Category Archives: Film Review

Review: Kung Fu Panda 2 (dir. by Jennifer Yuh Nelson)

Posted on by Arleigh

In 2008, Dreamworks Animation released what many had thought was one of their animated films. Some even went so far as to consider it on the same level as many of the Pixar animated offerings. This was high praise indeed and the praises from critics was awarded by public acclaim as Kung Fu Panda became an instant classic for Dreamworks Animation. It wasn’t a huge surprise that a sequel was quickly greenlit by the studio and now three years has passed and that sequel has finally come out. Kung Fu Panda 2 does one of those rare feats in film-making where it surpasses it’s original predecessor in all things. This was a sequel that was able to take what made the first one so fun and thrilling and build on it without losing the charm that made it so beloved in the first place.

Kung Fu Panda 2 brings back the Dragon Warrior Po (Jack Black returning in the role of the big fat panda) as he continues to live his dream of having become the Dragon Warrior and fighting evil, bandits and criminals with his fellow kung fu masters, the Furious Five. Instead of the film highlighting Po’s size as a detriment and keeping him a buffoonish character like in the beginning of the first film this sequel actually makes him an equal of his heroes, if not, surpassing them. This is a refreshing change since the writers could’ve easily banked on Po as a character who bungled and stumbled his way through most of the film.

This film was a continuation of Po’s journey as a hero which the first film was just the first step. Despite being a kung fu master in his own right his culture becomes threatened by a villain even more devious than the first film’s Tai Lung. Lord Shen (voiced by Gary Oldman) is the mad peacock heir to Gongmen City who has found an ultimate weapon through fireworks that he plans to defeat kung fu and conquer all of China. Kung fu is everything to Po and he journeys with the Furious Five to confront Lord Shen and stop his plans before it’s too late.

It’s during this journey that Po learns more about his true past and where he truly comes from. The sequences where Po’s adopted goose father tells of Po’s past was some of the best animations Dreamworks has done and I’d say surpasses some of Pixar’s own work. After seeing this film I’m sure many kids and some adults would want themselves their very own baby panda. Who would’ve thought that baby pandas sounded like human babies when they cried. It’s knowing his past that Po must now learn to find his inner peace if he’s to ever go beyond just being a kung fu master.

Kung Fu Panda 2 was actually quite a dark film in places as themes of genocide, destructive march of technology against nature, difficulties of adopted children finding their true origins and many others. That’s not to say that this sequel wasn’t fun to watch. The action took the kung fu fight scenes from the first film to a whole new level, but without turning it into all flash and no substance. It’s during some of the thrilling fight sequences that we see Po truly become part of the Furious Five and even affection from some of it’s members. It would be interesting to see how a third film would explore the growing relationship between Po and certain striped-feline.

The story gets a much needed infusion of creative help from one Guillermo Del Toro who served as creative producer. His inclusion in the film’s development was probably why the film had a much darker and serious tone in addition to the charm it continued from the first film. If there was anyone in Hollywood who knows how to further develop a character through a Campbellian hero’s journey then it’s Del Toro. If Dreamworks Animation is able to keep Del Toro on hand to further treat their other projects then it will be quite a coup for the studio.

The animation in this film is a step above the first film and anything Dreamworks Animation has ever done. With each passing year and release it looks like Dreamworks Animation has been able to come to the same level of animated work Pixar has set with their own projects. While I’m sure there’s no animosity between animators fo the two houses there probably is some sort of friendly rivalry which helps push both studios to improve on their animation work. All this means is that the public wins out in the end as we’re treated to better animated features from both Dreamworks and Pixar. It’s a good thing that Dreamworks Animation has also improved their storytelling with each new film that they’re not being called the weaker films when compared to Pixar’s latest.

In the end, Kung Fu Panda 2 more than lives up to it’s predecessor and actually surpasses it in every way. This sequel’s animation and use of stereoscopic 3D was some of the best in CG animation to date. It had a story that continued to explore and build the characters from the first film that they’ve gone beyond simple, basic animated characters but fully realized and complex individuals. Even the ending scene in the film which definitely sets-up a third film doesn’t seem tacked on but looks like something that would further continue Po’s hero’s journey. Sequels and milking of a franchise usually don’t sit well with serious film fans, but this franchise seems to be doing it correctly and using each new film to further an epic tale. Here’s to hoping we see Po and his Furious Five friends back for more in the coming years.

Review: X-Men: First Class (dir. by Matthew Vaughn)

Posted on by Arleigh

The name Matthew Vaughn should be familiar with comic book fans everywhere. In 2005, Vaughn was introduced as the director to replace Bryan SInger for the third film in the X-Men franchise. The news was met with some cautious optimism. This was a filmmaker who had quite the loyal and growing following for his work on Stardust and Layer Cake. Months after he was picked my 20th Century Fox news came down that he was backing out of the project due to personal reasons and the film scrambled for a replacement which ended up being Brett Ratner. History was made that day as the beginning of the franchise’s decline began and steep plummet which recently reached it’s nadir with 2009’s Wolverine: Origins.

It’s has now been five years since X-Men: The Last Stand made it to the big-screen and now we have a new film in the franchise. X-Men: First Class has a familiar name behind the director’s seat and it looks like Matthew Vaughn stayed this time around (after directing a smaller superhero film in Kick-Ass for 2010) to craft what could become the best film in the X-Men/Wolverine film franchise. This film is a prequel/reboot of sorts (more on that later) and brings a fresh set of eyes and take on the origin story of this franchise.

X-Men: Last Stand actually begins the film exactly how the first X-Men film began with the 1944 World War II concentration camp setting where a young Erik Lensherr (later to become Magneto) finally manifests his power over magnetic fields as he watches his parents torn from his side. The first film ended that sequence once Erik was knocked out, but this time around it continues with a mysterious man named Schmidt (aka Sebastian Shaw and played with James Bond villainous-flair by Kevin Bacon) taking great interest in Erik and his ability which Erik could only use during bouts of pain and anger. The film continues this slight change in the series’ origins by switching over to Westchester County and into the expansive home of a young Charles Xavier who finds a certain young, blue-skinned shapeshifter named Raven who he invites to stay and become his friend once he realized he wasn’t the only one who was different and with abilities.

