The Majestic (2001)

Tags

Drama, Romance

There are people who thrive in the hustle and bustle
Of populous cities that never slow down.
The traffic and masses sustain like a muscle
That can’t stand the thought of a do-nothing town.

Yet others, like me, prefer tapping the brake.
For us, the slow motion is no handicap.
I’ll visit a city, but home I will make
In a place that’s not easily found on a map.

Such do-nothing places do more than their share,
Preserving the values that all nations need.
We listen and learn more in quieter air;
We merely must slow down enough to take heed.
_______________________

MPAA rating: PG (has occasional language but pretty clean overall)

Why have I not seen this movie sooner? The Majestic has been in my Netflix queue for a while now, but it feels like the kind of movie I should have seen when I was 12, largely clean and with a valuable message that has only gained in social importance. As a fan of The Truman Show, I was mainly curious to see Jim Carrey in another serious role, and, as with the other film, The Majestic ranks among his very best, making it a shame that its poor box office likely turned him and director Frank Darabont away from developing similar movies.

The year is 1951, and Hollywood screenwriter Peter Appleton (Carrey) is dumbfounded when his promising career is stalled by the Second Red Scare, leaving him blacklisted and expected to testify before Congress as a potential Communist. In his despair, he has an accident, waking with amnesia near the small town of Lawson, California. There, he is mistaken for Luke Trimble, the war hero son (thought to be dead) of the local theater owner (Martin Landau), who welcomes his long-lost boy home. Over time, he bonds with the town, grows closer to Luke’s girlfriend Adele (Laurie Holden), and helps breathe life back into the family theater, the Majestic, yet you know it is not meant to last. (I can’t help but mention David Ogden Stiers, whose presence in the small town visited by a humbled would-be hot shot immediately brought to mind the similarity with Doc Hollywood.)

Throughout The Majestic, I was trying to figure out how I felt about it and kept settling on “it depends.” It depends how the lie/mistake is revealed. It depends how all this Communist finger-pointing plays out. I just wasn’t sure where the film would ultimately end up, so I couldn’t decide if I truly liked it or not, wavering on the edge between List-Worthy and List Runner-Up. By the end, though, I was sure. Despite my unease, it definitely stuck the landing. The climax, a culminating speech before the House Un-American Activities Committee clearly echoing Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, is an absolute standout scene, made even more powerful by its extreme timeliness. At a time with so many fingers being pointed and voices being silenced, it’s a cinematic plea for Constitutional truth, tolerance, and patriotism that should be seen by every American.

Frank Darabont was clearly channeling Frank Capra with this movie, and just as Capra’s movies were derided at the time as “Capra-corn,” The Majestic didn’t fly with critics wary of anything remotely sentimental, which is a crying shame. I’ll admit it’s a bit too long and predictable, but it’s also an endorsement of nostalgia, decency, and the magic of movies, with emotional performances and strong direction throughout. It’s modern Capra-corn, and, when it’s done this well, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Best line: (Peter, speaking to Congress) “That’s the First Amendment, Mr. Chairman. It’s everything we’re about if only we’d live up to it! … It’s the most important part of the contract every citizen has with this country. And even though these contracts – the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights! – even though they’re just pieces of paper with signatures on them, they’re the only contracts we have that are most definitely not subject to renegotiation… not by you, Mr. Chairman… not by you, Mr. Clyde… Not by anyone, ever. Too many people have paid for this contract in blood!”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
655 Followers and Counting

 

Aladdin (2019)

Tags

Action, Disney, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance

There once was a popular tale
That viewers would watch without fail.
So Disney said, “Wait,
Let’s remake and update
A classic that never was stale.”
Despite the naysayers
And unanswered prayers,
That’s just what they did for resale.
And we, the civilians,
Still offered them billions
And all the support they entail.
__________________________

MPAA rating: PG

Like so many others, I rolled my eyes when I heard Disney was continuing their trend of recycling their animated hits into live-action by setting their sights on 1992’s Aladdin. Even so, I thought Aladdin at least had plenty of additional story material in the 1001 Arabian Nights to draw from, so it could potentially be not terrible. Even the Internet freakout over Will Smith’s blue CGI genie didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. (I swear, people judge movie effects far too quickly, whether it’s Alita’s eyes or photorealistic Pokemon, and usually it turns out fine once you get used to it.) So despite Disney’s so-so track record with these films, I guess I was optimistic but not exactly excited about another Aladdin, and now that I’ve seen it, my opinion hasn’t changed much.

