A Christmas Carol version 245: The one with creepy Jim Carrey

"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"

After countless years of adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, we come to 2009, wherein Robert Zemeckis (director of the hugely successful films Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future, and Forest Gump), released his own version of the classic.  How could this version possibly make itself stand out in the crowd of other Christmas Carol movies?  The answer is by doing the same thing he'd done for his last two films; produce it using motion capture and computer animation.  The Polar Express and Beowulf are divisive films, both made with incredible creative energy but strangely lacking in soul.  Is the motion capture process to blame?  Is it the soulless eyes of the characters, their "uncanny valley" movements, or the distractingly hyper-real aesthetics?  I still don't know where I stand personally on the topic, but I will say that many mo-cap movies have visuals that are absolutely spectacular and some visuals that miss the mark.  The line between being an animated film and a live-action film is blurred considerably when watching a mo-cap film; while you are watching real actors give computer-abridged performances, the environment they occupy, their clothing, and every object in the film is computer animated.  Whatever the classification for the films is, the only thing that really matters is the end product.

"What reason have you to be merry?"

So looking back at Zemeckis's $200 million dollar juggernaut, how does it hold up?  It wasn't a huge hit with audiences or critics, and can ultimately be considered a flop.  But there's something I really like about this adaptation, as unnecessary as its production might have been.  This is a ghost story first and foremost, unafraid to be dark, creepy, and not pander to its family audience.  It's quite faithful to the book, besides that part where, you know, the Ghost of Christmas Future shrinks Scrooge down and chases him throughout the city on a hell chariot.  It's very interesting to be able to see with, your own eyes, where exactly a movie derails itself, and by golly, that's the fucking moment.

Remember that part in the book where Scrooge gets whacked with those icicles?

Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman play numerous parts within the film in similar vein as Tom Hanks in The Polar Express.  Carrey portrays the crotchety Scrooge surprisingly well, scarcely giving way to his Jim Carey-isms in favor of a more honest approach in portraying the character.  Alastair Sim, he is not, but the performance is great nonetheless (as is the creepy, stylized character design).  He plays the three ghosts in the film as well, and I can't decide whether or not I like this idea.  I hate everything about Past, love everything about Present, and am totally indifferent about Future (though I do like the idea of him emerging from Scrooge's shadow). Gary Oldman plays Bob Cratchit as well as Tiny Tim (the "performance" part anyway), and though his acting is so good it actually makes me cry in the third act, something went horribly wrong with his character designs.  Bob Cratchit looks like a hobbit, and Tiny Tim's eyes are so wide they look like they're trying to swallow my soul.  In addition, Oldman plays the ghost of Jacob Marley, in a scene that gets it so right until Marley's Mouth unhinges and he has to deliver the rest of the dialogue in gimmicky, painfully unfunny ways.  It's a mood killer among too many mood killers.

Oh, could you not hear him during this HILARIOUS gag?

At least the music is really solid, with Alan Silvestri delivering one of his best modern scores, though nothing beats his 80s scores (most of which were produced for Zemeckis's own films).  It perfectly captures that "Christmassy" feeling without shoving "Jingle Bells" down your throat for an hour and a half.  He effectively uses familiar Christmas carols, but combines them with an originally composed score, and it's an absolute joy to listen to.  It may not be as good as Silvestri's score for The Polar Express, but it comes close.

"Ghost of the future, I fear you more than any spectre I have seen."

In spite of jaw-droppingly gorgeous environments and camera movements that sweep through luscious landscapes, detailed cities, and starry skies, some of the character animation and designs bring the movie down a peg.  Fezziwig (Bob Hoskins) and his hefty wife inexplicably fly around like Peter Pan and Wendy during a dance scene, Scrooge's fiance Belle (Robin Wright Penn) and his nepwhew Fred (Colin Firth) look like Barbie and Ken dolls next to the other characters, and many of the extras look like video game avatars from a Playstation 2 game.  Story wise, the only major problem with the film comes in the form of the aforementioned chase scene, but thankfully the film is able to pick itself up and keep going afterward.  While I usually make it a point not to see movies in 3D, this one did not disappoint.  It was just months before Avatar would come along and change the 3D industry, so when I first saw this I hadn't been exposed to much digital 3D.  I don't know if it was the theater I saw it in or if 3D just hadn't been ruined for me yet, but I got an absolute thrill out of seeing this in the format.  If only the film had been released a year later, it probably have doubled its box office intake.  There's no way the 2010 Alice in Wonderland made a literal billion dollars on its own merits. 

