Ten Years Ago, Jerry Seinfeld Advocated Slavery And Stereotypes In Bee Movie!

The Good: Decent animation
The Bad: Ridiculous stereotypes, Unlikable characters, Terrible overall theme, Predictable and hyperbolic plot
The Basics: Bee Movie is another terrible animated film that has an ultimately horrible message and reinforces stereotypes more than doing anything remotely entertaining.


Years ago, I discovered that some animated films get away with the most horiffic racism, sexism and stereotype-reinforcement when I sat down and watched A Shark Tale (reviewed here!) and it was painfully obvious to deconstruct what was in the film, as opposed to what the writers and producers hoped viewers would see. So, when my wife sat down to watch Bee Movie and she prefaced it with "this is one of the worst movies ever; it is so horrible!" I was ready to believe her, but I still went into it with an open mind. Anti-Semitic and essentially arguing in favor of a slave class, Bee Movie is one of the worst, most subversive films I've seen in a long time . . . even if on the surface it advocates for worker's rights and environmental balance.

Bee Movie was co-written by Jerry Seinfeld, Spike Feresten (who had a delightful late-night talk show for a while that I quite enjoyed!), Barry Marder, and Andy Robin and it is somewhat amazing that it took at least four people to write a film that was so lacking in humor and managed to create something that on the surface was progressive, but has a truly horrible subtext. While the film is built on an obvious series of jokes based on stereotypes about Jews, lawyers and women, Bee Movie has a resolution that is unfortunately ambiguous and leads to a conclusion that appears to advocate in favor of race slavery!

In a bee hive, Barry B. Benson and Adam Flayman graduate from school and are assigned to the hive workforce. Barry wants to join the bees who leave the hive because he has a sense of adventure to him, while Adam wants to work in the hive. Barry goes on a flight out into the city where he learns about pollination and is nearly killed by getting stuck on a tennis ball. When it begins to rain, Barry ends up in the apartment of Vanessa Bloome, who saves him from her neanderthal boyfriend. Barry feels obligated to thank Vanessa, revealing to her that bees have the ability to speak and are fairly reasonable. Barry also discovers that humans are manufacturing their own honey, to the detriment of bees.

Barry and Adam sue the humans, charging that the companies that enslave bees to harvest their honey (while keeping the bees at bay using smoke) are illegally appropriating the by-products the bees create. When the lawyer for the humans, Layton T. Montgomery, goads Adam into attacking him, Barry must complete the case on his own. But winning the case and freeing the bees from human exploitation leads to an environmental disaster that menaces humanity! As bee society falls apart, the relationship between Barry and florist Vanessa Bloome is strained to the point of breaking. The bee and human must work together to save the world!

On the surface, Bee Movie seems to have a great message of the importance of environmental interdependence. The humans and bees in Bee Movie eventually learn that they must work together to protect the delicate balance of the Earth's ecosystem. That is an honorable message. However, the film begins in the hive and illustrates a rigid society that is ordered, well-controlled, and is somewhat oppressive, but ends in Vanessa's lower shop without any closure for the hive. The consequence of this is that it leads to a strongly implied horrible message for the overall film.

After winning the lawsuit in the human world, the humans stop using honey in their products, which frees the bees and menaces their orderly society. But the final scene of Bee Movie has Vanessa featuring "bee approved" honey in her flower shop. The problem with this climax is that there is no visible price on the bee approved honey and it is not clear that she is actually selling the honey, as opposed to giving it away. The problem with failing to close the loop on the hive story is that Bee Movie fails to illustrate that the bees actually profit from their work. The bees successfully stop humans from explicitly enslaving them and stop the humans from manufacturing and selling honey from fake hives created for the purpose of making honey. But, the bees go back to work to protect the environment, keep order in their society and produce honey that the humans then distribute and enjoy. The bees in Bee Movie do not evolve; they merely liberate some of their brethren from explicit slavery. Because there is no scene that illustrates that the bee approved honey financially or materially benefits the bee hive, Bee Movie implicitly advocates in favor of a slave society. The bees do all of the work and are kept under control and the fruits of their labor are used by a vastly more powerful group . . . without any explicit moment that shows them benefiting, this is a slave class that has been bamboozled into putting their seal of approval on their own exploitation.

This troubling ending comes at the climax of a film where the characters are unlikable, based on stereotypes and relationships that make no actual sense. The unlikable aspect of the characters is epitomized in the way Barry uses other people for his own gain. Barry is thrilled when a bear is willing to appear at the trial and act violent in order to benefit his case . . . but then, after the case, Barry disparages bears again. Barry is a user and a racist one at that! Ironically, the writers miss their chance to make a truly relevant social commentary on the way language has been misappropriated by having a lawyer accuse Barry of "playing the species card" when it was the perfect place to use the term "race card" accurately (as bees and humans are actual different races, as opposed to humans of different ethnicities!).

The relationship between Barry and Vanessa is just troubling. Vanessa is a human who seems to fall in love with Barry, the way he fell for her. When my wife shockingly asked, "How would that even work?!" and I came up with some creative ideas to answer that question, I got her to blush and tell me - well before I came to the end of my list - to please stop! Bee Movie is just ridiculous when one looks at the relationships in the film.

