The General's Post Winter Roundup

And now, one last note from The General

2016 has been a brutal year for my schedule, hence all these roundup posts that you have been seeing instead of more in-depth reviews as per usual. The reasons for this are many and varied, but the base fact is that, at this stage, I've been behind on my reviews for something like ten months. It's time to finally put a close to all of that by catching up once and for all. Here we go.

The General's Post Winter Roundup

Moana

Alternate Title:  Insert Rock Pun Here

One sentence synopsis:    The daughter of a Polynesian chief sets out to find the legendary demigod Maui, and to stop the evil force that is sucking the life from her island home.

The Verdict: Let's talk about Disney.

It's no secret that Disney's been on a tear recently, what with animated movies like Frozen, Big Hero 6, and Zootopia (to say nothing of the work of their subsidiaries: Pixar, Lucas, and Marvel). It's consequently also no secret that I've started looking forward to a new Disney film with more than average anticipation, particularly given the general quality of films this year. Add in The Rock, whom I'm always happy to see, and this one looked like a film not to be missed.

Based around a polyglot version of Polynesian mythology, Moana is the story of a Disney Princess, in this case the titular Moana, daughter of an island chief who dreams (as most Disney princesses do) of the the typical "more", in this case of becoming a legendary "wayfinder", a navigator who seeks for new islands across the breadth of the South Pacific. Propelled into leaving her home-island in search of a remedy for a terrible curse that has settled over it, she meets with demigod Maui, (a figure revered all across Polynesia as a sort of semi-divine culture hero), who very reluctantly joins her quest to destroy the evil forces that have brought scarcity and dearth to her island. Along the way, there are ludicrous, over the top villains, thrilling action scenes, gorgeous animation, a bunch of rousing songs, and an animal sidekick thrown in for comic relief.

So yeah, pretty much par for the course for a standard Disney film. But Moana pulls most of this off well, particularly the visuals, which are staggeringly gorgeous, with a rich, deep color palate and the latest and greatest computer-animated effects for water, storms, and sand. Though Disney's animation style is fully intact, with crisp visuals and well-drawn characters, certain elements branch out into a (fittingly) more Polynesian art style, particularly the animated tattoos that adorn Maui's body describing his exploits. The voice acting, from The Rock, from Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement, and from newcomer Auli'i Cravalho, is excellent across the board, with particular honors going to Clement, who plays a gigantic jewel-obsessed crab in the best tradition of Tim Curry in Fern Gully. Action, and there is plenty of it, is high-speed and clearly shot, incorporating everything from Eroll-Flynn-style swashbucking scenes to Hakka war dances performed by warriors confronting evil volcano gods. All told, the movie has everything you would expect to see from a concept like "Disney does the South Pacific", including Alan Tudyk as the world's stupidest chicken, and messages about following your dreams.

So is Moana a triumph on the level of Frozen or The Lion King? Not really. For one thing, the songs themselves, an important element in any kind of Disney film are pretty undistinguished. We've got the grand sweeping "I Want Moooooooore" style ballad, the fun "I'm a Whimsical Character who is Kooky and Weird" pop number, all the standard stuff, and while all of the songs are perfectly workable, there's nothing here to compete with the great Disney animated songs of yesteryear, from Let it Go to Tale as Old as Time to Be Prepared. And speaking of Be Prepared, the one major song archetype the film lacks is a good Villain Song, that time-honored Disney tradition that has given us their best work. Part of the reason for that is that the villain in Moana is a complete cypher, a roaring volcano-god of raw destruction with no personality beyond looking scary and wanting to kill, and while there are plot reasons for this lack of sophistication, it still hurts both the narrative and the song-selection, as we get no opportunity for a great Villain piece along the lines of Hellfire or Poor Unfortunate Souls. Granted, it's not exactly fair to criticize Moana for not being just like another movie, but Disney is a formula studio, and in everything but this, they adhere quite closely to the standard Disney formula. It's good, don't get me wrong, but lacks that key moment that would push the film over the top, either through innovation, or through perfect execution. The pacing is generally undistinguished, with too much downtime between moments of excitement, and there's a certain lack of ambition involved in a film that spends most of its time on a small boat in the middle of the ocean making (admittedly pretty funny) references to Mad Max movies as opposed to giving us a more cohesive world, the way some of the best Disney films have.

Moana is a good film, well-executed and with a trembling eye towards the masses of people who were waiting to accuse Disney of cultural appropriation if they slipped up (some of whom did so anyway, because they are stupid). But it is not a masterpiece in the vein of Disney's last three or four attempts. Unoffensive and entertaining enough, it's a fine movie to go see for a weekend trip to the multiplex, but I do not expect to find people humming its songs to themselves while walking down the street six months from now. Then again, a good film is no slur to anyone's reputation, not even modern-day Disney. And if this is the worst film Disney put out this year (and it is), then that's a hell of an achievement by itself.

Final Score:  7/10

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Allied

Alternate Title:  Pittfalls

One sentence synopsis:   A Canadian SOE operative and a French Resistance fighter fall in love and marry, only for her to be accused of being a Nazi spy.

\The Verdict:  Brad Pitt is a gorgeous man, somehow more handsome at the age of 53 than he was twenty-five years ago (I stand by this), but he's not a very good actor and has never been one. Oh there's been plenty of movies in which he elevated himself, 2014's Fury for one, but overall he's usually just a pretty face with a narrow range of emotions who is there to look good and eat food on camera. More than one film has been salvaged by casting Pitt opposite someone who COULD act, be it Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire, David Thewlis and B.D. Wong in Seven Years in Tibet, or everyone the Coen Brothers ever met in Burn After Reading. This time, in Allied, a period war drama about resistance fighters, spies, and double-crossings, the filmmakers thoughtfully gave us French actress Marion Cotillard to play the part of the real actor in the movie, a part she is indisputably qualified for. She plays Marianne, a French Resistance fighter who has escaped to Casablanca and who meets up with Pitt's Max Valan to assassinate a German General and escape back to London. Cotillard was born to make movies like this, rich period pieces in the style of Casablanca itself, showcasing the danger, excitement, and glamorous locations of the more espionage-laden sides of WWII. She's so good in the movie, that she almost excuses the fact that Pitt is not, as his typical stone-faced approach re-asserts itself, leading us as the audience to, almost impossibly, wonder what someone would see in one of the most gorgeous men alive. Such is Cotillard's performance that we almost buy the absurd twists that the plot deploys against her, and she almost singlehandedly makes the film work.

Almost.

Allied, frankly, is not a very good movie, and the reason it's not a very good movie is because it sticks way too close to formula. Director Robert Zemeckis is, of course, an excellent filmmaker, but his strengths have always been movies that stretch the imagination a bit, whose stories are weird and quirky and offbeat, such as in Back to the Future or Death Becomes Her or last year's The Walk. When he tries to make a formula picture, especially one he hasn't written, the result looks an awful lot like this, mediocre films like Cast Away or What Lies Beneath, movies that are serviceable entries in their genres, but not destined to be remembered as anything special. The movie boasts stellar cinematography, but the war-scenes are almost pro-forma exercises in obligatory violence which happen and are then over, the better to advance a plot that, while decently original, is rendered entirely uninteresting by Brad Pitt's inability to emote anything beyond self-satisfaction and blank-faced stoicism. For all the criticism I've heaped upon him in this review, Pitt can act when he wants to, I've seen it happen, but he chooses this film to morph back into his cypher from Tree of Life, which is the death knell to sweeping romantic dramas like this one. The pace is agonizingly slow, even with massive time-jumps to bring us periodically through the war, and the lack of anything interesting happening allowed my historian's mind to wander through the absurd contrivances that the film employs for its historical veracity, such as having British citizens wandering outside during a Blitz raid, setting undercover spy missions in cities months after they were historically liberated from the Nazis, and employing an ending that left me baffled as to just what the plans of all those concerned were. I know that people get tired of me complaining about historical details in every movie set before 2010, but with acting this wooden from one of our leads and a plot that lends itself to soap-opera "twists", there was little else for me to do for large chunks of its runtime.

