Oscar Pandering Season Begins Well With Other People!

The Good: Well-written, Well-performed, Engaging characters
The Bad: Very simplistic plot, Tone transitions away from its initial humor
The Basics: Other People is a realistic exploration of an adult son's return to his estranged family to help his mother as she struggles with cancer.


Oscar Pandering Season is here! After Summer Blockbuster Season, most of the movie studios release their dumb horror flicks and their first serious contenders for the Academy Awards right around the same time. The first, obvious, outing for Oscar Pandering Season is Other People. Other People is an indie dramedy written and directed by Chris Kelly, which has a cast that is pretty much an Oscar voter's dream as it blends less-known performers (like Jesse Plemons), well-established actors with a history of winning awards (Bradley Whitford) and actors completely expanding their range in an unexpected way (in this case comedy actress Molly Shannon in a heavily dramatic role).

Other People is a very archetypal blend of drama and comedy, which has become popular over the last decade. Chris Kelly finds the right balance, though it is incredibly awkward at many times with its very abrupt transitions. One moment, there is a comedy show, the next David is telling uncomfortable friends about how his mother has given up on chemo, when the conversation is hijacked by someone from David's past. Other People is painful and funny without transitions and in that way it captures a realism that is profound and manages to be entertaining. At its core, Other People is a yearlong journey for David as he tries to take care of his dying mother.

Opening with a group of people crying over the death of Joanne, the film leaps back to New Year's, when David returns to Sacramento from New York, where the show he was writing for failed to get picked up. The party is for Joanne, David's mother, who has cancer. David, who is estranged from his boyfriend, quickly discovers that the people he knew in town find it very uncomfortable to interface with him about his mother's illness and the way his family dealt with him coming out almost a decade prior. As the year progresses, David, Joanne, and Norman (David's father) make arrangements for Joanne's death.

But in June, Joanne is tired of the chemo not working and she decides to quit it. In July, David and his comedy troupe put Joanne on stage for an improv routine. David hooks up with Paul there, despite not being together anymore. Returning to California, David tries to set up an online dating profile, but ends up spending time with his one friend in Sacramento (and his family) instead. David tries dating, but finds the experience more awkward and excruciating than spending time with his family.

Jesse Plemons is the lead in Other People and he earns the spotlight as David. Plemons might best be known for playing a psychopath nephew of the white supremacists in the final season of Breaking Bad (reviewed here!) and that role was very serious. Plemons is able to play deadpan comedy remarkably well in Other People, like a hilarious scene where David orders milkshakes from an absolute idiot. David is an incredibly straitlaced guy who does not react to the zany things people tell him - like his grandfather telling him about how his mom was supposed to be born dead and about a local girl who was decapitated and kept swimming around afterward. Plemons gives David some interesting ticks - when he gets nervous, he puts his fingers in his mouth and it's an interesting tell that Plemons uses very consistently without overdoing it in Other People.

Molly Shannon is wonderful in Other People. While she uses her trademark goofy facial expressions that made her famous during her tenure on Saturday Night Live for an amusing church scene, the role of Joanne is a much more dramatic part for her and she nails it. When talking about Joanne's last wishes, she expresses angst and anger tremendously well. As Joanne's condition deteriorates, Shannon spends a lot of time crying and making an agonizing physical performance to embody her physical changes. Shannon's scowl when Joanne visits the school she will no longer be teaching at is harder to watch than her portrayal of Joanne losing her voice in the same scene.

Bradley Whitford plays predictably well as the homophobic Norman, a clear departure from his role from Transparent (Season 1 is reviewed here!). Whitford is amazing in a very simple scene where he has his children out talking to his kids about what is going on in their lives. After watching Whitford work on different projects for years, it is interesting to see him add new performance depths, though it is unsurprising that he nails them! Maude Apatow and Madisen Beaty are underused on Other People as David's oft-neglected younger sisters Alexandra and Rebeccah. In his brief scenes opposite Jesse Plemons, Zach Woods creates a palpable chemistry with him as Paul.

Other People is well-directed, but it is also one of the few films I have watched lately where the product placement was painfully obvious. A bag of chips is very noticeably placed with its name visible in an early scene, a conversation among schoolteachers suddenly prominently plugs Target and the establishing shot of Applebee's seems overly long. And when David has his big breakdown in a store where he cannot organically find what he is looking for, it is noticeably not a Target.

As well, Other People features an incredibly awkward scene that seems to only even be tolerable because Little Miss Sunshine (reviewed here!) did it, literally, a decade ago. It sticks out in the film in a particularly unpleasant way . . . which is saying something for a movie that has agonizing scenes portraying a woman painfully dying of cancer.

Other People is a technically wonderful film that has good characters, a consistent theme and is impressively performed, but its closeness to reality makes it hard to watch as entertainment. It is an excruciating journey to death and that makes it inherently awkward and difficult. It is Oscarbait that is well-made, worth watching once, but hard to get excited about seeing more than that.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Zoom
Spaceman
The Whole Truth
Pete's Dragon
Suicide Squad
Nerve
Star Trek Beyond

8.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Unremarkable Sequelland: Hotel Transylvania 2.

The Good: Decent-enough animation and performances
The Bad: Overbearing soundtrack, Not funny, Nothing compelling or original in the plot or characters
The Basics: Hotel Transylvania 2 unremarkably strings together random jokes about monsters to continue the franchise in an unimpressive way.


