Grave of the Fireflies

A Japanese animated film, Grave of the Fireflies, produced by Studio Ghibli in 1988, is based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name.  It is told as flashbacks by the spirits of two young Japanese children.  The version I watched is the English Dub.  It has received high critical praise in both Japan and the United States.

Seita (J. Robert Spencer) who is somewhere around 11 or 12 years old, and his young sister Setsuko (Rhoda Chrosite) who is about five, are living in Kobe, Japan near the end of WWII with their mother Ash Ketchum (Veronica Taylor) while their father serves in the navy.  One day, American B-52's firebomb their village, leaving them motherless.  While waiting for their father's return, they are taken in by a distant aunt (Amy Jones).  Though she feeds and shelters them, the aunt makes it increasingly clear that the two semi-orphans are not welcome in her home.  Before she can come out and explicitly kick them to the streets, Seita and Setsuko strike out on their own, doing their best to survive in a world with little food or help available.

While seemingly created as a children's story, the imagery and subject matter is quite graphic and pulls no punches when it comes to dealing with the horrible side effects of war head on.  It is a look at WWII from a perspective that Americans don't often see in film, and is a quite powerful on at that.  I found it very interesting that though it is obvious that the Americans are the enemy in this movie, it is war itself that is villainized rather than the United States.  Unless it was changed in the dub, there is no verbal mention of the enemy by name and the only symbolism is the B-52's.

Though a thoroughly depressing film, Grave of the Fireflies is a cinematic triumph and historical treasure.  It is not an easy film to watch by any means, but it is a powerful reminder of consequences, putting a human face on tragedy caused by war.  It's hard to watch since the ending is given away by the beginning, but at the same time, it's easier knowing where it is headed.  I would highly recommend this movie, especially if you have an interest in history.  But only if you know what you're getting yourself into.

***** (5/5 stars)

Watchmen

When Watchmen came out, it was surrounded by quite a lot of buzz, being the film adaptation of Alan Moore's highly acclaimed graphic novel series that some maintain to be the greatest comic of all time.  After the dust settled, it seemed to be the near unanimous conclusion that Zack Snyder stayed true to the source material, but whether or not that was a good thing was not so unanimous.

Much like Inglourious Basterds, Watchmen is a revisionist history, though for the most part it mirrors the world of the mid 80's when it was first published rather than revisiting a previous era.  The world of Watchmen is one where masked super heroes really do exist, though other than the nuclear powered Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), it is never made clear whether their powers extend beyond Bruce Wayne esque training and resources.  In this alternate 1985, Vietnam was won and Nixon remains president for a third term due to the Watchmen's actions - the second generation of heroes formed out of the original Minutemen of the 30's and 40's.  By the time the movie opens, however, superheroes have been outlawed with only the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Dr. Manhattan still active under government sanction.  The mysterious Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) has also not given up the (incredibly cool) mask, but works illegally as an underground detective.  It's through Rorschach's accounts that we are aware of the events unfolding.  Rorshach is probably the only character I cared about in this movie, and he was an homage to one of the best and most under appreciated members of the Justice League, The Question.  The beginning of the movie finds The Comedian violently murdered and Rorschach investigating what seems to be someone out to kill off the rest of the Watchmen which includes Silk Spectre (Malin Åkerman), Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), and Ozymandias (Matthew Goode).

This is a very artistic as well as realistic superhero movie.  The artistic aspect (lifted directly from the pages of the graphic novel) works.  There is some truly inspired and inspiring cinematography.  The realistic aspect, however, does not.  There is certainly something to be said for realistic superhero tales.  It works for Kick-Ass (In the world of comic book movies, realistic is somewhat of a fluid term).  Reality, however, is boring and often confusing, and that's how much of Watchmen comes off.  The gritty realism makes the over the top portions play out in bizarre fashion and what little action existed is too little to keep up any kind of pace. 

The much talked about sex scene is one of the most awkward and undesirable things to watch.  I think one reviewer said something along the lines of "this scene is enough to make geeks hate boobs."  I'm not going to complain about the frequent blue penis - I barely noticed it amidst all the rest of the glowing and it looked very CG anyway.  Excessive male appendages are not this movie's biggest problem.

