Review: Buck

 This review originally published at Filmwell, a blog of The Other Journal.  

The Feel
Dir. Cindy Meehl
2011

Not knowing a lot about Buck before I walked into the theater, I sat down assuming I was about to witness the inspirational tale of a “horse whisperer.” The story of Buck Brannaman is one that lends itself to such Hollywood sensationalism, ripe for reimagining as a feel-good family flick. But this spin isn’t something I imagine Buck himself endorsing. A staid-but-pleasant stand-up guy, Buck isn’t here to make magic, and you’re not going to catch any symphonic swell when he mounts a horse. His job is to show people how they’re failing to communicate with their animals. While that may sound pragmatic enough, Buck finds a grandeur of its own in its reflections on growth, connection, and redemption. By rethinking the way we approach animal training, we are forced to confront the ways in which we, too, have been “trained”– and the choices we can still make in the wake of our conditioning.

Director Cindy Meehl and editor Toby Shimin make Buck essentially the cinematic incarnation of Brannaman himself. Spending 90 minutes in the theater with this documentary feels a whole lot like a day at the ranch, which is a novel experience indeed for the average art house moviegoer. The film can be lovely, humane, unassuming, and occasionally a bit dull– all traits of the man in question. Meehl effectively strikes a balance between the transcendent and the mundane to evoke the spirit of life in the country, and specifically life with horses. The animals are photographed beautifully: sweat shimmering on hides, muscles surging, dust kicked up amidst crisp sunlight and grasses. But most of the time we’re just following Brannaman, whether he’s dispensing revelatory advice to a crowd or logging hours in the truck between towns.

Continue reading at Filmwell.

 

 

Review: Winnie the Pooh

This review originally published at Filmwell, a blog of The Other Journal.

Oh Simple Thing
Dir. Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall
2011

The advertising campaign for Disney's new Winnie the Pooh film is genius. I am convinced it was devised by a pack of hip interns-- who else would think it was a good idea to use the melancholy soft-rock of Keane in a trailer for a children's film? But as the chords of "Somewhere Only We Know" start to pound over the image of Pooh and Friends marching across a bridge, it hits you right in the gut-- or at least it's supposed to. "Admit it," we are beckoned by the television spots (in Helvetica, no less!). "You miss them." Oh, how you know us, hip Disney interns! Winnie the Pooh knows it will not be able to grab today's ADHD children in a twenty second commercial, with its soft coloring and mild manners. No, instead it aims upward, at literate young parents desperate to instill a sense of taste in their children, children buffeted every day by the frenzied snark of sugar cereal ads. "Oh simple thing, where have you gone," goes the song, played over glimpses of the Hundred Acre Wood. "I'm getting old and I need something to rely on."

While this Winnie the Pooh seems to be something of a "reboot" of the series, it's not as if the bear has been on hiatus. We may associate Pooh's pop culture presence with the Disney films of the sixties and seventies, but he has also had a syndicated series through the nineties, several theatrical and DVD releases in the last decade, and untold volumes of merchandise hawked in Disney's parks. Pooh, as an idea, never really went away. But as the franchise edged closer to irrelevance, it seemed to get more desperate-- the characters became ever more bright and plastic, culminating in the sacrilege of a computer-animated series on Playhouse Disney made to ape the likes of "Dora the Explorer." In this light, Winnie the Pooh functions as a reclaiming of the series, a decided stand against the hyper devolution of children's entertainment.

Continued at Filmwell...

 

  

Review: Beginners

 

 

(This review originally published at Filmwell, a blog of The Other Journal.)

Start Something
Written and Directed by Mike Mills
2011

"You don't know me. I like that." So says the She of Beginners to the He, on one of those floating walks that fill up the start of a relationship. She's teasing him, but we know it's more than a bit of banter-- it's an attitude that can easily turn into a way of life. Beginners is at once an ode to this sentiment and a critique of it, equally at home in the giggles and piggyback rides of early love and in the unbearable looks at a person you know you are supposed to understand but do not. The film takes us inside that curious rush of hope and mystery that comes with a beginning, but it follows those firsts shoots further into maturity than most romances would dare.

