I stand here and smile on the gallery wall,
Watching the patrons who stare and pass on,
And sometimes the curator comes in to call
To boast of my grace and my era long gone.
I’m used to the gaze of dispassionate eyes,
But I once adorned a more intimate wall
When I was a gift, not a national prize,
A visage of somebody few now recall.
Not many remember my former abode,
But my memory, like my smile, never dies,
Corrupt men and hatred marked that episode
That stole me away as mere rare merchandise.
Suppose me content with my grace and my smile
After what I have seen on my difficult road?
I won’t be content until we reconcile.
I wait for my family; to them I am owed.
______________
MPAA rating: PG-13
Woman in Gold may be the most underrated drama of 2015. Reviews were mixed, and its two award-worthy performances have been pretty much ignored by any of the awards, aside from a single SAG nomination for Helen Mirren. While everyone has their own personal grumble about the Academy’s choices, this one is mine. Woman in Gold deserves so much better.
The film’s greatest assets are its two appealing leads, played by Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds. Mirren is Maria Altman, an elegant grandmother who fled Nazi Germany as a young newlywed and now wishes to reclaim a painting she left behind, Gustave Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, otherwise known as The Woman in Gold. The problem is that, while Maria sees it as a fond portrait of her late aunt, the nation of Austria guards it as a national treasure, their own Mona Lisa. That’s where Reynolds’ Randy Schoenberg comes in, a less-than-successful lawyer whose familial connections trump the fact that he knows nothing of art restitution cases. Together, the old lady and the bookish attorney make an unlikely team against Austria and the injustice of the past.
Many films have touched upon the Nazis’ forced appropriation of great artwork, from 1964’s The Train to 2014’s The Monuments Men, but rarely do these films present the personal cost of those crimes. They weren’t just stealing valuables, but precious antiques and family heirlooms. Art isn’t exactly my favorite subject, and Woman in Gold could have come off as just some stuffy lady wanting back what’s hers; instead, flashbacks to Maria’s life in Vienna elucidate just how much these treasures meant to her, not merely because of their monetary value but because of their memory and affection that only she can fully understand. It’s personal, and the film translates that fact effectively.
Mirren is a brilliant Maria with her grandmotherly concerns and dry wit, but when the long road to restitution takes its toll, Reynolds’ Randy steps up to keep the crusade going. Randy lives in the shadow of his judge father and famous composer grandfather, and when pushed to look into Maria’s case, he decides to give it his all, right up to the overwhelming challenge of the Supreme Court. As the case moves forward, it’s clear that it’s personal for Randy too, and visits to Vienna reinforce the importance of his Jewish-German heritage.
Woman in Gold also features welcome smaller roles from Daniel Bruhl, Frances Farmer, and Jonathan Pryce and a witty, at times tense screenplay that bounces nicely between past and present. With all these positives, why then has the film been snubbed? Perhaps because the pacing lags at times or because it isn’t entirely historically accurate. Neither of these faults bothered me, and the historical deviations don’t seem to bother the real Randy Schoenberg, who was interviewed for the film’s bonus features. Woman in Gold turns a legal battle over art into a personal underdog story, and by the Titanic-style ending, my VC was in tears and I wasn’t far behind.
Best line: (ignorant court house employee) “I want to go to Austria sometime with my daughter. She loves kangaroos!”
Now that Year 2 of Opinion Battles is off and running at Movie Reviews 101, be sure to check out the latest round: Favorite Best Picture Oscar Winners! For me, nothing can top The Lord of the Rings, but there are lots of great choices to vote for.
We are about to hit Oscar season and what better than to pick our favourite Oscar Winning Best Picture because let’s face it we do love some more than others.
If you want to take part in the next round which is Favourite Ryan Reynolds Role to celebrate the release of Deadpool, if you want to take part end your pick to moviereviews101@yahoo.co.uk by Sunday the 7th February 2016.
