Open Letters Monthly: Monsters University

Despite a few missteps the past few years, Pixar is still known as one of the most creative studios in Hollywood today. They just released their fourteenth feature film in Monsters University, a cross between their classic Monsters, Inc and an 80's screwball college movie. Will it be good enough to take your kids to, let alone win another Best Animated Feature award for its parent company?

Before they became the top team at power company Monsters, Inc, Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan were college rivals, both trying to become the top Scarers at their college, MU. But when their rivalry gets out of hand, getting them banned from following the major, the pair are forced to work together. Teaming up with a group of misfit monsters, they enter a competition to prove that they are the scariest group on campus. But will Mike and Sully stop fighting each other long enough to focus on winning and follow their dreams?

Monsters University is directed by Dan Scanlon and features the voices of Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Joel Murray, Sean Hayes, Dave Foley, Peter Sohn, Charlie Day, Nathan Fillion and Helen Mirren.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.

Open Letters Monthly: The Internship

With The Wedding Crashers still popular after almost eight years, filmmakers decided that the Vaughn/Wilson paradigm wasn't done cranking out big money for the industry. Well, turns out they were wrong, but while Google commercial The Internship is no box office juggernaut, it's still a somewhat enjoyable comedy that makes good use not just of it's main two stars, but the bevy of supporting actors helping out.

When watch salesmen Billy and Nick lose their jobs due to the world's increasing internet literacy, it seems their hopes and dreams go with them. But they find themselves with a second chance when the pair succeed at joining an internship program at Google. Now they find themselves in an extremely competetive environment against a hundred or so college hopefuls with only a handful of guaranteed jobs available when all is said and done. Teamed up with a likely band of misfits, and possessing no computer skills whatsoever, Billy and Nick will have to work harder than they ever have before so that they can succeed in grabbing their dreams.

The Internship is directed by Shawn Levy and stars Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne, Max Minghella, John Goodman, Jessica Szohr, Dylan O'Brien, Josh Brener, Tobit Raphael, Tiya Sircar, Aasif Mandvi, and Josh Gad.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.

Drunk with Power

Oh, if only I could somehow get those two hours back. The Hangover: Part III was released this Memorial Day weekend, and the final tale from the series that put Todd Phillips on par with Judd Apatow in terms of pure cinema raunchiness finally comes to an end, and it's an ignoble one that should have occurred back in 2009 with the closing credits of the first Hangover. Phillips up to that point had made a B-List career from his crude comedies, especially Road Trip and Old School. He was a director able to tap into that coveted 18-49 male audience with practiced ease. The Hangover proved not only to be an audacious comedy (it was certainly unique, if perhaps a bit overrated), and a star-making one at that. Besides Phillips, the movie proved to be a launching point for then-middling actors Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong and especially Zach Galifianakis. But The Hangover Part II was a mess, missing most of the charm that the first film so enjoyable. Still, it was a big fat success, and so Part III was all but guaranteed, and with a restructured story (no more memory loss) and a promise that it would be the most outrageous finale to date, it should have been at least worth a look.

Nobody needs that many sheets.

In this reunion of sorts, "Wolfpack" members Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha) come together to help the disturbed manchild Alan (Galifianakis), who has unraveled even more after stopping his medication and in the aftermath of his father's death. The four men are making their way to a rehabilitation center for him when they are waylaid by ruthless gangster Marshall (John Goodman), from whom Lesley Chow (Jeong) stole $21 million in gold. Kidnapping Doug as collateral, Marshall demands that the remaining Wolfpack members find and apprehend Chow by any means necessary, and recover his gold in the process. If they cannot capture him within three days, Doug is history. But of course, with this group, nothing ever goes as planned. And when it comes to Chow, anything and everything is possible.

Jeffrey Tambor can never, ever smile.

Unfortunately, despite the insanity that is usually associated with this franchise, Part III makes Part II look like vintage Bill Cosby. Never mind the fact that most of the jokes here just aren't funny, but even the situations the trio find themselves in lack oomph. The first two Hangover movies featured Mike Tyson's tiger, a baby with sunglasses, transsexual prostitutes, and Mike Tyson. The most this sequel can muster is a decapitated giraffe, and that's the opening scene. The actors also look bored, sticking to their predetermined roles of straight guy, freaking-out guy and whack-job with minimal effort. Galifianakis' malaise in particular is disappointing, as Alan's zaniness is probably the main reason there are three Hangovers instead of just one. John Goodman is certainly a talented actor, but his character is too bland, and it seems like he was cast just to bring a strong presence to the movie (incidentally, the same role Paul Giamatti had in Part II). Melissa McCarthy is also grossly misused, as her crass, completely unlikeable character tries to undo all the goodwill she's gained from Bridesmaids and Identity Thief. Only the scenes with Ken Jeong's Chow are anything approaching quality, and that's because Jeong is the only cast member who seems to care that people are paying to see him put on a show. His crazy stunts almost manages to make up for the rampant stupidity of the film. Almost.