While the animation in Bee Movie is fairly impressive, the voice acting is merely adequate. Renee Zellweger goes in and out of dialects as Vanessa and Jerry Seinfeld descends into shtick as Barry.

The result is that Bee Movie is a truly terrible animated film that is not worth watching . . . even for its ten year anniversary!

For other animated films, please visit my reviews of:
Zootopia
Despicable Me
Shrek

1/10

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

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Dull Legal Drama: The Whole Truth Sinks!

The Good: Decent-enough performances, Sense of realism
The Bad: Poor writing, Characters are flat for the bulk of the film, Oppressive mood (dull!), Voiceovers
The Basics: The Whole Truth is a legal drama that is horrifying for its accuracy and dullness; not an entertaining or at all gripping film.


I've reached that interesting point in life where the a-list actors of my childhood are unable to successfully open blockbuster films. Indeed, twenty years ago, a film starring Renee Zellweger and Keanu Reeves would have been a major cinematic event in the United States. Now, however, the pair is headlining a film that is getting virtually no press, The Whole Truth.

The Whole Truth is a legal drama, which focuses on a murder trial where the defense attorney seems to have everything stacked against him. And, given how specific The Whole Truth is, it is somewhat unsurprising that the film is not getting a lot of attention. Just as Spotlight (reviewed here!) occasionally became mired in the process story - the details of investigative journalism - The Whole Truth is very much a legal process story that explores how two people build a defense on the fly from the evidence they have available to them.

Richard Ramsay is the defense attorney for Michael Lassiter, a young man who Ramsay has known his entire life. Mike is accused of killing Boone Lassiter, the seventeen year-old having stabbed his father in the heart. Tried in Louisiana, Michael is being tried as an adult and Ramsay quickly discovers just how hard it will be to exonerate Michael. Because Mike has not spoken to Ramsay, he has no real defense for his client and when he is joined by outside counsel, he works to turn around the case.

After prosecution witness after prosecution witness buries Michael, Ramsay works to unearth the truth to keep his client out of prison. Ramsay and Janelle begin to bond while looking for evidence after Ramsay reveals his strategy to make Mike look like an underdog and turn the jury in his favor. He is spooked when Michael demands to testify and Ramsay struggles to keep him out of prison.

The Whole Truth is a stiflingly dull legal drama, which is very much concerned with procedure and some sense of realism, as opposed to working to entertain the audience. The film spends time discussing jury selection, ethnic bias, and inconsistencies between recorded statements and testimony in court. While Mike doodles through the court case, Janelle tries to figure out what actually happened between Mike and his father.

Like many legal dramas, The Whole Truth is dominated by scenes set in the court room. To keep it visually interesting and to fill in the narrative gaps, testimony from witnesses leads to flashbacks. The flashbacks illustrate various events that supposedly motivated Michael to kill his father and piece together what actually happened the day Boone Lassiter was killed. The flashbacks are paired with tedious voice-overs that do little to expand the story or satisfactorily flesh out the characters involved.

The Whole Truth mark's Renee Zellweger's first top-billed performance on the big screen in six years and her role is largely a supporting role. Loretta is the mother of Mike, widow of Boone and Zellweger is virtually unrecognizable in the part. Zellweger plays the role of an battered spouse and object of a teenager's desire and she plays both well, though the part is hardly her most extraordinary. Zellweger does fine, but the character is pretty bland, forcing her to play Loretta as very reserved.

The Whole Truth features some truly terrible lines. The writing in the film is awful in the third act. The scene between Ramsay and Janelle in their war room after Mike testifies is a mess of logical faults and ridiculous emotional moments; it sinks the film's climax.

In similar fashion, Keanu Reeves plays a shockingly dull character whose performance is designed to elicit plot exposition. Reeves does a fine job as Richard Ramsay, but The Whole Truth suffers because it is not The Practice or Boston Legal; the film does not have the time to develop the characters enough for the viewer to care about them. The defect in The Whole Truth is that outside the horror one feels for the surviving Lassiters over how terribly they were treated by Boone and the little victory of Janelle's first successful cross-examination, the film fails to make viewers invested in the characters and the outcome of the trial.

That is the death knell for The Whole Truth. The Whole Truth is adequately-performed, but in every way underwhelming.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Suicide Squad
Star Trek Beyond
Breaking The Bank

3/10

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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Cold Mountain Is Another Sad Southern Perspective On The Civil War

The Good: Peripheral characters and actors
The Bad: Dull leads, Boring story, Pacing
The Basics: Worthwhile only for the peripheral characters and actors, Cold Mountain is a long, disappointing Southern Civil War story.


Have you ever noticed how the majority of movies on the American Civil War take place from the Southern perspective? It's almost as if the South is obsessed with the Civil War and their loss that they just cannot get over it. Instead, they seek to recapture something from that time. Cold Mountain recaptures the oppression and ruthlessness of the South as it rebelled against the North.