I've certainly seen worse films than Allied, even ones starring Brad Pitt, but for all the pretensions Allied makes of being an Old-Hollywood-style epic romance, it lands with an audible 'thud', doomed by a bad performance, overdirection, and a lack of crispness to any elements of plot or story. Those with souls more romantic than mine may well find a way to let Allied sweep them away into a realm of danger and romance, but for me, the fundamental lack of anything interesting going on dooms the film to the ranks of those I shall likely not be remembering at all.

Final Score:  5/10

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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Alternate Title:  Make Magical America Great Again

One sentence synopsis:    A magical wildlife researcher whose specimens break loose in 1920s New York becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving murder and monsters in the American Magical establishment.

The Verdict:  I was always kind of ambivalent on the Harry Potter films, a series based on books that I loved, but whose film adaptations... varied, shall we say, in quality. There was nothing globally wrong with them or their casts, but my interest waned after a while, and I skipped the last couple altogether, split as they were into two films for mercenary reasons. With the prospect of a reboot (sort of), however, one starring actors I admire and un-anchored to any textual source, I actually re-discovered a bit of excitement for the Potterverse, and found that I was interested in seeing what they had to show me. And so, now having seen Fantastic Beasts and processed it thoroughly, a single thought occurs to me.

These movies are fucking dark.

There's always been a strong anti-authoritarian streak to Harry Potter, no doubt the product of its author, what with children (or other marginal figures) being revealed as possessing simple wisdom, while almost all authority figures are revealed as being shallow-minded, bureaucratic incompetents at best, and outright genocidal bigots at worst, with the former often being transformed into the latter once you get to know more about them. Fantastic Beasts continues that trend to such a degree that I would be tempted to complain about an Anti-American bias if it weren't for the fact that the series has always been just as merciless with everyone else. The Magical Government of the United States may look glittering and inclusive, with Art Deco-styled magical buildings, fedora-and-longcoat-wearing Aurors, and a black, female President whose stylings look like those of a flapper crossed with Cleopatra, but beneath the surface it is a gang of brutal, anti-miscegenation (forget 'mudblood' prejudice, American Wizards are forbidden under pain of death to marry or have children with mundanes), blinkered reactionaries, arrogant, contemptuous, and stupid, who primarily exist to throw obstacles, lethal or otherwise, in the way of our plucky heroes trying desperately to save the day. This is a film where anyone competent is evil, and anyone incompetent is merely antagonistic, and while that's fine, generally speaking, it does result in a rather unavoidable tonal clash when the rest of the film is trying to be an enchanted adventure of whimsy and wonder.

Another thought that occurred to me as I watched this film was that it appears to be a good year for autistic heroes, as first The Accountant and now this film have showcased leading characters that are... shall we say... neuroatypical? Our lead here is Newt Scamander, previously a background character in the wider Harry Potter universe, portrayed here by Eddie Redmayne as either a high-functioning autist or simply the most awkward British introvert alive (it can be difficult to distinguish the two). Honestly, Redmayne is excellent in the role, a committed magical-zoologist with little interest or time in anything else, who has no idea how to interface with most people beyond a veneer of officious British charm, and no particular interest in learning. I suspect most British actors are born with the ability to exhibit charming befuddledness on command, but Redmayne nevertheless goes above and beyond, delivering a performance that's surprisingly nuanced and warm, despite the requirements of the role, even when the Oscar-winning actor is called upon to perform an elaborate mating dance for a creature that appears to be a cross between a rhinocerous and a stag beetle. Behold, the dignity of acting.

Would that the rest of the movie were as good as Redmayne is, but sadly it is not. Comedian Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol turn in serviceable roles, the former as a Nomaj (No-Magic, or Muggle in Brit-speak) cannery worker who gets caught up in the magical madness against his will, the latter as an airheaded Legilimens (mind-reader) with a big heart. Newcomer Katherine Waterston, playing leading lady Tina Goldstein, an ex-auror trying to solve the case, does not. Her character is supposed to be a no-nonsense gumshoe battling for what's right despite the orders from on-high, but she plays the character like a wide-eyed innocent, constantly bursting in on important meetings of the magical congress (called MACUSA for short) before forgetting what she was going to say. The character never gels properly, which unfortunately makes her look rather stupid, a quality I do not admire among my plucky protagonists. Colin Farrel, meanwhile, takes the villainous role of Percival Graves, and he's fine... at least by comparison to your typical Colin Farrel role. His character, ultimately, is nothing more than a teaser for other movies to come, though how this is accomplished is obviously something I shall not be describing here. The rest of the plot, which involves among other things a group of neo-Salemite witch-burners, child abuse, a newspaper magnate played by Jon Voight, and his son, a normal, non-magical Senator, is confusing and belabored, with Deus Ex Machinas liberally strewn throughout for whenever the writers get themselves in trouble and have no idea how to resolve things. It's nothing horrific, and it doesn't rob the film of all of its charm, but it takes a big enough bite out to be noticeable.

Ultimately, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a decent enough film, one that has enough imagination, whimsy, and hammer-handed political allegory to satisfy any die-hard Harry Potter fan. But I doubt seriously it's going to convert too many fence-riders to jump one way or the other, especially not given some of the promises it makes regarding the sequels to come... but then that would be telling ;)

Final Score:  6/10

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Manchester by the Sea

Alternate Title:  Broken People Living Marginal Lives

One sentence synopsis:   A janitor moves home to the New England town he grew up in after his brother dies, and finds he must take care of his now-teenage nephew.

The Verdict:  Oh goody, another movie with universal critical acclaim! Surely this won't turn out to be an epochal disaster like Leviathan, Under the Skin, The Railway Man, White God, or Elysium!

One of the (few) bright spots at the movies this year was February's underrated crime flick Triple 9, a movie that aspired to be a modern-day version of the classic 1995 Michael Mann thriller Heat, and came closer than I, for one, thought it had any chance of. Triple 9 had a bunch of very good actors in it, including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Winslet, Anthony Mackie, Michael K. Williams, and the reason we're here today, a fine actor whom I've been following for several years now, Casey Affleck, younger brother of Ben. Far from being a hanger-on riding the coattails of his more famous brother, Casey has spent the last decade or two proving that, if anything, he is the more talented of the two (at least when it comes to acting), in a host of recent movies including Out of the Furnace, Gone Baby Gone, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Affleck's signature has long been playing quiet men on the edge of a psychotic break, and thus we come to his character here, a janitor.

Somewhere in the less scenic parts of New England, Lee Chandler (Affleck) works as a custodian for an apartment complex, living alone with his beer and guilt following horrific events which destroyed his life, marriage, and family. Summoned back to his old hometown of Manchester-by-the-Sea (Title call!) by the death of his brother (King Kong and Argo's Kyle Chandler), he discovers that he's been named the custodian of his sixteen-year-old nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges), and must now uproot his life to deal with the thousand-and-one things that must happen when a loved one dies, arranging a funeral, reading the will, settling probate, etc, while also somehow figuring out how to take care of a sixteen year old whose father is dead and whose mother is a recovering drug addict uninvolved in her son's life.