"I'm as light as a feather! I'm as merry as a schoolboy!"

While certainly not the best ever adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Zemeckis's version is more solid than you'd think.  Then it becomes awful, then it's good again, and then right at the end you realize that Scrooge and the other characters look way too creepy for you to truly love them, and you're left a bit cold.  But I'll tell you what it's not; a pop-culture-laden, lazy adaptation that doesn't even try to do anything new with the material.  It's biggest problem isn't that it's made in motion capture, and it.  The main issue is that slapstick is often used to lighten the mood in places that it so does not fit. Yes, some of the character designs are awful, but the environments they inhabit are an incredible sight to behold.  It never shies away from darkness, and Zemeckis's total freedom of movement with the camera produces some truly exhilarating results, and the actor's performances shine through, no matter how much digital makeup they have applied.  This is no Disney classic, but it's an offbeat and enjoyable Christmas movie that's worth seeing at least once, even if it's just to see the Ghost of Christmas present turn into this...

Now that's some good old-fashioned nightmare fuel.


7/10

Into the Woods (spoiler heavy edition)

"I wish... more than anything..."

In the past decade, the screen has only been graced with two Sondheim musical film adaptations: 2007's Sweeney Todd and 2014's Into the Woods.  The good news is that while both of these films take large liberties with the source material, they both function as movies very nicely.  While Sweeney Todd knows what it is through and through, however, Into the Woods suffers a bit of an identity crisis.  From what I've found, the Broadway musical is split into two distinct acts; one involves familiar fairy tales being spun together and playing out the way they traditionally do.  In the second act, the characters' wishes are not all they expected them to be.  It's sort of a "what happens next" for Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel.  I absolutely love that concept, and while it's still there in the film version, there's definitely something lost in translation.

The film opens with a fantastic opening prologue that establishes the characters, their desires, and the reasons that each of them have to go "into the woods."  We meet Jack  (Daniel Huttleston) and his Mother (Tracey Ullman) from Jack and the Beanstalk, the girl from Little Red Riding Hood (Lilia Crawford), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), and new characters in the form of a childless Baker (James Corden) and his Wife (Emily Blunt).  The couple discovers that a Witch (Meryl Streep) cast a spell over their family after the Baker's father stole from her garden many years ago.  The curse prevents the couple from having the child they so desire, and in order to lift the spell, they need to find four things in the woods: a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold.  I think you can see where this is heading.  The Baker and his wife meet up with the other fairy tale characters and acquire what they need from Jack, Red Ridding Hood, Cinderella, and Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy).  Everyone gets what they want, happily every after, yadda yadda.

At this point in the play, that's only the ending to the first half of the story.  But in the film, we're an hour and a half into a two hour movie.  That last half hour is where the majority of the film's problems lie (something I felt strongly about before even knowing the first thing about the play).  Characters die very quickly and without impact (sometimes even clarity), and the sequence of events feels a bit forced so that the film's ultimate message can be expressed: take responsibility for your actions and teach your children to do the same.  However, that message gets a bit drowned out by the extensiveness of the classic fairy tale segment and the rushed nature of the aftermath.  This is why I said the film has a bit of an identity crisis; if the whole point of the story is explored in the second half, why spend the majority of the film dwelling on the first half of the play when, ultimately,  a lot of it doesn't matter?  Why focus on so much setup when there is such a drought of payoff? I say this with a heavy heart, because I love so much from that first hour and a half.

The cast is excellent here, with Streep, Kendrick, Blunt, Corden, and everyone else giving great acting as well as singing performances.  Johnny Depp has a lot of fun in a small part as Red Riding Hood's Wolf, with his design clearly inspired by Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood.  Though he reportedly only did the part as a favor to director Rob Marshall and to Sondheim himself, at least he seems to be having fun.  I could listen to this soundtrack for days; Sondheim's lyrics are fun and his orchestrations are gorgeous.  It's not as good as West Side Story, or hell, even Sweeney Todd,  but it certainly isn't unmemorable.  Under the direction of Marshall, the film's fairy tale world is well-developed, but he offers only glimpses of the visual poetry he was able to capture in his electric Chicago.  It's as though the film could have been directed by anybody.