As a reviewer, I see a lot of movies and one of the real tests of a film's endurance is how well the viewer remembers it when and if a sequel is made. With the release of Hotel Transylvania 2, I got to thinking about Hotel Transylvania (reviewed here!). I know I saw the first Hotel Transylvania, but it was so utterly unmemorable that as the sequel began, I realized I could not recall a single moment from the original. Hotel Transylvania 2 leaps right in, so those not invested in the characters from the first one are likely to find the new movie somewhat inaccessible.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is an odd blend of monster jokes mixed with the non-sequitor of monsters talking about ridiculous or pop-culture things. So, people are supposed to find it hilarious when Dracula kvetches about "good fats" or Wayne the werewolf refuses to hunt because Pop-Tarts make killing animals unnecessary. At the other end, Mavis's journey almost entirely consists of her shock at seeing the mundane aspects of the human world - like the variety of potato chips and 24 hour gas station/convenience stores. The result is a thoroughly lackluster film.

Opening with the wedding of Mavis and Johnny, the daughter of Dracula and her human boyfriend, the Hotel Transylvania is packed with monsters and Jonathan's very unsettled human parents. The wedding goes off without a hitch and a year later, Mavis tells Dracula she is pregnant while the two are out flying as bats. Soon after, Dennis is born and appears to be human. While Dennis is growing up, Johnny tries to get Dracula to use social media and technology like smartphones. Dracula begins to worry that Dennis is not learning how to be a proper vampire and tries to get the boy to activate his powers, to no avail. After Dennis goes to a birthday party for a litter of werewolf pups and loses a tooth there, Mavis suspects that Dennis is not actually a monster and she tells her father that she is thinking of moving away to a place that will be safer for her young son.

Mavis and Johnny head to California to see if it will be an appropriate place to raise Dennis, while Dracula and the monsters take Dennis to try to get him into real monster culture. Unfortunately, the trip to the dark forest reveals that it is now a park filled with suburbanites on vacation. While Mavis is thrilled by exploring the human world with Johnny, the monsters try to teach Dennis how to be monstrous, but they run into adoring fans, physical problems like back spasms, and the monsters' refusal to be truly monstrous. The monsters make it to the camp where Dracula learned to be monstrous as Mavis makes it to the California suburb where both discover that things are not as they remember or want.

Much of Hotel Transylvania 2 is a series of shtick jokes with monster subjects or "values" used to replace the mundane subjects. The concept gets very old exceptionally quickly and given that lines like "stake my heart and hope to die" from Dracula barely elicit a smile the first time around, it's hard to imagine how the studio thought this would perform well. Hotel Transylvania 2 feels like a direct-to-video sequel that has the voice talents from the first project, but predictably lacks a compelling story or jokes that make it a worthy continuation of the characters' journey.

The voice performances in Hotel Transylvania 2 are fine, but nothing extraordinary. Selena Gomez does fine as Mavis, but she's not given any challenges that would allow her to be particularly expressive. Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg play Dracula and Johnny as very minor variations on their previously-established characters. Sandler, especially, falls into a voice that is particularly generic for his shtick.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is marred by an overbearing pop music soundtrack as much as it is by characters who utterly unremarkable. The story is painfully generic and if the characters were not monsters, it's hard to imagine the movie ever would have been made. Within minutes of finishing the film, I realized that there was no defining moment that stuck with me. It is a forgettable sequel for a forgettable film.

Hotel Transylvania 2 is utterly unnecessary; The Addam's Family and The Munsters have done all these types of jokes before and there's nothing so compelling about the characters, animation or plot to make this feel at all worthwhile.

For other works with or by Selena Gomez, please visit my reviews of:
The Fundamentals Of Caring
Revival (Deluxe Edition)
The Big Short
Behaving Badly
For You - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Stars Dance
When The Sun Goes Down - Selena Gomez & The Scene
A Year Without Rain - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Kiss & Tell - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Horton Hears A Who!

2/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A (Mostly) Amusing Animated Film, Hotel Transylvania Is Not Great.

The Good: Moments of imagination, Much of the voice acting
The Bad: One-hit humor, Predictable character arcs and plot
The Basics: An amusing concept, Hotel Transylvania has a decent set-up that fails to evolve in an interesting or unpredictable way.


There are, these days, very few films that I miss that I feel like I have actually missed. When a movie is important enough to me, I tend to find a way to get out to see it. So, I was not feeling any great deficit in my life when I uprooted last year and moved from New York to Michigan when Hotel Transylvania came out. It was not a film I prioritized checking out after my move and, having seen it now, I am glad I did not make the effort (getting to the movie theaters out here can be a real pain!). Hotel Transylvania is not bad, but it is hardly as funny, audacious or even interesting as one might hope.

That is not to say that Hotel Transylvania is bad. However, it does not take long for the initially fun-feeling animated feature to turn into pretty much what one expects from an Adam Sandler movie. In addition to utilizing the voice talents of virtually all of Adam Sandler’s old Saturday Night Live buddies – Jon Lovitz, Molly Shannon, David Spade – Sandler’s initial voice performance as Dracula soon slips into his familiar timbre. The result is that the film slowly becomes one of Adam Sander’s feel-good comedies, though this one has a pretty low rewatchability factor because the jokes might illicit a smile the first time around, but not much more than that on subsequent viewings (rewatching even the trailer after seeing the film, I found myself unfortunately unamused).

As her 118th birthday approaches, Mavis – the vampire daughter of Dracula - begs her father to honor his word to her and let her leave their monster sanctuary hotel as he promised her she could at that age. To her surprise, Dracula does let her go – starting with a visit to a nearby village. There, Mavis is horrified to find villagers with torches who want to eat her toes, exactly like her father warned her about. As Mavis flees back to the hotel sanctuary, Dracula has the zombie bellhops from the hotel – who were disguised as humans for the show – strike the village set he created to freak Mavis out. The ruse has the desired effect and Mavis expresses no further desire to leave the monsters-only hotel.