The biggest weakness of these live-action remakes is that they repeatedly tread the same ground, replicating entire scenes and musical numbers that were already perfect in the original and cannot help but pale in comparison. It’s why I despised 2017’s Beauty and the Beast, yet Aladdin somehow seems more forgivable and entertaining, even if it does suffer from the same fault. I think the actors help immensely in this regard: Mena Massoud is a spot-on charming Aladdin, sporting great chemistry with Naomi Scott’s equally well cast Jasmine, who now champions some non-subtle feminism. And while Will Smith as Genie is no Robin Williams, he isn’t really trying to be, instead replacing some of the frenetic jokes with more of a hip-hop swagger. Plus, he even gets his own love interest in Jasmine’s handmaid, a welcome addition played by SNL’s Nasim Pedrad.

Director Guy Ritchie doesn’t really bring much of his unique action style to the proceedings, but it’s all still competent, fast-paced, colorful, and just different enough from the original to make you say, “Hey, why didn’t Jafar fool Aladdin by dressing up as a little old crazy man?!” Honestly, Jafar is the main weak point. Marwan Kenzari does fine with the role, playing him with more of an inferiority complex, but he’s missing so many aspects that made Jafar an iconic villain – Jonathan Freeman’s deep voice, the imposing stature, the goatee – and Iago and the snake staff don’t make up the difference to make him particularly memorable. The musical numbers are similarly not quite as vibrant as their animated counterparts (although the effects team did better with “Friend Like Me” than I was expecting), and Jasmine’s added girl power anthem is lovely but awkwardly placed as far as pacing.

It’s hard to judge these movies on their own merits since it’s hard not to compare them to the original, but if the original Aladdin didn’t exist, I think this one would be an amazing and innovative family film. As it is, it’s a pretty entertaining if uninspired family film with a laudable message, which still isn’t a bad thing these days. It’s at least not the kind of remake that does a disservice to the original, and since Disney insists on making more and more of these, that might be the best case scenario.

Best line: (Jafar) “Steal an apple, and you’re a thief. Steal a kingdom, and you’re a statesman.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
653 Followers and Counting

And a very Happy Thanksgiving to all!

 

2019 Blindspot Pick #10: Mr. Nobody (2009)

Tags

Drama, Romance, Sci-fi

This poem is a couplet, a two-liner rhyme,
For readers and poets who haven’t much time.

Or rather it could have been, if I’d decided,
But maybe I’ll make it a villanelle instead.
Which bears repetition by which it is guided.

You ask who would make such a change? Answer: I did.
So this is a villanelle now, as you’ve read,
Or rather it could have been, if I’d decided.

Let’s not be verbose.
A haiku might be better
To save syllables.

But then again, a sonnet I’d allow.
For fourteen lines in length would be provided
If only I would end this poem right now.

So what kind of poem was this one?
All four that I’ve named, or else none?
You can only decide
Once you’ve finished and tried
Looking backward when all’s said and done.
________________________

MPAA rating: R (mostly for sensuality and 2 F-words, seemed closer to a PG-13)

Well, this movie was a trip. I’ve been curious about Mr. Nobody for a while now, based on what I’d read about its unusual nonlinear story, and I can confirm it’s certainly unique. On one level, it’s a mind-bending, provocative tale of the potential directions life can take, which is exactly the kind of story I love, but it also is a bit too abstract for its own good.

The title character is Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto), a man born in 1975 who ends up living till 2094 as the oldest and last mortal in a world that has achieved quasi-immortality through science. Plagued by memory loss, he is interviewed on his deathbed by a tattooed psychiatrist (Allan Corduner) and a journalist (Daniel Mays), both of whom are perplexed by the unusually disparate histories he recounts, lives that split at major crossroads in his life, particularly a train station when he had to choose which divorcing parent to stay with at the age of nine.

To call Mr. Nobody peculiar is an understatement; it’s a full-blown experimental film. It’s amazing to me that such a film was made at all, and even more amazing that it was made three years before Cloud Atlas, which is the closest film I can compare it to in terms of cosmic ambition and madcap editing. Due to Nemo’s ability to see possible futures, it swings back and forth between Nemo’s potential lives: the three women he could marry, the jobs he could have taken, the mistakes and accidents he endures or avoids. Also interspersed are more fantastical detours, such as a future journey to Mars that doubles as a story written by a teenage Nemo and a surreal argyle-themed dream world that may or may not be part of Nemo’s subconscious.

Sometimes, these various storylines seem designed to confuse: The beginning shows bits and pieces of all the timelines in quick succession, like a sneak peek that leads to moments of revelation but is bewildering in the moment. In other cases, it gives a particular story more time to develop emotions, such as a romance between a teenage Nemo (Toby Regbo) and his stepsister Anna (Juno Temple; Diane Kruger as an adult) or the mental illness of one of Nemo’s other wives (Sarah Polley). Most of these timelines end in tragedy, yet others retain a sense of hope that one of Nemo’s decisions could lead to happiness.