And that's... really all there is to Manchester by the Sea, a quiet movie about damaged people living out their lives that is almost militantly non-histrionic. Apart from the occasional snap of bar-and-beer-induced violence, nothing really "happens" in the film, no formulas, no character arcs, no dramatic speeches or fights in crashing thunderstorms (I'm looking at you, The Judge). Affleck plays the movie very close to the chest, walking through the film as though in a daze, a man whose fires for life burned out a long time ago and will not be rekindled by any Disney-esque magic of last-second reconciliation or forgiveness. Hedges, meanwhile, plays a very adult sort of teenager, who deals with his father's death by not dealing with it, by and large, continuing his life with his friends, multiple girlfriends, sports and school while only occasionally giving into the emotions that the sudden loss of his father are generating. The movie goes so far out of its way to avoid histrionics or any form of formula that it quite perversely begins to feel incredibly depressing and dour, as if the filmmakers thought Biutiful was a good movie, but needed more charmlessness and depression. It's a skilled production, drawing emotional resonance from minimalist performances and eschewing all of the conventional story beats we might expect with a film like this, but goddamn is it a downer. Not that I have anything against non-saccharine movies, but the relentless mundanity of these broken people's lives as they manage to cobble themselves together and continue on with their empty existences is not an experience I recommend for those looking to be taken away from their problems for a couple of hours at the movies.

Manchester by the Sea is one of those films whose quality is entirely divorced from my enjoyment of it, a well made film that I have absolutely no need to see again. Darling of the critical circuit as it has quickly become, it may well generate the Palme d'Or's and Golden Globes and other such awards it was obviously created to generate, but it has little to offer anyone who isn't an admirer of the technical qualities of filmmaking. And though I do indeed admire both it and Affleck for their evident skills in piecing a defiantly non-traditional movie like this one together at all, the film experience is simply not one I'm in any hurry to repeat.

Final Score:  6.5/10

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Rogue One:  A Star Wars Story

Alternate Title:  Sound and Fury

One sentence synopsis:   The daughter of the designer of the Death Star joins a high-risk rebel operation to locate him and stop the Empire from bringing the station online.

The Verdict:  *Sigh*

...

...

...

...

No, I'm sorry guys, I can't do it.

I love Star Wars. Everyone loves Star Wars for god's sake, and I love it right along side them. I love the originals, I love the games, the RPGs, the new Disney series and the fun that is to be had therewith. Forty years on and with countless imitators in its wake, and it's still the only science-fantasy franchise that's worth a damn, one that covers every style and every genre of storytelling from noir to high fantasy to space opera to classical tragedy across the board. I can even say some good things about the Prequels if you force me to. So of course, I went to see Rogue One, with high expectations. And of course in some regards those expectations were met. But... no, I just can't geek out over this one the way I really want to because the base fact is that the movie isn't very good.

Look, I see why everyone loves it. I'm not stupid. It has wonderful spectacle to it, something Star Wars even at its nadir has usually done quite well. The film takes place on half a dozen different wlldly-different planets, each with its own lush and rich cinematographic possibilities to offer, from a stony-desert world that looked chiselled out of Monument Valley, to a rainy riot of buttresses and adamantine cliffs, to a tropical paradise-world-turned military installation whose shot inspirations seem drawn from WWII's Pacific Front (and which was apparently filmed in the Maldive Islands). Certain shots come straight out of an epic war or fantasy movie, such as that of AT-AT walkers laboriously advancing through the dust and smoke of a battlefield, toppling palm trees as they crash through their cover. In a world where everything is shot either in the stark Bruckheimer/Bay contrasts of Blue-and-Orange, or in washed out, dust-impregnated brown, this film gives us vibrant colors and gorgeous setpieces to go with the lived-in feel that Star Wars has always excelled in. Battles, and there are several, are spectacular affairs, combined-arms showcases of space and air and land all rolled into one, to say nothing of a truly epic rendition of just what happens when a Death Star is used... sparingly. Die-hard aficionados of the originals will find piles of easter eggs, references, in-jokes, and subtle (and less subtle) callbacks to the original series, enough to keep the internet spinning for years, and all of this wrapped up in a story that is much more adult in feel than the movies of yesteryear, filled with rebels who not only shoot first but actively feel like the terrorists that they must be, in actuality, all without sacrificing the essential good-vs-evil dynamic that the Star Wars films are cored around.

So what's missing? character.

Rogue One is a movie with an enormous, almost labyrinthine plot, involving multiple rebel groups and cells, political maneuvering on several levels, reunions, betrayals, battle plans and lengthy engagements, and to its credit it handles all of those things quite well, even when it has to spend the first ten minutes of the film establishing about half a dozen different planets that we will eventually be visiting. The problem isn't the plot, it's that it has to do all of those things while also establishing nine different major characters, none of whom we know anything about going in (save for those who have been watching the cartoon series), all in a runtime of less than two-and-a-quarter hours. It's not that the movie fails in its attempts to characterize these people, it's that characterizing that many people and that much plot in that short a run-time is impossible. As such, we get the briefest introduction to each character before plunging them into another battle or plot point, with the predictable effect that almost all of them are complete cyphers, robbing the film of the emotional core that the best Star Wars movies have. As always, a lack of characterization throws the job of generating interest onto the actors themselves, who accomplish their impossible task to varying degrees of effectiveness.

Veteran character actor Ben Mendelsohn, of whom I have always been a great fan, pulls it off, playing Death Star project director Orson Krennic as a driven man who's life's work is finally approaching fruition and who is stymied on all sides by incompetence, political underhandedness, and the rebels (in that order), who does not understand why things can never go smoothly, and why the disasters that befall his pet project must continuously happen to him. Nightcrawler-alum Riz Ahmed pulls it off as well, playing a defecting Imperial pilot caught up in the larger chaos of the war between Empire and Rebellion, a man trying to do the right thing unable to understand what is happening around him. Mads Mikkelsen, Diego Luna, and Chinese director Jiang Wen all also manage to pull at least something out of their characters, respectively a broken man struggling to redeem a lifetime of failure and deception, a committed rebel terrorist attempting to ensure that the horrors he has perpetrated have meaning, and a stoic badass with a gigantic machinegun (this is Star Wars), as does Alan Tudyk, as the voice of the comic-relief droid, a world-weary cynic who does what he must. But unfortunately, one who does not pull it off is Felicity Jones, star of the movie, whose character of Jyn Erso has no character whatsoever, a plot device at best who goes along with the flow of the movie until it's time for the script-demanded "big rousing speech" that the movie has entirely failed to earn. Forest Whitaker, meanwhile, tries to escape into weirdness, playing a gasping, throaty lunatic of a rebel fighter. One is reminded, with this character, of Episode III's General Grevious, a villain that popped up out of nowhere to command a central role that had not been established, due to the character having been first created in one of the TV shows. Leaving aside the question of this sort of practice, the character is a complete non-entity, who plays no role but exposition before being summarily dumped in favor of more plot.