These two sequences continue to move the film forward as the we see these two “leaders in the making” adults and trying to find their place in the world of the free-swinging lifestyle and the Cold War culture of the 1960’s. Charles Xavier (played like a well-meaning cad and good-natured naivete about the world by James McAvoy) is a student working on his doctorate in Oxford on genetic theories while his “sister” Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) accompanies him. This is a Xavier who still hasn’t found the patient benevelonce of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and uses his considerable telepathic abilities to help him pick up on beautiful coeds instead. It’s during such a scene where we see Raven show just a hint of jealousy as Xavier tries his lines and moves on a beautiful British lass. It would seem Raven’s feelings for her ‘brother” may go beyond sibling affection though Xavier doesn’t see her as anything other than a sister for him to protect.

Erik Lensherr’s time as an adult was shown as having become a life of obsession over his treatment at the hands of the Nazi’s and those of Schmidt’s as he travels the world in search of escaped Nazi war criminals. Erik takes him throughout South America as he finds the trail of Nazis hiding out in that region since the end of the war. We see this adult Erik hardened by his anger and single-minded need for revenge on Schmidt and those he worked for. He’s not above using his abilities to kill in order to get the information he requires and there’s a hint of satisfaction when he does kill those he sees as responsible for his tragic upbringing with his magnetic abilities. These two adult sequences continues the film’s theme of the ideological difference between Xavier and Erik being formed through nature and nurture as their lives moved down diverging paths from an early beginning until it convergence for a small, brief period around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The film’s second act begins with Moira McTaggart (Rose Byrne), now a covert CIA Agent, investigating a certain Col. Hendry who she suspects as having betrayed the nation to the Soviets, but instead finds out that the true nature of Hendry’s associations were much more insidious and dangerous. The iconic Hellfire Club of the comics finally make their appearance with Schmidt who actually happens to be Sebastian Shaw (whose powers grant him the ability to absorb all kinetic energy which he uses to keep himself young and can release with explosive results), Emma Frost (January Jones) who’s a telepath with the ability to turn body in a sort of diamond-form, Riptide who can create tornado-like abilities and finally the demonic-looking Azazel whose ability to teleport might give people not well-versed in the “X-Men Universe” a clue as to one-half of parents who may be responsible for Nightcrawler in the second film.

X-Men: First Class spends much of this second act like it was Ocean’s 11 as Xavier and Erik get recruited by the CIA to find other mutants and create their own mutant team to counter Sebastian Shaw’s Hellfire Club and his goal of initiating World War III between the US and the USSR and thus destroy all of humanity and leave the planet for the mutants to rule over. Yeah, it is this part of the film’s plot which may strain the suspension of disbelief for some audiences who never grew up reading the comics, but it shouldn’t. Ian Fleming’s James Bond series used scenarios just as ludicrous with villains just as Machiavellian in the form of SPECTRE so X-Men: First Class and it’s world domination plans shouldn’t be too farfetched to fans of that British superspy and his adventures.

This middle section of the film is where X-Men: First Class actually begins to lag after a strong first act. I don’t know if the sequences of the new recruits training, bonding and learning how to use their powers could’ve been written to move much faster without losing some of the character building scenes. From how this second act played it seemed to look like scenes were actually cut out to try and keep the film from being too long (it’s final cut being just a tad over two hours already upon release), but I wouldn’t be surprised if the DVD/Blu-Ray release actually has a director’s or uncut version that actually expands this middle section to really give life to it instead of having it play out like a perfunctory training montage with a dash of character beats.

The film hits it’s action-film stride with the third and final act as Xavier and Erik’s team of young mutants must now use their abilities to stop Shaw and his Hellfire Club and at the same time prevent World War III from beginning and not freaking out the humans who are still unaware of their existence as a whole. It’s this third section which we see too much of it in the trailers and tv spots that one might say we’ve seen it all before we even see the film as a whole, but it still kept back a lot from those ads to make the whole final twenty minutes of the film thrilling and action-packed.

All of this could just mean that X-Men: First Class was just your run-of-the-mill superhero action film that we get on a yearly basis come summertime, but it’s a testament to Matthew Vaughn’s direction and the strength of the script by Vaughn, longtime collaborator Jane Goldman and Thor scribes Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz that the film goes beyond being just an action film with all it’s sturm und drang coupled with fancy special effects. The previous films in the series always explored important cultural and moral themes that’s always been the bread-and-butter of the X-Men stories in the comic books. We just don’t see the film explore the ideological difference between Xavier’s peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants alike, but also we get more detail on why Magneto finally comes to the conclusion that war between humans and mutants was an inevitability and why his stance doesn’t fall under the aegis of being evil, but something that anyone could understand and even support whether one was human or mutant.

The story also doesn’t just pay lip-service to the idea of how mutants view themselves and how even within the mutant community there’s a visible rift between those whose abilities are invisible to the general population and those whose abilities and genetic mutation physically manifest themselves in such ways that to many might not look to appealing. This idea really gets a major exploration in the subplot involving Raven (soon to be Mystique), Hank McCoy and, to a certain degree, Xavier and Erik. We see how those like Xavier whose abilities don’t show in a physical manner have a sort of “don’t ask, don’t show” about those like Raven when it comes to their power when in public.

Raven (played beautifully by Jennifer Lawrence) is caught between Xavier who wants her to remain incognito so as not to shock the world too soon in realizing that mutants exists and that of Erik who sees Raven’s original blue-skinned form as beauty and perfection and how she should never hide who she truly is. This tug and pull between her two mentors makes for a convincing subplot in how Raven comes to the conclusion which would take her to the side of Magneto in later films, but also highlight how the two sides in later films have so much intertwining bonds of friendship and relationship that seeing them against each other becomes a tragedy on its own. Civil wars are not just a thing of humans but those who sees themselves apart from them.

