alsoa standout.)

Asner does a good job. His cranky old man routine is a perfect and natural fit for the character. However, I was actually more impressed by newcomer Nagai as Russell. The character could’ve been a stock annoying sidekick or a stock precocious kid, but ends up transcending both clichés.

The animation is, once again, incredible (and almost sneaky good). There aren’t as many obvious set pieces to showcase the animators’ work as there were in something like "Wall-E", (other than some early sequences with the flying house) but the fantastical world is still fully-realized. The action sequences are exciting because they look great and because, in a controversial move, the writers have actually made us care about the characters and, by extension, what happens to them.

The movie isn’t perfect. For some reason, I was ok with the dogs talking and serving food, but having them be able to fly planes was too much. More importantly, the movie conspicuously neglected to explain how one character who should NOT have been alive was perfectly ok.

Still, while it may not be perfect, "Up" is still the best movie of the year.

Up...A-

"Why, Erica, Why?" Summer Movie Library Series: The Mother

With most of my favorite TV shows on summer vacation, I have to find SOMETHING to write about, no?

Sure, I’ll throw in the occasional summer blockbuster review here and there, but I can’t see everything in theatres (insert obligatory "especially in THIS economy" statement). Besides, that would only lead to two or three posts a month. I enjoyed taking last week off from writing in my blog (you didn’t even notice, did you?!) but I don’t want to get too used to not writing.

Thankfully (as is usually the case) my girlfriend Erica came home with the solution.

She recently started work at our local library and (or some reason) she’s become obsessed with checking out an ungodly amount of books and movies. She CANNOT stop. The only thing weirder than checking out eight books that she can’t possibly read in two weeks is the delightfully random nature of her movie picks.

That’s why I’ve decided to introduce the clumsily titled "Why Erica? Why?" Summer Movie Library Series. It’s named in honor of my reaction every single time she brings a bundle of movies home. It’s not that they’re necessarily good or bad - it’s just, well, "why?"

(Of course, we could’ve been checking movies out with our library cards all this time, but this inexplicably only became a thing once Erica started working there. Ah summer.)

The first movie on the list was "The Mother", a 2003 drama that was also the first feature film funded entirely by the BBC.

Anne Reid (in a bold, expert performance) stars as May who, along with her husband Toots (Peter Vaughan), is visiting her grown children (Cathryn Bradshaw and Steven Mackintosh) and small grandchildren in busy London when tragedy strikes. May ends up forging a connection with Darren (Daniel Craig), a handyman who is also in a relationship with May’s daughter Paula.

To me, the movie is at its most effective when it’s depicting the isolation and grief May experiences. The movie touches on (without harping on) the cruel way grown children discard and disregard their parents when they get to an advanced age. There’s an interesting movie to be made about the fascinating shift in the parent-child dynamic when the child actually becomes more capable of protecting and providing for the parent, but this isn’t really that movie. (Working title of that movie: "It Sucks To Get Old.")

Nope, this is a movie about James Bond having sex with a woman who’s almost 70 years old.

Ok, it’s not exactly about that. May DOES experience a reawakening after she bonds (see what I did there) with Craig’s character and becomes her own woman instead of just being somebody’s wife or her kids’ "mother". Thankfully, the movie avoids any obvious clichés that usually come when a character "busts loose." (May doesn’t get a new car and there’s no shopping montage.)

The two actors completely sold the relationship for me because each person’s motivation was clearly drawn out. Craig, in particular, does an excellent job of showing us what a magnetic, attractive total disaster of a man Darren is.

Obviously, this leads to friction between May and her daughter Paula. To me, this was the least interesting part of the movie (particularly since it culminates in the movie’s most ridiculous moment). I was much more interested in earlier, tenser scenes in which Paula (who is kind of a wreck herself) and May talked about the reasons Paula resented her mother.

