Astro Boy (2009)
Rating ... B+ (78)
UK animation vet and Flushed Away mastermind David Bowers returns to uproarious adventure and subversive social commentary by reinvigorating Tezuka's classic Astro Boy franchise; sly British double entendres and montage gags that hearken back to The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory cleanse the palate of smug pop culture referencing under the pretense of humor employed by the procession of American animated Shrek devotees, but it's the shrewd analysis of values in future society that provides a compelling reason to stick around.
Astro Boy subtly plays its hand with a polygonal PSA / infomercial to open the film entitled Our Friends The Robots that explains how technological advance in Metro City - primary hub for the world's smartest and most successful - enabled self propulsion, a way for the city to suspend itself above the planet's surface and turn its citizens into a literal high society. Robots populate Metro City to automate service industries and routine maintenance, the latter of which amusingly includes the consideration that accompanies "call[ing] mom on her birthday." Seamless graphic match emphasizes Metro City as society fixated on convenience while the segment establishes the locale's groundwork ethos: elitism ("we don't really know what happens on the strange and mysterious surface we left behind") and seclusion. (The surface is acknowleged when robots at the end of their lifespan are thrown there as trash.)
Despite how it might sound, Metro City is more utopian than dystopian. Its standard of living is peachy. Creativity and education are at an all-time high, and they've more or less eradicated complacency. Fathers are too busy with scientific progress to have much time for their kids, but at least the shopworn conceit is depicted primarily with figuratism (Dr. Tenma is a holographic presence on Toby's ride to school) and resolved during act one. Now if only there was a solution to placate those disgruntled residents of old Earth on whose doorstep Metro City dumps its waste...
The problem is more complicated than it seems. A "one of us" reference to Freaks earmarks the pariah status of the surface dwellers, while their Robot Games are little more than a modern colosseum - evidence of the resentment and savagery of class conflict, as well as their Beowulf-ian need to witness society's vanguards reduced in status. Of course, the demeanor of the distinguished - immodest, aloof, oblivious - could hardly be called leading by example. Dr. Tenma's creation Astro Boy grafts human memory to robotic exoskeleton, providing a face for the budding problem of sentient slave robots. A play on the word "grace" implies the demise of religion in enlightened society but issues are still solved with militarism, from trigger-happy politicians, arm-wrestling military officers, and the hilariously inefficient goldfish poop gang, Robot Revolutionary Front. Supporting characters aid in blurring class distinctions, from the runaway brat Cora (Kristen Bell) to evicted robot engineer Ham Egg (Nathan Lane), but there's also subtext to be gleaned from the minutia. An early establishing shot of junked Earth covered with robot scraps features several statues and monuments haphazardly constructed out of the surface debri; it's an innocuous detail, but telling all the same. Society needs and values its best and brightest, whether they know it or not.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Evicted: A Sob Story
Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)
Rating ... C- (31)
Michael Moore returns to cursory condemnation with Capitalism: A Love Story, his usual smarmy brand of shock-umentary designed to sensationalize selected facets of the recent financial crisis in order to brainwash the "exploited" masses who know jack about why the recession actually occurred but are all too willing to accept a diatribe that reassures them they weren't the ones responsible. As always, Moore deals in absolutisms. Only the greed of the wealthiest caused the downfall he argues, with their excessive CEO compensation plans, tricky logrolling business deals, and rampant fraud; unsurprisingly, no blame is levied at the equally covetous, debt-riddled American people whose foolishness and avarice prompted them to buy and sell houses on credit to make a quick buck before the bubble burst, or procure second mortgages hinged upon the temporary appreciation of their housing appraisal. So what is Moore's thesis here? Scrap capitalism and switch to a planned economy - an economic system that fails just as massively when human greed is its driving force.
Capitalism: A Love Story begins with typical Moore pathos - a family being evicted from their house in North Carolina in hysterical fashion. Moore doesn't bother to inform us about the particulars of why; given the circumstances, we're meant to assume these folks are average citizens - just like you and me! - getting the shaft from the Man. His juxtaposition is a company called Condo Vultures that purchases property on the cheap and sells to consumers at market price. From this introduction alone it's evident Moore resides in a world of black and white, us and them.
The filmmaking techniques he uses to convey his ideas haven't become any subtler either. Moronic double meanings abound; when he exalts in "peasants executing their right to vote" by shooting down the Paulson bailout the narration is accompanied by footage of sports-goers doing the Wave. He likens ordinary citizens grasping at wealth they can never hope to acquire to a dog jumping at table scraps while the rich are depicted as a larger breed who eats the whole bone themselves. And when he remarks on how society fixates religiously on money, Jesus nailed to the cross is cheaply overlaid to Wall Street.