The great performances by most of the leads add to the film’s strength. McAvoy and Fassbender, at first, look to be unconvincing in terms of their appearance as the younger versions of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, respectively. This becomes a non-issue once they’ve established themselves through their performances which gives new layers to the personalities of Professor X and Magneto. Many people always saw these two as the comic book version of Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X, but that’s an oversimplification. The film and the performances by McAvoy and Fassbender digs deeper into both their characters’ motivations and ideologies and how their past experiences and upbringing couple with their time together as brothers-in-arms and friends show more about these two than just being mutant-proxies of MLK and Malcolm X. The other young mutants do an adequate enough job that they don’t seem lost in the film. Nicholas Hoult as the young Hank McCoy and how he plays off Lawrence’s Raven during their little subplot in the film is one stand-out that I hope gets explore even more in any follow-up sequel.

There’s a nice burgeoning young love chemistry between him and Lawrence as Beast and Raven that doesn’t seem too tacked on to create a the prerequisite love couple in any film. Their common trait of having physical mutations and how they seem to both feel apart even from their fellow mutants develop their characters in ways the previous films in the series never did. They never want to rid themselves of their mutant powers. They just want to look normal and still keep their abilities. It’s a having your cake and eat it too mentality that has some surprising results for both Raven and Hank.

X-Men: First Class has had some fans of the series put in a very difficult situation. The film definitely is a prequel to the previous films, but it also does a major time in rewriting continuity in the series. I was one of those fans and thought it would ruin the film in the context of the franchise. I’m surprised that in the end I didn’t really care and actually hope that this film actually is a reboot of the franchise. I see this film and forget the previous three as being part of it. This film was just too good and fun in it the end for continuity issues to become the major flaw that sinks it. I liken this film as similar to Christopher Nolan rebooting the Batman film franchise. That film honored the contributions to the character, but went on it’s own way to tell that character’s tale. I see Vaughn doing the same with this film. He has done something which many thought was a near-impossible task and that’s make the X-Men franchise relevant once more in a pop-culture landscape that seems to have left the franchise behind after the disastrous Wolverine: Origins of 2009.

This film delivered on the ideas that made the comic books so beloved by millions of fans for almost a half-century. It made great use of the 1960’s time and setting to tell a story of these characters beginnings as heroes and villains (though the latter shouldn’t be seen as them being truly just evil bad guys). Even the inclusion of real-world historical event like the Cuban Missile Crisis was a nice touch which gave the film a foundation in realism. Again, this film played off like a superhero, Marvel version of an Iam Fleming James Bond story. For those who are huge fans of the previous films there’s even two brief cameos of those films two favorite characters that appear in this film. They don’t come off as cheesy and unnecessary and actually come off as great additions. I won’t mention who these cameos were but the audience’s reaction to them was very vocal and very positive. I say the same should be said for X-Men: First Class as a film that resuscitates the franchise.

Tell Me That You Love My 6 Trailers, Wanda June

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, so after months and months of it being strangely cold and pleasant down here in Texas, this week the temperature suddenly shot up to 100 degrees and everyone’s going outside and mowing their freaking lawns.  Which means that it smells like freshly cut grass outside (BLEH!) and every time I step through the front door, my allergies go insane and I end up getting sick!  Seriously, I was so sick last night that I ended up staying in for the night and resting, which for some reason my evil sister took as an invitation to attempt to “braid” my hair.  Anyway, as I sit here trying to get the tangles out of my hair (ouch!), why not check out the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers?

The title of this weekend’s edition, by the way, is a really obvious homage to a  film directed by Otto Preminger.  And no, it’s not Skidoo.

1) Nightmares (1983)

For some reason, this anthology seems to pop up on TBS, TNT, USA,, and WGN a lot.  Actually, is WGN actually a cable station?  It sounds made up.  Anyway, I hate anthology films.  Seriously, they always suck so bad and the people who make them are always so freaking proud of themselves.  I mean, seriously — what’s going on with that?  Anyway, it seems like every time I come across it, I end up seeing the part where Emilio Estevez gets attacked by the Bishop of Battle.

2) The Wild Beasts (1984)

Yes, I’ve done some research and guess what?  This film is Italian!  Yay!  Anyway, this trailer informs us that somebody has given all the animals at the zoo a “deadly” dose of PCP.  Okay, so if it’s a deadly dose, then why do they apparently end up going crazy and attacking humans?  I mean, seriously, shouldn’t they be dead?

3) The Principal (1987)

Okay, I first came across the trailer on YouTube many months ago while I was searching for film clips for an abandoned post about teaching-centric grindhouse films.  This trailer has, for some reason, become something of an obsession of mine and it’s because I still have some doubts as to whether or not this film actually exists.  Because, seriously, the trailer is just like a check list of every cliché that we associate with an out-of-control school thriller.  And then it stars Jim Belushi?  Seriously, this can’t be a real movie.  Except I did some research and apparently, there’s a lot of people who think it is real.  And you can order it off of Amazon.  Not that I’m planning on doing so because Jim Belushi is just like bleh to me.

4) The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)

Judging from this trailer, an equally appropriate title for this film would have been The Countryass Girls Who Run Around In Their Underwear Invasion.  While that may sound like stereotyping, it’s okay because I actually am a countryass girl who runs around in her underwear.  Seeing as how we’re always getting victimized in movies like this, I’ve started a support group for us, called Hicks In Panties or HIP for short.

Anyway, I actually have some trouble watching this trailer because — Oh.  My. God. — I hate spiders!  Like I was talking to a friend of mine once and she told me about this time she was on a horse and she ended up riding right through a spider’s web and I was just like, “Girl, how are you still alive?  I’d have to kill myself I’d be so worried about having little spider eggs hatching in my nasal cavities after something like that.”  Anyway, she said that didn’t make any sense at all so I think she’s kinda fooling herself. 

