Movie Review – Avatar

James Cameron has been a filmmaker since 1978, and to this day, if we skip “Piranhas 2″ and start in 1984 with “Terminator”, he has only made seven films, counting this one. All of them exceptional. Cameron isn’t into quick jobs. He tackles every project like it’s the most important thing he’ll ever do, and the passion he puts into his movies always shows and ensures that whatever he comes up with will easily make the best efforts of hacks like Michael Bay seem laughable by comparison.

“Avatar” is a fantastic film. It’s flawed — maybe more than any other movie Cameron directed. But it’s also his most ambitious and daring film, and what he and his crew have achieved here warms my heart. Nothing is half-assed about this production. Every inch of it was carefully constructed, and even if it fails to work for you — you’ve got to respect the effort. It’s passionate filmmaking.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a paraplegic ex-marine whose twin brother, a scientist named Tommy, has died. Tommy was part of a team of scientists on planet Pandora, where the invading humans and a native species called Na’vi are clashing for territorial control — thanks to the former being interested in an extremely valuable mineral the planet possesses. Jake takes his brother’s place as an avatar pilot — avatars are bioengineered versions of the Na’vi, controlled mentally by the scientists to roam around the planet (due to the atmosphere being toxic to humans) and improve relations with the native population.

However, the scientists’ efforts are gradually being replaced by a military approach led by Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who sees no future in diplomacy with the Na’vi — an opinion shared by corporate little shit Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi). Together, they convince Jake to report not only to the team of scientists, but to their team well, detailing the infrastructure of the Na’vi land for tactical purposes. But when Jake’s avatar manages to be welcomed by the natives, he falls in love with their culture and their world, and finds himself in a very difficult position.

Which pretty much means that in “Avatar”, Cameron makes the humans the villains, and has the task of making the audience root for the Na’vi instead of our own species. While normally this wouldn’t be a problem for my misanthropic self, Cameron made sure we would cooperate by creating a fictional alien world that is nothing short of magnificent: from the vegetation, to the biology of every creature, to the religion of the Na’vi, every detail of the world has been carefully thought and executed — to call the experience “fascinating” is an euphemism. Even some details that would usually go unnoticed anyway are explained by the film, like in the moment Quaritch mentions the planet’s low gravity — which is, after all, why the Na’vi are ten feet tall and why everything in the planet is huge in comparison to humans, who evolved in higher gravity. Speaking of that, I was happy, in the beginning of the film, to see the interior of an interstellar ship being in zero-g while travelling in space, since the concept of articificial gravity has always been an omnipresent sci-fi movie cliche.

I will avoid describing the details of this world any further — it would be a disservice to whoever hasn’t seen the film yet, and useless to who already has. Part of the beauty here is to be constantly surprised by the creativity of the filmmakers in detailing the planet they’ve created. Okay, just one more, mild thing: even the deity worshipped by the Na’vi receives a vague, but interesting scientific explanation — like a version of the Internet invented by Nature, would be my definition. And this is important so something that happens in the third act sounds plausible to skeptical viewers like myself.

Cameron is less successful with his characters — a few miss the mark, however most work very well. It’s always interested me, the way Cameron makes stereotypes and cliches work for him — some of the characters he’s created throughout his filmography aren’t deep, but strongly characterized: the hysterical Hudson from “Aliens”, the unstable Lt. Coffey from “The Abyss”, the asshole Simon from “True Lies”, the arrogant Caledon Hockley from “Titanic”. In “Avatar”, these stereotypes are used to portray the military and the corporations in a farcical way: while Parker is introduced playing mini-golf in the middle of an operations room, Colonel Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang in a competent, balanced performance, has a simplistic approach to his job, a southern accent and apparently enjoys practicing a few punches while piloting mecha armor (one of the film’s most inspired visual gags, and there are many moments of well-done comic relief throughout the movie).

And while the antagonistic Tsu’tey (Laz Alonso) is a walking cliche, laughing at the protagonist’s efforts to join the Na’vi, and Mo’at (CCH Pounder) is a stereotyped shamanic leader (in this case the stereotype fails), the protagonist himself, Jake, is not only very well interpreted by Sam Worthington but also interestingly developed by Cameron’s script — a good example being the scene when he is delighted to recover the use of his legs through his avatar. As the movie progresses, I started to share his awe and admiration toward the Na’vi culture and their land — which is a vital point, and one Cameron succeeds in brilliantly. And if Norm (Joel Moore) and Max (Dileep Rao) didn’t leave much of an impression on me, Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) and the pilot Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez) are both compelling in their distinct portrayals of “tough women” that are so typical in Cameron’s films — while Weaver is always excellent, especially working with him, Rodriguez also manages to leave a mark with significantly less screen time. Also I can’t resist noting: goddamn she’s beautiful (and to be fair, so is Weaver, who remains attractive at sixty years of age).

But the heart of the movie is truly Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana in a brilliant performance that rivals Andy Serkis as Gollum in “Lord Of The Rings”. Always moving with sharp precision yet irresistible grace, Saldana’s expressions are remarkable — from her intimidating scowl to her beautiful, sincere smile. She uses the amazing performance capture technology to its fullest — in fact, she makes that technology her bitch for the entire duration of the film, resulting in a character that feels completely alien and yet beautiful, admirable and fascinating. Completely aware of this, Cameron introduces her with an excellent close-up of her face as she examines the stranger in front of her.

It should come as no surprise that the visual effects in “Avatar” are the greatest achievement in the area I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing in Cinema so far. And it’s not just the magnificent rendering, the detailed performance capture and the amazing eyes of the Na’vi, always full of life unlike most digital creations in other films — the colorful cinematography and unbelievable art direction are vital to create a three-hour-long visual spectacle. Even the animation of the Na’vi’s ears is impressive.

Once again proving his commitment not only as an innovator but also as a filmmaker, Cameron never uses the technology for the sake of using it, instead applying it as a great storytelling tool — resulting in an unforgettable scene that has everything that’s good about “Avatar”: Jake’s first flight on an Ikran. As he and Neytiri fly around floating islands, beautiful landscapes and framed by the colossal planet that decorates Pandora’s sky — all this to James Horner’s excellent soundtrack — I realized I had a wide smile on my face, delighted by what I was seeing.

But “Avatar” is a flawed gem. Its many qualities are not enough to overshadow its problems — aside from some of the weak characters, the narration by Jake — thinly disguised as a videolog — comes off as unecessary most of the time. The movie also loses some of its emotional momentum on the third act, when Cameron allows for excessive dramatic slow motion, and falls victim to some cliches — like a character dying on another’s arms — when it would have been more impactful if he was found already dead.

However, I said it loses emotional momentum — when it comes to action, though, the third act is sublime, featuring a sky battle that is almost impeccably filmed, never leaving any doubt as to what’s happening in it, and competently scored by James Horner as well (except for a few moments when, in typical Horner fashion, the composer overdoes the drama a bit). And the fight between a Na’vi and a human in a mecha suit is not only exceptional, it also reminded me pleasantly of a similar moment in “Aliens” — except I was rooting for the alien this time. Full circle, eh?

Many complained about the film’s “obvious” message, but I don’t see that as a flaw. The message itself is perfectly valid in today’s world — just replace the movie’s fictional mineral with oil. Honestly, would the same message be better under layers and layers of subtlety? No, in this case I think it would only seem more convoluted — Cameron wanted this one to be obvious, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be. And at least within the film’s universe, the message works. I didn’t want the humans to succeed in their invasion of Pandora because at that point I had already fallen in love with the planet, and the tractors piloted by humans destroying all that amazing vegetation and threatening such an interesting culture were painful to witness.

“Avatar” is a fascinating, beautiful experience. Its main flaws are hard to overlook, but Cameron thinks big, and sets out to bring his vision to life as best as he can.

I went to an alien planet and in the end I was sad I had to leave. I could care fucking less about the flaws. “Avatar” is a resounding success.

OBS: In 3D, I believe the theatre I went to wasn’t properly equipped to handle the film, since the glasses darkened the visuals immensely (which is a problem with 3D in general, but in this case seemed excessive), ruining the cinematography. I could tell, however, that the 3D is properly used, never trying to call attention to itself gratuitously (pay attention to that one, Robert Zemeckis). But probably due to the problematic 3D theatre I went to, I found the experience much more beautiful in 2D.

Movie Review – The Princess And The Frog

“Look, a black princess!” says Disney, proud of itself for being so stunningly ahead of its time, like we’re all supposed to let our jaws drop and applaud pretending it isn’t a marketing strategy, but a genuine attempt to show the world that it doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white — which paradoxically defeats the purpose of this film, since if it doesn’t matter, why the fuck should I care whether the princess is black, white, albino or vomit-green? I thought the whole idea of this “no racism” thing is, you know, not taking skin color into account?

And okay, Disney, if you really must act like a little kid seeking mom’s approval, at least do it by giving your film the same thing your older classics used to have: a heart. “The Princess And The Frog” is one of the blandest animations ever made by the studio, so irritatingly happy, artificial and unimaginative that the mostly well-done 2D animation stops mattering. This from someone who grew up on Disney movies.

