Thoughts on "Guardians of the Galaxy"

Considering it’s an action blockbuster bankrolled by one of the most dominant, successful company brands, Guardians of the Galaxy is a strange film. Yes, it has its moments of extravagant spectacle, and it falls prey to a last act action sequence so enamored with CGI and special effects that it is always a little emotionally disconnected. But it also has a band of misfit anti-heroes who do the right thing not because it is necessarily right but because it benefits them in some way. And by placing its emphasis on these characters and their playful, occasionally self-consciously wry, interactions the film feels lively and snappy. Marvel took a risk with a film like Guardians which is based on a comic book property that is obscure and features characters who are downright bizarre (a sentient tree (voiced by Vin Diesel) and a talking raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), anyone? – the former of which is possibly the most memorable and endearing of the film’s characters). But that clout is being used smartly and confidently. At its core, Guardians isn’t especially daring though. It is familiar really: a space opera meets an old adventure serial. It is a throwback, featuring the wit, imagination and sparkle of popcorn films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It also features a good dose of the group dynamic of The Avengers, thrusting a bunch of people that make no sense occupying the same space and watching them riff off one another. The result is inspired and it leads to Guardians, at times, being filled wall-to-wall with jokes. The film may just be Marvel’s funniest outing yet. But it’s, more accurately, the most jubilant, riding on a wave of child-like glee. This starts with central protagonist Peter Quill (played pitch-perfectly by Chris Pratt), self-monikered as “Star Lord”, a dude who is in a deep state of arrested development after leaving earth on the day his mother passed away. Quill is full of himself, and yet he lives life flying by the seat of his pants. He won’t accept responsibility because he essentially has lived his whole life avoiding growing up. That sense of loss and sadness lingers in the background of the film but sits there understatedly, threatening to bubble up every so often. The five members who make up the titular Guardians (also featuring Zoe Saldana as warrior-princess Gamora and former-wrestler Dave Bautista as the deadpan comic wonder Drax the Destroyer) are trying to outrun dark, pained pasts, often through sheer force of quip-delivering will. Towards the end of the film, Quill labels himself and his compatriots “losers”, and he is right. These aren’t the heroes we’ve been taught we deserve; they act cowardly, foolish, dumb, and selfish. Co-writer and director James Gunn gets a significant mileage out of that fact. The scope here is large, gallivanting from planet to planet in a large corner of this universe. The story being told is needlessly dense and intricate and not always easy to follow. But the mythology is almost beside the point, a Rube Goldberg-ian device to facilitate character-based fun. As A.A. Dowd notes, “What’s faintly delightful about Guardians Of The Galaxy is that half of its heroes seem bored by the mythology, too.” By placing the perspective primarily on a bunch of ill-equipped people/creatures, heroic only by circumstance, swept up in politics, intrigue and conflict that is beyond them, it makes for a story Marvel has yet to tell and one that finds new, quite entertaining notes to hit.

Thoughts on "Only Lovers Left Alive"