Despite being produced by Disney, the I appreciate that film doesn't shy away from complexity or dark themes.  Besides the character deaths and the general macabre atmosphere, there are implied instances of self-mutilation, adultery, and even child molestation (in the form of Depp's child stalker-ish Wolf).  While I could have done without the latter, it was still surprising that Disney, often infamous for sanitizing classic stories to make them marketable for a family audience, kept in so many adult themes.  I also appreciate the commitment the actors have for the material; the sadness in Streep's performance when the Witch looses Rapunzel, the over-the-top mannerisms of the Princes (Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen) in the song "Agony," and Kendrick's charming befuddlement during her "On the Steps of the Palace" number are just a few great moments that really linger.

So we have a film a bit at war with itself, but one that ultimately works.  Its rushed, last half hour would probably be a deal breaker if everything that preceded it wasn't so damn good.   The performances are excellent, the music is great, and the tone is fun and loose while still containing heart.  The themes of challenging the traditional celebration of (ironically) Disney-esque happy endings is still ultimately present in the story, even if it's more subdued than it should have been. Would the film have been better at two and a half hours? I can't quite say.  I suppose in order to see the potential of Into the Woods fully realized, I'll just have to watch a stage performance.

7/10

A Christmas Carol version 12: the one with Alastair Sim

"Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool for having no eyes to see with and no ears to hear with all these years?"

How many times has Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol been adapted?  How many radio dramas, feature films, short films, television specials, and parodies have been produced since the book's publication in 1843?  The true answer may be impossible to find without copious amounts of research that I'm not all that inclined to do, but based on what I've found, it's something like 300 adaptations ever since the 1901 British short film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost.  Let's not even get into how many onstage versions have been penned, going back as far the same year the book was published. That's staggering, yet not all that surprising.  The story and characters are timeless, capturing something that transcends nearly two centuries and appeals to people of all different age groups and cultures.  Is there a definitive version of the story that exists on film?

While that's yet another question that has an impossible answer, I suppose I'll just talk about what I (and many others) consider the best film adaptation of the story to be: the 1951 version originally called Scrooge, but later renamed A Christmas Carol.  This version stars Alastair Sim as the titular character, and a large part of why this version works so well is because of his textured and psychologically complex portrayal of the character.  When he sneers, "Bah, humbug!" you don't feel as though he's acting like Scrooge, you believe that this is Scrooge.   The trouble with playing an iconic character is that the audience already has preconceived notions of what that character is; he is mythic and unattainable.  So many actors who would go on to portray Scrooge in later adaptations do a fine job (as if I've seen every single version), but it more often than not feels like watching a reenactment of A Christmas Carol than the thing itself.  And before you ask, no, this isn't the first Christmas Carol I ever saw.

Another key factor that makes the Sim version so distinct is its dark and somber mood.  While it never approaches true horror, there's a lived-in harshness to the locations, a gloominess to the lighting, a foreboding sense of dread laced into the music composed by Richard Addinsell.  It's an unsettling bit of filmmaking that captures the spirit of the book perfectly, especially throughout the first act.  The art direction is minimal to be sure; this isn't the polished Hollywood filmmaking you might expect out of a 50s Christmas film.  But its simplicity and straightforwardness is part of what makes it work so well, and what little you see onscreen is marvelously detailed.  There's no meandering on mindless action, no stopping to gawk at fancy visual effects, and not a scene goes by that doesn't deepen the characters or move the story forward.