In the little town of Cold Mountain, North Carolina, little southern belle Ada Monroe waits for her love Inman to return to her. While she waits, her home is menaced by Home Guard, the Southerners who didn't go off to fight "Northern Aggression" and instead stayed home and harassed the locals. Ada is aided by the appearance of Ruby Thewes, who helps her out around her property in exchange for room and board. Inman, for his part, becomes mortified by the killing on the front lines and heads home in a weird odyssey that is nowhere near as entertaining as, say, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Cold Mountain suffers, first and foremost, by its cast. Jude Law, as appealing as he is supposed to be, is exceptionally bland and a pretty terrible actor. He wasn't charismatic in A.I. (reviewed here!), he's only vaguely interesting here. In fact, of the main three in the cast, Law is the high point. When he journey's home and looks rugged and bearded and un-Jude Law-like, his acting ability comes out and he is able to deliver some performances that are respectable, most notably the subtlety of his scene near the end where he turns back toward the road (to reveal more of the scene would expose more of the plot than you should know).

It is always a mystery to me how Best Supporting Actress is chosen. Rene Zellweger won the award for her performance in this and I was left thinking she had Kim Bassinger Syndrome. KBS is a rare affliction whereby an actress with a minimal role in a film somehow is granted great recognition for the role, when it was relatively minor (like Kim Bassinger's role in L.A. Confidential). My personal belief is that Zellweger won solely on the strength of her delivery of the "rain speech;" for the rest of the film she is so distantly behind Kidman and Law that "Supporting Actress" is something of an overstatement. If you're disturbed by Zellweger's squinting and whining, this is not the movie for you. Her brief performance includes one or both in every frame.

Kidman rounds out the main cast playing the dull and uninspired Ada who is only of real interest so long as her father (played well by Donald Sutherland) is in the flick. Kidman's character has little character and Kidman's performance is weakened by the fact that - as a weak character - she must play off other people to define herself. As a result, much of Kidman's performance is simply reacting, not actually imbuing the character with, well, character.

In contrast to the dull, plodding main characters and the uninspired performances by the leads, the supporting cast is pretty wonderful with a great array of actual characters. The always-wonderful Brendan Gleeson plays Ruby's father and as a credit to his acting ability, manages to portray him without even a hint of his 28 Days Later character. Gleeson reminds us how good character actors can be.

Supporting the film as well are Ethan Suplee, as the tragic Pangle, Jack White, as the musician Georgia, Kathy Baker as Sally - a role that redeems her tired performance as "hook lady" from Boston Public, Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Reverend Veasey - a fugitive to accompany Inman, and Donald Sutherland as Reverend Monroe. These characters are each more interesting than the main three and quite well-portrayed by their respective actors. Kathy Baker, for example, plays exceptionally well outside the special effects to make her pallor and near-death quite vivid and real.

But so much of Cold Mountain hinges on plot and it's not terribly compelling. After the first group of people are tormented or killed for harboring deserters or being a deserter, we understand how harsh the Home Guard is. The repetition of it simply fills time and delays the obvious conclusion to the movie. And the serious problem is that those characters we care the most for are so briefly in the movie before they are snuffed out.

It's basically a "soldier makes his way home from war and encounters obstacles" film. And intermingled with that is a "women at home fighting in their own way" story. The latter story suffers because the women are not interesting or particularly strong; indeed, Ada is almost entirely defined by her waiting for Inman and thus seeks her definition from a man. Consequently, the other half suffers because it does not take long before the viewer begins to wonder, "Why is Inman working so hard to get home to such a dull woman?" And Inman's own lack of genuine personality is confusing as well. We have a dull man determined to make it home to a woman who defines herself based on him, resulting in a cyclical motion of complete boredom.

Blood and guts fans will enjoy the battle scenes and Cold Mountain sadly has a scene of rural living involving the exsanguination of a goat that is very realistic and almost more tragic than the human costs of the movie. In short, though, this is a tired, tiresome movie, without anything truly new and led by characters and actors that were overpaid for their performances they failed to deliver on.

For other works featuring Natalie Portman, check out my reviews of:
Thor
No Strings Attached
Black Swan
The Other Woman
The Darjeeling Limited
V For Vendetta
The Star Wars Saga

4/10

Check out how this film stacks up against other films I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized best film to worst!

© 2012, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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An Urban Comedy Under The Sea: Shark Tale

The Good: I'm stretching here, so I'll say "moments of humor"
The Bad: Unimpressive Animation, Obvious overused story, one-dimensional characters, just dumb
The Basics: Shark Tale should be avoided for its gross racism and sexism that attempts to fly by as "family fare."


Some time ago, it became part of popular culture to refer to all things "black" as "urban." That is to say, when people want to use a polite euphemism for "black," they say "urban." Thus, it became something strangely appropriate to talk about the language of "urban music" as opposed to saying "man, people swear a lot in that newfangled black music." Or we started to talk about "urban crime" instead of "black on black crime." Sometimes, things are just plain ridiculous.

