The Monuments Men - Soldiers of Considerably Less Sorrow

The Monuments Men is one of those movies I had to take a bit of time to sort out my thoughts on. If nothing else, the one definite thing I will give this movie is that it's a great example of how release context can impact how a movie is received. I say this remembering how trailers had initially lined this movie up for a release initially during the holiday season - AKA, the prime awards time. This, in turn, had lead to some mixed impressions of the movie as being something of an Oscar bait movie- which admittedly, I could see the case for: a director with some good stand in the Academy, a strong cast, and World War II, which, horrible as it is to say, is kind of catnip for the Academy. Still, the concept was interesting enough that I was game to give it a chance regardless. Then, as things grew closer, the movie saw a shift in its release, being moved from a prime spot in the holiday season to the post-Awards hangover of January/February: a time of year somewhat notorious for being where studios dump their shelfwarmers they were ashamed to bring out before. This lead people to wonder, and grow a bit concerned.

This was partially explained when the movie opened to decidedly mixed reviews - not awful, but nothing particularly glowing.

To bring this point around, I honestly feel like the decision to withhold this movie till January/February was a smart move from a distribution standpoint. On having seen the movie, I was struck by the fact that, had I seen it amid the peak of what's meant to be the studio's best and brightest, I'd feel inclined to come down a LOT harder on it. Seen amid the frozen wastes of the year's starting line, I find myself considerably more lenient towards it.

Of course, that still doesn't completely tip the scales one way or the other, so let's get going, shall we?

The story is based in part on an actual operation during World War II- seeking to preserve much of the art and architecture of the countries in which the war was being waged. To guard from Hitler's cultural cleanse and the general destructive nature of combat, the US army assembled a special team of architects, artists and historians to go over and act as consultants in what buildings to avoid blowing up and to try and track down the art the Nazis confiscated. In the true style of old Hollywood, director George Clooney (who also appears as team member Frank Stokes) assembles an all-star cast to undertake this mission, including Matt Damon, John Goodman, Jean DuJardin, Bill Murray, and Bob Balaban.

"...OK, John. You caught me. I lied about this being a Coen Brothers reunion.
But you've gotta admit, that WOULD be pretty cool."

You can kind of see where the concerns of awards-bait might have come from at first.

This is the part where I feel a bit bad for the "but..." factor on this movie. I mean, the movie has a pretty fascinating premise, Clooney's certainly a solid director, and he's put together a great cast here. The problem is, the overall movie isn't the sum of its parts. Despite its interesting jumping off point, the movie suffers from a problem with staying focused. For as much as the title suggests the protection of old buildings, paired with the fact Bill Murray's character is chosen because he's an architect, the actual protection of buildings is almost an afterthought in this movie. Instead, the film concerns itself more with the art side of the mission, with two particular items as the objects sought out: Michaelangelo's Madonna and an altarpiece that maintains the closest thing to a continuous thread in the movie. Of course, that focus is, as the last part suggests, still somewhat tenuous. Despite the all-star cast put together for this team, they actually spend the bulk of the movie split up into teams investigating several leads across Europe. This then splits the movie into several mini-stories of varying quality (much as I enjoyed seeing Murray and Balaban play off of each other, their story is largely inconsequential but for one somewhat amusing moment where they get a lead entirely by chance.) Even what's supposed to be one of the main plotlines, involving Damon's character and a French collaborator played by an interesting but ultimately wasted Cate Blanchett, doesn't really add a whole lot to things. I was actually REALLY surprised this one didn't pan out to much, since it has a lot of potential - and to their credit, Damon and Blanchett have some interesting chemistry at first when he's still trying to convince her that America isn't planning to just steal the art back for their own collections. Like so many of the other stories in this, it's a lot of time spent for a minor clue that feels like it probably could have been tightened up or done away with - in this particular case, there's a pseudo-romance scene between the two that feels like it was never really earned, or that the film isn't even particularly invested in it. It's frustrating that there's some threads of a solid movie in here, but so much of it gets buried in a lot of fluff. The fluff isn't necessarily bad, but it's also somewhat disappointing.

It almost looks like something from a 50's sitcom.
...until you remember that they're looking at Nazi confiscation documents.

In the director's chair, Clooney's always been one for harkening back to the older style of Hollywood, and it has served him well before. In this case, however, that old time sensibility feels a bit out of place for the subject matter. Trying to do an old-style of World War II movie in a post-Saving Private Ryan age is a REALLY tricky act to pull without making your view of war seem idealistic or sanitized. George tries here, and I will give him that, but it really doesn't work too well for him on this outing. Even the moments that are supposed to strike an emotional chord with us - such as when the team loses a comrade, or when we see the Nazis torching artwork to keep it from falling into enemy hands often feel somewhat arbitrary in spite of themselves. A similar problem occurs with regards to maintaining an air of suspense in this movie: alongside the Nazis, one of the big looming threats this movie's trying to push is the invading Soviet army - where the Nazis seek to burn the art, the Soviets want to plunder it. It's not a bad idea narrative-wise, but the fact is, as far as the movie's concerned, it becomes more a matter of tell than show, and the most the Soviets do is drive up, look intimidating, and move on, lather, rinse, repeat. Even the Nazis themselves are, with two exceptions, almost a non-threat to this movie.

On top of all this, and most damning, is the fact that the movie's message is also infected by this lack of agency. The entire reason for the Monuments Men as a team is a good one - and the idea that art is an extension of a culture's voice and history is a great idea to explore, but this film never really touches on it that much, save for a speech by Clooney that pays the idea a bit of lip service. Otherwise, the movie's big concern is just 'get it before the Nazis do' and any greater statement is left for a later that never comes.

Probably the biggest surprise of this movie for me is the realization that Bob Balaban is actually surprisingly tiny.
...that's not just riffing on this picture. I mean in general, I had never really noticed just how short he is.

Bringing things back to the earlier point of the merits in holding this movie off, I do admit - had I seen this during the peak season, I'd probably be judging this one much harsher than I am now. Right now, its release during a lackluster time of year release-wise makes its failings less damning and more disappointing.

Of course, even outside of this time of year, disappointment is probably the best word for this movie. It was made with some very good components - a very promising story, a director with a solid track record, and a great cast. Unfortunately, at the center of it is a script that overextends itself without having enough cohesion to justify all those threads being thrown out. Rather than feeling like a full movie, it feels like it's flipping between vignettes from multiple other movies that sort of all blend together in the last act. Clooney makes the most of the script, but even his direction isn't at its best on this one either. It's the kind of movie I almost feel bad coming down on, since it had a lot of potential to be good, but it's weak enough in a critical area to really stop me from being able to say it works.

About the best I can do for it - to crib from another, better, WWII-related movie - is to drop the figurative hat on George's head and remind him: "you lost today, kid. That doesn't mean you have to like it."

(...yeah, I know. He's older than me. Humor me, the quote feels odd if I adjust it for proper ages.)

Anyway, going to be trying to weigh in on the Oscars for this year, though I admit, I'm still doing some extra research for that, so mileage will vary.

Till then, you've been warned!

Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow - We Noticed You're Still Alive

We'll have to fix that.

...oh, dammit! I was kidding!

Well, it's been a few days. After some considerable drinking, I've recovered from...that.

Sorry in the highly unlikely event anyone who's reading this liked that movie, but that has just gone on the list of the worst of all time. Not sure if it's #1, but damned if it isn't making a game effort for it.

Anyway, I have two others lined up for the next few days. Initially, this was going to be the later of the two reviews posted, but I needed something I knew I'd be happy with to wash that film out of my mouth. While the other film isn't awful, it wasn't going to be strong enough for this one.

With that, we now start entry #2 in the 35th Gundam anniversary writeups for this year. Within four months of the release of the first movie (there's a release turnaround you almost never see these days) Sunrise released the middle piece of their compilation trilogy for the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Like any good trilogy, this learns from some of the mistakes of its earlier film, and does try to build on them more. It still has a ways to go, but we're getting there.

