Midnight in Paris (2011)

Woody Allen's record hasn't exactly been spotless lately. For example, though I basically enjoyed his effort last year, I was certainly in the minority, and his other recent films "Whatever Works" and "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", though with their admirers, are certainly not up to par with Allen's earlier filmography. That's why "Midnight in Paris" had so much promise - with many at Cannes calling it a return to form for Allen. And though the film does deliver in many ways (especially in the charm that it's been repeatedly said to exude), it also fall short from being as good as classic Allen.

Owen Wilson plays Gil Pender, a screenwriter who is on a vacation in Paris with his fiancee, Inez (Rachel McAdams), and who is also working on a novel which he hopes will solidify him as a legitimate writer - not just the shallow corporatized one he feels he has become in Hollywood. Feeling disillusioned by his modern life and with his fiancee's rich parents (Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller) and pedantic friend Paul (Michael Sheen), Pender yearns for what he considers the golden age of Paris - the roaring 20's. Gil soon gets his wish when a mysterious car comes to pick him up at the stroke of midnight, and transports him directly back to the time period for which he yearns, throwing him into the midst of great authors and artists like F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston) and Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) along with an enigmatic beauty, Adriana (Marion Cotillard), with whom he soon falls in love.

As a continuation of Allen's cinematic love affairs with European cities (Barcelona in "Barcelona", London in "Tall Dark Stranger"), "Paris" is completely successful. Sure, it treats Paris like an unrealistic utopia, but that's acceptable considering that most Americans see it in that way. Plus, Allen never forgets the fact that the film is in essence a love letter to Paris, filling the screenplay with monologues about its beauty and even making the movie's first three minutes a montage of Parisian streets. For someone who's never been to Paris (like myself) this adoration of the city is perfectly welcome.

Also completely welcome is the lack of a narrator. This allows the film to work on its own behalf for the most part - a refreshing change from the plodding narration in other recent Allen films.

Though Wilson is given a few solo talking-to-himself monologues that could be effectively interpreted as narration, he sells them, and despite the fact that it doesn't quite allow the film to speak for itself as much as it could, compared to a bored sounding male reciting how excited a particular character was about architecture, it's tolerable and, occasionally, even a bit endearing.

What's absolutely not endearing about the film, however, is its complete lack of complex characters. Though it does make sense for the famous authors and artists of the past to be somewhat "fake", there's no excuse for real life characters like Inez and Paul, both of whom (among others) are devoid of any shades of interesting characterization. Problems like this make many of the plot points of the film more like plot nubs (because they're pointless -- ha ha, get it?).

However, that is not to say that the acting is poor, as the cast works very well despite the script's shortcomings. Wilson is probably giving his best performance to date (it helps his character is actually kind of interesting) and works perfectly as a stand-in for Woody. Mimi Kennedy, Adrian Brody and Alison Pill all shine in brief roles, and Marion Cotillard gives her potentially stock character the most interesting shades of humanity (not that this should come as any surprise - it seems like Marion is always doing more than the script's bare minimum). And even Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen do well considering what they're given to work with.

But despite the movie's fundamental problems, it still manages to be irresistibly

charming and utterly adorable. I couldn't stop smiling throughout - it's funny, it has clever dialogue, and the ending is almost perfect.

It's not necessarily the Woody Allen comeback some are claiming it is, but we're definitely getting closer. If Woody can mix the charm and fantasy of this film with the complex characters of his earlier work - perhaps we'll then have a new masterpiece. For now though, we can at least enjoy what he's giving us.

See it: If you have a yearning desire to go to Paris, if you like seeing a cast at its best, if you are a Woody Allen die hard, or if you've always thought that Owen Wilson could be taken seriously as an actor but he just never got the right role.

Skip it: If you like complex characters, or if you've seen "I Spy" and know that Owen Wilson can never be forgiven for that movie.