The story is set in Jazz-era New Orleans and it’s about Tiana, a black waitress with no flaws whatsoever who is a darling to everyone and comes from a equally perfect family, therefore establishing herself as a painfully dull character. Dreaming to have her own restaurant, she finds herself in a desperate situation and, suffering from a lack of mental faculties like everyone else in this film, she keeps asking a star to help her out. Eventually, a talking frog shows up and asks her to kiss him so he’ll go back to being the prince he was a few minutes ago before being cursed. But when she kisses the frog, she becomes a frog herself and they’ll meet several characters in their journey to blah blah blah insert artificial love story and monologues about the importance of dreaming here yawn fuck off.

Of course that, for the entire film, you don’t see the slightest bit of racism. Proving that their “look, a black princess!” bravado was just as shallow as this film, the most Disney risks is portraying class differences, but never showing a single black character being noticed as such, despite this happening in a time when racism was much more blatant. In fact, in an overcompensatory fashion, there are no good WHITE characters in this film. Tiana’s white millionaire friend (yes, Tiana has a millionaire white girl as her best friend, I’m completely serious) is the closest we get to one, and she’s a vain idiot. And the black villain, Facilier, divides his evil deeds with the prince’s aide, an evil white fat guy who looks quite a lot like poor Timothy Spall.

And of course, Facilier is the ONLY black villain in the entire movie (and the only character, save the hunters, who is even slightly interesting, ironically). Every other black character in the film is nothing short of an angel (the arrogant prince is from another country and his skin color is kind of mid-term, so I’m not counting him) proving that while the filmmakers wants us to believe they understand racial differences, they completely fail to understand people.

And that’s the film’s main flaw: it tries to make a big deal out of its supposedly important “breakthrough”, but making a film about skin color in such an era and failing to address how it truly was like is far more offensive, mainly to the portion of the audience who likes using their brain every now and again. Black people, white people, people who use piercings, religious people, gay people, they’re all PEOPLE and as such, you’re going to meet many who suck regardless of sexuality, fashion preferences, beliefs and skin pigmentation in any time period you care to name.

Of course people eat this shit up. They want to take Disney’s hand toward a future where there is no racism, but Disney’s notion of morality is way back into the past. I’ve had people, including friends, make racist comments to me in this day and age. Making a big deal out of a black princess won’t achieve a thing — you’re still setting black people apart from a different direction, and announcing this loudly and proudly helps absolutely no-one but the filmmakers themselves.

Having a black princess go through the same motions of every other Disney film will only mean marketing and money for the studio. The least I expected was for Disney to have some balls, instead I was treated to a pretentious film that tries its hardest to end on the happiest note it possibly can — even a character’s death is compensated by retarded symbolism.

To make things worse, “The Princess And The Frog” is painfully badly-written, with bland dialogue and uninspired characters. It takes only a few hours for the frog prince and the frog princess to go from hating each other to wanting to marry each other, and the new friends they make in their journey, an idiotic jazz-playing crocodile and an idiotic firefly, are written in such a jolly way they kept reminding me of the adorable Happy Tree Friends, with the exception neither of them dies in hilariously gruesome ways (which is the reason the Happy Tree Friends are so adorable: they die horribly).

Only the three hunters who show up halfway through the film are truly interesting and funny, being hillbillies depicted in a relentlessly stereotypical fashion — and their participation lasts no longer than five entertaining minutes, after which we’re back to the frog prince falling in love with the frog princess and the supporting characters trying to be adorable and only managing to be retarded.

And here’s the film’s idea of a good one-liner to be said in a moment of triumph over the villain: “It’s not slime, it’s mucus!”

The musical numbers fare slightly better, failing to be memorable to the ear but the eye is treated to some inventive animations (especially during Facilier’s turn). However, some notes on the first song reminded me strongly of “You’ve Got A Friend In Me” from “Toy Story”, and the composer of both films is Randy Newman, so I think it’s a fair guess that the guy was simply out of inspiration and not willing to try any harder. As for the cast, I saw the version with Brazilian voiceovers, so I can’t form an opinion on the original actors.

As for the visuals, I caught some bad animations here and there (depictions of characters walking, mainly), but overall it lives up to Disney’s standard of fluidity and energy, and there’s some good visual jokes (like a couple dancing very exageratedly, and it’s a shame the camera barely gives them two seconds of screen time).

So yes, the studio most definitely should go back to 2D animation — it was stupid they ever gave it up to begin with. But next time the usually ingenious John Lasseter should remember to attach a good story to it, and try and make that the film’s highlight rather than the amount of melanin in the protagonist’s skin.

Movie Review – Sunshine

(Due to the especially problematic nature of this film’s third act, this review has minor spoilers in order to discuss it)

We’ve grown tolerant of science fiction over the years, letting it rape science in the name of awesomeness. Hilarious depictions of human exposure to vacuum, sound propagating in space, people walking around thanks to a rarely-explained “artificial gravity”, aliens who are just human beings with a different skin color and a few prosthetics, and so on.

But Science is awesome. There is no reason it should be ignored. When science fiction manages to respect actual science, the results are immensely satisfying. Stanley Kubrick did it in 1969 with his amazing “2001 – A Space Odissey”, a movie that, to make up for the lack of sound in space, used the nervous breathing of the astronauts inside their spacesuits, a brilliant move to create tension — not to mention how it depicted human exposure to vacuum with impressive accuracy, and it’s a forty year old film.

And then films like “Sunshine” come along, under a pretense of being “scientifically accurate”, and consistently laugh in the face of scientific fact in the name of entertainment, but treating the audience like dumbfucks.

I liked “Sunshine” when I first saw it a year ago. In fact, I loved it. But upon seeing it again, something fairly rare happened — a complete change of opinion. Opposite to my embarassingly well-documented (here, here and here, respectively) experience with “There Will Be Blood”, which I initially didn’t like, but eventually loved.

In this latest viewing of “Sunshine”, I couldn’t help noticing the carelessness in its construction and the constant exposition in the dialogue, not to mention set pieces built entirely around scientific innacuracies. There is a threshold to how much abuse I’ll let my mind take until I start disliking a film, especially when said film likes to think it’s clever. It wants to awe us with its “understanding” of science, as evidenced by the moment a character says “80% of dust is human skin,” for no reason, as if his brain is wired to wikipedia.

The sun is dying. After the failure of spaceship Icarus I for unknown reasons, Icarus II is sent with the same purpose — re-igniting the star with the use of a payload consisting of a powerful bomb . But nearing Mercury, they come across the distress signal of Icarus I, and physicist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy) suggests a detour to add their payload to their own, increasing their chances of success since the bomb’s capacity of re-igniting the sun is entirely theoretical — which makes two bombs a safer bet. This starts a dangerous chain of events that puts the mission and its crew in serious risk.

And one of the film’s main problems is that this chain of events isn’t believable. It starts with one of the crew members, Trey, adjusting the ship’s trajectory but forgetting to adjust the huge heat shield that protects them from the sun — you’d think that would be hard to forget, but he does. Maybe it would have sounded more credible if it wasn’t for Trey’s interpreter, Benedict Wong, overacting to the point of embarassment upon acknowledging his mistake.

Then some crewmembers realize moving the shield to fix it will make them lose two comm towers due to direct exposure to the sun — they go ahead without consulting their captain, destroying a vital part of their ship without hesitation — someone even says “We’ll need the towers for the return trip,” to which someone hilariously replies in a stunning display of foresight and professionalism, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Finally, when two crew members are outside fixing the damage to the heat shield, right after they confirm they can do it and everyone cheers happily — the oxygen room just catches fire as though it’s saying, “SURPRISE, BITCHES”. And when narrative conflicts just happen like that, it’s a worrying sign of a schematic script.

Sunshine also suffers from a less than impressive art direction. While the Icarus at first seems very believable (being made out of segments like the International Space Station), the heat shield soon reveals itself so unstable that it makes the entire ship a major design fault — after all, the mission includes abandoning this heat shield, using it to protect the payload as it goes toward the sun — so how do they plan to survive the return trip with the much smaller, second heat shield, if the larger one could barely be moved without destroying the comm towers?

And why do the comm towers spin around the ship, protruding so far from it it’s no wonder the heat shield can’t protect them? Artificial gravity via centrifugal force? It doesn’t work that way, but well, at least they try to explain artificial gravity in this film, even though gravity itself is dubiously represented in it — the payload, which has the “same mass as Manhattan”, seems to generate Earth gravity (as seen later in the film) — yet somehow, this doesn’t seem to interfere with the artificial gravity inside the Icarus (both are clearly not the same, since if they were the Icarus crew would have to move around the ship vertically with ladders due to their perpendicular position in relation to the payload). But this latter point is admiteddly more of a nitpick, dubious science that shouldn’t hurt the film.

What does hurt the film, aside from the aforementioned dumb chain of events (which reaches unbelievably stupid heights in the film’s third act, as I will discuss in a moment), is the painful sequence when the astronauts have to make a jump from a destroyed airlock to an intact airlock and only one of them has a proper spacesuit.

Their major concern? Freezing instantly when exposed to “-273 degrees celsius”.