Unfortunately, religion is not a subject Moore is afraid to broach with his single-minded obliviousness. One of his major "arguments" against capitalism is nothing more than pissing on separation of church and state as he interviews Catholic priests whose no-doubt informed opinion of capitalism is that it is sinful and "contrary to all that is good." These enlightened views are hazily substantiated by vague interpretation of the bible as quoted passages simply extol the poor and slam the rich, while nobody seems to notice that the dichotomy can exist in economic models besides capitalism. Is it any wonder Moore elides asking the clergy their opinion on the sinfulness of the "blessed" poor who out of envy for the wealthy fell prey to moronic predatory lending scams whose unreasonable hype cozily promised them the world?
When Moore isn't holy rolling he's merely busy obscuring facts. He labels bait-and-switch tactics from Countrywide as sub-prime lending when in fact the concept refers to banks lending to individuals whose credit history carries considerable risk. He takes for granted that the debt Americans willingly shoulder is for base survival needs and not to fuel illusions of grandeur, and expects his audience to be blinded by sympathy for pilots, whose noble profession appears to average about 20K per year as salary. In his eyes, they deserve a higher salary, ignoring how the laws of supply and demand dictate this type of economic planning would cause a surfeit in the amount of pilots, a shortage of piloting jobs, and a shortage of workers in positions that are economically useful and would not contribute to deadweight loss.
In a minor tribute to Sicko Moore praises the successful economies of Europe and Japan versus our own, and once again his short-sightedness and lack of understanding could not be more apparent. Japan is actually a mixed planned / capitalist economy whose success was attributable to the fact their recovery plan of the post-war era consisted of locking out foreign goods and encouraging citizens to save and invest their money in banks, meaning Japanese companies would have readily available capital to borrow and create products that would be sold to the same foreign countries whose goods they were embargoing and levying tariffs. Obviously for each unit of trade surplus, an equal unit of deficit exists elsewhere, and Moore fails to realize this model actually generates wealth for Japan at the expense of other countries, rather than promote the global / national harmony he falsely touts. (For reference, the feat is impossible with scarce resources.)
Moore ends with an endorsement of Roosevelt's unenacted second Bill of Rights, which guarantees housing, pensions, and jobs for all Americans. Characteristically, it was too much to ask for him to actually explain how our government can afford to make all this possible, and Capitalism: A Love Story is revealed as whimsical drivel, misguided in its censure of capitalism when rampant individual greed is the culprit, and every bit the swindle that contributes to our engulfing gullibility as the frauds perpetrated by the richest 1% he so hastily denounces.
Rating ... C- (31)
Michael Moore returns to cursory condemnation with Capitalism: A Love Story, his usual smarmy brand of shock-umentary designed to sensationalize selected facets of the recent financial crisis in order to brainwash the "exploited" masses who know jack about why the recession actually occurred but are all too willing to accept a diatribe that reassures them they weren't the ones responsible. As always, Moore deals in absolutisms. Only the greed of the wealthiest caused the downfall he argues, with their excessive CEO compensation plans, tricky logrolling business deals, and rampant fraud; unsurprisingly, no blame is levied at the equally covetous, debt-riddled American people whose foolishness and avarice prompted them to buy and sell houses on credit to make a quick buck before the bubble burst, or procure second mortgages hinged upon the temporary appreciation of their housing appraisal. So what is Moore's thesis here? Scrap capitalism and switch to a planned economy - an economic system that fails just as massively when human greed is its driving force.
Capitalism: A Love Story begins with typical Moore pathos - a family being evicted from their house in North Carolina in hysterical fashion. Moore doesn't bother to inform us about the particulars of why; given the circumstances, we're meant to assume these folks are average citizens - just like you and me! - getting the shaft from the Man. His juxtaposition is a company called Condo Vultures that purchases property on the cheap and sells to consumers at market price. From this introduction alone it's evident Moore resides in a world of black and white, us and them.
The filmmaking techniques he uses to convey his ideas haven't become any subtler either. Moronic double meanings abound; when he exalts in "peasants executing their right to vote" by shooting down the Paulson bailout the narration is accompanied by footage of sports-goers doing the Wave. He likens ordinary citizens grasping at wealth they can never hope to acquire to a dog jumping at table scraps while the rich are depicted as a larger breed who eats the whole bone themselves. And when he remarks on how society fixates religiously on money, Jesus nailed to the cross is cheaply overlaid to Wall Street.
Unfortunately, religion is not a subject Moore is afraid to broach with his single-minded obliviousness. One of his major "arguments" against capitalism is nothing more than pissing on separation of church and state as he interviews Catholic priests whose no-doubt informed opinion of capitalism is that it is sinful and "contrary to all that is good." These enlightened views are hazily substantiated by vague interpretation of the bible as quoted passages simply extol the poor and slam the rich, while nobody seems to notice that the dichotomy can exist in economic models besides capitalism. Is it any wonder Moore elides asking the clergy their opinion on the sinfulness of the "blessed" poor who out of envy for the wealthy fell prey to moronic predatory lending scams whose unreasonable hype cozily promised them the world?
