Getting married is like trying to catch a greased up ninja with nothing but saran wrap and toilet paper. They both take a lot of work, they both are bound to have interesting results, and they both cut into my movie watching time.
First of all, yes I’m getting married next week. To a woman. Trust me, my parents were even more surprised than you are. Secondly, I’m getting married in December, which also happens to be when a lot of the best movies come out. Now, while I wouldn’t trade getting to marry the most amazing woman in the world for anything, the fact is that as a result of the preparations I’m WAY behind on my movie viewing and reviewing. That's a small price to pay for happily ever after, but even with all that's being going on, I've been able to squeeze in a few movies.
Nine, directed by Rob Marshall.
There is really nothing like an old-fashioned movie musical, and I regret to inform you that Nine is NOTHING like an old-fashioned movie musical. As a story it’s slow and plodding. As a character piece it’s only mildly interesting (and ONLY because of Daniel Day-Lewis), and the music, which should be the key selling feature of any decent musical, is even more forgettable than that of the recent and turgid Showgirls.
That’s not to say there aren’t reasons to watch this. The cinematography is exquisite, and it’s set designs are going to make you move to Italy tomorrow. It’s a truly beautiful film, and I really think that Marshall has outdone himself in terms of the direction he’s giving here.
The cast is predictable, though solid, with Fergie and Dame Judy Dench being the only real standouts in the cast. And while his acting is breathtaking as usual, it unfortunately appears that Daniel Day Lewis is to singing what Madonna is to acting.
If the musical it was attempting to showcase wasn’t so mind-numbingly average, I would highly recommend this film. Nine is a finely crafted piece of cinema, with fantastic staging, a solid cast, and beautiful cinematography. However, it’s also a horrible musical, and it’s failures as a musical more than defeat it’s charms as a film.
Rating: C
The Fantastic Mr. Fox, directed By Wes Anderson.
For me, watching a Wes Anderson movie (Rushmore, Darjeeling Limited, Royal Tannenbaums) is like eating a tomato. Everyone I know likes them, and in theory you’d think I would like them too. But while both look sweet and juicy from the outside, they both sour rapidly once I take a bite, and pretty soon I’m throwing up all over the person in front of me. I’ve never quite acquired the taste for either, and I’m almost sad to announce that the Fantastic Mr. Fox hasn’t convinced me otherwise, though it has persuaded me to take another bite every once in a while.
The trappings of Fox are obviously very different from previous Anderson films, with stop-motion animation replacing the usual live-action settings Anderson usually works in.
However, I’m not sure why he bothered. On the surface this is a fantasy, what with the talking animals and all, but once you get past the trappings it’s just more of the same Wes Anderson: Middle Aged Cool Guy goes through Middle Aged Cool Mid-Life Crisis.
Even more so than with Nine, there’s still a lot to recommend here. Any time a major studio can be convinced to spend money on a lost art form of animation like stop-motion it’s a good thing, and the team Anderson assembled here makes the most of the opportunity. Visually this thing is brilliant, and if it wasn’t for the cutesy indie-hipster script I’d want to watch this again if only to watch some of the most dynamic stop-motion that audiences have been lucky enough to see on a big screen in decades.
While this may be the best Wes Anderson movie we've seen in some time, it’s still very much a Wes Anderson movie, with all of the bad and good that comes with that baggage. While the script is “classic” Anderson, the plotting is much improved over recent efforts, and the shorter, tighter writing style that animation demands seems to have worked well in his favour.
My main problem with the movie, is my main problem with all of his movies: His characters don’t talk or act like real people, and because I don’t think they’re real, I don’t care about them. The absurdist nature of his characters and films prevent me from connecting to them. That sounds funny when you’re talking about a movie starring a talking fox, which may be why I enjoyed this more than some of his other recent films. I will admit that the failing may be more mine than his, as I’m aware that I’m in the minority when it comes to his movies.
I’ll recommend this mostly because in an age where studios and film makers are being more and more cautious, Anderson took a huge risk here, and risks always deserve to be rewarded.
Rating: B-
Black Dynamite, directed by Scott Sanders
I loved this movie like turkeys love jive.
We’ve all had movies that we waited for anxiously, only to have our hopes dashed when viewing the final product: Go Joe! I’m very happy to report that Black Dynamite lived up and down to every expectation I had. Black Dynamite is an homage to ‘70’s Blaxploitation films like Superfly and Coffy. Unlike Quentin Tarantino’s homages where he takes all the good stuff and leaves the bad, Black Dynamite recreates the look and feel of the films it’s honouring so faithfully that you half expect Pam Grier to reach through the screen and cut you with a broken wine glass. The story is simple: Michael Jai White is Black Dynamite, a former CIA agent turned pimp who tries to get revenge for his brother’s bloody murder.
In a perfect world, this film would have gotten major distribution, gotten a small yet respectable audience due to word of mouth, and be discussed for a years as an instant cult classic. Unfortunately Sony Pictures has chosen to bury this film, and as a result very few people have gotten to see it.
This movie succeeds on so many levels that the only real negative I could find to say about it is that in order to appreciate it fully might require a deeper love of the source material than most of it’s audiences will have. However, I do believe that it stands on it’s own unlike a straight forward parody flick, and that it’s heart it’s a great revenge/kung-fu movie with a healthy dose of comedy mixed in. It’s also one of the most enjoyable films I’ve been lucky enough to watch this year.
Rating: A
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