So, we have a bunch of astronauts who think the temperature of space is absolute zero and that people exposed to vacuum instantly freeze despite being in a fucking vacuum. And worse, one of them does freeze instantly — we even hear the sound of his skin hardening. In space. Not to mention there is no reason why the Icarus couldn’t have gotten a little bit closer to the destroyed airlock to, you know, make it harder for their colleagues to accidentally float away to their death. It’s a sequence so ridiculously full of inconsistencies it’s barely worthy of a “B” movie.

Relax. I babbled enough about this. The flaws of “Sunshine” are not down to a science advisor who apparently couldn’t get the filmmakers to listen. As a narrative, the film is equally flawed, not just due to its aforementioned schematic script but also because of the expositional dialogue: upon hearing a loud, continuous sound all over the ship, a character explains to the others that it’s just the sound of the metal in the heat shield expanding and contracting due to the change in temperature.

… at the point when he says that, they’ve been travelling together for sixteen months, yet they act like it’s the first time this happens. Even worse, Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) replies “I know what it is, flyboy”, making the exposition even more blatant.

Alex Garland, writer of the script, does try to hide the patronising nature of these lines, but he simply can’t — in order to explain how the bomb works to the audience, he has two characters discuss death in a vaguely-related fashion and one of them starts a simulation of the bomb, explaining it to his friend while actually explaining it to the audience, and finishing it with a line that tries to justify why he just did that, but fails to convince — it’s painfully obvious the film is trying to get its viewers to understand what it’s doing.

Why, instead of that, couldn’t the character have simply gotten into the room and started the simulation to admire it by himself? It could have been a nice, silent scene that got whatever information it needed to get through subtly and quietly, trusting the audience instead of patronising us.

And that’s another problem — it never feels like these astronauts have been actually travelling together for sixteen months. They rarely talk to each other with intimacy, and when they go out on a spacewalk, they act like it’s the first time they do that in sixteen months (speaking of which, let me add the spacesuits in the film look absolutely ridiculous).

Standing out in a problematic cast, the talented Cillian Murphy is convincing as Robert Capa, and his growing fear in the third act of the film helps the absurdity of it all feel less stupid. The other cast member who does a surprising job is Chris Evans, intense as the cold and practical Mace. Hyroyuki Sanada plays Captain Kaneda with charisma, but Rose Byrne doesn’t get any room to shine as the unidimensional Cassie, neither does Michelle Yeoh as Corazon, who suffers from having to say some of the film’s worst lines (the “-273 celsius” bullshit and “I know what it is, flyboy”). Troy Garity is also sabotaged by a very unremarkable character, Harvey, and Cliff Curtis plays an equally uninteresting crewmember, Searle. Finally, Benedict Wong, as I said, overacts constantly and Mark Strong embarasses himself by playing the film’s most implausible and ridiculous character.

Finally, there’s director Danny Boyle. After starting the film with a beautifully realized shot, Boyle succumbs to over-direction. Insisting on countless exterior angles exposing the Icarus, he also goes for obvious symbolism. When Searle is trying to explain two sides of an argument, the camera moves to the other side of a glass screen, illustrating that he’s now talking about the other side of the argument as if we’re all a bunch of retards who can’t understand the basics of conversation.

And as the film progresses, Boyle exaggerates more and more and suddenly decides he wants to do an Alien film. Working with a horrendous editing work that makes Tony Scott look like a genius, the film adds a villain that would have seemed much more interesting if it wasn’t for his putrid dialogue, the pathetically exaggerated way he’s filmed (always out of focus, with the image shaking) and his amazing stealth abilities that make no fucking sense. And at the very end, Boyle goes as far as adding freeze frames and horribly overdone camera movements to try and create some tension.

However, it’s still Danny Boyle, which means “Sunshine” does have some highlights (aside from Alwin H. Kuchler’s exceptional cinematography and John Murphy’s memorable soundtrack): namely, the beautiful scene when the crew of the Icarus II is hypnotized by the sight of Mercury orbiting around the sun, and the moment Robert Capa needs to jump from the Icarus to the payload — a masterfully-shot moment with excellent music that offers a glimpse of the great film “Sunshine” could have been if Garland had revised his script and respected Science, and if Danny Boyle had done the same plus restrained himself.

However, with this much pseudo-science, pretensiousness, inconsistencies, plotholes and badly-developed characters, “Sunshine” is weak science fiction. An interesting premise that needed way more pre-production work before being filmed.

Movie Review – Titanic

(This review will not try to avoid spoilers, so SPOILER WARNING if you haven’t seen Titanic, which is to say, if you do not live on planet Earth)

A successful story, in any storytelling media, is not the same as a good story. “Twilight” is undeniably a successful novel. Three chapters in, I wanted to cut my carotid open. “Transformers” is an undeniably successful film. And it’s also a badly-directed, over-cut, loud and stupid piece of shit.

It had been a while since I’ve watched “Titanic”. Hell, I think I was a teenager last time I did, and I was only seven years old when the movie was released to overwhelming success. I would watch it years later. My young impressions of the film were very positive, but I’m not the person I was years ago (thankfully), so I decided to watch it again to determine whether or not, from my point of view, this film deserved the success it got. And also because I’ve been hearing a lot of people say, “I don’t like Titanic” or using the film as proof that James Cameron’s next project, “Avatar”, will suck.

The verdict is that, once again, James Cameron’s film immersed me completely in its admittedly conventional but incredibly compelling love story, which is vital in creating a connection between the viewer and the death of 1500 people in the real life tragedy of the Titanic. Fuck yes it deserved the success it got. It’s a painstakingly researched, passionately crafted film, with the dedication of Cameron and his crew displayed in every frame. It’s also surprisingly humorous, achieving an amazing emotional balance, something made much more challenging by the sheer scale of the story.

It’s pretty much futile to complain about the unidimensional nature of some of the characters, because that was the point. One thing I love about this film is how relentlessly it satirizes aristocracy, and to achieve this effect, it’s no wonder Rose’s family are absurdly stuck-up and snotty. This leads to several priceless moments throughout the film, and makes the contrast between Jack and them (when they’re all sitting on the same dinner table) even stronger. And let’s not forget: we’re hearing the story from Rose herself, and I doubt her impression of these characters stretched beyond “what a bunch of cunts”.

And even though the premise of the movie’s core romance is conventional (poor boy, rich girl, etc. etc.), Cameron avoids cliches when developing the actual romance itself. Jack and Rose’s chemistry always rings true, because it makes perfect sense. She’s a rebellious aristocrat, feeling trapped in a predictable life — as she herself puts it, “I saw my whole life as if I had already lived it.” And he is a smart and adventurous man, the one person in her life who seems to truly care about her — something established right when they first meet, when Rose is about to commit suicide, and he threatens that if she jumps from the ship, he will “have to” jump in after her.

Always a brilliant storyteller, Cameron avoids melodrama by constantly balancing the dramatic and romantic scenes with humorous moments that hit the mark, even (and especially) during the sinking of the “Titanic”. One of the best of these moments is when Rose needs to break Jack’s handcuffs with an axe, and he asks her to rehearse it on an object first, with disastrous results.

Equally important was holding composer James Horner back — and keep in mind this is an unfair statement, since for all I know Horner held himself back of his own accord. But really, all you need to do is watch “Glory”, directed by Edward Zwick, to see how ridiculously melodramatic the otherwise talented Horner can be. In “Titanic”, however, the music is used to perfection. Whenever a scene needs the famous score, it’s there, never overdone. Whenever the scene needs to work solely on dialogue and sound effects, the music disappears — which is particularly important on scenes with romantic dialogue, where music would have been excessively emotional.

After one hour and a half establishing Jack and Rose’s relationship and other interesting characters like (the real-life) Unsinkable Molly Brown, the sinking of the Titanic begins. This sequence, well over one hour long, has always fascinated me for its magnificence. From the impeccable editing to the amazing special effects, it’s impressive and emotionally wrenching thanks mainly to Jack and Rose, who work as a way of immersing the viewer into the film to the point where you truly feel every death onscreen, and you honestly care about the crew’s survival as well as Jack and Rose’s.

Which is why, proving his competence for the umpteenth time, Cameron never spares the viewer, filming every death in appaling and relentless detail, never turning his camera away even when portraying the death of children (something particularly disturbing when one of the frozen bodies the rescue boat finds is of a woman with a dead baby on her arms).

(Cameron does slip in his portrayal of the real-life William Murdoch, though — on the film, he commits suicide after killing two desperate passengers with a pistol. This is entirely ficticious (although it can’t be proved it didn’t happen — or that it did) and the Murdoch family wasn’t happy about it.)

