This morning my wife told me she wanted to watch a movie based on a true story. After scrolling for a bit, I came across the film INTO THE WILD, which interested me for a couple of reasons. First, it was directed by Sean Penn, whose directorial debut, THE INDIAN RUNNER (1991), gave my favorite actor of all time, Charles Bronson, a late-career character performance that critics actually took seriously. I’ve followed his directing career ever since. Second, the movie stars Emile Hirsch, who my wife and I had the rare opportunity to watch up close this summer while he was filming a movie here in Central Arkansas… an awesomely surreal experience that’s had me revisiting the work of the actors I saw that day. As such, today seemed like the perfect time to hit play on INTO THE WILD!
INTO THE WILD is based on the true story of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a bright, idealistic young man who graduates from college in the early 1990s and immediately walks away from the type of life everyone expects him to live. Chris donates his savings to charity, abandons his car, burns the cash in his wallet, reinvents himself as Alexander Supertramp, and sets off across America on a great Alaskan adventure. Along the way he comes across different people who impact his life in a variety of ways, from some free-spirited hippies, to a grizzled old widower, and even a beautiful young lady who takes an immediate liking to him. Each of these encounters offer Chris a chance to form meaningful relationships, but he always decides to keep moving on. When he does eventually make it to the wilds of Alaska, it’s everything he hoped for… at first. But as the months wear on, his loneliness and inexperience take their toll, and Chris is forced to face the ultimate consequence of his decisions.
I’ll start out by saying that INTO THE WILD is a truly beautiful film. Sean Penn and his cinematographer Eric Gautier capture so many amazing images, from the Grand Canyon and Lake Tahoe, to the Denali National Park in Alaska. We see an America that is awe-inspiring, and we can at least somewhat understand why Chris might want to escape to such a world of promise. I also liked the music, especially when Eddie Vedder’s voice emerges to punctuate a scene that seems perfectly in tune with Chris’ restless spirit.
I must admit that Chris McCandless, the person, is quite the frustrating subject. He’s intelligent and sincere, but he’s also painfully naive and self-righteous. It’s noble that he wants to find ultimate truth, but he goes about it by running away from the messy parts of his life, especially the parents, played here by William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden, that he sees as horrible people. I guess my frustration with Chris’ decisions may be the point, and Director Sean Penn doesn’t turn him into either a saint or a fool. While watching the film, I was somewhat torn between admiring Chris for the way he rejects materialism and lives his life on his own terms, while also being disappointed as he continually walks away from any person who gets too close or tries to help him.
Emile Hirsch is incredible in the lead role as Chris McCandless. He captures his restless spirit, as well as his determination to make it completely on his own, that is, until he realizes that he overplayed his hand. The other performances that stood out to me came from Vince Vaughn as a farmer that Chris stops and works for, Catherine Keener as a hippie with her own set of issues, and especially Hal Holbrook as a lonely, but perceptive old man who sees in Chris the grandson he never had.
At the end of the day, I feel that INTO THE WILD is a powerful film, but not because of what ultimately happens to Chris. Rather, what lingers with me is his too-late realization that personal freedom without meaningful relationships is not satisfying. As beautiful as this movie is to look at, its strongest moments are Chris’ interactions with the caring people he meets along the way. I just wish one of them had been able to convince him to call his mom and dad.
In THE HANGOVER PART III, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Doug (Justin Bartha) get back together so they can help Alan (Zach Galifianakis), whose gone off his meds and seems incapable of handling his dad’s sudden death. After a family intervention, the guys are driving him to a rehabilitation facility when their car is forced off the road and out steps the gangster Marshall (John Goodman), assisted by Black Doug (Mike Epps). Marshall kidnaps (white) Doug as leverage to force the guys to bring him their old friend Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) within three days, or they won’t see Doug alive again. It seems that Chow, who recently escaped from a Thai prison, had stolen $21 million in gold from Marshall, and he’s pissed. The Wolfpack head back to Vegas, and with the help of a few old friends, they do whatever they have to do to save Doug one more time!