Rogue One is not a terrible movie, nor a bad one, but in defiance of all those saying otherwise, it is my solemn duty to report that it is a fairly mediocre one, certainly not a disaster on the scale of the Prequels, but nowhere near the equal of the originals, nor of last year's Episode VII. It is, to me at least, proof positive that Star Wars' strengths, particularly in the modern day, do not rely solely on Empty Spectacle, as some overly-serious critics might imply. Here, after all, is a movie that is largely nothing except Empty Spectacle, and it does not equal the warmth and glory of the predecessors, not even with a bevy of decent-to-good actors at its service.

But then, surely the Prequels already told us that much.

Final Score:  5.5/10

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La La Land

Alternate Title:  Streetlight People

One sentence synopsis:   An aspiring actress and a frustrated jazz piano player find love and follow their dreams in Los Angeles.

The Verdict:  I feel like I've done you guys a disservice this year. I'm not talking about the irregular schedule I've had, for that was unavoidable given my other commitments. I'm talking instead about my selection of movies for 2016. All year I've been beating the drum of the fact that 2016's movies have been godawful, on average and in summation, and it's true that if you look over the reviews I've laid down this year, that's certainly reflected in the score. However, it wasn't until a number of other critics started releasing their year-end best lists (mine are coming, don't worry), that I began to realize that what was wrong with this year might not have been the movies, but my taste in them. Most of the films people were citing as the best of the year, movies like The Handmaiden, The Nice Guys, or Neon Demons, were movies that I had, for one reason or another, decided to skip in favor of more mainstream fare, which turned out, generally speaking, to be utter crap. I pick the movies I'm going to see based on purely arbitrary readings of trailers and my own mood, but it's true that after the disaster that was 2015's Indie cinema (Leviathan, anyone?), I turned back to Hollywood's mainstream offerings, in the hope that I would not be subjected to a movie as bad as any of those I saw in 2015.

Well that didn't quite work the way I had anticipated, as the rest of my reviews from this year can tell you. But as a final parting gift from 2016, I decided to do something about this unpleasant trend from the year now fondly departed. And so, bypassing more mainstream movies like Passengers and Collateral Beauty (the vibes of which were becoming quite toxic), I decided to go see a classic-style musical starring a sexy, sexy man.

Which sexy man? Why, Ryan Gosling, of course, who stars in La La Land as a jazz pianist struggling to follow his dream of opening a classic jazz nightclub somewhere in Los Angeles, while dating the equally adorable Emma Stone, who is that most common of all Los Angelenos, an aspiring actress. I could tell you more about their particular characters, but honestly, they're not really playing characters as much as they're playing the ur-representations of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, two movie stars caught up in a glorious musical ode to love and life and dreams and the quest for all three, and god damn are they good at it. Granted, Gosling is not much of a singer, but in all other respects the two of them are just radiant, playing modern day incarnations of the featherweight characters that used to be portrayed by people like Gene Kelly and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. Stone even tries her hand at tap dancing. And given that this is Ryan Gosling, who as I mentioned before is a sexy, sexy man, and Emma Stone, one of the most effortlessly charming actresses working today (and who is also possessed of some of the most gorgeous eyes I've ever seen), the result is a wonderful little movie, thin on plot (though perhaps not quite thin enough) and long on song and dance and heartwarming, occasionally bittersweet, modern fantasy. The musical numbers range from old-style dance escapades that would not be out of place in a Ginger Rogers movie, to more modern ensemble pieces, including a wonderful opening sequence set, of all places, in the middle of rush hour traffic on a highway. It rambles from big band ensembles to jazz numbers to marching-band-and-samba pieces with cameos by John Legend and J.K. Simmons. It's a wonderful movie, in the sense of being full of wonderous things. I enjoyed it more than I have most anything else this year.

La La Land isn't perfect of course, the middle section drags fairly heavily, due to the baffling decision to drop the music for a while and focus on a fairly formulaic plot, but it scarcely matters when dealing with a movie like this. La La Land is a charming movie in every sense, one that is the perfect way to see out the calendar year of 2016, and usher in a year full of, hopefully, better things.

Final Score:  7.5/10

Next Time:  We begin the January cleanup of last year's Oscar season with a stage-to-screen adaptation starring two of my favorite actors.

Leviathan

Alternate Title:  Misery

One sentence synopsis:    A Russian handiman confronts a corrupt small town mayor and the legal and religious systems around him intent on forcing him off his land and ruining his life.


Things Havoc liked:  ...

...

...

Ahem?! Things Havoc liked:

Go away.

What?

Go away. I don't wanna.

What the hell do you mean you don't wanna?

I don't wanna review Leviathan! I won't do it!

Oh come on now, it can't have been that -

It was that bad! It was awful! I don't wanna relive it! I'm not doing it!

Don't be such a baby.

TWO AND A HALF HOURS! I sat through this fucking thing for two and a half goddamn hours and you wanna call me a baby?!

But every critic on Earth called this a great film. Hell it was a nominee for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars!

SO WAS UNDER THE SKIN!

And this was -

- WORSE!!!

I don't believe that. Under the Skin was a hole in the space-time continuum. This thing at least had nice cinematography, didn't it?

*Sniff* Yeah...

And the actors weren't bad, were they?

I... I guess not...

So how bad could it possibly have been?

You don't understand... this movie is just... contrived misery. For hours on end. Everything sucks and we have to make sure it keeps sucking artificially, even when it makes no sense for it to suck. We've gotta drop plotlines midway through and arrange macguffins and use every contrivance in the book so that everything can suck as much as humanly possible BECAUSE ART.

I get all that, but -

YOU DON'T GET SHIT! You can't understand how horrible an experience it is to sit through something this goddamn vacuous for that long with no actual purpose to it beyond some pathological need to display arbitrary suffering.

Well it's trying to be a daring indictment of Russia's corruption and culture of alcoholism

BULLSHIT. It takes more to indict something than just splashing it on the screen. Russia isn't corrupt because God and the impersonal forces of the universe are in collusion to ruin some drunken idiot's life. That's like saying Commando was a daring indictment of South American kidnapping rings.

But... you liked Commando.

I liked Commando because it's entertaining. This movie's as boring as wallpaper paste. I started trying to identify the make and model of the shuttle busses just so I wouldn't go completely mad. It's not like the plot was occupying my attention.

Did it even hold together?

Hell no! That would have required straying away from the daring thematic elements. Think about this one. Let's say you've got a corrupt mayor, who is being threatened by a hotshot lawyer from Moscow who has dirt on him so explosive that he nearly has a heart attack to see it. The lawyer is established as having high level connections in Moscow, and yet the mayor decides to drag him out to a rock quarry and beat him up with goons before throwing him on a train out of town. What do you think happens next?

The... lawyer goes to his connections and gets the government to -

NOTHING HAPPENS WHATSOEVER. We never hear from the lawyer again. Why not? Because Evil Must Triumph Or It Isn't Art!

Surely you're being a little overdramatic...

There is a scene in this movie where the main character sits down on a beach littered with whale bones, drinks an entire bottle of vodka in one swig, then looks out at the camera and says, in perfect dramatic seriousness, "Why?!"

... really?

I swear to God.

Okay so... not very good then.

Not something I'm gonna be running out to buy the Blue-ray of, no.

But you've reviewed bad movies before. What's the problem with this one?

I... I just hated it SO MUCH. Every time I sit down to write the review I degenerate into incoherent screaming. It was an atrocity. And everyone loved it because it was "daring" enough to claim there's corruption in Russia!

Sounds kinda like Under the Skin.