At a certain point, the journalist interviewing the 118-year-old Nemo asks what the truth is, since not all of these lives could have happened, and Mr. Nobody’s answer extols the endlessness of possibility without providing a real answer. In that vein, one of Nemo’s professions is as the host of a TV science show, which allows him to ask big cosmic what-if questions that some might consider deep but ultimately boil down to “No one knows,” to the point that they’re almost meaningless, which may excite philosophers but can be frustrating to viewers who desire concrete answers. Plus, there’s uncertainty about whether some timelines are “real” at all, like the Mars mission that doesn’t always seem like something Nemo made up. Likewise, the ending is a strange mix of long-awaited satisfaction, pseudo-science that I at least didn’t fully understand, and a sweet conclusion undercut by a lack of context.

So, while Mr. Nobody frustrated me more, I suppose my final opinion is the same as for Cloud Atlas: a magnificent mess that individual viewers must decide whether it’s a masterpiece or a trainwreck. It certainly never fails to enchant visually, particularly several sequences that depict the butterfly effect (reminding me of similar scenes in Ink and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and the special effects, cinematography, and Pierre Van Dormael’s score are exceptional. At times, it seems to borrow individual motifs from the likes of Forrest Gump, When Harry Met Sally…, and Harold and Maude, yet all of the ingredients come together to form something wholly distinctive and idiosyncratic, for good or ill. It’s a film like no other, featuring Jared Leto’s best performance I’ve seen and individual scenes I loved, and, though its complexity and length will not be for everyone, it’s an experiment worth experiencing.

Best line: (Nemo Nobody) “At my age the candles cost more than the cake. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid I haven’t been alive enough. It should be written on every school room blackboard: Life is a playground… or nothing.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
652 Followers and Counting

 

2019 Blindspot Pick #9: Vertigo (1958)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Hitchcock, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

The birds in flight
May love their height
And laugh at bounded, grounded man,
But gravity
Can guarantee
That staying low’s a better plan.

Some love the thrill,
The view, the will
To see a limit and defy,
Yet none deny
That when you’re high,
It’s so much easier to die.
_____________________

MPAA rating: PG

Vertigo has to be the most critically lauded among my Blindspots this year, and I was quite curious to see whether it would match its reputation, since so many Hitchcock movies have fallen short, for me at least. Vertigo lands somewhere in the middle, confirming my opinion that Hitchcock mostly excelled in creating tension in individual scenes rather than whole movies.

The fourth and last collaboration between Hitchcock and star Jimmy Stewart, Vertigo is a tale of obsession that toys with the possibility of the supernatural. Stewart plays John “Scottie” Ferguson, a cop who retired after a deadly experience with heights but is commissioned by wealthy friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) to investigate Elster’s wife Madeleine (Kim Novak) and her sudden strange behavior. As he learns more about her connection to a suicidal ancestor and develops a relationship with her, he encounters secrets and mysteries that shake him to his core.

As a fan of film, I can say that I am definitively glad to have finally seen this classic of cinema, an oversight that represents exactly what this Blindspot series is meant to solve. Yet it doesn’t hold the same fascination for me that it apparently does for so many. Perhaps it’s because the film’s intrigue was such a rollercoaster. It starts out interesting enough with Stewart as his ever-likable self, but the story really drags during his investigation, which consists of far too much of him wordlessly following Madeleine by car. Maybe it’s just me, but the picture below doesn’t do much for me in the way of tension.

Then comes a famous scene in a bell tower, which is indeed one of Hitchcock’s best for buildup and shock value. Not too much longer, and the reveal of the mystery left my brain working overtime, surprised at the unanticipated twist and giving me a new appreciation for the storyline. Yet what follows becomes a somewhat uncomfortable exercise in obsessive grief (including a weirdly unnecessary psychedelic dream), played out through what would be a deeply unhealthy relationship if not for the audience’s knowledge of its psychological underpinnings. How it ends, while effective, is also anything but satisfying, so abrupt that it made me recall how much I despise the final scenes in North by Northwest and An American Werewolf in London. I know Hitchcock knew how to end a movie, but I wouldn’t know it based on this one.

I certainly can’t fault the actors. Stewart is always good, always, and Kim Novak might be one of my favorites of Hitchcock’s blonde leading ladies. Barbara Bel Geddes is also great as Scottie’s casual friend/former crush, who is short-changed by the ending’s lack of closure. I also liked a cameo by Ellen Corby, who also appeared with Stewart briefly in It’s a Wonderful Life (“Could I have $17.50?”) Likewise, Bernard Herrmann’s hypnotic score is an outstanding accompaniment, and, like the score of Psycho, adds so much to the film’s atmosphere.

All in all, Vertigo is the second best one-word Hitchcock film that ends with an O, as well as the second best Hitchcock film that begins with an injured Jimmy Stewart. Sorry if that doesn’t sound like high praise, though I do appreciate its cinematic contribution of that vertigo effect above. I can see why film enthusiasts like it and why its filming locations around San Francisco have become iconic, and I have half a mind to see it again just to pick up on the hints to the twist that I might have missed the first time. Yet, considering it’s been ranked both 1st and 9th on lists of the best films ever made, I feel like its reputation is somewhat overblown. Psycho is still Hitchcock’s masterpiece as far as I’m concerned.