Is there any genre more worn out than the story of vampires (perhaps the rom-com)? It’s not like we needed another one, but Jim Jarmusch has breathed new life in to the desiccating corpse by making, well, a Jim Jarmusch movie. If you went into Only Lovers Left not realizing it was about vampires, it might take a while to catch on (probably by the point they start downing some blood and reacting like they just shot-up heroin). The signifiers of vampirism have been stripped and what remains is a droll, lushly gloomy mood piece. Jarmusch is more content to soak up dripplingly melancholy atmosphere and observe his protagonists, married vampires fittingly named Adam and Eve (Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton), as they barely muster up the energy to keep existing after centuries of just that. They look – with frazzled states of dress and unkempt hair -- and act exhausted, and while mentions of adventures with historical figures and events hint at a once vibrant life, they, like the central setting of Detroit, feel like they’ve seen better days (Setting the majority of the film in a city like Detroit feels like a wonderful, understated joke, another way of removing the romanticism that has come to seep into the genre). They're anachronisms of a more cultured, literate time watching the world give itself over to the digital and short-attentioned. Jarmusch isn’t too keen on plot, outside of the late arrival of Eve’s reckless, care-free sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) shaking up the endless languor. Instead, he is more interested in giving us a sense of the rituals that come with being a vampire, noting small details of what perpetual, never-ending existence really entails. For instance, the way Adam and Eve fetishize cultural items, such as books or guitars, they have become attached to, or the manner in which they acquire blood. A fair amount of this Jarmusch uses towards his signature, dry wit, humor so rigorously deadpan it doesn’t always register immediately. Jarmusch balances between finding humor in playing around in such an overly familiar genre and in giving his own revisionist spin on the tired tale. Like last years’ vampire flick Byzantium, but to an even greater and less commercial extent, Jarmusch depicts life as a vampire as an existential crisis, filled with longing, desperation, and sadness. But for all its apparent, lingering ennui, Only Lovers refuses to be solely a downtrodden affair but also a thoroughly sensuous one, in a dreamily, other-worldly way, reminiscent of Wong Kar-Wai. The warm invitation also comes due to the central couple, who's romance remains swooning, even as all these centuries have passed. There is a distinct pleasure to be had from being invited into this abode, crossing the threshold into this strange place with the weary figures who reside there.

Review: "Date and Switch"

Sex comedies, despite all their sexual voraciousness, are inconsistent and questionable in the one thing they are so adamant about: sex. The sexual politics of too many sex comedies are regressive and more than a little shameful, indulging in not only the childish humor but the perspective of adolescents. That is, in part, due to the protagonists of most of these movies being virginal teen boys who are desperately in want of sex. Teen boys don’t have the most admirable views of sex or sexuality, and the views of teen movies too often have the quality of a misogynistic bro mentality.

Date and Switch starts from that place of infantile humor and questionable views of women and sex, but it quickly throws a wrench into the equation. The film begins with a familiar premise: best friends Michael (Nicholas Braun) and Matty (Hunter Cope) make a pact to get laid in time for prom. Problem is that Matty happens to be gay, something he confesses for the first time. Michael doesn’t take this well, and the film takes advantage of this situation to call bullshit on some of the more unfortunate laden homophobic views in adolescent and straight male culture. 

In Matty, the film creates the antithesis of the stereotypical notions of homosexuality. Like Happy Ending’s Max, Matty is a schlubby slacker who outwardly appears like a guy’s guy. He’s only gay in the one sense that really matters, his desire to sleep with men. The film uses Matty’s coming out to show how uncomfortable and difficult this kind of thing is for a young newly out gay person.

Admirable as the film’s underlying messages and themes are, it still falls prey to typical sex comedy traps, getting caught up in some truly idiotic jokes and some overly familiar scenarios. Outside of its big twist, which it plays up to great effect, the film doesn’t have that many new things to add to the tired stories of male friendship or the quest to lose one’s virginity (not that we needed much more said about either in the first place).  

Braun and Cope are both far too old for the parts they’re playing, which only serves to make the scenario, already treated with a juvenile light-heartedness, less convincing (It also doesn’t help that neither is an especially strong actor). Supporting performers help round things out making the most of a little, like Nick Offerman as Michael’s father and Dakota Johnson as  Matty’s understanding former girlfriend (Johnson keeps being great in bit parts that squander her – here’s thinly hoping that 50 Shades of Grey actually changes that). But the film, like the pot brownies at the center of its plot (because, of course, that's a major plot point), feels half-baked.

Grade: C+

Review: "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"

The Planet of the Apes films are something of outliers in franchise storytelling. They are more interested in ideas than trying to out-compete the films that have preceded them. They mull over and chew on some weighty ideas and then put them into an interesting science fiction premise to make it all go down easier. A lot of it is clearly weighted in symbolism and metaphor, but the films at their best weigh their premises with such a strong emotional reality that they begin to take on a life of their own. This primarily comes from taking the implications of a given scenario or conflict and truly digging into the realities of those implications.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ ending is writ into its title. We have several films that already inform us where the outcome of this is heading. The film is aware of this and its script, written by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver, finds ways to make that inevitable ending perhaps the film’s greatest strength. The story tightens the screws continually, crafting a no-win situation where neither the apes nor the humans can truly win; where neither will be in the right, where they stand to lose so much more if they do go to war against one another. It is a good old fashioned tragedy; something the film’s final images, powerful and deeply moving, reinforce: this shouldn’t have happened, and yet there was no other way it could have happened. 