That said, let's dive in.

Events-wise, this movie kicks off right where the first left off. We're given a brief montage complete with narration to bring everyone up to speed on the events before we start setting the scene for this movie This includes getting a more formal introduction to some of the antagonists, most notably Ramba Ral (Masashi Hirose) - the enemy ace who served Amuro a tasty curb sandwich at the end of the first movie, and M'Quve (originally voiced by the late Kaneto Shiozawa, and for the re-record played by Masahiko Tanaka.) From there, we jump back to the White Base where we last left them: knee-deep in enemy territory and trying to make their way to their own headquarters. It's a journey that makes up the bulk of this movie, and it's not an easy one for them: loyalties will be tested, friends will be made and lost, and the high cost of war will take its toll all around.
...you know, your classic Part 2 narrative escalation.

Yeah, it's a highly illegal move, but you've gotta admit, this would make fencing a LOT more interesting.

Like I said above, this film seems to have learned from some of the problems of the first movie in terms of pacing and time. There are still some stops and starts - for example, despite receiving a formal introduction, M'Quve really doesn't amount to much in this film. Given the movies skirt around a major battle that was included in the TV series( here only addressed in passing) where M'Quve was supposed to be the big antagonist, his role in this movie really only amounts to some passing 'this is what's going on in the rest of the world' narrative, and to serve to screw over Ramba Ral. This last part becomes the one real bit of character development he gets in these movies. His role is still a valid one in the overall story - highlighting the internal conflicts and self-serving officers in higher positions are eroding Zeon from within even as their enemies get stronger - but for his part, the movie renders him less a character and more a plot device. By comparison, Ramba Ral gets the bulk of the first chunk of the movie to highlighting him as a threat. Which makes sense - not only is he a fan favorite character, he's also the first time the crew really gets to see the face of the enemy in this version (the show has several one-off episodes that highlight this point, but they were all cut down in the interests of time.) In this regard, the film actually does a good job keeping a lot of his character intact. Further, this continuous plot arc holds together better than some of the more clear-cut transitions in the first movie. It's still not a perfect job, as there are still a few scenes where you can see the narrative stitch where an episode cut out. The section where a disillusioned Amuro deserts the ship and takes the Gundam with him is one of the biggest examples of this. They try to play it off better, but you can still imagine the 'cut to credits' moment, as the bridge  between the scenes doesn't quite take.

Well...screwing Ramba Ral over and a legacy of flamboyance in the eyes of the fanbase.

To be honest, I have a bit of a harder time holding the awkward bridges against this movie compared to the first film, thanks in large part due to the fact that  the span of story this movie is trying to cover is almost literally all over the place. While the first movie covers a large chunk of narrative ground, it's still a pretty contained chunk of story (making up roughly the first 12 episodes of the series, and even then cutting roughly 4 or 5 episodes worth of that out in the process.) It feels fairly contained location wise, too- first they escape from the colony, make a quick sidestop at Luna II, then it's off to Earth where the rest of the film plays out in the NA area. It feels a bit more cohesive as a three-act structure, even with the episodic start and stop. By comparison, this movie spans a good chunk of the globe more notably, going across Europe before its finale in South America. The changes in locale feel much more pronounced in this film, which further adds to the feeling of breaks in the plot.

It also helps that, even with the awkward breaks, the stories in this part are upping the ante to make up for it. As is often the case with second parts of a trilogy, this is the movie which aims to go darker, and it manages to do so in several places, sometimes better than the events within the series. In particular, there are two arcs that translate well for this - the first is involving secondary pilot Kai (Toshio Furukawa) who goes from being just a sarcastic support character in the first movie to actually getting his own arc here, which also serves to hit home just how this war is affecting civilians as well. While part of the climax of the arc can feel a little over the top by today's standards, the emotional payoff still hits surprisingly well, in no small part thanks to Furukawa's handling of the role. The other turn here is one of those elements where I actually feel the movies did one better over the TV series: without giving too much away, as mentioned above, the crew do experience some losses of their own. One of these is an arc that, within the TV series, makes for a REALLY awkward scene. While it makes sense to show just how much the crew member meant to everyone, the show's depiction of their reactions is almost comically over the top: EVERYONE breaks down bawling at the character's death, and I mean full on fall-to-your-hands-and-knees-crying-your-eyes-out grade bawling. It's well-intentioned, but laid on WAY too thick to really take seriously, and I think Tomino realized it, since the scene in the movies is a lot more reserved. Everyone is still clearly saddened and shaken up by it, but there's also still more of a sense of shock with it that resonates better. In general, the film has more emotional beats to work with, and mostly hits them accurately.

Even with some of the 70s narrative styles, that Kai subplot is still pretty damn depressing.

This movie also further highlights one other area the movies have an edge over the series by comparison in that there are certain elements of the story that get better addressed within this version of the story than they do in the series. In particular, the concept of Newtypes - a sort of psychic phenomenon that becomes particularly prominent near the end of the series, are introduced earlier here and more gradually developed than in the series, likely thanks to the fact they had the story already all laid out and could structure it in more easily. It's actually first introduced within the first movie in a conversation, but this is the movie where that concept really starts getting set up more, in particular in the suggestions that Amuro may be developing those abilities as he makes his way through the war. It's still relatively minor in this particular film, but given it's a major element of the third movie, it helps to have them setting the foundation for it up now.

Additionally, this marks the most prominent moments where the movies break away from the series - this is thanks to the fact that, rather than story being edited by virtue of omission, this movie marks where newly animated sequences were worked in in order to bring the story more in line with what Tomino originally had in mind. One of the most overt examples of this being rolled in mid-movie, when the original unit for Sayla (You Inoue) is changed from the more openly gimmicky and toyetic G-Armor of the TV series for the more plausible, and functional looking Core Booster (see below for comparison on both.) It's primarily an appearances case here, but it does also serve as the biggest tell that the movie is reworking parts of the series.

Before

After

As I said at the start, as a sequel, this movie shows it has learned from the shortcomings of its predecessor. It still has some problems, in this case partially a consequence of the sheer range of narrative they're covering, and the episodic format still betrays the movie, but, as with last time, they're at least trying to cover up the seams as much as they can. In this case, while some are still apparent, they've patched many others over fairly well, and this is in part thanks to the fact that the series was gaining more of an over-arching story by this point. By the time the crew reaches headquarters in Jaburo, the movie hits a pretty continuous stride that it maintains all the way to its finale - a somewhat more optimistic, but still memorable scene of the White Base returning to space set to Daisuke Inoue's 'Ai Senshi' (an incredibly catchy song whose translated lyrics are surprisingly dark considering the upbeat tune they're played to.) It doesn't have quite the same impact as the first movie's finale does, but after the rough ride the crew go through in this film, it's a refreshing note to close things on - the end may be in sight, and even though it's not going to be at all easy, they're at least on their way.

...you know, given how wrong this looks out of context, and how much the fandom has already joked about it, riffing this almost feels redundant.

So yeah, there are still a few fumbles, but it's still an overall better movie in terms of composition.

Next month it all pays off with the end of the original trilogy, Encounters in Space.

Of course, I've got a lot of other material lined up for you guys before that point in general reviews. So, once again, keep an eye out.

Till next time!

Tyler Perry and Jack Chick Present 'Temptation'

Boy, did I miss an opportunity here. When I was choosing the punishment movie of 2013, I had this movie on the docket- It was even one of the finalists. Instead, I opted for Movie 43 - a film that, to my surprise, Just bored me rather than angering me.

So I decided to tag Temptation for this year's unofficial wildly inappropriate Valentine's movie (after Fireproof (2012) and I Spit On Your Grave (2013), it's becoming a theme, alright?)

Had I known then what I know now, I would have given this one the punishment slot.

Now then...where to begin, where to begin...?