Darren – Movie Reviews 101
Silence of the Lambs
Silence of the Lambs brings us one of the greatest horror villains we have ever seen in Hannibal Lector we get one of the strongest leading female performance from Jodie Foster. This is the sort of film I could watch over and over because I love the investigation storyline but placing serial killer as support when it comes to solving a new serial killer. Buffalo Bill is arguable one of the…
Life is full of love and song
For those with both within their hearts;
But why must death and sleep be different
From their former counterparts?
Grief will mark a soul’s departure
Here on earth where all lives cease;
But from grief comes celebration
In another life of peace.
__________________
MPAA rating: PG
While Pixar has been rumored to be working on a project called Coco about the Mexican Day of the Dead (supposedly for a 2017 release), Reel FX and 20th Century Fox Animation beat them to the punch with 2014’s The Book of Life. This inventively animated romance starts out with a frame story reminiscent of The Princess Bride, with a confident museum guide recounting a story to a collection of rowdy schoolkids, who interject their occasional thoughts and worries as the tale progresses.
While these kids have a more typical cartoon human appearance, the characters in the tale being told are intentionally modeled as wooden puppets, with visible joints but no strings. This aesthetic combines with the off-kilter animation to give the CGI film a stop-motion aspect, not unlike The Lego Movie. The story itself follows three childhood friends, Manolo Sanchez (Diego Luna), Maria (Zoe Saldana), and Joaquin (Channing Tatum), who are destined to grow up into a love triangle. Just as viewers often debate who will get the girl in any number of series, the trio attract the attention of the two rulers of the afterlife, the lovely La Muerte of the Land of the Remembered and the bitter Xibalba of the Land of the Forgotten. Ron Perlman as Xibalba seems knowingly reminiscent of Hades in Hercules as he makes a game-changing bet with his counterpart as to which boy will marry Maria.
The Book of Life has a lot of positives. The animation is frequently enchanting and the characters surprisingly personable. While the characterization sometimes falters, I liked how one suitor was clearly meant as Maria’s soul mate, but the other was still given a chance to be heroic rather than being turned into a villain. The film also offers a uniquely positive view of death, treating it not as the end but as a second stage to reunite with loved ones and join in one big fiesta.
On the other hand, these same themes of death strike me as problematic. The depiction of the afterlife rings with Mexican culture but is entirely irreligious, as is the notion that our departed loved ones live on in happiness only as long as we remember them. The film’s conflict makes a point of noting that, without anyone to remember them, the dead will pass into the hellish Land of the Forgotten, which makes me wonder why no one is bothered by the fact that this will happen anyway within a few generations. I don’t remember my great-great-great grandfather; that doesn’t mean he’s not in Heaven. This idea of the afterlife is meant as a secular comfort but not a lasting one.
The Book of Life is also marred by tired clichés about being oneself against an overbearing parent; some awkwardly out-of-left-field pop songs, as if it’s trying to emulate Shrek; and oddly by the same animation I praised earlier. When I first saw the animation style, it reminded me of the Nickelodeon show El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (picture below), and sure enough, director Jorge Gutierrez was also that show’s creator and apparently just translated the animation from 2D to 3D. While it works most of the time, certain scenes look strangely cheap with elaborate mustaches and protuberant noses that aren’t even trying for realism.
Here I go again, sounding all critical as if I dislike anything with flaws. Not so. The Book of Life rises as a delightful, energetic, and uniquely cultural change of pace from the usual stylings of Disney and DreamWorks while not coming off as low quality. Its themes of family and life and telling our own stories are commendable, and I enjoyed it, as I think most fans of animation will.
Best line: (one of the distraught schoolkids) “What is it with Mexicans and death?!”
“What have we learned?” they knowingly say.
“Life has evolved to show us the way.
Dangerous creatures and habits have filled
The past, and on them the near-future will build.”
“What have we learned?” they foolishly ask.
“Our forerunners clearly weren’t up to the task.
What they could not do we will better complete.
Mistakes of the past we will never repeat.”
“What have we learned?” they say, sure of their touch.
Those who see clearly say “Clearly, not much.”