5) Disco Godfather (1979)

Disco Godfather!  This was Rudy Ray Moore’s follow-up to Dolemite.  I haven’t seen either one of them but this trailer features two of my favorite things: poetry and dancing!

6) Police Women (1974)

Okay, let’s end this edition with a little bit of redhead empowerment with the trailer for Lee Frost’s Police Women.

On a final note, stop mowing your freaking lawn, people!  Lisa needs to go out for the weekend!

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night: The Babysitter’s Seduction (dir. by David Burton Morris)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I was feeling sad so I went to the handy DVR and I watched a movie that I recorded off of the Lifetime Movie Network on Memorial Day — the unacknowledged classic piece of Americana, The Babysitter’s Seduction!

Why Was I Watching It?

Oh.  My.  God!  How could I not watch it?  This apparently first came out way back in 1996 but it shows up on the Lifetime Movie Network like every six months or so and I make it a point to either watch it or at least DVR it every time it’s scheduled because seriously, this is like my favorite Lifetime movie of all time!

What’s It About?

Oh my God…okay, check this one out.  So Kerri Russell is like this babysitter and she’s been hired to watch over the children of Stephen Collins who is the multimillionaire with a beautiful home and a wife who has had so many facelifts that her face just looks like wax.  Kerri’s in high school here and she has a boyfriend who looks like he’s about 30 because he’s got a receding hairline and a big old widow’s peak but he’s still in high school too.  Uhmm…remedial much?

So, anyway, one day, Kerri takes the kids out to the public pool and then she realizes that she left something behind at the house so she goes back and, oh my God!, Stephen Collins’s wife is lying dead on the kitchen floor with a gun in her hand.  Is it suicide?  Well, that’s what a police inspector played by Tobin Bell has to figure out.  Turns out that Tobin is also best buddies  with Stephen but he’s still got to do his job because it quickly becomes obvious that Mrs. Stephen Collins didn’t actually commit suicide.  It all has to do with powder residue and a whole lot of other CSI-type stuff.

Anyway, it’s kinda obvious that Stephen Collins killed his wife but nobody notices because they’re too busy gossiping about how he’s now secretly sleeping with the babysitter.  Kerri Russell tells everyone that she’s in love with Stephen Collins but little does she realize that Stephen Collins is busy trying to frame her for his wife’s murder.

Anyway, eventually the center cannot hold and things falls apart…

What Worked?

Okay, so basically, here we have a film where the Rev. Camden frames Felicity for murder and it’s up to the Jigsaw Killer to find the truth.  That right there is what we call a harmonic convergence of pop culture.  This film needs to be seen for this reason, if nothing else.

Also, the Babysitter’s Seduction is one of those films that succeeds by taking its formula to the most logical extreme and  then taking another step or two forward.  Hence, not only is the babysitter seduced but she’s just about brainwashed.  Not only is Stephen Collins evil but, as the film reaches it conclusion, we come to realize that he’s actually the equivalent of that evil mayor from the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I mean, seriously — there’s nothing this guy can’t do!  How, where, and when did he learn to be so evil!?

Finally, this is another one of those movies where nobody delivers a line without taking a dramatic pause in the middle of the sentence.  For instance, the dead wife’s secret love introduced himself by saying, “I’m Paul Richards….I.  Was.  Sally’s.  Lover.”  Now, I have to admit that I’ve often been told that I have a tendency to 1) talk too much and 2) talk too fast and, as a result, sometimes it’s difficult to follow my train of thought.  And to those who say that, I say, “Fuck you.”  But anyways, after witnessing all of the dramatic pauses in this film and seeing how they helped to turn a 30-minute sitcom into a 2-hour movie, I am now much more open to the idea of adding.  Pointless.  Pauses.  To.  Everything.  I.  Say.  From.  Now.  On.

Also, this film demonstrates how — if you’re in a pinch  and you don’t have anything else — panties can be a handy substitute for handcuffs.  So, if your boyfriend can’t quite figure out how to pull that particular quirk off, this movie serves as a nice training film for him and as 2 hours of Lifetime goodness for you.

What Didn’t Work?

Obviously, if the babysitter wasn’t an idiot then there wouldn’t be a film.  But seriously, this babysitter was really an idiot.  Okay — since I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea from this movie, I’ll just go ahead and say it — if the wife of your employer shows up on the kitchen floor with a bullet in her head, do not respond by having sex with your employer.  It’s just not going to look good.

There’s also a scene where Kerri Russell’s bra changes color from shot to shot.  Seriously, that’s just carelessness.

“Oh my God!” Just Like Me Moments

You know, I always wanted to babysit but I never got too.  My older sisters all got to babysit me at one time or another but one of the drawbacks of being the baby of the family is that there was no one younger than me for me to watch.  Then again, being the baby also meant that I got spoiled rotten so I can’t complain too much.

However, there was one moment I could really relate too and that was when Kerri Russell told her concerned mother, “I don’t have an attitude…you do!”  I used to say that all the time!  The key to delivering the line — which Kerri nails, by the way — is to wait three beats before raising up your chin half an inch, looking down the slope of your nose and saying, “…you do.”  Ha!  In your face, judgmental authority figure!

Also, despite never getting to be a babysitter, I did once secretly have an older lover who murdered his wife but shhhh…don’t tell anyone.

Lessons Learned

If you’re employer kills his wife, wait a few months before having sex with him.  Otherwise, it just looks bad.

Review: Summer Wars (dir. by Hosada Mamoru)

Posted on by Arleigh

Anime films have been the type to make a major crossover from Japan to the United States when it comes to the US mainstream audience. While anime series typically still remain the realm of the hardcore fans of the genre the stand-alone films get much more love from mainstream critics and audiences in addition to the hardcore. One such film which looks to have made a successful mainstream crossover to the United States was the anime film Summer Wars which was originally released in Japan in August 1, 2009. The film saw it’s American debut at film festivals around the country in 2010, but since I saw it in late May 2011 I consider it a 2011 release for me thus qualifying it as one of the best films of 2011.