When Moore isn't holy rolling he's merely busy obscuring facts. He labels bait-and-switch tactics from Countrywide as sub-prime lending when in fact the concept refers to banks lending to individuals whose credit history carries considerable risk. He takes for granted that the debt Americans willingly shoulder is for base survival needs and not to fuel illusions of grandeur, and expects his audience to be blinded by sympathy for pilots, whose noble profession appears to average about 20K per year as salary. In his eyes, they deserve a higher salary, ignoring how the laws of supply and demand dictate this type of economic planning would cause a surfeit in the amount of pilots, a shortage of piloting jobs, and a shortage of workers in positions that are economically useful and would not contribute to deadweight loss.
In a minor tribute to Sicko Moore praises the successful economies of Europe and Japan versus our own, and once again his short-sightedness and lack of understanding could not be more apparent. Japan is actually a mixed planned / capitalist economy whose success was attributable to the fact their recovery plan of the post-war era consisted of locking out foreign goods and encouraging citizens to save and invest their money in banks, meaning Japanese companies would have readily available capital to borrow and create products that would be sold to the same foreign countries whose goods they were embargoing and levying tariffs. Obviously for each unit of trade surplus, an equal unit of deficit exists elsewhere, and Moore fails to realize this model actually generates wealth for Japan at the expense of other countries, rather than promote the global / national harmony he falsely touts. (For reference, the feat is impossible with scarce resources.)
Moore ends with an endorsement of Roosevelt's unenacted second Bill of Rights, which guarantees housing, pensions, and jobs for all Americans. Characteristically, it was too much to ask for him to actually explain how our government can afford to make all this possible, and Capitalism: A Love Story is revealed as whimsical drivel, misguided in its censure of capitalism when rampant individual greed is the culprit, and every bit the swindle that contributes to our engulfing gullibility as the frauds perpetrated by the richest 1% he so hastily denounces.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Childhood Memory Demolition Team
[ Half-Hearted 2009 Cleanup Project ]
World's Greatest Dad (2009) ... D+ (22) [ The first half: "I'm Robin Williams, an unappreciated genius. My son is a complete douchebag. Yes, he is entirely a complete douchebag, and no, he is nothing else besides a complete douchebag." The second half: "After my son's idiotic demise, as his only parent I accept no responsibility for his life failure or incorrigible behavior, but rather embark on a long-winded charade which bitterly reveals everyone around me to be conniving phonies - those Johnny Depp Willy Wonka folks - incapable of appreciating the talent of people like me, the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka folks. Despite how my love of old zombie films obviously separates me from the proles, I nevertheless strive for their superficial valuations of success, until my concluding change of heart." ]
The Girlfriend Experience (2009) ... B- (54) [ Stephen Soderbergh's cold, formal filmmaking can be a bitter pill to swallow, but to be fair you could describe his decidedly more upbeat Ocean's Eleven the same way. Nevertheless, his recession era parable hits the nail on the head. The Girlfriend Experience is basically a what-if where sex and relationships join the ranks of capitalism by becoming merely transactional, the feeling removed from something inherently emotional. Relationships = emotional is a no-brainer but for those who think emotion has nothing to do with business, consider the recession was made possible in part by individuals as corporate agents who didn't think twice about the folks on the receiving end. By the conclusion our hero falls from grace, demoted from her slick and self-absorbed clientele to the fat and needy. It's empathy in business regained, and we all paid the price. ]
Law Abiding Citizen (2009) ... D+ (21) [ Justice system? More like INjustice system, amirite? District attorneys don't care about their cases, they just want a high conviction rate! Hypocritical judges who subvert the laws to their own whims are in bed with city officials who deflect high profile cases to salvage their public image! Also, individual vigilante justice is taking things too far, thus completing my blanket condemnation of the legal process! There's no way out, that's why I made this movie! Attend your token kid's cello recital! GO TO SLEEP. Zzzzz... ]
Love Happens (2009) ... D (12) [ Aesop. The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes. Granola Girl. Meet Cute. It's Not You, It's Me. Inner Monologue. Flashback Echo Slow Clap, Standing Ovation. Aesop. ]
2012 (2009) ... D (10) [ When bullcrap "science" and moral high-ground presumption (the president needs to "tell the truth" about "what really happened" in this "catastrophe" that took place on our soil) collide, the disaster movie is born. Self-righteous haranguing about how humans of all nationalities should be working together because we're all one wrold (cue ending pull-back shot for emphasis) and other such critique of human progress would seem less hypocritical coming from someone who didn't also approve the preceding half hour of witless carnage and wanton loss of life via mystical circumstances foreseen by Mayan augury. (Sample back-to-basics advocacy line: "Two thousand years of technology, and they saw it coming when we didn't!") Thank you so very much, Guy Who Directed Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. Or is that Guy Who's Best Movie is Stargate? ]