________________
MPAA rating: PG-13
In many ways, 2015 was the year of the unexpected sequel/reboot. I’d bet that not too many people wanted or expected Hollywood to resurrect franchises like Jurassic Park, Mad Max, The Terminator, or Fantastic Four. (Lots of fans wanted another Star Wars so that doesn’t count.) Some of those turned out better than others, but the mammoth hit of the summer was Jurassic World.
The film starts out with two brothers, older punk Gray and younger whiz kid Zach, as their parents send them off to a theme park on none other than Isla Nublar. The audience’s nostalgia is tapped early on as we enter the famous giant gates and behold Jurassic World in all its glory. There’s a baby dinosaur petting zoo and a big glass hamster ball for safaris and a SeaWorld-style splash show with something a little bigger than a killer whale. Tourists and merchandise are everywhere, and there’s a certain satisfaction to seeing John Hammond’s dream so triumphantly realized.
By the looks of things, the creators of the park seem to have worked out all the bugs, with financing from owner Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) and scientific guidance from Dr. Henry Wu (B. D. Wong, the only returning cast member from the original film). But as Ian Malcolm said in The Lost World, they’re not making the same mistakes twice, they’re “making all new ones.” Just as the whole frog DNA idea backfired for Hammond, the park runners do a little too much genetic manipulation to create an uber-dinosaur, the Indominus Rex. As the park’s operational manager, Zach and Gray’s Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) seems coldly confident that there’s nothing wrong with toying with nature. You can guess what happens next.
Like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World seems to directly parallel the original film in order to balance the new with the familiar. There’s the gate entrance, a hands-on scene involving a sick/dying dinosaur, an intense glass scene that lets kids in danger look directly into a predator’s maw, a flare scene involving a T. Rex, and a vehicle being chased by a rogue dino. While I like The Force Awakens more, I have to admit that Jurassic World better differentiates those scenes from their original counterparts. It also nails the most important element of an effects-driven movie like this, the dinosaurs. Some creatures may be more obviously CGI than others, but the life-and-death action and dino duels are exhilarating to behold, if rather vicious in their body count.
Jurassic World is quite an improvement over the last two Jurassic Park sequels, but it’s a Procompsognathus next to Spielberg’s original. Its greatest weakness is its characters, who lack the appealing personalities of the first gang of ill-fated visitors. After Guardians of the Galaxy, Chris Pratt was the hot actor and the obvious choice for the hero in the latest addition to the Jurassic Park series. His role as Owen Grady is the most persuasive, acting as the practical conscience for the shocked park leaders and the personable trainer for the park’s four semi-trained Velociraptors. Pratt can’t carry the whole movie, though, and everyone else is rather interchangeable. Howard is your typical half-empowered damsel; the kids are your typical kids in danger, with a troubled home life that is left unresolved; and Vincent D’Onofrio is your typical dense, single-minded fool of a villain, who is convinced that the raptors can be used as weapons even after that very plan blows up in his face.
By the end, the human characters become almost irrelevant during a big dino brawl, dumbly running parallel to the fight and trying to just stay out of the way. The end almost reminded me of 2014’s Godzilla, in transforming a former monster into something of a hero who battles whatever rival to its superiority but leaves man alone since he’s too trivial to matter much. These last two paragraphs sound perhaps more critical than I mean to be. Jurassic World is an entertaining summer movie that revitalized the franchise; I just don’t know why it nearly became the highest grossing film of the year. Hopefully, the next installment will put a little more focus on the characters. I love a good dino flick; it just helps when I connect more to the people in danger.
Best line: (Masrani) “You created a monster!” (Dr. Wu) “Monster is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We’re just used to being the cat.”
An asteroid with nothing to slow it
Will hit the earth unless we blow it.
Some experts, therefore,
Must destroy it before
The end of the world as we know it.
Don’t bother the National Guard,
The Navy Seals, or Scotland Yard.
What we need right now
Are the skilled and lowbrow
Who know how to dig and dig hard.