Overall, this was a mostly realistic (the odd moments tended to stick out like a sore thumb) and honest movie about a downer of a subject featuring mostly unlikable characters. Fortunately, the story is handled with skill (director Roger Michell throw in some welcome stylistic flourishes) and a dash of humor. I still sort of wish the movie had spent more time on either May’s grief and isolation or the idea of lust (for life AND hunky handymen) at an advanced age instead of somewhat splitting the difference.

If that doesn’t do it for you, then I suppose you can check it out if you want to see James Bond have sex with a senior citizen.

The Mother...B

No Doubt at the Ford Amphitheatre Review

Has it really been six years since No Doubt released their last album?

(Actually, it’s been almost EIGHT years since 2001’s "Rock Steady", the band’s last collection of all-new material.)

The best thing about their concert at Tampa’s Ford Amphitheater on June 2 is that, if I didn’t know any better, I might’ve guessed that the band hadn’t spent a day apart during this decade.

That’s a testament to the fact that - unlike a lot of reuniting groups with older members that may or may not be over the hill - Gwen Stefani and company still look EXACTLY the same (her on-stage pushups probably help keep her fit as much as the jumping around she and the rest of the band do throughout their set) . A bigger factor is Stefani happily and naturally shifting from "solo artist superstar" mode back into "cool chick who happens to front a band" mode. She’s unquestionably still the star, but No Doubt’s set was NOT all about her.

Speaking of "cool chicks who happen to front a band", that seemed to be the theme for the rainy evening. (It rained so much in the hour leading up to the concert that, by the end of the show, a few cars were stuck in muddy water that went up to their door handles - they might still be there today for all I know.)

Accompanying No Doubt on their tour is a band I enjoy listening to, and another I’d never heard of in my life.

The Sounds are a Swedish New Wave band that’s been around since 1999 (or so Wikipedia says) and I dug their 70’s-riffic opening set. Fierce lead singer Maja Ivarsson is probably a big reason for the apt Blondie comparisons. I’d definitely listen to their CD (which they helpfully reminded us "dropped" the day of the concert) if I still purchased CDs with any regularity.

The group I HAD heard of was Paramore.

Mostly I was kind of blown away by how confident and GOOD 20-year-old lead singer Hayley Williams is live. Also, the rest of the band rocked - especially the guy who did a running flip across the stage while playing guitar. The problem is that, except for the stuff they played from their forthcoming new album, most of their songs were structured in a very similar way and ended up sounding the same. (Actually, the biggest problem for me was deciding whether it was acceptable to sing along in full voice to songs performed by a 20-year-old girl as I was surrounded by even more thrashing young female fans. I ended up singing along - on the down low.)

That didn’t turn out to be an issue during No Doubt’s set because EVERYBODY was off their butts singing and dancing as soon as the band kicked their set off with "Spiderwebs." Special thanks to Stefani for repeatedly acknowledging us poor slobs in the soggy lawn portion of the jam-packed venue. (Also, special props to the surprisingly good sound quality at the outdoor Ford Amphitheatre - I’ll be going back there in the near future.)

No Doubt - Stefani, Tom Dumont, Tony Kanaal, Adrian Young, accompanied by Stephen Bradley and Gabrial McNair on the tour - performed every single one of their hits. The difference between No Doubt’s set and Paramore’s is that No Doubt’s evolution as a band ("I had forgotten they were a ska band," remarked my girlfriend Erica) resulted in a much more dynamic and varied set.

For an evening that had the potential to be a nightmare - besides the rain, some genius had scheduled a high school graduation in the adjacent venue, causing a parking logjam - the music ended up elevating this to one of the best concert experiences in my (admittedly limited) concert-going life.

No Doubt...A
Paramore...B+
The Sounds...B+

Star Trek Review

I’m not a Trekkie (or, excuse me, a Trekker) by any stretch of the imagination.