Now, I think it's time to say something that I know will get me burned at the stake: I think this movie improves upon the book.  In small but important ways, Scrooge's character development and relationship with several other characters is made stronger and lends more weight to the narrative. For example, there's the expansion of the Mrs. Dilber character (Kathleen Harrison), who offers some hilarious comic relief when she sees Scrooge transformed at the end of the story.  Another addition is the reveal that Alice (Rona Anderson), Scrooge's former lover whom he'd lost in his pursuit of wealthiness, works in homeless shelters in the present day (developing her character a bit more and backing up some of the things she says to Scrooge earlier in the story).  We get more insight to how Scrooge and Marley acquired their business, and thus Scrooge's steady slope of decreasing compassion happens more gradually than in the original story (and any other retelling).  But the biggest improvement is most definitely the more textured relationship between Scrooge and his nephew, Fred (Brian Worth).  It was always the case that Scrooge's father resented him and and that his sister Fan (Carol Marsh) died at a young age, but there was no connection between the two details.  In this version, Scrooge's father resents him because his mother died giving him birth.  Fan is made to be older and dies giving birth to Fred, instilling in Scrooge the same irrational hatred toward Fred that Scrooge's own father had toward him.  It strengthens the narrative's themes and adds psychological complexity to Scrooge's character.

Some aspects of the film may not sit well with some cynical, modern moviegoers, and I can't say they are totally unjustified.  For starters, scenes featuring Bob Cratchit's (Mervyn Jones) family are very corny and saccharine. However, watching the Crachits have their gosh-darn happy Christmas together despite having almost no food to go around only makes the Christmas future scenes where Tiny Tim (Glyn Dearman) is dead much sadder and weightier.  It would be like if Cindy died in an episode of The Brady Bunch.  Then there are the special effects, which probably would have been looked dated even ten years before the film was made.  One shot in particular where Fan runs through Scrooge as if he was a ghost is so poorly constructed that you can actually see the edge of the processed film trailing behind Fan as if a big black line is suddenly following her (skip to 24:30 below).

But effects-driven Christmas Carols would come later.  And keep coming. And coming. And coming.  You get my point?  Dickens' novel is about the story and characters, and no other adaptation in an endless sea of adaptations captures the spirit and essence of what it's all about like the Sim version. There's so much heart behind the performances, so much atmosphere in the direction (by Brian Desmond Hurst), and so much that it just got right about adapting the book.  Make no mistake, it owes everything to the original writing, despite making a few improvements.  Everything that works in the film, and in every adaptation, has been because the core of the book is so absolutely fantastic. There is a colorized version of the film that was released in '89, but it diminishes a lot of the creepy mood with saturated colors and brighter aesthetics.  I'd say it's a sin to watch anything but the original black and white cut. Even if you've seen some version of A Christmas Carol a hundred times, watch this one for Alastair Sim and then I dare you to say that he's not the best version of Scrooge the screen has ever seen.

10/10

Interstellar

If there's a director that seems to exist for the sole purpose of making movies that I want to see, it's Christopher Nolan. His films mix the fantastic with the gritty in powerful and awe-inspiring ways, and I have yet to see a film he's written and directed that I didn't love.  Like most moviegoers, I discovered Nolan from his work on The Dark Knight trilogy, one of the best film series of all time. But when you go backwards in his career to a film like Momento, which didn't have a huge budget but made up for it with its creativity. Compare that to his more recent films like Inception, and it's clear that the Hollywood system hasn't corrupted him just yet. Here's hoping it never does.

Written by Nolan (and his brother Jonathan), Interstellar tells an ambitious story taking place in the not-too-distant future, where we meet a farmer named Cooper (Matthew McConaughey). He's not exactly a farmer by choice; the world is in a horrible dust bowl, with government all but collapsed and most people starving to death. The widowed Cooper raises his two children, Murphey (Mackenzie Foy, and later Jessica Chastain) and Tom (Timothée Chalamet and later Casey Affleck), in horrible, dust-filled conditions while fighting nightmares from his experiences as a NASA copilot. Due to strange circumstances, he and Murphey discover that NASA, long thought to out of commission, has been operating in secret, and has plans to save the human race. Cooper must abandon his family in order to go far off into space to find out if there may be an inhabitable planet through a wormhole near Saturn that seems to have been placed there on purpose by beings unknown. He's joined by other scientists on this mission, including Amelia (Anne Hathaway), who's father (Michael Caine) is the brains behind the operation.

