FILM REVIEW: GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Goodbye to Language.

Rad Dog

By Ed Rampell

During the 70-minute Goodbye to Language thesoundtrack fades in and out, but to paraphrase TV’s 1960s sci-fi series The Outer Limits: “There is nothing wrong with your screen. Do not attempt to adjust the picture” -- because the effect is deliberate. This is a Jean-Luc Godard production, after all.

And your humble critic doesn’t have the slightest clue as to what Godard’s latest film is about, and God(-ard) only knows if the 84-year-old filmmaker does. Goodbye to Language is completely indecipherable to this reviewer, just as his 2010 Film Socialisme was (but seriously comrades, can anybody please explain what that movie remotely had to do with socialism???). Indeed, probably every post-1982 Godard work yours truly has seen has defied his comprehension and description. Could this Nouvelle Vague motion picture pioneer be any vaguer and more opaque?

However, now that this obligatory disclaimer is out of the way, please permit your most obedient scribbling servant to add that he nevertheless quite enjoyed Goodbye to Language. Godard's 43rd film is his first shot in 3d and the result is a film full of visally striking, arresting imagery.

During this 70-minute barrage of pictures and sounds there is some sort of love triangle, including graphic nudity, and a lead actor is completely naked (if furry) throughout Goodbye to Language. That’s because this protagonist is a dog, portrayed by Godard’s own pet, Roxy. There are stunning images of Roxy, whose snout is quite glorious in 3D and who provides a kind of animal’s eye view on the doings of we mere mortals. Press notes don’t reveal whether or not Roxy uses the Stanislavsky Method and the mutt isn’t granting (or grunting) any interviews, but Roxy is a good actor with a naturalistic technique, although it should be noted that this thesp speaks with a canine accent.

Goodbye to Language is full of the Godardian leitmotifs and techniques that he has hurled on the screen for more than half a century, since his first 2D feature, 1960’s Breathless and earlier shorts. There are titles, jumpy cuts, clips from Hollywood flicks, lots of philosophical ruminations, mutterings about Mao and Che, a male/female couple striving to transcend alienation to find love (see Godard’s recently re-released 1965 masterpiece, Alphaville), the aforementioned full frontal nudity and more. Interestingly, Goodbye to Language ends with verbal references to the Marquesas Islands, located in Paris’ overseas territory of French Polynesia. There is some sort of murder mystery, perhaps terrorism (hey, if you haven’t seen it yet your guess is as good as that of the initiated), overbearing, omniscient state suppression and so on, but much of it is offscreen, oblique, fragmented, hard to piece together. Or maybe it’s just all over this cinefile’s poor muddled head?

To be sure, Goodbye to Language isn’t every theatergoer’s cup of Tinseltown tea. Most popcorn munchers at the multiplex keen on explosions, exposition, plot, dialogue, escapist action and most other Hollywood movie conventions will probably prefer to spend their buckeroos elsewhere.

But for those hardy few who favor the avant-garde, experimental, poetic, philosophical and challenging, Godard’s newest film is essential existential viewing, must-see cinema by one of our movie masters, as he transports serious cineastes beyond art’s outer limits. One muses that Goodbye to Language is speaking its own language and is as hard to understand today as Breathless’ jump cuts were difficult for 1960 audiences to grasp. This film historian may not have understood Goodbye to Language, but he sure liked it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FILM REVIEW: PLANES FIRE & RESCUE By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Planes: Fire & Rescue.

Newcomer on the job

By John Esther

Before the opening credits roll in director Bobs Gannaway's Planes: Fire & Rescue, Disney dedicates the movie "To the courageous firefighters throughout the world who risk their lives to save the lives of others." It is a nice, well deserved gesture and it tells you immediately where the heart of this film beats. 

The follow up to last year's Planes, this animated feature follows the highs and lows -- literally and metaphorically -- of Dusty Crophopper (voice by Dane Cook), a plane who is about to fly into the winds of change.

Having just won another aerial race, Dusty is out training for an upcoming local race when his health comes crashing down. Told that he can never race again, Dusty goes out at night and pushes himself to the point of collapse, not only causing more harm to himself, but damage to his community at large. (Was he drunk on oil?)

In order to redeem himself and save his community, Dusty must get certified as an aerial firefighter. 

Up until this point, audiences may wonder where in the world Planes: Fire & Rescue is taking place. There are no humans in the story. Only cars, trucks, trains, planes, and other vehicles (basically Disney merchandise to be purchased) living in a world free of smog, pollution or oil spills. And these vehicles, except one mentioned in a side-of-the-mouth quip, seem to run on gas. Of course, they do speak American English. 

