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In the small Massachusetts town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock is a withdrawn, shy boy who just happens to be able to talk to the spirits of the dead.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.

Left Hanging with Chad

We're past the halfway point for 2012, and approaching he zenith of an exceedingly divisive election season that has called out practically every hot-button topic that exists in its progression. Whether you identify as a Republican, Democrat, or "Other", you have to wonder whether this is the absolute best or absolute worst time for the west coast to send us an R-rated election-themed comedy, and one headlined by two of the more frenetic comedians in movies today to boot.

To be blunt, I'm not that big a fan of the leads in The Campaign. While I did like Zach Galifianakis in the Hangover series, I haven't seen much else, and I'm still not sure the actor can do much more than be an amusing co-star. And while Will Ferrell has had his moments, I cannot say that I find him funny more often than not. A GOOD film with these two would perfectly satirize the electoral process while giving us great laughs in the meantime. A BAD film would be full of scatological "humor", nonsensical leaps of logic and be a complete mockery of the US political system. Hmm, one of the screenwriters co-wrote The Other Guys, but he also wrote Land of the Lost. And the director is Jay Roach, of Austin Powers and Meet the Fockers fame. Things aren't looking good...

It's like I'm watching a John Edwards documentary...

That The Campaign does manage to eek out its fair share of laughs is probably the biggest surprise in this whole show. When Democratic North Carolina Congressman Cam Brady's (Ferrell) campaign for his unopposed fifth term in office is derailed by a scandal, he opens the field to Republican candidate Marty Huggins (Galifianakis). Huggins, an everyman small-town tour guide, has been approached and supported by corporate honchos intent on removing the "embarrassing" Brady from office. What follows is a massive battle, as Brady is as determined to retain the perks that come with his appointment as Huggins is to help the people of his district.

Not quite sure which one could eat the other...

The film is at least partially a commentary on the dirty side of politics, covering everything from smear campaigns, super PACs, negative advertising, and kicking the other guy whenever the opportunity arises. As the battle goes back and forth between Brady and Huggins, it's easy to re-imagine the situation featuring your local leaders. The film even does a fine job of satire in showing the seeming willingness of the loyal voters who more often than not seek inspiring quotes and buzz words over actual job performance. The candidates are shown to be fully aware of this, never promising anything beyond vague positives while pretending they're everybody's best friend. In truth, neither candidate is portrayed as either good or bad; Brady is a jaded career politician who early in his career had actually hoped to help change things, while Huggins wants to fix things now, but is in the pocket of big business.

And this is why you never see candidates near one another besides debates.

Of course, the filmmakers' efforts at satire cross the line a BIT too much, and while there are a few times when it creates the perfectly hilarious moment (as when Brady famously punches that baby in slo-mo), most of the time the result is more uncomfortable than actually being funny. Many of the actions characters take (and the public's response to them) are so flagrantly bizarre that it practically declares the election process a farce. That said, I wonder if there is anyone out there who thinks that the Brady/Huggins campaign looks like business as usual in their district. Suffice it to say, Roach seems to plaster the idea that every politician, no matter their intent, will eventually forget all about the people they're supposed to be representing. It might have seemed like a more humorous idea when written down on paper, but considering how seriously people take politics these days, it might have come off as darker than originally intended.

Don't let this man ever run your political career.

Farrell and Galifianakis are at their best pretty funny, but neither stretches from their standard creative zones here. Farrell is doing his George W. Bush SNL impression throughout the entire film, even using the exact same accent (as though all southerners sound exactly the same). And Galifianakis' relative lack of facial hair doesn't cover up the fact that his sub-intelligent character demeanor is in full effect. Fortunately, the leads have a good enough support cast to keep things interesting, from Jason Sudeikis as Brady's straight-arrow campaign manager to Dylan McDermott as a psycho hired to make Huggins "not suck so much." Dan Ackroyd and John Lithgow are decent as the big business Motch Brothers (a play on the real life Koch Brothers), but don't really get enough to do. And while I wish the film had found a bigger role for Jack McBrayer, they perfectly cast veteran scene-chewer Brian Cox as Huggins' disapproving father.

He looks like something on To Catch a Predator.