Interstellar is a wild ride. Whether you're catapulting through wormholes, blasting off of planets, or trying to escape miles-high ocean waves, Interstellar thrills while offering thought-provoking science fiction. There's so much I loved about the movie, but let's start with the special effects. Nolan has a history of utilizing practical effects over CGI in his films, and I absolutely love him for that. When this ship flies through space, you don't doubt for a second that it could be real. Camera angles and composition give an authenticity to the visuals that has hardly been seen in a space movie outside of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Using models, rear projection, and animatronic robots, Interstellar is so much more impressive to look at and feels more authentic than any Marvel movie that resorts to glossy CGI for the disgusting majority of its visual effects. There are some scenes where CGI was obviously used, but each instance was justified (I don't imagine the actors would have appreciated being subjected to an actual sandstorm). 

 

The space scenes aren't the only bits that impress; the scenes on Earth are shot in wonderfully gritty and lived-in sets, the cinematography is dynamic, and the colors are bleak but never dull. Shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (who shot last year's Her), and eerily scored by Hans Zimmer, Interstellar's sensory experience is truly gut punch, in a good way. Seeing this at the Lincoln Center IMAX theater in New York was the best way to go, as the 70mm film print was so unbelievably clear and beautiful that I thought the screen swallowed me at one point.  And look Ma, no 3D glasses! Just pure, absorbing filmmaking.  Although, I should not that though I loved Zimmer's funeral-like scoring, it was mixed poorly with the dialogue.  There were multiple times that I couldn't hear lines because of the booming music, and I'm not the only one who noticed it. 

McConaughey, Hathaway, Chastain, Foy, and Caine all deliver first-rate performances that lend the film some much needed human emotion. McConaughey in particular delivers a phenomenal performance that lends weight to an otherwise underwritten character, so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if he gets an Oscar nomination. The Nolan brothers tend to write characters that have cold detachments towards one another, and often to serve the stories quite well. However, here the human connections get a bit more prominence, and while the film isn't 100% successful in wringing out the tear ducts, the characters' love for one another is enough to keep us invested. There are moments when cold detachment rears its ugly head in a few crucial scenes.  Sometime down the line I'll write a spoiler-heavy review to explain what I mean.  Let's just say that at one point during the second act, some guy needed a hug very badly, and he didn't get one.

While conceptually the script is very creative and thought-provoking, there are certain points where Interstellar is needlessly confusing (What!? A Chirstopher Nolan movie confusing?! Get outta here fool!).  Once again, I might wait for a more spoiler heavy review to really get into the specifics, but I can say that even if I wasn't exactly sure what was going on at any point, the film remained gripping. I could get invested in this movie at any point because of how well it's made over all, and that's a testament to the production crew more so than the writing. I actually can't wait to see the movie again so that I can pay better attention and hopefully come away with a clearer understanding about what the film is trying to say, because as of now, it could be multiple things. One theme that stands out the strongest to me is that love can transcend the boundaries of space, time, and death.

I can't recommend Interstellar enough, and to quote the infamous Tommy Wiseu, you have to see it "at least twice."  It's one of those movie experiences that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible, with the least amount of liquid drank before you go in because this thing is long.  I can't say I'm complaining about the length, because I was so engrossed in the production design that I hardly noticed the time passing.  It's sci-fi done right, and while it is influenced by just about every major sci-fi film in history in some way, it has enough of its own style to warrant it a place right alongside them.

9/10

Big Hero Six

"Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion."

Are we in a new Disney Renaissance or something?  I've really been enjoying Disney's output over the last five years, as each film defies expectations, sets new standards, and makes sure to stay relevant without sacrificing the story, characters, and charm that Disney is known for.  While I actually find the studio's latest film to be the weakest of these "new renaissance" films (including The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen), Big Hero Six is not without its great moments and strong elements.

Though the Marvel license has been in Disney's possession for some time now, this is the first ever full-on animated film has been adapted from one of their comics (though how true the resulting film is to the comics is likely not on Harry Potter levels).  The main story (set in what might be the future) focuses on the exploits of a fourteen-year-old boy named Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter, and I swear that's not why I made the Harry Potter reference), a boy genius who gets involved with illegal robot-fighting games in the back alleys of a city called San Fransokyo. San Fransokyo is just awesome in every regard, mixing American and Japanese cultures, and is brought to life in a breathtaking display of what computer animation can do nowadays.  His brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney, though I would have sworn it was Joaquin Phoenix) is a genius as well, though he has to work harder at creating his own inventions than his little brother.