-
World's Greatest Dad (2009) ... D+ (22) [ The first half: "I'm Robin Williams, an unappreciated genius. My son is a complete douchebag. Yes, he is entirely a complete douchebag, and no, he is nothing else besides a complete douchebag." The second half: "After my son's idiotic demise, as his only parent I accept no responsibility for his life failure or incorrigible behavior, but rather embark on a long-winded charade which bitterly reveals everyone around me to be conniving phonies - those Johnny Depp Willy Wonka folks - incapable of appreciating the talent of people like me, the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka folks. Despite how my love of old zombie films obviously separates me from the proles, I nevertheless strive for their superficial valuations of success, until my concluding change of heart." ]
The Girlfriend Experience (2009) ... B- (54) [ Stephen Soderbergh's cold, formal filmmaking can be a bitter pill to swallow, but to be fair you could describe his decidedly more upbeat Ocean's Eleven the same way. Nevertheless, his recession era parable hits the nail on the head. The Girlfriend Experience is basically a what-if where sex and relationships join the ranks of capitalism by becoming merely transactional, the feeling removed from something inherently emotional. Relationships = emotional is a no-brainer but for those who think emotion has nothing to do with business, consider the recession was made possible in part by individuals as corporate agents who didn't think twice about the folks on the receiving end. By the conclusion our hero falls from grace, demoted from her slick and self-absorbed clientele to the fat and needy. It's empathy in business regained, and we all paid the price. ]
Law Abiding Citizen (2009) ... D+ (21) [ Justice system? More like INjustice system, amirite? District attorneys don't care about their cases, they just want a high conviction rate! Hypocritical judges who subvert the laws to their own whims are in bed with city officials who deflect high profile cases to salvage their public image! Also, individual vigilante justice is taking things too far, thus completing my blanket condemnation of the legal process! There's no way out, that's why I made this movie! Attend your token kid's cello recital! GO TO SLEEP. Zzzzz... ]
Love Happens (2009) ... D (12) [ Aesop. The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes. Granola Girl. Meet Cute. It's Not You, It's Me. Inner Monologue. Flashback Echo Slow Clap, Standing Ovation. Aesop. ]
2012 (2009) ... D (10) [ When bullcrap "science" and moral high-ground presumption (the president needs to "tell the truth" about "what really happened" in this "catastrophe" that took place on our soil) collide, the disaster movie is born. Self-righteous haranguing about how humans of all nationalities should be working together because we're all one wrold (cue ending pull-back shot for emphasis) and other such critique of human progress would seem less hypocritical coming from someone who didn't also approve the preceding half hour of witless carnage and wanton loss of life via mystical circumstances foreseen by Mayan augury. (Sample back-to-basics advocacy line: "Two thousand years of technology, and they saw it coming when we didn't!") Thank you so very much, Guy Who Directed Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. Or is that Guy Who's Best Movie is Stargate? ]
-
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
(Not) A Typical Rom-Com, Geddit?
(500) Days of Summer (2009)
Rating ... D+ (26)
How do you create the opposite of Hollywood's recent fad of Meet the Parents-descended rom-coms and still screw up? Erase all the grotesque minor characters and pointless story digressions where conflicts predicated on miscommunication thwart protagonist interaction for half an hour from Sandra Bullock's last/next vehicle, and what remains? A blank canvas? Or maybe a film that offers up something equally uninspired but verifiably not the aforementioned, ad nauseum? For those awaiting the opposite of suck, the promise was too good to be the next Before Sun.
One thing's certain, the opposite of Hollywood is insufferable indie, and it's not for lack of trying. (500) isn't quite the year's Garden State but it has no problem shoving its too-cute brand of indiequirk in your face anyway. Personally, I have no beef with quirk persay (an example from the film - not only does 500 play on the season summer and Deschanel's character name Summer, Levitt's next meets a girl named Autumn, and the coincidence is dropped with trite a-ha! revelation, to say nothing of the obvious method of cementing functional character roles); unfortunately, the problem persists that (500)'s forced uniqueness, which permeates heavily into its romance, does not actually depict genuine human behavior with more insight or understanding than its manufactured Hollywood counterpart, but simply exists for the sake of juxtaposition, with no real identity of its own.
Hollywood rom-coms can be accused of reducing adult relationships to child's play, but (500)'s subpar replacement finds scarcely developed characters indulging in bad karaoke for nonexistent laughs and playing the penis penis Penis Penis PENIS PENIS! game. Barring a quaintly creative expectations/reality cinematographic schism, (500) fails to bring ingenuity to its depiction of diffused romance, instead opting for repetition. (Directly following moments of elation between Levitt and Deschanel, director Marc Webb fancies cutting ahead several hundred days to post-breakup to hammer home the foreshadowing.) In other news, love is still a vague, undefinable feeling of ecstasy and really, really "deep" conceits include how capital-L Life just got in the way of things that don't work out! I just realized something: the opposite of capital punishment is life in prison.