Oh, why, why are you doing this?

See, while The Hangover: Part III's best scenes are those featuring snippets from the original (best moment: the reunion of Alan and the baby - now toddler - in sunglasses), those are the times when Phillips seems to lose his focus and relapse into the coolness that this whole thing started with. In Part III, the movie takes itself FAR too seriously, committing far too much to the violence and not enough to the insanity that was the director's pedigree. A perfect example of this is the forced evolution of Alan; why do we need to see Alan become a different person? Sure, he's a halfwit moron with little redeeming value, but that's how we like him. The idea that Alan had to change in order to provide some sort of "closure" to the trilogy is the kind of misguided idea directors like to try when they think they're getting your money regardless. There are many other scenes that wouldn't feel out of place in the humorless context of modern action films or even serious dramas, as the writers obviously had a difficult time adjusting to the concept that many people were already tired of The Hangover's act. Still, their comedy is even darker than usual, to the point where it has barely an inkling of commonality with the first two movies.

Policeman of the year.

I have to give Phillips and his crew a little credit: with an almost guaranteed blockbuster on their hands, they refused to go the safe route and make an identical, certainly tiresome finale for their Hangover franchise. It's just too bad they don't know how to make anything else. The Hangover: Part III is arguably the worst movie this year. It's not funny, it's not exciting, and it completely disregards everything that made the original Hangover a treat for the senses. The good news is that we won't be seeing any more of this trash, at least not for the foreseeable future. The bad news is that it exists at all, and puts the final nail in the coffin of a once-robust film legacy. Apparently, it needed more Mike Tyson. Or at least his tiger.

Fly the Friendly Skies

For over twenty years, Denzel Washington has been among the best actors in Hollywood, and for good reason. Cry Freedom; Glory; Malcolm X; Philadelphia; Crimson Tide; Courage Under Fire; The Preacher's Wife; Devil in a Blue Dress; The Hurricane; Remember the Titans; Training Day; Antwone Fisher; American Gangster; The Great Debaters; The Book of Eli; Safe House; if that list seems like a random mishmash of titles, it's because Washington seems perfectly at home whether he's playing a military man in an action thriller or a blue collar detective in a noire mystery or an angel in a romantic fantasy. That he will be remembered as one of the premiere black actors is almost a shame; his talent crosses color barriers, and hopefully history won't remember him as "just" a black actor but a wonderful performer overall. Sure, he's seen his share of mediocre movies (seriously, what actor doesn't have a list of embarrassments?), but he always manages to bring his "A" game to whatever project he's on, and raises the quality of the film by sheer force of will. That's certainly the case with Flight, which also has the distinction of being the first live-action film directed by Robert Zemeckis in over a decade.

"Not sure that's quite enough flattery"

William "Whip" Whitaker (Washington) is a veteran commercial airline pilot making a routine flight from Orlando to Atlanta when the plane he is captaining suddenly fails and goes into a dive with 106 people aboard. Through sheer skill and a just little luck, Whitaker manages to crash-land the plane and save most of the people aboard, proving himself a real American hero. But Whitaker has a problem; he's an alcoholic, and not only drank and did drugs in excess in the days leading up to the incident, but during the doomed flight itself as well. Alone that issue would be worth five years in jail, but with the crash suffering some fatalities, his problems might mean life in prison for the troubled aviator.

The movie that will make people stay at home this holiday season.