Best line: (Madeleine) “Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere. ”

Rank: Honorable Mention

© 2019 S.G. Liput
649 Followers and Counting

Version Variations: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939, 1969)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Meet 'em and Move on, Musical, Romance, Version Variations

A young boy’s mind is a fallow field
With unknown promise yet to yield,
And every word their minds import
Of criticism or support,
Of firm reproof or merely sport,
Contributes to the man revealed
At last when boyhood is cut short.

To nobly tend this field with care,
Since parents can’t be always there,
Requires a person resolute,
Profuse with passion, temper mute,
With love of learning absolute.
Such people tasting praise is rare,
But they produce the finest fruit.
_____________________

MPAA rating of 1939 version:  Not Rated (should be G)
MPAA rating of 1969 version:  G

Those who’ve seen my Top 365 movie list might know that I love Mr. Holland’s Opus.  I’ve just always been drawn to the story of an unassuming teacher finding worth in the service of his students.  I’ve always vaguely known that 1939’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips, based on a 1934 novella, was the original version of such a story, but I’d never gotten around to seeing it. When I then learned it had been remade as a musical in 1969, I figured it would be a prime chance to compare the two in one of my overdue Version Variation posts.

The first Goodbye, Mr. Chips is known as one of the members of the great movie year of 1939, managing to win Robert Donat the Best Actor Oscar over some stiff competition, including Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind. Having seen the winning performance, I can now see why Donat edged out the rest, letting his range of sometimes inscrutable emotions play out with great subtlety as he ages from a fresh-faced new Latin teacher in 1870 to a celebrated educator in 1933, weighed down with all the joys and sorrows of a lifetime. (My VC enjoyed the film a lot, but as a huge Rhett Butler fan, her loyalties still lie with Gable.) Like Mr. Holland, the respect Mr. Chipping ends up with is hard-won, but much of it stems from his marriage to the lovely Kathy Ellis (Greer Garson), whom he meets on a European holiday. I would have loved for Garson’s role to have been longer, but, even with limited screen time, her warm presence successfully brings the prosaic Chipping out of his shell, improving his reputation at the school.

In many ways, Goodbye, Mr. Chips is exactly the kind of movie I like, a film spanning decades wherein one character meets various people and experiences alongside the ebb and flow of time, fostering a sense of fond nostalgia. I particularly liked his run-ins with successive generations of the Colley family, showing how static his life at school is while his students go on to have lives of their own. Mr. Holland’s Opus had some similarities, but whereas that film allowed time for characters to be eventually remembered, the turnaround in Goodbye, Mr. Chips is sometimes too fast, introducing a character only for us to learn what happened to them years later in a few minutes’ time. Ultimately, Goodbye, Mr. Chips is well-deserving of its classic status, and while there’s no danger of it supplanting my preference for Mr. Holland’s Opus, it was wonderful seeing a forerunner of a story I’ve come to love.

And then there’s the 1969 remake with Peter O’Toole and Petula Clark, which fits into the not-so-modern sentiment that remakes hardly ever match the original. There’s nothing wrong with making it a musical, allowing the songs to mainly serve as interior monologues, but the songs are largely forgettable, except for a couple clever lyrics, and O’Toole just isn’t much of a singer, trying out the Rex Harrison method of talk-singing but less successfully.

The plot has the same basic elements: Chipping is a somewhat unpopular Latin teacher at a boys’ school who meets and marries a girl named Katherine (Clark) and eventually becomes a mainstay of the institution. There are still the lines of boys sounding off their attendance and a very similar ending, but the filmmakers made significant plot changes elsewhere. For one, the time period is moved up, no longer starting in the 1800s but in the 1920s with Chipping already an established teacher; thus, the war he experiences is World War II rather than World War I.

The worst change, though, is that Katherine is no longer a cycling suffragette Chips meets on a mountain but a music hall singer with an unsavory past, and their formerly brief courtship takes up the entire first half of the film, which also features an intermission to pad out its greater length. There’s pushback against their marriage where there was none before, along with Roaring ’20s parties and O’Toole’s wife-at-the-time Siân Phillips as an annoying socialite. I know I said that I wished Chipping’s wife was in the original more, but I was referring to Greer Garson’s version; the writers of the remake essentially rewrote her whole character, and while Petula Clark was great in the role, it was such a weirdly unnecessary change from the original.

Even so, the latter half (or really third) of the film is much more similar to the first film and is better for it. O’Toole and Clark do well with their roles (O’Toole even got an Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe), although O’Toole’s Chipping is slightly more stiff and crotchety, even in scenes supposed to be romantic. The film overall was solid enough, but, as with so many remakes, it just doesn’t compare with the original.