Rating ... D+ (26)
How do you create the opposite of Hollywood's recent fad of Meet the Parents-descended rom-coms and still screw up? Erase all the grotesque minor characters and pointless story digressions where conflicts predicated on miscommunication thwart protagonist interaction for half an hour from Sandra Bullock's last/next vehicle, and what remains? A blank canvas? Or maybe a film that offers up something equally uninspired but verifiably not the aforementioned, ad nauseum? For those awaiting the opposite of suck, the promise was too good to be the next Before Sun.
One thing's certain, the opposite of Hollywood is insufferable indie, and it's not for lack of trying. (500) isn't quite the year's Garden State but it has no problem shoving its too-cute brand of indiequirk in your face anyway. Personally, I have no beef with quirk persay (an example from the film - not only does 500 play on the season summer and Deschanel's character name Summer, Levitt's next meets a girl named Autumn, and the coincidence is dropped with trite a-ha! revelation, to say nothing of the obvious method of cementing functional character roles); unfortunately, the problem persists that (500)'s forced uniqueness, which permeates heavily into its romance, does not actually depict genuine human behavior with more insight or understanding than its manufactured Hollywood counterpart, but simply exists for the sake of juxtaposition, with no real identity of its own.
Hollywood rom-coms can be accused of reducing adult relationships to child's play, but (500)'s subpar replacement finds scarcely developed characters indulging in bad karaoke for nonexistent laughs and playing the penis penis Penis Penis PENIS PENIS! game. Barring a quaintly creative expectations/reality cinematographic schism, (500) fails to bring ingenuity to its depiction of diffused romance, instead opting for repetition. (Directly following moments of elation between Levitt and Deschanel, director Marc Webb fancies cutting ahead several hundred days to post-breakup to hammer home the foreshadowing.) In other news, love is still a vague, undefinable feeling of ecstasy and really, really "deep" conceits include how capital-L Life just got in the way of things that don't work out! I just realized something: the opposite of capital punishment is life in prison.
Monday, December 7, 2009
I'm Busta ... Busta Cap!
Gamer (2009)
Rating ... C (42)
Crank was a difficult movie to pin down. You could conceivably view the film's churlish fervor as a twisted parable about leading an active life, while its copycat sequel defies purpose beyond a paycheck and metaphorical middle finger to audiences everywhere (figurative until the last scene, that is, where Jason Statham, on fire, offers a double gesture to the camera). Tag team directors Neveldine and Taylor's third effort, however, occupies the mundane middle ground. A half-hearted but timely serve of the dramatically overstated fantasy world of video-gaming and massively multiplayer online socializing (sorry, "RPG's"), Gamer stumbles across topical material but follows suit with the year's like-minded Surrogates and never figures out where to direct the vitriol. At least the Crank movies knew what to hate - everything.
Gamer is a tale of technologically enhanced convicts that other, more up-standing citizens can pay to inhabit remotely in Slayers, a "real life video game." Gamer seeks to capitalize on fears of living vicariously but its apprehension feels arbitrary because N/T inadequately develop the social ramification of their idea, instead choosing to drench Gamer with their usual brand of tedious visual excess. Initial scenes with Kyra Sedgewick's Oprah-esque talk show host suggest an examination of the prole's fascination with gratuitous sex and violence but rather than cleverly implement the conceit into the narrative fabric like the similar Death Race 2000 where kills amounted to points based on the victim's age, N/T merely wallow, assuming that its mere mention was commentary enough. Brief glimpses at the film's sister video game called Society lampoon the dull series of Sims games where players basically do nothing but commingle, but the joke culminates in a lame reveal where hot chicks in-game are shown to be fat rejects in real life. Gamer even features nods towards The Matrix ("free your mind!") and To Catch a Predator, but these references by their lonesome are insufficient to precisely express what N/T intend with Gamer. If we're meant to sum the subtext from both Crank and Gamer, they might be saying people should cease hiding behind substitutes and simply display their abject depravity in person. Any way you slice it however their worldview is baffling and unexplained, and to be frank I'd be surprised if Neveldine or Taylor have a clearer picture themselves.
Rating ... C (42)
Crank was a difficult movie to pin down. You could conceivably view the film's churlish fervor as a twisted parable about leading an active life, while its copycat sequel defies purpose beyond a paycheck and metaphorical middle finger to audiences everywhere (figurative until the last scene, that is, where Jason Statham, on fire, offers a double gesture to the camera). Tag team directors Neveldine and Taylor's third effort, however, occupies the mundane middle ground. A half-hearted but timely serve of the dramatically overstated fantasy world of video-gaming and massively multiplayer online socializing (sorry, "RPG's"), Gamer stumbles across topical material but follows suit with the year's like-minded Surrogates and never figures out where to direct the vitriol. At least the Crank movies knew what to hate - everything.