Dawn is set ten years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. A simian flu accidentally released by a research lab, who’s experimenting helped breed the super-intelligent apes at the center of the film, has wiped out the majority of humanity. A small band of survivors who seem to be immune to the virus have taken refuge in part of San Francisco. It is a world of post-apocalyptic grit and decay; human works still stand but they have come into disuse and disrepair. It is a visual template of darkness and somberness to match the progressively tonally dark and narratively ambiguous story. 

The apes have evolved significantly since the end of the last film. Their every movement is more human than simian now, and they have formed a human-like community, a ramshackle but impressive dominating wooden structure, a cross between fortress and jungle-gym, at the heart of a forest on the far side of the Golden Gate Bridge. They still speak mostly through signing but human language has gradually started coming into use. The film shows the day-to-day operations of the ape community. It lets us inhabit this place and fills it with details that make it feel lived-in – such as classes to learn the English alphabet or ideological underpinning like the mantra “Apes don’t kill other apes”. Director Matt Reeves, along with the special effects team, really has an eye for the physical presences of apes in the real world environment (like in shots of whole packs of apes swinging from branch to branch, shot underneath to accentuate the movement). Unlike the old films, the apes actually look like real apes. Their movements and body language signals small but crucial changes to physiognomy, but they still have more of the physical and genetic structuring of apes than of humans. 

The special effects for this film are stunning. This is some of the most seamlessly rendered CGI effects I have ever seen. Real people wore motion capture to make the apes have a real presence and to have a nuance of emotion; most notably, Andy Serkis reprises his role of Caesar, the leader of the apes, and it is one of those remarkable, deeply felt performances that it is hard to imagine another actor capable of pulling off. With each new performance using motion capture, Serkis has refined his craft, becoming less showy and more subtle with his work (His performance of Caesar is filled with small emotional cues and body language changes that are so understated that you don’t completely realize the small ways Serkis is thoroughly shaping your response). Serkis has long been ignored for his work due to playing parts where he effaces himself through digital effects work. Whether it is Gollum or King Kong, Serkis’ face isn’t literally present but without him these roles simply don’t work. Without Serkis it is just CGI imagery that we feel nothing for; with him, Caesar is a character as fully realized and as fully felt, and every bit as present as the other actors Serkis works with. 

Caesar has become the patriarch of this ape community. He’s a Godfather-like figure that quietly demands and commands the respect and loyalty of the other apes. He accepts the counsel of others – including the temperamental, formerly experimented upon second-in-command named Koba (Toby Kebbell), who holds a deep unyielding hatred towards humanity – but, at the end of the day, it is always his to make any given decision for what the apes do. Caesar is no longer the young ape he was in Rise. He’s grizzled with hints of grey hair and battles scars, and he is married to Cornelia (Judy Greer) with one son, Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) – still in need of battle testing and feeling overshadowed by his father -- and another on the way. He is a no longer a freedom fighter but rather a family man with far more to lose, and he fears losing it every bit as much as the humans. 

The script and Reeves’ direction build up this world and that of the humans, filling out each with internal rules and conflicts and inhabiting them with various personalities. Neither’s perspective is privileged and neither side is outright made hero or villain. Instead, Reeves splits time between the two camps, creating sympathies amongst them, reasons to root for and like both, as well as reasons to dislike them. The split between point of views and the motivations behind them leads to a fascinating conflict where the film gives us the standard blockbuster action and spectacle but roots it in a morally and emotionally complicated narrative foundation. (That isn’t to say it isn’t entertaining. A film with an ape riding a horse firing off dual machine guns couldn’t help but be fun and thrilling. But Reeves choreographs the action and the events leading up to it in a way that gives it all a certain heft). Reeves is patient and deliberate, pushing the action into the third act.  