One night, Tadashi brings Hiro to the university he studies at, where he introduces him to his fellow genius friends Fred (T.J. Miller), GoGo (Jamie Chung), Wasabi (Damon Wayans, Jr.), and Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez).  Tadashi also shows Hiro his newest project, a healthcare robot named Baymax (Scott Adsit), who looks more like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man than a robot, but this just makes him more huggable (and easier to turn into a Disney Store plushie).  After speaking with the the head of the robotics program Professor Callaghan (James Cromwell), Hiro decides that he wants to attend the school.  He invents Microbots: thousands of tiny robots that can band together to form incredible shapes and structures that could put millions of people out of jobs! I mean... will make everything easier and safer!  At the science exposition where Hiro shows off his new technology, someone with a personal vendetta starts a fire and steals Hiro's Microbots in the process.  It's up to Hiro, his new friends, and Baymax to find the man, get back the Microbots, and piece together why this is all happening in the first place.  They do this by using their own inventions to make themselves superheroes, and thus we have the Big Hero Six.

The film works on a number of levels; so well in fact that it overshadows some its rather large flaws.   First off, the world that the characters inhabit is sprawling and full of minute details that make it feel like a real place; a real place that I need to visit.  Right now.  Being a fan of Japanese tokusatsu, I really appreciated the nods to Japanese superhero conventions, monster movies, and sci-fi tropes.  The animation isn't just good, it's incredible; this stands right up there with Pixar as far as the quality craftsmanship that went into the CGI landscapes, characters, and mise-en-scene.  A scene that shows Hiro and Baymax flying through over the city in broad daylight gave me chills, and I didn't even see the movie in 3D.

Secondly, this is a fantastic comedy; Baymax steals the show for sure with his naiveté and limited movement, so much so that I hope this movie has a sequel solely so that I can see more of him.  I loved that they didn't really play up the whole "robot learns how to be more human" cliche I thought the writers would push for, but thankfully, Baymax doesn't need to be angsty to be interesting.  Like in How to Train Your Dragon, the side characters have distinct personalities, but don't get much focus or development.  Thankfully, Hiro is well-developed enough to carry the whole movie, showing a wide range of emotion and character flaws.  I did think he was a bit too perfect as far as his robot-building abilities go, but I'll get to that in a minute.  The relationship Hiro and Tadashi have is one of the film's stronger elements as well.  You feel their connection and are emotionally involved in the story whenever it puts their relationship at the forefront.

However, and this is a big however, there are some major problems with the movie that boot it out of being among Disney's best movies.  For one thing, it's pretty predictable; most of the plot hinges on a twist that right comes before the third act, and I saw it coming from the ten minute mark.  I'm not saying that Frozen's plot twist was anything Hitchcockian, but it was at least a bit more surprising.  The story works very well in theory, but in execution, this thing is rushed like hell in spots.  Hiro's ability to make armored suits for his friends is explained, but it happens too quickly.  Yes, we slow down for the flight scene, and a few other emotional bits, but events in the second and third acts just happen too quickly to really resonate.  This hurts the film's villain the most, which is unfortunate because on paper it's really very good.  No "take over the world" scheme, just a personal vendetta, and I really appreciated that.  The music choices are lackluster and the score is unmemorable.  The action sequences are fine, but I can't say I was wowed at any point (in fact, a car-chase that should have been really awesome ventures too far into the preposterous, and in turn fails to be exciting).  One final gripe I had with the film is the ending.  Whoa boy did they mess up the ending.  They had the perfect shot to end on and god, they screwed it up.  You can't understand what I'm talking about until you've seen the movie, so don't highlight this next part if you haven't.  I'll put it like this: imagine if in The Iron Giant, instead of ending on that great shot of all the Giant's pieces coming back together, the film continued.  The parts assembled themselves, the Giant walks all the way to Hogarth's house, they hug, and then go flying around while Hogarth unnecessarily narrates how good things are now.  Wouldn't that just SUCK? The bottom line is, this ain't no Iron Giant.