Don't remind me. Still... you're right, I do kinda have to do something.

See, that's the spirit! You'll think of something, don't worry about -

Wait, I know!

You do? Great! What's the plan?

I'll review it IN SONG!!!

Wait, WHAT? NO! NO DON'T YOU DARE! WE ARE NOT HAVING ANOTHER MUSICAL NUMBER IN THIS GODDAMN BLOG! DAMMIT, YOU GET BACK HERE AND REVIEW THIS MOVIE NORMALLY!!!

*Skips away in psychotic glee*

GODDAMMIT, WHO FORGOT HIS MEDS THIS TIME?!

  
The Russian Film 'Leviathan'(Sung to "The Yellow Rose of Texas")  There's an indie film from Russia
The worst I've ever seen
With characters so wretched
They drink like Charlie Sheen
Two hours or more I sat there
It damn near stopped my heart
And if I find the filmmakers
I'll tear their lungs apart.

It's the bleakest fucking movie
This critic's ever viewed
With plot holes wide as oceans
And pace like superglue
You can talk about your Requiems
Or the Choices of Sophie
But the Russian film Leviathan's
The one that finished me.


When the Fireflies are buried
No longer shining bright
And the lists of Oskar Schindler
Have vanished in the night
I will lie awake regardless
For how was I to foresee?
That Leviathan will stick with you
And never leave you be.

It's the bleakest fucking movie
This critic's ever viewed
With plot holes wide as oceans
And pace like superglue
You can send me to Elysium
Or the Life of Timmy Green
But among them all this film's the one
I wish I'd never seen.


And now I've seen this movie
And my heart is full of woe
It's like the Last Airbender
Crossed with The fucking Road
Under the Skin was awful
Worse than any film before
But the film that I most hated
I shall call it nevermore

It's the bleakest fucking movie
This critic's ever viewed
With plot holes wide as oceans
And pace like superglue
You can talk about the second Tron
Or sing of Matrix 3
But I would not give Leviathan
To my worst enemy. 

Final Score:  2/10

Next Time:  Do I really have to?

... fine.. how about Silver Linings Playbook 2: This Time It's Personal?  It seriously cannot be worse than this.

The Worst Films of 2014

... I have no explanation for what happened here. Perhaps it was that the act of watching these rancid wastes of my valuable time has driven me completely mad, or perhaps I felt the need to counter the lack of effort proposed by these films with some actual effort of my own. Or perhaps I just wanted an excuse to troll you all. In any event, you have all been asking where my worst-of-the-year list is, and now you shall receive it. God have mercy on your souls.


The Worst Movies of 2014... IN SONG!!!

Immense thanks due to Benjamin Allen for his unflagging assistance in coming up with these over the last couple months. And way to live the stereotype.



Note:  Since there seems to be some confusion on this subject, there are links to the music for each song located just beneath the title.  The titles themselves will link you to the reviews in question.


Introduction:
Sung to “Don’t Stop Believing”

Just a movie fan,
Tryin’ to do the best I can.
Although the trailers lied to me all year long.

There was a lot of good
From indie films or Hollywood
But there’s a handful still where it all went wrong.

A critic in a darkened room
Watching films in mounting gloom
Endless piles of cinematic blight, running on and on and on and on...

Bad films
All year
Made me question God’s benev’lance
Left me
Screaming in the niiiiiiiiight

One list
Of ten films...
What the hell let’s do eleven!
Make their
Authors learn to write!


I saw these films, of my own free will
And each one raised an urge to kill
They ranged in quality from useless crap, to film-based crime.

Some made me mad, some made me snooze
And some were just too damn confused
A bad film just never ends, it goes on and on and on and on...

Critics
Praised them
Called them all ‘robust and daring’
Brib’ry,
Is all that I can ciiiiite

But I won’t
Permit them
To get away with audience torture
Time to
Set this year to right!


Don’t stop, Believing!
Just avoid the screening!
Trust me, I would never lieeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Don’t stop! Believing!
Listen to my screaming!
They’ll make you gouge out your eyyyyyyyyyyes!

Don’t stop! Believing!
Hold onto your reason!
Every film here went awryyyyyyyy!Don’t stop! Believing...      11: Godzilla

Poor Unfortunate Fans
(Sung to “Poor Unfortunate Souls”)

I admit that in the past these films were awful
They weren’t kidding when they whined in ‘98
But now that Emmerich’s gone
We can lead you all along
And use some grainy trailers as our bait. True? Well…

Yes it’s true that I don’t have a lot of filmcraft
It’s a talent that I never have possessed
But I’ve got a lovely staff
Who have shown me on a graph
How to hoodwink money out of the obsessed
(pathetic)

Poor unfortunate fans!
In pain! In need!
This one wants to see Godzilla
That one wants to wreck Japan
And do I help them?
No indeed.

Those poor unfortunate fans!
So sad! So true!
They come flocking to the movies
Crying “Kaiju, Toho, please!”
And do I help them?
Why, would you?

We use monsters as a spice
And we’re really quite precise
Seven seconds every hour, that’s the plan
See the trailer’s just a feint
So we can kick them in the taint
All those poor unfortunate fans!

“Come one, come all! See the latest Kaiju film!”

“If I go see your movie, Mr. Director, will I get to see Godzilla?”

“Well there’s certainly a chance that you will! Life is full of surprises! Oh but there’s one more thing. We haven’t discussed the subject of Extreme Digital Cinema!”

“But I don’t want to - “

“We’re not asking much! Just a token, really, a trifle. You'll never even miss it! What I want from you is ALL YOUR MONEY!”

“But without my money, Mr. Director, how will I…”

You’ll get a job. Perhaps a loan?
And don’t underestimate the importance of
Prostitution!

Directing films requires lots of cheddar.
And bilking you is what our job is for
So we feel you must be spurred
After all, you’re just a nerd.
And if we pissed upon your face you’d ask for more.

We only shot enough to make a trailer
We’ve got less than ninety seconds in the can
Even if you think it’s wrong
We’ll still treat you as a pawn
Giving people what they want is not the plan

Come on you poor unfortunate fans
Scream and cry! Write a blog!
I’m a Hollywood director
And I haven’t got all day
For I have a piece of crap I have to flog

You poor unfortunate fans!
It’s sad, but true!
I would show you more Godzilla in the 90-minute span
But the film needs human interest if it’s going to show at Cannes
If it’s monsters that you wanted, you can find them in Japan!
You poor unfortunate FAAAAAAAAANS!






10: The Taking of Tiger Mountain

The Same Old Film
(Sung to “A Whole New World”)

China’s banner’s unfurled
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, readers, now when did
We last make a film this bad?

I will open their eyes
Take them blunder by blunder
Tear this movie asunder
Warn you all to run and hide.

The same old film
A 1950s point of view
Nobody told them no
Or where to go
To find a muse worth stealing

The same old film
Without a single thing that’s new
But as I’m sitting here
It’s crystal clear
That they just made The Green Berets anew
They just made the Green Berets anew!

Unremarkable sights
Indecipherable screaming
Nothing slightly redeeming, just a bad film Sinicized

The same old film
You should just close your eyes
As lively as a cup of tea
No it’s not getting better

I s’pose it’s not bizarre
To see how far
They go to glorify the PRC

The same old film
Not a single surprise
It’s propaganda through and through
Every moment dead letter

Nothing but opera glares
At which to stare
Don't let them share the same old film with you

The same old film
The same old film
That’s where you’d be
That’s where you’d be
To it you’d race
And be debased
If not for me…






9: Draft Day

One Giant Turd
(Sung to “Part of Your World”)

Look at this film
Doesn’t it suck
Who did they think would
Be giving a fuck
Didn’t they know football fans
Don’t care about all this crap

Look at this script
Fifty years old
How many cliches
Can one movie hold?
Watching this film you would think
Wow, it’s a piece of shit.