They’ve known ever since they began it
This mission needs real men to man it,
The tough and untried
With professional pride,
Emerging to save the whole planet.
_____________________
MPAA rating: PG-13
Armageddon has pretty much everything you could expect from a Michael Bay film: cocky and attractive hotshots, semi-serious life-and-death circumstances, underdogs rising up for their moment of truth, special effects up the wazoo, and explosions, lots and lots of explosions. It’s a film that can be both written off as scientifically inaccurate baloney and enjoyed as unreasonably entertaining baloney. Essentially, it’s a beautiful disaster.
It starts out a lot like Gravity, with a space shuttle spacewalk being cut short by a storm of debris, or in this case meteoroids. NASA quickly investigates the recent rash of destructive meteor showers and discovers that the big Texas-sized mama of them all is headed for a direct collision that will undoubtedly extinguish all life on Earth (except cockroaches, of course). Mankind’s only hope is to bring in a band of drilling experts, blue-collar ruffians who would normally be the last people called in during a disaster but who have the know-how to drill through the asteroid’s surface so NASA can blow it up with a nuke. There’s the leader Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis); self-confident A.J. (Ben Affleck), who is in love with Harry’s daughter (Liv Tyler) much to Harry’s chagrin; the unhinged genius (Steve Buscemi); the faithful sidekick with family issues (Will Patton); the big muscle (Michael Clarke Duncan); the fat guy (Ken Hudson Campbell); and that other guy (Owen Wilson). Throw in Billy Bob Thornton as a NASA scientist, William Fichtner as the military astronaut leader, and Peter Stormare as a semi-crazy Russian cosmonaut, and you’ve got a star-studded blowout of a movie.
Most of these actors have gone on to serious dramatic roles, but seeing them all together in a film like Armageddon brings to mind the big disaster films of the 1970s. Like some of those (Earthquake, for example), it’s certainly an open question as to whether this disaster is actually a good movie. The science is borderline silly, the editing choppy, the dialogue often corny, and plenty of unrealistic clichés abound, including not one but two down-to-the-last-second countdowns. I, for one, thought that the surface of the asteroid was absurdly crystalline in appearance, unlike any actual space surface I’ve seen, and the title shows an annoying lack of Biblical knowledge, since Armageddon isn’t the generic end of the world but an actual place where a battle of armies takes place in Revelation.
However, these complaints don’t really detract from what Armageddon the movie is: eye candy entertainment on a big, exciting, not-to-be-taken-too-seriously scale. The race against time is engrossing, not because we deeply care about these characters, but because the stakes are so high that suspension of disbelief goes out the airlock in favor of simply enjoying the ride. All the actors fill their roles well, particularly Willis as the experienced and heroic leader, and even if many of them come off as caricatures, they look like they had fun taking part. While the editing is erratic during some of the action scenes, Bay taps into that primal satisfaction of watching things blow up, whether it be New York streets or the surface of a space rock. The most thrilling scene takes place in the ISS, when a fire breaks out—wait, this reminds me of Gravity too.
Armageddon fits into that half-honored genre of popcorn blockbusters, the likes of which critics deride and ordinary moviegoers pay to see in droves. Its flaws are self-evident yet oddly insignificant in the face of the overall package. While end-of-the-world movies have become grim and somewhat more realistic over the years, Armageddon is an example of a big, long, funny, appealing disaster.
Best line: (one of Harry’s drillers, as Harry is trying to shoot A.J. for sleeping with his daughter) “This is illegal, man.” (Harry) “I’m temporarily insane, Rock. It’s all right.”
VC’s best line: (Harry, listing his drillers’ demands) “Yeah, one more thing. Um, none of them wanna pay taxes again…ever.”
After enjoying lots of wonderful holiday food at the tail end of 2015, I thought I’d make my first list of the new year deliciously random: corn! If you were expecting corny movies, as in “tiresomely simple and sentimental” (according to Merriam-Webster), this isn’t it. I’m talking actual corn, one of the most versatile of all vegetables.