I preface this review this way because within five minutes of beginning Shark Tale, it became obvious to me that I was watching the same "urban comedy" I've seen before. I've seen such jokes and character types in such bla . . , er, "urban" movies as Barbershop and . . . well, others that aren't coming immediately to mind. All I know is that within a few minutes of watching the protagonist in Shark Tale, I felt that someone at Dreamworks, at some meeting somewhere, said "we need to do something to bring in more money. We need to target a new audience. What audience haven't we exploited yet?" "Well, there's a black audience we've neglected." "Phil! It's 'urban!' But good idea. We could make an urban film and use all sorts of urban actors to flesh out our world. Who's the most popular urban actor of our time?" "Well, there's Denzel . . ." "What about that Fresh Prince guy? He's kind of urban?" "Yeah, he's wildly popular! Call Will Smith! We'll need a good urban actress to star along side him. Who could that be?" "Well, how about Angela Bassett? Or Vivica A. Fox?" "No, Phil, we need someone even more Urban, you know with a capital B, er, U." "How about Renee Zellweger and Angelina Jolie?" "Well, they're pretty whi . . . er, suburban, but at least they'll let us draw them as fish." "Yeah, Jolie might even complain that we made her lips too small . . ." "Shut up, Phil."

All humor aside (and if that amused even one of you, it's more than Shark Tale would do), Shark Tale is a pretty pathetic and transparent tale of Black America set under the sea. The saddest part of this incorporation is that it lacks all of the genuine social commentary that could set it apart from a decent satire or an original urban comedy. Instead, in attempting to be a "family friendly" movie, Shark Tale incorporates and reinforces much of the worst stereotypes in American Ethnic relations today.

Enter Oscar, your slacker-type, minimum wage stereotype. He is the type of lazy fish that Conservatives like to characterize all urban fish as. He is a barely-working grunt, showing up late to his job at the Whale Wash. Like other urban fish, he has maxed out his credit to loan sharks and bookies on ridiculous get-rich-quick schemes because, as any Conservative will tell you, those urban fish can't be trusted to use credit responsibly. And they're always dreaming of something better. I wonder why they do that? Oscar, being a male urban fish, is completely oblivious to the affections of Angie, another urban fish working at the Whale Wash in an administrative capacity.

The Reef, the urban area where Oscar, Angie and others live, is plagued by sharks, who in this incarnation take the stereotypical role of the Italian-descended Americans. Naturally, then, the sharks are all into organized crime, led by Don Lino, who is trying to teach his pacifistic shark son Lenny how to be ruthless enough to run the racket on the Reef. When the Don's other (more vicious) son is killed in an accident while chasing Oscar, Oscar and Lenny become buddies (in a real Eddie Murphy/Judge Rienhold way). Oscar becomes the celebrity of the Reef, Lenny gets to go into hiding and Don Lino, believing his sons have been killed, goes off with murderous rage as we all know sharks are inclined to do.

Okay, first off, the positive. I laughed once during the movie. I don't remember even what the joke was. But there was a laugh involved. And it didn't come when the vaguely homophobic reference to Lenny as a dolphin was made (hey, if the movie is going to be pretty transparently anti-Italian and anti-Bl . . . urban, why not throw in a few anti-gay pokes, too?). I laughed once.

Beyond that, there's nothing impressive about Shark Tale. Indeed, just the opposite, this is an unremarkable movie. From the outset, the animation is nowhere near as impressive as previous Pixar or Disney-Pixar movies. In their new thrust to churn out some computer-generated animated fodder at least once a year, Pixar has lost its magic for detail. In Monsters, Inc., there was a real treat seeing the film on the big screen for the impressive details. At least on the big screen, the viewer could marvel at how distinct every one of Sully's hairs were. Shark Tale lacks that level of animation detail.

Shark Tale is also disappointingly humorless. It is hard to see how even a child would find Shark Tale funny. I suppose another reason for making a "children's movie" with an "urban flavor" is that a lot of music, fashion and popular culture is taking more from popular urban culture. Little children of all ethnicities have baggy jeans and basketball jerseys and know what "bling-bling" is (though the origins of the latter term, as a poignant moment on The Wayne Brady Show illustrated, has its origins in the early portions of the previous century's monied classes). Perhaps even whites do not get off scot-free in this movie if the slow, rich whales are the metaphor for caucasians.

But there is something to the argument that Shark Tale is perpetrating dangerous stereotypes under the guise of the same old stupid "rags to riches" story. I was concerned that perhaps I was putting forward an argument that was not necessarily there, but the more I consider this movie, the more disturbing and dangerous I think it may be. Just about every subculture portrayed in Shark Tale is from a minority (save women) and none is portrayed positively. Here, in frank language, is how Shark Tale pervades and reinforces terrible ideas about how people who aren't white live:

Black Americans - characterized, or caricatured, by Oscar (voiced by Will Smith) are portrayed as lazy, poor, and not terribly cunning. Oscar is an opportunist who lies, is caught in his lie, lies some more, comes up with a crazy scheme to continue perpetrating his lies, until he is put in a situation where he is in danger and he folds like a cheap card table. And at the end of the character's journey from rags to riches, he is put back in his place, servicing the whales. The difference between Oscar at the beginning of the movie and at the end is that at the beginning he has real dreams for advancement and riches and living in the skyrise, and at the end, finding himself back at the Whale Wash as the new owner of the facility, he finds that he can dream, but only so far. In the greatest work of American Literature (my obviously unbiased opinion), Invisible Man (reviewed here!), Ellison writes the line of the Black Predicament in the business world, "Please hope him to death, and keep him running." The idea there is that the key to controlling the oppressed minorities (especially true of the economically disadvantaged) is to give them hope, but no real hope for progress. Shark Tale reinvents this idea that Ellison wrote about in 1947 through Oscar by dashing Oscar's dreams, but leaving him positive about where he is left. So, Oscar goes from the bottom of the sea, to the top of the Reef and ends up back at the bottom of the reef, but feels better about it because now he has slightly more of a stake in it. If the trend held, any Shark Tale sequel would have to, by necessity, begin with Oscar near to losing the Whale Wash (probably through his irresponsibility) and then ending with him reclaiming the small business. Shark Tale illustrates how complacent the masses of poor and predominantly Black Americans may be kept in their place by simply turning their dreams of equality into minority partners in the worst possible businesses in America. And that suits such ill-educated and lazy people anyway, if Shark Tale is any indication.

Women - fare no better in Shark Tale as characterized by three personas: Angie, Lola, and Katie Current. Angie (Zellweger) is intelligent but refuses to express herself. Indeed, she is characterized as demure, subservient (or at the very least deferential) to Oscar in all things and lacking in confidence in her own abilities and beauty. She has a crush on Oscar, wants to help him out, but only expresses her true love for him through violent, irrational outbursts when she has pushed him away. Moreover, her affections for Oscar compel her to remain silent when she learns of his duplicities rather than exposing him. Men, rejoice! Women won't turn you in if you pay them lip service from time to time. Show them the least amount of affection and they'll trail you like puppies. Except, that is, for the type like Lola (Angelina Jolie). Lola is a golddigger type explicitly (through music) characterized as a woman who is only after money. Of course, an urban fish like Oscar just sees good tail and will go after it, never thinking of the consequences. And then there's the annoying cameos by Katie Currant (Katie Couric), who is pushy and invasive as the lead reporter on the Reef. If her real shows are like the parody here, one wonders who watches her shows. So, to clarify, women in Shark Tale are either deferential, spineless and starved for attention or emotionless predators hungry for men's money or just plain annoying.

Italian-Americans - are simply brutish mobsters. The sharks in Shark Tale are the parody of Americans of Italian decent. Allow me to preface this by saying my view on the Italian-American Defamation League's problems with The Sopranos was an overreaction: "The Sopranos" never tried to characterize all Italian-Americans as gangsters, merely exploring that sect of Americans of Italian decent who happen to be mobsters and how they operate. Conversely, Shark Tale characterizes all sharks as mobsters (save Lenny, who is something of a pouf). Robert De Niro voices Don Lino and helps to perpetrate the stereotype of Italians as ruthless, family-loving mobsters who will terrorize those who they can hold any sort of power over, including their own assistants (characterized by an octopus in Shark Tale). The sharks solve their problems through asserting dominance and threats, respecting only strength and having a fiery temper.

Homosexuals - might be a bit of a stretch in Shark Tale, but Lenny (Jack Black) is played as an effeminate shark who disguises himself as a dolphin to leave the shark mob. The most obvious implication is that the pacifistic Lenny is somehow less of a man, a common stereotype about gays that the rabid homophobics never seem to spread when confronted with the athletic (and clearly masculine) sect of gays who place an emphasis on bodybuilding and fitness. Lenny is a caricature with a faint lisp, enthusiasm for dressing up and also happens to be an unmanly vegetarian.

Jews - what is far less opaque is the stereotype of Jews in Shark Tale. Since well before the time of Shakespeare, Jews have been characterized as the business-people, the money lenders, the people who are good with money and seem to have the financial advantage over everyone else. Martin Scorsese plays the pufferfish Sykes who is both an agent and a money lender. He is the common link between Don Lino and Oscar, the middleman between the Reef and the Mob. Which, if we've learned anything from the ethnic stereotypes in Shark Tale is appropriate. After all, who better to deal with the money of two vastly disparate groups as Blacks and Italians than a Jew?

And the final nail in the ethnic culture might well be Sykes' assistants. Two Rastafarian jellyfish who act as muscle for the Jewish accountant. Well, at least Shark Tale was smart enough to avoid any allegations of promoting hate crimes. After all, if a little urban fish is assaulted by Jamaican Immigrant jellyfish, it's not really a hate crime. It's "those people" doing it to themselves. And popular culture seems to have little problem with depictions of black on black crime, er, make that "urban on urban violence."

Shame on Shark Tale and those involved with it for their lack of foresight and transparent poor depictions of so many different ethnicities. For some of us, positive relations between all peoples - regardless of color, gender, sexuality or country of origin - is more than some fish story.

For other animated Dreamworks films, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil
Shrek Forever After
Hoodwinked!
Shrek

1.5/10

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

© 2012, 2007, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Utterly Unpleasant Files: White Oleander Is Wonderful (But I Never Want To See It Again!")