I guess films about long-suffering teachers who touch the lives of their students just naturally appeal to me, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, whatever the incarnation, fits that mold. The original is clearly the better of the two, though, and certainly the one I’d recommend first. While the scene wasn’t in the 1939 movie, I couldn’t help but recall Mr. Holland’s Opus when the second film’s Kathy organizes a school musical with the students, which made me wonder how much either version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips really inspired the 1995 film. They’re so different in setting and character, and yet so similar in theme, particularly in their final heartwarming sentiments (see below). I suppose that’s what speaks to me most of all.

Best line (from 1939 film but something similar in both): (Mr. “Chips”) “I thought I heard you saying it was a pity… pity I never had any children. But you’re wrong. I have… thousands of them, thousands of them… and all boys.”

 

Rank of 1939 version:  List Runner-Up

Rank of 1969 version:  Honorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
646 Followers and Counting

 

Puzzle (2018)

Tags

Drama, Romance

Gather the pieces and put them together,
Grouped by the borders, the colors, the shapes,
Every last piece is reliant on whether
You’ll strive to the end or accept sour grapes.

People and puzzles begin as mere pieces
And wait for the day they at last are complete.
The one who assembles, refusing to cease, is
The one satisfied at the end of the feat.
____________________

MPAA rating:  R (solely for intermittent profanity)

I don’t recall which post it was, but I remember saying at some point that there would inevitably be a movie for every conceivable contest out there, and sure enough, here’s one featuring a national jigsaw puzzle tournament. As someone who used to love puzzles and put together 1000-piece pictures with the best of them, I had special interest in this movie’s subject, and it turned out to be a quietly likable little film.

Kelly Macdonald (known to me as the voice of Merida in Brave, though she effortlessly sheds her Scottish accent here) plays a soft-spoken Catholic housewife named Agnes. We get an excellent, largely wordless view of her character and life as she hosts her own birthday party, preparing the cake and cleaning up herself, all with patience and an occasional sigh. Yet when she opens one of her gifts and assembles the jigsaw puzzle inside, she discovers a latent talent that is all her own, leading her to step out from the shadow of her family life and start training with the wealthy and misanthropic Robert (Irrfan Khan), a professional puzzler in need of a partner for an upcoming puzzle contest.

Puzzle’s greatest strength is its characterization. As I said, it sets up Agnes’s situation with a brilliant lack of exposition, showing rather than telling, and her demure, self-effacing nature is a sharp contrast to the eccentricities of her puzzle partner. Agnes’s husband Louie (David Denman) is also a complex figure. At times, he seems like an inconsiderate boor, expecting her to always have dinner ready and balking at any change to their normal lives, but it’s simply what he, as well as Agnes up to that point, had always known. And plenty of other scenes make it clear that he loves Agnes and is willing to change for her, just not always in the most tactful of ways. It would have been so easy to slap these characters onscreen without the nuance, but I enjoyed the character depth delivered by talented actors.

Nevertheless, I was somewhat disappointed by the direction of Agnes’ self-awakening, specifically (spoiler alert) that her relationship with Robert inevitably evolved into an affair. While I appreciated her eventual decision, I’ve always felt the same way about stories where someone turns back only after a sexual fling. Films like Witness, Ida, and this one are well-made and relatable, but it feels like the ultimate decision toward orthodoxy loses some of its power after they’ve already transgressed. On top of that, the ending here is a little too open-ended for me. Like I Am Legend, this is another case where I prefer the alternate ending to the actual one, or even better, some combination of the two.

Puzzle came close to being a favorite, but it fell just a little short. The characters were empathetic and well-written, and I certainly loved the puzzle subject matter and its message of why puzzles themselves are so appealing. I also liked its rare positive portrayal of Agnes’ Catholic faith, though I wish they could have delved further into how that faith was affected by her new sense of self. It’s an engaging indie that just might awaken (or re-awaken) the desire to assemble a puzzle of your own.

Best line: (Robert, to Agnes, whom he calls Mata) “Life’s just random. Everything’s random. My success, you here now. There’s nothing we can do to control anything. But when you complete a puzzle, when you finish it, you know that you have made all the right choices. No matter how many wrong pieces you tried to fit into a wrong place, but at the very end, everything makes one perfect picture. What other pursuits can give you that kind of perfection? Faith? Ambition? Wealth? Love? No. Not even love can do that, Mata. Not completely.”

 

Rank:  List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
643 Followers and Counting

 

Cartoon Comparisons: Alita: Battle Angel (2019) / Gunnm (1993)

Tags

Action, Animation, Anime, Cartoon Comparisons, Drama, Romance, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem that meditates on a strong emotion, like disillusionment with the world at large.)

