Saturday, October 29, 2005

Animation in its myriad forms

I love animation, and not just for the reasons that most geek-culture folks in their twenties and thirties do. Sure, the ability to create entire new worlds, to tell stories that can't be told in other media, and to use an unreal but beautiful and artistic aesthetic are part of it. But while I'll argue that animation isn't just kid stuff with the best of them, I must admit to liking that it is. Half of these movies are delightfully G-rated; and while that isn't a virtue in and of itself, I don't mind spending an hour and a half watching a funny movie without the use of swearwords, bathroom humor, and anything but the mildest of innuendos. I've taken issue with people describing something as lowest common denominator as a perjorative before, since it doesn't mean exactly what people think it means. But, then again, the people who use that phrase are focused on the "lowest" rather than the "common" (and the they probably couldn't tell you what a denominator is).

Wallace & Grommit is LCD; it's something that everyone should be able to enjoy because it doesn't exclude anybody. I'll probably recommend it to the Weatherbee girls next time I see them, for instance, even though they're 25 years my junior, they should enjoy it. I imagine my grandparents would too. That's common ground.

The lesson? English majors and other critical types shouldn't try to appropriate math terms, and us science/math nerds shouldn't try to write criticism. Especially not after midnight.

(Of course, if I adjust my clock now, before going to bed, it'll say 11:30, but it's still really after midnight, as the time doesn't change until 2am).

Porco Rosso

* * * (out of four)
Seen 6 August 2005 in Jay's Living Room (Unwatched DVDs)

Hayao Miyazaki is a giant. If most people with some knowledge of the medium had to write up a short list of the most important animators in the history of the field, he'd likely be on many, many lists (my top five would run Windsor McKay, Walt Disney, Osamu Tezuka, Miyazaki, and John Lasseter, in chronological order). The trouble with such a reputation is that when one comes upon a movie that is merely very good, the temptation is to focus not on how fine a film it is when compared to its contemporaries, but how it falls short of the master's other works.

That's terribly unfair. I admit, I don't love this film the way I do Castle in the Sky or Howl's Moving Castle, but that's mainly due to the extended fistfight that serves as the climax. It's exhausting and punishing - I don't think I can remember another animated movie where the characters looked so painfully bruised by the end - and I wanted the final big set-piece to be something aerial. The tagline on the DVD was "Pigs Can Fly", after all. So, I wasn't terribly fond of one aspect of the film, but there were many others that I did rather like.

Start with the character designs. The title character's is striking, of course - a humanoid pig with fully articulated (though gloved) fingers and french mustaches peeking out from under his snout, dressed in a trenchcoat and snazzy aviator sunglasses. But the fully-human characters are nice as well - mechanic Fio is all soft curves that highlight her femininity and youth without over-sexualizing her, while old friend Gina is more angular, given a hint of femme fatale, but not too much, since her main characterization is that of someone who has taken wisdom from an adventurous youth but has mostly settled down. Meanwhile, the villains look suitably distorted; not quite monstrous, but wearing their badness on their sleeve.

Then there's the whole overall feel of the movie. Like many of Miyazaki's films, it takes place in a fantasy world, where not only are there air pirates, but a man can be cursed to look like a pig and not arouse too much notice, despite being the only anthropomorphic animal on the island, but is also grounded in a real time and place. It's clearly the 1930s Mediteranean, with the threat of the upcoming war hanging over everything, and flight about to move from being the domain of a few adventurers to being a major military and commercial concern. It's not completely melancholy, or even mostly so. There's plenty of exciting aerial action, including a wonderful sequence where a group of orphan girls prove not to be the sort of frightened hostages the pirates had expected. Porco Rosso is kind of slow-paced compared to many American adventure movies, in that it's not continuously trying to top the previous set-piece, but it makes its adventurous moments count.

I'd like more. But I'm greedy that way.


* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 3 September 2005 at AMC Chestnut Hill #5 (first-run)

As an audience member, there are certain things I have an almost Pavlovian reaction to. John Cleese's voice, for instance. It's got a humorous sneering tone, and has been associated with so many funny things, that I start to laugh as soon as I hear it. This, apparently, holds true even if the lines he delivers as an English pigeon captured by Nazi falcons are nowhere near as funny as what he did in Monty Python.