Released in the summer of 2013, THE HANGOVER PART III pulled in around $362 million in worldwide box office against a $103 million budget. While definitely a box office hit, these numbers are a big step down from the prior film’s $586 million, so up to this point, Part III has remained the Wolfpack’s last adventure. While THE HANGOVER PART II was practically a remake of the first film, PART III seems to be going the opposite way and actively tries not to repeat itself. The “what the hell happened last night” plot lines are abandoned for something different, and honestly, that’s probably about the smartest decision the filmmakers could have made for this installment. The film plays more like a darker, R-rated crime comedy, leaning into the action, heist, and confrontation sequences. While the change isn’t entirely successful, I definitely appreciate the attempt to come up with something different.
Even though THE HANGOVER PART III isn’t as funny as the prior films, I still enjoy the chemistry between Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis as the primary members of the Wolfpack. I also thought it was funny that Justin Bartha’s pack member Doug is once again relegated to the guy who’s not really involved, as he’s the one who’s kidnapped. Ken Jeong’s Mr. Chow, as cartoonish and unhinged as he is, is probably my favorite character in the series at this point. He pretty much steals every scene he’s in. John Goodman is a welcome addition as the intimidating bad guy, and he’s good in the film, but it’s the kind of role he could do in his sleep. I also really liked the fact that PART III returned to the initial setting of Las Vegas, which provides a nice sense of closure to the series, while also allowing for the participation of former characters like Heather Graham’s Jade and her son Tyler! It was nice to check in with them again.
Ultimately, THE HANGOVER PART III is a pretty good conclusion to the series. It’s certainly not as funny or outrageous as the prior films, but it does deserve some credit for trying something new instead of simply repeating the formula for a third time. And I also thought the final scenes were emotionally effective as they took us for a quick trip down memory lane with the Wolfpack. It felt like the end, and I felt good watching it.
In director Todd Phillips’ THE HANGOVER PART II, the night before his wedding, groom-to-be Stu (Ed Helms), his two best friends, Phil and Doug (Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha), Stu’s soon-to-be brother-in-law Teddy (Mason Lee) and Doug’s brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis), sit on a beach in Thailand for a toast to the bride and groom. After cracking open sealed bottles of beer in the beautiful setting, the movie screen goes black, and soon we see Phil, Stu and Alan wake up in a seedy room in Bangkok with absolutely no memory of what happened the previous night. The room is trashed, there’s a monkey wearing a denim Rolling Stones jacket, a naked Chow (Ken Jeong) is sleeping under a pile of blankets, Alan’s head is completely shaved, Stu has a face tattoo, and both Doug and Teddy are nowhere to be found! Doug calls and he’s back at the resort, but the only trace of Teddy is his severed finger, which is now in possession of the monkey. With the wedding just hours away, the three friends follow any clues they can find in a frantic search for Teddy. The search leads to the surprise discovery that Stu had intimate relations with a transsexual stripper, a tattoo parlor run by Nick Cassavetes, a dangerous and duplicitous American gangster named Kingsley (Paul Giamatti), and an arrested, ancient Buddhist monk who’s taken a vow of silence and who’s also confused for the 16-year-old, Teddy. Hell, at one point Mike Tyson shows up and sings the classic Murray Head single, “One Night in Bangkok.” Most importantly though, will the friends find Teddy alive and still have time to get back to the resort in time for Stu’s wedding?!!