8/10

Thor (2011)

The problem with a movie exceeding expectations is that it then warps your critique of that movie. Did I enjoy "Thor" as much as I did because it was a legitimately good movie, or was it just because it exceeded rather drastically my remarkably low expectations? Perhaps a bit of both. For me the most surprising aspect of the film was actually Chris Hemsworth's performance as Thor. The character Thor could have been so easily turned into a muscular lump of grunts and growls but Hemsworth nuances his performance with emotional ups and downs that turn Thor into one of the more interesting superheroes of recent memory. However, best in show easily goes to Kat Dennings who steals every scene she's in. The biggest problem I had with the movie was that it was far too reliant on CGI, which made it feel a bit artificial - for example, Asgard was not anywhere near as awe inspiring as it aspired to be because it felt so phony. Anyway, "Thor" is surprising - not brilliant or timeless cinema by any means but as a piece of entertainment it totally succeeds.

7/10

(It's tough for me to decide between a 6 and a 7. Hm)

Source Code (2011)

I'm not sure if it was the train-centric opening credits, the Herrmann-ian score by Chris Bacon, the enigmatic female performances from Vera Farmiga and Michelle Monaghan, or something else entirely; but while watching Duncan Jones's "Source Code" I could not help but be reminded of an Alfred Hitchcock film. "Source Code" is not really on the same level as most of Hitchock's filmography, but it wouldn't be difficult to imagine the king of suspense making a movie rather similar to it if he was still alive. Needless to say, the film is smartly, stylishly, and suspensefully put together (helped greatly by its brilliant minimalist structure) and makes for an extremely entertaining hour and a half. However, beyond that hour and a half, the film isn't particularly memorable, perhaps because it skirts around the philosophical questions that it seems to want to ask and never really asserts itself visually. The most lasting aspect of the film is, unsurprisingly, Farmiga's performance - unbelievably complex, gorgeously layered and quietly powerful, her eyes say everything the overall film fails to.

7/10

Summer Wars (2010)

One of the best things about director Mamoru Hosoda's feature film "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time", which I absolutely love, is how interesting and complex all the characters are. Unfortunately, though "Summer Wars" is much more visually stunning than "Girl", the plot does leave something to be desired. The most interesting character in the film is the Grandmother, and her relationship with her family (especially with Wabisuke) is extremely complex. However, the film chooses not to focus on the interesting characters, and instead tries to concentrate on the poorly formulated romance between Kenji and Natuski. The film also misses an opportunity to really explore the subject of technological dangers and dependency that our society faces - it touches the issue, but never quite gets where it wants on that front. That being said, the film is in no way a failure - the use of the "big eccentric family" subplot has been done over and over but this time it feels exhilarating and new. And, based solely on the visuals, this film is magical and magnificent, especially any time the breathtaking digital "Oz" world is involved. It may not be the most satisfying film plot-wise, and it certainly does not match up to "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time", but this film does everything else so, so right.

(7/10)

Tangled up.

That pun was just too obvious but I couldn't help myself.

Last year I fell just a little bit in love with Disney's back-to-roots princess animation story "The Princess and the Frog", which, though not one of my FAVORITE films of the year, was absolutely lovely. To be honest though, my love for that movie is kind of what made me worry about "Tangled". It seemed to me like Disney was going for a snarky Shrek kind of thing, and I was sort of upset - that sort of thing is better for Dreamworks, and after proving how well they could do it the old-fashioned way, why go back to the same old generic thing?

Thankfully, my reservations were proven to be somewhat incorrect, though after watching Disney's 50th Animated Film EVER I have an entirely new set of scruples.

"Tangled" is, as you all surely already know, a reinvention of the Rapunzel story. Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is a girl whose hair has magical healing properties due to a flower that healed her mom during pregnancy. Her parents, the king and queen of a kingdom, lost Rapunzel when the evil Mother Goethel (Donna Murphy) stole her as a baby to keep her powers to herself. Of course, Rapunzel yearns to be free, and on her 18th birthday, she decides to sneak out of her tower, with the help of a bandit named Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) who accidentally lands up there while escaping the king's guards.