The Good: Great acting, Interesting story, Decent DVD bonus features, Realism
The Bad: Some hammy moments of performance, Unpleasant
The Basics: White Oleander realistically portrays a young woman's three years in the care of Social Services after her mother is incarcerated for murder.


I think my wife is trying to get revenge on me for our first weekend together. Well over a year ago, we met for the first time in person (having corresponded on-line for about two weeks and over the telephone for three days beyond that) and when we did, I shared some of myself with her. One of the things I thought would inform her of just who I was, was sharing one of my favorite films of all time and I brought Magnolia (reviewed here!) with me and watched it with her. Ever since, there come moments when she pulls a DVD off her shelf and she has a little smirk on her face when she says "This is one of my favorite movies, we should watch it together!" The last time that happened, she subjected me to The Pursuit Of Happyness and last night, it was White Oleander.

The reference to The Pursuit Of Happyness is not a gratuitous one: both that film and White Oleander share a common trait: they both portray an oppressive reality that is difficult to watch. It is easy to acknowledge the technical merits of both films and mood certainly is one which works in the favor of "effect" as it makes the viewer feel something. But I've gotten to a point in life where I am eager to move beyond misery and harsh reality in films I watch. Magnolia may only lead to a single smile (it's worth it in my book!) but there is an intricacy to the interplay between characters and some rise even as the others fall, so the mood is not monolithically depressing. White Oleander, on the other hand, starts murky with an undertone of annoying and descends into a harshly realistic exploration of the foster care situation in the United States today through one girl's grueling journey through the system.

Astrid is a teenager whose mother, Ingrid, is a famous artist. Self-absorbed, Ingrid brings her daughter along when she stalks her boyfriend, Barry, and when she destroys the contents of his computer's hard drive. One afternoon, Ingrid drops in on Barry (leaving Astrid in the car) and returns hours later with the arguably inappropriate observation that Barry just had sex with Ingrid, but needed her to leave so he could prepare for a date. Shortly thereafter, the police come to take Ingrid away for murder and Astrid is taken by a social worker to be placed with a foster family.

With Ingrid convicted, Astrid finds herself living with Starr and her boyfriend in the more redneck outskirts of Los Angeles. Starr, a born-again christian, is having an affair with a married man, but still convinced Astrid to get baptized. Increasingly jealous of Astrid and convinced the teenager is having sex with her boyfriend, Starr shoots the girl and Astrid moves on. Her journey is an unpleasant one, broken up by meetings with her mother who despises all Astrid's life is becoming and works to control her daughter from behind bars with barbed words. As Astrid tries to find happiness with a boy at the juvenile home and then with the lonely actress, Claire, Ingrid reaches out and corrupts those things and people Astrid becomes attached to.

White Oleander is exceptionally well-made, but over-the-top annoying. First, every line that Ingrid spouts is melodramatic philosophical claptrap which only reflects her sense of narcissism and desire to control Astrid. Sadly, even when Astrid realizes her mother is manipulating her or the people around her, she does not have the intellectual or emotional tools to combat her. As a result, living situations like Claire's home soon takes a dark turn when Astrid learns that Ingrid has been writing to Claire and Claire and Ingrid are going to meet.

My partner seems to like White Oleander for the realism of how foster care changes a person and how all of the different living situations realistically show how foster children are stuck in the already-moving lives of families they are placed with. The film does that quite well; Astrid is bounced around and the film captures well the uncertainty of finding herself in new situations that are drastically different. To wit, Astrid's arrival at the juvenile home is a quick cut from the car ride to the last moments of a violent altercation in which a fellow resident gives Astrid a bloody lip and threatens her with death.

Even after altercations like that, where Astrid rather suddenly appears to have a knife and delivers an ultimatum to her assailant while the other girl is sleeping, Astrid is remarkably likable. Her story is a compelling, if frequently heartbreaking or heartwrenching one. For all of the usual complications of growing up as a young woman, White Oleander illustrates well how a lack of a solid family unit can make that even more crushing. And the juvie hall love story with Paul, a guy whose been in the system almost his entire life, works very well and offers the film's only cathartic moment of humor (while running away from the juvenile home, Astrid, fearful, asks what will happen if they get caught leaving, and Paul notes that they'll just be sent back).

On screen, Patrick Fugit (Paul) and Alison Lohman (Astrid) have decent on-screen chemistry. Lohman plays most of the film shy and Fugit has an unassuming quality to him that makes him seem very real as a kid who's been knocked around a bit. Their scenes play well and the two have good body language that illustrates both their character's attraction to one another and their awkwardness around each other.

Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing in the best worst performance I've ever seen from her. Pfeiffer is utterly convincing as Ingrid. She stares at the viewer with an intensity in her eyes that is unsettling. She delivers each of her lines convinced of their reality and with an otherworldly quality as if she sees everything in different hues. But almost all of her lines are writer lines. I know them; I'm a writer. We slave for hours to come up with the most precise and poetic thing we can think of and it's great. But what sometimes works on the page does not work as well in reality or on film and this is perfectly encapsulated by the scene in which Ingrid is shown at work, working with her sleeves rolled up. People don't talk like Ingrid does in reality and when they do, when they are truly so pretentious and crazy, the seldom are able to function in settings like the one Ingrid is seen working in. Pfeiffer breathes life into the over-the-top lines and plays the character appropriately over-the-top, but it doesn't stop the character from seeming utterly unreal (even for one with a borderline personality disorder or just outright psychosis!).