I was never all that high on the idea of The Campaign, and the final product pretty much proved my initial beliefs. There are some laughs, and the film as a whole will be more fondly remembered than such fare as The Dictator, or the absolute crap-fest that was last year's Bad Teacher. But while you might get some laughs out of The Campaign's script, this is a title that cannot find that perfect satirical balance. Different leads, or perhaps even better writing, could have made this more than just another mediocre comedic outing, but there's really no reason that justifies seeing this film in the theater. It'll be on DVD before this fall's elections, most likely, and if you're that hard up for a Will Ferrell comedy, there are a few excellent options available (like Stranger Than Fiction or The Other Guys) for rental instead. This won't be one of them.

Open Letters Review: The Bourne Legacy

I love the Bourne films. Starting with 2002's Bourne Identity, we were introduced to Jason Bourne, an amnesiac, kick-ass super-agent played surprisingly by Matt Damon (remember, this is back when people thought his running Ben Affleck would be a bigger star), and the movie featured twists, action and excitement on unprecedented levels for the time. After the conclusion of Damon's trilogy, the studio decided to look into the fallout of Jason Bourne's actions by telling the story from another genetically-modified agent, this time Jeremy Renner's Alex Cross.

When Jason Bourne threatens to expose the actions of the United States black ops group Treadstone, it sets off a domino effect. Outcome, and its chief Eric Byers, decide to play it safe and liquidate the program, to take the accumulated data and start over elsewhere. Unfortunately for people who work at Outcome, that means murdering agents, scientists and support staff to wipe out all record of the program. Two people who refuse to go down are agent Alex Cross and virologist Dr. Marta Sheering, who find they need one another's help if they're going to survive this government coverup.

The Bourne Legacy is directed by Tony Giltroy and stars Jeremy Renner, Edward Norton, Rachel Weisz, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Stacy Keach, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn and Albert Finney.

Click here for the whole review at Open Letters Monthly.

Strike Twice

We're finally in August, and as most of this past summer has featured one major movie a week with very little in the way of alternative fare, it's nice to finally see more than a few options on the table. This August not only adds more titles I want to see than existed the entirety of the last few months, but some of the films I've been most anticipating this year. One of those films was the second film directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Ruby Sparks. Their eventual follow-up to the surprisingly wonderful 2006 movie Little Miss Sunshine, this was a tale with a talented cast, seemingly proven directors, and a fascinating story.

In the screenplay by Zoe Kazan, Calvin (Paul Dano), a once-successful novelist is suffering from a severe case of writer's block. Ten years after writing an extremely popular work of fiction, he is frustrating his agent and publisher with his inability to get anything down on paper. Regular visits to his therapist are little help, until Calvin  literally discovers the girl of his dreams. Inspired, Calvin creates the life of Ruby Sparks, a 26-year-old with a history of romantic follies and a bubbly personality of which he cannot get enough. Calvin falls in love with Ruby, even as he knows that he cannot practically fall in love with his own creation. Then the most amazing thing happens. After a night of writing, Calvin descends into his kitchen to discover Ruby Sparks, just as he has written her. And she is very much real.

Tell me you wouldn't want to wake up to this just once.

That magical element of Ruby Sparks is what makes the film so interesting, and certainly lays the groundwork for the moral dilemmas and questions of what makes you and I real that fill the script. Upon discovering that whatever he writes about Ruby comes true, Calvin at first makes the correct decision and decides not to write anymore, determining that he loves Ruby just the way she is (Ruby in turn doesn't know she's a fictional creation). But when the "honeymoon" portion of their relationship ends and Calvin finds some of Ruby's personality quirks irksome, he is tempted to write one sentence and "fix" things (as you can tell, it doesn't always work out the way he thinks). Burdened by the fallout of his previous failed relationships, Calvin doesn't want to risk losing the supposed love of his life. In Kazan's story, we get to see both sides to the issue, and how none of the decisions made are done so lightly.

Yes, they play brothers. No, I don't buy it either.

Of course, while these moments abound in the film, so too do many dry spells and dead spots thanks to uninteresting or unnecessary characters and a lack of solid ideas. This wouldn't be a problem if the film exhibited the same sort of natural charm that helped Little Miss Sunshine succeed, but the directors strangely struggle in replicating that effort here. That certainly didn't help, especially as every moment past the film's halfway mark makes Calvin less and less sympathetic a character, and unlike his Sunshine co-stars Steve Carrell or Abigail Breslin, Dano does not seem to have the ability to exude charisma on his own. Better is co-star Kazan, who is a ball of energy that can be redirected anywhere at a moment's notice. All of their co-stars, which includes Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Steve Coogan, Elliott Gould and Chris Messina, are good talents, but the script restricts just how much they contribute to the story as a whole.