The world is not the friendly place we once had promised to ourselves
When youthful optimism held some sway within our hearts.
We like to think that’s still the case, and yet the more a person delves,
The more this human-born machine reveals its sordid parts.

It’s tragedy that truly wakes our minds to darkness come to light,
That shows how cruel the world can be, with men its messengers.
We’re ignorant of risk and stakes, and enter honestly the fight,
Too late to learn the world was not designed for amateurs.
___________________

MPAA rating: PG-13 (comes close to R with the violence)

I’ve been looking forward to Alita: Battle Angel for well over a year, ever since I heard James Cameron was planning on bringing the long-running manga Battle Angel Alita (a.k.a. Gunnm) to Hollywood. This movie fascinates me not only for its visually awesome cyberpunk future, but also because it owes its existence to one man’s passion project, bringing an extremely niche franchise to a far wider audience than it otherwise would have enjoyed. It makes me wish something similar would happen with Steins;Gate or Cowboy Bebop.

Adaptations between manga/anime and live-action have historically been more miss than hit, but Alita is finally the hit that fans have been waiting for, faithful to its origins in the best way. I, for one, have not read the manga that so enthralled James Cameron, but I have watched the 1993 OVA (Original Video Animation), which is basically like a direct-to-video anime. At only 55 minutes long, it was an imaginative if brutal sci-fi that I definitely recognized had plenty of potential for the big screen. And now that it has, I’m thrilled that such potential was not wasted.

The manga/anime/film tells the story of the cyborg Alita (Rosa Salazar), a girl whose head is discovered in a trash heap by cybernetics expert Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz). Finding her human brain still active, he rebuilds her body and introduces the amnesiac girl to the cutthroat world of Iron City, a sprawling dystopia patrolled by cyborg bounty hunters and festering in the shadow of the floating city known as Zalem. Trying to regain her memories, Alita becomes a Hunter Warrior herself as she falls in love with young Hugo (Keean Johnson) and navigates the plotting of Ido’s rival Dr. Chiren (Jennifer Connolly), the villainous Vector (Mahershala Ali), and his killer henchmen.

As it is, Alita might bring to mind several other films, such as Elysium with its floating city of higher class exploitation or the cyberpunk aesthetic of Ghost in the Shell, but I can’t help but feel that, if Alita had come out twenty years ago, it would be blowing people’s minds left and right. Yet the manga predates most of what it seems to borrow from, though the sport of Motorball definitely seems inspired by Rollerball.

I’m glad, though, that Cameron wasn’t able to make Alita when he first wanted to back in 2003 because the visuals wouldn’t have been this good. Alita: Battle Angel is a sci-fi action treat, with visual effects that have a good shot at an Oscar next year. Alita herself is stunningly realized, with Rosa Salazar providing a strong motion capture performance, augmented by the effects team with those anime-sized eyes that aren’t as hard to get used to as you might think. There are a few hiccups in the animation early on that threaten to be distracting, but by the time Alita starts kicking criminal butt, she’s seamlessly a part of this world.

The live-action Ghost in the Shell was distracting for me because it was a mish-mash of various plot points from the anime film and series; Alita, on the other hand, might be the most faithful adaptation I’ve come across. Nearly everything in the anime is also in the movie, sometimes even shot for shot (like Chiren squishing a bug while telling Ido she’ll claw her way back to Zalem), though the movie’s greater length allows it to expand on many plot elements, such that watching the anime is like a highlight reel of the film. Considering how anime adaptations have flopped so hard over the years, the film’s faithfulness to its source material is laudable and likely credited to the efforts of Cameron himself as a fan of the manga. Interestingly, I understand that some differences from the manga were actually borrowed from the anime; one villainous character is killed in both versions but apparently survives much longer in the manga.

That’s not to say there aren’t other differences; the source of Alita’s name and body is given more emotional weight in the film, and Ido’s former relationship with Chiren is explicitly romantic where it wasn’t before. And the film throws in entire sections that I can only assume are drawn from the manga since they weren’t in the anime, like the deadly sport of Motorball and the glimpses of Alita’s forgotten past. For me, these additions only added to the epic dystopian world-building that I so admire.

One thing I was concerned about the adaptation was just how violent it would end up being, and I was relieved that it earned a PG-13 rating and the wider audience that that entails. Don’t get me wrong; Alita: Battle Angel definitely pushes the boundary for a PG-13 film with multiple heads and limbs sent flying, but the anime is certainly more violent and bloody. The movie may have its brutal moments, but I was glad it was largely bloodless, leaving out the anime’s brief nudity and leaving some cruel moments mercifully offscreen.