On DVD, White Oleander has a commentary track and a handful of featurettes on how the movie was made. A novel originally, the DVD features an interview with the director on how the film was translated from book to screen. There is a commentary track, deleted scenes and the film's far-too-revealing trailers, but after the film it was hard to muster up the interest in watching them, so unsettled was I by the movie.

Ultimately, White Oleander falls squarely into a category of movies which are arguably absolutely wonderful, but so good at what they set out to do in characterizing the unpleasant realities of life that they become unwatchable. I look forward to never watching White Oleander again.

For other works featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, please be sure to check out:
What Lies Beneath
The Story Of Us
Batman Returns

8.5/10 (N)

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

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The First DVD I Saw Was Bridget Jones's Diary!

The Good: Funny, Well-acted, Good pace, Good use of music, Deleted scenes are wonderful!
The Bad: Predictable and weaker on character than expected.
The Basics: An entertaining film, despite being classic Romantic in its plot structure, Bridget Jones's Diary is funny and well acted, a great date flick or the cure to a lonely evening.


When I first changed over from VHS to DVD, I was surprised by the quality of the medium. I suspect now that it colored my viewing of Bridget Jones's Diary, but the truth is, I enjoyed the feel of being overwhelmed by the medium, so I am not going back to reevaluate the film.

First off, if anyone of any importance in making these decisions is reading this, let me say that all DVDs that include deleted scenes ought to have a function that allows the deleted scenes to be flawlessly inserted in the film where they would have been. On the DVD, there are deleted scenes from Bridget Jones's Diary and they are hilarious. I swear, I laughed more in the five to ten minutes of deleted scenes than I did in the rest of the movie. Finally someone found a worthwhile place for Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby!"

Bridget Jones's Diary is the story of, predictably enough, Bridget Jones. She is working as a publicist at a publishing house, anxious about various aspects in her life which include smoking, drinking, weight control and the lack of a male in her life. Well, the latter is the first thing to go as she and her boss, Daniel Cleaver, begin a relationship. Interspersed in her relationship with Cleaver are encounters with an apparently bland, stable, disagreeable Mark Darcy.

Okay, the film takes place in England and you have a character named Darcy. Can you tell there's a Jane Austen thing going on here? This film takes the classical English paradigm for a romance story. Knowing that, you know who Bridget ends up with and why.

My beefs with this film are few and far between. Having just checked my facts on the IMDB, I add my beef with the casting department; Collin Firth played Mr. Darcy in a miniseries of Pride And Prejudice. Casting him here as Mr. Darcy is just cruel.

But, Colin Firth is good. I was very pleased with his performance. Actually, Renee Zellweger did well, too. She's not as squinty in her films as she is when she appears on talkshows, so that was a pleasant surprise. And while the scene stealer is supposed to be Hugh Grant, Colin Firth fills that; the scenes he's in, he dominates.

My only real disappointment (other than realizing the Austenian nature of the film the moment a Mr. Darcy made an entrance) was with character. I expected Bridget to be better defined. Sure, the film gives updates as to her weight, blood alcohol level and number of cigarettes, but character is something more. While I think her desire not to be lonely is clear, I think this film will find itself dated in fifty or seventy years. As it is, I didn't find much compulsion in the film for Bridget to want to be with someone. She's a strong enough individual without anyone else. And yet, she seems determined to change that about herself. As society becomes more comfortable with strong women who are self-actualized, I think this film, which on its surface may appear to be strongly feminist with its good female protagonist, Bridget Jones's desperate desire for love as opposed to companionship, real companionship, will make less sense.

As it is, we're not fifty years from now yet, so it's pretty wonderful to watch now.

More than anything else, this is entertaining. I found myself laughing! (Which, if you read my other reviews of late, you'll know it's something I've been waiting on desperately!). I enjoyed the music and thought it was well inserted throughout the film and more than anything, I found myself engaged. How good it that? There's little more one may ask from a film.

For other movies featuring Colin Firth, please check out my reviews of:
The King's Speech
A Christmas Carol
Love Actually
Shakespeare In Love
The English Patient

7/10

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

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Chicago: All Razzle Dazzle, Little Substance.

The Good: Good music, Moments of direction
The Bad: Film doesn't know what it wants to be, Character issues
The Basics: In a disappointing musical drama, murderess Roxie Hart hires a smarmy lawyer to get out of a death sentence.


There is something delightful sometimes in taking a minority position on a popular work. I do try to go into every experience open-minded, but sitting with my wife and watching Chicago, I was almost instantly turned off to the film. While I have no particular prejudice against musicals, I found myself underwhelmed by Chicago and am astonished that voters in 2003 thought this was the best film of the year. One suspects that the sheer star power associated with the movie pushed it over in many viewers' minds.