A massive box office hit in the summer of 2011, THE HANGOVER PART II became the highest grossing R-rated comedy up to that time, with a worldwide gross of $586 million, against an $80 million budget. It was also the highest grossing R-Rated film to have opened over Memorial Day weekend, raking in over $118 million in its first four days. The story went to the well again with its still clever, but not quite as unique premise, comprised of a mystery-driven plot line where we follow the investigative adventures of Phil, Stu, and Alan and discover what happened the night before at the same time that they do. This allows for another series of outrageous, raunchy, surprising, and funny moments that escalate in absurdity over the course of the film’s 102-minute running time, culminating with another secret roll of pictures on Teddy’s camera that fill in the crazy events from their wild night in Bangkok. Based on the familiarity with the characters and the types of situations, I didn’t laugh out loud quite as frequently this time around, but the film still has its share of amusing moments, and I enjoyed revisiting the film again after a number of years. One of the things that I noticed about THE HANGOVER PART II is that it does not have the re-quotability factor going for it like the first film does. Alan and Chow have some funny lines, but honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever re-quoted a single one of them. I will agree with Alan on one point though, “When a monkey nibbles on a penis, it’s funny in any language.” I’d say that this film is more about mining comedy out of the extreme and absurd situations that our heroes are put in and less about clever, quotable quips.
THE HANGOVER PART II works because of the outrageous situational comedy, as well as the exceptional chemistry between Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis. Ken Jeong has a bigger part this time around as Mr. Chow, and of course he’s hilarious. I did get some solid laughs from its combination of shock-value, sight gags and character interplay. The Bangkok we see here also makes for a seedy, raunchy and dangerous background to the crazy action. Of course the biggest negative of the film, as is the case with many sequels, is the fact that it’s practically a remake of the first HANGOVER, just set in Bangkok instead of Vegas. Think Charles Bronson’s DEATH WISH (New York) versus DEATH WISH II (Los Angeles). Also like the first two DEATH WISH films, THE HANGOVER PART II pushes the boundaries even farther, with even more graphic nudity and just overall harder material in general. Sequels always up the ante, but lose a little of what makes them so special in the process, and that’s definitely going on here.
Ultimately, while THE HANGOVER PART II was even more financially successful than the original, it’s not quite as fun because we’ve seen it before in the first film. But I loved the first film, so I enjoyed this one as well, just not quite as much.
It seems kind of strange in today’s world of non-stop streaming, but there was a time when you would purchase a blu-ray of a movie, and they’d give you a free “digital” copy of the movie. In 2009, I purchased the blu-ray for THE HANGOVER and added the digital copy of the movie to my laptop that I kept at my tax and accounting office. Every night during the 2010 tax season, I would go home around 5:00 for dinner, and then I’d go back to the office at 7:00 to continue my work. When I’d get back to the office, I would always play two copies of digital movies on my laptop… first, I’d play THE HANGOVER and next, I’d play ZOMBIELAND. When those two movies would end, usually by around 11:00, I’d head home. Needless to say, I got to know each of these movies very well and love them both.
In director Todd Phillips’ THE HANGOVER, the night before his wedding, groom-to-be Doug (Justin Bartha), his two best friends, Phil and Stu (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms), and his soon-to-be brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis), head to Las Vegas for a wild and exciting bachelor party. After taking some Jagermeister shots on the roof of Caesar’s Palace, the movie screen goes black, and soon we see Phil, Stu and Alan wake up in their hotel room with absolutely no memory of what happened the previous night. The room is trashed, there’s a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, Alan doesn’t have on any pants, Stu is missing his lateral incisor, and Doug is nowhere to be found! With the wedding just hours away, the three friends follow any clues they can find in a frantic search for Doug. The search leads to the surprise discovery of a new stripper wife for Stu, the naked and dangerous Asian gangster Chow (Ken Jeong), who jumps out of the trunk of their car and attacks Phil with a crowbar, and Alan being tasered in the face by a kid visiting the Vegas police station. Hell, at one point Alan even gets punched out by Mike Tyson! More importantly, though, will they find Doug alive and have time to get him back to Los Angeles for his wedding?!!