One of the biggest problems I'm having in this writeup is: what can I say about this movie that hasn't already been said? This has a LOT wrong with it - both technically and in terms of a message. In fact, I'd be willing to bet money some of you are reading this because you already know how downright horrible this movie is, but you still want to see me take a baseball bat to it.

In the event my suspicion is correct, I shall do my best not to disappoint.

Now then, in getting started on this, I will ask you indulge me on a bit of a digression. On his album My Weakness is Strong, standup comedian Patton Oswalt talks about his anxieties as an upcoming father - most notably his decision to scale back his use of certain substances. One of these he brings up is LSD - his concern is not that he'll physically harm the child, but rather that in an LSD-induced state, he'll cause the kid's first memories of him to be him rambling like a complete idiot. To underscore this point, he acts out an entire mock-rambling in which he explains to his hypothetical child about the secret conspiracy behind Lucky Charms cereal. The message the cereal is sending, he argues, in its symbols hidden in the wheat pieces and the marshmellows, is that the path to Christianity "which is no fucking fun," but is full of grain and will keep you healthy and regular and the path of paganism, which is bright and colorful, will rot your teeth and make you fat.

Why do I bring this up? Because the entire time I was watching this movie, I imagined this rambling. Except unlike Patton, who is using it as an example of him making an ass of himself in front of his child, this movie totally believes the message, without any drug assistance behind it.

Actually, I take it back - that would actually be MORE pleasant than the bill of goods this movie's trying to sell.

Temptation - Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, is the latest effort (as mentioned in the title) by writer-director-producer-sometimes actor Tyler Perry. Now, I'll admit, this is actually my first time taking on one of his films. He's a presence I've been aware of for a while - most notably for the fact that there is a considerable school of criticism about the fact his films tend to send some incredibly mixed messages regarding race and morality. In fact, it was hearing how badly this handled the latter that had me going "now THIS I've gotta see."

"Look on the bright side - sure, you're gonna make a load of crappy decisions over the course of this movie that will leave you alone and miserable, but when the credits roll, I'M gonna be the one the audience wants to see die screaming."

The movie is mostly told in flashback, recounting for us the story of Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) - an ambitious woman working for a high-profile matchmaking service. She's also happily married to her childhood sweetheart Brice (Lance Goss,) who works as the owner of a local pharmacy (his childhood dream, as the movie's intro tells us - so you know this guy's gotta be a nice guy.) One day, Judith's boss (Vanessa Williams, as one of the few people who seems to be trying to act in this - albeit with a bit of an odd accent) brings in a new client, a wealthy, charismatic (in theory), and somewhat short-fused client named Harley (Robbie Jones) who is apparently one of the top richest tech gurus out there. Judith gets assigned to work with him on the possibility of his investing in the company. He immediately takes a shine to her - and by shine, I mean he's rather overtly flirting pretty early on before it starts sliding into sexual harassment territory. Judith is at first shocked, but also intrigued - to this point, all her carnal knowledge has been limited to her husband (and watching HBO, as she assures us - buckle your seatbelt, the writing doesn't get any better form here.) Eventually, she caves and begins an affair with this smooth-talking playboy, who her mother (Ella Joyce) immediately pins down as the Devil himself. In true morality play fashion, Judith's life hits the skids so hard and so fast as to make the cast of Reefer Madness wonder what the Hell just blew past them.

Before I get into the problems with the story - which we could be at a while - there are two points in particular I'm gonna need to address about this movie, because I'm not gonna be able to look the other way on them otherwise.

First off, we have the acting in this. I feel kind of bad for hitting on this point. As many issues as he has, Perry IS one of the few directors out there who's getting black acting talent out there on the big screens to the extent that he is. On the other hand, I'm sure Perry could respect the idea that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions - and for however much good that casting does, the fact is, most of the cast in this movie are genuinely hard to commend in their roles. About the only people I can really say are doing much in the way of actual performing are Vanessa Williams, even if her character is mostly just an exposition device, Ella Joyce, who, to her credit, is trying to actually make the most of a character that the movie can't seem to really decide how it wants us to view her, and to an extent, Brandy Norwood as a new hire at Brice's pharmacy who provides the final clues to set up the film's climax. In Norwood's case, it's a bit of a split - she manages to handle some scenes fairly well, while underselling the urgency in others. The rest of the cast, meanwhile, are just underselling all around.

I suppose, if one REALLY wanted to, they could pitch this as the incredibly dark sequel to Moesha...but why would you want to give this thing a further reason to exist?

Well, OK, that's not fair to all of the cast - there are a few who are actually doing even worse. In particular, I'd just like to say I'm really pulling for Kim Kardashian to take this year's Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress for her work on this movie. She's pulled off something I didn't think was possible - I genuinely loathed her character within the first minute she was on-screen. About the only other person that really stands out worth much of anything in this ensemble is Renee Taylor as the movie's token white at Brice's pharmacy - a role that mostly amounts to some misfired comic relief that leads me to wonder if Perry had initially written this role for his Madea character, then decided it would be for the better to leave her out of a work he was clearly trying to sell as a serious drama. ...Not that this stops him from still leaving in an iteration of the comic relief old woman anyway.

Of course, I do have to cut the cast some slack here. Most of them, anyway - Kardashian's still just awful all around on this one - it doesn't help that her character is basically just a shallow enabler who goads on most of Judith's bad decisions, but the fact is, one could still at least get a passable performance with that if they actually tried. The fact is, they're all trying to make do with a cast of characters that, at best are boring or confused, at worst, outright horrible. Before we even get into the nature of the characters, I should probably start by saying this has some of the worst dialogue I've seen in a movie since - appropriately enough - Smiley. Alongside the above-referenced nugget about HBO, this movie is riddled with some incredibly painful dialogue that feels like it was written by someone who doesn't understand how people interact. Besides the fact that there are many scenes where dialogue is essentially bound to the purpose of being an information dump - either dumping out characters' backstories, or putting their emotions front and center cause emoting is hard- some of these conversations are just mind-boggling in their implication that people genuinely converse about these things. Even if Kardashian's role were being played by someone else, her scenes would likely still be pretty insufferable simply by virtue of the fact that, again, her character's sole purpose in life is to be an incredibly shallow version of a Magic 8-Ball that gives you crappy life advice. If I actually tried to put together a reel of some of the more standout bad dialogue this movie has to offer, I'd probably get in legal trouble, since it would likely amount to just uploading the bulk of the movie as is.

Maybe that's a bit harsh - but seriously, I kind of want to give these actors a medal for being able to get some of these lines out with a straight face.

Now's probably the best time to finally take the plunge into the biggest stumbling block of this movie - it's incredibly muddled and altogether problematic message.

One of the biggest problems this movie has is that what it's saying with its moral, and what the movie itself is saying in its depiction come across as two ultimately different things. For starters, let's take a look at the characters the movie wants us to view as good: Brice means well enough as a character, and to his credit, Goss does try to make what moments he has as a good guy work - but the fact is, the movie also tries to make him fit the boring side in order to justify Judith's being lured by forbidden fruit. As a result, Brice comes across less as a well-intentioned guy who came up short, and more like the black Ned Flanders. He's depicted as such an upright citizen it's almost maddening - no matter what he's going through, be it heartbreak, rage, or disbelief, he just trucks along with a weird sort of stoicism that would make Job look and go "Come on, dude. REALLY?" Even when he DOES finally give in to his anger in the film's climax, it's such an uninspired moment that it's hard NOT to get mad at him for only being as peeved as he is. Meanwhile, as the closest thing this movie has to a moral compass, Joyce's Miss Sarah is depicted as dancing the borderline between a voice of reason and a religious zealot. She's technically right in that she's the only one who seems to realize Harley is an absolute jackass - but it's delivered through a filter that reads as a dialed down version of Mrs. White from Carrie. Therefore we have a harder time being able to take her warnings as actually credible- which, in some ways, highlights one of the bigger problems with this movie.

I actually might find him a bit more tolerable if he DID also end all of his sentences in '-iddely'. Not much more, but it WOULD help.