Unfortunately, the show Dracula puts on for his ignorant daughter has an unexpected consequence; a human hiker follows the zombies back to the monsters hotel. While Dracula works to conceal young Jonathan’s humanity (a real difficulty considering the hotel chef, Quasimodo, has a rat with a nose like a bloodhound) to insure his guests will continue to stay at his monster’s hotel and get the young man off the grounds, Jonathan meets Mavis and the two have an instant connection. Forced to keep Jonathan around when he explains to Mavis, Frankenstein and the others that Jonathan is a party planner (and the Frankenstein monster’s cousin), Dracula struggles to keep Jonathan and Mavis from getting closer while keeping his human identity from the guests and chef!

Hotel Transylvaniaquickly abandons its sense of originality – the whole premise that classic gothic monsters are actually fun-loving, misunderstood, and still exist in this day in age is fun – in favor of a predictable plot so obvious and formulaic that only children will be surprised by it. Mavis and Jonathan hit it off, but Dracula is the classic disapproving parent. So, much of Hotel Transylvania is his journey toward a modern, tolerant viewpoint when he realizes just how much Mavis likes Jonathan.

In fact, Hotel Transylvania is so canned and predictable that virtually every formulaic plot point for this type of romantic comedy occurs. Dad disapproves, has a moment of understanding where he comes to like the potential suitor, sees the daughter and suitor together and freaks out, encounters an obstacle that forces him to rely upon the suitor and the boy and girl bond. But, to keep the suitor safe, he must reject the girl (which hurts both young people) and only then does the father realize that the story of these two youth in one form or another mirrors his own romance with his dead wife and he comes to a position of tolerance, which forces him to pursue the suitor to bring about a reconciliation, at great personal peril.

That fact that the main characters are monsters and a human does not make the character journey or plot any more original.

On DVD, I was caught by how much of the animation is clearly oriented toward the 3-D thrill aspect. Seeing it only in 2-D, I was largely unimpressed, but given that spectacle is only 1 point in my reviewing standards, this is not a dealbreaker. That said, the animation style is fun and Hotel Transylvania looks good. Director Genndy Tartakovsky makes Hotel Transylvania look good with a decent sense of motion and color vibrancy that feels fresher than the story does.

As for the performances in Hotel Transylvania, they are generally average. The cast is led by Adam Sandler (Dracula) and Andy Samberg (Jonathan) and they play off one another very well. Considering Sandler and Samberg are working with talents they are familiar with, it is unsurprising that Hotel Transylvaniasounds good. Given that none of the stars in the film are particularly adept outside comedy (save Steve Buscemi), it is unsurprising that things like Adam Sandler’s accent slip occur as the film progresses.

On the flip side, Selena Gomez does surprisingly well as Mavis. She emotes well using her voice and makes Mavis sound like a fun young woman eager to experience life outside the walls of Hotel Transylvania. On DVD, the film comes with minimal bonus features and we only watched the trailers for other films soon to be released and none were particularly thrilling. Then again, neither was Hotel Transylvania, so the DVD is par for the source material’s course.

For similar animated films, please visit my reviews of:
ParaNorman
Coraline
The Nightmare Before Christmas

4.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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More Funny Than Not, Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby Amuses.

The Good: Funny parody, Opens John C. Reilly up to comedy beautifully, Decent DVD bonus features
The Bad: Some predictable humor, pacing
The Basics: Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby might not be a perfect comedy, but it has a lot of humor that endures from the broad attacks on NASCAR/NASCAR culture!


When one becomes involved romantically with another, they tend to share things. I think that is actually one of the more exciting aspects of relationships and I have found myself more delighted than not to share my DVD collection with my partner and have my partner share DVDs with me. This has led me to watch any number of movies - mostly comedies - that I would not have otherwise checked out. Indeed, when I sat down to watch the copy of Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby from my partner's shelf, I did so with the thought that this was one of the last movies in the world that I would have guessed I would ever watch.

That said, this Will Ferrell comedy that saw Ferrell pairing with one of my favorites - John C. Reilly - actually was amusing and offered enough for me to watch it not just once, but pretty much whenever my partner sits down to watch it. If that's not love, I don't know what is! In truth, though, Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby does what it sets out to do; it is funny and the performers in it get behind their roles in completely convincing ways. In other words, despite any of the movie's faults, I laughed . . . a lot. This is, at the very least, what one ought to demand of their comedies and the truth is, I had fun watching this movie.

Growing up without a father, NASCAR racer Ricky Bobby feels the need for speed and does little in his life well outside race cars. With his hot wife, Carley, and best friend Cal Naughton Jr., Ricky Bobby wins every race he is put into. But when a French Formula One driver comes to America to race Ricky Bobby, Bobby and Naughton feel threatened. Engaging the Frenchman in a race, Bobby's car is damaged and he is psychologically wounded, arguably also as a result of his deadbeat dad showing back up in his life.