I understand what makes this story great.  I can see that it came from something amazingly crafted and unlike much else in the genre.  Some things just were not meant to cross over from page to screen though.  The characters lacked development as well as real personalities.  I didn't care about any of them in the least bit, save for Rorschach.  I would pay good money to see a movie centered around that character, but I'm glad I didn't do so for this one.

** (2/5 stars)

17 Again

17 Again is the most recent film in the body/age swapping genre, joining such classics as Freaky Friday and 18 Again.  Mike O'Donnell's (Matthew Perry) life sucks.  He hates his job, his wife (Leslie Mann) is leaving him, and his children  (Michelle Trachtenberg and Sterling Knight) want nothing to do with him.  From where he stands at nearly 40 years old, everything bad in his life could have been different were it not for one moment.  It was that moment that he gave up a championship game and the chance at a full scholarship to be a basketball star in order to be with his newly discovered to be pregnant girlfriend (Allison Miller).

Bing bang boom (no pun intended), and Matthew Perry turns into Zac Efron as he transforms back into 17 year old Mike.  Determined to course correct his life by starting over from where he left off, Mike enrolls in high school with his uber geeky, uber rich buddy Ned (Thomas Lennon) posing as his father.  For the first time, he is able to start to connect with his two kids, being let into their world like only a peer would and he tries to become sort of an undercover father, doing the things he couldn't or didn't do when he was an adult.  The formula is pretty simple - hilarity ensues, lessons are learned, people are changed and there's a happy ending.

Just because the ingredients are standard, however, doesn't mean the recipe is bland.  There are some truly awkward/disturbing scenes that give this movie a slightly more adult feel, and there is genuine humour to be found.  Ned and the school principal (Melora Hardin) are charming as two geeks who are thrilled to find someone of their own breed, and are usually convincing in the role.  I am not sure, though, that geeks of their magnitude would refer to the language as simply "Elvish," but would have specified Quenya or Sindarin.  Granted, the target audience would probably have no Middle Earthly clue as to what they were talking about then.

The many geeky pop culture references really helped this movie to be entertaining for me.  The acting was surprisingly solid and Zac Efron does a shockingly good Matthew Perry.  I was amused/not irritated for the whole movie, which was something I was not expecting.  Yes it is 95% predictable, but sometimes it's nice to watch something that is not Inception or The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.  I probably enjoyed this movie more than I should have and that's probably due to things like random light-saber battles, but you could really do a lot worse.  Especially in the genre of teen comedy.

**** (4/5 stars)

Volcano

I remember watching this on television many years back, but what I didn't remember until I found myself channel surfing on a slow night was that this campy disaster movie starred Tommy Lee Jones and Don Cheadle.  Volcano comes from 1997, around the same time as other disaster movies such as Asteroid, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Dante's Peak, Twister, Independence Day, and dozens of other lesser known one word natural disasters like Turbulence and Tornado!.  The '90s were apparently ripe with disaster.

Volcano takes the unlikely premise of a volcano erupting beneath LA and throws (then) state of the art special effects at it.  Mike Roark (Jones) is the head of OEM (Office of Emergency Management, not Original Equipment Manufacturer) and is supposed to be on vacation with his daughter (Gaby Hoffmann), leaving his associate (Cheadle) in charge.  When the city is awakened by a quake, however, the job quickly pulls him back in.  Everything seems more or less normal but, of course, it isn't.  Strange things seem to be happening beneath the surface and geologist Dr. Amy Barnes (Anne Heche) is the only one who has a clue about it.  Soon Mike is the only one smart and heroic enough to save the city from becoming the next Pompeii, while keeping his daughter safe by making impossible leaps over creeping molten lava.

Speaking of creeping molten lava, there is a lot of it.  And while the visual effects are actually not half bad, I think every shot of the magma's slow advance is the exact same piece of film, and it's really not that intimidating.  The overall effects are pretty good for the time though.  The lava flow and Tommy Lee Jones carry this entire movie on their shoulders, and since those are two pairs of decently strong shoulders, Volcano doesn't fall into a sink hole, rising to mediocre.  It's still campy as all get out though.  The acting is nothing extraordinary, but is not distracting, but there's only so much you can do about a premise as far fetched, yet straightforward as this one.  Something tells me that Roland Emmerich could have found many unlikely plot devices and devise some scenes even more spectacular than knocking over a skyscraper in the middle of the city had he helmed this movie, but that's not the case.