Summer Wars was the project of director Hosada Mamoru whose previous stand-alone anime film, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, was well-received by fans and critics alike. Working from a screenplay by Okudera Satoko (adapted from a story written by Hosada himself), Summer Wars was a nice blend of science-fiction, romance and Japanese slice-of-life. The story begins with the introduction and explanation of the OZ on-line community which becomes a major focal point to the film’s story and the many characters in it. OZ was explained as an on-line, social networking community which has become so ingrained in the world community that everything anyone does was done through it’s portals. Think of OZ was an amalgamation of Facebook, Second Life, iTunes, Netflix and every other social networking site all working under one umbrella. It’s a virtual world where people just don’t socially interact through games and chat lobbies, but also a place where every real-world store has a portal where people could purchase things online. It’s also become a palce where governments from local cities to whole countries have set-up their own areas that would control their cities and countries’ infrastructures. It’s Facebook on steroids.

One of the film’s main characters happens to work as a part-time moderator for OZ. Koiso Keiji also happens to be a 17-year old math whiz who would become instrumental in the story to come. The bulk of the story has Keiji being invited by a high school friend in Shinohara Natsuki (explained to him as a job she needs for him to do) to come with her to her family estate where he ends up meeting the rest of Natsuki’s very extended family and also it’s soon-to-be 90-year old matriarch in Jinnouich Sakae. This part of the film makes up the romance and it’s comedic aspect as Keiji gets introduced by Natsuki to her great grandmother Sakae as her boyfriend and future fiance much to Keiji’s surprise. As Keiji tries to awkwardly play along with Natsuki’s plan the second part of the film’s story kick’s in as he inadvertently assist someone or something into hacking into OZ and begin a sequence of events which threatens every account in OZ, but later on even threaten the world.

This part of the story actually worked quite well due to the recent major hacking of Sony’s Playstation and Qriocity networks which gave hackers access to tens of millions of account users’ info. It was hard not to think about this real-life event as something similar (albeit much more massive and danegrous in scope) occurred in Summer Wars. The fact that the film was completed in 2009 and the Sony hack happened just a month ago was real life copying fiction instead of the other way around. It’s this part of the story’s plot which added to the thrilling aspect of the film as Keiji and others (mostly the extended Jinnouichi Clan he meets) try to take on the cause of the OZ hack (which we quickly learn wasn’t a person but an advanced A.I. program released by the U.S. Army into OZ to test it’s capabilities not knowing it would become self-aware and hard to control).

Weaving in and around this science-fiction are some of what makes some Japanese anime so easily accessible to those outside of Japan. We see a slice-of-life that, at first looks to be typical Japanese daily life, but as the story moves along becomes something that everyone would recognize and have some sort of kinship with no matter their race or culture. It’s the theme of family togetherness even through adversity and the occassional disagreements between family members. It’s here we see Natsuki’s great grandmother Sakae show the need for the family to always find time to sit down and eat dinner together no matter what problems each and everyone may be having. It’s these very serene, at times quite hilarious, scenes of family life with the Jinnouichi Clan that Summer Wars will tug at audiences’ heartstrings and cause more than just a few to tear up. Some have said these scenes were too maudlin and corny, but I look at that complaint as people trying to project their own cynical nature on what was really an honest look at family life and how keeping a family together through adversity (both big and small) becomes a reward unto itself.

The Japanese voice cast did quite a good job bringing their animated characters to life from the main leads in Keiji, Natsuki and Sakae right up to the little children who added some levity to the situation. While I try to always watch anime with the Japanese language on with English subtitles for Summer Wars I also watched it with the English-voice dubbing. I was surprised to hear that the English-dubbed version was not as bad as most anime dubs and was actually quite good. Summer Wars looks to boast a who’s-who of English dub voice actors which probably lent itself to a quality dubbing in the end.

Summer Wars was produced by one of Japan’s major animation studios with Madhouse and the look of the film bears this out. The virtual world which made up OZ looked beautiful and made great use of CGI-animation. The avatars used by OZ account members were inventive and a menagerie of characters that all looked to be very distinct each and everytime a new one came on the screen. The animation for the real-world aspect of the film used traditional hand-drawn animation. While it didn’t have the sheen and flash of most anime series the flat-look and natural color scheme used for scenes when outside OZ lent a sense of realism and the natural that made it easier to get into the film. These two contrasting animation styles really helped in pointing out just how different OZ was to everything else.

Hosada Mamoru’s direction keeps everything from becoming a jumbled mess as the film juggles not just two major plot threads concurrently but smaller subplots involving certain individual family members of the Jinnouichi Clan. It’s a testament to his handling of the film that we’re never lost as the film’s story unfolds. Whether it’s the fake relationship between Keiji and Natsuki becoming something more real to the prodigal son coming back to the family after a self-imposed exile of ten years right up to a high school baseball tournament involving one of the family’s younger members who also happens to be a star pitcher.

In the end, Summer Wars should be seen as a landmark film that officially heralds the arrival of one of anime’s great filmmakers. With the untimely passing of Satoshi Kon there’s been a scramble within the anime community to find his heir apparent. Hayao Miyazaki will continue to be one of anime’s godfathers and pillar of quality work, but amongst the younger generation there was really no one stepping up the way Satoshi Kon did in so short a time. I think with Summer Wars it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that Hosada Mamoru has also stepped up to join Miyazaki as one of the creative geniuses in the anime world. It also shows younger anime filmmakers that there is success to be had doing anime outside the usual mecha, mahou shoujo and shonen series which remains the backbone and meal-ticket for animation studios in Japan.

Summer Wars is an anime film that I’d highly recommend to all whether they’re fans of anime or have no idea what an anime was. This anime is that good and one that deserves to be called just film without the anime tag. It will be interesting to see what Hosada Mamoru comes up with next. I, for one, can’t wait to see what it is. Also, I recommend people watch this on Blu-Ray. The difference in how the animation comes across between Blu-Ray and DVD is leagues apart.