Recovering from his failure to beat the Frenchman, Ricky Bobby works his way back from losing everything to try to race again. In the process, Cal takes his wife, wins a race on his own and Ricky Bobby must learn to stand on his own two feet (not as much of a problem given that his crash did not actually break his legs). As he comes back from incredible odds, he learns the true value of friendship and romance and racing.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby is, at its core, a parody of the sports movies where the protagonist struggles against very real obstacles and odds to overcome adversities that illustrate their prowess and skill. Writers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay (who directed the film) picked the perfect sport to make a parody of sports movies with. Ricky Bobby is part of a national phenomenon where people sit and watch other people drive fast in a circle. Having been a runner, I can understand racing around a track (though cross country was always more interesting as a runner than track was) and the athleticism involved. But NASCAR racing is much more about equipment and avoiding other contestants than anything having to do with skill or even willpower. As a result, characters like Ricky Bobby who are hapless idiots make for probable and fun protagonists in movies just like this one. In other words, by picking NASCAR to make fun of, writer/director McKay hits a goldmine; the struggle back to greatness is as simple and witless as the task of getting to "greatness" in the first place.

Ricky Bobby, then, is a great protagonist for just such a struggle of ridiculous proportions. Bobby possesses no special skills, but a desire to go fast and his complete pursuit of that goal. Moreover, because Ricky Bobby surrounds himself with doormats like Carley and Cal, he is able to achieve greatness equally through his own efforts and those of others not improving themselves. So, because Cal promises to let Ricky Bobby win and he is content to be in second place for years, Ricky Bobby becomes a celebrity. Cal enjoys the light near the spotlight and Cal enjoys the vicarious benefits of winning. But when Cal challenges the dynamic and Ricky Bobby is challenged by the Frenchman and the reappearance of his father, the utter lack of skill that got Ricky Bobby where he ended up becomes pretty evident.

Obvious comedies have to be looked at for exactly what they are and Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby does not promise to be anything either terribly unique or extraordinarily complex. Instead, it takes a simple premise - mocking sports movies and NASCAR culture - and running with it. Will Farrell is the perfect performer to embody such a quirky and dim sports figure and he hams it up, though in truth this is not an exceptional leap from his caricature of George W. Bush. As Ricky Bobby, Ferrell screws up his face in a blank expression and looks confused for laughs. Between that and selling such gags as telling off his father-in-law when his children act up at the dinner table, Farrell reminds viewers why he is considered a wonderful comedian without truly offering the viewer anything new outside delivering new lines.

The person who does rock Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby is actor John C. Reilly. Perfect as a dramatic heavy, Reilly becomes the ultimate costar for Ferrell by playing off him and accenting Ferrell's absurd sense of physical comedy with a strong deadpan ability. Reilly is surprisingly adept with his comic timing, something bound to surprise fans of his more respected works. Together Reilly and Ferrell lead the supporting cast of Sacha Baron Cohen, David Koechner, and Gary Cole to a good number of laughs.

On DVD, the movie has a decent number of bonus features, including a commentary track and a number of deleted scenes. There are alternate takes which are certainly not appropriate for the PG-13 audience, but the movie is not exactly oriented toward that market anyway. The DVD has enough in the way of featurettes and comedic gags to make the DVD worthwhile for comedy fans.

But the movie is predictable and the humor is not classy. But for those looking for sophomoric and fun, Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby actually delivers and it makes good use of talented performers who pull out the stops to entertain!

For other works with Gary Cole, please check out my reviews of:
Extract
Psych - Season 3
Pineapple Express
The West Wing
Crusade
Office Space

7/10

For other films, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Sofia Coppola Goes 0-3 With Marie Antoinette.

The Good: Looks wonderful, Moments of acting, General story
The Bad: Terrible musical direction, Awkward camera movements, Dull, Dull characters
The Basics: Lush and easy to watch, there is a serious lack of engaging plot or intriguing characters, making Marie Antoinette a well-produced, overblown game of dress-up.


After finding a movie where Kirsten Dunst neither insulted my intelligence nor disappointed me on a character and acting level - Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (reviewed here!), for those keeping score - someone recommended that I give Marie Antoinette a shot. When I picked it up, I was ready to give it a fair shake. I even watched the Spiderman 3 trailer on the DVD before starting the movie to cleanse my palate. I was prepared for a decent period piece on Marie Antoinette, featuring Kirsten Dunst. When Sofia Coppola's name came up on screen, I was set on guard.

Marie Antoinette is sold to the French as a diplomatic gesture to solidify relations between Austria and France. Antoinette surrenders her past to be married to the indifferent Louis XVI, who seems more interested in locks than lovemaking. After an insufferable period wherein Louis refuses to consummate the marriage, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette get it on, have a baby and Louis becomes embroiled in helping the fledgling American colonies in their war of independence, which becomes a real challenge to maintaining the monarchy.

The irony - or coincidence - I experienced while watching Marie Antoinette came in the form of a conversation I had a few days ago. A friend and I were talking movies and I posited that the director of Crash (reviewed here!) was robbed for the Best Director Oscar in favor of Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (reviewed here!). Our conversation continued with a discussion of how there is a difference between great cinematography and direction. Lee, for example, created a cinematographic masterpiece with Brokeback Mountain, but I remain overall unimpressed by the direction of the work. Such could be said of Sofia Coppola's work on Marie Antoinette.

Marie Antoinette is an exceptionally good looking piece through much of the movie. The colors are vibrant and the contrast is set very high, making this a bubblegum pink lush movie. The costuming and cinematography are downright wondrous at points. The establishing shots of the palaces, gardens and many of the characters are visually exciting.

But, it's a terribly directed work. Coppola insists on playing with the camera and the result is more sloppy than stylish. One moment that sticks out quite loudly in my memory - when I have a problem with a movie, it seems I always leave out something! - is when Antoinette is upset and she turns around and cries into a door. Coppola goes from a steadycam shot to a handheld to give a real "in your face, up close and real" feel and it's terrible. The camera movement is awkward and cheap and the effect nets no positive results. In short, it does not aid the viewer in understanding the character or the story and it does not look good. Coppola's direction is unimpressive and disappointing for a director who is directing her own work (Sofia Coppola wrote the screenplay for this film).