Meanwhile, as the protagonist of this movie, Judith is in a particularly uncomfortable spot as far as the overall movie is concerned. I've tried to give Perry the benefit of the doubt and looked at this first part from a few angles, and every time, I keep coming back to the same uncomfortable conclusion that this movie seems to want to hit home: the biggest crime that Judith is guilty of is being a woman who isn't satisifed. That's really all she's done wrong here. The sad part is, based on how Brice is written and portrayed, I can kind of see why she is. The fact is, he's a very stagnant character in a lot of ways - he got his dream, and as far he's concerned, that's enough for the both of them. That Judith should have any sort of interest in pursuing her own goals is seen as unusual, and the big reason why Harley is able to get his proverbial claws into her. Even Brice's attempts to make things better don't exactly help matters - yeah, he's a nice guy, but the film never really seems to make him actually attempt to understand her. Again, his logic seems to be "I got mine, what's your problem?" Further adding to this incredibly problematic depiction is how Perry chooses to actually have Judith and Harley's relationship start. There's really no way to sugar coat this point - he effectively rapes her.
That's right.
It's out in the open now.
AND SHE STILL GOES BACK TO HIM.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't fight the urge to punch my laptop screen when THAT came about. Making it even better/worse is the fact that nothing's ever said of it after. Sure, we make much of the fact Harley's a drug user and quite abusive all-around, but the fact that he rapes Judith is really just like the, to make a reference to the movie Heavy Metal, moving violation at the end of his criminal charges. Further adding to the frustration is the fact that Judith never really seems to feel any conflict about matters. Even when Harley calls her for what's really a straight-up booty call while she's at home with her husband and mother, she gets talked into leaving with almost no effort. She commits herself alarmingly fully to a man who, despite her repeated attempts to rebuke, winds up raping her. There is no way you can NOT make this a problematic message. If anything, I'm actually surprised this film didn't get met with MORE controversy on its release. Particularly for one other point I'll be getting to in a spoiler cut at the end - one which I'm willing to bet most of you can already guess.

The notion of 'personal space' is apparently a myth in this movie. Or at least a convenience, since they really don't seem to pay this scene too much mind after it's over.

Really, this is just a very special breed of bad movie. Yes, it has many general classic hallmarks of bad cinema in general - the dialogue is awkward and almost laughable at points, the acting is confused and listless or outright annoying, depending on the actor, and the direction, while not bad, is pretty unambitious. Instead, the movie's faults lie in its very skewed moral views, which seem to class 'goodness' as factors of gender and social standing (while perhaps not as overt, there IS a bit of a 'rich people are evil' subtext to this that feels rather clunky in how cliche it is, though that's still a distant second to the movie's pretty unsettling message about women.) Probably the biggest problem here is, the movie is asking its protagonist to choose between two options that, as the movie presents them, are both pretty horrible: Brice is well-meaning enough, but he's made so morally spotless as to be bland. Even Judith's attempts to revitalize their marriage are pretty readily shot down by him. It's hard NOT to blame her for feeling bored. At the same time, the only other option the movie gives her is a short-tempered sociopath, and she gets hints of this pretty early on. The entire time, the movie never seems to entertain the notion that neither of these two may actually be good for her, and instead treats her eventually winding up alone as losing it all. I realize Perry is very informed by a Christian background in his films, but in this case, the message he's sending is rather alarming - and I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it a bit of a relief that people didn't buy into it.

Huh...this wasn't quite as venomous as I expected the write-up would be. Cause I'll be honest, this movie really is just...exasperating in how utterly repulsive the message it sends is.

Now then, before we get to the last REALLY problematic point in the spoiler guard, I'll say unto those who wish to avoid the spoilers: keep an eye out. Got two more reviews lined up for this week.

Till then!

The Spoils of Babylon - Because Sometimes I Watch Things Outside of Film

As the title suggests in part, this is born out of one of those times where I decide to take on something from the world of television (not a first for me as last year's Christmas special writeup showed. Plus that made for TV movie version of Les Miserables back during Summer Reading if you want to count it.)

In this particular case, I had promised to give this one a writeup after it completed its short run.

That said, as I sit down to compose my thoughts on this show, I'm struck by a discussion that occurred within the last year or so. Comedian/critic Doug Walker had done a video, and subsequently some convention panels/discussions on the notion of parody as a viable means of entertainment. One of the big talking points was whether or not the rather crassly commercial wave of '* Movie' films, designed to stripmine pop culture on the cheap to drum up just enough interest to cash in on their opening weekend, were a sign that parody was becoming a dying form of humor. There was a lot of discussion from all camps, with people bringing up everything from the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy to the numerous 'Abridged' joke series going on the web. The consensus seemed to be mixed overall, but largely deciding that, while the age of the head-on style genre roast a la Airplane! or Blazing Saddles may be in a lull, parody in general is still quite alive and kicking in other forms.

Which brings us to Eric Jonrosh's The Spoils of Babylon: a six-episode series made as a co-op between Funny or Die and IFC. When this was first advertised, I really wasn't sure what to make of it. It seemed like a comedy, but it was still delivering itself with enough of a straight face to make one question it at first. It wasn't until the show got closer to release and more information came out that I became interested in giving it a look. In no small part because the premise reminded me of the earlier British series Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (which, in its own right, is a wonderfully bizarre riff on 80s British television, horror shows, and the laughably egomaniacal author at the center of it all.)
In this case, rather than riffing on low-budget British horror television, IFC aimed its guns both higher and (relatively) more obscure: firing a warning shot across the bow of the old big-budget all-star miniseries that reigned supreme in the 70s and 80s (Think The Thorn Birds or North and South). Like Darkplace, Spoils of Babylon starts and ends each episode with an appearance by fictional author Eric Jonrosh: Will Ferrell does a scenery gnawing impression of the later years of the life of Orson Welles, a persona that's entertaining enough in his own right. The story Jonrosh puts together is a mishmash of melodrama archetypes. What results could almost be summed up as "What would happen if we sat Douglas Sirk down with a crack pipe and a copy of The Thorn Birds?" Family legacies, forbidden love, changing eras, drug abuse, and children born out of wedlock fly fast and loose over the show's six episode span (trimmed down from what Jonrosh claims to be his original 22 hour cut.)

Somehow, this image just on its own perfectly sums up the fake feeling they're trying to evoke.

As is often the case in parodies, while the script in itself can be funny, this is another example where the bulk of the humor lies in its execution. First and foremost is in the cast on this . They, within the show's wonderfully skewed directorial style - which we'll be getting to next - all play their roles in such a way that they can enjoy playing up the overacting, but also still keep within the framework of the project. Despite how over the top the production gets, and he has his share of moments, Tobey Maguire actually tends to become the comic straight man in many scenes. To his credit, he can deliver the laughs when needed, and to be able to keep to the straight man role in a show like this is an accomplishment in and of itself. Next to him, much of the rest of the cast get to have a bit more freedom to make with the insanity - none more than Kristen Wiig as his adopted sister/lover/rival (...it gets complicated.) Wiig starts the show at a bit of a restrained pace, but come the end of the first episode, she cuts the brake cables and handles the rest of the series playing up the over-the-top craziness with a manic energy that no one else quite manages to match, despite some VERY game attempts. Next to Wiig, the two biggest standouts here are, appropriately, also the other two major members of the story's main family. As the patriarch in the first few episodes, Tim Robbins, like Maguire, tends to be in the straight man role more than the comedic role. But he still sneaks some great laughs in with the more understated reactions to the craziness around him. Also, I have to give him some extra points for keeping to one joke introduced on the sly in the first episode and staying with it for the entirety of his run (when introducing the cast, as different actors, Jonrosh assures us that despite Robbins's character being played by a British actor, he does a very convincing American accent - which then leads to Robbins slipping into British during random scenes.) The other standout, rounding out the clan, is Haley Joel Osment as Maguire and Wiig's bastard offspring (like I said, complicated.) Osment's Winston definitely takes after his mother, playing up the gleeful crazy. In particular, his fight with Wiig in episode 5 is one of the best continuous laughs of the show's run. After having been out of the limelight for a while, it's safe to say that, while Osment's days as the lead may have passed, he's actually shaping up to have a fairly promising career in comedy if he plays his cards right.