This reinvention of the Rapunzel story is quite successful and works perfectly as the vehicle for the typical Disney romance. Duh, Flynn and Rapunzel fall in love and whatnot, but for some reason it doesn't feel corny or anything. A lot of this is due to the technical brilliance of the animation. The movie is so refreshingly colorful and carefully animated - though Rapunzel's hair may not be a consistent length, as my sister lamented, it is still captivating to watch. CGI is very rarely beautiful, and I'm pleased to say that this film achieves some rather aesthetically gorgeous moments.

And Mother Goethel is, simply, one of the best Disney villains in recent years. Where "Princess and the Frog" and even in some ways, "Enchanted" fell slightly short was the very one-dimensional nature of their villains. 'Tis not the case here! The maternal relationship that Rapunzel has with Goethel is rather compelling - we can't forget that she is basically the only mother that she's ever known - and seeing the affection, such as hugs and kind words, between them, makes the villainship so much more horrifying and perfect. Of course, Donna Murphy's brilliant voice work is much to credit for why Goethel is such a great character. She's over the top, she sings wonderfully, and she nails every line.

Sadly, such laurels cannot be awarded to Mandy Moore. Her Rapunzel is occasionally quite good, but too often she sounds whiny, or even worse - as though she's not getting into it enough, which leaves the viewer feeling super distanced from the character. This happens especially during the musical numbers. Her singing voice (at least in my opinion) is kind of annoying, with this weird airyness that is just not convincing.

This leads to another problem with the movie - it doesn't seem committed enough to being a musical! The songs are fine, if not somewhat unmemorable (I mean, it's hard to say anything bad about Alan Menken), but somehow in the context of the entire narrative, they don't feel natural or necessary enough. However, Mother Goethel's song "Mother Knows Best" is probably the best in the movie; it's funny, creepy, and its animation sequence is tight and clever. On the other hand, the movie's musical non-singing score is quite fitting and often transcendent.

Of course, that's not to say that I didn't like the movie. I very much did, and I guess I almost started crying at the end (I'm a leaky faucet though, so don't mind me...). I suppose I'm just trying to identify the reasons it didn't lodge itself into my heart like I would have expected. It's good in so many ways, and it did not fail in the ways I expected - it just didn't reach the level of quality that perhaps it could have. I'm honestly a bit conflicted about it, but I would recommend it even if only so you all will be able to discuss it with me and help me figure it out. Haha!

7/10

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger...

Poor Helena (Gemma Jones). Her husband, Alfie (Anthony Hopkins), has just left her to go pursue a more youthful existence. Psychologically unstable, she begins visiting a psychic, who gives her exactly what she wants to hear, much to the satisfaction of her daughter Sally (Naomi Watts), who is falling in love with her boss Greg (Antonio Banderas) as she deals with her own struggling marriage with failed author Roy (Josh Brolin), who believes that the lovely Dia (Frieda Pinto), who lives across the street, is his muse. Bring in Alfie's new actress/prostitute girlfriend Charmaine (Lucy Punch), and you've got one wonderfully kooky and messed up web of people!

There's a lot that goes right with Woody Allen's latest. The dialogue is witty and very sharp, and the screenplay weaves together all of the film's many subplots very well. On that note, each of the characters and their stories were very interesting, intriguing, and fleshed out, making it all very fun to watch. Oh, and the narration wasn't unbearable like it was LAST TIME! In fact, it was quite effective!

Oh, and the acting is very good as well. Gemma Jones is wonderful, giving her character the perfect amount of sincerity and parody, and Lucy Punch is hysterical (and surprisingly multi-dimensional) as the over-the-top hooker. Watts, Brolin and Hopkins are also very, very good, making their characters both very funny and very sympathetic. Pauline Collins hams it up in her small but crucial role as the psychic, delivering some of the film's best laughs.

So even though on paper, the film does everything right, there's still something so vital missing. It's hard to place exactly what's wrong with it, besides the fact that nothing quite feels new. Structurally, it ends up being really similar to Vicky Cristina Barcelona - for example, remember the recurring guitar tune that made Rebecca Hall swoon in VCB? Well, it exists this time too. Except, instead of Albeniz, it's Boccherini; and instead of Hall, it's Brolin.