With an estimated 140 million people worldwide suffering some form of alcoholism, Flight makes itself much more accessible a tale of mental sickness than last year's Shame, which focused on much-disregarded sexual addiction. But while that NC-17 title brought a host of unique imagery in to tell its story, Zemeckis doesn't do nearly as well in Flight, which often gives us cliche and stereotypical ideas and characters in lieu of anything approaching actual feeling. I do have to give the director and screenwriter John Gatins some credit; Whip is an unrepentant jerk with an ego the size of Manhattan, and the filmmakers don't go out of their way to turn him into a saint or a misunderstood savant. They go out of their way to treat the disease of alcoholism with respect and honesty. But while it might be wholly realistic for such a stricken man to constantly renounce his problem and throw all the liquor in the house away only to buy it all back later, the scene becomes less tragic and more superfluous the more you show it on screen. Zemeckis obviously feels more at home in Uncanny Valley (it's ironic he's getting out of the 3D animation game just as it's really getting good) and doesn't have the same feel for real living actors as he did in the days of the Back to the Future trilogy, Forest Gump or even Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

"No more questions about Training Day, please."

But while Washington is partially sabotaged by his creative team, he responds by putting on one of his most impressive performances in years. As I stated before, Washington is simply one of the best, and you can see him undergoing this emotional roller coaster with each new scene, as one by one Whip alienates and shrugs off the advice and help offered by his friends and compatriots, including the (somewhat shoehorned) romance with a recovering drug addict (a surprisingly strong Kelly Reilly). But while Washington excels, the script wastes a vast ensemble cast that includes Reilly, John Goodman, Tamara Tunie, Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, Brian Geraghty, Melissa Leo and an absolutely wonderful early scene by James Badge Dale. I don't know if this was a conscious decision, but the film insists on being all about Whip and only Whip, brushing aside the potentially interesting characters and extremely talented actors to the wings.

Cue rock anthem... now.

While he does his best to overcome overwrought material, Washington still can't make a mediocre Flight the Oscar favorite that many reviewers are calling it. He is still one of the best performers in Hollywood, and one of the few black men who can producers feel comfortable headlining a major motion picture without saddling him alongside a bigger white star. You can also look forward to seeing him nominated for another Academy Award this year, as both his work here and a dearth of sufficiently high-caliber performances this year all but guarantees him a nomination alongside Lincoln's Daniel Day Lewis and The Sessions' John Hawkes. I also wasn't bored with one minute of the two-plus hour film, so if you're okay with watching Washington commanding the screen with his usual panache for 139 minutes, then you might consider taking a flier on this one. Washington's too good an actor to make a really  BAD movie, but there's still better fare out that you can enjoy more.

Open Letters Monthly: Argo

Ben Affleck has become a renowned Hollywood director thanks to contributions from his hometown, specifically the Boston-based crime dramas Gone Baby Gone and The Town. But while Boston has done a lot for Affleck, he needed to take a step away from the overly familiar backdrop and tackle something completely out of his comfort zone.

Enter Argo, a very real Hollywood film about a very fake Hollywood sci-fi flick that entered production as a CIA cover story. At the height of the Iran hostage crisis, six American diplomats manage to escape the hostile takeover of the American embassy and find shelter at the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor. While they are temporarily safe, there seems to be no way to smuggle them out out of the country to safety, and the Iranian students are quickly becoming aware that they have not captured every diplomat in the country. It's up to one CIA specialist to convince an entire country that the six people are a Canadian film crew, and get them on a plane out of there.

Argo is directed by Ben Affleck and stars Affleck, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina, Victor Garber, Clea DuVall, Tate Donovan and Scoot McNairy.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.

"Trouble" with the Curve

You see what I did there? How I used quotation marks to emphasize the one word in the title of the movie that actually describes its execution? Wasn't that clever? What? It wasn't? Well, Clint Eastwood has made a career out of making similar unsubtle statements in his films he directs. No, it hasn't always been a deal killer; he has built movies wonderful (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby), awful (Letters from Iwo Jima, Hereafter) and everywhere in between (Mystic River, J. Edgar). But anyone who contends that he is a great director has obviously been swayed by his long acting career and forgiven many of the cliched storytelling elements he includes in his pictures, ones that most truly talented filmmakers would never use in this day and age.

I was worried at first that this style would be the problem with Trouble with the Curve, which is also Eastwood's first acting gig since people say he was snubbed for a Best Actor nomination in 2008's Gran Torino. Surprisingly, while there are a few cliched moments (parent releasing child's hand to show abandonment, a few lingering shots expressing a character's loneliness), Trouble was not the technical abomination I had been expecting. I found out in the closing credits for the reason for this; turns out the film wasn't directed by Eastwood at all. Instead it was filmed by Robert Lorenz, who had been an assistant director on over twenty films. While Lorenz certainly learned a bit from working with Eastwood on Bloodwork, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, it's obvious he also developed his style from working with other directors, making for a thankfully more adept movie than I was expecting.