...okay, so there's also Maguire's British wife played by a voiced-over mannequin.
...and yes, they DO have a love scene together. It's very likely as crazy on screen as it may be in your heads right now.

Alongside the cast, the other area where this show really sticks to its story is in the direction. As we're first lead into this opus, Jonrosh assures us that it's a high profile project that he pulled out all the stops on. In turn, Matt Piedmont's actual direction runs on the idea that Jonrosh was full of crap. The show is laced with all sorts of examples of carefully orchestrated directorial ineptitude that lead to some great laughs. A strong example of this is in the second episode, where a frustrated Robbins starts repeatedly slapping a hysterical Wiig. Piedmont turns the scene into a continuity nightmare, with the two cast members changing shots and positions with each slap, before concluding it on a hilariously understated tap. Further, the sheer number of different directorial tricks the show plays with, often deliberately failing at them (a fake use of classic 3-D in the third episode is another prize winner here) lends more to the sense that Piedmont knows exactly what he's doing and has done it VERY well.

I just want to state for the record, I didn't alter this image in any way beyond resizing it for the blog. Time has NOT been kind to Mr. Osment.
Still, like I said above, he's got a sense of humor at least.

It's actually a bit odd for me to be praising some of this, since as a general rule, I've usually been of the mind that you can't force bad. I've seen many other productions try to do so bad it's good and just fall on their faces. I think the difference here is, this isn't so much a pure 'so bad it's good' but rather the crappy elements further adding to the joke at the center of all of this that is Eric Jonrosh. All the time, Ferrell plays him as a man who believes himself to be a misunderstood genius and-even after we find out his miniseries is (by design, and yet not) overacted, shoddily directed, and riddled with (most damning for him) some of the most laughably bad prose this side of Battlefield: Earth- he still continues to buy into his own perceived greatness. It's like an insane and slightly drunk variant of a Matroska doll. Rather than just being a straight-up 'look at this deliberately bad production we made' project, The Spoils of Babylon makes it slightly more ambitious, making the ineptitude part of a larger mechanism - rather than being the entire joke, the failure is also a reflection on the wine-soaked ego of its fictional author.

and now, as Jonrosh would himself say it best "when the wine is gone, it's time to leave."

I'll likely be attempting a bit more work along this line in the future. For now, don't worry, next will be a straight-up film writeup again.

Till then.

Mobile Suit Gundam Movie I - It's Another Semi-Theme, Bear With Me.

Like the title suggests, yeah. This is part of a semi-theme this year. As I'd mentioned last year in my pre-gaming for Pacific Rim, I'm a fan of Japan's Gundam franchise. It's been through a lot of ups and downs, but it's still overall a fairly enjoyable ride for me.

Also, this year marks the 35th anniversary of the original series debut in Japan. After which, it's still trucking (...hey, it's not that weird - look how long Star Trek and Doctor Who have been going.)

So I figured, for the 35th anniversary, it would be fun to do something for it on here. Naturally, a full coverage wasn't gonna work. We'd be looking at several 50 episode shows to watch and review, and while I like writing this blog, that's kind of pushing the reasonable limit. Then I got to thinking, to this point, they have safely passed twelve on the movies. Now, Gundam and films admittedly have had kind of a tumultuous relationship with fans. While they can have some strong points - in fact, one of the high points of the franchise is one of the movies that will be getting covered later - there is a pretty consistent tendency towards issues with trying to tell a larger story in the span of a feature. But we'll be addressing that point on a case by case basis.
So, with a mix of compilation films and some straight-to-feature stories, I'll be covering one installment for each month this year (and yes, I realize this one's cutting it close.)

So yeah, this isn't going to be as target intensive as the Halloween writeups or last month's MST3k blitz, but it's gonna be a recurring theme all the same, so you know.

Now then, let's start out at the obvious jumping off point.

But first - a history lesson!
We're gonna go back in time here. The year is 1979. I'm not even at zygote phase yet, and I imagine that goes for several of you readers too. Enter Japanese director, and depending who you ask in his later years, eccentric madman Yoshiyuki Tomino. At this point, after working in supporting roles on several series, he was now fresh off his first two full time jobs as head director on projects (Zambot 3 and Daitarn 3, respectively.) The two titles, in particular the former, established his reputation for wanting to tweak some of what you could do with Japanese giant robot entertainment. In 1979, in one of these attempts, he struck gold. The original Mobile Suit Gundam, a militaristic reskin of the giant robot formula partially inspired by Heinlein's Starship Troopers, makes its debut. For the time of its release, the show is a considerable change in what's out there. And, like many such shows of its time, it does badly. The show is cancelled with nine episodes left to go.

Then along comes merchandise...or, more accurately, along comes merchandise that actually manages to sell compared to the first batch. Bandai takes over, bringing plastic model kits to the show's offerings, and they sell like hotcakes. Alongside this, the show also gains a second life in reruns.

Like Star Trek before it, the title is reborn out of the ashes as a new hit.

Planning to capitalize on this, Sunrise animation studios set to work on a new project to cash in on the renewed interests - recutting the series into a trilogy of compilation movies, with new sequences to remove some of the more toyetic designs pushed by sponsors and replace some of the dodgier sequences of animation in the original series. The latter of which got bad enough at points as to result in Tomino calling for an episode to be removed from the run when it was released to the US in the early 2000s.

Anyway, jump to circa 1981. The first movie comes out in theaters, to great success.

Which brings us to now...

The Mobile Suit Gundam movies are kind of an odd bird as compilation movies go. Most often, compilation movies exist with the fans as their main target. Which sounds like it should be a no brainer, but after you watch enough debates over whether these movies are substitutes for just watching the show, it does bear repeating. With this in mind, many compilation movies tend to have a track record to play more like a highlights reel than an actual film. In this regard, the Gundam trilogy is one of the compilations that actually comes the closest to really being able to stand alone as movies in their own right.
That said, I'd still advocate giving the series a shot if you can, but these are at least less likely to be confusing as Hell if you've never seen the show before.

The story is, in some regards, classic space opera with some tweaks - it's a far future known as the Universal Century. Humanity has moved out into giant orbiting space colonies. Things go fairly smoothly for the first century or so...but where's the story in that? In the mid 0070s, a movement for colonial independence starts on one of the colony clusters, declaring themselves the Principality of Zeon. In a few years, war has broken out, with Zeon leveling the playing field with the development of mobile suits - piloted giant robots (yeah, it's a bit silly. It was the 70s!) By the time the story begins proper, it is nearing the end of UC 0079, and a neutral colony is being used as a testing ground for the Earth Federation (the acting government) developing their own mobile suits. A Zeonic recon team gets wind of this project, and one short-tempered pilot launches an attack. Enter our hero, introverted civilian Amuro Ray (voiced by Tohru Furuya) who, by a mix of chance and skewing the trope of piloting the robot your parents designed, becomes the pilot of the Federation's new prototype - the titular Gundam. He fends off the attack, but not before the colony takes heavy damages. What follows is the journey that he and a crew of soldiers and fellow refugees, fleeing aboard the Federation carrier White Base undergo trying to survive being thrown into a vicious war that has already seen half the human race wiped out.

 Because the point bears visual aids...

Some VERY 70's visuals

There's a lot of other plot points I could discuss, but that about hits the main overview.