A massive box office hit in the summer of 2009, THE HANGOVER became the highest grossing R-rated comedy up to that time, with a worldwide gross of $469 million against a budget of $35 million. One of the keys to the film’s success is its clever and unique premise, comprised of a mystery-driven plot line where we follow the detective-like adventures of Phil, Stu, and Alan and discover what the hell happened the night before at the same times that they do. This allows for a series of outrageous, raunchy, surprising, and hilarious comedic moments that escalate in absurdity over the course of the film’s 100-minute running time, culminating with an almost unbelievable roll of pictures on Stu’s camera that fill in the crazy events from their wild night in Vegas. Most movies, even comedies, don’t result in me laughing out loud. I laughed out loud frequently that first time I watched THE HANGOVER back in 2009, and I still do. It’s also a movie that, since that 2010 tax season, I have quoted endlessly in my personal life, whether it be “Classic,” to “Thanks a lot, Bin Laden,” and even “It’s not a purse, it’s called a satchel. Indiana Jones wears one.” I never know exactly when something will happen in my personal life that reminds me of THE HANGOVER, but if the time is right for an “in the face,” I’m always ready!
Of course, the comedy in THE HANGOVER would not work without the great direction from Todd Phillips, as well as the exceptional performances and chemistry between Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis. Phillips moves things along at a perfect pace, allowing for tons of laughs, while propelling the story forward to its conclusion. He also seems to capture the chaos and “what happens in” feeling of an out-of-control night in Vegas. And when I watched the film, I was reminded of people in my own life who share certain traits with some of the characters, especially those played by Cooper and Helms. As such, the interactions between the characters seems natural and familiar to me, which makes it even funnier. Luckily, I can’t think of any friends like Galifianakis’ eccentric character, but that’s probably a good thing for my real life. In the context of the movie, however, he steals the film with his deadpan delivery.
Ultimately, THE HANGOVER became a cultural phenomenon that launched a series of three films that grossed over $1.4 billion worldwide. It’s blend of clever writing, great casting and performances, and most importantly, great comedic moments, makes it one of my favorite comedies of the 21st century.
The best way to sum up the Live Action version of Disney’s Lilo & Stitch is with a line used in both films – “It’s little, and it’s broken, but good. Yeah. Still good.” I didn’t care for it as much as I thought I would (due to some changes in the story), but didn’t despise it enough to fully warrant a full thumbs down.
The Memorial Day Weekend battle basically comes down between Angela Bassett and her husband, Courtney B. Vance, who both have movies coming out. Vance can see seen in Lilo & Stitch as Agent Cobra Bubbles (previously played by Ving Rhames in the original, who is in Bassett’s film this weekend, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning).Remakes are shaky things, even if you stay close to the source material. The Live Action version of Lilo & Stitch feels abbreviated, for want of a better word. I enjoyed what was presented, and so did the early evening audience that consisted of families and yet, it didn’t hit every note for me. I won’t say it’s horrible, but it felt rushed for a film that has about 25 more minutes than the original.
The story is mostly the same. Dr. Joomba Jookiba (Zach Galifinakis, The Hangover) has unleashed an abomination in Experiment 626, a.k.a. Stitch (voiced once again by Chris Sanders). Stitch is nearly indestructible, highly intelligent and extremely dangerous. Already captured and forced to stand trial, Stitch escapes, steals a spaceship and ends up in Hawaii. The water is dangerous for Stitch, as he’s too dense to really float.
Lilo (Newcomer Maia Kealoha) is girl that’s considered different by most. She loves her self made dolls, saving chickens that shouldn’t be caged and doesn’t have much in the way of friends. She often gets in trouble, and this is putting a strain on her relationship with her sister, Nani (Sydney Agudong, Infamously in Love). Nani is trying to hold a job and keep the local Social Worker (Tia Carrere, True Lies and the voice of Nani in the original Lilo and Stitch) at bay.
When the Grand Councilwoman (Hannah Waddingham, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning) sends Dr. Joomba and Pleakley (Billy Magnussen, No Time To Die) to Earth on a retrieval mission, Stitch hides himself with Lilo and Nani, posing as a dog. Both The CIA’s lead agent, Cobra Bubbles, is also closing in on Stitch after his crash landing. Can Stitch find a way to escape capture and learn the magic of Ohana? Will Lilo find the friendship she’s longing for?