What we have is a watchable disaster drama with predictable outcomes, nearly flat characters, and pretty good eye candy for when it was made.  Don't go out of your way to see this one, but there is worse out there.

** (2/5 stars)

Men in Black

A favorite of mine, this 1997 film adaptation of the lesser known graphic novel The Men in Black was on television and I couldn't resist watching it again.

James Edwards (Will Smith) is a New York City cop who, after chasing down a surprisingly agile suspect with some unusual eyelids, is approached by Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) of The Men In Black - a secret agency in charge of policing and monitoring alien activity on Earth.  After his memory of recent events is wiped, Edwards is invited to come to an interview the next day and subsequently becomes Agent J, K's new partner, just in time to get himself caught up in a situation in which the outcome could very well be Earth's destruction by an alien warship.  Tony Shalhoub makes an appearance as Jeebs, the slippery alien pawn shop owner, and Rip Torn stars as Zed, chief of MIB.

The film plays out in a comic book style that even non comic book fans will enjoy, though if you don't have at least some interest in sci-fi it might not be your cup of tea.  The whole thing is wonderfully polished in an enjoyable way - it's obvious that the actors all had a great time filming, and that fun seeps effortlessly out of the screen.  Really, what is not to like about a cocky Will Smith and a straight-faced Tommy Lee Jones kicking alien butt under the executive production of Steven Spielberg?  The special effects stand the test of time (minus one very offensive instance of green screening) and the story is there.  There are plenty of interesting ideas played with throughout and there's enough action to keep anyone interested.

I've never heard of anyone who doesn't like this movie, though I'm sure there are some detractors out there, and with good reason.  While not a classic masterpiece, it's nearly perfect on the enjoyability and quality scales.  If you're behind the times and never got around to seeing this one, do yourself a favor and rectify that situation post haste.

***** (5/5 stars)

Bad Boys

Bad Boys, starring a once-upon-a-time-thin-Martin Lawrence and Will Smith is produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay - which translates to buddy-cop genre flick with more than it's share of explosions.  Something of a classic, this 1995 film still enjoys popularity and spawned a even more successful sequel in 2003 though critics disliked both.  Having seen most of Will Smith's movies, I finally checked this one off the list as well.

In an elaborate and impressive heist that is apparently an inside job (and probably the best scene in the movie) a group of criminals nab $100 million worth of confiscated cocaine from the Miami police.  Leaders in the narcotics division, and best friends Marcus Burnett, the family man (Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey, the playboy (Smith) head up the investigation with the improbable consequence of the entire narcotics division being shut down should the drugs not be recovered within five days.  Luckily, one of Lowrey's ex girlfriends is a working girl named Max (Karen Alexander) whom he still keeps in touch with as an informant of the underground.  She easily tracks down a newly rich ex-cop who's looking for a good time and pays him a visit with her roommate Julie (Téa Leoni).  Unfortunately, Max is killed.  Julie gets away though, and as the one person who knows who is behind it all is on the run.

Through some events that could have been prevented had cell phones been more prevalent at the time, Marcus ends up impersonating Mike in order to gain Julie's trust with predictable Martin Lawrence is trying to be Will Smith results.  Some people get shot, poop jokes are made, and things explode with greater frequency as the film nears its end.

As a buddy cop action comedy it's ok, but it's really nothing special and certainly not one of Will Smith's shining moments, though not nearly as bad as Wild Wild West. Honestly I am not sure why this film has survived the way that it has.  This is mostly a watch it, have a little fun and then forget it movie.  If you haven't seen it, unless you are the type who must see every movie by Smith, Lawrence, or Bay, or just really love buddy cop flicks, you're not missing much.

*** (3/5 stars)

Brazil

Brazil, from 1985, comes from the strange British mind of Terry Gilliam.  It follows, then, that this film did wonderfully in the UK, poorly in the US, and has since developed a cult following.

Jonathan Pryce, who is probably most easily recognized as Governor Swan in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, is Sam Lowry, a low level employee of the Ministry of Information in a fictional dystopian parody of Britain.  Despite being more intelligent than most of the bureaucrats around him, Sam is happy to stay at his position where he is mostly ignored and not responsible for the problems of higher departments.  His life is thrown into a maelstrom, however, when he investigates some inconsistent paperwork that led to the arrest and death of a Mr. A. Buttle instead of suspected terrorist A. Tuttle (Robert De Niro) due to an error caused by a fly getting caught in a typewriter.  In the process, he meets the mysterious girl (Kim Greist) who populates his frequent fantasy daydreams and finds himself becoming entangled in some very dangerous red tape as he ends up on the run from a bureaucracy that thinks he is associated with nondescript terrorists.