We’ve got one Jenny Garner too many
And there’s family drama galore
You want football in this?
Go watch cable.

Cause who cares?
No big deal!
Who's this for?

I wanted Hard Knocks in movie form
I came to see, Dennis Leary cursing
Hoping I’d get to see - What do you call those? Oh - Games
‘Will they or won’t they’ won’t get too far
Writers are needed for decent scripting
Making a movie with - What’s that word again? - Skill

Was Reitman drunk?
Faced with a gun?
Did he just spend too long in the sun?
Couldn’t he see?
This film would be
One giant turd

This movie skimps, gives us one glimpse, of Arian Foster
Burstyn and Frank just walked to the bank, with nothing to do.
They thought we could stand, even demand, to see more Kevin Fucking Costner
What you’re hearing
Isn’t cheering
It’s cries of the damned.

There are some things I just have to know
How did the Ghostbusters guy make this shit?
What did they do to make Reitman - What’s the word - Fail?

Fetch me my flail!
For I would love
To rain down blows on them from above
Laughing with glee
Finally free
From this great Tuuuuuuuuuuuuurd.







8: The Expendables 3

I Saw Some Films
(Sung to “I Dreamed a Dream”)

There was a time when films were great
When the shots were crisp
And the action awesome

There was a time when Arnold ruled
And Stallone was the man
And their films were exciting

There was a time.

Then it all went wrong...


I saw some films in times gone by
Films full of gunfire, fights and killing
I watched a thousand villains die
In manners awesome and fulfilling

But over time the movies strayed
Bad films were made and talents wasted
There were no refunds to be paid
Effects and actors both grew dated

Now these films are just a blight
The whole genre torn asunder
They no longer have a heart
Make the actors die of shame.

Expendables once had some pride
The second film was full of wonder
But this time round they barely tried!
And can no longer duck the blame

It seems that Sly just cannot see
That some things just don’t go together
You cannot make these films PG
And then expect them to get better

I had a dream this film would be
A spectacle well worth reliving
A masterpiece to reign supreme!
But this film killed that dream I dreamed.







7: The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men
(Sung to “The Candyman Can”)

Monuments Men! Monuments Men!
Alright everybody, gather round! The Monuments Men are here!

What kind of movie you want? Realistic drama? Slapstic-heavy comedy? War crimes? Anything you want!
We pushed it back to February, and now here’s the Monuments Men!


Here’s a shitty movie
(Here’s a shitty movie)
Yes, we’ve seen a few
(Yes, we’ve seen a few)
With Clooney, Damon, Murray, and a Ballaban too
It’s all a scam
(It’s all a scam)
The Monuments Men
(The Monuments Men)
The Monuments Men is a wretched sappy film that turns your brain to wood
(Turns your brain to wood)

Nazis stole your artwork
(Nazis stole your artwork)
Right out of Versailles
(Right out of Versailles)
But don’t tell anybody, certainly not the allies
Cause that’s a plan
(Cause that’s a plan)
The Monuments Men
(The Monuments Men)
The Monuments Men are a bunch of thieving dicks who’ll fuck your artwork good.
(Fuck your artwork good)

The writers are flakes
Who took too many breaks
None of them at all ambitious
Such a total mess I got suspicious
Wonder if it’s not malicious

Did they find it funny?
(Did they find it funny?)
This malignant team
(This malignant team)
Or was it all a drama meant to tug at the heartstring
Who gives a damn?
(Who gives a damn?)
The Monuments Men
(The Monuments Men)
The Monuments Men was an awful crappy film, that makes Godzilla look good
(Makes Godzilla look good)

Background shots are fakes
And there aren’t any stakes
It all just gets repetitious
Trailer shots were all fictitious
Starts to feel like it’s pernicious

What a total trainwreck
(What a total trainwreck)
Makes me want to scream
(Makes me want to scream)
You might want to run away and pray its all a dream
I’ll understand
(I’ll understand)
The Monuments Men
(The Monuments Men)
The Monuments Men made me doubt a loving god as anybody would.
(Anybody would)
The Monuments Men wasn’t made with any care or even understood.
(Even understood)

The critics ran
The critics ran
The critics ran
(And you all really should)

The critics ran
The critics ran
The critics ran
(And you all really should)






6: Interstellar

Unprepared
(Sung to “Be Prepared”)

I know Nolan's powers of illusion
Are as strong as the Man of Steel's hide
But here in this film, an intrusion
Of plot holes a half-parsec wide.

It's clear from their vacant expressions
The audience is saying their prayers
Were these physics written by children?
And the editors all locked downstairs?

Interstellar, a film made of saccharine
Filled with writing that fails to amuse
A monstrous error, a physicists' terror
Should trigger a seizure, but here it's a feature.

Now Nolan's been thwarted
By a screenplay so torpid
It requires assistance from booze.
Thus a film without question declared:
UNPREPARED!!!

"Unprepared? It's not unprepared! What's wrong?"

"How about that crop blight they go on about?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"They forgot about it halfway through the movie! And never resolved it in the climax!"

"Who cares?! It's science fiction, we don't need logic! You're just a hater! Hater! Hater! Na na na na na!"

"Idiots! Did you even listen to them talking about quantified love?"

"But love is - "

" - NOT AN ASPECT OF ASTROPHYSICS! It's decisions like this that ruined Dark Knight Rises!"

"BOO! BOO! YOU SUCK! LONG LIVE NOLAN! LONG LIVE NOLAN!!!!"

"Well the haters can hate all they want to.
But at least this one won't leave you bored!"

It's true, they found some shots worth showing.
But five minutes of Cosmos has more.

And speaking of Neil deGrasse Tyson,
I know he's a space devotee.
But given his praise I must ask him
'What part of this film did YOU see?!'

So prepare, for a script full of corn cobs
Be prepared, for a science-free sham
Disastrous pacing,
Illogic embracing,
Calamitous writing,
Chris Nolan inciting
A flop, undisputed, rejected, refuted
By legions of pissed would-be fans!
Interstellar: Stupidity squared
UNPREPARED!!!

I’d be more mad if only I cared
UNPREPARED!!!      5: Snowpiercer

Let Them Know
(Sung to “Let It Go”)


The light shines bright in the screening tonight
Not a viewer to be seen.
A movie brought from Korea
And without one decent scene

The critics howl about its virtues from on high
What was it they saw? Or did they just lie?

Dont let them in, don’t let them see
This shitty movie, this cultural debris
Warn everyone, they all must know
That this film blows!

Let them know!
Let them know!
They can’t lie about it anymore!

Let them know!
Let them know!
Lock and barricade the door!

I don’t care
What the critics say!
Let the curtains fall.
Snowpiercer should not see the light of day


Its stunning how bad writing
Makes Hurt and Evans suck.
Though the film has pretty pictures
I just couldn’t give a fuck!

The plot’s as flimsy as bamboo
The pacing sucks, the sound mix too.
The editor’s an absentee
Kill me!