As the director, James Cameron not only does an amazing technical job (building an almost full-size replica of the Titanic definitely paid off onscreen), he invests heavily in the story he’s telling, especially in some beautifully nostalgic shots when a camera travels through the sunken wreck of the Titanic and dissolves, without interrupting the camera movement, back to 1912, showing the same location brightly lit and full of passengers. Cameron saves the best of these shots to the very last scene, which, without a single word being said, portrays Rose’s life after the Titanic in a continuous, fluid and perfect camera movement. Cameron is aided by the convincing recreation of the time period and by the amazing cinematography, which is especially impressive when the Titanic’s lights switch off as it sinks, and the lighting manages to convey the darkness without becoming unclear or losing its aesthetic beauty.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have exceptional chemistry, also being utterly convincing in their respective roles — there is a moment when Winslet’s character sees a rich little girl, sitting near her, being taught etiquette by her mother. Winslet manages to make it clear that she’s seeing herself in that little girl only with a terrified, but subtle look in her eyes. And Leonardo DiCaprio, in an early display of his now proven talent, refuses to rely on his then-boyish looks, using his charisma and impeccable comic timing to turn Jack into an excellent character. I particularly like the look on his face when Rose takes her clothes off in front of him, and the way he shakes, nervously, after sex — a brilliant and subtle touch. The rest of the cast, from the captivating Kathy Bates (as Unsinkable Molly), to the heartfelt Gloria Stuart (as the older Rose) and the arrogant Billy Zane (as Caledon Hockley) are, as a whole, convincing and competent.

In fact, Jack seems to be based on none other than his creator, James Cameron himself — it’s no wonder that all the drawings in Jack’s book were actually drawn by Cameron, an exceptionally talented artist, and that on the scene Jack draws Rose, it’s Cameron’s hands drawing her, not DiCaprio’s — not to mention Jack has the same adventurous spirit Cameron had when younger, and still has to this day (just try telling Cameron he can’t do something — everyone said “Titanic” would be a disaster, prior to its release).

So honestly? “Titanic” is a classic. I’m happy to see that, as I near my twenty-somethings, this movie hasn’t lost its heart, at least for me. In fact, after more than a year reviewing movies (which made me more observant and nitpicky), it’s even more satisfying that I didn’t really find anything significant to dislike in “Titanic” — it simply works. It more than succeeds in its emotional and dramatic goals.

Let me put it this way: in most disaster movies I see, I care more about the main characters (or, when watching a Roland Emmerich movie, no-one at all) than everyone else. I rarely think of the thousands who died in the background, only about the main group that mostly makes it to safety.

And the reason I truly love “Titanic” is that it makes me feel the weight of the catastrophe as a whole, providing a rich and satisfying cinematic experience.

So yeah, since his career truly started (with “The Terminator”, since his actual first film was “Piranhas 2″), James Cameron, always a dedicated innovator and brilliant storyteller, hasn’t yet disappointed me.

Movie Review – 2012

(not too concerned with spoilers in this review, I must warn)

In a certain moment of “2012″, in the Himalayas, a surprisingly advanced onboard computer claims they are in a collision course with something that is 8.840 km high. To which a character actually asks “What could be 8.840km high?”. Because there are so many 9 km high things to choose from, and in the Himalayas. Then another character says what it is ominously (I will not “reveal” it because I don’t want to insult your intelligence). This is how Roland Emmerich builds suspense. And this is why I am absolutely convinced “2012″ is a comedy that, if directed by Emmerich with the help of Jerry Zucker, would have achieved its full comedic potential. It’s a shame that in the moment the president played by Danny Glover adresses the nation, he does not start screaming, “We are all gonna DIIIIIEEEEEE!”, even though what he says is hilarious in a less hysterical way. Paraphrasing slightly because I can’t remember the exact words: “I believe what I will say next is true for every religion: the Lord is my shepherd…“

“2012″ is the result of an entire career’s worth of warming up with films like “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow”. This is the film Roland Emmerich always wanted to make, and I hope his apparent grudge against planet Earth has now ended, otherwise Emmerich’s next film will be about the destruction of the Milky Way (and consequently Earth, again) because of a collision with Andromeda, happening “much earlier than we thought it would!”, a specialist possibly played by Dennis Quaid would say.

The plot of “2012″ is, well… it’s 2012. According to the film (and worryingly, millions of real people who actually believe this), the Mayan calendar doesn’t stop because the Mayans just kinda got bored with it or something, but because the world will end then. The film depicts that the planets will align causing the sun to emit too many neutrinos (or vice-versa, don’t ask me to understand physics the way Emmerich does), but the point is that the center of the Earth rises in temperature dramatically, causing the tectonic plates to shift position, which causes earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, pretty much everything short of zombies and dinosaurs, which finally causes a broken family to come together again, and a boy who calls his father by his name to start calling him “dad” once again because that kind of emotional arc is so original.

“2012″ doesn’t take itself seriously. It plays like a drama but has several moments that reveal its true farcical nature, like the change of magnetic poles that results in the new South Pole being located “somewhere in Wisconsin”. Not to mention how blatantly the film uses convenient character traits to make its unbelievably stupid disaster scenes seem even mildly believable, like the protagonist being a “writer and a limousine driver” and the boyfriend of his ex-wife being a “plastic surgeon and a plane pilot”. Sure, the latter constantly says he only took a few plane lessons, but mate, if you can take a plane off the ground as that very ground breaks open beneath you, then dodge falling buildings, debris and fireballs — you’re a fucking pilot. Shut the fuck up.

Another sign of the film’s sense of humor are the characters that clearly represent real people, like the rich blonde girl with a dog that reminded me of Paris Hilton. And it’s especially hilarious how the film kills all of its supporting cast in increasingly over-the-top ways, and how blatantly the film provides catharsis with the gratuitous death of particularly unlikeable characters.

Therefore, complaining about cliches, inconsistences and coincidences in a movie like this is pretty much missing the point: it’s just plain fun. Unlike Sam Raimi in “Drag Me To Hell”, which couldn’t decide between comedy and horror, Roland Emmerich opts for comedy disguised as drama and shares the fun with us, not only indulging himself but the audience with his amazing ability to find the best possible way of filming something’s destruction. And Emmerich adds to the hilarity by always destroying a famous thing with another famous thing. I gasped from laughter when a character sees a large object riding a tsunami towards them and says, “Sir, that’s the Air Force One.”

Even better, Emmerich spares no-one. After extracting humor from painfully obvious symbolism (the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling being cracked apart right where the hands of Man and God almost touch), he proceeds to destroy the Vatican right when the Pope is giving a speech. Leaders of other religions and countries suffer the same fate.

And this is good, because a movie trying to take the Mayan calendar bullshit seriously would just be sad to see. Emmerich satirizes it constantly with Woody Harrelson’s character, a crazy radio broadcaster who turns out to be right despite being clearly insane, in an irony so improbable I just had to laugh. Speaking of the talented Harrelson, he’s fortunately not the only one to know he’s in a comedy, since the also talented John Cusack doesn’t hesitate to be histrionic and shouty during action scenes. The rest of the cast seems to take the movie more seriously though, but this ends up being even funnier.

So, is “2012″ good? Well, if I’m right and Emmerich’s intention was to make a comedy about the world’s destruction in 2012 and disguise it as a drama, then yes, it’s excellent and delivers. And if his intention was to deliver a serious, emotional drama, then “2012″ is a wonderful mistake. Either way, it’s an entirely forgettable, but very fun time. And really, I can’t actually believe this film is serious: on one of the final scenes, with inspiring “everything worked out okay” music, people leave their arks (yes, there are arks) to be met by the wonderful sight of… a destroyed world covered in water. But look at that beautiful sunset!

But now that he’s had his fun, Roland Emmerich should start a new part of his career where he dedicates himself to more serious films, because maybe if he actually tries, he can make a movie that’s not only fun but also memorable.

Which, okay, sounds less likely than the world ending in 2012, but still.

Movie Review – A Christmas Carol

“A Christmas Carol” is the first 3D movie I’ve actually watched in 3D, since it took a long while for Rio de Janeiro to implement the technology (and considering how gimmicky and overused 3D currently is, I can’t say I was looking forward to it). As you can probably guess, I’m not a fan of 3D. I find it to be the exact opposite of what it should be — it’s unnimersive.

The very composition of a shot is hurt by any foreground object calling too much attention to itself, and if a character points something at the camera, like a finger or a gun, instead of noticing the action you notice the way it seems to be jumping out of the screen — while what’s relevant is the action. Sure, this can be a matter of getting used to it, but I fail to see the point. I do not find it visually dazzling, I do not see many narrative opportunities for 3D and it doesn’t sit well with modern cinematic language, requiring a complete re-thinking on how to film — and why? Because people want to see more depth in the screen? Am I the only one who was perfectly happy with a 2D screen?

Once again, though, I must admit Robert Zemeckis is not the ideal director to introduce me to the world of 3D. Despite his genius, he is probably the guy who has the wrongest idea of how to use it. Before I really form my opinion on this technique/gimmick, I’ll have to wait for films like “Avatar”. After all, when a man of James Cameron’s brilliance decides to use 3D, there must be a good reason. And also, I’m told some films like “Coraline” have used 3D cleverly (the film has two worlds, and one of them was depicted in 3D, which is a simple, but rare narrative use for it — but the movie theatre I saw it in wasn’t equipped with the technology, and if I remember correctly, no theatre nearby was).

So, “A Christmas Carol”. I mentioned Zemeckis has the wrongest idea of how to use 3D. The reason for this is that, when given 3D, Zemeckis acts like a hyperactive child given a toy. He always was an inventive cameraman, but while this was motivated by narrative needs, in the latter stage of his career Zemeckis just started showing off. I loved “Beowulf” mostly due to the script by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, because Zemeckis’ direction, albeit full of inspired moments, also had its share of exaggerated camera angles, like the hideous moment a guard points a spear at us, and Zemeckis ridiculously pushes the depth of field back to make the spear jump out of the screen, then changing it abruptly to pan the camera to Beowulf’s face in that which must be one of the worst camera movements in Zemeckis’ career.