Lilo & Stitch keeps most of best scenes from the original – Stitch’s opening lines are there, of course, and so is his speech about his family. The theme of Ohana is still there. It still means Family, and means no one is left behind or forgotten. However, we’re taught a new word, “Kuleana” – which means “responsiblity” or “accountability”. The live action version changes the script by escalating the broken home situation between Nani and Lilo. Nani has a life she wants to live, too, but the loss of their parents and taking care of Lilo have put her dreams on hold. In a cartoon, an alien can show up and make everything right. In reality, things are a bit more complicated. It kind of pulls the fun out of things, but grounds the film in some real world consequences.
The entire story is carried on the tiniest of shoulders, and Maia Kealoha makes for a near perfect Lilo. Every scene with just Lilo and Stitch alone are great, and they end up in quite a few adventures. The CGI for Stitch and the other aliens are also very good. Disney’s obviously learned something from Paramount and their “Ugly Sonic” scandal. The same can be said for Agudong’s Nani. There really isn’t a bad acting choice in the entire lot, but the film pulls a piece off the chessboard. The Grand Counselwoman’s chief enforcer, a large sharklike alien named Captain Gantuu, is not in the film. Instead, the story removes his storyline and focus on making Joomba more the villain and Stitch the hero. Joomba and Pleakley spend most of their time bumbling through Earth’s customs, but keep most of the humor throughout. I get why the directors chose to go this way, since the sequences give Lilo more to do in them. It’s not a perfect change, but it all evens out, and the kids in the audience at my showing ate it all up (as did some of the grown ups).
Lilo and Stitch is a good watch if you’ve never heard of the story before. For kids that are new to it, it’s a treat, but it may be better to wait for the Disney Plus edition.
On a side note, I also picked up a Collector’s Edition Lilo & Stitch popcorn bucket, which contains a opening in the back to hold popcorn or other items. Stitch’s skin feels like velvet (or something fuzzy, really).
That’s not actually the tag line that was used to advertise 2007’s Into The Wild but perhaps it should have been. Based on the true story of Chris McCandless, a college graduate who gave away all of his money and then roamed the country for two years before starving to death in an abandoned bus in Alaska, Into The Wild seems to be Sean Penn’s attempt to make a modern-day Easy Rider. Just as Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda crossed the country and met several different people over the course of that seminal road film, Into The Wild follows Emile Hirsch’s Chris McCandless as he takes on the identity of Alexander Supertramp and hikes across the continent. Along the way, he meets and befriends hippies (Catherine Keener and Brian H. Dierker), blue collar workers (Vince Vaughn), wayward teenagers (Kristen Stewart), and, most poignantly, a retired man (Hal Holbrook) who sincerely tries to help Chris make peace with his wanderlust.
You would think that this would be the type of film that would bring out Sean Penn’s worst directorial instincts but Penn actually directs with a very real sensitivity and a willingness to see the good in just about everyone that Chris meets. It is true that, especially at the start of the film, Chris can sometimes be a bit difficult to take. He’s so self-righteous and sure of himself. He mistakes his college diploma for being a badge of experience and occasionally, he can come across as being incredibly condescending. But, as the film progresses, Chris starts to realize that he doesn’t know everything and that he can’t do everything by himself. Sometimes, he does need help, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. The film’s most moving moments feature Chris and Hal Holbrook’s Ron Franz. Ron has the years of experience that Chris lacks and Ron also becomes one of the few people to whom Chris is willing to truly listen. And yet, when Ron offers to adopt Chris and give him a permanent home, Chris’s response is to promise to talk to him about it when Chris returns from Alaska. As Chris leaves, it’s obvious that Ron knows that he’s never going to see Chris again. Dying in Alaska, Chris finally makes some sort of inner peace with the parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) and the sister (Jena Malone) that he earlier abandoned. It’s an amazingly touching scene. Penn, whose other directorial efforts have been a bit didactic, seems to be willing to grant a certain grace to everyone in the film, even those whose politics or cultural attitudes he might not necessarily share. Penn not only captures the visual beauty of the America wilderness but also the beauty of the people, a beauty that too many other directors chose to downplay.