Let them know!
Let them know!
Bong Joon-Ho made this while high

Let them know!
Let them know!
There can be only one reply

Lock it up
Throw the key away
Ship it to Iran…


The bad guys sound like stupid versions of Ayn Rand
They watch their soldiers slaughtered all while screaming “Just as planned!”
The critics think this challenges our sense of Class.
They mean this earnestly. They all can kiss my ass!

Let them know!
Let them know!
It’s like watching the second Tron.

Let them know!
Let them know!
The whole film’s a monstrous con.

I’ve had more
Fun with Michael Bay!
You can mark my words
If this wins awards there’ll be hell to pay.





4: Gone Girl

Misogyny
(Sung to “Paparazzi”)


It drew in a crowd
And the critics were loud
Got an A+ review
So what else could I do?
Paid the ticket price
Hoping to see something nice.

Affleck and Pike
Were as good as I’ve seen
Even managed to like
Tyler freaking Perry
It looked awful nice
Calculated to entice
Pulled the wool over my eyes


Would have been a fan, but then you pulled this bullshit on me:
Raving misogyny!
Every single woman in the film is batshit crazy
Raving misogyny!

I might not even mind
But when the men are saints, I draw the line
Faking rape and framing men for murder: oh how edgy!
Raving misogyny!


Bitch-Selfie-Girl
And the newswoman shrew
Psychotic in-laws
What’s a poor man to do
But find jail-bait
Cause Affleck’s just too nice to hate

The media’s dumb
As I’d never have guessed
And they make his life hell
As do all of the rest
Of the imbeciles
Hypocrites with brittle smiles
And then there’s the psycho wife!


Masterwork of acting wasted on this bullshit hackneyed
Raving Misogyny!
This movie’s so bad, it reads like MRA fantasy
Raving Misogyny!

You’d have to be blind
To not see what this movie has in mind
It’s enough to get me talking about patriarchy!
Raving Misogyny!


This script reads like AM radio
Yet critics performed felatio
Called it - 'second to none'
Some even ranked it number one!

I’m not sure this film is bad so much as makes me angry
Raving Misogyny!
I can’t praise a film where every woman is a harpy
Raving Misogyny!

The one girl who is fine
Gets promoted to guy and told to whine
I don’t go to films so 4-chan can get dropped upon me
Raving Misogyny!






3: The Judge

Don't See The Judge
(Sung to “The Mob Song”)


You’re not safe while this film plays
It will stalk you in the night
Set to rend your brain to putty like a flesh-consuming blight
It’s a film whose very presence gives you Hepatitis B
So it’s time to listen to my blog, it’s time... for... you... to... flee!

In the dark, in the night, in the basement of a studio
The writers had an orgy with Cliches

In their lair, of despair, they wrote teenage-level screenplays
Filled with symbolism they thought would amaze

It’s The Judge! It’s a film, made of stupid
One that smashes your brain to a smudge

Hear the audience groan
As they whine, bitch and moan
Till they’re dead! Good and dead! Don’t see The Judge!


“No! I won’t let you make Duvall look this bad!”

“You just don’t understand art! Lock up all the negative critics! We can’t have them running off to warn the audience, now can we?”

“Let us out! And stop casting Vincent D’onofrio!”

“We’ll draw the audience in with Robert Downey Jr! Who’s with me?!”


Find a rock, catch a plane
Keep away from any movie house
That dares to play this awful pile of shit

Run and hide, pray to God
Hope the trailers never find you
If you have to stoop to arson, we’ll acquit

It’s a film twice as bad as The Eagle
Filled with trope-laden hack-written sludge

Heed my words, do not go
Or you shall, come to know
Just how much a film can blow


“We’ll blind the critics with symbolism and rake in the box office receipts!!!”

“No! I have to warn the viewers! This is all my fault! I praised Wedding Crashers and now Dobkin’s gone completely mad!”


I don’t like, when a film
Treats me like a mental patient
One that shits on me and tells me that it’s fudge

All the trailers were lies
And if I ever see these guys
I’ll re-enact Lord of the Flies!
Don’t see The Judge!


“I knew it… I knew it was foolish to get my hopes up. It would have been better if Duvall had retired after Crazy Heart.

“My god, this film is awful! Embarrassing! And they wasted Billy-Bob Thornton! Warn the audience! If it’s crap like this they release, then I’ll give them a piece of my mind! Who’s with me?!”

“Write whatever crappy dialogue you like, but remember, MORE SYMBOLISM!!!”

I will not stand aside
While they peddle films this rancid
Call me crazy or just say I’ve got a grudge

It’s the same, tired song
And it’s two hours too long
A film where everything went wrong!
Don’t see The Judge!






2: The Railway Man

I Will Make Railway Man Just For You
(Sung to “I’ll Make a Man out of You”)

Let’s get down to business
To distort the truth
Make the Killing Fields
As done by, Don Bluth

It’s the saddest script I’ve ever read
But you can bet before we’re through
I will make, Railway Man, just for you.

Saccharine as soda
And no truth within
Lure them with the trailer
And we’re sure to win

We’re a spineless, hack, pathetic lot
And we haven’t got a clue
But we’ll make, Railway Man, just for you.

The writers don’t know what to do
Just a pair of guys who blew me
Now they wrote me up a script that’s dull as sin

The audience is half-asleep
Already demanding refunds
Box office receipts are starting to look grim

(The Railway Man!)
Our history just will not deliver

(The Railway Man!)
It makes the characters great buffoons.

(The Railway Man!)
We watered down everything that happened
You’ll find better acting with Rocket Raccoon!

The critics are all coming
Soon they will arrive
Can’t we pay them all off?
So we might survive?

All we did was buy cocaine and whores
With this flop, we might be through
Cause we made, Railway Man, just for you


(The Railway Man!)
Who knew this film would make critics shiver?

(The Railway Man!)
We thought the subject made us immune

(The Railway Man!)
This movie wasted Firth and Sanada
It could have been written by drunk, stoned, baboons.


(The Railway Man!)
We promised things that we can’t deliver

(The Railway Man!)
We wrote this script in an afternoon

(The Railway Man!)
We couldn’t handle a god damn war crime
There’s been better plots in Daffy Duck cartoons!






And the number one worst movie of 2014 is...








1: Under the Skin

Hellfire
(Sung to “Hellfire”)

Oh great Roger Ebert
You know I am an Indie fan
Of my ventures I am justly proud

Et tibit pater

Oh great Roger Ebert
You know my tastes are better than
The common vulgar weak licentious crowd

Quia peccavi nimis

Then tell me, oh Ebert
Why I saw this horrid film
Why ScarJo did scarify my soul?

Cogitatione

Not film but, a war crime
the editors were barely there
the run-time spiraled out of all control!

Like fire
Hellfire
Why did I sit therein?
There’s no plot
Or acting
It was UNDER THE SKIN!

Its not my fault (Mea culpa!)
I’m not to blame (Mea culpa!)
Its that Johansson girl. Avengers set the stage (Mea maxima culpa!)

Its not my fault (Mea culpa!)
T’was casting’s plan (Mea culpa!)
They made me hope so much, I paid the ticket maaaaaaaan!

Protect me, Oh Ebert!
Please tell me that my cellphone works
Don’t let time stop and imprison me here
Destroy John Glazer!
And let him make Asylum Films!
Or else annihilate his whole career.

“My General, the reports are in, the critics loved it.”
“What?!”
“They called it absorbing and mesmerizing. Said they wanted to cheer. Best film of the Venice festival!”
“But… but how? It… Never mind. Get out, you sycophant! I’ll show them! I’ll show them all if I have to incinerate Great Britain and hang Glazer from Big Ben!!”