And, really, the films are different enough that this might not have been a problem - what the film is truly missing is the spice and flair of some of Allen's past work (especially VCB). By the end of the film, even though everything in it was good (and by no means boring), you sort of forget about it simply because it was just so flavorless. It's very well made, very well acted and very enjoyable, but overall, really nothing outstanding.

7/10

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Um, okay, so I honestly don't have much to say about this one. Like most movies based on an interesting true story, it makes me really want to find out more about the actual facts. Very Ron Howard, meaning pretty safe and predictable (direction wise). Though he definitely knows how to make tension...tense. The script was very obvious. Everything was just fine. Really, there was nothing wrong with this movie besides that there was nothing really right, either. The score was nice. Jennifer Connelly was...good, if not inconsistent. I give her props for doing so well with that ridiculous histrionic scene that she had. Not a bad movie at all, very interesting, everything was good, okay, whatever.

7/10

My Long-Delayed Review of Inception

Okay, so I know everyone is SO over Inception. After all, it is very "July", and people have moved on to bigger and better things. But! I've only just now gotten the enthusiasm to organize up my thoughts about it, and so I felt it was worth it to write them down. You all know what Inception is about and who is in it, so let's just dive right in.

"Inception" is a very, very entertaining movie. It's a perfect summer movie - fast paced, action packed but intelligent enough for discerning viewers, and very interesting. Not only that, but it provides a discussion topic for countless conversations post-view. The acting is quite good (more on that in a bit) and, for all the hype, it did not disappoint.

However, Inception is nowhere near the mind-blowing movie that I thought it would be. To be honest, while I know that everyone is disputing what exactly happened (including myself), I feel like the movie was just a bit too up front with all of the information. One viewing is perfectly sufficient to grasp every bit of information needed to propose an interpretation of the film. For a movie about dreams, it was unsatisfyingly grounded.

On that note, I felt that the visuals were restrained. There were some fantastic moments (the slow motion, the exploding stuff with Ariadne, and the rotating hallway for example), but overall, everything was very bland to look at. Perhaps Christopher Nolan was going for a bleak look, but the whites, grays and blacks that permeated the color scheme just got so tedious after a while. Ellen Page's red sweater thing was like a breath of fresh air in the gloomy movie.

And, since the movie is about dreams, one could hope that the dreams were more creatively constructed visually. A dream-centric movie like "Paprika" (which I could not help but compare this to) which is simply visually brilliant, makes even the best visual creations in Inception look unoriginal. On the other hand, I can see why Christopher Nolan did that - it's the human architects who are constructing the dreams, they wouldn't bother to make them look fanciful, right?

On the acting front, Leo DiCaprio was absolutely fine in his role. He actually managed to make this crazy-man different from his Shutter Island persona, which I was quite happy to see. Just having Ellen Page and JGL on screen made me light up, even though they had very little to do. Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy really shined in surprisingly juicy roles. Best in show goes to Marion Cotillard, who simply stole every scene that she was in with a primal, emotional power. My favorite scene in the movie was probably the one where Ariadne and Mal have the showdown in the abandoned hotel room. So intense!

So, okay. I know I just ripped on the movie like crazy but I really did like it, and it's one of the better ones I've seen so far this year. It's still remarkably intelligent and so well layered - I'm still trying to figure out. It's not my favorite Nolan film, and I feel it pales in comparison to The Dark Knight especially, but perhaps the reason I'm being so harsh on this poor movie is because (A) I'm instinctively nonconformist, and (B) I keep comparing it to better films ("Paprika" and "Dark Knight" especially).

Well, there you have it. Great summer movie, very intelligent, though it felt a bit too restrained at times. Marion Cotillard FTW!!!