So what we have here is a movie that had more potential than it delivers. But it makes up for its shortcomings with huge laughs, great characters, and animation that pushes the boundaries of what the medium can do.  Sure, it would have been more charming to see some kind experimenting with an anime style given the subject matter, and god knows Disney could produce a phenomenal-looking anime if they wanted to...  But what we have is just fine, and I hope that we get another chance to have some fun with Baymax in a movie that feels a bit more balanced.  Did I mention that I love the hell out of the title?  "Big Hero 6."  It just sounds like a poorly translated Japanese superhero show from the 80s, doesn't it?  I need to see that.

7/10

Nightcrawler

“What if my problem wasn't that I don't understand people but that I don't like them?”

Nightcrawler is a film with big, important ideas and knows exactly what to do with them.  It explores the media industry from a pessimistic angle and interprets the human condition as one that is defined by facts and figures than by heart or emotion.  What you walk away with is a whole platitude of emotions and thoughts.  It may make you question the ethics of television news and the long-term results of our information-saturated generation, and not for the better.  The main character in the film is not a stand-in for the average person, but more a blueprint for where we might be headed.

Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a man living in Los Angeles who desperately wants to make a name for himself, but doesn't quite know how.  He spends all his time on his computer, reading about anything and everything.  Jobless, he steals equipment from construction sites for god-knows-what-purpose, until one night when he stumbles upon the scene of a car accident.  Fascinated by a freelance video journalist (Bill Paxton) on the scene, who calls himself a nightcrawler, Louis decides that he wants to start filming accidents and crime scenes, and then sell them to news stations, for a living.  After getting his foot in the door with the help of a network exec named Nina (Rene Russo), and hiring a desperate young man named Rick (Riz Ahmed) to be his partner for $30 a night, Louis puts himself in one deadly situation after another in an effort to be the best in the business.  And he’ll do anything to achieve that.

Written and directed by first-timer Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler is an excellent dark satire about the television media industry and a powerful social commentary on desensitization and its effects on a person’s humanity.   Louis is a fascinating character; a man with no soul or grip on reality due to a disgusting amount of time spent on the Internet (you know, the same amount of time most people spend on the Internet).  To him, life can be dissected into a series of facts, and Louis lacks all emotional connection to the real things he encounters.  The joy of seeing others suffer seems to be the only emotion he does convey, which makes his character all the more unsettling.  He gets a thrill out of the job, getting closer to wounded bodies than other nightcrawlers would, even lingering  on them and capturing them at the most “artistic” angles. It gives his resulting footage a pornographic aesthetic (if dead, bloody bodies are your thing).  The scary part is, it’s this creepy quirk that gets him ahead in the business, to the point where he has total control over the exec who got him the job in the first place.

Gyllenhaal deserves an Oscar nom for his work in this, and I don’t say that lightly.  He lost twenty pounds for the role, and completely disappears into it.  I could hardly believe one of the most pretty-boy actors in Hollywood was playing one of the slimiest, disgusting characters I’ve seen in a very long time.  His eyes bulge with amazement at horrific things, he speaks like he’s always lying, and he has a way of making you hate him while still being totally invested in his story.  Try not to wince during scenes where he recites career-building business models as if reading them from a textbook (all while the camera refuses to cut away from his robotic expression).  The rest of the cast is great as well, especially Ahim, who plays what might be the only main character in the film who sort of resembles a human being.  A stupid human being, but a human being nonetheless.

Nightcrawler is a very weird film, which makes me happily surprised that it was the number one film at the box office last weekend.  Then again, it tied with Ouiji, so make of that what you will.  Maybe people just saw it because they thought it was a horror movie, and in a sense, it is one.  Gyllenhaal playing one of the scariest characters you’ll ever see, and thought the things he does are despicable, but is he really any better than the cameramen only ten feet away?  Is he just some monster forged out of his own free will or is he just taking the next step to where the media is headed anyway? Does any news station report honest news or is it really only about the ratings? The film is loaded with questions that don’t get a clear answer, and that seems to be exactly the point. Just watch a news broadcast after seeing Nightcrawler and tell me it doesn’t seem a bit more contrived and heartless in its pandering to the information-hungry viewing public.  It’s a savage (and also darkly hilarious) film that doesn’t pull punches with its depiction of violence, keeps you on the edge of your seat, and makes you wonder what the world might be like if more Louis Blooms existed in our world.  Maybe they already do.  And maybe, in your own way, you’re one of them.