This otherworldly notion is dispersed when Dusty heads across the land to Yosemite, Earth. It is here Dusty will train under the tutelage of Blade (voice by Ed Harris) and with the help of friendly co-firefighters, including a forward-thinking female, Lil' Dipper (voice by Julie Bowen), who, along with Blade, Windlifter (voice by West Studi), are the most entertaining character in Planes: Fire & Rescue. 

No sooner has Dusty arrived a fire alarm is set off, sending the firefighting crew deep into the forest. Immediately the team sets out with brilliant precision: planes swoop in, pick up water and drop it on the fire, while utility vehicles descend in parachutes to the ground where they will do their work with the precision of machines, but with the personalities of toys similar to the ones given to them by imaginative children. It is a heroic coordination with no time to lose.  

To get, or amp, adults in this firefighting scene, the filmmakers set it to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." As rocking and rolling as "Thunderstruck" may be, lyrically speaking, "Thunderstruck" has just about much correlation to the action taking place in the movie as Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy," Gang of Four's "Better him than Me" or Beyonce Knowles' "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." If someone asked me, Kansas' "Fighting Fire with Fire," Ultravox's "One Small Day" or Muse's "Knights of Cydonia" would have been more germane, but nobody asked. Actually, Leftfield's "Open Up" comes to mind when considering such pedestrian pandering. Anyway, it is an emotionally charged, intellectually lethargic musical choice. Unfortunately, it is the best song you will hear in Planes: Fire & Rescue. Plus, Mark Mancina's score is worse than the individual songs.

During his initial entry into firefighting it becomes clear Dusty has a lot to learn and to explain to the real firefighters. His ego and his poor health are both a detriment and a danger to himself and the team. Yet he is too arrogant to defer to his betters. Naturally, I mean formulaically, the protagonist will have to jump through hoops of fire before he can become a hero. 

Not only do the government-run, taxpayer-supporting firefighters have the burden of training Dusty, they now have a bigger problem with Cad Spinner (voice by John Michael Higgens), a park superintendent acting more like real estate developer than a ranger. Driven by ambition, Cad diverts firefighter funds to his new restoration project. The Grand Fusel Lodge is about to open and the ambitious, avarice and authoritarian Cad wants to impress the visiting Secretary of the Interior (voice by Fred Willard). And if the forest burns before his retreat, that is just the cost of doing business. 

Now, it does not take a Maru (voice by Curtis Armstrong), to figure out and fix the conclusion of the movie. Co-screenwriters Gannaway and Jeffrey M. Howard are not going to tail and spin this elementary narrative into a tragedy. 

Nonetheless, for a film geared toward smaller children -- the MPAA gave the film a PG rating for "Action and Some Peril" -- Planes: Fire & Rescue is rather intense for younger viewers. Some of the action is fast and there are several scenes where the smoke lingers on, not knowing if our products, I mean protagonists, of the movie, have survived. As one young kid said aloud at the all-Media screening, "What happened? I don't like this movie"; perhaps expressing the sentiments of others. There was adult laughter in response. 

Since Disney insists on trying to please both children and parents in these family-friendly ventures, there are obviously some jokes, not the token flatulence ones of course, that will mean nothing to the kids. Lil' Dipper's high-jinks are for those whose hormones have already kicked in. The hybrid car joke about "never heard it coming" will be a "zoom" for the typical kid. And the "CHoPs" metanarrative in the movie, a pastiche of the TV series, CHiPs -- both featuring Erik Estrada -- puzzled the many a kinder eyes and ears during the aforementioned screening. 

This is not to suggest that storytelling for different audience ages (or, at least maturity) is a bad thing. Family members may leave the theater talking to other family members about what he or she took from the movie, which may offer different perspectives on the same text. (Yes, it is extremely doubtful Disney has such intellectual intentions. So called "family films" are geared toward the maximum possible ticket buyers.)

However, there is one thing everyone should be able to take from the film: firefighters do some very important and dangerous work. Even though the characters in Planes: Fire & Rescue are made of metal, that is clear at the movie's most elementary level. 

Planes: Fire & Rescue is available in 3D. 