Original Japanese Trailer

Film Review: Everything Must Go (dir. by Dan Rush)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Everything Must Go is Will Ferrell’s attempt to prove that he can be a serious actor and to a large extent, he succeeds.  I saw this film at the Plano Angelika and the audience, at first, seemed to be rather confused as they realized that Will Ferrell wasn’t going to be particularly funny in this film.  However, as the film progressed, his performance — if not the film itself — seemed to win the audience over.  Though, at first glance, this film would seem to have little in common with Anchorman or Tallegada Nights, it does fit in nicely as part of the Mediocre American Man trilogy.  It’s just that here, we’re supposed to feel for Ferrell’s mediocre American man as opposed to laugh at him.

In Everything Must Go, Ferrell plays a middle-aged, alcoholic who, after getting fired from his job, returns home and discovers that his wife has locked himself out of the house and has put all of his possessions out on the front lawn.  Over the next few days, Ferrell spends his time sitting out in the front yard, drinking beer, dealing with the neighbors, and eventually — with the help of a neighborhood kid (Christopher Jordan Wallace) — holding a yard sale that, as you can probably guess — serves as a metaphor for the sorry state of his life in general.  The film is based on the short story Why Don’t You Dance? by Raymond Carver and, as you can tell from the plot synopsis, it’s definitely not a film to see without your Cymbalta.

I wanted to like Everything Must Go a lot more than I actually did.  It’s a beautifully shot film that features scenes of true insight and pathos.  Unfortunately, for every scene of subtle power, there’s another scene where director Dan Rush pushes too hard to appeal to easy sentiment.  There’s a wonderfully awkward yet poignant scene in which Ferrell tracks down and talks to a woman (played by Laura Dern) who he barely knew in high school.  Ferrell and Dern have a great chemistry and the scene is difficult to watch precisely because it’s so honest and revealing.  However, to get to that scene, you have to deal with scenes of Ferrell dealing with a self-righteous neighbor (Stephen Root) or awkwardly talking to the pregnant woman (Rebecca Hall) who has just moved in across the street.  These scenes are awkward for the opposite reason — they just seem so false, forced, and predictable.

Falling somewhere in between are the scenes in which Will Ferrell befriends a lonely neighborhood boy, played by Christopher Jordan Wallace.  Wallace does a good job in the role and he and Ferrell act well opposite each other but, at the same time, it’s hard not to feel as if the Wallace is being used more as a dramatic device than an actual character.  It’s hard not to feel that this is yet another film in which the filmmakers attempt to get us to accept bad behavior on the part of a white protagonist by having him befriend the only black person in the entire movie.  

Everything Must Go is Will Ferrell’s attempt to prove that he can play a serious role and it must be said that he succeeds even as the film fails.  Essentially, he’s just playing a real world version of the same goofy, overgrown boys that he plays in his comedies but he’s smart enough as a performer to realize that and use it to his advantage.  Ferrell understands that, in real life, both Ron Burgundy and Ricky Bobby would be burned-out dinosaurs with failed marriages and no place to live.  If nothing else, Everything Must Go proves that the line between comedy and tragedy is quite thin indeed.

6 Trailers That Are Partying…Partying…Partying…Yeah!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As Rebecca Black recently reminded us all, Saturday comes after Friday.  However, she neglected to say anything about the fact that Saturday also means another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation trailers.

Stuck-up bitch.

Anyway, it is indeed Saturday and here’s this weekend’s humble offerings…

1) Sweet Jesus Preacherman (1973)

To me, this first offering actually feels more like a parody trailer (like Machete or Hobo With A Shotgun) than an actual trailer.  But no, Sweet Jesus Preacherman appears to be an actual film. 

2) The Soldier (1982)

This was directed by James Glickenhaus, who directed The Exterminator.  According to the commentary track on one of the 42nd Street Forever DVDs, Glickenhaus felt that The Soldier would help him break into mainstream films and, though I’m not a huge fan of action movies, the trailer does look fairly exciting.  Plus, if you watch the whole without blinking, you might catch a split-second appearance from Klaus Kinski.  Supposedly, Kinski was offered a role in both this film and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Kinski chose to appear in The Soldier.

3) The Great Silence (1968)

Speaking of Klaus Kinski, he’s also featured in our next trailer, The Great Silence.  Directed by Sergio Corbucci, The Great Silence has been acclaimed as one of the greatest spaghetti westerns of all time.  This film’s title refers to the fact that the nominal hero (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a mute.  The trailer also features Ennio Morricone’s excellent score.

4) Flesh Gordon (1974)

There were actually two versions of this film — an explicit one and a slightly less explicit one.  I’m guessing this trailer was used to advertise the slightly less explicit version.

5) The Devil’s Rain (1975)

In this film, William Shatner, Eddie Albert, Tom Skerritt, and Ida Lupino battle Satanists (and Ernest Borgnine) in New Mexico.  Though he’s not mentioned in the trailer, John Travolta made his film debut here.  He plays a member of Borgnine’s cult.  This trailer — with its promise of the greatest ending of all time — is a drive-in classic.

6) Dolemite (1975)

Let’s end how we began, with a blaxploitation trailer.  I do have to say that, as a character, Dolemite looks a bit more interesting that Sweet Jesus Preacherman.  Plus, the Dolemite trailer rhymes.

Remember that Monday is Memorial Day so, if nothing else, take a few minutes to remember the men and women who have fought to allow us to live in a country where we can watch movies like Dolemite, Flesh Gordon, and Sweet Jesus Preacherman.

Lisa Marie Defends The Hangover, Part 2 (dir. by Todd Phillips)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Right now, all the little mainstream critics are busy hating on The Hangover, Part II. 