Of course, being the pop culture nerd that I am, I’m not completely clueless to all things "Star Trek". I know who all main characters are, and I’ve certainly seen more than a few episodes of both The Original Series and The Next Generation. Then again, that’s as far as I go. I never got into Deep Space Nine or Voyager, and I couldn’t tell you what the "pon farr" ritual was without Wikipedia’s help. (I’ll pause for about 40 seconds to give my fellow non-Trekkie/ers enough time to look it up. You know you want to.)

(And we’re back.)

The reason I bring this up is because I suspect that I’m the target audience for the new "Star Trek" movie directed by J.J. Abrams, who has admitted that he’s not exactly a devout Trekkie/er. However, I think the fact that Abrams is NOT slavishly devoted to the franchise ends up being one of the movie’s greatest strengths.

Don’t get me wrong - things aren’t COMPLETELY different! All the names are the same, and the actors mostly look their parts. After a thrilling and effective opening sequence showing us the birth of James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), the movie follows his time at the Starfleet Academy, where he crosses paths with Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Bones McCoy (Karl Urban), a green chick and other familiar faces, before embarking on his first mission - stopping Romulan bad guy Nero (Eric Bana), who is going around destroying planets on his scary-looking ship. After that - well I won’t tell you anymore about the twisty plot in case you haven’t seen it yet.

Pine probably has the toughest job in the cast, trying to live up to Shatner’s iconic portrayal of Kirk. Wisely, Pine doesn’t attempt to do a Shatner impersonation. Instead, he plays up Kirk’s roguish, rule-breaking, hell-raising side, and he pulls it off with plenty of charisma. Since he’s the lead, I would’ve liked to have seen more depth in the character. Pine’s performance hinted that he’s able to convey that depth - too bad the movie didn’t give him a great chance to show it.

Then again, maybe screenwriters Robero Orci and Alex Kurtzman simply decided to give Spock most of the heavy stuff. Thankfully, Quinto is up to the task. He gives a great performance as Spock. He already looks eerily similar to Leonard Nimoy - his predecessor in the role - so pulling off the logical Vulcan side didn’t seem like too much of a stretch. Where he really succeeds (and where he really ropes us in) is in communicating the conflict his half-human nature presents.

In fact, Kirk and Spock butt heads in the movie so spectacularly that they kind of render the actual villain in the story kind of useless. Eric Bana is a good actor, but he’s not given much to do as Nero other than look angry and vow revenge.

The rest of the Enterprise crew is a little underdeveloped, which is to be expected from an origin story. That being said, I really liked Urban as Bones (just dead-on), and the rest of the crew got their own brief moments to shine. I liked that John Cho got to kick some ass as Zulu. On the other hand, Zoe Saldana is little more than eye candy so far as the competent Uhura, Simon Pegg overdid his comic relief shtick as Scotty, and I still haven’t decided whether Anton Yelchin’s performance was Chekov was intentionally funny. (I’m leaning toward yes.)

The real triumph of Abrams’ movie - other than the great special effects, and the cool action sequence on top of the Romulan drill - is that, through the movie’s storyline, he found an ingenious way of re-introducing these very familiar characters for a new generation (and maybe even for old fans who might be interested in a different take on the "Trek" universe). I can understand some of these older fans being annoyed that Abrams has given himself license to change some of their beloved characters and storylines. However, I would say to these people that the stories they love are still right where they’ve always been, and ready to be revisited any time. I love that Abrams is doing his own thing. (By contrast, slavish devotion to source material ended up holding back the recent "Watchmen" movie, in my opinion.)

Besides, that I think there are plenty of signs of respect for the original series. I liked hearing the younger actors say things like, "I’m giving her all she’s got, Captain!" and "Damn it Jim, I’m a doctor not a _____." I also loved the fact that a random guy who gets killed was wearing red. Curiously, I thought most of the scenes featuring Nimoy as the original Spock were too cutesy by half.

In the end, the question I ask myself is, "What would be the point in redoing 'Star Trek' with these characters if everything was going to turn out the way it did before?" I like that I don’t know where Abrams and his team are going to take these characters. I’m certainly looking forward to finding out.

Star Trek...A-