FILM REVIEW: JOURNEY 2 By: Faiz No comments

Hank (Dwayne Johnson) in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Numbing down

By Ed Rampell

There have been at least half a dozen screen versions of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island, including two silent and one Soviet adaptation, and the latest incarnation is a good fun flick with 3D IMAX special effects. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island plays fast and loose with authors Jonathan Swift, Robert Louis Stevenson and especially Verne. The novels by that sci-fi pioneer have been adapted for the screen at least as far back as 1902, when Georges Melies shot Verne’s A Trip to the Moon, which Martin Scorsese revisits in his multi-Oscar nominated Melies biopic, Hugo.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is so titled because it is produced by some of the same producers of the lame 2008 adaptation of Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth starring Brendan Fraser and Josh Hutcherson, who reprises his role in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island as Sean Anderson, the scion of explorers. In this loose sequel of sorts Dwayne Johnson portrays Hank, who has married Sean’s mother -- played by Kristin Davis (Charlotte in Sex in the City). Hank has a hankering to be a good stepfather to the alienated Sean, which leads to their joint adventure in quest of Sean’s long lost Indiana Jones-type grandfather.

Their odyssey takes them to the Pacific Islands, and for some mysterious reason the titular isle is located near Palau, although in Verne’s novel it is situated 1,600 miles east of Aotearoa/New Zealand. At first it seems to make sense, as Palau is famous for its 100-plus Rock Islands, but these mushroom shaped limestone formations topped by jungle greenery and ringed by beaches are never mentioned or glimpsed onscreen – although they would be glorious in 3D and IMAX. Instead, it’s pretty obvious that this movie was shot, in part, on location in Hawaii.

Since I’ve lived in both Palau and Hawaii, it’s obvious to me this island was shot in the latter, not the former. And although the pic identifies Palau as being in the “South Pacific,” it’s not: Palau is located in the Western Pacific. Ditto for casting. The Puerto Rican actor Luis Guzman (HBO’s How to Make It in America series) plays Gabato, a bumbling Palauan helicopter pilot who provides much of the flick’s comic relief that comes perilously close to Stepin Fetchit-like celluloid stereotypes. Gabato also references himself as “Polynesian,” but Palauans are Micronesians.

Salinas-born Vanessa Hudgens, who plays Gabato’s daughter, Kailani (Hawaiian for “heavenly sea”), portrayed a Latina in the High School Musical TV series. According to IMDB, this actress is “is of mixed cultural background, as her father is of Irish and Native American descent, and her mother… is of Chinese-Filipino-Spanish descent.” Well, at least the Philippines is about 500 miles from Palau; a tad closer than Puerto Rico, located clear on the other side of world of a continent or two (depending on where you stand).

In that grand Dolores Del Rio/Conchita Montenegro/Raquel Torres tradition, Hispanic actors (mis)represent indigenous Pacific Islanders. Some may protest to this writer -- who co-authored Made In Paradise, Hollywood’s Films of Hawaii and the South Seas with Luis Reyes -- that actors can portray any ethnic type and one doesn’t have to be a chicken to know an egg. Fair enough. But as far as Haole-wood and the majority dominant culture it’s selling tickets to is concerned, if you’ve seen one Islander, you’ve seen them all. It remains a mystery to me why so few Hollywood pictures ever get the ethnic Island casting right -- especially when there are so many gifted Pacific talents.

Interestingly enough, Johnson, who is actually part-Samoan, is never specifically referred to as being Polynesian. However, he has a lovely scene singing and strumming the ukulele; the song is reprised during the final credits, which proves that not only does the ex-wrestler have a decent voice and musical ability, but that he has a “co-producer” credit. Having said that, Johnson has a light comedic touch and a telegenic, charismatic presence, although for some reason he doesn’t disrobe. Maybe the pecs and abs are aging? I don’t know why they chose not to lose his shirt – I would have loved to see his entire Polynesian style tattoo. But in any case, you really haven’t lived until you've see "The Rock" in an IMAX 3D close up.

Speaking of which, director Brad Peyton’s 3D IMAX whizbang wizardry is good, especially the scene where the characters ride gigantic bees, as if they’re “paniolos” atop galloping broncos. But some of the island backdrops look kinda cheesy and painted, and flowers and other flora likewise look unrealistic. The secret to attaining Samuel Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” is to provide enough realism for the beholder to buy into it. The 1961 Mysterious Island version with special effects by the immortal Ray Harryhausen was actually more spectacular. Who can ever remember the actors who discover that the “beach” they’re walking on is really the shell of a giant crab?! And the new adaptation replaces the original Civil War era hot air balloon with a helicopter. Of course, the movie includes that old South Seas Cinema cliché of an exploding volcano.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a an entertaining escapist flick co-written by literary kleptomaniacs (including Brian and Mark Gunn) excavating the literary estates of Verne, Swift and Stevenson. (Can you say: "hodgepodge"?) The screening I attended was preceded by a dee-lightfully DAFFY Warner Bros. cartoon in IMAX and 3D, which brought back happy memories of double features that often included cartoons.