I had hoped he’d be more restrained in “A Christmas Carol”. Which just proves why I should give up trying to be an optimist.

He always finds some way to distract the viewer from whatever’s going on, like slowly moving his camera around a talking character until a lit candle appears on the foreground — a composition that not only calls attention to itself (especially in 3D), but makes no sense, because the character in the background is usually the bitter Ebenezer Scrooge — and showing him next to a warm candle kind of goes against the nature of the character as far as symbolism goes (unless the candle puts itself out eventually, but I cannot remember if it does — yeah, this movie left a strong impression on me, no doubt).

But that’s mild next to the way Zemeckis introduces the victorian London where the story happens, making his camera fly past chimneys and smoke at insane speeds, and never missing the chance to make something pointy jump out of the screen, like the only reason we put on those ridiculous goggles is for the illusion of having our face impaled.

Sadly, as a storyteller, Zemeckis doesn’t show much common sense either. I was, after all, under the impression this is a movie for children. And while I think children can be shown much more than they’re usually allowed to see, when the first image in your story is a rotting, pale corpse inside a coffin with a coin in each eye (coins which Scrooge promptly pockets to pay himself back from another debt), you kinda kickstart the movie on the wrong tone right away.

And yet, throughout the film, Zemeckis goes for a constant slapstick humor that makes absolutely no sense, considering Scrooge’s age. He’s portrayed as the most athletic old man ever, capable of falling on a set of stairs and just getting up, no harm done. Even worse is the moment a spirit dislocates his own jaw, making it hang from his face, and then uses his hand to move the jaw up and down as he speaks.

And wait until you see a fat guy being reduced to a skeleton while he laughs maniacally. This was the point where a kid started crying in the movie theatre, if memory serves. I thought I heard it sob “THIS IS — THE WORST — FILM I’VE — EVER — SEEN”, but probably just my imagination.

“A Christmas Carol” has a brief moment of inspiration, when Scrooge visits his old home from when he was a child, but that’s the only moment the film hits the right emotional note, getting everything else wrong. It’s particularly pathetic the way Scrooge becomes Mr. Nice after his experiences, laughing at everything and being so kind it was sickening. Apparently, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future succeeded in turning the worst man in London into the stupidest man in London.

Visually, the film is a failure thanks to bad cinematography that forgot to take the 3D glasses into account. As a result, the entire film is so dark I felt tempted to try and watch it without the glasses, and man do I look forward to the day that choice will be actually possible. The animation achieved through performance capture is decent, but the moments the film relies on “handmade” animation (a ridiculously overdone dance sequence, for example) can be painfully obvious and mediocre. However, the art design is at least competent, from the depiction of London to the visual of the characters.

I can’t really comment about the performances because the session I went to was dubbed in Portuguese, despite the ticket stating very, very clearly it was only subtitled. But the film left me too bored to actually complain about it to the theatre staff, plus I was with my sister, who urged me not to, afraid it would result in confusion (which I doubt, I’m not the shouty kind, but I didn’t want to waste her time).

“A Christmas Carol” is an overdirected mess that never decides on a tone. Someone take the 3D from Robert Zemeckis before he remakes “Back To The Future” in depth-o-vision.

Movie Review – Up

I think I’m not alone in thinking of Pixar as the most reliable storyteller in movies today. At least when it comes to companies, not individual writers — and even trying to think of one, I still can’t think of a single writer who has delivered, since the beginning of his fairly extensive career, a body of work as consistent and exceptional as Pixar has as a company. They don’t seem to have a “black sheep” within them.

“Up” stays true to this amazing quality standard, even though it is, by no means, better than “Wall-E”, which was far more creative and thematically ambitious. But really: blaming a movie for not being better than “Wall-E” is kind of really fucking unreasonable. “Up” has a heart of its own and deals with another theme many companies would be afraid of tackling on a film for all ages: the dream everyone has for their lives. Their final ambition, their lifelong goal.

Carl Fredricksen is an old man who had a very happy marriage for all his life, until the recent death of his beloved Ellie. Since then, Carl has grown disinterested in society and life in general, which isn’t helped by the fact everything around his house is being rebuilt by a construction company — which would like his house to disappear as well. Refusing to let himself live the rest of his years in nostalgic self-pity, Carl decides to pursue his and Ellie’s never-fulfilled dream of having a house on Paradise Falls, and seeing no easy way to do this conventionally, he tethers thousands of ballons to his house to lift it off the ground and go to South America, where the place is located. Only an unwanted guest, an hyperactive child called Russell, comes along by accident, and once in Paradise Falls, Carl’s dream clashes with another man’s: adventurer Charles Muntz, whom Carl has been a fan of since childhood.

Obviously, “Up” is not a movie concerned about realism, and requires some suspension of disbelief at times — we never see Carl or Russell eating or drinking, the way Russell ends up in Carl’s flying house isn’t very believable and it’s preposterous, to say the least, that Carl and Russell manage to reach South America after a single day of voyage (this would have been more believable if the trip happened with no problems, but they run into a storm, which makes it all harder to stomach). Also, it’s inconsistent to show Carl using a lift to descend his staircase, but then show him performing moves that require incredible agility. Even for a movie about a guy flying his house with the help of balloons, this kind of stretches the limits of my personal suspension of disbelief.

However, it’s the heart of the movie that makes it memorable. The relationship between Carl and Ellie is illustrated by a quick sequence in the beginning of the film that shows them as kids. This sequence not only portrays Ellie as adorably excited, it also portrays Carl as adorably quiet, and their chemistry managed to touch me in less than five minutes. This sequence also showcases Pixar’s typical technical proeficiency — like the subtle way they find to show us that Carl is blushing when Ellie is touching his hand. They don’t even need a close-up to show it, they just use lighting and movement.

But it’s the next sequence that really works as the film’s base: the montage that shows Ellie and Carl’s married life. There is no dialogue at all, only Michael Giacchino’s (wonderful) music and the characters’ movements and facial expressions. It not only portrays the beautiful relationship between them with, I dare say, perfection, it also develops Carl’s character to the point where his bitterness after she dies is not only entirely believable, but entirely forgiveable (and the script never overdoes Carl’s bitterness to “Gran Torino” levels. Fortunately).

Also, I think it’s the first time Pixar uses blood in a blatant way (maybe in any way), when Carl accidentally hits a man with his cane way too strongly, causing his forehead to bleed — a moment that makes clear that “Up” is a film that won’t hold back in its depiction of grief and that won’t patronise kids to the point where a liquid that runs in everyone’s veins can’t be shown briefly. Even kids expect a blow like that to hurt, and only showing the man scratching his intact forehead would be like the Coyote being merely covered in ash after being blown up by tons of TNT — it works for the cartoon, but comedy wasn’t the point of this particular scene. This is also not the only depiction of violence in the film.

“Up” deserves a lot of credit for exploring its theme to the fullest. The film’s “villain”, adventurer Charles Muntz (even older than Carl), is not portrayed as an unidimensional monster, only becoming a threat when he feels his lifelong dream is in danger. In fact, he’s painted as an once reasonable person who, in his loneliness, grew a tendency for madness when dealing with things he’s obsessive about. This makes him into a much more intriguing antagonist, and it’s particularly interesting how he avoids killing Carl even when he has the chance to do so, only resorting to this when absolutely convinced Carl’s death is the only way for Charles to achieve his own dream.

You might ask, then, how Carl can be the “hero”. After all, what makes Charles’ dream less worthy of fulfillment? In this case, Charles is a hunter, and he’s after a certain bird for years and didn’t hesitate in dealing harshly with whoever got in his way (i.e. killing them). This bird also has offspring and isn’t a threat to anyone, and Charles only wants him as a trophy and a way to clear up his name (ruined in his early years, when one of his trophies was revealed to be a fraud).

Regardless, “Up” avoids the black-and-white morality most “all ages” films go for, showing a conflict between two men after their dreams, rather than a “hero” and a “villain”. And the resolution of this conflict is very brave in not providing narrative satisfaction — something that enriches the film tremendously. Check the last paragraph for a better explanation, but beware SPOILERS.

“Up” is less successful with a member of its supporting cast. While Carl is a fascinating protagonist, Russell only works as an obvious and often annoying counterpoint to Carl’s age. He has a good number of funny moments, but he’s the stereotypical child sidekick. I felt kind of the same way, to a larger degree, about Short Round on “Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom”, although most people felt a bit stronger about him: more spefically they wanted to see him stomped on by an elephant. I didn’t feel that way, although I can understand the feeling. Dunno, call me patient.

The rest of the supporting cast, however, brings the usual Pixar charisma to the film. The talking dogs are a touch of genius not because they talk, but HOW they talk — like dogs. To the point where they interrupt conversations and yell “SQUIRREL!”, going silent and still for a moment, before resuming exactly where they left off. Also, the portrayal of the dog’s inconditional love for its owner is downright brilliant, as evidenced by Dug’s immediate affection for Carl and Russell. Not to mention the dog’s weakness — an urge to go fetch whatever you throw — is explored to hilarious effect.