There is, in fact, a ridiculous amount of great English voice talent on this movie - Cleese, of course, along with Ewan MacGregor, Ricky Gervais, Tim Curry, Rik Mayall, Jim Broadbent, John Hurt, and Hugh Laurie - whose actual accent already sounds strange after just a year of regular exposure to him playing an American on House. And why not? It's a slick-looking British production with a clever concept thats appealing in perhaps being something their kids would like and taking place against the backdrop of World War Two, justifiably a source of pride for the British people.

As such, Valiant has nothing to be ashamed of. For every awkward "Charles de Girl" groaner, the film offers up a bit of charm, or adventure, or understated bit of patriotism. A bit at the end where Hugh Laurie's pigeon treats his escape from certain death as no big deal seemed especially amusing. And it hits the right note for its young primary audience, with Ewan MacGregor's undersized, underestimated title pigeon succeeding against odds because of his small stature. The movie's alsoshort enough to not wear out its welcome.

One thing that did seem odd, though, was how empty the movie sometimes felt. It's not a film about anthropomorhic animals, but one set in our world with cartoonified creatuers who build their homes out of things discarded by humans. Valiant even makes a speech about how "they" built the great cities where the pigeons roost. But we almost never see any around, even when the camera pulls back for a shot of an eerily empty London. I don't know whether it was a creative choice or a decision not to spend processor power on things that ultimately don't effect the movie much, but it creates a strange effect - many of the environments well are out of proportion to the characters, but there's no frame of reference to what would fit. Strange-looking.

Corpse Bride

* * * (out of four)
Seen 25 September 2005 at AMC Fenway #13 (first-run)

I like animated films to have a specific aesthetic, and use abstraction and worlds designed from scratch to make every frame an expression of some thought rather than just an attempt to replicate the real world. And there's no doubt Corpse Bride does that, with its big heads and tiny limbs, and different color schemes. If anything, it perhaps suffers from knowing this a little too well.

Corpse Bride is the story of Victor van Dort (voice of Johnny Depp), whose nouveau riche parents have arranged a marriage to the daughter of the local nobility. It's a sound transaction, one which will elevate the van Dorts' profile and the Everglots' liquidity, and that Victor and Victoria Everglot (voice of Emily Watson) are actually as well-matched as their names is an unexpected bonus. However, when Victor drops the ring during a break from the wedding rehearsal, a peculiar series of events leaves him bound to Emily (voice of Helena Bonham Carter), a young woman murdered on her wedding night who pulls Victor over to the "other side".

Read the rest at HBS.

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 9 October 2005 at AMC Fenway #13 (first-run)

How good is the Wallace & Gromit movie? It's so good that Ralph Fiennes is funny for perhaps the first time in his life. It's so good that what is basically the same joke is still funny the third time it is used. It is, in short, just as good as you would expect a Wallace & Gromit movie to be.

For those not familiar with the pair, Wallace (voice of Peter Sallis) is a cheese-loving inventor and Gromit is his dog. Gromit is, as animated canines are wont to be, the brains of the operation, though he doesn't speak. Their current project is a humane pest control service, helping their neighbors rid themselves of rabbit infestations in the weeks leading up to the village's annual giant vegetable competition. Trouble is, the bunnies are eating them out of house and home, so Wallace tries a new invention to try and curb their veg-destroying urges. Of course, these things never work right on the first try...

Read the rest at HBS.

Next up: The Lightning Round!

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Boston Fantastic Film Festival





* * ½ (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.

Trapped by the Mormons

* * * (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.


* * * ¼ (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.


* * * ½ (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.

The Muppet Movie

* * * * (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.

The Collingswood Story

* ¾ (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.


* * * * (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Alex de la Iglesia: Crimen Ferpecto, Accion Mutante, La Communidad, 800 Balas

The Brattle did an Alex de la Iglesia series last weekend, and it's the kind of series that makes me a fan. I only saw four of the six films screened - I saw Day of the Beast at the Coolidge's horror marathon a couple Halloweens ago, and didn't feel like seeing it again as part of a double feature with Perdita Durango, or seeing Durango on its own. Besides, it was my birthday (the big $20 in nerd terms), so I was of course pre-occupied with trying to get a single cupcake at the supermarket, which proved to be impossible, and watching the Red Sox crush the Yankees without staying up until 2am. Still, three of the four movies I saw, I liked quite a bit, and the fourth is worth seeing.

Anyway, this provides a nice segue for Brattle stuff.