The only person who deserves less to be making movies is the musical director of Marie Antoinette. The soundtrack to this movie is a mix of classical music and pop-rock-dance numbers. The rock song that plays when Antoinette sneaks off to a ball with other nobles is grotesque. The effect would be best analogized as watching porn with a Garrison Keillor monologue as the soundtrack. That is the level of incongruity in the visuals and music in Marie Antoinette. There's someone who ought to lose their head, or at least be forced out of the movie-making industry.

But, let's be honest for a moment; Marie Antoinette is a puff piece. It looks fabulous, but it's terribly put together. This is not a serious endeavor and I say that with utmost confidence because from the opening moments there is not a single person speaking with an accent. The Austrians and the French in this movie all sound like Middle America. There are moments when Dunst, as Antoinette, slips into a Southern drawl that would be laughable were it not so tragic. The closest actor to affect anything of an accent is Jason Schwartzman, who plays Louis XVI. Whether Schwartzman actually takes an accent or not is up to debate, but he does mumble his lines quiet enough to make one wonder if he is at least trying to sound French.

Lacking any sort of accent, all that defines the French as French are the snooty looks they give Antoinette when she arrives in Versailles.

The best aspect of Marie Antoinette would have to be the acting and that's a mercy rating; most of the characters do not have much to say. Much of Marie Antoinette is a series of beautiful shots of characters agonizing, Antoinette going through her daily routine, day after day, not making love with her husband. I don't believe all of Dunst's lines in the movie would take up five pages. She is on screen a lot, but much of the time, she is simply seething in silence at Schwartzman, who is ignoring her.

The three principle actors are adequate. Rip Torn is wonderful - while he lasts - as Louis XV. Torn dominates his scenes and his booming voice is distinctive and wonderfully contrasts the meek and indifferent Schwartzman. Schwartzman, for his part, convinces the viewer he has absolutely no interest in Kirsten Dunst, which makes his role believable, if not entirely understandable.

Kirsten Dunst, sad to say, is nothing superlative here. Yes, she has the title role, but the role isn't all that impressive. Dunst does what she can with it but throughout the whole movie there is something unsettling about her. I finally pinned it down; from the moment she first appears on screen, she is far too clean. Dunst's teeth are immaculate, as are everyone's in the film. Blinding white teeth fit the look of the film, but not the realism.

There are movies lately that have done updates of classic works, the Luhrmann version of Romeo + Juliet being perhaps the most successful, but that does not mean that the concept always works. Coppola's Marie Antoinette seems to not know what it wants to be and it ends up as a mishmash, the look half-heartedly tries to be classic while the sound is nothing classic. Just because others successfully try a concept does not mean any director can do it and Coppola here illustrates she cannot.

The ultimate description of how Marie Antoinette works as a movie is this: if you enjoy watching people playing dress-up, this is a movie for you. The characters are not exciting and they don't do much of anything, but they frequently change outfits. If Dunst got to keep her wardrobe, I could see her being a very happy young woman. But basically, the net result of watching the two hours of Marie Antoinette, what I'm left with is the feeling that I just watched several people who looked too modern for a period piece playing dress up.

And I want my movies to be more than that.

And barring that, I'd like for Sofia Coppola to either make a decent movie or get into a vocation more suited to her talents. Out of the three full-length movies she has directed, I've now seen all three (her short, "Lick The Star" has eluded me, but I've almost no incentive to see it now) and all have disappointed me terribly. As a cinematographer, perhaps she could make some real lush music videos. Or commercials for Target.

For other works with Rose Byrne, be sure to check out my takes on:
X-Men: First Class
Bridesmaids
28 Weeks Later
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack Of The Clones

4.5/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against others I have reviewed and visit their reviews by going to my Movie Review Index Page!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Failure To Impress: Serendipity Sloshes

The Good: Acting, I suppose, but that's a stretch
The Bad: Horrible characters, Dippy plot, Sense of rhythm
The Basics: A true film to avoid, Serendipity witlessly gives us what we know will happen, but only after dragging it out unendingly.


Often the problem with predictable films is, well, they are predictable. There is definitely something to be said about a film where you don't know what will happen next. The insulting thing about a film where you know exactly what will happen next is when it insults the viewer's intelligence (i.e. drags out the expected resolution without adding anything) or becomes predictable contrary to the characters in the film. Serendipity suffers on both fronts and it hurts to watch.

Serendipity finds Jonathan Trager and Sara Thomas buying the same pair of cashmere gloves for their respective partners. After a brief conversation, they hit it off and spend the evening together in a great - platonic - way. Convinced there is destiny between them, they play an elevator game and get separated, but not after writing their phone numbers on a five dollar bill and in a novel respectively. Years later, both are ready to wed but they can't get the other out of their head and they wonder if there truly is fate.

Okay, so there are some real obvious variables here, but this film is just straight out horrible. From the beginning, we have the idea that fate will allow them to meet up. Fine. I can live with that. But the variables against them are staggering.

Jonathan Trager is a horrible character, first denying fate and then relying solely on it. Why does he bow to fate? I don't know. He's about to marry a woman he's been with for years! Why would he even be in a relationship with Halley if he only, obsessively, wanted Sara? And why does it take his impending marriage to get him to look for Sara the way he does?

The troubling aspect is the lack of compunction with which Johnathan searches. He has no emotional resonance toward the woman he is supposed to marry that makes him think about how much he will hurt her. And that's troublesome. How can we believe the power of the love he has for Sara when he is about to marry a woman and starts searching for another? It doesn't make sense. It doesn't play on our heartstrings or make us feel, it makes us want to throw something at the television and look in a thesaurus for more synonyms for "sleaze."