Hellfire!
Dark Fire!
Please say it can begin!
Send me to
The pyre
Just not Under The Skin

(Kyrie Eleison)
Have no mercy on him
(Kyrie Eleison)
Save your mercy for me

I do not fear Hell
I fear
this
film!!!!!

Thank you, everyone, for reading along with this lunatic project.  I hope you've found something useful over the course of these reviews, and that just maybe I've been able to provide a bit of amusement here and there.  Next week, we'll start the process all over again for another year at the movies, a year of Star Wars, Avengers, of Indie darlings and thunderous disappointments.  Another year full of promise and hidden danger.  Another year of the movies.

I'll see you all there.

Into the Woods

Alternate Title:  The Things I do for Meryl

One sentence synopsis:    Multiple classic fairy tales take place simultaneously within a fantasy forest.


Things Havoc liked:  I'm on record as stating that Meryl Streep is the greatest actor in the world, and she is, indeed she's been the greatest actor in the world since the early 80s. I am also however on record as stating that because of this, I am willing to see any movie that Meryl Streep finds herself in. And that, as it turns out, is a dangerous statement to make, because Meryl Streep makes all sorts of movies, many of which I would otherwise have no interest in whatsoever. And while she is the greatest actor alive, it does not follow that all her films are masterpieces. The Homesman for instance only had her in it for all of about three minutes, and while she wasn't the reason I went to see that movie, she has been the reason I've gone to see such pieces of cinematic masterwork as The River Wild, Lions for Lambs, or The Hours. As such, I always get a bit nervous when Streep comes to my local cinema, as she does with regularity some two to four times yearly. And this time she not only arrives, but marches in under the banner of the Unholy Mouse. Gods preserve us.

Into the Woods, based on a Sondheim musical I've contrived mightily to miss, is essentially Disney combining thirty-odd years of its animated output into one live-action musical. Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and no doubt a bunch of other stories I know nothing about, all rolled up into one semi-deconstructed omni-fairy-tale. All set to a typical Sondheim-style score, a style that basically consists of re-writing West Side Story with different lyrics and a key change or two.

Okay, I'm kidding. Sondheim is just not my thing usually, but there's nothing wrong with a musical done well. Not that there's that many examples of that in the last twenty years, but if one were to start, it would not be a bad idea to start with Streep, who in addition to being the finest actor in the world, has a rock solid background in musical film and theater. Here she plays the ubiquitous Wicked Witch of half the fairy tales that have ever existed, not quite as wicked but as a jaded, cynical Greek Chorus sort of thing, singing at length about how stupid, venal, greedy, and generally awful our main characters are. Streep is entertaining in this film, in a sort of easy, Nicholas Cage-crazed sort of way (wound down for a PG rating of course), strutting about perpetually frustrated by the incompetence of the characters around her. A clever running gag involves her setting a difficult task for two young would-be parents to shatter a curse she has placed on them, only to wind up having to practically drag the hapless protagonists through the forest just to keep them on the right track. But her main role in the film is to introduce us to the deconstructive element at work here...

... sort of. Into the Woods isn't really a straight re-telling of the various classic fairy tales of yesteryear, but neither is it really a deconstruction. The characters roaming through these incredibly crowded woods aren't really self-aware about their situation, but neither are they content to simply follow the formula from start to finish, if only because all of the assorted chaos that comes with hurling Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and several more I know nothing about together at the same time. This chaos works better for some than others. Chris Pine's (Kirk from New-Trek) Prince Charming is a ludicrous pastiche of boring hero archetypes in these sorts of stories, particularly during a standout song alongside Billy Magnussen (Prince Charming... 2?), where they compete to see who can employ more melodrama to describe the heartache they feel at having fallen in love with their respective princesses in all of nine seconds. A sequence later on when he tries to seduce the Baker's Wife (just roll with it), he excuses with a shrug over the fact that he's "supposed to be charming, not sincere". Speaking of Blunt, who is fast becoming one of my favorite recent actresses, she too does fine with the material at hand, not an easy thing when the script periodically calls for you to burst into song to narrate your own feelings. Similar plaudits go to Anna Kendrick, of Twilight (*shudder*) and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It turns out that Kendrick has a beautiful singing voice, which she demonstrates quite well across the film. Finally, there's a handful of other, smaller roles that go to actors I'm always glad to see, among them Tracy Ulman (Robin Hood: Men in Tights) as Jack (of the Beanstalk)'s long-suffering mother, played as only Tracy Ulman plays irascible frazzled woman. Joanna Riding meanwhile, a stage actress I've seen in a handful of places, takes an almost ghoulish turn with Cinderella's mother, unhesitatingly chopping her daughters' feet to pieces to make them fit into the famous slipper, only to have her eyes pecked out by a flight of birds.

You know, for kids!

Things Havoc disliked:  This may sound like a bit of a strange thing to complain about, but there's an awful lot of death in this movie.

Yes, I know the original fairy tales had a lot of death, and no, I'm not usually against spicing up a fairy tale with a bit of killing, but there's ways to do death in musicals like this, or in movies in general, and this isn't it. The film treats its plot like a throwaway concept, irrelevant as it is in most musicals and fairy tales, until all of a sudden it turns out we were supposed to be paying attention as characters die offscreen, seemingly at random. I don't mind that the deaths aren't shown, it's a kids film from Disney, this is how it goes. I mind that the deaths come out of nowhere, and are so well hidden that there are a number of characters I did not realize were dead until I looked the synopsis at home preparatory to writing this review. I spent half the movie wondering when certain characters were going to come back to sing anew, only to gradually realize that they were gone for good. This wasn't helped by the characters barely reacting to most of the attendant deaths.

But I get it, you don't go to a movie like this for the edgy plot, you go for whimsy and for the singing. But unfortunately not all of either is up to snuff. The singing across the board is... uneven. Part of the problem is the child actors, unknowns Lilla Crawford and Daniel Huttlestone, who simply are not up to the task of singing alongside Blint or Streep, being respectively flat and generally off-key. I hate to pick on kids, but there's a seeming infinity of excellent child actors in Hollywood nowadays, and why you would select these two and then give them 40% of the songs in the film, is entirely beyond me. Worse yet is Johnny Depp, yes Johnny Depp, who shows up early on in the film playing the Big Bad Wolf (because of course he'd find something weird to play), gets a single song with Little Red Riding Hood filled with weirdly pedophilic undertones, and then disappears for the rest of the movie. Depp has not had a great run of things for the last decade or so, but this is almost insulting, effectively a cameo, and one that lacks quality. Depp hams it up like he's trying to seduce the scenery, and it's no great loss when Red Riding Hood winds up skinning him and wearing him as a hat.

Final thoughts:   Ultimately, Into the Woods is a very ephemeral film, in that it's not so much that it does anything wrong, that it does nothing really outstandingly right either. Perhaps the movie just wasn't made for me, or some ineffable quality of the musical it was based on simply failed to make the transition, but while the movie was diverting enough, it wasn't anything I'm going to remember on through the years. Frankly, with a live-action Cinderella coming out later this spring, I'm surprised this film was made at all, but then I suppose the need to push out something at Christmas to compete with the Annie remake triumphed over all.

Can't let Columbia ruin the holidays, after all.

Final Score:  5.5/10

Next Time:  China's latest action movie.