First: They need money; there's talk of ending repatory programming there if they don't get some donations, and that would be a terrible thing. Here's a link to their page of ways to extract money from people. If you've ever been there, you know it's a cool place; get yourself a T-shirt, poster, or discount card. If you've got friends or family in Boston, give them a gift membership (I mean, if you live in the Boston area yourself and love movies, you're already a member, right?). Or just make a donation; it's tax-deductable.

Second: The Boston Fantastic Film Festival starts tonight, and runs through the weekend. Perdita Durango ran as part of the festival last year, though there's no de la Iglesia stuff this year. I saw about a third to half of what's playing in Montreal this summer, and can strongly recommend Ju-On: The Grudge 2 and Mindgame, liked R-Point, and will subject myself to Izo again if someone makes a $500 donation to the Brattle in my name. I shouldn't have to recommend The Muppet Movie, it is a bona-fide five-star classic and the chance to see it on the big screen should be treasured. Everything I haven't seen, I'm looking forward to - Marebito, Three...Extremes, Creep, Trapped by the Mormons. I'm hoping like heck that Ned managed to get Mindgame on film, since it's eyeball-bustingly gorgeous and I only got to see it on projected video at Fantasia.

Anyway, onto the reviews.

Crimen Ferpecto (aka Ferpect Crime or La Crimen Perfecto)

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 30 September 2005 at the Brattle Theater (Mutant Action!)

Some American theaters are running this under the name "La Crimen Perfecto", which strikes me as a perfect example of underestimating both the film and the audience. The wordplay in the film's title translates easily enough, and gives the audience a clear idea of both the film's content and its offbeat tone. If someone standing at the ticket booth can't grasp the title, maybe they're just not the audience for this gem.

The crime will eventually be committed by Rafael Gonzalez (Guillermo Toledo), the handsome fellow who runs the women's wear department in Madrid's Yeyo megastore. He's a consummate salesman, and greatly enjoys the company of the beautiful young women who work in his section, but across the hall is his archnemesis, "Don" Antonio (Luis Varela), a dour, joyless man who runs menswear. They're locked in a competition to be manager of the entire floor, which, as Rafael tells us, is the path to company junkets, stock options, a seat on the board, wealth, and power. A scuffle after the position is awarded, however, leaves Don Antonio dead, and Rafael the obvious prime suspect if he doesn't find a way to dispose of the body. Enter Lourdes (Monica Cervera), the one woman in his department he hasn't bedded (she's rather homely). She's a witness, but will help dispose of the body and keep quiet if he gives her some of the attention he gives the other girls. And makes her the new women's wear manager. And fires the girl he was just flirting with. And... well, soon Rafi is in a sort of prison without walls, subject to her every whim. Something will have to be done, and he's already got blood on his hands.

Read the rest at HBS.

Acción Mutante (aka Mutant Action)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 30 September 2005 at the Brattle (Mutant Action!)

Alex de la Iglesia's recent movies, things like Ferpect Crime and 800 Bullets are peculiar, off-center entertainments. The closest American analog I can think of is Sam Raimi. And like Raimi, his early works are as delightfully strange as they are obviously low-budget.

"Acción Mutante", in the film, is the name of a group of unattractive and disabled terrorists who strike back against the attractive people who control society. With their leader Ramon Yarritu (Antonio Resines) in jail, though, they tend to screw up on a regular basis. Once Ramon is released, they set about on a new mission - to kidnap beautiful heiress Patricia Orujo (Frederique Feder) and hold her for ransom. The kidnapping becomes a bloodbath, the kidnappers turn on each other, and the hostage develops Stockholm Syndrome.

Don't let Pedro and Agustin Almodovar's names in the credits as producers fool you; this is no classy art film. You've got your basic cheap special effects, black comedy galore (a dare you not to laugh at news footage of MA taking out an aerobics class), and gore, gore, gore. Blood and body parts all over the place, really, and that's after considering that the kidnappers are already on the grotesque side. This is the kind of film that is all about grabbing attention. It doesn't really need to make a whole lot of sense, so long as it keeps the audience cringing or laughing at the latest outrageous thing thrown at it, and if people with the money to mount larger productions say, hey, this de la Iglesia fellow has style, so much the better.