What makes the third act so deeply painful to watch when it arrives are the glimpses Reeves provides of the humans and apes setting aside their differences to live in harmony. Mistrust exists almost immediately when a group of humans, looking to use a nearby dam as an alternative power source, run into some apes and trigger happy, pithecophobic Carver (Kirk Acevedo) panics and shoots one of the apes. The situation is salvaged when perceptive, kindly Malcolm (Jason Clarke) recognizes that his party will be safe if they demonstrate that they intend no harm. Caesar, who was raised by humans and still bears some feelings towards them, sends the humans off with a warning to leave. 

Members of the ape community, including Koba, are torn over whether to go straight to war but are assuaged by Caesar’s choice for merely a display of strength. Reeves doesn’t get heavy handed with the parallels, abundant and apparent as they may be. For instance, it isn’t at all a coincidence that the leader of the human camp Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) starts considering war with the apes soon after the same conversation happens amongst the apes. At its core, there is a “we’re not so different you and I” message floating around in Dawn, but it is one of those rare instances where it really works because the film places it way in the background. It’s not an entirely subtle message but it is exceptionally subtly handled – placed as it is in subtext, situations and character arcs. The apes of the Ape movies have long stood in for minority groups (the older films have long been speculated to be about race and civil rights), but here they stand in for something else as well beyond those groups being othered. 

Dawn has a strong thematic center related to the world’s growing energy crisis. After the apes make clear they will not fight so long as both sides maintain their distance, it becomes apparent that this is not a tenable situation for the humans. The humans are running out of fuel and are in need of access to the dam in order to survive. This, of course, means violating the pre-agreed upon peace arrangements. Malcom comes up with a plan to bring a small group to parlay with the apes and come to an understanding. Hanging over this is Dreyfus’ warning that if the group hasn’t returned in three days’ time, the well-equipped humans will retaliate against the apes (very much a Chekov’s gun stockpile). From here arises the question of what any group of people, or nation, is willing to do, how far they are willing to go, in a world where resources are increasingly dwindling and finite. Survival is paramount for both sides, but everyone, whilst looking out for themselves, fails to see other possibilities or solutions. 

Malcolm is an almost impossibly decent person, which should rub us the wrong way, but the film shows him as not solely good-hearted but also discerning, seeing there is more to be gained from diminishing suspicion. (In deed, the true irony of the film is that its most fully formed, most human character is, well, an ape). It is tiny, subtle, organic writing like this that saves the film from feeling like it is inhabited by a bunch of non-entities. The humans at some times are a degree or two off from being underwritten, but the script has nice small moments where motivations and concerns are quietly delivered – such as the recognition that family members have died from the virus. The film is also helped by some really good performances with actors fleshing out characters by investing so much into small performances.  

Caesar and Malcolm slowly initiate a bridge towards trust but keep running into hiccups – with dissent and lack of trust from both of their sides causing breakdowns in their grasp for detente. Each of these stumbles feels like they could lead to something disastrous, but they prove themselves to be, instead, slippery steps towards an even more terrible, emotionally wrenching conclusion. The inevitable – the apes will ultimately come to dominate this planet; it’s just a matter of how – hangs over everything like a foreboding, terrifying cloud. Every redeemable, good act that moves forward diplomatic relationships is made all the more devastatingly bittersweet by how it only truly staves off what is always going to happen. (The film understands the power and meaning of small acts and gestures, ending on one such moment of shared human-ape connection/dissolution that is beautiful and deeply despairing in how it sums up everything the film has been trying to say throughout). In the end, Dawn isn’t science fiction. It’s a tragedy. By showing those steps, it makes the unraveling all the more moving and harrowing. Reeves understands the power of a slow moving  cataclysm; its power isn’t in knowing where you’re going but watching in terrified awe as you get there. 