Kevin, the giant bird, is equally funny — portrayed as wild and yet not a threat to anyone that doesn’t endanger him. Carl’s relationship with the bird (basically summarized by “Shoo! Get out of here! Off! Go!”) and Russell’s (“Can he stay? Can he stay?”) is a bit cliched, but so well-executed I didn’t care.

The voice acting is nothing short of magnificent. Elie Docter (daughter of co-director Pete Docter) gives the Young Ellie a contagious energy, Edward Asner gives Carl a bitter yet good-hearted voice, Christopher Plummer shows Charles’ change of attitude with subtlety and efficiency, co-director Bob Peterson does a spectacular job as the dogs Dug and Alpha, giving them entirely different and hilarious personalities, and Jordan Nagai is the reason Russell is an often funny character — his childish voice full of wonder makes him nearly impossible to hate. I especially love the way he says “I’m a friend to aaaaall animals”.

In terms of visuals, “Up” is, of course, ingenious. The animation is superb, full of subtleties and impressive facial expressions. The character design is incredible, with special mention to Muntz’s similarity to Kirk Douglas. Pixar once again makes it look easy (when it’s anything but). Also, directors Bob Peterson and Pete Docter go for mostly static but beautifully composed camera angles, but when an action scene is called for, they do not hesitate to impress, giving those sequences a lot of visual energy (there’s a particularly exciting — and very funny — moment when Carl is riding the bird with Russell hanging from a rope and swinging from one side to the other. Peterson and Docter pull the camera back to show the scene on its whole, and the amount of confusion happening is so much it made me laugh while not forgetting the characters are in danger).

Michael Giacchino, who has been proving himself one of the best composers in the business with his consistently brilliant work in “The Incredibles”, “Speed Racer”, “Star Trek” and others, does his typically excellent job of composing the music with an emphasis on helping tell the story as effectively as possible — and as the sequence showing Ellie and Carl’s marriage proves, he succeeds. The sound design also deserves applause for its efficiency and attention to detail — it’s great how they make the wires tethering the balloons emit musical notes, like a guitar, to show how stretched they are when Carl passes his fingers on them.

But when it comes to some of the visual design, “Up” might look too bland for Pixar. Paradise Falls can be accurately summed up as rock formations and jungles, and the heart of the place itself is nothing but a lonely waterfall — however, I’ve come to realize while writing this review, this is actually perfect — since it shows how personal Carl’s dream is and also, how superficial. “Paradise Falls” looks much more charming and appealing to him than it should to the audience, and if it actually made our jaws drop, Carl’s idea of trying to ease his grief by going there wouldn’t sound so doomed to fail, and the moment when he finally does get there and realizes nothing has changed wouldn’t seem as believable.

And this leads to that which is the most memorable scene in “Up”, when Carl realizes Ellie’s legacy in an absolutely beautiful moment that sounds entirely believable. You might think it’s far-fetched that he would only notice it at that point in his life, but it’s perfectly coherent with Carl’s character — after Ellie’s death, he had no wish of looking for it, because it reminded him of her in a painful way because she wasn’t alive to fulfill their lifelong dream. This might sound vague, and it does, if you haven’t watched the film, but I want to keep spoilers to a minimum. I think you’ll see what I mean when you watch the film, which, I hope it’s clear by now, you should.

Weakened only by a few and aforementioned problems (Carl’s preposterous agility, etc.), “Up” is an emotionally powerful and thematically brave film about dreams that does not try to soften its message, and even contains a metaphor of how our dreams can come at the expense of other people’s. It’s funny and it has a heart, and it was clearly crafted with passion like all Pixar films. The company has reached a point where, even if their future output for some unfathomable reason becomes shit, the legacy they’ve already left behind has reached the status of undeniable.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS FOR FUCK’S SAKE SPOILERS FROM HERE ON:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The death of Charles Muntz doesn’t feel as narratively satisfactory as similar deaths in other Disney films — much to the contrary, it feels like a necessary evil and a shame. As twisted as his dream was, he only wanted to fulfill it and be loved, and Carl’s dream came true at the expense of Charles’ dream and also his life, even though the “villain’s” attitude is to blame for this. And this feeling of “it didn’t have to be this way”, as I said, only enriches the film.

Movie Review – Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino is one of my favorite filmmakers, not only because his filmography, despite short, is so competent, but because he defends the same thing I do when it comes to filmmaking: he’s watched how people used to do movies, he plucked the good bits and incorporated them into his own style. He’s an old-school filmmaker, and considering new-school basically consists of a million cuts per second and shaky cameras, I’ll stick with Tarantino, thanks.

“Inglourious Basterds”, though, is not his magnum opus. In fact, this is the first film in Tarantino’s career where Tarantino actually becomes his own enemy. Oh, don’t get me wrong: “Inglourious Basterds” is GOOD. But in all of Tarantino’s previous films, I could watch them and later think to myself “This was a great film”, while this one came with a footnote: “except for a few Tarantino-esque problems”.

The film follows three storylines: the Basterds, an American squad famous for wearing Nazi uniforms (and for their Nazi-killing methods) and currently infiltrated behind enemy lines; Shosanna, a young French girl who survived the massacre of her family and now owns a theatre in Nazi-occupied Paris; and SS Colonel Hans Landa, who carried out the massacre — and many others, which is why he owns the nickname “The Jew Hunter”. These narratives intertwine when Shosanna’s theatre is chosen to host the premiére of Goebbels’ new movie — an event the Nazi high-command will be attending, making the theatre one big fat target for the Basterds and one big fat revenge opportunity for Shosanna. Only it might be a serious problem to both of them, because it’s Landa who’s responsible for the theatre’s security.

Let’s start with Landa, who is, hands down, the best thing in the movie and one of the best — perhaps the best — character in Tarantino’s career, which is saying a lot. An almost disturbingly well-mannered Nazi, elegant and pleasant until he’s got you by the balls. Christoph Waltz (in his first role in an American film) plays him to absolute perfection, from his louder moments (his insane laugh) to much subtler ones (the careful, meticulous way he eats a dessert). The scene where he meets the Basterds during the premiére actually had me choking out of laughter, and fortunately this isn’t the only inspired moment in the film. The meeting between a Gestapo officer and three of the Basterds in a bar is superbly-written and filmed, and it contains an absolutely brilliant moment regarding “King Kong”. And of course, any scene Landa is in fails to disappoint.

Brad Pitt also deserves applause for understanding so well what Tarantino was going for and embracing it bravely: caricature. Lt. Aldo Raine is a total redneck, something Pitt manages to portray even when speaking other languages (something hilariously shown during the premiére scene) but without ever overacting or trying to be funny — he just turns into Aldo Raine, simple as that. Til Schweiger, playing yet another Nazi* (he is a Nazi before he is recruited by the Basterds), doesn’t do a lot of talking, but does shine in the Gestapo scene (in fact, everyone in that scene puts on a show). And as much as I detest Eli Roth as a filmmaker, I have to hand it to the guy: the moment he tries to convince someone he’s Italian by making an extremely cliche Italian gesture makes his appearance in this film worth it. As Fredrich Zoller, Daniel Bruhl does a great job in making the character annoying even in his moments of humanity — which is actually the point. Diane Kruger wisely distances herself from her inexpressive role (if I can actually call that guest appearance a “role”) as Helen in “Troy” by playing Bridget Von Hammersmark with intensity, and Mélanie Laurent — I might be biased because I fell in love with her but she’s very good as well, especially after she accidentally meets with Landa and, after he leaves, it’s like she’s breathing for the first time since he arrived.

* October 18th update: I am not sure how I accomplished this, but I seem to have confused Til Schweiger with Thomas Kretschmann, the latter being the one who has played a lot of nazis in his career. Sorry about this. For reference, Til Schweiger played the protagonist of Uwe Boll’s “Far Cry” — not a good reference, no.

With such an excellent cast and a brilliant script, what actually stops “Inglourious Basterds” from being Tarantino’s best film — aside from the sheer difficulty of topping “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” — is Tarantino’s job as director. While he is careful to make sure most of his trademarks (like a fixation for feet, which I, mm, also have) are vital for the story and not just pointless self-reference, some of his habits do slip through. In this case, the use of existing music. This is a film that needed a composer, because Tarantino does not hesitate to punctuate some scenes with music that is some times well-used (the scene where Shosanna escapes from Colonel Landa) or badly-used (the scene between Shosanna and Zoller in a projection room). And while “Inglourious Basterds” is never a dull film, some scenes do stretch for too long and needed a more dynamic pace, which might be due to Tarantino falling too much in love with his dialogue — which is excellent, yes, but not a reason to make a two-minute conversation into a ten-minute one. Also, this is the second time I’ve seen Tarantino go for the melodramatic, in the aforementioned scene between Zoller and Shosanna in the projection room — aside from the music, Tarantino also uses slow-motion — to very good aesthetic result, but emotionally it just falls flat, and the scene had all the potential in the world not to.