FILM REVIEW: HUGO By: Faiz No comments

Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) in Hugo.

Train in vein

By Don Simpson

Hugo, director Martin Scorsese’s virginal foray into 3D cinema, begins with one fantastic flaunting of the third dimension, utilizing a long tracking shot that squeezes through the narrow tunnels and crowded platforms of a 1930s Parisian train station. (Brian Selznick’s source novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret takes place in 1931 whereas Scorsese’s film is not dated.) Unfortunately, this is a cinematic sequence that could only possibly take place in the mostly artificial realm of CGI, and to my discerning eye it appears unbelievably fake. In theory, it is a worthwhile attempt as Scorsese proves that he truly understands how scenes need to be framed in order to take full advantage of the 3D medium. If only he could have confined the entirety of Hugo to crowded confines, and kept the scenes somewhat grounded in the reality of actual locations rather than a CGI stage.

For the most part, I was pretty annoyed and frustrated by the 3D lensing. Not only does the technology render the images darker and softer than 2D images, but it also makes everything appear so damn artificial (during certain scenes Hugo actually looks eerily similar to The Polar Express, which is not a compliment). ).

Now, on with the story… Is it just me, or does almost every children’s fantasy/adventure film feature orphan protagonists? The titular Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is no exception. The prepubescent Hugo is left to clandestinely tend to a complicated system of clocks at the aforementioned Parisian train station after his father (Jude Law) dies and his uncle (Ray Winstone) disappears. An ever-vigilant station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) has made it his life’s mission to roundup all of the orphans he can find and ship them to the orphanage; so Oliver, I mean Hugo, must remain one step ahead of him at all times.

In a feeble attempt to reconnect with his father, Hugo attempts to rebuild an automaton with spare toy and clock parts. Unfortunately, a nasty old curmudgeon (Ben Kingsley) who tends a toy shop in the station snatches Hugo’s notebook which contains his father’s notes on how to fix the automaton. Hugo desperately enlists the assistance of Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), a precocious young bookworm with bright eyes and a glowing smile — and she is the goddaughter of the old man — to win his notebook back.

The conniving young duo are quickly distracted from their original mission as Hugo takes Isabelle to see her first film — Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last — and Isabelle brings Hugo to a library for his first time. Their two adventuresome interests fatefully collide when they come across a book entitled The Invention of Dreams: The Story of the First Movies Ever Made, and this book provides them with clues regarding the true identity of Georges Méliès. (This is around where Hugo suddenly makes a sharp left turn from a kids’ adventure story to a pseudo-bio-pic about Méliès.) Isabelle and Hugo join forces with the book’s author, René Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg), to bring Méliès out from the shadows.

Unless you are a connoisseur of early silent films, you are probably wondering who the heck this Méliès character is… Well, in short, Méliès was the first to recognize the connection between the cinema and dreams. This is the man who is often credited with originating the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres of cinema. Méliès came from a family of shoemakers, but he sold his share of the shoe factory to begin a career as a magician. The invention of the movies in France by the Lumière brothers prompted Méliès to build his own film camera out of parts from an automaton. He directed 531 films between 1896 and 1914, ranging in length from one to 40 minutes. What Méliès films lacked in plot, they made up for in the cinematic magic of groundbreaking special effects (not unlike a lot of Hollywood blockbusters today, and not unlike Hugo).

Contrary to what Hugo will have us believe, Méliès was never presumed dead during World War I; he stopped making films in 1913 after being forced into bankruptcy by much larger French and American studios (Méliès’ production company was bought out of receivership by Pathé Frères). The celluloid of his films did not become the heels of women’s shoes, but the French Army did seize most of Méliès’ film stock to be melted down into boot heels during World War I. However, there are some truths about Méliès in Hugo such as he did become a toy salesman at a Parisian train station and did collect automata.

I certainly appreciate Scorsese’s hero worship of Méliès and Hugo may actually have a better chance of turning audiences on to silent films than The Artist. But is this the film everyone is expecting Hugo to be? Hugo is being marketed as a children’s adventure story, not a lesson on film history and a diatribe about the importance of film preservation. Even Scorsese the magician leads us to believe that Hugo is the former, until he unveils the latter, thus pulling a Méliès-esque trick by making so many seemingly important threads of the first half of the narrative disappear before our very eyes. Poof!

I was also very confused by Scorsese’s decision to have all of the French characters speak in British accents. I guess the language and dialect of Hugo is just another directorial magic trick.