Timberlake gets directing tips from Eastwood.

It's a shame that my expectations had been so low, as a movie featuring baseball, Eastwood, Amy Adams and BASEBALL should have been one of my more highly expected theatrical releases. It was, but more for potential than what I actually thought I would see. Eastwood plays longtime baseball scout Gus Lobel; an employee of the Atlanta Braves, Gus is as old-fashioned a talent scout as you can get, completely eschewing the modern computer age and relying exclusively on what he can see in a player. This hasn't endeared him to his superiors in Atlanta, who want him to check out a highly-touted player in the Carolinas as their potential top pick in the upcoming draft. The expectation is that if Gus fails, they can simply let his swiftly-expiring contract run out. When his longtime friend and superior Pete (John Goodman) worries about his diminishing health, he calls Gus' daughter Mickey (Adams) to join him to see if there is anything she can do. With relations already strained between Gus and Mickey, all they can do try to communicate with one another while bonding over the one thing they both seem to love; baseball.

"OMG JT is SOOO HOT"

Unfortunately, just because it's not directed by its star doesn't mean that it's automatically better. This is the first ever published screenplay by Randy Brown, and it definitely shows in the overly-simple rendition of what should be deep emotional themes. There doesn't seem to be any consistency in the routes the characters take, with the relationship between Gus and Mickey especially jumpy in between scenes. One scene they seem fine, the next they're at each others' throats. There are reasons for that, and the film does its best to lay them all out, but I never felt as though any middle ground between those two points was explored. Adams is nevertheless wonderful, her naturally bubbly persona taking a backseat to a serious, dramatic side that gets her attention and awards. Eastwood however tends to rest on his laurels, with only a few scenes making him reach as a performer. His role is fine, as is that of Justin Timberlake as a former player turned scout (turned love interest for Mickey) for the Boston Red Sox, but both are limited to performances that are high on levity and short on storytelling.

Standing around waiting for something to happen; just like the real game!

Worse is the cliched junk that seems tossed in as filler. Of COURSE there's an "evil scout" who relies solely on computer data (Matthew Lillard) who actually seems to want Gus fired. Of COURSE the player Gus is asked to scout is a complete asshole. Of COURSE he has a fatal flaw which is not apparent at the college level but that Gus knows will prevent him from being successful in the big leagues. Of COURSE the answer to everyone's dreams is telegraphed a mile away. Of COURSE Gus is losing the ONE THING (his eyesight) which would prevent him from excelling at his job. Of COURSE they use a Dirty Harry scene for a flashback. Okay, that last one was a bit out of left field. The point is that for every decent or genuinely good thing Trouble pitches us, it lobs more than a few stinkers that undermine the quality of the film. A script rewrite should have been in order, and the lack of one indicates that Eastwood was more in charge than we were led to believe.

"Wait, he gave us a bad review?"

Trouble with the Curve came out with a LOT of potential. Baseball may not be that popular sport, but it has inspired more great stories in film and print than just about any other game, even the all-powerful sport of football. For a baseball story to appear so hollow and disingenuous is certainly a disappointment, especially when it gathers such a solid blend of acting talent as its foundation. Still, Curve disappoints, especially considering its fighting the scout/computer battle has been more or less settled in the years following the publication of Moneyball. Like Eastwood, Curve is a story out of time, not exactly sure where we are today, and both scared and angry about it.

Movie Monday: ParaNorman

Looking for the best animated film of the year? Look no further than ParNorman, the latest stop-motion picture by Laika, the company behind Coraline. In fact, this is the #4 movie for 2012, and for good reason.

In the small Massachusetts town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock is a withdrawn, shy boy who just happens to be able to talk to the spirits of the dead. It has caused friction with his parents, his sister, and the kids at school, many of whom bully him over his "weirdness". But one person does not think Norman is strange. He gives Norman the task of protecting the town from a witch's curse, one that threatens to raise the dead unless countered by Norman's ability. For the first time in his life, he will have the chance to prove his detractors wrong and become the hero he's destined to be.

ParaNorman is directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler, and features the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Hill, and John Goodman.

Click here for the complete review on Open Letters Monthly.