Think of all the things you can do with corn. I’ll use my Bubba voice: corn on the cob, creamed corn, corn fritters, cornbread, corn dogs, corn chips, corn pudding, hominy, grits, polenta, corn meal, corn flakes, corn chowder, corn starch, corn oil, corn syrup, corn tortillas, corn nuts, corn maze, and…that’s about it. Wait, let’s not forget the use that most applies to film, everyone’s favorite movie-watching snack, popcorn! Heck, there’s probably corn in your gas tank as ethanol. Based on my Southern roots, I for one prefer my corn creamed and served over fried okra; nothing corn-related is better.
With so much corn at our disposal, it’s no wonder that it has cropped up in countless films, whether as food or still on the stalk. Still, I’m honestly surprised I had enough to make up the top twelve, let alone any honorable mentions. So without further ado, here are my favorite cinematic uses of corn:
Wild Wild West (1999)
This movie has a lot of detractors, but I’ve always found its steampunk Western vibe to be goofy fun. One of the most memorable scenes involved Will Smith and Kevin Kline fleeing from giant flying blades through a corn field. Talk about mowin’ ‘em down.
Corn, or maize, is a uniquely American crop, and its origins in the New World explain how prevalent it was among Native American cultures. Disney’s Pocahontas uses corn harvesting as a backdrop for certain scenes, and when John Smith explains the concept of gold, Pocahontas offers the only shiny yellow thing around: a corn cob.
“You are about to be crushed by a giant corn.” Enough said.
Oklahoma! (1955)
What better way to start a Western musical than with a singing cowboy riding through a corn field? It’s always a beautiful morning where “the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye.”
Troll 2 (1990)
I haven’t seen much of this notoriously awful “best worst movie,” but the corn scene is, well, something else. When some troll witch in disguise seduces an unsuspecting moron who admits he likes popcorn, it leads to possibly the most bizarre and corniest kiss(?) I’ve ever seen.
There are several films that involve driving through a corn field, but these two scenes stick out the most for me. The big finale of Twister involves Bill and Jo driving toward and then running from a massive tornado as it rips through a defenseless field of corn. On the other hand, Interstellar’s corn chase is at the beginning, as Coop and his kids chase a solar-powered drone. It must be said that, despite all the corn Coop grows, Interstellar features one of the most nightmarish lines ever uttered: “They say it’s the last crop of okra…ever.” No! Corn without okra; now that is apocalyptic.
I love this underrated movie about a boy (Haley Joel Osment) staying with his two crotchety great-uncles on the Texas prairie. When he convinces them to buy from a traveling salesman, they plant various crops, only to find that it’s all “corn, corn, corn. Nothing but corn.”
Field of Dreams (1989)
While this film isn’t as dear to me as it is to many people, there’s no denying the presence of corn. Kevin Costner is a farmer called to build a baseball diamond out of his corn field. The corn itself also serves as a magical gateway for former baseball players and other significant people.
Death by corn! Who knew that one of the most dangerous weapons on an Amish farm is the corn silo? When Harrison Ford’s John Book lures a bad guy inside, we get a notorious example of grain engulfment.
M. Night Shyamalan was not the first to make a corn field scary, but he did throw in the idea of aliens and crop circles. Mel Gibson obviously didn’t know that when he wanders into his corn field to ward off supposed pranksters. Never enter a corn field at night!
How is such a small and insignificant scene so memorable? Buttering corn on the cob can be more trouble than it’s worth, but this movie offered the answer. First, Matthew Broderick’s dad butters his bread heavily and then proceeds to roll his corn on the cob against the bread. Genius! Can anyone else think of a better way? I’m all ears.
Again, it may seem weird to give the number one spot to such a small scene, but it was watching Tom Hanks in Big recently that gave me the idea for this list. The suddenly grown-up Josh Baskin isn’t familiar with adult party food, like dip and caviar, and he’s obviously never seen how to ingest those little baby corn. Hanks is so awkwardly cute here, it’s no wonder Elizabeth Perkins fell for him.