In fact, once you get past the concept, the spiffy opening credits, and the catchy theme music, the whole thing is actually rather silly. None of the characters are really motivated to do anything that they do; they just act on authorial fiat to get the audience to the next scene of outrageous violence. Along the way, there's great amusement to be had at the empty-headed pretty people at Patricia's party - Enrique San Francisco as "Luis Maria de Ostalaza, the outraged groom" made me laugh very hard just by looking stupid - to Ramon's eye-rolling annoyance at Patricia's declarations of adoration, as if this sort of thing has happened to him before. And the bloodletting is staged in an entertaining way, much of it transpiring on a spaceship set that is sort of beautiful in its cheapness - Caro/Jeunet grimy but also sort of retro-cool.

In the end, Mutant Action amused me much more than it probably had any right to. It's right on the border between "deliberately campy" and "overcoming its budget", and the messiness of its script annoyed me. It's got the exuberance of a young and talented filmmaker breaking into the scene, which is not only exciting, but also interesting once you've seen the man's later, more polished, films.

La Comunidad

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 1 October 2005 at the Brattle Theater (Mutant Action!)

The first thing one notices about La Comunidad is the eye-catching title sequence. I, personally, think that the Oscars should have an category to recognize a great set of opening credits (call it the Saul Bass Award), and further feel that if they did, Alex de la Iglesia's films would regularly be contenders. The stark, red-tinted stills of Carmen Maura and the accompanying shrieks set an ominous mood, but the way they move back and forth across the screen implies that de la Iglesia's trademark wit will be in supply.

Ms. Maura plays Julia, a middle-aged realtor showing an apartment in Madrid. The building appears kind of run-down and there's no parking, but inside it's fantastic. She invites her husband over to make use of it while she has the keys, the ceiling cracks open, and an investigation of the apartment above uncovers a rotting corpse in a disgusting environment. Further investigation uncovers a fortune in cash. But while finding the money may not have taken much effort, getting it out of a building filled with suspicious neighbors is something altogether more difficult.

Julia is no heroine; she's as selfish and conniving as anyone else in the movie, but we can root for her because she (at least initially) is a mere opportunist, with nothing particularly premeditated about her misdemeanors. She's probably too old to be described as "plucky" but not so old as to have stopped dreaming, even if her husband's sense of adventure is as frustratingly dormant as his libido. She's no kind of master criminal, but Ms. Maura gives us a sense of both the character's panic and her resolve, and it helps us get into her corner.

There's a nifty Ira Levin feel to the apartment's other inhabitants - some are peculiar individually, especially a guy who hangs around his apartment in a full Darth Vader costume, but most seem normal enough, if not terribly gregarious. When aggregated, though, the community as a whole is downright unnerving. It's a classic set-up, with an outsider shoved into a society she doesn't understand, with no help immediately available because of the insular nature of the place and her own less-than-legitimate standing. de la Iglesia and regular co-writer Jorge Guerricaechevarria use it to crank the tension up while putting in plenty of humor.

Another set of filmmakers might have been tempted to make a political allegory out of this; it'd be, perhaps, the European thing to do. You can find such themes if you want to look. A theme of oppression, perhaps, or people from outside the community plundering the poor natives. You can play with the idea that democracy becomes tyranny when "majority rules" is the only moral principle. These filmmakers, though, appear to understand that films can collapse under too much metaphor, and when it comes down to brass tacks, La Comunidad isn't about making a statement, but about delivering thrills and just enough laughs to surprise. The rooftop chase that makes up much of the final act, for instance, has no ideology, but is tautly constructed, with some fantastic helicopter shots and a genuine sense that these people, who are not used to chasing or being chased, could in fact fall a great distnace to their deaths at any moment.

The end result is maybe not as incisive or insightful as it could be, but it is pretty darn exciting, which for my money is far more important. That's not to imply it's a stupid movie, just that it's more interested in straight-on thrills and twisted comedy than satire.

800 Balas (800 Bullets)

* * ¾ (out of four)

The Western remained popular in Europe longer than it did in America, and stayed more potent as well. I'm not sure they lasted long enough that they were still being cranked out in the early 1990s, which this film's timeline would seem to imply, but maybe. And if not, that's not really a point worth any demerits, even if this is a film about the collision between fantasy and reality.

Carlos Torralba (Luis Castro) is a handful, the sort of pre-teen that makes his mother Laura (Carmen Maura) wish for a guiding hand in his life. She's less than pleased, though, when he seeks one out in the form of his never-before-mentioned grandfather Julian (Sancho Gracia), a former western stuntman who now plays the sherriff in "Hollywood, Texas", a tourist attraction built out of an old Western movie set, where paying customers can see an old west shootout enacted for them live. Carlos skips out on a school trip to find him. Julian tries to send him home, then grows fond of him. Laura tracks him down, then sees the beautiful land on which the financially failing attraction resides as the perfect place for her firm to build a resort. An outraged Julian rallies his confederates to fight back - with live ammunition!