Artistic License

Well, what do you know? For the last quarter of 2011, ever since I saw Nicolas Winding Refn’s stellar Drive, the Ryan Gosling throwback drama has been my favorite release of the year. Between its excellent cast, stellar visual directing and strong story, Drive was an easy choice for that top spot. Sadly, a slow box office performance (exacerbated by the 3D re-release of The Lion King) resulted in an underrated status, and the film has garnered hardly any award attention, a poor response to one of the more visually emotive films of the year. Sometimes though, the industry gets it right. For months, I had been hearing nothing but great things about The Artist, the French-produced black and white silent film. Besides these simple descriptors however, I knew nothing about the movie itself; I wasn’t even sure that it really was a silent picture. Then the platitudes started coming out. It was nominated for the Cannes Film Festival’s Palm D’Or (eventually won by Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life) and has been nominated for 6 Golden Globes, the most of any movie for 2011. For all that, the actual subject matter of the film was still unknown to me, and for that reason I had no expectations heading into The Artist when the film finally became available in my area this past week.

They're congratulating you for actually paying attention

It’s 1927, and actor George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is the biggest star of Hollywood’s silent film era. He knows it too, constantly putting on a show for his fans, who eat up the antics of Valentin and his talented dog, who doubles as his best friend. Meanwhile, Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) is an up-and-coming actress who befriends and develops feelings for the established star. At this point, things are going well. Soon, however, changes begin to appear. The invention of Talking Pictures revolutionizes the movie industry, with more studios using the new format every day. Despite George’s assertions that “Talkies” are a fad, even his producers get in on the act, dropping its silent film stars and going giving younger stars like Miller a big push. As Peppy Miller’s career soars to new heights, George Valentin drops to new lows, and the struggling performer tries to coexist with a world that has never needed to hear his voice before today.

Well, that answers that

Likely one of the reasons I reacted so positively to the story presented in The Artist was likely that it was very similar to another film I saw in 2011, the classic Singing in the Rain, which also dealt with the end of the silent film era. As amazing as that musical turned out to be, I was far more impressed with the implementation of The Artist’s self-imposed silence and the hurdles it had to overcome in the narrative department. Essentially a silent film concerning the end of silent films, every performer needed to emphasize their visual cues to make up for the fact that you can’t understand what they’re saying, and all the performers are more than up for the challenge. Jean Dujardin especially has to be the most visually emphatic performer, and he does so with such energy and gusto that he is immediately appealing even though we never hear his voice throughout the entirety of the film. With apologies to Michael Fassbender and his outstanding performance in Shame, Dujardin has become my newest Oscar favorite, with the strength of his performance knowing no bounds. Still great (if not matching up to Dujardin’s level), Bernice Bejo shows a propensity for the needed physicality for silent films while putting up a strong performance in her own right. Secondary characters including John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle and Penelope Ann Miller do good work in limited appearances, though the biggest actor not a lead is Uggie, a Jack Russell Terrier who accompanies George Valentin everywhere. Uggie will arguably be the biggest star to come out of The Artist, and when you understand the wealth of talent around him, that’s no light compliment.

It's so meta...

While it’s amazing to see a real, honest-to-god silent film on the big screen, it’s almost as nice to see where the film deviates from the more happy-go-lucky titles of that age. When George pisses off his female lead, she gives him the finger; stuff like this was never portrayed in the 1920’s (or for several decades after) and modern-day additions like this makes the film more honest and emotional. There is also a number of metaphysical scenarios that are hilarious in the context of the film (watching an audience watch a silent picture, a sign that asks for people behind a screen to be "silent", George’s wife asking him why he “won’t speak”) that really help add to the humor inherent in the script and cast. There’s never a dull moment, and even though you cannot hear the inflection in a character’s delivery, you can get enough from their gestures to understand the gist of the funny. The Artist also features some physical humor, but thankfully the film doesn’t bet the bank on it, preferring you to actually laugh at the situations and not the jokes.

He smokes a big honking cigar; you know he's in charge

But it’s The Artist’s heart that really makes it the best movie this year. Yes, that’s right, I said it; The Artist is 2011’s #1 film. Thanks to director Michel Hazanavicius, the film is simultaneously different from everything you've ever seen while completely comfortable in the moment. At times both funny and sad, melancholic and hilarious, The Artist is easily the year’s most well-rounded release. Even if the idea of a silent film turns you off, trust me and go out to see this release. It is the best movie of the year, it SHOULD be treated like the best movie of the year, and you’ll be kicking yourself if you miss the best movie of the year.