The title of this film makes it easy to pre-judge it: oh, look, another cute indie drama where people fumble into relationships and find out life is sad and beautiful and complicated, because, you know, we are all beginners, etc., etc. And that assessment isn't entirely off-- Beginners is indeed a stylized relationship drama that adheres to the 21st century aesthetic of quirk. But writer/director Mike Mills' strength is in his sense of arrangement, of context. He elevates what could be trite hipster sentimentality into a fully-realized human portrait by giving us a life in patchwork, sewing together sharp little bits of past and present. This is not a film about beginners as people who are "just waking up," people whose lives prior to the film's plot must have been an unimaginably dull morass (Garden State, anyone?). The beginners of Mill's film have been at the business of life for a while. The circumstances that befall them in Beginners are not earth-shattering. They simply push the characters to look at themselves and this moment within the narrative of their lives, and to say, yes, this is important, and yes, I'm going to start something.

Continued at Filmwell...

 

 

Review: Despicable Me

Pure Squee-vil 

Dir. Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud 2010 

Postmodern pop art has been dealing in anti-heroes for decades. It’s almost strange now to root for a regular old hero, a la Superman. Children’s films are an interesting place to look for hero mythology, because these stories are, ideally, supposed to play a role in the development of the next generation. While Disney and Pixar hold down the fort of traditional heroism, DreamWorks has been making thoroughly postmodern children’s films for the last decade, beginning with Shrek. David Denby of the New Yorker chastises DreamWorks’ methodology, which he claims has “children being entertained with derision before they’ve been ravished by awe.” Children’s films are, supposedly, where we set up archetypes that can later be broken down and questioned, but not before coming of age. But DreamWorks positions itself diametrically opposed to Pixar’s style, sacrificing soul for quick jokes, pop culture references, and satire. And here we have “Despicable Me,” a film with a premise right in the heart of the witty deconstruction: we root for the bad guy. The DreamWorks mold has its limitations when it comes to heartfelt storytelling, but “Despicable Me” is an example of what this genre gets right: it’s smart, hilarious, and self-conscious without giving in to pure snark. But it loses out to Pixar by replacing true emotion with the cutesy. 

At the center of the madcappery at work is Steve Carell’s Gru, our polygonal, Russian-accented would-be fiend. He’s just trying to get a foothold in the evil genius market, but he’s thwarted at every turn by an obnoxious rival, Vector. Vector’s gleaming white array of gadgets looks straight from the Apple Store, and Gru’s more modest means can’t earn him the villain status he craves. So when a trio of orphan girls crosses his path, he schemes up a way to use them for his most dastardly plot of all. It's all very predicable, but it unfolds so gleefully that you never mind. 

“Despicable Me” is old-school visual comedy, hearkening back to the days where comics contained the barest of captions. As the camera shows us around Gru’s house, we are greeted with wall-to-wall visual puns and gags, details we might miss without paying attention. The colors are bright, the features are exaggerated; this is more cartoon than “animated feature.” The chase scenes and effect-less violence call the Looney Toons to mind. It’s great fun, and nice to see a film where the comedy is not stuffed to the brim with fart jokes or pop culture references. 

 The superhero genre continues to be done and overdone, with parodies to spare. “Despicable Me” follows in this tradition, but its focus on the villain is an under-explored angle (though not for long, with “Megamind” being released hot on this one’s heels). What kind of antihero is Gru? What’s the difference between him and an average Super Protagonist? Obviously, he’s “evil,” but what does that mean? In the context of the film, not a lot. Gru just wears a black hat. He’s a bad guy. That’s what he does. Duh. Who needs some complex “motivation”? It’s actually quite a clever send-up of Disney villains, arbitrary “bad guys” signaled with a malevolent laugh but lacking any substance or motive, like Bowser from the Mario Bros. Oh, it’s time to kidnap Peach again, is it? Gru’s just an average villain trying to advance in his career, and any “evil” in the film is misleading. It turns out being a villain pretty much comes down to stealing the biggest thing possible, or simple inconsideration (e.g. cutting in the Starbucks line). 

So how postmodern is “Despicable Me”? It does depict “evil” in a very arbitrary way; evil is more of a lifestyle choice or career move than anything else. A clever scene has villains taking out loans at the bank for their next evil venture, a sly nod to the economic climate of our times. We will always have stories of villain’s hearts being changed by an innocent influence. But Gru’s decision at the end feels less like rejecting evil, and more like rejecting selfishness or loneliness. It’s not highly moral, but it doesn’t ruffle the viewer too much. 