Before the honorable mentions, I should include that the most obvious choice for this list should have been Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, but I’ve never seen it and don’t really want to. But it’s in the title so how can I not include it? I’m sure there are lots of other films with corn or corn fields that I’m not familiar with, such as a 1975 film called Cornbread, Earl and Me and a 2004 film actually titled Corn.
Here are my honorable mentions, though:
Big Fish (2003) – Remember the scene in that Tim Burton movie where Ewan McGregor sees his sweetheart for the first time and time freezes and he walks through popcorn hanging in midair? I didn’t, but now I do.
Chicken Little (2005) – Many Disney fans would like to forget this film exists, but there is a corn field chase that recalls both Signs and Wild Wild West.
Foul Play(1978) – I could use any movie that features popcorn, but somehow the scene where blood drips in Goldie Hawn’s popcorn sticks out in my mind. “Beware the dwarf!”
The Green Mile(1999) – Tom Hanks’s wife’s cornbread means a lot to Michael Clarke Duncan in this Stephen King prison drama.
Gremlins (1984) – Any scene in a movie theater probably has popcorn, but let’s not forget that Stripe survived that scene because he wanted more popcorn.
Joseph: King of Dreams(2000) – This second DreamWorks Bible story interprets Pharaoh’s famine-predicting dream about grain as seven healthy corn stalks being devoured by seven sickly ones.
The Last Stand (2013) – The car chase through a corn field in this Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner actually has corn cobs hitting the windshield.
Life Stinks (1991) – This Mel Brooks dramedy flopped, but there’s a scene in which a guy can’t seem to wipe some corn off his face.
The Lovely Bones (2009) – This film actually has two significant scenes set in a corn field. There’s the creepy underground lair that Stanley Tucci builds beneath a harvested field, as well as the scene in which he lures Mark Wahlberg into a corn-concealed trap.
The Maze Runner (2014) – This may be a weak example, but the Gladers do hide in a corn field when the Grievers attack. Plus, I can’t help but think this should have been called The Maize Runner.
Sleepwalkers (1992) –Haven’t seen this one either, except a scene where someone actually gets stabbed in the back with a corn cob. What is it with Stephen King and corn?
True Grit(1969) – Throughout this Western, John Wayne munches on corn dodgers, whatever those are.
What about Bob? (1991) – In one dinner scene, Bill Murray really enjoys the heck out of some corn on the cob. “Is this hand-shucked?”
The Wizard of Oz(1939) – When one of your characters is a scarecrow, it’s likely there will be a corn field somewhere.
(In honor of this film’s unique storyline, try reading this poem backwards too.)
“Where am I?”
You ask and wonder;
You are someplace yet unknown,
Lacking memories of your own.
Your life’s asunder;
Know not why.
Every scar
Helps you recall
The pain that drives you every day
Without a doubt as to your prey,
Assuming all,
Here you are.
_______________
MPAA rating: R (for much language and brief violence)
Since I’ve very much enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s other films, especially Inception and The Prestige, I thought I should check out Memento, his first studio-funded project, which was based on his brother Jonathan’s short story “Memento Mori.” I watched it and found it to be everything people said it was: confusing, daring, intricate, and mind-bending, adjectives that have come to be synonymous with Nolan’s brand of filmmaking. Non-linear storytelling can be a love-it or hate-it selling point. I was willing to be confused in the hope of a payoff, while I knew from the start that this was not a film my VC would enjoy. If you want a film to enjoy casually, Memento is not it. You can watch it all the way through and still may be lost; heaven help you if you miss a piece of this tightly edited puzzle.
Leonard (Guy Pearce) is a man with anterograde amnesia; unable to store recent memories, his brain resets every fifteen minutes or so to completely forget where he is, how he got there, and what happened since the event that caused the amnesia. To get his bearings, he keeps photographs and notes and, for very important facts, tattoos, most of which explain to him that his wife was raped and murdered by someone named John G. whom he must seek out to exact his revenge.