No one likes to make fun of bureaucracy like the Brits, and this - along with a message against consumerism - are central themes in the slapstick 1984esque world of Brazil.  From his incompetent boss Bilbo Mr. Kurtzmann (Ian Holm) who spends most of his time figuring out ways that his problems are someone else's problems, to Lowry's plastic surgery addicted mother (Katherine Helmond), the whole movie is a satire of society.  It's too bad that it makes so very little sense.

There is something that resembles a plot but it feels more like Gilliam's stream of consciousness.  On one hand, it makes this film very interesting to watch since it's like being inside a crazy person's imagination, but on the flip side, it is hard to comprehend.  I can appreciate Brazil for being highly imaginative and probably brilliant in ways that British citizens of 1985 and fans of Terry Gilliam will understand.  There are parts that are genuinely interesting and/or funny and it is fascinating to see how computers are portrayed by a film maker at a time when computers were still a very new and uncommon thing.

This is probably a good movie if you like such things, but for me it is mostly incomprehensible in a bad way, which puts a damper on my enjoyment.  Oh, and it has nothing to do with Brazil.

** (2/5 stars)

Face/Off

Face/Off is 90's action cheese at its purest.  Directed by John Woo, Nicolas Cage is an insane yet genius terrorist for hire and John Travolta is an FBI agent with a personal vendetta against him, and the only one crazy enough to catch him.  For most of the film, however, these rolls are switched.

The title, it turns out, is extremely literal.  Even after Sean Archer (Travolta) catches Castor Troy (Cage), the drama is not over as it seems there is still a bomb planted somewhere, ready to go off in a matter of days.  In order to find out where it is, Archer undergoes a radical procedure using new technology to remove his entire face and replace it with Troy's in a bid to gain his brother Pollux's (Alessandro Nivola) trust.  Thrown into a high security, somewhat cyber-punk prison with Pollux, Archer (now played by Cage) succeeds.  When it comes time for extraction, however, it turns out that having your face removed can contribute to waking you from a coma.  Troy (now played by Travolta) is back and has not only stolen Archer's face, but done away with everyone who knew the truth, including Dr. Hollis Miller (C. C. H. Pounder).  What follows is a game of cat and mouse as Archer is on the run from Troy and the law with the terrorist's old friends as his only allies.  Troy comfortably steps into the role of Archer, making himself at home in his house and with his wife (Joan Allen) and daughter (Dominique Swain).

Much of this unbelievable plot borders on the ridiculous and hinges on the fact that despite being in a coma with his face off, the world's most dangerous criminal is so unsecured that he wakes up, takes a hostage, forces someone to perform a medical procedure on him (during which he surely could have been euthenized?) and then kills everyone there without anyone else realizing what has happened.  And I haven't even mentioned Woo's signature over the top action scenes which include flaming boats doing Mythbuster worthy stunts.

The highlights of this film are Travolta and Cage, both of whom do an excellent job of becoming the other through pure acting.  Both play very different people at different points in the film and Cage either as Troy or as Archer as Troy exudes an insanity that is right up there with Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker.  If it wasn't for these two giving an impressive example of acting prowess, this movie would have little to offer that can't be found in any action flick.

Apparently most everyone, critic and consumer alike, enjoyed this movie.  There were parts I liked, but overall I was sorely unimpressed.  Maybe I would have felt differently if I was watching it in '97 when it came out, but that's where I stand now.

*** (3/5 stars)

Inception

Inception, from the complex mind of Christopher Nolan, is an original story and the film that many seemed to be counting on to redeem a summer of (mostly) less than stellar movies.