Gamer is a tale of technologically enhanced convicts that other, more up-standing citizens can pay to inhabit remotely in Slayers, a "real life video game." Gamer seeks to capitalize on fears of living vicariously but its apprehension feels arbitrary because N/T inadequately develop the social ramification of their idea, instead choosing to drench Gamer with their usual brand of tedious visual excess. Initial scenes with Kyra Sedgewick's Oprah-esque talk show host suggest an examination of the prole's fascination with gratuitous sex and violence but rather than cleverly implement the conceit into the narrative fabric like the similar Death Race 2000 where kills amounted to points based on the victim's age, N/T merely wallow, assuming that its mere mention was commentary enough. Brief glimpses at the film's sister video game called Society lampoon the dull series of Sims games where players basically do nothing but commingle, but the joke culminates in a lame reveal where hot chicks in-game are shown to be fat rejects in real life. Gamer even features nods towards The Matrix ("free your mind!") and To Catch a Predator, but these references by their lonesome are insufficient to precisely express what N/T intend with Gamer. If we're meant to sum the subtext from both Crank and Gamer, they might be saying people should cease hiding behind substitutes and simply display their abject depravity in person. Any way you slice it however their worldview is baffling and unexplained, and to be frank I'd be surprised if Neveldine or Taylor have a clearer picture themselves.
Monday, November 2, 2009
I Get Neck When I'm Travelin'
I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009)
Rating ... F (3)
Less an actual movie than a former DCOM star's wannabe-risqué coming-out party and a chance for director Chris Columbus to logroll John Hughes (and his teen angst turf) for writing the movie that made him famous, I Love You Beth Cooper begins and ends with allusions to Crowe's Say Anything without ever developing a coherent personality in between. The story can be briefly summarized as the raucous graduation-day adventures of Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust), a class valedictorian who spends his time at the podium to profess his infatuation - clumsily equated to love - with head cheerleader Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere). This all becomes irrelevant as I Love You Beth Cooper quickly becomes notable not for its transparent composition of 80's movie staples but rather its gratuitously offensive type-branding and endless parade of "jokes" about cow paddies, closeted gays, and tactless nerds.
Though the film flaunts its encyclopedic knowledge of teen movie territory - its shoutouts to Risky Business and Dead Poets Society are identified the moment they come out of Alan Ruck's quixotic cool dad's mouth while those to films like Heathers are mercifully implicit - Beth Cooper seems more keen on slamming both genders with spite played off as nostalgia. Denis's aforementioned speech gets the ball rolling as he prattles bitterly to his fellow students, obnoxiously classifying them as jocks, preps, and geeks while offensively asserting bullcrap Freudian psycho-profiles beneath the archetypes. The stuck-up, anorexic bitch is haughty because she is attempting to disguise her lack of self-worth, and the school's uptight principal spurns his mid-ceremony bout of radicalism because her own advances at love were scorned during her high school hey-day. Though the film repulsively reduces her presence to a derisive non-sequitur, Beth Cooper's most odious allegation occurs when it affirms its own stereotyping via Denis's encounter with the school reject, a sexually abused boy who confides in Denis at a party even as the film mocks his predicament.
If there's anything more insulting than Beth Cooper's characterization by contempt - look no further than Denis's loser protag, entirely typified as a nerd prone to high-pitched squealing, bumbling about without social grace, and wearing humiliating underwear - it would have to be the film's agenda of pandering to adolescents who are under the assumption they're grown-up. Beth Cooper's garishly immature adults - from the gym teacher who encourages a trio of late-twenties students-cum-marines to assail our hero to Denis's own parents, embarassingly encountered in the middle of roadside spooning - serve to contrast to how the teenagers somehow forge meaningful relationships in one night. The extent of this process is either the film's token gay guy in denial who gets his wish fulfillment on with two horny high school ditzes and comments "Maybe I'm bi!" or Beth Cooper's stock social butterfly who only sees development when writer Larry Doyle takes an earlier throwaway joke about her dead retarded brother and laughably attempts to fashion it into a subplot about self-confidence. Midway through the film one of Cooper's bimbos in tow offers Denis tampons for his nosebleed, making one long for She's the Man where the joke was originally purveyed. That film was humorous and sincere in its depiction of teenage relationships, with a specific understanding about how gender roles were sexual guidelines for confused youngsters but at the same time could cause people to feel trapped and must often be abandoned to salvage romance. By comparison, Beth Cooper's frivolous typecasting only feigns insight about coming-of-age and can't even be bothered to grow up as little as its big girl star Hayden Panettiere.
Rating ... F (3)
Less an actual movie than a former DCOM star's wannabe-risqué coming-out party and a chance for director Chris Columbus to logroll John Hughes (and his teen angst turf) for writing the movie that made him famous, I Love You Beth Cooper begins and ends with allusions to Crowe's Say Anything without ever developing a coherent personality in between. The story can be briefly summarized as the raucous graduation-day adventures of Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust), a class valedictorian who spends his time at the podium to profess his infatuation - clumsily equated to love - with head cheerleader Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere). This all becomes irrelevant as I Love You Beth Cooper quickly becomes notable not for its transparent composition of 80's movie staples but rather its gratuitously offensive type-branding and endless parade of "jokes" about cow paddies, closeted gays, and tactless nerds.