But the truth is, Chicago is a sloppy film and much of the blame for that may be placed squarely with director Rob Marshall. Marshall does not seem to know if he is simple recreating the stage play Chicago for the big screen - limiting his sets to stages for musical numbers, presenting things like blood during the dance numbers with kerchiefs, etc. - or if he is making a movie unlimited by a theater's four walls (cutting together shots inside and outside jail cells, mixing settings, etc.). The result is a jumble that is terribly unsuccessful. The best example of the transfer to screen working better would be The Phantom Of The Opera. In that film, when the Phantom takes Christine into the sewers, the movie goes from the theater to a sewer set and the lair is clearly different. By contrast, when this occurs in the stage production of The Phantom Of The Opera, the players are limited to dimming the lights and using dry ice to create the illusion of the sewers. In Chicago, outside a few shots that mix the cinematic potential of the stage play with stage-type imagery, much of the film is presented as if it were the stage play being caught on camera. And the camera work and editing are often frenetic, making the movie seem strangely desperate to sell how flashy it is without backing it up with real substance.

In Chicago, Velma Kelly is arrested after her stage show for the double murder of her husband and sister as the envious Roxie Hart looks on. Roxie returns to her apartment with her lover, who tells her he is leaving and generally berates her before she shoots him. Her husband, the dimwitted Amos, takes the fall until he realizes that the body on the floor is not that of a stranger, but of a salesman he and his wife knew. Roxie is incarcerated with Velma and Roxie soon learns the ways of the cellblock under Matron Mama Morton.

Mama has an idea on how to save Roxie's life, which is to hire defense attorney Billy Flynn. Amos and Roxie come up with every cent they can and Billy takes their case - despite them falling below his requisite $5,000 retainer. Soon, Billy is trying the case in the media and Velma is jealous because Roxie is now stealing the attention she needs to win her case. As the murderesses try to win the public's heart, Billy gets a trial date for Roxie and she dreams of being exonerated in order to pursue her dream of singing and dancing on stage.

Chicago might work as a stage musical and it could have worked as a film - even a musical - but the blending of the two mediums falls flat. So, for example, when the women on death row are singing about their crimes, they do a dance number within a framed jail set which seems very much like a set decoration. At various points, though, the performer flashes to a time and place outside that set to tell part of their story, only to come back within the theatrical sets. Sometimes, this is for just a single shot and the overall look is sloppy with the mixing of the two mediums. As well, there are some obvious and terrible bluescreen shots of the streets of Chicago which are appallingly bad.

As for the merits, the plot includes tangents involving Mama singing about how corrupt she is, another inmate exhausting her appeals and being sentenced, and the next flash in the pan arriving at the jail. The post-Roxie killer, played by Lucy Liu, has a single distracting song before Roxie thinks on her feet and gets the spotlight back. Part of what makes this so irksome is that Roxie and Velma are unlikable characters, with Billy being the archetypal smarmy lawyer who is also hard to root for. So, just because Roxie thinks on her feet does not make her a more likable character. She is still dim, conniving and a liar.

Amid plot-relevant songs, like one where Roxie allows Billy to throw a press conference where she is essentially his puppet as he plays the media to take Roxie's side, there are other numbers that might be impressive on stage, but fall flatter in the film context. Catherine Zeta-Jones presents a song and dance number as Velma wherein she shows Roxie what her routine with her sister on stage was. Zeta-Jones sings, dances and the camerawork is willed with grand moves and cuts which accent every thrust, bright-eyed smile and foot tap. The editing here is so choppy, though, Zeta-Jones could have simply been making individual moves, getting them on camera and having them cut together. In other words, the continuity of movement is broken up so badly that the scene looks awful. The impressive aspect to this scene would have been if it could have been done in one take, which is what theater performers are forced to do. In this context, the scene is assembled and is underwhelming for anyone who enjoys dance or theater.

On top of the unlikable characters who are out to save their own skin or make a lot of money off the suffering of others, no matter how unscrupulously they do it, the acting is not terribly impressive. Catherine Zeta-Jones's on-screen charisma seems to be based entirely on her bugging her eyes out during quick cuts in the dance numbers and Renee Zellweger plays Roxie Hart with the same annoying whiny quality as her character from Cold Mountain. And while Richard Gere and John C. Reilly hold their own with the singing and dancing, Queen Latifah's performance is utterly unsurprising given her start as a singer!

On the acting front is where Chicago is most overrated. Reilly's acting has him performing as yet-another working-class dimwit, which we've seen plenty of times before from him. In fact, we've seen that from Reilly about as frequently as we've seen Richard Gere play a charismatic man with sparkling eyes and a sexy smile. These are good casting decisions. But Zellweger, Zeta-Jones, Gere, Latifah and Reilly all flop here as actors as the viewer is entirely uninvested in any one of their characters. They shine as singers and dancers, which might surprise some viewers, but singing and dancing ability is not the same as acting.

The result is a period film that is a mediocre presentation of a stage musical, trying only half-heartedly to be something more than what it is.

For other musical films, please check out my reviews of:
The Little Mermaid
The Broadway Melody
The Nightmare Before Christmas

[As the winner of the 2003 Best Picture Oscar, this film is included in "W.L.'s Best Picture Project" which is available by clicking here!]

4/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my ever-growing index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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