9/10

John Wick

"Whoa..."

It is possible? Could it be? Did Keanu Reeves star in a good action movie this year?  I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself, but I can assure you that yes, Keanu Reeves was in a very good action movie that bends cliches, impresses with its stunts, and ditches most modern action techniques in favor of a style that blends the old-fashioned with something fresh.  Does it redefine the action movie as we know it?  It's not that good.  But just about everything it does, it does well, and for a low-budget action movie in 2014 starring Keanu fucking Reeves, that's kind of a miracle.

I'd rather not discuss the plot at length here because the way the film unfolds is something you want to experience rather than read about.  Reeves stars as is a seemingly average man dealing with the recent loss of his wife to cancer.  However, due to a string of convenient circumstances, we find out that he has a shady past as an assassin for the Russian mafia, led by Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist).  But he wasn't just an assassin; they called him "The Boogeyman," because he was the best in the business.  To deal with a personal vendetta, Wick is on the hunt for Tarasov's son Iosef (Alfie Allen), and even with leagues of hit men after him (Willem Defoe and Adrianne Palicki), nothing will stop him from getting to his goal.

I know that's pretty vague and all, but the setup is the only story-heavy aspect of the movie, and I'd prefer not to spoil it all here.  This is a vengeance film, and while I typically find revenge to be a very boring character motivation (see my X-Men Origins: Wolverine review), I couldn't help but sympathize with Wick.  Iosef is a spoiled brat who takes something very precious from Wick, and throughout the film you are rooting for Wick to find him and kill his ass.  The way the action scenes are played out is mind-blowingly awesome at times, with each punch and kick (while obviously choreographed) landing with real weight and power that's lacking in something like, say, the recent Marvel movies.  I don't want to make it seem like I glorify violence, but if you're gonna be an R-rated action movie be a god damn R-rated action movie. Most action scenes are accomplished with minimal editing, meaning you get to see complex stunts and choreography in full.  A fight scenes in a dance club matches perfectly in time with bass-heavy music to create a truly thrilling experience.  Not only that, but the action is shot without disorienting shaky-cam, a style that I'm becoming more and more intolerant of.   There's some CGI blood in the mix to help accomplish this, but I'll take that over a bloodless, sterile, explosion fest any day.

The movie is more than just great action though; the opening scenes are a beautiful example of telling a story without narration or dialogue.  Things are shown to us.  Emotions are felt.  Wick doesn't tell anyone his wife died of cancer, we see his last few moments with her and then see the funeral.  That's how you do exposition.  Performances are great across the board, with every character perfectly cast and really living in their roles.  I especially liked a creepy performance from Lance Reddick as the manager of the hotel Wick stays at.  The critics are raving about Reeves' return to form, and I can definitely see what they mean.  His physical acting is great, as are his facial expressions.  But I don't know about some of his dialogue delivery... he still sounds a bit wooden to me.  He is supposed to be a machine-like assassin, so maybe he's perfect and I should just shut up.

While the film may be light on plot, and doesn't explore every facet of its story the way it could have, the execution is so good that it's worth the price of admission just to see Reeves kick some ass.   The director of the film is David Leitch, who makes his directing debut here but has a long history in the action movie business as a stunt double, actor, and second unit director (he was even Reeve's stunt double in The Matrix).  Clearly all this experience has been a hell of an education for Leitch, because he's delivered the best action movie of the year in a year full of great action movies.  Derek Kolstad, the film's writer, infuses the script with just enough self-aware humor to make you forget how ridiculous most of it is and how contrived a lot of the plot elements are.  I'd dare say a bit of Quentin Tarantino's signature style sneaks its way into some of the scenes after the violence, a period in which most action screenwriters tend to ignore.  Just where do all those dead bodies end up?

John Wick is a surprisingly good movie, my favorite kind of good movie.  It's fast paced and tight as a drum; nothing drags on long enough for you to care that the story is awfully simple.  It hardly matters anyway, it's just great to see Keanu Reeves in the limelight again after so many years of being in the cinematic doghouse.  Sitting in the theater watching Reeves kick ass again was like seeing Nicholas Cage win another Oscar... it's just something I thought couldn't be done.  Leave your common sense at the door and just enjoy this escapist action-fest for what it is.

8/10