FILM REVIEW: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN IV By: Faiz No comments

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Slow ride

By Allan Heifetz

Truth be told, I’m not a fan of the first three installments of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. They always left me wanting less -- less characters, less CGI spectacle and less of a convoluted and confusing story. These movies, inspired by an amusement park ride, bludgeon you over the head with swashbuckling until you just want to close your eyes and experience something close to nothingness.

At any rate, I was sort of looking forward to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which comes four years after the third and most hated chapter, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. This time there is no Orlando Bloom (Will) or Kiera Knightley (Elizabeth) mucking up the works; Johnny Depp’s “delightful” Captain Jack Sparrow is now front and center and ready to give us a good time.

After pulling off the daring rescue of his pal, Gibbs (Kevin McNally), from a London jail, Jack runs into Angelica (Penelope Cruz), an old flame turned adventurer who happens to be the daughter of the infamous Blackbeard (Ian McShane). Against his will, Jack ends up on Blackbeard’s ship and is forced to guide the scary captain and his daughter to the fabled Fountain of Youth. At the same time, Jack's old rival, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), is sailing to the fountain as well, having snagged the job of captain on a royal expedition to plunder the fountain’s powers. Oh yeah, the Spaniards have a ship in the race, too (just one of many story elements that could have been easily ripped out of the movie). On their way Blackbeard and crew must find some ancient chalices and snag a mermaid’s tear to help them activate the fountain.

What I like most about the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is the makeup; a real sense of griminess and decrepitude permeates every scene. Everyone has horribly decaying teeth and is covered in soot. I could barely pay attention to the story for imagining just how ungodly these characters must smell. No toothbrushes? No showers? No vitamin C? Dear lord, can’t we just kill them all and let god brush their teeth? Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides coasts along on sheer spectacle for a good long while before that inevitable fatigue hits us. In the meantime there are some great set pieces, breathtaking crane shots of awesome looking ships and a pretty cool scene in which Jack's crew falls victim to a school of seductive and super vicious killer mermaids.

Running for a total of 136 minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides makes us wait two hours to get to the Fountain of Youth only to do absolutely nothing with the idea of a mythical magical fountain. Nobody ages rapidly and disintegrates in front of your eyes; nobody drinks too much from the fountain and turns into a baby or anything. Imagine if, at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Dr. René Belloq (Paul Freeman) opens the ark to find nothing but sand and then…that’s it. No screaming ghosts and no melting faces. That’s sort of what the finale of Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides is like.

Depp’s charm is palpable in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides, but after two hours of Jack cracking wise, messing shit up and acting like a goof you sort of want him to stop the shenanigans, get angry and be a real hero. I prefer an action hero like an Indiana Jones who is serious, troubled, super-focused and will crack a joke only when cornered. Jack is too silly and unreliable to really get behind. All he does is stumble into tedious sword fights and swing on things. I hate to say it, but isn’t sword fighting in general fairly dull to watch? It’s especially dull in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides since the film’s violence is completely sterilized and bloodless. After any given large scale sword fight you’re never sure whether everyone was killed or nobody was killed. Since nothing is at stake, you are never fully involved in the action. You know what Indy does to swordsmen? ‘Nuff said.

Cruz’s Angelica has all the gravitas of lovely Spanish wallpaper. She made me pine for the enchanting and smashed-in face of Knightley. Cruz was super shrill, annoying and hard to understand in Blow (2001) -- the first film she appeared in with Depp and in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides -- and she continues from there. Clearly Jack and Angelica are supposed to have Indy/Marion Ravenwood (Harrison Ford/Karen Allen) like chemistry, but Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides has no classic reunion scene like the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy walks into Marion’s Tibetan tavern after all those years only to get punched in the jaw. Jack and Angelica run into each other, spew a lot of awkward exposition about their past and continue to bitch back and forth until the end. We don’t care about their love. McShane’s Blackbeard is quite frightening at first, but over the course of this endless movie he loses his presence. It would have helped if we knew why he had supernatural powers and if we got to see a bit of his back story.

Of course Keith Richards pops in for a meaningless cameo as Jack‘s pirate dad. What a horrible relationship this father and son have. Senior surprises Junior. Junior says “Hi, Dad.” Senior gives Junior some quick warnings in a pub and then vanishes into thin air when Junior isn’t looking. Wouldn’t a hug have been better?

Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago; Nine), and credited to nine different writers, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides doesn’t really improve on the previous films and, unless the next one gets an R rating, costs two million to make and is directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9), I don’t have much hope for the franchise.

Oh, and of course the 3D glasses made everything a little darker and therefore had me wishing I could watch it in 2D. Idea: why not boost the brightness on the entire film one stop so the glasses will make the picture normal? Genius.