Add to that that Sara is in a similar predicament. The only saving grace there is that Sara's partner, Lars, is so wrapped up in his career that she comes across as empathetic. Halley and Jonathan, not so. She seems so supportive of him that it makes us want to slap Jonathan around a few times and ask, "What are you thinking?!"

Rounding out the film are the usual sidekicks, Jonathan's best friend Dean, who is in a marriage falling apart, an unsurprising revelation considering the amount of time he has to run around with Jonathan and Sara's friend Eve. Both are flat characters that add nothing of substance to the film, though Jeremy Piven's relentless overacting on Dean can be a detriment.

Even John Cusack, an actor I respect, is unable to save this work. Gone are his dazzling performances from Being John Malkovich and Cradle Will Rock. Here, he seems too often to not be trying to create someone different from his other roles. Instead, Jonathan is like a less interesting version of his role in Con Air. He's certainly working at the least empathetic I've ever seen him.

Beyond that, this film is an utter disappointment. There are no surprises and even the bright spot, a bit role that Eugene Levy brings to life, is stretched out too long. In fact, the film plays on coincidence with out two protagonists barely missing each other on the fateful day they are both in New York City. Scene after scene after scene after scene they miss one another until we are forced to sit up and yell "Enough already!"

But the end comes far too late, long after we've stopped caring and far far long after we had any hope for any single character in Serendipity.

For other works with John Cusack, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Hot Tub Time Machine
2012
Igor

1.5/10

For other reviews of movies, be sure to click here to visit my index page!

© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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An Utter, Unredeemable Waste Of Time And Celluloid: Scary Movie 4 (Movies Not Worth Reviewing Vol. 1)

The Good: Decent preview
The Bad: Terrible acting, Categorically not funny, Not clever, Pretty much everything
The Basics: Terrible, flat out terrible. Everything else I write about this is overstating that simple fact.


A friend of mine is a huge fan of horror films. She has been having a rough time at work lately and so I had the idea to surprise her with a night of decompressing where we would have a nice dinner, talk and watch a stupid movie. I had recently seen a preview - on another DVD - that I found amusing wherein War Of The Worlds was being parodied by the invasion of the iPods. The preview featured Craig Bierko, who I recognized from the third season of Boston Legal (reviewed here!), mocking Tom Cruise and I found myself amused. I was surprised to find the preview was for Scary Movie 4 and I decided this would be appropriate for an evening of friendly decompressing and simply not being stressed with a friend.

Scary Movie 4 failed to live up to even my lowest expectations.

Parodying The Grudge, Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, Saw, and The Village, with winks to Brokeback Mountain and Fahrenheit 9/11 (or reality, I suppose), Scary Movie 4 finds Cindy Campbell - whom I presume is the recurring character from the previous three incarnations - moving to Tom Ryan's neighborhood where she is taking care of the catatonic Mrs. Norris. Tom Ryan - a parody of Tom Cruise's character from War Of the Worlds - begins to express interest in Cindy as Cindy is tormented by an undead boy. Tom and Cindy end up on the run from the Tr-iPods that have arrived at Earth blowing things up.

The bottom-line here is simple: watch the preview, if you enjoy it, don't watch this movie. It's all downhill from the preview. The funniest jokes are in the preview. I thought, for example, Robbie, Tom's son, asking, "What's going on?" to have Tom say, "There's no time to explain!" when a stranger knocks on the door and screams, "It's an alien invasion!" and Tom admitting, "That pretty much explains it." Was funny. It's also in the preview. In all honesty, outside what appears in the preview, the humor in Scary Movie 4 is dumb, not clever, and, well, not funny.

Kevin Smith, director of Clerks and Dogma, has said of his movies that he's just a guy who loves putting dick and fart jokes in movies and he's been fairly successful with telling the same story over and over again with his clever repackaging. Sadly, Smith's genius to keep crude humor flowing and disguised by intelligent dialogue and clever plot-lines or genuine character, is absent from Scary Movie 4. So, what the viewer is left with is approximately eighty-eight minutes of butt and urine jokes that could only appeal to the most dense preteens, who I suppose this movie is marketed to. The movie is just fixated on butts and homophobic jokes that are just plain dumb.

And, to reiterate, they aren't funny.

Scary Movie 4 is not funny. It's supposed to be, but it constantly falls short. Way short. Seeing Dr. Phil as a parody of himself in the opening moments of the movie was cool, but I'm not a fan of Dr. Phil. Then again, his part is in the preview as well.

Craig Bierko, who I honestly am not a fan of on Boston Legal, plays the parody of Tom Cruise well enough. When he is being over-the-top funny, he works, but too often, he is playing earnest and it does not work. Bierko's best moments, like most of the movie, appear in the preview trailer.

Cindy Campbell is played by Anna Faris and her look is of Sarah Michelle Gellar from The Grudge. Faris plays clueless throughout the movie and she lacks screen presence or charisma to keep us watching her.

The tragedy of actors here takes the form of young Conchita Campbell, who plays Tom Ryan's daughter Rachel. Conchita Campbell portrays Maia, the creepy clairvoyant girl on The 4400 and she is an amazing talent for an actress so young. Scary Movie 4 is a waste of her considerable talents and is a disservice to the budding career of someone with such potential.

When one sits down to watch a movie like Scary Movie 4, they are not anticipating great filmmaking. What they want is to be entertained. The audience does not even get that out of this movie. There are ways to parody that illustrate a clever insight, a keen wit and/or showcase foibles and plotholes of the works they parody. Scary Movie 4 does no such thing.