That's a LOT of foliage...

If there's one word with which I could describe how the film made me feel, the most obvious that comes to mind is "uncomfortable". That's mostly in relation to the romance between Calvin and Ruby, and in a way it's the reason the film's story is as solid as it is. Romance in Hollywood tends to be uncomplicated, clean and without major issues. Romance in Ruby Sparks is complicated, messy and full of unseen dangers. In other words, the relationship between Calvin and Ruby is at times uncomfortable to watch because real relationships can in fact be uncomfortable, and being with your "soul mate" is never as easy as fiction would let you believe. Unfortunately, while Kazan manages to encapsulate the ups and downs of real-life romance, it doesn't make for a particularly lovely experience, unless you happen to thrive on conflict. The reason Hollywood romances starring Channing Tatum or Ryan Gosling are so beloved is that they're pipe dreams. Plenty of people already know how complicated real life can be. That's why Sparks is only playing at about a dozen theaters around the country.

As my compatriot used to call it, a "Hot Mess".

Still, I can't help but like Ruby Sparks, even if it didn't live up to my expectations. Kazan is a breakout star, and does a great job carrying the film, whether it was on the acting or writing sides. This movie is a complex mix of fantasy and reality that, while at times seeming a bit too much, really makes you change your perspective on what makes for a "successful" relationship. It's a quality release, and one I'd recommend seeing, though perhaps a film that would be better explored on the small screen.

Drifting Away

I remember seeing the first Ice Age film back in 2002. It was a resurgent time for animated films, with the likes of Shrek and Monsters Inc. having set new, high standards for cartoon entertainment, and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was was created to finally give recognition to the artistic importance of these movies. Compared to the excellence of titles like Lilo & Stitch, Ice Age was a fine, if not particularly special, release that focused on the survival of mammals during the Paleolithic ice age. I remember LIKING Ice Age, but also thinking that there was no real reason to revisit the lives of Manny the woolly mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the smilodon (Dennis Leary). That's why I've effectively avoided the film's first two sequels over the past decade, and also why only the first Ice Age received a nomination for Best Animated Feature (it lost to Spirited Away), while the others have earned just middling reviews. Still, the series has proved popular with the kids, so Manny and company are back in Ice Age: Continental Drift, and I was just curious enough to see what the three heroes have been up to in the past ten years.

Bet he's starting to look a little tasty right now...

After starting off with the dialogue-less The Longest Daycare starring Maggie Simpson (a wry and fun short), we discover that things have certainly changed for our heroes. No longer alone in the world, Manny has found Ellie, the love of his life (Queen Latifah), and the two have a teenage daughter named Peaches (Keke Palmer), who is just beginning to discover boys. Sid is briefly reunited with the family that abandoned him, only to have them drop off his elderly grandmother Granny (Wanda Sykes) before quickly escaping again. Soon Scrat the saber-toothed squirrel (about the only reason this series has lasted as long as it has) is up to his usual antics, finding a place to bury his beloved acorn. When this action causes the breakup of Pangaea into the continents we now know, our Manny, Sid and Diego are separated from their herd on a small, uncontrollable iceberg. Soon Manny and his crew (alongside Granny, who accidentally tags along for the ride) find themselves the targets of pirates, led by the gorilla Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) and his feline first mate Shira (Jennifer Lopez). It's a race home for our heroes, who won't let anything get between Manny and the reuniting of his family.

Look, it's the foreign box office! Start paddling!

I'll give this to the new Ice Age; the animation is much better than I expected. All the previews I have seen had led me to believe that the computer animation, especially the background art, would pale in comparison to other recent contemporary fare, even less than mediocre titles Kung Fu Panda 2 or Puss in Boots. Fortunately, what looks like bad animation on small screens actually comes to life on the big ones. It's still nothing in comparison to anything you've seen in a Pixar title, but the backgrounds are amazingly lifelike, and the character animations are fluid and spotless.

His heart, it breaks.