Which actually kind of hits well on a point that is both a strength and a weakness for this movie. Like I said before, a lot of compilations, when they aren't going full reboot, operate less as a movie and more as a refresher for someone who's already seen the show - maybe offering some new touches as a treat for the fans. In this regard, Mobile Suit Gundam I is a movie that actually feels like a movie for the most part - it genuinely feels like it's trying to give you as complete a story as possible within the movie format. As a result of this, it also means this trilogy tends to run longer than most compilations, each of the three parts is a solid two hours and roughly twenty minutes each. The plus here is obvious, it's a good effort at being as comprehensive as possible (albeit you do still lose some elements of the characters as sacrifices for time...again, I'd still say if these movies do it for ya, give the show a try.)
The weakness here is, well...each movie has a LOT in it. This doesn't make them complicated per se, but it does leave the movies feeling rather bloated in terms of content. Content that, unfortunately, doesn't always gel particularly well. Individual story arcs still hold up quite well, and while this movie doesn't have as much new material as the later installments, it does still manage the plot on a chapter-by-chapter basis well. The problem is in putting it all together. This is one of those moments where the movie really makes it clear it was based on a serialized television show - the entire pace of this movie feels episodic, with each arc just closing itself down and opening right into the next. Rather than feeling like the traditional compilation where it feels like the whole show is being kept on scene skip, this more feels like watching several episodes stitched together with their openings and endings removed. Despite their best efforts, you can still place where episodes cut off for the most part. In the second half, they do make a bit more of an effort to smooth the transitions, but even those only help just so far. As a result, the movie has something of a jerky start-stop-start flow.


This is a shame because, otherwise, this actually works fairly well as a standalone movie: The cast, while losing some of their full profiles, all still get decent enough introductions and characterization, the world building still does well enough that a newcomer won't be too thrown off, and for its time, the movie's technicals are quite nicely done. In particular, this time around I was actually surprised to realize that this movie did a better job of editing around the more low-budget animation than I had initially remembered. A few problematic bits still leak through, and trust me, you WILL be able to spot them, but for the most part, the movie does a decent job of working around them. On the rewatch, I also have to admit, there are some particular sequences within this movie that are quite well directed. Probably one of the strongest moments, and this is one that really stuck out for me this time, is how the first movie chooses to leave itself off. After the crew of the White Base survive a particularly vicious attack by one of Zeon's aces - who becomes more prominent in the second movie - they are all gathered on the bridge for a news broadcast. The broadcast is a speech by Zeon's de facto leader, Gihren Zabi (Banjou Ginga, in a role that, while minor, he plays to the hilt,) for what is supposed to be eulogy for his brother, he whips it into a propaganda speech, making his brother into a martyr for the cause. The sequence on its own is a well laid out and acted sequence, but the standout in direction is the very end of the scene. After the speech, the crowds have broken down into fervor that the crew of the White Base react to in varying degrees of silence or disgust. The movie ends with them taking off once more, as we still hear the crowds in the broadcast chanting "Sieg Zeon!" over and over (yeah...Tomino was part of the anti-nationalist school of thought that came out of post-World War II Japan.) It's a simple sequence, but the message behind it is really the best way to cap off this installment - yes, they've won a few battles, but the war is far from over, and the crew still have a long road ahead of them before they can even hope to settle. The dialogue in the last moments is almost an afterthought, as that scene really sells the ominous ending of the movie perfectly.

Sorry to disappoint you guys, but you're not exactly gonna be breaking new ground by invoking Godwin's Law on this one.

As far as the acting - well, that's a bit of an odd point here. The version I had to work with, rather than the original 1981 audio track, was a version Sunrise put together back in 2000, with most of the core cast reprising their roles. As such, by this point, they're all quite comfortable in their parts, and by now many are established veterans in the field of voice acting. To their credit, it's also impressive in another regard that, almost twenty years later, the cast can all still reprise their parts as well as they do. In particular Furuya and Shuuichi Ikeda as lead roles Amuro Ray and his rival, Char Aznable.
For those who aren't too sure they want to try their luck with subtitles, an English dub of the films DOES exist, but I warn you now - it is a VERY dated dub now. As a first indication, let me just say if you wish to own a copy of the dub, your only chance is to hunt down the old VHS release. As a result, it's akin to dubs like the old Streamline dub of Akira - awkward sounding voices and some utterly headscratching rewrites of dialogue. In this case, you can look forward to some rather awkward accents (to this day, no one I've talked to has been able to figure out what they were going for with Sayla) and some lines that, despite this show's attempts to play the genre a bit more seriously, insert some extra, for lack of a better term, silliness (besides the seeming inability to pronounce 'Gundam', they add in lines like discussing Zeon's 'roboton invaders.')
Admittedly, it's still interesting to give a look as a sort of time capsule into what older dubs was like, but just warning you - if you go this road, here there be cheese. Well aged cheese at that.

Ma'am, we'd be happy to meet your demands, but we can't understand what the Hell you're saying in this version.

In all, the first Mobile Suit Gundam movie is a bit of a mixed blessing. It definitely feels like more attention was put into it as a movie than, say, the earlier Space Battleship Yamato movie, or even some of the later compilations in Gundam's own library. Unfortunately, it's still trying to take roughly twenty hours of footage and boil it down to a ballparked seven. For what it has to work with, it's still a pretty serviceable retelling, but it can be rough goings at points thanks to the fact the narrative doesn't really flow consistently. The movie tries to amend that, but the ghost of it is still there.
Otherwise, it's still a surprisingly well-aged movie for what it has to work with.
I'd still advocate giving the series a chance if you wind up liking the movies, just understand now: this is still gonna take a while to get going.

Also, because it's an elephant in the room that's gonna need to get addressed: yes, chances are if you've seen enough anime, there's parts of this that are going to look familiar/cliche. That's the rub of being one of the influential titles - yes, you get to see where everyone got the things from, but it also means that, when you see them employed for the first time, you take for granted how unique they were at the time they were first employed. It's not enough to completely destroy the experience, but I figure it's something best nipped in the bud now before we go into the next two movies.

"Yeah, my dad made it. This was how everyone got one back in the day..."

With that, getting the first in under the wire.

Will be back on regular schedule next week, and will have Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow for you guys sometime next month.

Till then!

Frozen - It's Kind of Sort of a Little of a Disney Movie (...It's a Good Thing)

Well, as anyone up in the Northeast knows, two weekends back saw snow. Quite a bit.

I was meeting up with my girlfriend and we figured, hey, why not see a movie?

At that point, we were looking at two options: The Wolf of Wall Street or Frozen. Now, I will admit, cheeky fuckery DID give the latter an edge already. But to be honest, the reason we went with that came down to, at least for me, two big points:

1) she has already see The Wolf of Wall Street, so this way it was a new film for the both of us (for the record, she was fine with seeing it again. Just got asked to clarify that.)

2) I'm still gonna see The Wolf of Wall Street regardless. But that's also a film I can go into solo and not have anyone bat an eye. Anyone who knows me knows if someone looking like me walks solo into a movie like Frozen, the theater's staff are gonna be like "Keep tabs on that guy. Something's wrong here."

...I guess that's my roundabout way of saying that, yes, there will likely be a review for The Wolf of Wall Street here soon, and that, as the title suggests, today I'm reviewing Frozen.

This was a movie that I went into kind of unsure what to make of it. I mean, the promos seemed kind of vague, outside of the fact I felt like Olaf the snowman was gonna get old REALLY fast. Still, the film had been generating enough fairly positive buzz I figured it could be worth giving a shot. To my surprise, this surpassed what I was expecting. In fact, this film really feels like Disney is starting to try and shake off a lot of the more dated conventions that have become such common practice that they're practically punchlines. In fact, the center story at this is really surprising to see coming from Disney in some regards for how much it breaks from their traditions. Of course, it does have some of those more tried cliches that DO kind of hurt it. Not so much because they're cliches, but because they REALLY clash with everything else in the film.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The story on this one is part of the traditional Disney style - it's a variation on one of the classic children's stories: Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen (to Disney's credit, at least this time it's a story that's unlikely to inspire a flood of "The Original Story Was MUCH Darker" articles that others have tended to inspire. Yes, I like those bits of trivia as much as the next person, but after hearing them enough times it gets tiresome.) I stress variation here, because they actually put the story through a considerable rewrite, for the better arguably. Most notably, the titular character, who they had initially written as an antagonist, was given an overhaul that makes for one of the more interesting themes of this story.

