Martin's Musings

When I went to see Happy Feet the other day, it reminded me of my idea that movie theaters should reserve one screening each day of new animated movies for adults only.

I’m not saying kids can’t see the movie. I’m just saying, let there be one screening every day where kids — admittedly, the movies’ target audience — aren’t getting up at inopportune times, aren’t laughing at the “wrong” places, aren’t being restless and aren’t talking, and where the parents don’t show up with their brood right as the movie starts (after the trailers) and aren’t rushing out as soon as the movie is over (before the credits have even started). Continue reading →

Cross March of the Penguins with Moulin Rouge and you get Happy Feet, a movie that’s not as good as either one, but still has its pleasures. The story of Mumbles, a penguin who doesn’t fit in with the other penguins because he can’t sing, and instead of waddling he tap dances. Like in Moulin Rouge, the characters burst out in song anachronistically — they sing everything from Queen’s “Somebody to Love” to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” with a Beach Boys tune, a Prince song, and others thrown in for good measure — and for a while, this is kinda fun to watch. Eventually, though, Happy Feet turns from a cute little penguin movie to an environmental call for action and the last 10 minutes or so don’t make much sense (all things considered). Still, even though the movie doesn’t reach the zany heights that the trailer promised, it’s hard to deny that Happy Feet isn’t one of the coolest looking movies of the year. The snowy landscapes, the penguins dancing — it’s all rendered in very life-like fashion, in bright colors and with plenty of sweeping wide shots so you can take it all in. I’ve been looking forward to this movie for quite some time, and while the movie didn’t quite live up to my expectations, it was an enjoyable 90 minutes. So for that, I’ll give Happy Feet a B.

Robert Kennedy was a great man, and likely would have been a great president. Alas, when he was shot on June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning the California primary, the world lost one of its great hopes for leadership. This is the message Bobby is trying to put across (not that I disagree with it), in a film meant to pay tribute to all that was lost on that tragic June day.

I think.

You see, Bobby is instead a rather pointless film about what was happening at the hotel the day Kennedy was shot. And in dramatizing that story, and showing the various people milling around, the film loses sight of its apparent purpose and instead becomes an ensemble piece about all these random, unrelated people, and not the man itself. In fact, perhaps writer/director Emilio Estevez should have called his movie Ambassador because it’s more a tribute to the hotel than the man. But even that’s not very good. Really, he’s made a bit of a mess with so many actors doing ther best to deliver Very Important Speeches and give Very Important Performances. And it’s just too cluttered to have much impact (one need look no further than Ashton Kutcher’s distracting, ill-fitting performance for proof).

Not that some in the ensemble don’t acquit themselves well. Sharon Stone, for one, gives a nice, understated performance. Freddy Rodriguez and Martin Sheen also do good work. And Anthony Hopkins and Laurence Fishburne imbue the film with gravitas, even if their roles are complete cliches. But Kutcher, Lindsay Lohan, Demi Moore, and others make Bobby feel like a very special, very serious, political episode of The Love Boat, or something silly like that.

I wish Bobby was actually about Bobby, and about how much he meant to people and how much we lost when we lost him. There’s evidence in a few scenes that Estevez might have done a nice job on that film if that was the direction he took. But things don’t always go as planned, and that’s why I have to give Bobby a C.

What a let-down.

For Your Consideration had all the makings of a great Hollywood self-parody, but it falls a bit short of that. In fact, it’s safe to say that many of the film’s best laughs can be seen in the trailer.

Granted, the scenes from Home for Purim, the film these characters are working on, are pretty funny. And Fred Willard, Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Parker Posey, and Catherine O’Hara are all really good. But the trademark Christopher Guest, et al hilarity is replaced by sadness and disappointment here (and there’s an actual plot, miniscule though it may be), and that prevents the film from reaching the comic heights of A Mighty Wind and other films they’ve done. Continue reading →

When Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks told the crowd at a 2003 concert in London that she was ashamed President Bush was from Texas, little did she know the firestorm she would create and the effect that off-hand remark would have on the group’s career. The consequences are documented in Shut Up and Sing, a film that allows viewers to see how the Chicks didn’t whither under the criticism, and how instead, all the negativity directed toward them made the group stronger.

Shut Up & Sing doesn’t appear to have any purpose or agenda other than to show how the Chicks’ concerts, radio play, and next album were affected by Maines’ joke. Sure, that in itself gives the film a point-of-view, and Maines’ unapologetic nature is refreshing to see, given that most of what is fed to the public by actors, singers, etc. is usually meant to be politically correct and audience-pleasing. When country radio turns its back on the Chicks, Maines basically says, “screw ’em.” And when George Bush mocks the Chicks in an interview by saying they shouldn’t have their feelings hurt, she calls him a “dumb fuck.” But without the hindsight commentary present in many other documentaries, which would provide insight into what was happening, this allows the viewer to just go along for the ride and be a fly on the wall during the fallout.