Check out Christy Lemire from the Associated Press: “Giving the people what they want is one thing. Making nearly the exact same movie a second time, but shifting the setting to Thailand, is just … what, lazy? Arrogant? Maybe a combination of the two” 

And then there’s Roger Ebert (or L’Ebert as the asskissers at Awards Daily used to call him) who apparently took a break from ranting about politics to actually do his job: ‘The Hangover: Part II plays like a challenge to the audience’s capacity for raunchiness. It gets laughs, but some of them are in disbelief.”

Last night, despite not feeling all that great, I went and saw The Hangover, Part II and you know what?  I enjoyed it.  So there.

Yes, The Hangover, Part II is basically the exact same film as The Hangover except now Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis awaken from their hangover in Bangkok instead of Las Vegas.  Also, it’s not the groom that’s missing.  It’s the bride’s younger brother.  Oh, and Ed Helms has sex with another prostitute but it’s not Heather Graham.  No, it’s definitely not Heather Graham.

Otherwise, it’s pretty much the exact same film, a copy so exact that a character gets shot at around the exact same time that a different character got shot in the previous film.

But, honestly, so what?  The people paying money to see this film know what they’re getting into when they buy their tickets.  Helms, Galifianakis, and Ken Jeong are still funny in their respective roles, Bradley Cooper is so fucking sexy I don’t even know where to begin, and there’s a cute little monkey in the movie too.  Is it as good or as funny as the first one?  Of course not but did you think it would be?  The film made me laugh and, especially when I’m not feeling well, making me laugh is more than enough to win my heart.

As for the mainstream critics — well, before you take their word for it, just remember that Roger Ebert loved The Conspirator and raved, “Not many films this smart can be made.”  I rest my case.

(By the way, here’s a link to my review of the worst film of the year so far, Robert Redford’s The Conspirator.)

 

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Hesher (dir. by Spencer Susser)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve been told that guys don’t seem to appreciate being called “adorable” by girls.  They consider it a back-handed compliment and seriously, how insecure can you be?  Okay, I understand that most guys want to us to think that they’re dangerous and I’ll admit right now that all that stuff you’ve heard about girls liking bad boys — well, it’s true.  But adorable is no longer just a back-handed compliment.  Why?  Because Joseph Gordon-Levitt has made adorable sexy.

I first really noticed Joseph Gordon-Levitt when I saw him as the lead in 2007’s overlooked crime thriller The Lookout but he truly won my heart when I first saw him dancing to You Make My Dreams in (500) Days of Summer.  And then came Inception.  Some people will tell you that film was about Leonardo DiCaprio entering other people’s dreams to find himself.  Nope, sorry, not true.  As far as I’m concerned, Inception was a movie about Joseph Gordon-Levitt getting all dressed up and floating through the halls of that dream hotel and beating up every single person who tried to get in his way.    What did all three of these roles have in common?  Nothing except for the utterly adorable hotness of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

It was this adorable hotness that led me to see Gordon-Levitt’s latest film, Hesher.  Despite the fact that the film is massively (perhaps fatally) flawed, this is also the film that proves that, as an actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt can be something more than just an adorable fantasy boyfriend.

Directed by Spencer Sussman and co-written by Animal Kingdom director David Michod, Hesher opens with 12 year-old T.J. (Devin Brochu) struggling to come to terms with the tragic death of his mother and his family’s subsequent collapse.  T.J. and his father (a bear-like Rainn Wilson) have moved in with their grandmother (a perfectly poignant performance from Piper Laurie) who is showing the beginning signs of senility.  T.J. spends his days obsessing on the remains of the family car (which was totaled in the accident that killed his mother), trying to avoid local bullies, and dealing with a hopeless crush that he’s developed on a cashier (Natalie Portman) at the local grocery store.

When T.J. first meets Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Hesher is squatting in an abandoned construction site.  T.J. accidentally leads a security guard to Hesher’s temporary home.  Hesher responds by lighting a molotov cocktail and blowing the place up while T.J. runs away.  Suddenly, T.J. starts to see Hesher wandering around the hallways of his school.  Walking home from school, T.J. sees Hesher following behind him in what can only be described as a “rape van.”  And then, just as suddenly, Hesher has moved in to T.J.;s house and made himself into a part of the family.  Hesher quickly becomes a mentor of sorts to T.J. though his lessons primarily consist of doing things like blowing up a bully’s car and then running off, leaving T.J. to deal with the consequences.

Hesher is hardly a role that you’d expect to find Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing.  With long, unwashed hair and an extended middle finger tattooed across his back, Hesher isn’t so much an outsider as he’s just a sociopath, the type of guy who you try not to make eye contact out of fear that he’ll respond by shooting you first.  How scary a guy is Hesher?  He’s so scary that just saying his name causes the film’s soundtrack to explode with a burst of heavy metal.  That’s how scary he is.  The Joseph Gordon-Levitt that we all know and love (or at least the one that I know and love) is pretty much impossible to find and yet, Gordon-Levitt still gives a great performance here.  Without ignoring any of Hesher’s rough edges or trying to reveal any sort of inner decency, both the film and Gordon-Levitt make Hesher into a frustratingly attractive character.  This is probably the best performance of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s career so far.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn’t really live up to Gordon-Levitt’s performance.  It starts out well and, for quite some time, we’re encouraged to believe that Hesher might just be a product of T.J.’s imagination, a projection of his own anger and depression.  That’s an interesting idea and would have made for a far more effective film.  Unfortunately, Hesher then suddenly moves in wit T.J. and suddenly, he’s interacting with Wilson and befriending Piper Laurie and, worst of all, he starts to reveal a little bit about his past.  In other words, he goes from being a symbol of unrestrained ID to just being another white trash rapist.  Once the film makes it clear that Hesher is an actual character then suddenly, you realize that the filmmakers haven’t given you any credible reason why both Wilson and Laurie (not to mention the cops who start to regularly drop by the house as Hesher blows stuff up around the neighborhood) would so easily accept the idea of living with him.  Finally, the movie concludes with a sequence at a funeral that just feels so simultaneously wrong, heavy-handed, and maudlin that, at first, I was convinced that it had to be some sort of satirical comment on the clichéd nature of the scene.  But no, the rest of the film makes clear that we’re supposed to take this sequence seriously.  It’s such a wrong-headed move that it cheapens everything that came before it.  The movie ends with a lot of loud music and the credits are decorated with obscene graffiti but it doesn’t make any difference.  The film has already revealed that, at heart, it’s hardly rebellious enough to be worthy of a character like Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Hesher.