As a broader commentary on Scary Movie 4, because there is so little to write about a movie as utterly, unredeemably bad as this, I would like to suggest that this type of garbage, which grosses millions of dollars by appealing to the lowest common denominator, is why terrorists hate America. Seriously. If you check out the credits for this movie, you'll see how many people were involved in putting together this piece of trash. Millions of dollars were spent, thousands of people were put to work and American audiences gave millions of dollars to watch or own this. All of those resources could have been better spent feeding our poor, striving for world peace or educating our citizens. It's decadent. Now, I realize that the same organizations that educate, feed and work for peace are not the ones who make movies like Scary Movie 4, but this type of waste is indicative of our culture and that a populous would glorify this and spend money on it while objecting to paying slightly more in taxes to feed the poor - for example - is offensive to artists, the hungry and other cultures looking in on our decadence. This is the arrogance of those who rule the world, yet live in a cultural wasteland.

The only thing that is worthwhile about Scary Movie 4 is that it is making me angry enough to write my Representative to ask him to increase the NEA's budget.

If you value whatever time you have in this life to experience all that humanity can achieve, read this review, if you have occasion, watch the preview for Scary Movie 4, but don't waste your precious life and time sitting through this. You'll regret it. Begging our unresponsive government for more money for art is a better use of our time than watching this . . . I've run out of euphemisms for "garbage" that don't resort to the level of this movie.

For other works with Molly Shannon, please visit my reviews of:
Bad Teacher
Glee - Season 1
30 Rock - Season 1
How The Grinch Stole Christmas

0/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another Nail In The Coffin Of My Dislike For Jim Carrey: How The Grinch Stole Christmas

The Good: Sigh, I suppose the Dr. Seuss lines thrown in, that's a stretch. Christine Baranski.
The Bad: Visually cluttered, Unsure of audience, Utterly unfunny, Make-up isn't terribly good.
The Basics: An atrocious reworking of a holiday classic attempts to make more out of the story than there is and fails. Completely. I wouldn't torture my worst enemy with this!


When I first encountered the new medium, DVD, I applauded the merits of the DVD and how I could watch deleted scenes and lament that they were not in the film. I watched the deleted scenes on the DVD of Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas and I was not impressed; they deserved to be deleted. Of course, my one complaint about the deleted scenes were there weren't nearly enough. Given the quality of this film, it should have mostly been presented as deleted clips. The film was quite bad.

Allow me to begin with the single redeeming factor of the film: Christine Baranski is in it. Yup, her presence alone is like a game card that prevents a film from being an utter, complete waste of time. Do you ever shiver when you see talent wasted? I do. In fact, I'm likely to cry when I see someone of incredible talent wasting it. In this case, Baranski is never given the limelight long enough to shine, which she could have done.

It's not Baranski's fault she doesn't get the opportunity, it's the script's. And herein lies the fundamental problem with this film; the script. When one attempts to take a poem that takes five minutes to read and stretch it into a film that must be at least ninety minutes long, one is flirting with disaster. In this case, the effort fails. And it falls hard. This is a spine-breakingly agonizing film to watch.

The script isn't there. That means the story isn't there. The story is the title. This is how the grinch stole Christmas. It's a story that doesn't take long to tell. So, what this film attempts to do is expand that. It builds more of a backstory to the Grinch and has the full day before Christmas for the Whoville celebration and Cindy Lou Who's full quest to understand the Grinch. There are enough inane sub plots, like the Mayor and Martha May Whovier's stories and minor adventures, thrown in to kill time.

Not a single character is interesting. The Grinch isn't interesting and a huge fault of that is in Jim Carrey. Okay, that's not entirely fair. Ron Howard directed this claptrap, so I'll blame him; Jim Carrey is simply himself. He has potential to be funny. On In Living Color, he was funny. Since then, he's been Jim Carrey. Most roles he's hired for he's not being hired for his acting, he's hired for himself. That is, when you hire Jim Carrey, you're not hiring Jim Carrey to play the Grinch, you're hiring Jim Carrey to be Jim Carrey as the Grinch. This involves a lot of flailing and trademark facial expressions, ticks and whatnot that are his standards.

The problem is Ron Howard supports Carrey here and the camera style is nauseating. I mean there are incomprehensible images of things moving quickly that dominate much of the film and a ton of the wipes from one scene to another. It makes the film confused.

And it's a confused enough film. The film doesn't know what audience it wants. There are a lot of jokes that will go completely over the head of children and even those aren't terribly funny to adults. It's not a funny film at all. I didn't laugh a single time. And this troubled me, because I sat down desperate to believe no Christmas film could be as bad as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Well, Chevy Chase, if you're reading this, congrats! It's now a tie for last place.

So the acting stinks, there's no character development, the plot is stretched so far it's like an overextended piece of Swiss cheese, it fails to make a statement of any sort to people of any age (other than "please laugh because flatulence is funny!" Which is such an old thing that, well, unless you're 12 - in which case half the jokes in the film shall go over your head -, you'll not find it funny.), it has horrible visual effects in simple aspects of directing and it's utterly unfunny. Well, the only component I don't believe I have covered is the design.