In order to replicate the disorienting effect of Leonard’s lapses in memory, everything is broken up into disjointed sections that begin in medias res, with each division explaining the part before it. The film starts with a picture of a murder; then you see the murder itself. Leonard wakes in a hotel room with a man tied up in the closet; two segments later, you understand how that came about, even if Leonard himself will never remember the details.
One of the first questions for me kicked in when I wondered just how he knew the murderer was named John G. and how he obtained John G.’s license plate, despite his seemingly debilitating handicap. Doubt like that is exactly the point. Leonard’s “condition” leaves him entirely at the mercy of his notes and the explanations of others, if he chooses to listen to them. An apparent friend named Teddy (Joe Pantoliano from The Matrix) seems to want to help Leonard, but Leonard doesn’t know who he is. He could be his closest friend or his mortal enemy, and all he has to go by is a picture through which he has told himself not to trust Teddy, advice completely dependent on Leonard’s mindset at the time he wrote it. The same goes for a woman named Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss, also from The Matrix), whose involvement with Leonard ranges from sympathetic to abusive depending on which piece of the puzzle we’re watching. Right when you think you know what’s going on, the next segment casts a new light on things.
This kind of storytelling is extremely fascinating, but confusion is unavoidable at times. It took me half the movie to realize that a series of intermixed black-and-white scenes of Leonard talking on the phone were happening chronologically in the past so that they would meet the scenes that were happening backwards. I’m still not sure I understand everything, and a second viewing is almost required.
Christopher Nolan’s first big mindbender is both his most puzzling and his most alienating work. While I was intrigued to find out what would happen (or rather what happened) and a perspective-changing tragedy tugged the mental heartstrings, the film felt cold overall. Most of Nolan’s work has some light to it, whether it be the dubiously heartwarming conclusions of Inception and Interstellar, the one-sided happy ending of The Prestige, or the humanity of the boat hostages in The Dark Knight. In Memento, there’s no satisfaction for anyone, no good will or unqualified concern. Brighter elements like these perhaps might seem out of place in a story about mental illness and revenge, but without them, Memento is not as emotionally engaging as it is mentally. Combine that with the fact that it features more foul language than all of Nolan’s later films combined, and it falls toward the bottom of his filmography for me, even if it is a riveting and wholly original piece of work.
Best line: (Leonard, to his wife while she’s re-reading a book) “I always thought the joy of reading a book is not knowing what happens next.”
Smaller, better, faster, stronger—
Now the world must wait no longer.
Here comes Ant-Man, skilled at shrinking;
Watch and try to keep from blinking.
Armed with ants and talents stranger,
He won’t shrink from wicked danger.
Shrink or grow for each endeavor,
Tiny minds can still be clever.
Though the Ant-Man may seem minor,
No insect-sized man is finer.
Maximizing, minimizing,
Heroes don’t depend on sizing,
________________
MPAA rating: PG-13
While Ant-Man was given an understandably smaller reception upon release last year, my dad helped make it a bigger film for us. For some reason, he connected to Ant-Man on some deep cosmic level, having read the old Ant-Man comics with Hank Pym back in the day. He was singing the praises of both the character and the film long before we finally got to see it, and while this might have raised my expectations too high (like with Guardians of the Galaxy), it instead piqued my interest and enjoyment for one of the silliest Avengers yet.
It starts off in 1989, upholding the always cool Marvel continuity by mixing some familiar faces from past films with the latest S.H.I.E.L.D.-connected supergenius, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a master of physics and entomology (since atoms and bugs just go together). Jump ahead to the present, and we find Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) getting out of jail and meeting up with his Latino ex-cellmate Luis (Michael Peña). However, Scott faces an uphill battle toward normalcy since his criminal record mars job opportunities, even as his ex-wife bars him from seeing his young daughter. Little does he know that he’s a potential pawn in the cold war between Pym and his former protégé, the power-hungry CEO Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who has grown ruthless from years of turning life forms into tiny piles of goo in an effort to replicate Pym’s fabled shrinking technology. Got all that?