Inception takes place in a world where entering someone else's dreams is a somewhat common occurrence, using technology developed by the military for training purposes.  Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) is one of the best at what he does - entering dreams for the purpose of extracting sensitive information.  He, along with his team of Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) the researcher, Ariadne (Ellen Page) the dreamworld architect, Eames (Tom Hardy) the forger, Yusef (Dileep Rao) the chemist are about to embark on an even more difficult mission - that of inception, or the planting of an idea is someone's mind.  Dom is desperately trying to make it back home, but is unable to because of false criminal charges.  He hopes that his powerful new client Saito (Ken Watanabe) can deliver on his promise to make this obstacle disappear should Dom and his team complete the nearly impossible.  The target is Robert (Cillian Murphy), heir to his father's (Pete Postlethwaite) empire that Saito wants broken up.  Marion Cotillard also appears as Dom's deceased wife whose memory haunts haunts him, and Michael Caine makes an appearance as her father.

Confused yet?  You're not alone, though Nolan has a unique talent for creating complex, intricate, and confusing stories that can be understood in a straightforward manner as long as you pay attention, as he did in Memento and The Prestige.  Inception has the multi-level complexity of Primer, but with one important difference.  Normal people can understand it.  Inception hits that near perfect balance of acting, story telling, action, and visual candy.  Free to work in a Matrix-like dreamworld, Nolan shows considerable restraint, keeping things relatively realistic despite the fantastic nature of the story.  The action is tense and almost non-stop, whether it is physical fire fights, or mental anguish.  DiCaprio gives a strong performance as does Gordon-Levitt.  I can only hope we see him again soon as Nolan's Riddler.

It's hard to discuss more of why this movie works without giving away key elements, but trust me, it does.  In lesser hands, something like this could have caved in on itself, but Nolan and his cast deliver.  The ending is what most people will be talking about as Nolan has constructed this movie in such a way that there are many possible interpretations, including that the entire movie is actually a dream.  For those who have seen it, my opinion is that the ending is as straightforward as you hope and that the final wavering doubt at the end was planted there by Nolan as a nod to his own creation of inception, planting that seed of doubt in the viewer's mind until it grows, making you question what you thought you knew was real, even though it is.

See this movie.  Please.

***** (5/5 stars)

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones is the Peter Jackson film adaptation of Alice Sebold's 2002 novel of the same name.  The book received much critical praise and quickly became a best seller and it seemed that handing it over to one of the more accomplished directors of recent time could only produce something good.

Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan who needs to shake the curse of poorly adapted novels) is a vibrant 14 year old girl who is just starting to come into herself when she is lured away by her neighbor Mr Harvey (an unusually hairy Stanley Tucci) and brutally murdered.  After coming to grips with the fact that she is dead, Susie watches from her Heaven-like place as her family deals with her death and searches for her murderer.  Her father (Mark Wahlberg who is looking more and more like Kevin Bacon) tirelessly searches for any lead to find his daughter's killer causing him to lose touch with her mother (Rachel Weisz) who leaves in search of some sort of peace.  Her alcoholic grandmother (Susan Sarandon) arrives to take care of her younger sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) and little brother Buckley (Christian Thomas Ashdale).

For all the faults this movie exhibits, the worst is time management.  This is - in true Jackson spirit - a longer than average film.  The problem this time is that perhaps half of that time could have been cut without leaving anything out.  It takes over half an hour for the main point of the story to even occur, that is, Susie's death.  It's another thirty minutes or so before anything really happens in regards to anyone tracking down Harvey or even beginning to suspect him.  From reading the description of novel, it seems like the material was there to be a good story, but it just wasn't used very well.  One would think that with his experience with The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson would know how to respect source material without making many changes, but this is not the case.

Besides the length, even more drawn out by uses of ethereal slow motion, the story just doesn't make a whole lot of sense at times, being meaning-laden images that probably make sense to those who made them.  Susie's afterlife world is like something out of Dr. Parnassus's Imaginarium, only more hokey and less inspiring.  Also, as she finds her Heaven populated with only Harvey's other victims, one wonders how lonely other heavens must be for non-serial killer victims.  Little is explained in way of how or why Susie was killed and we are left to infer that Harvey was a creep of some kind.  Duh. 

Without giving much away, the ending is one of the less satisfying I have ever seen, and strangest.  The only thing we're left with is some kind of sense that Susie is happier now that she's dead, which seems an odd message.  The Lovely Bones was apparently a very good book.  What we're given here is a movie that changes the pacing, leaves out events, and sucks time down a slow drain with needless scenes.  There are some grand ideas and visuals, but none connect.

** (2/5 stars)