From the start, we're introduced to our two protagonists, sister Anna and Elsa (voiced as kids by Livvy Stubenrauch and Eva Bella, and for the majority of the movie by Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel) Elsa, we learn, was born with the ability to control ice and snow, which sounds like a REALLY cool ability at first, until you start having problems controlling it. Long story short, there's an accident that nearly kills Anna. This drives their well-intentioned (Editor's note: incredibly stupid and filled with fail), if not particularly smart parents to do two questionable things: for Anna, they consult with the local trolls (yes, trolls) who decide it's for the best if Anna has any memory of her sister's powers taken away. For Elsa, seeing as there is no period equivalent of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, they opt for isolation while trying to encourage her to suppress her powers. Again, not exactly the smartest way to go - especially since they don't even live to see the end of the prologue. One song-fueled time skip later, both sisters have lived in utter seclusion (but family friendly seclusion, so the closest they come to any sort of madness is the fact Anna has a relationship with common sense that's about as close as her current relationship with her parents.) Elsa is finally of age to ascend the throne, so the kingdom is opened up and all manner of other countries are coming for the coronation. For a girl who has a hard time controlling her powers when she's nervous, you can just tell THIS will end well. On top of this, Anna's ongoing war with common sense rears its head when she meets and is wooed by Prince Hans (Santino Fontana), every bit the classic Disney prince archetype. She locks horns with Elsa who, understandably, questions what her sister's been huffing to want to marry a man she's just met. Things get tense and Elsa's powers are revealed to the world.

It's okay. No biggie. This happens. Well...except for the part where she accidentally invokes George R.R. Martin-grade winter.

Determined to correct the mistake, Anna heads off to find her sister and try and set everything right. Casting a lot in with her is ice merchant and the film's designated comic straight man Kristoff (Jonathan Groff,) and Olaf (Josh Gad) a talking snowman who, thanks to marketing, you're going to know whether you want to or not.

Dressing For Inclement Weather - The Right Way and The Wrong Way.

Well, that was probably a bit more a primer than was necessary, but the groundwork is about all laid out there.

Like I said before, I will admit - this movie largely surprised me. I mean, yeah, at its core it still has several of the Disney elements to it, but at the same time, this also broke away from the format in several key ways. This is thanks in no small part to the script by Jennifer Lee, who, as trivia goes, is the first woman to direct a feature length Disney animated film (as well as the first to write one solo.) While there are a few minor slipping points - which we'll be coming to soon - this has a strong concept at its heart. Though the film does loosely toy with a romantic storyline in a very fleeting sense, the core of this story is focused on the relationship between Anna and Elsa as sisters. With this as the lynchpin, the movie carries itself with a surprising degree of maturity. This is further added to by the performances from Bell and Menzel, who, though only acting through voices, still convey quite a degree of emotion, both speaking and singing.

With a look here that seems to say "Let's mess with the Internet on this one..."

On this note, I do have to give this movie some extra brownie points for the fact it did take one very good page from Disney's earlier playbook: fact that the voice cast isn't there just to be big names for the movie's draw. Going back to some of their earlier styles, much of this movie's cast are actually Broadway alumni, which also grants the bonus of them being able to both act and sing their parts. This may seem like a minor thing, but personally, I've got some strong feelings about how underappreciated voice acting tends to be these days. So when a film like this actually does take it seriously, I automatically give them some extra bonus for that.

I realize we're in an age where, culturally, darker, edgier reboots are what sell. Still, this Frosty the Snowman updates feels like we may be scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas.

As far as the above-mentioned music goes, the film isn't bad. I'm not sure it's necessarily one of the all time greatest of the great as Disney scores go (especially thanks to something that, again, will be coming up shortly) but it does still have its share of good tracks in it. In particular, the Oscar buzz for 'Let It Go' is merited, as it is easily the most memorable song the movie has going for it. Which also makes it a little surprising realizing it's the only full song Menzel has. For her Broadway chops, it almost feels like underutilizing her. Then again, one could argue it's better to have one REALLY good track to your credit than a few okay ones, so I'll take the trade.

The biggest drawbacks of the movie, as partially mentioned above, are the areas where the movie still retains a couple of the more problematic tropes that have created the Disney stereotype. The first of these-and the more prominent- is the character Olaf. Now, there seems to be a lot of split sentiments with regards to Olaf among viewers and critics. While there is a lot of acknowledgement that he could be a very trying and somewhat shoehorned character, there are also many who have argued him to be one of the show-stealing elements of the movie. Personally, I can't say I agree with that sentiment. At the same time, however, I can't say I fully hate the character so much as I feel like he feels like a rather awkward fit within the movie. The one thing that really does give Olaf much of an edge, at least to me, is the performance by Josh Gad. Thanks to his contribution, the role doesn't feel as awkward as it could, and a few of the jokes sell in large part thanks to his delivery. Though I have to admit, it WAS very odd when he first appeared in the movie, since when Olaf spoke, I just heard Elder Arnold Cunningham from The Book of Mormon. Suffice it to say, that in a Disney movie feels no less than ten different brands of wrong and two different varieties of "How do I edit this together?" So it's not enough of a problem to hurt the movie, but I don't find myself in agreement with a lot of the assessment of him being a high point to the film. The other big drawback, and this is one it seems a lot of people are in agreement on, is with regards to one of the song numbers. Anyone who's seen the movie already knows which I'm talking about. Now, on their own, I didn't think the trolls were bad characters. In fact, they provide couple of decent chuckles, and they're used just enough to not be overloaded. Except for their song. It's a poor piece not just cause it's not a particularly catchy tune to begin with, but also because you can practically hear the clank as it sets to work railroading the movie's romantic subplot forward. Which is especially a shame since, the song aside, the romantic subplot is actually handled with a very light touch. Said light touch is a pretty welcome change from Disney's usual style, and for this story, it feels more natural to have it being a side element that ends with more of a "maybe" than making it a front and center definite piece like this song number tries to force. The movie does manage to dial back after this, but for those few minutes, it got kind of painful to go through.

"...and there's a whole song in it about telling God 'Fuck you!' and it won a whole bunch of Tony Awards! Pretty cool, huh?"

Overall, I can't say this movie disrupted my previously established top ten of 2013. It's certainly not a bad movie on its own, mind you. In fact, for Disney, this is showing a lot of promise for where they can go from here. It's more just the fact that, compared to some of the other offerings, it doesn't really shoot above and beyond other competition from last year is all. On its own though, it's still quite entertaining as Disney fair goes, and has me interested in seeing if this is a sign of something new on the horizon for the company.

And now, I am going to discuss one last point on this movie, but this one gets into a spoiler area. For those who haven't seen it, now's the time to turn around and walk the other way after the closing paragraph just below. For those who have...stick around after the closer and Simon Pegg's warning face.

Well, that marks the first official writeup for this year. I've got at least one more lined up before the end of the month. So keep an eye out!

The 2013 PostMortem Special The Final - 2013's Deleted Scenes

This is the second year of this feature. These are the miscellaneous thoughts that, for some reason or other, didn't become full articles. Often either a mix of life intervening, or the full thing just not feeling like a satisfactory article.

This one isn't quite as extensive as last year's, in part because several ideas I would otherwise call deleted I'm actually tagging for future writeups. They haven't happened yet, but I don't want to give up on them.

In the meantime, these are the ones that, to use the Frank Herbert reference, not only tried and failed but tried and died.

...actually, on that note, let's take this moment to look back everyone we lost over the past year.

-Marcia Wallace

-Eileen Brennan

-Paul Walker

-Karen Black

-Peter O'Toole

-Roger Ebert

-James Avery
(...No. Seriously. Look up the dub cast on the movie. He voiced this guy.)