Grade: A-

Review: "Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa"

I’ve never actually seen or heard any of the other many incarnations of the character of Alan Partridge – who’s appeared in multiple forms in television and radio appearances over the past two decades -- but in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa there’s a sense of this character being fully formed on arrival. Steve Coogan slips into the role with an effortless familiarity, and the whole film's vibe gives off a reunion quality. But that doesn’t preclude enjoyment for any new arrivals to Coogan’s comically full of himself character. In fact, it leads to the film spending minimal amounts of time on introduction and a maximum amount of time on jokes and playing up the central premise.  

We find Partridge as a disc jockey at a small-time radio station in Norwich, a place slowly becoming more corporate and cold to compete in the crowded marketplace. This especially infuriates his longtime colleague Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney), whose program feels fuddy duddy amongst the digitizing and automating sea changes. When the station is bought out, Pat seems like the obvious candidate for the cutting block; something that is exacerbated when Partridge blunders his effort to defend Pat in front of the company board, arising out of the realization that the company is picking between Pat and himself for the axing. Pat snaps and, with shotgun at hand, he holds the station and many of its workers hostage. 

Partridge unwittingly becomes the mediator between Pat and the police, as Pat believes that Partridge is the only one who gave a damn about him before his firing. But Partridge’s narcissism and short-sidedness only protract the situation and turn it into a media spectacle. The film becomes a black comical take on the more dramatically rigorous work of a film like Dog Day Afternoon with Partridge playing up the media craze in hopes of securing his employment and spinning it into a lucrative job deal. 

Director Declan Lowney doesn’t add much to the way the film is shot. Lowney’s background is largely in television and the film has a lot of the functional filmmaking common in television shooting. Instead, the film’s script (credited to Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci, and Peter Baynham) brings much of the film’s strength, playing to the chaos and stress of the hostage crisis as well as Partridge’s egotism. This is usually done by matching up the incongruity of the situation’s seriousness and how lightheartedly the film and the character’s tend to treat it. For instance, Partridge and Pat host a hit radio show from within the “siege” by drawing on viewers interested in the crisis. But perhaps, at the end of the day, it is best that someone like Lowney helmed the film as it is essentially an extended episode of television, with barely enough plot to sustain itself for ninety minutes. 

The film has some casual commentary on the changing state of media, especially for an aging medium like radio. But this is way in the background. More foregrounded but still low on the film’s mind are questions related to aging. Both Partridge and Pat are well into their fifties and looking back on a life that hasn’t gone entirely satisfactorily or as planned. Pat and his dark plans force Partridge to confront some of his delusions and selfish ways. Partridge is a massive dick at almost all times, but there’s something fundamentally sad about him. Like The Office’s Michael Scott, or, more appropriately, David Brent, he desperately wants to be liked but doesn’t quite realize he’s going about it in deeply misguided ways. At the end of the day, Partridge is going to do the right thing but it’s only after massive effort and radical outside circumstances force him to that point. 

In the intervening time before the buried conscience of Partridge arrives, Coogan delights in his role, one he has fine-tuned and honed over the years. Coogan simply knows how to play this character to the hilt. The film is farcical because Partridge is such an exaggerated figure. Initially the character was created as commentary on a particular type of media personality, and that satirical, self-consciously preposterous quality carries over into the film. Alan Partridge is a darn funny film that still manages to have a soft, mushy center focused on its characters and their endearing shortcomings.

Grade: B

Review: "In Fear"

The second most invaluable thing towards the typical success of a good horror movie is a great expressive face to focus in on. The first, of course, is a controlled sense of spatial relations and lighting to craft a sense of atmosphere and dread. In Fear has both and the second is especially promising with Alice Englert as half of a new couple, along with Iain De Caestecker, getting lost in the tangled woods of an English countryside.

Englert previously proved her mettle in the underrated Ginger & Rosa, another film, like In Fear, that kind of falls apart at the end but holds so much auspicious possibility prior to that. Director Jeremy Lovering provides a wonderful sense of maddeningly being lost and the world seeming to close in on you. The film nicely ekes out anxiety by making every last inch of its setting feel menacing and then cutting to Englert’s controlled but worried face. 