(The first time I’ve seen Tarantino go for the melodramatic was in Jackie Brown, in the scene Max Cherry sees her for the first time and romantic music plays in the background)

However, Tarantino is becoming, more and more, a brilliant visual storyteller and flawless in the composition of his shots. There is a particularly beautiful frame that shows Shosanna running away, seen through an open door — which Colonel Landa passes through, obscuring the view in an accurate symbol of what he would mean to her for the rest of her life. And Tarantino’s conversation scenes aren’t just interesting because of the dialogue and the actors, but because the editing is precise (despite the slow pacing) and the shots well-framed. But what Tarantino is really good at is humor, and “Inglourious Basterds” is a histerically funny film at times — it never strikes the same high note emotionally, but when it comes to comedy the movie is pure win. Whenever I think of the scene between Landa and the Basterds in the premiére I start chuckling, and Brad Pitt himself, an actor with excellent comic timing, never misses a joke (I especially like his short monologue about fighting in basements). Tarantino also deserves credit for incorporating so many languages into the film, and even having characters speaking on different languages to confuse each other.

And when I think about how the movie had emotional potential that is never pulled off, I think of the movie’s ending and realize this wasn’t really the point. Tarantino just wanted to kill some nazis. To have fun portraying Hitler as a caricature that is based more on Chaplin’s Adenoyd Hynkel than on the real man, to do a war movie in Tarantino fashion, and for it to be enjoyable. And he pulled that off. “Inglourious Basterds” is a memorable film. It could have been memorable as a whole, not just for a few scenes and a great character, but as it is, it’s a memorable film nonetheless.

PS: I have the habit of reading trivia and goofs in imdb.com. Here’s a bit from this film’s goof section. “Revealing mistakes: At the beginning of the film the Gentile’s daughter is hanging sheets on the line to dry; however, the sheet she is securing to the line is already dry (it isn’t wet).”

Wow! Thank fuck for the thoughtful addition in parenthesis, eh?

Movie Review – District 9

(This review might refer to a few plot points that you might prefer not to know until you watch the film, although it tries to avoid explicit spoilers, so if you want to stop here, let me sum up: I did not like “District 9″)

A huge spaceship has appeared in Johannesburg, floating over the city. Human beings board it and find incredibly generic-looking aliens who must have taken about five minutes of work from this movie’s design department. They look like prawns, so the humans start calling them, of course, prawns. They’re malnourished and in need of refuge until they can return to their home planet. However, this proves to be a difficult task for… some reason the movie doesn’t bother answering, and if it did it was amidst so much other exposition I couldn’t catch it. I think it has to do with the Prawns being an advanced civilization who has mastered interestellar (or possibly intergalactic) travel but are not above acting like obnoxious cavemen when interacting with human beings. So, the aliens start living on District 9, which over the course of the next twenty years, becomes a slum.

All of this is depicted through a documentary style that the movie uses not as a clever narrative device, but as an easy way of dropping tons of exposition on the viewer without having to bother with things like “subtlety”, “narrative economy” or “immersion”. In fact, one character tries to convince us of this film’s originality by saying (I’m paraphrasing) “this spaceship has appeared not in New York, but in Johannesburg”. Director Neill Blomkamp might as well have included a shot of himself winking to the audience and saying “See what I did there?”

This documentary style could have worked as an introduction, but the entire film uses it — whenever there is a camera, no matter if it’s a camera a character is using, a security camera or a camera mounted on someone’s gun, director Neill Blomkamp cuts to it, no matter how ridiculous or out-of-place it looks — which is particularly painful when it comes to the gun-mounted cameras.

In fact, Blomkamp’s camerawork makes Peter Berg look like a genius. He’s apparently not aware there’s such revolutionary techniques like tripods and steadicams and instead he uses Parkinson’s-Disease-camera for the entire film. Even when the protagonist is talking on a cellphone, sitting down, completely still, simply quiet, not moving at all — Blomkamp films from a distance, with a zoom — and the camera shakes so bad the protagonist goes from the center of the shot to having half his body cropped by the right side of the frame and then back to the center of the shot again. Hell, in the scene the restrained protagonist is refusing to kill an alien, an actor actually obstructs the fucking frame and Blomkamp takes his time cutting to another angle.

The director is also completely lost when it comes to timing — the movie just speeds forward like Blomkamp is afraid the theater will explode if something intense doesn’t happen onscreen for two or three minutes. And I already mentioned subtlety isn’t his strength either, but a more specific example is still needed: on the same cellphone scene I just mentioned, the protagonist’s reaction to being rejected by a character is trying to cut his own arm off, which, even under his extraordinary circumstances, is excessive to say the least.

Mind you, the protagonist is a total idiot, and the movie knows this — after all, he’s being hunted by the authorities and yet he keeps using his cellphone (he does refrain from answering the question “where are you?”, but I think this is because he did not actually know where he was). However, he is also unlikeable and inconsistent. In the beginning of the film, he’s being a dick to the Prawns, but in the middle of it he’s shocked by the notion of killing one.

In fact, all characters in this movie are unlikeable, and the ones Blomkamp means for us not to like, he really means, going as far as to have them laugh cruelly. The most extreme example is when Blomkamp focuses on two of them eating a Prawn’s body part and chewing wildly like gorillas on amphetamines.

Because, as it must be clear by now, “District 9″ is a very badly-written film. The dialogue is simplistic (“I’m not fucking like them.”) and the film’s attempts at humor are out-of-place and simply bad — the scene the protagonist finds out he’s been accused of having sex with a Prawn is illustrated by a still shot during a news program, showing him fucking a Prawn out in the open — and if this is a satire of Fox News or something, it should have taken a backseat to the movie’s tone and story.

But it’s not just that — when the protagonist is captured and becomes a test subject, the scientists are incredibly cruel to him, even though they need his cooperation. And for the love of sheer common sense, how did they expect to perform complicated surgery on him without an anaesthetic? Did they think he’d stay still while they opened his chest? And why didn’t they restrain him properly, knowing he is going through a change that makes him significantly stronger? And for fuck’s sake, why is it that after the protagonist is contaminated, the other characters act like this was always the plan? And why don’t they go visit the place where he was contaminated, if they’re so interested in it? There were witnesses who saw him being contaminated and where that happened, there’s even footage of it. And if the protagonist is such an idiot, why was he promoted? Because his boss is his father-in-law? The same father-in-law who, later in the movie, wants him dead?

“District 9″ isn’t original either. As mentioned, the aliens are ridiculously generic, a simplistic hybrid of arthropod and human being. That, and the film is full of cliches, with several predictable plot points being introduced in the beginning (the squad leader who will later be trouble, the gang leader who will later be trouble, the alien who will later be trouble, then help, then trouble again). Blomkamp even goes for the cliche of the child-alien liking the protagonist, despite the protagonist being a dick to him all the time. Not to mention the moment the protagonist is about to abandon someone, then regrets it and goes back for the rescue.

Despite Blomkamp’s bad craftsmanship, the film’s editing is at least competent — well, okay, it isn’t, it cuts sloppily to several unnecessary camera angles, but in the action scenes it works, making them clear and understandable. But once again, the film sabotages itself with preposterousness, like the painfully stupid moment an alien uses a thin sheet of metal that barely covers half his body to shield himself from a constant stream of bullets — and it works for him. In fact, Blomkamp thinks that showing bullets hitting the metal all the time makes it more believable, when all it does is to prove the people shooting have a good aim and could easily shoot the alien’s unprotected legs from under him. And even more hilariously, when the alien drops the sheet of metal and makes a run for it — suddenly everyone forgets how to shoot properly! This same alien, in a certain moment of the film, says “I have an idea”, channels McGyver and assembles a bomb in under two seconds.

Even the mecha-armor introduced in the film has been seen before in better sci-fi movies, like “Aliens”. And again, they only make the film’s paradox even bigger: the Prawns have advanced technology but are not above acting like trailer park rednecks. And even though the huge spaceship floats above Johannesburg for twenty years, literally rotting up there with no way of returning to its home planet, then I fail to understand how the movie’s ending is coherent. Do you expect me to believe that McGuffin (the little tube of fluid) is the solution to everything? The ending, by the way, after portraying all its characters as cunts, expects us to feel emotional at the way the film’s conflicts are resolved.

Sharlto Copley is intense as the protagonist Wikus Van De Merwe, but that’s all the fast-paced, over-edited movie allows him to be. The rest of the cast is either cartoonishly evil or simply unremarkable. The aliens themselves are well-animated most of the time, failing only when they need to express more subtle emotions — but in this instance, this movie’s cheap budget of thirty million dollars actually works as an excuse, and in all fairness the special effects are mostly convincing. The cinematography, sound effects and the music are efficient as well, making for a technically decent film, at least.

But really, “District 9″ has been widely-regarded as brilliant — you might think my hopes were too high, and I’ll admit I was looking forward to watching it, but no matter how my hopes were, the issues I’ve been practically listing since the beginning of this review would not have been overlooked. I feel that in order for me to like this film, I’d have to lower my standards. It has failed to make me laugh, tried to use cliches to make me cry (there’s even the “Go, save yourself!” cliche), has unimaginative art design, simplistic dialogue, cartoonish villains, preposterous action scenes, an unlikeable protagonist who is stupid AND a prick too, schematic plot structure, badly-paced and disjointed storytelling, poor direction, derivative ideas, several instances of “deux ex machina” — and it’s being considered a classic, apparently. Why? Because it’s in Johannesburg, not in New York? Because it was made for 30 million? Because it’s produced by Peter Jackson? Because it’s Blomkamp’s first film?