While Alita was a pleasure to watch on the big screen, I find myself struggling with how to rank it. I’m still not a fan of the mostly bitter ending common to both the anime and film, but I’m excited for whatever may come in the (hopefully forthcoming) sequel, which is uncharted territory for me. My ranking could easily change with time, but I’ll err on the side of caution and make it a List Runner-Up. Nevertheless, for the most part, Alita: Battle Angel was pure effects-heavy coolness and as good as I’d hoped it would be, proving that Hollywood can make good films based on manga/anime. Perhaps it simply takes someone like James Cameron to steer them in the right direction.

Best line: (Alita) “I do not stand by in the presence of evil!”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
628 Followers and Counting

 

Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

Tags

Action, Comedy, Romance

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem about a season, senses, and a rhetorical question, so I tackled the thrill of a summer drive.)

How far would you drive in the summer?
How far would the summer drive you?
Every mile, every town,
Every window rolled down
Would herald the motored newcomer,
Before he then passed out of view.

You’re old enough not to be reckless,
But young enough not to pay heed.
So let the wind howl,
Let the slower folk scowl
While you hug the road’s skin like a necklace
And dazzle them all with your speed.

No Internet vies for your vision,
No buzz in your pocket distracts.
The only machine
That you currently preen
Is the engine defined by precision,
The one that leaves all in your tracks.

The smell of the asphalt is heady,
The heat of the sun is your charge,
The wind’s jaunty taste
Bids your wild side make haste.
The world may or may not be ready.
There’s a foolhardy driver at large!
_____________________

MPAA rating: PG (should definitely be PG-13 by today’s standards, for language)

In the wake of Burt Reynolds’ death, it seemed only right to check out the film that really solidified his popularity and brilliantly utilized his natural charisma. Smokey and the Bandit is lightweight and undemanding, but I doubt it could be any more entertaining.

As the titular “Bandit,” Reynolds is a mustachioed force to be reckoned with, cruising along Southern highways and backways in a now iconic Pontiac Trans Am. His Bo Darville accepts the offer of two deep-pocketed Texans (Pat McCormick and Paul Williams) to ferry a truckload of illegal Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta in 28 hours. Helped along by his friend “Snowman” (Jerry Reed, who also sings the awesome theme song “East Bound and Down”), Bandit takes on a passenger in a runaway bride (Sally Field) and makes an instant enemy out of tenacious, belligerent Sheriff Buford T. Justice, aka “Smokey” (Jackie Gleason in rare form).

Smokey and the Bandit is undoubtedly a product of its time, released at the height of the CB radio craze, and it seems bizarre to me that Coors would be illegal east of Texas even decades after Prohibition. It apparently wasn’t sold in the East due to its lack of preservatives, but I’ve read that the illegality comes more from the amount (400 cases) being shipped illegally over state lines, rather than the brand. I remember my mom mentioning what a big deal it was when Coors was finally available on the east coast, only to discover she thought it tasted terrible.

Even so, the beer fuels the chase of the film, as Bandit uses every rubber-burning trick in his arsenal to elude the cops and keep Snowman off their radar. The film might have benefited from a better method of keeping track of the deadline, since there are moments when the tension of the time limit doesn’t seem all that important, yet it’s still a blast. Gleason, in particular, is a hoot as the quintessential exasperated lawman, made more memorable by his dimwitted son/deputy, a repeatedly mutilated car, and a colorful vocabulary.

Smokey and the Bandit is largely unrealistic, and its script is an engaging mix of the clever and lowbrow, but it vrooms along under the sheer likability of Reynolds and Field. While I feel like it owes its classic status more to age/nostalgia than to anything else, it’s a truly fun and easily watchable summer blockbuster that only the ‘70s could have produced.

Best lines: (Big Enos) “You see, son, old legends never die. They just lose weight.”
and
(Sheriff Justice) “What we’re dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the law.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
627 Followers and Counting

 

Chicken with Plums (2011)

Tags

Drama, Fantasy, Foreign, Romance

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a mournful elegy about the physical rather than the abstract. Thus, I focused on the everyday grief that doesn’t always make itself visible.)

I grieve every day but don’t show it.
None see it, of course, but I do.
No moistened eyelashes,
No sackcloth and ashes,
It’s deeper and yet no less true.

I grieve in the taste of the chicken
That never tastes quite like it did
When Mother would heighten
My senses and brighten
My day with the lift of a lid.

I grieve at the sound of the classics,
The ones that my father proclaimed
Were better by far
Than the modern songs are,
To which I agreed or was shamed.

I grieve at the touch of an afghan,
Hand-knitted with love in each thread.
Its knots and defects
Made the knitter perplexed,
But now they are precious instead.

I grieve where the world in its hurry
Has left things of value behind.
Don’t doubt I’m sincere
If I don’t shed a tear;
They moisten my heart and my mind.
___________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

It was three years ago this very month that I reviewed Marjane Satrapi’s animated drama Persepolis as part of NaPoWriMo. That film was such a refreshingly unique experience that I knew I had to check out her next film, which, like Persepolis, was also based off her own graphic novel. Chicken with Plums may not be animated, but its similarity of style is equally praiseworthy, just on a far less consistent level than its predecessor.