It’s a strong film and certainly the best of Penn’s directorial efforts. Emile Hirsch is not always likable as Chris but, then again, the heart of the film is found in the people that Hirsch meets and Penn gets excellent performances from his entire supporting cast. Hal Holbrook received a much deserved Oscar nomination. I also liked Vince Vaughn’s performance as guy who teaches Chris about hard work before getting arrested for stealing cable and also Jena Malone as Chris’s sister, the one person who understands him, even if she’s not invited to travel with him.
Into The Wild is a poignant portrayal of both wanderlust and the often-neglected corners of America. Did Chris find a little of something that he was looking for before he died in that bus? One can only hope.
There’s a lot of film bloggers out there who have a natural aversion to anything that Jason Reitman is associated with.
And listen, I understand. The fact of the matter is that Jason Reitman probably does owe a lot of his success to the fact that people in the industry know and like his father. And it’s also true that Jason Reitman does tend to specializes in making films that you’re either going to love or you’re going to hate. His films mix drama and comedy and sentiment and snark and sometimes, his refusal to come down firmly on the side of either one can feel like a bit of a cop out. There’s a quirkiness to many of his films and sometimes, it can come across as being a bit cutesy. And I’ll even go as far as to agree with those who say that it’s been a while since Reitman’s made a really good film. The most common complaint I hear about Reitman is that his first four films (Thank You For Smoking, Juno, Up In The Air, and Young Adult) were okay and then he let his good reviews go to his head. Of course, some people — okay, a lot of people — will tell you that, of those four films, Juno’s overrated.
I get all of that and I actually agree with some of those points. Reitman is a director who sometimes seems to have lost his way after his early successes. I think the closest that Reitman’s come to giving us a good film post-Young Adult was with Tully and even then, that felt more like a Diablo Cody film than a Jason Reitman film.
But, with all of that in mind, I still really like Jason Reitman’s early films and I think that he still has the potential to once again be an important and interesting filmmaker. Thank You For Smoking and Juno are better than many give them credit for being. Charlize Theron has never been better than she was in Young Adult. Finally, this morning, I rewatched 2009’s Up In The Air for the first time in a long time and I was pleasantly surprised to see how well it holds up.
Up In The Air features George Clooney and Anna Kendrick. Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, an obsessive traveler who boats about living a life without commitment. Ryan works for a company that hires him out to fire people. If your boss is too much of a pussy to tell you that you’ve been terminated to your face, he hires Ryan to do it for him. Ryan specializes in trying to convince people that being fired is not a tragedy but an opportunity for a new beginning. Ryan also has a side gig as a motivational speaker. His speeches are largely about avoiding commitment and personal baggage.
Anna Kendrick plays Natalie Keener. Natalie works for the same company as Ryan but, at the age of 23 and just out of college, she’s a lot less confident when it comes to destroying people’s livelihoods. (“I’ve worked here for 17 years and I’m being fired by a 7th grader,” is one person’s response to being terminated by Natalie.) Natalie has come up with a new plan where all firings will be done via Skype. That way, the person doing the firing will never have to leave their office and won’t have to deal with the people they’ve fired one-on-one. Ryan says he considers this proposal to be inhumane but mostly, he’s just worried that he’ll lose his traveling privileges if Natalie’s plan is instituted.
Ryan and Natalie travel the country. Ryan teaches Natalie how to fire people and Natalie discovers that it’s not as easy to destroy someone’s life as she thought. Everywhere they go, they deal with people who are facing economic uncertainty. Ryan meets another frequent flyer, Alex (Vera Farmiga) and, after Alex reveals that she’s even less interested in commitment than Ryan, they begin an affair. Ryan starts to fall in love with Alex and even invited her to attend his sister’s wedding with him. However, Alex has a secret of her own.