It’s clear that the Chicks didn’t buckle under the pressure, and with songs on their latest CD including “Not Ready to Make Nice,” we know they’re not backing down from what Maines said. And the film makes clear that while she is the vocal center of the trio, garnering most of the attention, the group’s other two members (Martie Maguire and Emily Robison) stand by her 100 percent. The Dixie Chicks are a partnership, a sisterhood, and a group to be respected for the way they handled themselves under the circumstances.

It’s safe to say Shut Up & Sing won’t be liked by those who don’t already like the group, or by those who support George Bush, but it’s an enjoyable look behind-the-scenes at just one group that was caught in the crosshairs of the political cultural wars of the last four years. I give it a B+.

Believe it or not, of all the movies I’ve seen over the years, I’ve never seen a James Bond movie.

So perhaps it’s appropriate that the first one I did see was Casino Royale, which ostensibly reboots the franchise as if the other films had never happened.

Here we see a still-raw Bond’s first kills (which earned him double-oh status), how he won his first Aston Martin car in a poker game, and how he learned not to trust anyone.

Thankfully, the film doesn’t play like an origin story or make such things cute; rather, these elements are simply part of the story at hand, and only have significance because we (or rather, longtime Bond fans) know what they mean to the character. Continue reading →

Stranger than Fiction is a fine, pleasant movie.

I wasn’t blown away, but I wasn’t bored either.

It’s good, but I would see other current releases first.

I’m giving it a B (for very brief review).

The Prestige is one of those movies with a hyped-up ending that doesn’t live up to the hype.

And that, I suppose, is “the prestige” of this review.

Otherwise, as far as the movie itself is concerned, “the pledge” and “the turn” are quite good (and overall, it’s much more enjoyable than that other magic movie, The Illusionist).

Director Christopher Nolan (who wrote the screenplay with his brother, Jonathan — just like they did for Memento) keeps the story moving, with some decent twists and turns, and building to what should be an exciting climax.

Both Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, as rival magicians, are good, as are Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson. (And of course, Bale, Caine, and Nolan all worked together on Batman Begins, while Jackman and Johansson were both in Scoop.)

I suppose what ultimately kills The Prestige is the fact that it’s a movie about figuring out the “magic” behind the tricks. And when the secret is either predictable or not terribly interesting — or both — then you wish the illusionist had just stuck to the trick and not shown the reveal.

I’m giving this movie a B+ for “the pledge” and “the turn,” but a B- for “the prestige” — an average grade of a B.

You know how much I love the new movie Borat. Well, now you can see for yourself what all the fuss is about. The first four minutes of the movie have been posted (legally) on YouTube. Check it out.

Many will call Flags of Our Fathers Clint Eastwood’s Saving Private Ryan. And they will be wrong, because Saving Private Ryan is the better movie. This film, the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima and the soldiers who were celebrated for having appeared in the famous flag-raising photo, means to seriously question the definition of the word “hero” and to criticize the government machine that creates stories in the name of national unity and support of the war. On those counts, the film generally succeeds; it’s hard not to think of the current war and people like Jessica Lynch. The film even opens by saying how the country’s support of the war was on the wane and people were getting more cynical. Sounds familiar.

But as storytelling, I found the film lacking. Flags is based on the book by James Bradley and Ron Powers about Bradley’s father. But instead of Bradley narrating the whole movie, there are multiple narrators, a device that initially throws you off to who is telling the story. And in fact, that Bradley is writing a book is never really made clear. There’s a jump in plot and all of a sudden he’s speaking with various veterans. And then about three-quarters of the way in, he becomes the narrator. Also, I usually don’t mind when the story moves around in time. Heck, the TV show Lost does it in every episode. Here, however, the movie jumps from one time period to another and then to another, and that takes away from the impact Eastwood wants to make. I always sort of felt like I didn’t know what was going on because there were things left unfinished. The first five minutes or so, with Doc Bradley’s heart attack, are especially confusing. It’s unclear why it’s being shown at all. But more importantly, I just didn’t feel like the three main characters were fleshed out enough. As a result, they’re not compelling. I get the symbolism of the faceless soldiers in the picture, and how they could be anyone, but these three guys needed more of an identity for this movie to really work.

Maybe I’m not making sense here. I just found Flags, ahem, not all it could be. I’m giving it a B.