Though the film flaunts its encyclopedic knowledge of teen movie territory - its shoutouts to Risky Business and Dead Poets Society are identified the moment they come out of Alan Ruck's quixotic cool dad's mouth while those to films like Heathers are mercifully implicit - Beth Cooper seems more keen on slamming both genders with spite played off as nostalgia. Denis's aforementioned speech gets the ball rolling as he prattles bitterly to his fellow students, obnoxiously classifying them as jocks, preps, and geeks while offensively asserting bullcrap Freudian psycho-profiles beneath the archetypes. The stuck-up, anorexic bitch is haughty because she is attempting to disguise her lack of self-worth, and the school's uptight principal spurns his mid-ceremony bout of radicalism because her own advances at love were scorned during her high school hey-day. Though the film repulsively reduces her presence to a derisive non-sequitur, Beth Cooper's most odious allegation occurs when it affirms its own stereotyping via Denis's encounter with the school reject, a sexually abused boy who confides in Denis at a party even as the film mocks his predicament.
If there's anything more insulting than Beth Cooper's characterization by contempt - look no further than Denis's loser protag, entirely typified as a nerd prone to high-pitched squealing, bumbling about without social grace, and wearing humiliating underwear - it would have to be the film's agenda of pandering to adolescents who are under the assumption they're grown-up. Beth Cooper's garishly immature adults - from the gym teacher who encourages a trio of late-twenties students-cum-marines to assail our hero to Denis's own parents, embarassingly encountered in the middle of roadside spooning - serve to contrast to how the teenagers somehow forge meaningful relationships in one night. The extent of this process is either the film's token gay guy in denial who gets his wish fulfillment on with two horny high school ditzes and comments "Maybe I'm bi!" or Beth Cooper's stock social butterfly who only sees development when writer Larry Doyle takes an earlier throwaway joke about her dead retarded brother and laughably attempts to fashion it into a subplot about self-confidence. Midway through the film one of Cooper's bimbos in tow offers Denis tampons for his nosebleed, making one long for She's the Man where the joke was originally purveyed. That film was humorous and sincere in its depiction of teenage relationships, with a specific understanding about how gender roles were sexual guidelines for confused youngsters but at the same time could cause people to feel trapped and must often be abandoned to salvage romance. By comparison, Beth Cooper's frivolous typecasting only feigns insight about coming-of-age and can't even be bothered to grow up as little as its big girl star Hayden Panettiere.
The Lolz of Physics
Terminator: Salvation (2009)
Rating ... C- (35)
Little else is as inherently masculine as the concept of Terminator - that a futuristic cyborg equipped with advanced weaponry travels backwards along the timeline to SNAFU the present, only to be thwarted by one or more gun-toting individuals with a maximum of badass action and modicum of sentimentality - but surprisingly enough, Terminator: Salvation is the first entry in the upstanding series to genuinely pander to the young male demographic. The original Terminator dubiously adopted 80's cyberpunk sentiments but made amends for the thematic uncertainty with laudable action-movie economy and some of Cameron's finest directing, while installments two and three offered superior variations on the formula with equivalent thrift and - get this - actual dramatic conflict, with a little philosophizing thrown in for good measure. T:S pays homage to its origin with sly nonchalance (for example, to the original by recreating the scene of skulls being crushed by the machines of war), but it does not actually add to the franchise. Rather the film simply alters the blueprint to include dual male protagonists, both of whom regularly grunt and growl at the camera in slow-motion / low angle / Snorricam / generic grandeur.
In what's likely an unintended display of cinematic augury, arbitrary Java syntax ( //, ++, /* ) accompanies the names of the first-billed during the title credits, appropriately paving the way for the following eye candy. (Is this the programming language behind the T-models or the SFX?) Director McG surveys the battlefield with slick aerial cam grace but his firefights are characterized primarily by arhythmic editing and CGI explosions sloppily filed under the guise of into-the-fray realism. Helmed by Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown, U-571) T3 leaned more towards old-school stunts and a rudimentary walk-talk structure for its action-comedy approach but with McG Terminator: Salvation blows past in a blur where unremarkable action scenes and macho military bluster are equally massacred with music-video stylings - a problem that is only exacerbated when T:S strives for "epic" importance. Curiously, this desire for grandiosity never materialized during the franchise's first three films, which erred more towards B-movie sensibility, but in T:S it fires from all cylinders, even Danny Elfman's summer blockbuster score (snore) whose pervading riff is suspiciously Dark Knight-esque, composed of eighth note pairs alternating between two pitches. (You'll recognize the simplistic pattern when you get there, though in all honesty it was probably Requiem for a Dream and its moronic pap of a soundtrack that truly cemented the popularity of this callow approach to "monumental" accompaniment.)