7/10

Now Playing: Shrek Forever After

There is really very little to be said about this movie. It was extremely enjoyable, though it wasn't quite as funny as the other three. Nonetheless! It gave me moments of extreme laughter, and it was a lot of fun to see. I almost want to say that it didn't quite feel like...the end of a series. There was something about the movie that just didn't seem...epic enough, I suppose. The real standout of this film was Walt Dohrn, who voiced Rumpelstiltskin - the best voice acting I've seen since Jennifer Cody in Princess and the Frog! I was shocked to see him also credited as "Head of Story"...that's really interesting. Anyway, he was just perfect in this role - whimsical, great comedic timing, over the top (which I love in voice acting), and just mind blowing. Anyway, I suppose I actually did say a lot about this movie...it's a ton of fun, not the best in the series by any means, but still nice and very cute. Incidentally, I was extremely disappointed by the smallness of Jane Lynch's role. ;)

7/10

No Impact Man: The Documentary (2009)

I'm totally an environmentalist, but at first the Colin Beaven and his wife seemed a little bit annoying. However, as the movie went along, you realize how really committed these two are - Colin to his project, Michelle to Colin. It was really inspiring, and it's great to see someone take their beliefs and basically become the opposite of a hypocrite. On a filmmaking level, it's not perhaps the most engrossing documentary, but it is nice because it's completely minimalist and doesn't force a lot of facts on you, which was a good choice. Instead of trying to educate about the environment, it chooses to just give you a picture of this family, which is far more successful. You can argue that the whole thing is just a publicity stunt, which even Beaven admits is partially true, but it's still a pretty amazing thing he did and though this isn't the most engrossing or groundbreaking doc it's interesting just based on its subjects.

7/10

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

"Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is a really weird movie for me because I have extremely mixed feelings about it. I've seen it twice and I felt very differently about it both times.

Regardless, "VCB" is the story of two girls, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) who go for a summer in Barcelona, and end up meeting the very romantic and charismatic Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), whose rather mentally unstable ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) spices things up.

The story is extremely fun, and I really like how it works. The interactions between all the four main characters, along with the smaller characters, and all their expectations, works so well. The acting in this movie is also absolutely fantastic - of course Penelope Cruz is great, but I really think the standout is Rebecca Hall. She takes her character and makes her so interesting, and her character arc is really believable. Why the f*@# is she listed at the bottom of the poster? She's Vicky for goodness sake! Sigh. Oh and I really like Johansson in this. She's so funny/sad/seductive and it really works.

Oh, and the scenery and music are gorgeous!!! I almost want to say that's why I like this movie as much as I do.

However...there are things about this movie that annoy the heck out of me. Namely...that godforsaken narration. That narration really, really bugs me. It gets a wee bit better near the end (and sort of works for the ending, which I really like) but really, is it necessary for this monotonous voice to tell us how much Vicky liked her meal at dinner? Or how nervous Cristina was? It's really redundant and should have been unecessary.

And on that note, some of the dialogue is pretty lame, and I really didn't like the way that Penelope Cruz's character "departed" the film...that shooting scene seemed so...incomplete!

But...overall, it's a satisfying movie. The really, really good acting and the redeeming parts of the screenplay make up for the narration which I hate to no end, and my other complaints. It's also worth seeing just for the music and scenery!

7/10

(I was originally leaning towards 6/10 but I actually enjoy this movie...it just makes me angry sometimes. Hm...perhaps a third viewing is in order.)

Linda Linda Linda (2005)

It was a totally random decision to watch the Japanese movie "Linda Linda Linda". I found out about it after watching "The Host", due to Bae Doona's presence in both films. Anyway, watching this obscure little movie was a decision I don't regret!

"Linda Linda Linda" follows a group of three girls that are putting together a band for their school festival after a couple of their members drop out. The remaining three girls (one cute, one bratty/popular, one kind of awkward) enlist the help of a Korean foreign-exchange student, Son (played by Bae Doona) to sing vocals, even though she barely speaks Japanese...and...there you have it! The title comes from one of the songs that the group covers in the movie, "Linda Linda" by The Blue Hearts (a Japanese pop band that influenced big groups, like the Ramones).

Obviously the premise of the film is extremely limited and...not a lot happens. However, "Linda" is irresistibly charming throughout. It's such a high-school girl movie, with lots of meager drama going on, and crushes!!! and stuff, but like, it's still entertaining and thankfully avoids crossing the teen drama line between "hehehehe" and "vomit".