Sadly the story is what really lacks any depth, though this does have the benefit of making it easy for the children in the audience to follow along. Manny and company's story pits them consistently against Gutt's pirates, with apparently no other major predators residing in the middle of the ocean. Meanwhile the biggest story on the mainland is not escaping the slow moving rock wall that threatens to wipe out the herd, but Peaches' discovery that the boy she has a crush on is not all he turns out to be. Meanwhile Scrat's story is more out of favor than usual, and while he is still the film's most entertaining character, his skits are far closer in quality to the rest of the story than they used to be. Or maybe I'm just getting older. But where the story lacks depth it makes up for in honesty, as the motivations and desires of all the main characters is easy enough to follow for both adults and their kids.

Not the kind of people you want to meet in the middle of the ocean.

Directors Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier also do a great job putting together a cast that, with very few exceptions, feel at home in this ice-cold world. Still, this film wasn't a challenge for everyone. While the returning Romano, Leary, and Latifah had to just be themselves, only Leguizamo and newcomers Palmer and Josh Gad feel as though they're playing actual characters in a story. Still, the interplay between Manny, Sid and Diego more than makes up for any lack of creativity on the actors' side, and Latifah and Palmer hold their own in their storyline. The pirates are also a lively bunch, featuring the talented voices of Dinklage (the image of Tyrion Lannister playing a giant gorilla makes me smile inside), Nick Frost, Aziz Ansari and Rebel Wilson in what might be the best additions to the franchise. And Sykes has the perfect voice and comedic timing to make her character even more timeless as Scrat. But not everyone's inclusion was a slam dunk; when did Jennifer Lopez become so DRY a performer? Shira's potential romance with Diego means little when you just don't care about her, no matter how many cliched transformations the villain-turned-hero undergoes. And why did the producers bother going through the casting and promoting of musical artists Drake and Nicki Minaj when the pair would do so little, and not even all that well? These gripes are thankfully limited, and the cast on the whole does what needs to be done to make the film an entertaining experience.

I know who I'm rooting for.

In the end, Ice Age:Continental Drift ends up quite close in quality to this past June's Madagascar 3. That's not too bad a place to be, as most animated films released this year have been somewhat underwhelming, even the admittedly highly-anticipated Brave. Only time will tell how well we remember this latest Ice Age outing, but this was certainly better than some of the award-nominated fare in the last few years, and the franchise is still popular enough to churn out a few more sequels. I can actually recommend this one to adults as well as kids, and that's probably the best thing I've ever said about an animated film in 2012.

Movie Monday: Total Recall

Remakes. Good? Bad? If I've learned anything in recent years, it's that remakes of classic films and stories are not automatically either of these two things, but are good or bad based on the actual quality of their production. Todd knew about Total Recall long before I did, but after learning of it I did develop high hopes for the Len Wiseman-directed action film, a retelling of the tale by Paul Verhoeven and Arnold Schwarzenegger from way back in 1990.

What if you could imprint false memories into your brain? Would you do it to escape the drudgery of everyday life? If you could be a world class athlete, millionaire, or simply irresistible to the opposite sex, would you? What is your fantasy? In the not too distant future, factory worker Douglas Quaid decides to try out Rekall, wanting to add memories of being a secret agent into his head and spice up his dull existence. But something goes wrong, and Quaid suddenly discovers that his whole life is a lie. Now on the run, he finds himself sought by two global superpowers; the United Federation of Britain, who seek world domination, and the subjugated, struggling Colony. He is the most important chess piece on the board, and his actions will determine the fate of the world.

Total Recall is directed by Len Wiseman and stars Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy, and John Cho.

To read the whole review at Open Letters Monthly, click here.

... While Rome Burns

Last year, acclaimed director Woody Allen released his most successful and arguably best film in years in Midnight in Paris. The romantic comedy, which saw Owen Wilson's young artist travel back in time to what he considered the best creative moments of the city he loved, was an astounding piece of film making. I didn't think it was one of the BEST movies that came out last year, but it IS one of the few from 2011 that I saw twice in the theater, and it won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, while Allen and his movie were respectively nominated for Best Director and Best Picture. Midnight in Paris was simply beautiful, and there was no doubt that the next step by Allen would either barely live up to that high standard, or fail miserably in comparison.