To compound the problem further, Terminator: Salvation's need for majesty bleeds into its paltry characterizations, most of which are demonstrated to their full extent through juvenile posturing like "NOOOO!" scenes angled directly at the camera. When Connor (Bale) shouts "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" at a T-800, the film's emotional ineptitude is apparent, and this overwrought spectacle towards an obviously unfeeling machine makes one marvel that T:S was written by the same folks responsible for Terminator 3. Consider a scene from that film, where the protagonists are traveling in an RV and the Terminator (Arnold) callously divulges to a younger John Connor that he will be slain in the upcoming war, but is still needed in the present to accomplish some tasks. The implication here is that with this knowledge, Connor is now only alive in a robotic sense - to fulfill a purpose already allocated to him by higher powers. (Connor's response? "Oh... well that sucks!) Such philosophical absence reduces T:S to the sum of its reveals - notably, without spoilers, Marcus Wright and the effect of the short wave signal - as well as its ho-hum man-machine ethos, which is artlessly summarized during the dénoument as Wright clumsily narrates about the virtues of the indomitable human spirit before passing the voiceover chain to Connor for a sequel-promising encore. By this point, however, Terminator: Salvation has already proved itself a member of the venerable franchise in name only; the film's squandered wartime setting, occasional peeking-out-of-cover shots, and protagonist moniker "Marcus" all betray that T:S is instead aimed squarely at the Gear of War crowd.
Rating ... C- (35)
Little else is as inherently masculine as the concept of Terminator - that a futuristic cyborg equipped with advanced weaponry travels backwards along the timeline to SNAFU the present, only to be thwarted by one or more gun-toting individuals with a maximum of badass action and modicum of sentimentality - but surprisingly enough, Terminator: Salvation is the first entry in the upstanding series to genuinely pander to the young male demographic. The original Terminator dubiously adopted 80's cyberpunk sentiments but made amends for the thematic uncertainty with laudable action-movie economy and some of Cameron's finest directing, while installments two and three offered superior variations on the formula with equivalent thrift and - get this - actual dramatic conflict, with a little philosophizing thrown in for good measure. T:S pays homage to its origin with sly nonchalance (for example, to the original by recreating the scene of skulls being crushed by the machines of war), but it does not actually add to the franchise. Rather the film simply alters the blueprint to include dual male protagonists, both of whom regularly grunt and growl at the camera in slow-motion / low angle / Snorricam / generic grandeur.
In what's likely an unintended display of cinematic augury, arbitrary Java syntax ( //, ++, /* ) accompanies the names of the first-billed during the title credits, appropriately paving the way for the following eye candy. (Is this the programming language behind the T-models or the SFX?) Director McG surveys the battlefield with slick aerial cam grace but his firefights are characterized primarily by arhythmic editing and CGI explosions sloppily filed under the guise of into-the-fray realism. Helmed by Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown, U-571) T3 leaned more towards old-school stunts and a rudimentary walk-talk structure for its action-comedy approach but with McG Terminator: Salvation blows past in a blur where unremarkable action scenes and macho military bluster are equally massacred with music-video stylings - a problem that is only exacerbated when T:S strives for "epic" importance. Curiously, this desire for grandiosity never materialized during the franchise's first three films, which erred more towards B-movie sensibility, but in T:S it fires from all cylinders, even Danny Elfman's summer blockbuster score (snore) whose pervading riff is suspiciously Dark Knight-esque, composed of eighth note pairs alternating between two pitches. (You'll recognize the simplistic pattern when you get there, though in all honesty it was probably Requiem for a Dream and its moronic pap of a soundtrack that truly cemented the popularity of this callow approach to "monumental" accompaniment.)
To compound the problem further, Terminator: Salvation's need for majesty bleeds into its paltry characterizations, most of which are demonstrated to their full extent through juvenile posturing like "NOOOO!" scenes angled directly at the camera. When Connor (Bale) shouts "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" at a T-800, the film's emotional ineptitude is apparent, and this overwrought spectacle towards an obviously unfeeling machine makes one marvel that T:S was written by the same folks responsible for Terminator 3. Consider a scene from that film, where the protagonists are traveling in an RV and the Terminator (Arnold) callously divulges to a younger John Connor that he will be slain in the upcoming war, but is still needed in the present to accomplish some tasks. The implication here is that with this knowledge, Connor is now only alive in a robotic sense - to fulfill a purpose already allocated to him by higher powers. (Connor's response? "Oh... well that sucks!) Such philosophical absence reduces T:S to the sum of its reveals - notably, without spoilers, Marcus Wright and the effect of the short wave signal - as well as its ho-hum man-machine ethos, which is artlessly summarized during the dénoument as Wright clumsily narrates about the virtues of the indomitable human spirit before passing the voiceover chain to Connor for a sequel-promising encore. By this point, however, Terminator: Salvation has already proved itself a member of the venerable franchise in name only; the film's squandered wartime setting, occasional peeking-out-of-cover shots, and protagonist moniker "Marcus" all betray that T:S is instead aimed squarely at the Gear of War crowd.
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