Also, Bae Doona brings an absolutely fantastic performance to the film. She's a bit shy and confused at first, but then she opens up, showing her love for her newfound friends despite the language barrier. She's also wonderfully funny at times (that karaoke scene is great) and you just can't help but love her. Oh, and the movie has a fantastic concert scene to end it all, and how can you resist that?

Nevertheless, the movie could have definitely used some more editing. There are scenes that just go on for TOO long, it got ridiculous. And really, with such a simple premise, there's only so much you can do - this nearly two hour film could have easily been forty minutes shorter and we wouldn't have missed anything. Oh, and I got annoyed by the director's use of faraway shots when characters were interacting...I don't know why, I just wanted to see their faces more or something.

Anyway, "Linda Linda Linda" is a really cute and fun little rock film that shows the true power of friendship and all that jazz. An enjoyable watch for sure, with a great performance from Bae Doona and awesome music to boot.

7/10

The Host (2006)

This post is for the 1001 Movies Club. Go see what others had to say!

The inherently fantastic thing about the 2006 Korean film "The Host" is that it's a stunning return to the good old-fashioned monster movie. It's a lot like "Jaws" with a hint of "District 9" and a good dose of "Cloverfield" as well. In fact, it has so many elements of those movies that it's impossible not to wonder if the latter two were slightly influenced by it. Perhaps?

Anyway! "The Host" begins in the year 2002, showing us how the monster came to be (the classic - irresponsible disposal of dirty formaldehyde into the Han River). Then, four years later, we come upon Gang-Du, a seemingly irresponsible and ever-sleepy man who, along with his father and daughter, run a food stand on the shore of the Han River. Then...you guessed it...THE MONSTER ATTACKS!!! And steals Gang-Du's daughter.

Now, with the help of his brother (an unemployed college grad) and his sister (a famous archer) he must try to save her. Oh and there's this whole thing about a virus that Gang-Du may or may not have that the monster supposedly spreads and the irresponsibility of the Korean government and its failure to address the situation. In the meantime, we also see Hyun-Seo (Gang-Du's daughter) as she tries to survive in the large sewer that the monster has brought her to.

The movie does a pretty okay job in blending laughs and screams. At one minute you'll be laughing and then the next minute be on the edge of your seat in suspense. This mixture of two genres can be a bit confusing (are we supposed to pity or laugh at the Parks' mourning?) but it does create this kind of tongue in cheek attitude to the whole movie that I think is very effective.

There are also so, so many good "sequences" in this movie. For example, when Nam-Joo (Gang-Du's sister) is running through the bridge and into the sewer to attack the monster. It's such an exciting and exhilarating scene, and it's just one of many other exciting and exhilarating scenes that there were in the film. The suspense and tension were perfect - especially in the last thirty minutes of the film when everything starts to come together, in a huge climax. So exciting!

And artistically the movie is great as well - I absolutely LOVED the score and the cinematography was quite fantastic. Additionally, the monster was frightening and very well designed. Since we see it throughout the entire movie it is important that it always scares, and it did.

Where the movie fails is in its overly complicated screenplay. The timing is off a lot in the movie and some scenes drag on for far too long. Additionally, things can begin to get confusing and there are a lot of plot holes. I always have a problem with films (or TV shows) that try to do too much with the story and then fall underneath the weight of their own goals. It's not horribly written by any means, but the loss of focus really takes a bit of "umph" out of the film, which prevented me from really, really loving it.

However! "The Host" is still a really great monster movie, perhaps one of the best I've seen in the genre. Though the story's shortcomings keep it from getting the truly high quality it could have had (and my heart's affection), it has enough amazing and memorable sequences to keep it above the average level of American thriller-comedy-dramas, and it is a LOT of fun to watch. The score was absolutely fantastic and the acting was top-notch as well.

I didn't love it, but I'd watch it again! I bet it would be perfect to watch in a group, on a dark, rainy night...hehe

7/10

What did you think of "The Host"? Respond in comments!