Tim Burton is a master. He does big extraordinarily. He does weird expertly. Put Tim Burton and Danny Elfman in a room and have them build a weird, creepy, nightmare and they'll do it. Have them create something of pure wonder and they'll come through. The problem is, Tim Burton didn't create Whoville and Danny Elfman had nothing to do with this project. Nothing works visually. The mountain the Grinch lives in doesn't have character. It looks like someone said, "this is what it looked like in the storybook, make a three dimensional version of it." That doesn't work! It doesn't work to reconceive something and then keep the classic aspects of another. To that end, the interior of the Grinch's lair is simply cluttered. A master at visual effects will make everything have a purpose, Ron Howard's vision was "make everything look like something that can be looked at." It feels like we're looking at a movie set.

I'll close my panning this simply awful film by saying this; critics of this film have been attacked for not having Christmas spirit or such. It's ironic that I argue this position, but I think most of the people panning this film have a lot of Christmas spirit. It's sad when something you want to enhance your holiday detracts so much from it by the lack of quality within it. This film is exactly like that. I watched it with someone who watched the original cartoon when it aired the first time and who would consider that one of the best films of all time (sadly enough, from my perspective) and she loves the book and that original. She was so psyched to see this. She was so vastly disappointed that today when I got DVDs out of the library, she said simply, "I can't believe I sat through that entire film yesterday; it was so horrible." There was a tear in her eye. So, before accusing me of having a heart two sizes too small, let me suggest that the best gift to give a critic is a taste that is equally discriminating all year round. One who has that cannot possibly recommend a film based on easy dazzling effect. And the truth is, seeing this film objectively, they couldn't even possibly be dazzled.

For other Christmas movies, please check out my reviews of:
The Muppet Christmas Carol
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Batman Returns

1.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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A Generally Likable Animated Kid's Movie Takes A Turn Into The Mundane With Igor.

The Good: Generally good animation, Starts with an original feel . . .
The Bad: ...quickly becomes ridiculously dull and predictable.
The Basics: A mediocre-at-best animated comedy, Igor starts strong and then descends into the obvious and predictable.


There are very few animated films that truly get me excited these days, but I tend to like the ones which effectively satirize other genres. I recall enjoying Hoodwinked which was a bit of a twist on the traditional fairy tale story. I missed Igor when it was in theaters, but recently when my wife had the movie choice for the night, that was the movie she selected and I actually sat down to watch it with a sense of enthusiasm. That sense only lasted for about the first half hour of the film. After that, Igor became predictable, less funny and quite a bit more like a traditional kids movie than a clever lampoon of the classic, campy horror movies it began as.

Igor is an animated film and the best moments for adults are all in the opening half hour with jokes that are likely to fly right over the heads of children. By the time the movie turns into a disappointment for adults, it is likely to thrill children with its sense of movement and story simplicity. Igor's animation style is similar to that of Coraline but without the claymation-type sense of motion. The way people look with tiny noses, big eyes and exaggerated features, though, is similar. If only it had lived up to the quality of Coraline, I would have been happy!

Igor is a citizen of Malaria, a cloud-covered nation that has been plagued for years and has survived by building its economy on mad scientists running a protection racket on the rest of the world. King Malbert has mad scientists in castles designing the world's most evil creations, which other nations then pay Malaria not to release upon them. The most successful evil genius is Doctor Schadenfreude. Igor - who is both named Igor and holds the position of Igor (assistant to mad scientists, specializing in pulling the levers) - works for Doctor Glickenstein, who is far less successful.

Against conventions and law, however, Igor has become a mad scientist in his own right, having given immortality to a rabbit named Scamper, who is unable to kill himself as a result, and creating a primitive cyborg named Brain (or Brian, if you believe the spelling error on his tank). Igor is convinced he has the best invention of all, the ability to create life and with the annual Mad Science Fair days away, he sets about to doing that. He creates a Frankenstein monster-like creature named Eva and he is successful at reanimating her. His attempts to teach her to be evil, though, are less than successful.

Soon, however, the fraud Dr. Schadenfreude gets word about Eva using his assistant and corporate spy, a shapeshifter named Jaclyn. Jaclyn learns the truth about Eva and Igor and after disposing of Igor, they plan to present Eva as their own creation at the Mad Science Fair. With Scamper and Brain's help, Igor must rally to stop them and save Malaria.

Unfortunately, the plot description of Igor is far better than the execution of the actual movie. While the film opens well with tons of jokes about Scamper trying to kill himself and a decent interplay between Scamper and Brain, once Eva comes in the jokes are fewer and farther between and the movie follows a pretty predictable plot arc toward a very obvious end. Instead of keeping with smart satire, Igor becomes a traditional children's story that reinforces the morals of doing the right thing, punishing evil and having a happy ending. In other words, it is nothing viewers have not already seen before.

Igor starts out as a likable character, the traditional underdog who is undervalued and underappreciated. With the accidental death of Dr. Glickenstein - who fails to follow Igor's advice - Igor has a chance to step out of his role and watching that is enjoyable. But with Heidi (one of Jaclyn's alter egos) enters the film, Igor takes a turn that makes him less likable. It is a less tangible thing, but he begins making more questionable decisions and he is far less fun to watch.

Vocally, Igor is well-presented with John Cusack taking the title role and being supported by Steve Buscemi (Scamper) and Sean Hayes (Brain). But while Buscemi and Hayes have a great beginning to the film, their part is minimized in the second half and that helps to drag down the movie. Without their banter, the become more monolithic sidekicks. Molly Shannon is given little to work with as Eva and ultimately, her role is more of a supporting one. Eddie Izzard breathes life into Dr. Schadenfreude, which almost bumps this movie up into "average" territory.

It is, however, not enough. Igor starts funny, then loses the humor in favor of a very predictable, banal children's story which is not worth finishing.

For other animated or children's movies, please check out my reviews of:
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Tooth Fairy
Despicable Me

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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