Somehow, To Rome with Love manages to evade being totally eclipsed by its predecessor, but naturally it cannot stand up to the wonder that was Midnight. The story takes place in four vignettes, depicting both residents and visitors to Rome and their stories. In one, Jerry (Allen, in his first acting role since 2006's Scoop) and Phyllis (Judy Davis) visit their daughter (Alison Pill) and her fiance Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti). Jerry, a retired classical music composer, discovers that Michelangelo's blue collar father (Italian tenor Fabio Armiliato) has a natural operatic voice, and wants to help the mortician become famous. In the second, newlyweds Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and Milly (Alessandra Mastronardi) are in the city for the first time, where Antonio is hoping to impress his successful family and get a job in the family business. But Milly gets lost in Rome and Antonio must try to pass off a prostitute who mistakenly showed up at his room (Penelope Cruz) as Milly. In the third, John (Alec Baldwin) is revisiting the city he lived in when he was younger. He runs into aspiring architect Jack (Jesse Eisenberg), who lives with his student girlfriend Sally (Greta Gerwig). Sally's best friend and aspiring actress Monica (Ellen Page) arrives to stay with her friend for a while, and tries to seduce Jack along the way. Finally, Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni) is a desk-bound clerk whose life is turned upside down one day as he (for reasons unknown) becomes an overnight celebrity.

Yes, he's back and looking better than ever.

While To Rome with Love contains some of the more fantastical elements of Midnight in Paris, and is of course told in Allen's signature voice, but that's precisely where any comparisons come to an end. Rome is Allen's third movie in five years (the first two being Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight) that focuses on a famous and beautiful European city. Unlike those films, Allen only sporadically captures the essence of the city in question here. While every shot in Midnight in Paris and many in Barcelona evoked wonder and awe purely in the visuals, there is little of that ability shown in Rome. Sure, Allen manages to get some lovely shots of the city through his lens, but compared to the constant "Wow" factor that he had accomplished previously, what we see is somewhat disappointing.

Alec's still got "it".

There are also major hiccups with the stories themselves, a shocker considering how much thought Allen usually puts into his written work. Both the newlywed and celebrity vignettes pale in comparison to their contemporaries. Benigni's piece, in particular, feels totally out of place, simultaneously railing against an establishment of unearned celebrity while acknowledging that, still, it feels good to be recognized. Despite Benigni's great work, the theme smacks a bit too forcefully, and the piece feels unfinished and unpolished. Cruz also is the best part of her vignette, as both Antonio and Milly are too stupid and uninteresting to fully get behind. Meanwhile, showing everyone how it is done, Cruz blows everyone she interacts with out of the water, a force of nature that I wish had been granted a better tale. While the other vignettes are not perfect, they do have plenty more to interest the viewer, from Armiliato's rise as an opera star to Jack and Monica's flirtations to just about everything Alec Baldwin. Allen's dialogue is at times razor sharp, reminding you why he has remained so popular for his entire career.

Say it with me now: "Rawr."

Sadly, these few positives are not enough to make for a great movie. The film feels rushed at points, and not just due to the filming pace. Allen's themes of celebrity and infidelity are nothing new, and in fact are simply rehashed from his previous works. While there are plenty of laughs, they are unevenly dispersed among the ensemble, with some character getting next to nothing for their efforts. Allen also seems to have set a record for characters based on aspects of himself (five, including Allen), and while he manages to create some unique female characters, his inability to make a man that is not himself stands out. And the acting itself is not much better, with only Baldwin, Benigni, Cruz and the surprising Armiliato doing better than their scripts would dictate. Allen himself stammers his dialogue even more than usual, making you wonder which of his takes did NOT make the final cut. And his was still one of the less dry performances in the entire film. All this speaks to lazy writing, and drop Rome from the underrated piece it could have been to the undeserving theatrical release it has become.

This is literally the best the film has to offer... and it's damned good.

This really can't be surprising. Woody Allen hasn't hidden the fact that he hates the film's title, which he only settled on because previous names Bop Decameron and Nero Fiddles were deemed too confusing by many people. How can we be expected to like a film when it's creator is not happy with an aspect of it? Still, there is a bit to appreciate about To Rome with Love, but if we're being honest with ourselves then it's just more burden than it's worth. This is a title that has certainly benefited from the weak summer schedule, and as a result it may get more attention than it really deserves come award season. If you REALLY can't wait to get your Woody fix, then you're going to go see this no matter what I say. But if that's the case then you already OWN this movie. It's already on your DVD shelf, if under a different title. You'd be better off re-watching the superior Midnight in Paris than seeing this new film on the big screen, so only die-hard Allen fans need apply.

"What do you mean, 'I'm the weakest link?'"