It's kind of ridiculous, and at a few minutes over two hours, a little too sprawling. The relationships between Julian, his wife, Carlos, Laura, and her late husband, are merely strained, not terribly complicated. The other players at Hollywood, Texas are colorful, but thin. And in some ways, the stunt show almost looks too good - for something that's supposed to be a failing concern, it looks awfully slick and well-staged. In some ways, this helps to make the fantasy of living in a Wild West town in Almeria more seductive, for both Carlos and Julian, but seems incongruous when the reality of the situation must be confronted. It also seems to speak ill of the area's police force that a few crazy guys with six-shooters and no actual hostages are able to hold a SWAT team at bay for so long.

For all the thinness and implausibility of the story, though, the cast grows on you. Sancho Garcia's Julian may be a self-deluding old fool, but he's one with passion and flair. He's a man living a dream, so wrapped up in a fantasy that he can't quite handle it when reality intrudes, but there are moments where he is able to clearly remind us that his happy life is also an exile. Camen Maura, so excellent in the director's La Comunidad, plays the fun-ruining mother. She's the type who comes off as a villain when your age has just reached double digits, but is in fact mostly overwhelmed by the challenges of both a small child and a successful career. Luis Castro is quite charming as a somewhat obnoxious city kid who is swept away and awe-struck by the imaginary world of Hollywood, Texas. Angel de Andres Lopez, whose role as either a local prostitute or a woman playing a prostitute in the show (or quite possibly both) isn't particularly important to the story, still grabs the audience's attention ; she's got some charisma (and by "charisma", I don't just mean "a great body highlighted by exceptional breasts and no apparent resistance to doing nudity", although, yeah, that's a big part of it).

For all the film's well-staged set pieces and pleasant characters, though, it never achieves the same levels of delight as director Alex de la Iglesia's other features. This may be deliberate; he and co-writer Jorge Guerricaechevarria are in a very character-based mode, asking the audience to identify with the people on screen rather than just enjoying the anarchy, as is their usual m.o. It's not quite conventional, but it's more sentimental than their usual work.

Nothing inherently wrong with "sentimental", but de la Iglesia isn't nearly as good at it as he is at "crazy". 800 Balas is at its best when it's crazy, but that doesn't happen often enough.

Next up: BFFF stuff and animation.

Thursday, October 06, 2005




Although I wouldn't complain.

Hustle & Flow

* * * (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.


* * * ½ (out of four)



Read the rest at HBS.


* * (out of four)





The Thing About My Folks

* ¾ (out of four)
Seen 23 August at Loews Boston Common #2 (preview)





Pretty Persuasion

* * ¾ (out of four)






Sunday, October 02, 2005


The idea of the blog is to review everything I see, but various festival-type things and work and just slowing down is keeping it from happening. And, there's other stuff I want to write while this falls out the back of my brain, so it's time to recognize that I won't catch up any time soon. So, over the next week or so, I'll be doing capsules to catch up. Any regular readers who want to see one of these subjects expanded, drop a comment and I'll look at expanding to full reviews.

The (planned) line-up:

Previews I didn't get to writing up until after the film had come and gone:
- Hustle & Flow, Junebug, Asylum, The Thing About My Folks, Pretty Persuasion

Oldies but (mostly) goodies:
- Sabotage, The Duelists, Elevator to the Gallows, The Shining

Henson & heirs:
- Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, MirrorMask

Boutique-ish stuff:
- Broken Flowers, November, The World, Lord of War

I ♥ Rachel McAdams:
- Wedding Crashers, Red-Eye

- Porco Rosso, Valiant, Corpse Bride

Daring Escapes:
- The Great Raid, The Tunnel

Wasn't Paul Rudd going to be a romantic lead, not a wacky supporting character?
- The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Baxter

Big-time Imax:
- Magnificent Desolation, Sharks

Alex de la Igleseas:
- El Crimen Ferpecto, Accione Mutante, La Communidad, 800 Bullets

See, 31 behind? Never getting caught up, especially with the baseball playoffs and all the good stuff at the Brattle. And the midnight kung fu stuff starting back up at the Coolidge. So capsules for now, but I'll take a couple requests.