It’s a mindless, derivative and unimpressive sci-fi flick that in certain moments looks like “Blood Diamond” with a human and an alien.

Movie Review – Angels & Demons

I watched “Angels & Demons” expecting escapist entertainment, because really, expecting anything else from a film based on a Dan Brown novel is just silly — I have not read “Angels & Demons”, but I read “The DaVinci Code” and if there’s one thing it teaches us, is that there is such a thing as an overwritten plot (and that, okay, bashing the Catholic Church is fun). I fully expected that for this film, with fast-paced editing to hide all the holes in it and expositional dialogue to make sure the audience could keep up with all the mythology and symbology, because it’s a well-known fact the audience is fully comprised of utter morons like myself who need arrows pointing to the screen in a movie theather so they know where to look at.

And even with my hopes low enough to be capable of withstanding an Aaron Seltzer/Jason Friedberg spoof flick for five or six minutes before slamming my own head with a car door, “Angels & Demons” still managed to fall many miles below said hopes and the more I think about the film, the more its quality approaches the center of the Earth.

In the film, scientists have managed to produce antimatter with the Large Hadron Collider. Right after they do it, the capsule containing the antimatter is stolen by a hired gun. Soon, the battery keeping the antimatter suspended in vacuum will run out of power, which will result in a huge — yes. In other words, the movie simply uses the antimatter as a glorified (and very preposterous) nuke, and the only reason it’s antimatter and not any other kind of powerful bomb is because the plot needed an explosive device that could be made by the Large Hadron Collider (which, in real life, it can’t make anyway), for the sake of pretentious “Science vs. Religion” symbolism (something Ron Howard very subtly depicts by interrupting the flow of the movie to show a bunch of cardinals using cameras and cellphones like that’s a groundbreaking revelation or clever irony). How the hired gun knew the antimatter experiment would be successful, and why he didn’t look for a less complicated bomb, is cleverly left unexplained by the film, since any attempts to actually explain it would certainly result in utter embarassment. Shame the film stops caring about not embarassing itself in a matter of minutes.

The Vatican is about to choose the next fanatic moron to lead them and wear that remarkably goofy hat, since the previous pope has just died. However, the four favorite cardinals have been kidnapped by the same hired gun who stole the antimatter. He claims he will kill one of them every hour, starting at 8 pm, until the battery of the antimatter capsule runs out at midnight. Cry your heart out, Anton Chigurh. You spend an entire movie hunting a redneck with a briefcase and meanwhile this guy steals antimatter and kidnaps four cardinals in the first minutes of the film. However, I think this is because Chigurh is a character in an actually good movie with a believable plot. Also, the Swiss Guard are not depicted as very intelligent or efficient people in “Angels & Demons”, since their reaction to finding a cardinal immediately after he’s attacked is to stare at him dramatically as he dies instead of hunting the killer who is very possibly still around.

With the antimatter stolen and four cardinals kidnapped, the Swiss Guard turns to Robert Langdon, a symbologist who seems to think everyone around him is retarded, judging by how he finds it necessary to use Italian terms mixed in with English sentences and then translate said terms to characters who either speak or are Italian. This is especially dickish of him since he’s a religious symbologist who, in two scenes, needs help to read Italian and, for fuck’s sake, Latin. Granted, all the characters in the film have this overpowering urge to explain everything. Every time someone mentions a religious term, someone else describes it. Or the character himself does. A particularly hilarious moment is when Langdon says “You didn’t tell me they were the preferiti — the favorites to be named the next pope”. And when your character feels the need to explain what the preferiti are to the Swiss Guard — your dialogue is shit. That or your character is a pedantic asshole.

But really, I should have realized that this being a film co-written by Akiva Goldsman, I’d have to be dead and in Hell to enjoy it. Yes, the usually very competent David Koepp is the other writer, but according to imdb.com, he was hired to re-write the script. My guess is that he read it and realized the only way to re-write it would be to throw it in the fire and start over, but probably there wasn’t time for that, so he threw in one or two passable lines of dialogue and called it a day — hopefully moving to a better project that is more suitable to the man who wrote my favorite film, “Carlito’s Way”.

It isn’t only the dialogue being absurdly badly-written and the plot preposterous that ruins this film — it’s also extremely predictable. And the really pathetic part is that it tries its best to hide who the villain is — and that’s precisely why it’s so easy to figure that out. (Rest of this paragraph might reveal the villain, so spoiler warning, if you care) The writers pretty much put a halo in his head and treat him as a complete saint, while making the other characters unreasonable by contrast. They even go as far as hiring an actor who usually plays good guys for said role, while the other ones have played proeminent villains in other productions. And if you’ve ignored the spoiler warning and this reveals who the villain is for you, really, I doubt the movie would be more successful in fooling you. If it is, maybe you’ve hit your head recently.

However, what truly destroys this film and makes it such a disaster is how pretentious it is. It actually thinks it has something relevant to say about the ongoing debate (and in several cases, war) between Religion and Science. In fact, the characters feel the need to spell the movie’s simplistic message out for us, the poor misleaded audience, in case we have failed to grasp it. And at the same time, “Angels & Demons” ignores that it has invalidated its own message — and if at this point you still care about spoilers, don’t read the rest of this paragraph (or the entire review, since I’m not being too careful with spoilers anyway) — it is revealed the Illuminati do not exist in this film and are used as a deception by the villain, who is a Catholic fanatic. In other words, this whole mess has originated within the Church and there is no war between Science and Religion at all. The blame falls squarely on the Catholic Church alone. This explains why, in the ending, when a character says there is room for Religion and Science in the world, I wanted to claw my own eyeballs out.

There’s also the plotholes, of course. The executions of the preferiti are supposed to be public in order to achieve the desired effect, and yet most of them would have gone unnoticed if Langdon hadn’t found the bodies; the Great Elector says there will be no election without the preferiti, and half an hour later there he is trying to elect the new pope without them; and not only the movie fictionalizes some Vatican procedure (the Camerlengo is not as powerful as the pope during his absence, as depicted), but it fictionalizes science as well. Not only the depiction of antimatter is very dodgy, but for the love of Albert Einstein, since when taking a nuke (or antimatter that acts like a nuke) about a mile above the ground is a way of preventing destruction? Nukes detonate on the air for maximum impact — otherwise the ground soaks up a good portion of it. So when a character takes the nuke/antimatter/whatever to the skies in a helicopter, the other characters should have been trying to shoot it down with an RPG or something — but maybe then they remembered they’re in a film written by Akiva Goldsman based on a Dan Brown novel and relaxed.

The movie adds another interruption to the story so the Camerlengo can deliver a speech about Science vs. Religion that once again reiterates the film’s stupidity. “Who is more ignorant: the man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its natural awesome power?”, like you cannot both define it and respect it — and in fact, it’s thanks to attempts to understand electrical power that there is such a thing as a lightning rod. But the real gem is “There are things Science is too young to understand,” — and meanwhile the Bible claims the world was made a few thousand years ago. By an invisible man in the sky.

All this and I haven’t even talked about the technical aspects yet. I will avoid talking about the cast, since not a single actor receives a good character to play in this film. All I’ll say about the actors for having accepted their roles: are you all idiots/not rich enough yet?

Director Ron Howard continues his partnership with Akiva Goldsman by directing the film which as much ability as Goldsman writes it. Howard insists on spinning his camera around the characters while zoomed in on them, which causes that epic visual effect: the object or person focused by the camera spins slowly while the unfocused scenery behind them pans much faster. This, I presume, was Howard’s desperate attempt to make up for the endless talking and explanations. He does not restrain himself and as a result his job lacks subtlety — although the script (and Hans Zimmer’ overdone chorus-filled soundtrack) already did, but still. In fact, in two occasions, when Langdon is arriving at the possible location of a murder, he is startled by sounds that could be gunshots but are revealed to be perfectly innocent sounds from the crowd — this happens twice, consecutively.

The cinematography is not bad, although it overuses lighting coming from windows in otherwise dark rooms to shadow the many, many, many dialogue scenes. But considering this film happens in the Vatican, I can’t blame it for that, really. However, the cinematography is sabotaged by the inconsistent special effects, which reach their lowest by failing to depict the flight of helicopters convincingly — but to be fair, this might be due to Howard’s overdone camera movements.

Predictable and repetivive with only one action scene worth a fuck (the shootout in the church with a man being burned), “Angels & Demons” basically believes itself relevant and smart while at the same time believing the audience to be idiots, and the final shot is so nauseatingly optimistic and so horribly misses the point I could feel the bile trying to corrode its way out of my liver.

PS: I leave some room for the possibility of the movie being actually against the Church and pretending it’s not, in a satirical fashion, considering that the plot is pretty much revealed to be the Church’s fault alone — but this does not in any way enrich the film, since it’s never brave enough to admit its beliefs or even do satire properly, if that’s indeed the case.