One thing that I really like about Up in the Air is that Ryan and Natalie never end up sleeping together. I remember, when I first saw the movie, I was convinced that it was going to happen. After all, Ryan is handsome and charming and Natalie is attractive and, after her boyfriend dumps her, vulnerable. I was cringing at the knowledge that there would eventually be some contrived scene where Natalie and Ryan end up getting drunk and then end up waking up in bed together and the end result would be Natalie going from being a well-rounded, multi-dimensional character to just being a plot device in Ryan’s journey to becoming a better man. Well, there is a scene where Natalie and Ryan get drunk at the same time but it doesn’t lead to Natalie and Ryan becoming lovers and I respected Up in the Air for having enough respect for its characters to not do the convenient thing.
The other thing I liked about Up In The Air is that it’s one of the few films to make proper use of George Clooney’s deceptively smooth screen presence. We all know that Clooney is handsome and charming but what makes him an appealing actor is that there’s always been hints that there’s a lot dorkiness and insecurity hiding underneath the suave facade. Ryan may seem like he’s got it all together but, as the film progresses, you come to realize that he’s a lot more insecure and neurotic than he lets on. All of his snarky comments have more to do with his own fear of failure than anything else. Much as how the real life Clooney still sometimes seems as if he hasn’t fully gotten over being dismissed as just being another pretty face in the early days of his career, Ryan has never gotten over his dysfunctional childhood. Instead of taking a risk on love, he instead obsesses on getting frequent flyer miles. (At one point, Sam Elliott pops up out of nowhere and, in a scene that you could really only expect to find in a Jason Reitman film, gives Ryan a pep talk.) There’s a sadness to Ryan, one that seems to come from deep inside of his soul. Clooney does an excellent job of bringing that sadness to the surface while still giving a likable and compelling performance.
Up In The Air was released at a time when America was stuck in what seemed like a never-ending recession. Despite the fact that the news media and the politicians were insisting that things were on the verge of getting better (or, at the very least, boasting that unemployed actors were no longer “job-locked,” whatever the Hell that meant), many people believed that their best days were officially behind them. A lot of the contemporary reviews of the film focused on what it had to say about living in a time of economic uncertainty. That was ten years ago and we’re now living in a strong economy but, even so, Up In The Air still resonates. Reitman includes scenes in which people talk about what it was like to be fired. The majority of these people were not actors but were instead people recruited from the local unemployment office and they were speaking about their own experiences. The pain and resentment on their faces and in their voices is so palpable that it’s actually a bit jarring when J.K. Simmons and Zach Galifianakis show up, playing employees who are “terminated” by Ryan. I guess I should admit that I’ve never actually been fired from a job but, after watching Up In The Air, it’s not something that I would ever want to experience.
Up In The Air holds up well. Reitman’s direction is quirky but effective and he does a good job of mixing comedy in with the drama. (Wisely, whenever he has to make a choice, he emphasizes the drama over the comedy, instead of trying to maintain some sort of mythical 50/50 balance between them.) This film features one of George Clooney’s best performances and he has a really likable chemistry with Vera Farmiga. Anna Kendrick also does a great job with a character who could have become a stereotype in less skilled hands. Finally, along with Juno and The Gift, this film is one of the reasons why I always have a hard time watching Jason Bateman in any film or show where he’s cast as hero. Bateman plays Ryan’s boss and the character is so smarmy (and Bateman does such a good job of playing him) that he’ll make your skin crawl.
It’s been a while since Up In The Air was first released and Jason Reitman’s career has had its ups and downs. Still, regardless of whatever film Reitman makes next, Up In The Air remains a classic of the aughts.
The year is 1886 and Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) is the world’s greatest adventurer.