Okay, We're just gonna stop this one here. This started as a good idea and then something went horribly wrong. I'd assure you all that the person responsible for this has been fired, but since it's me...that presents a problem.

Back to the deleted scenes:

-So, as I'd partially mentioned twice now, over last summer, Variety magazine published some rather dubious advance publicity about Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim. In particular, they were raising speculation of the movie becoming the flop of the summer. Now, thoughts on the movie aside, I just want to go on record as asking:
So, after a summer that gave us The Lone Ranger, Turbo, and R.I.P.D., two of which make up two shiny new nails in the casket for Ryan Reynolds's career, is it really that hard for you guys to just admit you fumbled the call? It's alright, it happens. No shame in it, we all make mistakes. But MAN, looking at some of the competition this year in terms of being the big failure of the summer, again, regardless of how you may feel about PR as a movie itself, you guys REALLY backed the wrong horse.
It's not gonna destroy careers at least, but man,remind me never to go the track with you guys.

-Last year had started on a partial collaboration with Elessar (again, at Moar Powah!) that has been in varying degrees of limbo. It's coming this year. You have been warned, it IS coming. What it is...I won't go into the details on that just yet. All I will say is it's to coincide with a certain anniversary this year.

-Waitwaitwaitwaitwait...DC/Warner Bros are already pressing on with a Justice League movie despite the fact Man of Steel was met with only mixed reviews and financially doing decently for the budget and advertising that got dumped into it?

I suppose I should start by commending the determination and guts this kind of a move calls for.
Now that I've commended it...guys, guys, guys-think about what you're doing for a minute here. I realize you guys are champing at the bit to try and compete against Marvel's The Avengers money train, and the sooner the better. BUT have you seriously considered what you're trying to do here? For starters, Avengers was a BIG chance at the time, and even that took a solid five movies to even have a jumping off point. Even with that in mind, that movie on paper had just as much probability of being an absolute clusterfuck. Now you're proposing to streamline the process to recreate this lightning in a jar, using a sequel to bring in not just another hero, but the other two components of DC's so named 'Big Three?'
I'm gonna be honest - even before hearing who you cast as Batman. This is just a really, really, REALLY reckless idea. Sadly though, not one that surprises me anymore. I mean, I like some of your comics, and, for the most part, I have a lot of respect for your animation division. At the same time, however, I will be one of the first to admit you have NOT had a history of good judgment where film goes, Batman aside. So this kind of reckless scramble to see if you can replicate the box office success that Marvel invested a lot of time and money to cultivate, doesn't surprise me NEARLY as much as it should.

And I promised myself I wasn't gonna say anything, but screw it - you say you want bitter and grizzled and you think Ben Affleck? Really? There's a LOT of great actors out there who could give Batman that necessary level of distrust and world-weariness. How the Hell did you come to this pick?

I could keep going with this, but honestly part of the reason this got deleted was because...well...what can I say about this subject that the web hasn't already said a million times over?
Which makes it even sadder that DC has heard all of this, has endured a LOT of zings about it, but is still determined to just power through.
Hey, it's your money, guys!

Incidentally - I am going to note I am taking down the names of the people who are swearing this casting choice WILL be good. Not 'might be good', or saying at least give him a chance. That's giving the benefit of the doubt. That's actually a very fair answer. I will admit to being VERY skeptical, but I'm willing to hear out the people who are saying 'give it a chance.' Those of you who are much more certain, however. If this backfires, I WILL be calling you on it.
Yes, I realize that's a little hypocritical. This is another reason this one never got finished. Humor me, I'm only human.

-Speaking of oft-debated topics in the nerding world - yeah, I still haven't gotten around to reviewing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. You'll notice I also have yet to get around to reviewing An Unexpected Journey either. At this point, I'm thinking it's probably going to be best to just wait until There and Back Again comes out and power through all three. I will, however, say now that so far I have felt very mixed on this trilogy. It's really not bad- In fact, they're still quite enjoyable popcorn movies. The problem is, like the Star Wars prequels, the films feel like they're trying their hardest to recapture the zeitgeist that made the original trilogy into the box office smash and pop culture staple that they've become. Most notably with regards to- let's call it what it is: appendices porn. It wasn't that problematic in the first movie - in fact, some of the new touches in the first film were actually some interesting fleshing out (though I still feel like, barring them playing it to a separate end game in TaBA, Azog is really pretty unnecessary as a villain and could have been traded out for Bolg with little to nothing lost.)
With the second film, the extra mythos, plus Jackson's own creative touches, are now risking overpowering and consuming the original story. Despite being the title character, Bilbo's role seems to be showing less agency.
It's the kind of thing which is particularly strange since one gets the sense that:
1) much of these changes came about in the aftermath of Guillermo del Toro's decision to bow out of the project
and
2) Had these films been made first like this, I honestly don't think Jackson would have been called back to do The Lord of the Rings. Again, the movies are watchable, but they are also loaded up with assorted mythos that, were it not for the prior cachet granted by the first trilogy, would be written off by the moviegoing public at large.
I mean, if someone had tried to do similar with something like Batman or The Avengers (which, comparatively speaking, have a LOT of mythology to mine from) would people be willing to indulge in all the extra backstory elements?

Again, I'm not gonna bury it just yet, but I do feel like Jackson's been biting off more than he can chew here. It's still been a fun ride, but unless he really pulls it up for the last one, these films aren't gonna have anywhere near the staying power of the first trilogy.

-Well, Star Wars Episode VII is finally greenlit now. Further, Disney is really hoping they can make this stone bleed gold and has given the reigns to J.J. Abrams.

...I'm just gonna let this clip sum up my thoughts on this:

OK, on a less cheeky note - honestly, I'm kind of surprised to say I feel nothing here. Even with the prequels, I was still able to at least maintain a sort of plausible deniability at the excitement of new Star Wars. This is just another big budget action film that really doesn't have that same magic behind it anymore. We'll always have the original trilogy, and that's still good times, but from there (and maybe some parts of the Clone Wars TV series), the affair may be over for me.

-Speaking of the most loved/hated man on the internet (OK, more the latter than the former these days) I had an idea for an article I had been trying repeatedly to make into a full piece following my decidedly mixed review of Star Trek: Into Darkness. Truth be told, a part of it may still live on in another piece, but the crux of the article that tried and died was the fact that Into Darkness is a perfect example of the risk that comes with trusting a hardcore fan (or fans, in that case) to work on a franchise. Now, liking what you write for isn't a bad thing per se. It can help maintain a degree of enthusiasm that not being connected may not bring. Unfortunately, it also means the fan could simply just want to revisit what they liked, and in doing so, either create an insular work, or miss what made things so good the first time around. In this particular case, it was inspired by the fact that, like I said in my initial writeup, Kurtzman and Orci took a promising original idea and attempted to turn it into a reheat of Nicholas Meyer's The Wrath of Khan. The problem was, Meyer had WoK take place at a different time in the overall Trek history than Into Darkness does - it happened at a time when it was more unthinkable that the Enterprise could be hurt, and even take a loss. Doing it to the new Enterprise crew on their second movie out meant what was supposed to be a shocking and harsh turn of events instead feels like a bait and switch - especially thanks to their refusing to commit to one of the big things that made Wrath of Khan stand out in the first place.

I may still do more with the idea of just what Meyer did with the franchise differently and why it worked, but as it is now, the idea of trying to make a larger piece on just fanboys having the wheel in general just never quite germinated.

-I actually have two, for lack of a better term 'deleted' reviews that may come up in the weeks to come. I say these are deleted in that they are part of last summer's Summer Reading project, a partial casualty of still working out the timing on a lot of that.

This summer's should run more smoothly and subsequently prevent these kinds of slips from happening.

Aaaaaand that's it. The box is empty guys.

Some of the ones that escaped may again surface here. In the meantime, we have a regular review coming back up this weekend. So keep an eye out!

It's back to work!