But though it boasts the necessary fundamentals to create a successful horror movie, In Fear is more than a little underwhelming. The film too often feels like it was being written as the production went along, and that's because it actually was, with the actors being left in the dark and forced to improvise with very little sense of direction as to where the story was going from Lovering. There is barely enough plot to sustain this and the actors desperately grasp to make something marginally substantial out of the thinness of the conceit at hand. That being: Tom (De Caestecker) invites Lucy (Englert) to a music festival and on the way there tells her he has made reservations at a tucked away hotel, all the better to jumpstart their two week old relationship. Lucy reluctantly agrees, and soon they find themselves in a maze of backwood roads that never seem to end and fold in on themselves. 

There seems to be a casual joke about the sexes here. Tom refuses to look at the map or stop and ask for directions. As he tries to assert his manhood and prove himself a worthy boyfriend, he sinks the two deeper into trouble.

The film gets a lot out of a little, pulling big scares out of small but freaky things happening, like the appearance and disappearance of items in the middle of the road. But at a certain point, it becomes clear Lovering (who is also credited with scripting the little of the film that was apparently penned) has no idea where he is taking this story or how to end it. In the end, it’s more frustrating than frightening. 

Grade: C+

Review: "They Came Together"

I’m not the right age to fully appreciate Wet Hot American Summer David Wain and Michael Showalter’s insanely true to detail send up of a very, very specific subset of movies set at summer camps. The films they lovingly parody were before my time and so my affection for them is at far more of a remove. They Came Together, Wain and Showalter’s follow up of sorts to Wet Hot featuring many members of that cast, more easily connects with a broader audience, but it’s also, in some regards, a less admirable, less ambitious effort. The film is every bit as specific in its comical ridiculousness, but it parodies a genre that is so much more obvious, and therefore tailor-made, for parody: the rom-com.

It’s an easier target than Wet Hot. However, Wain and Showalter largely avoid going for the easy or obvious joke. The film is broad enough that this could be any romantic comedy its poking fun at but filled with all sorts of tiny digressions that go after very exact works. That said, even when you can’t quite put your finger on what the film is making funny of, it still remains really funny. Wain and Showalter, as well as the many great comic talents they bring on board, have a background in sketch comedy, and it can be felt in the film’s go for broke quality. Don’t like one joke? Well there are a dozen more on their way to try to floor you. And the jokes run the gambit, from sly visual jokes to surreal, absurd blackout gags.  

They Came Together, starting with its unassumingly bland title, gets the fluffy genericness of rom-coms right, and it writes that into film’s every detail. Take the way everything is shot: the dull, pleasingly blindingly bright lighting and the carelessly under thought, boring directorial scheme of switching between one shots and two shots. Even the two main characters’ names Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Phoeler) remark upon the under-baked nature of the scripts for the genre – the characters never even receive last names. The couple’s story involve staples of the genre: Joel’s corporate company has designs to put out of business Molly’s candy store (a fantastic commentary on the inane, unlikely professions that often seem to only inhabit rom-coms). From there their close friends hope to set them up but they end up hating one another, but, of course, only to fall for each other. Only then for exceedingly pointless complications to set in, after which they get together. On the margins of the story, a revolving door of supporting players, including friends, siblings, and parents, arrive for one or two scenes to dissect all sorts of tropes from the genre.  

In the broad strokes, it’s every rom-com you’ve ever seen, and the film plays almost everything straight. If you passed this on television, you might be fooled for a while. But the devil is in the details, and They Came Together is constantly, slyly wild and flying off the handle. I’m not an avid watcher of the genre – among cinephile circles the genre has become one of the most poorly regarded and maligned – but I still found myself laughing hysterically. Much of this stems from the film working on another level. Much like Wain and Showalter’s previous effort, the humor comes from a general sense of out of left field silliness.  

But what really elevates the whole effort is how little disdain is shown. The film has affection for the works it’s mocking. It notes the idiocy and laugh at it, but it also kind of loves that idiocy. It’s easy to look down on something as too many spoofs do these days; it is another to make fun of something from a real place of good will and endearment.   

Grade: B