Ant-Man isn’t as jam-packed as Guardians, but its convoluted plotline does require attention and may not entirely make sense. Yet, according to Marvel’s prized strategy, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Hank and his estranged daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly of Lost fame) may be wholly familiar with the concepts of quantum realms and communicating with ant armies, but Scott and Luis offer hilarious reactions to it all even as they embrace the role of hero over crook. Despite his history with raunchy comedies, Rudd manages to combine self-deprecating humor with relatable sincerity as he works to be with his daughter and, you know, save the world.
While on one level, Ant-Man may seem like just another brick in Marvel’s multimillion-dollar wall, it stands out in unexpected ways. For one thing, the origin story is more reminiscent of the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Phase 1 films like Iron Man, and features more of a Mission: Impossible-style heist tone, aided by Christophe Beck’s bombastic score. While the Avengers are present and even referenced, their involvement in Ant-Man’s covert operation isn’t as starkly missed as in The Winter Soldier or Thor 2, in which only one main Avenger seemed to care about the end of the world as we know it. Here, the fate of the world is at stake, since the propagation of Cross’s shrinking suits would change the balance of power and “the texture of reality,” but it’s on a much more personal level than just stopping the latest baddie from blowing up the world. These characters have history with each other, whether it be Cross’s resentment toward Hank or Hope’s need for reconciliation with her father, not to mention Scott’s concern for his daughter who becomes plot-relevant in the finale. Even Scott’s ex-con accomplices are different from the professional agents or warriors we’ve become used to; they’re his beer-and-waffle buddies who have useful skills but are still down-to-earth, like how Luis remembers to save the guy he just knocked out before the building is destroyed.
Another unique aspect is how Scott becomes Ant-Man. Rather than self-experimenting with newfound powers or tapping into latent heroism, he is actually trained by the previous wearer of the Ant-Man suit. I can’t recall seeing this different dynamic of passing the mantle from one generation of hero to the next since an aged Bruce Wayne did so in the futuristic Batman Beyond (and before that, The Mask of Zorro). It’s an advantage that most superheroes don’t get, and shows onscreen what the comic books have done for years in letting more than one character inhabit the super persona. I wouldn’t mind learning more about Hank Pym’s missions back in the ‘80s.
Technically, Ant-Man should have been in Marvel’s Phase 1, since Ant-Man and the Wasp were founding members of the original Avengers in the comics (along with Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk). Yet I suppose it’s hard to take seriously a tiny guy in a mask who controls bugs. Like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man was a gamble that I think paid off. It offers a new hero, new history, new technology, and a new way of looking at things from an ant’s perspective, from a bathtub to a toy train set. The incredible special effects help to sell both the shrinking concept and the almost cute ants, and are just one strength in Marvel’s latest hit. I enjoyed Ant-Man. On a more muted level, my VC and my mom liked it too. But my dad loved it.
Best line: (Luis, about his girlfriend, in a line that my dad has made his own for anytime bad things pile up) “Ah, she left me. And my mom died too. And my dad got deported…. But I got the van!”
Here now is the fully updated list of my top 365+ movies, the list I first counted down throughout 2014 and that now features 55 additional films. I’ve already dedicated a post to these list-worthy films that I’ve seen over the last two years. These additions, or replacements in this case, are in bold below.
Only three films were able to crack my Top 100 (Taking Chance, Serenity, and The Truman Show), while most of the other additions are in the lower half. Sequels, such as the third Hobbit film and the first two Die Hard sequels, have been grouped with their original film’s ranking.
Upon retrospect, I’ve also rearranged some of the films’ original rankings. Some rose through the list, such as Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Raising Arizona, Castle in the Sky, and Aliens, while others dropped further down, like The Color Purple and The Untouchables. The only change to my Top 50 is the raising of Elizabethtown because I realized just how much I love that movie. I’m sure there will be many more List-Worthy movies to come, but this is the most up-to-date list (as of January 2016) for anyone curious about my favorite films.
Rhyme and Reason 