Or, at least, that’s what he says. Actually, Sir Lionel may have made a name for himself and gained some popularity as a result of his many adventures but his fellow explorers and adventurers don’t take him seriously. They view Sir Lionel as being little more than a self-promoter and they’re largely unimpressed with the all the time that he’s devoted to searching for mythical beasts like The Loch Ness Monster and lost lands like El Dorado. Sir Lionel desperately wants to join the London-based Society of Great Men but the snobbish Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry) refuses to accept his application.
When Sir Lionel receives a letter from someone in America who claims to have tracked down the legendary Sasquatch, Sir Lionel and Lord Piggot-Duncey make a bet. If Sir Lionel can prove that the Sasquatch exists, he will be allowed to join the Society. Sir Lionel heads off to America while Lord Piggot-Dunceby promptly hires an evil bounty hunter named Willard Stenk (Timothy Olyphant) to prevent him from accomplishing his mission. As Lord Piggot-Dunceby explains to his assistant, Mr. Collick (Matt Lucas), the world is changing too quickly. If Sir Lionel isn’t stopped, people might start to believe in things like evolution or women’s rights.
When Sir Lionel arrives in America, he promptly starts searching for the Sasquatch and, amazingly enough, it doesn’t take him very long to find him. It turns out that the Sasquatch — who Sir Lionel names Mr. Link — not only speaks remarkably good English but he’s also the one who wrote to Sir Lionel in the first place. As played by Zach Galifianakis, Mr. Link is a rather laid back and good-natured Sasquatch. In some ways, Mr. Link is surprisingly worldly and, in other ways, he’s rather naive. He takes everything that he hears literally, which poses a problem since Sir Lionel has a tendency towards sarcasm. It also turns out that Mr. Link is lonely but he thinks that he might be related to the Himalayan Yetis. And Mr. Link thinks that Sir Lionel is just the man to help him get from America to Asia!
Sir Lionel reluctantly agrees. Accompanying them on their journey is Sir Lionel’s former girlfriend, Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana). And pursuing them, every step of the way, is Lord Piggot-Dunceby and Willard Stenk.
Missing Link is an enjoyable and undeniably cute stop-motion animated film. It was produced by Laika, the same animation outfit that previously gave us Kubo and The Two Strings. While Missing Link is never as memorable or emotionally resonant as Kubo, it’s still a good-hearted film and entertaining enough that an adult can watch it without wanting to tear their hair out. Blessed with impressively detailed animation and the comedic vocal talents of Hugh Jackman, Stephen Fry, Timothy Olyphant, and Zach Galifianikis, Missing Link has enough funny moments and clever lines that most audiences should be able to overlook the fact that the story itself sometimes feels a bit haphazard in its construction. Much like the Sasquatch at the center of its story, Missing Link is a rather laid back film. If Kubo was a carefully-constructed work of art, Missing Link feels like it was almost thrown together at random. The film is at its best once it reaches the Himalayas, where the humor becomes very barbed and Emma Thompson steals the show in a sharp-witted cameo.
I enjoyed Missing Link. It’s just too sweet-nartured not to like.
On December 4th, the Annie Award nominations were announced. The Annies honor the year’s best in animation. This year, just like almost everyone else who has handed out an award, the Annies are very appreciative of Coco.
Before I start this post, allow me to introduce you to today’s co-reviewer:
This is my young friend James. I first met him when I was working with his mother. He was a shy three-year-old whose father had disavowed him. He was mistrustful of most adults, but for whatever reason, he took a liking to me, and “adopted” me as his best friend. I’ve become somewhat of a mentor to him, and we have lots of fun going places like Chuck E. Cheese, the park, the zoo, and the movies. He’s ten now, and a big Lego fan, so naturally we saw THE LEGO MOVIE together. When I asked him if he wanted to see THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE, he got super-excited. I must admit I was too, being a huge Batmaniac myself.
So today we went to check it out. James told me his school friends said it was “cool”…
Through the Shattered Lens 