Told in French and set in 1950s Iran, Chicken with Plums is the story of a man who decides to die. After his critical wife (Maria de Medeiros) smashes his beloved violin, the famed concert pianist Nasser-Ali (Mathieu Amalric) loses his will to live, lying in bed awaiting death and dreaming of the past and future. The narrative is far from linear, interspersed with subjective thoughts of how his children will grow up, memories of his success, and bizarre fantasies (hugging a giant pair of breasts, for example). It’s a weird mix as the tone swings wildly from obnoxious slapstick to pensive reminiscences, and not all of it works.

However, what does work is outstanding, at least on a visual level. The settings and overall aesthetic have the dated, magical aura of yesteryear, with a carefully crafted artistry that I could compare to that of Wes Anderson if he had half the idiosyncrasies. Satrapi’s vision of 1950s Iran oddly has the look and feel of Europe, reminding us how western-leaning the nation was before the Revolution, as detailed in Persepolis. And the acting is certainly on point, with Amalric of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly fame once more proving his thespian skill.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Chicken with Plums up until the ending, where the story takes a sublimely bittersweet turn that is crushing in its emotional resonance. It’s a rare and beautiful melancholy replete with the story’s themes of music, heartache, and loss; it may not quite fit with many parts of the film but still ended it on a high note of poignancy.

Best line:  (Nasser-Ali’s music teacher, speaking of his initial music) “Sounds come out. But it is empty. It is barren. It is nothing. Life is a breath; life is a sigh. It is this sigh that you must seize.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
626 Followers and Counting

 

I Am Dragon (2015)

Tags

Drama, Fantasy, Foreign, Romance

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to present “a scene from an unusual point of view.” Thus, I took the fairy tale terror of a dragon carrying off a young maiden and provided the dragon’s angle.)

I am the dragon, the lizard of lore,
So hated and feared by mankind.
From the sky do I hunt,
And I take what I want
From the men who wince under my roar.
From the day that I hatched,
I’ve had power unmatched,
A monster by nature designed.

Now in my talons, I carry a girl,
Flown higher than humans would dare.
I made my attack
With the thought of a snack
And escaped with my prize in a whirl.
Her kin now must mourn,
For their cold-blooded thorn
Has taken her back to his lair.

Gladly, I’d deem her my prey to devour,
As dragons by nature must do,
And yet in her face
Is a vestige, a trace
Of a feeling confronting my power.
No man is my match,
But this woman I catch
Offers something I cannot subdue.
_______________________

MPAA rating: Not Rated (could be PG, maybe more PG-13)

It’s rare that a film feels like a fairy tale, not just a Hollywood version of one but an original fairy tale with its roots firmly planted in romance and the fantasy culture of a nation. In the case of I Am Dragon (or He’s a Dragon), that nation is Russia. Based on the Russian novel The Ritual, the result is a film that tows the line between epic and sappy but is beautifully mounted and appealingly dignified compared with what I imagine a Hollywood version might look like.

A prologue explains how a dragon once terrorized a medieval village, carrying away the innocent maidens offered to him as sacrifices until the day a hero slew the beast. Fast forward then to the arranged wedding of free-spirited Princess Miroslava (Maria Poezzhaeva), or Mira, who is none too thrilled with her appointed husband. In a case of unwise history-rebranding, someone thought it would be a good idea to use the old dragon-summoning song during the ceremony, and everyone is shocked when the dragon reappears to carry Mira away. Mira soon awakens on the dragon’s remote island lair, where a handsome young man she names Arman (Matvey Lykov) proves to be a charming but conflicted host.

I won’t say any “spoilers” outright, but as you can probably surmise from my description, this is like a Russian version of Beauty and the Beast, with some very clear echoes to the Disney version of events. However, with a dragon taking the place of the Beast and an almost Game of Thrones-style aesthetic, it’s a successful variation of the familiar tale, which is also leagues better than Disney’s cringe-worthy live-action version.

As for the romance, there’s certainly chemistry between Mira and Arman, the former headstrong and adventurous, the latter self-loathing and in need of love. The island setting, though, along with Arman’s perpetually shirtless self does make the romantic scenes feel like something out of a Harlequin novel, albeit one with surprisingly grand production values, atmospheric music, and impressive CGI. (I even included the above image from this film in the top right picture of my fantasy banner.)

It really depends on your capacity for potentially mawkish love stories, but for me, I Am Dragon had enough high fantasy to outweigh the few corny moments, and the romance was still engaging and carried weight while thankfully keeping things PG for the most part. I’m glad to have stumbled upon this admirable fantasy, which makes me think that little-known Russian cinema can hold its own against Hollywood’s more publicized output.

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
626 Followers and Counting