In the end, Hesher fails as a movie but its partially redeemed for revealing that there’s more to Joseph Gordon-Levitt than just adorable cuteness.

Film Review: Hobo With a Shotgun (dir. by Jason Eisener)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been going off on Canada a lot lately, which is odd since some of my favorite Twitter  friends happen to live up in Canada.  Unfortunately, so does my one twitter enemy.  I’m not going to give out his name (though I call him Monsieur Petit Pénis) or go in to all the gory details but oh my God,  I hate him so much it’s not even funny.  Seriously.  Hate him.  Forever and ever.

But anyway, just in case I have been tarring an entire nation based on one freaking lewser, I want to take some time to acknowledge the greatest thing to come out of Canada since Ryan Gosling, Hobo With A Shotgun.

Rutger Hauer plays the title character and hero of this nicely demented little film.  When we first meet Hobo, he doesn’t have a shotgun.  He’s just a vagabond, a proverbial man with no name who finds himself in the most run-down slum of a town ever.  Hope Town appears to be located in one of the lesser known rings of Hell and  basically seems to consist almost exclusively of burned-out storefronts, trash-strewn alleys, and seedy amusement parks.  Seriously, the New York City of Taxi Driver hasn’t got a thing on Hope Town.

As soon as the Hobo arrives, the first thing he witnesses is the town’s local crime boss, the Drake (Brian Downey), decapitating a man in broad daylight while the citizens of the town apathetically watch.  The Drake looks a lot like Peter Popoff (a preacher who comes on TV around 2 in the morning around these parts; he sells magic holy water) and he has two equally sadistic sons, Slick (Gregory Smith, who looks like Tom Cruise on extasy) and the idiotic Ivan (Nick Bateman).  It soon becomes obvious that the Drake and his sons control the town because nobody has ever previously considered grabbing a shotgun and gunning them down.  Nobody until the Hobo that is.

Originally, of course, the Hobo had different plans.  He was attempting to raise the money necessary to buy a used lawn mower sitting in the local pawn shop, the idea being that he could use that mower to start a lawn care business.  (The joke here, of course, is that nobody in Hope City appears to have a lawn.  Seriously, they should have called it Cement City.)  However, right when the Hobo is preparing to buy the lawn mower, the pawn shop is held up by two thugs.  Luckily, along with the lawn mower, there’s also a shotgun — which happens to cost the exact same amount as the lawn mower — in the sales window.  The Hobo purchases the shotgun and soon, with the help of a sympathetic prostitute named Abby (Molly Dunsworth) he sets out to clean up Hope City, one criminal at a time.

Now, it might sound like I’m making fun of the film’s plot but nothing could be further from the truth.  This film is perfectly aware of how ludicrous all of this is and director Eisener quite wisely never apologizes for the story he tells or the way he tells it.  From the start, Hobo With A Shotgun shows that it is a film without shame and therefore, one that you can watch without shame.

It’s also follows Robert Rodriguez’s Machete as the second film to be based on a fake trailer made for the Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino collaborative film Grindhouse.  Here’s the original “fake” trailer that led to a very real movie:

Though it’s gotten nowhere as much hype, I actually think Hobo With A Shotgun is superior to Machete.  Grindhouse films may have been excessive but they were still films being made by filmmakers and, as Quentin Tarantino has always seemed to understand, the truly great grindhouse films (the ones that we eagerly wait to see released on DVD) never used the art of excess as just an excuse to do whatever they wanted.  The best grindhouse films created their own unique worlds with their own unique rules but once those rules had been set, they weren’t broken.  (That, of course, wasn’t true of all grindhouse films.  Just the good ones.)  That is where Hobo With A Shotgun truly triumphs.  You believe in this odd, over-the-top world that the film creates.  Everything from the graffiti-covered walls to the garish cinematography to even the overacting of most of the supporting cast; it all comes together to create its own unique world.  And once you surrender to that the film’s odd “reality,” the film becomes, in its own warped way, quite compelling.

With the exception of Rutger Hauer in the title role, the cast of Hobo With A Shotgun is largely made up of unknowns and that’s quite a contrast to Machete.  However, and I may be in the minority here, I actually felt that all the famous faces in Machete actually had a detrimental effect on the overall film.  Too many of them seemed to be slumming or treating Machete as a lark and true grindhouse is never a lark.  If there’s one thing you can say for sure about Rutger Hauer’s performance here, it’s that he’s definitely not slumming.  Hauer seems to understand that a film like this needs an anchor, something steady that the audience can grab on to whenever the film itself threatens to spin out of control.  Wisely, Hauer chooses to underplay his character and, as a result, he dominates the entire film.  It’s really a performance that all aspiring actors should watch.  Hauer might be playing a hobo with a shotgun but that doesn’t keep him from being the most compelling and believable hobo with a shotgun possible.  Out of the rest of the cast, Molly Dunsworth does a good job and manages to be believable whether she’s mourning her lost innocence or stabbing a bad guy to death with a fragment of bone.

Hobo With A Shotgun is currently in limited release here in the United States.  What does that mean?  Well, that means that if you’re living on the West or East coast you’re in luck.  However, if you’re like me and you actually live in a city that’s not going to be targeted by terrorists in the near future, things are a bit more problematic.  Luckily, for us, Hobo With Shotgun is available OnDemand which is how I ended up seeing it. 

In conclusion, allow me to say, “Canada, you rock!”