“Despicable Me” isn’t attempting psychological analysis of movie villains. It’s all about the premise, a kind of messed up Mr. Mom affair: Dude, wouldn’t it be awesome if we stuck one of those movie villains with a bunch of cute little girls in his house? But really, a lot of great films start out with “Dude, wouldn’t it be awesome if--,” and the movie largely delivers on the promised hilarity. The jokes are quick and big, and it’s very stylistically sophisticated. But the biggest presence in the film is actually the all-consuming cuteness. Never before have I seen a film so single-minded in its mission to offer its audience cute in such concentrated measures. Little Agnes, the youngest of the orphans, could easily beat out Pixar’s Boo and Bonnie with one pigtail. It’s pure joy to watch. Gru’s minions, round, yellowy little guys, are so full of spunk and personality, it’s hard to know where to look. It’s engineered for constant smiling, but never comes off as syrupy, because it’s nestled in a movie of wit and alleged malevolence. But the question is, does cute count as “heart”? Up to a point. There was a small moment that was genuinely touching, but overall, the film makes up for its predictability with an endless barrage of sugar that goes down wonderfully but doesn't leave much to reflect on later. 

 In the hands of Pixar, “Despicable Me” might have explored a deep emotional place in Gru, finding out where he would connect with these kids. It might have explored the moral ramifications of Gru’s actions, using the girls to show him what he ought to value in life. But, as is, “Despicable Me” is no morality tale, no story of evil overcome by virtue. It’s crankiness met with the sheer force of adorable. Actually, it’s not unlike “UP” in that way. But where “UP” ends with a wistful, sweet fadeaway, “Despicable Me” ends with a funky dance number. What did you expect? 

Myth: 

A villain’s melted heart 

Reformation by influence of children 

Adopted Orphans 

Moral: 

People ought to let other people in their lives 

The one with the most toys doesn’t always win 

Zeitgeist Factor: 

Being DreamWorks, there is a great amount of cultural awareness present. From satire of tacky tourists to the difficulty of securing a loan, the film shows us lots of little scenarios cut from American life. Ultimately, the movie taps into one of America’s favorite sentiments of the moment, that Juno-style sour-but-sweet feel. We’re too cynical to accept a straight fairy tale, but too tenacious to reject a sweet little hope inside the sarcasm.

3.5/5

   

Review: Inception

  Messing With Minds
Dir. Chris Nolan,  2010

Dreams may well be the final frontier of storytelling. Though our cinema keeps our attention with impeccably timed conflicts leading to a choreographed climax, we are nightly enraptured by self-generated, nonsensical narratives that play unbidden in our heads. Dreams are a paradoxical element of the human experience, universal yet profoundly personal. It is nearly impossible to convey one’s experience of a dream to another person. Still, dream sequences remain a film staple, used to handily illustrate a plot point or character issue, but rarely reflecting the slippery experience of a true dream. So the question remains: can a mainstream film harness the strange appeal of these nightly, personal stories in a way that will captivate waking audiences? Christopher Nolan answers the question with “Inception,” a cinematic wonder that packs a fascinating abstract concept into a taut, sure-footed narrative structure. Technically dazzling, the film hopes to leave jaws gaping; however, its most inspired moments are the ones that venture out of the set piece and into the mess of the human heart.

The first thing to know is that “Inception” never sets out to be a Kaufman-esque brain trip. Don’t come in expecting melting clocks, fluid storytelling, or tripped-out dance sequences. Nolan is out to blow your mind, not tweak with it; no need to check your reality at the door. Because “Inception” is not an art house film: it’s a heist movie. It just happens to take place in your mind. The cinematography and score are there to remind you that this is, indeed, a textbook popcorn thriller. Set in cool tones, the camera pans around corners at suspenseful moments and shakes with handheld panic during chase scenes, a la Bourne. The soundtrack, loud and percussion-heavy, has no memorable theme and no significant deviance from that of “The Dark Knight.” You could walk in on the film for a few minutes and mistake it for a standard summer action flick.

But how wrong you would be. The scope and stakes of “Inception” are wider and higher than the typical save-the-world yawner (and the world isn’t even at stake here). That’s because “Inception” takes us inside the expansive, incredible world inside a human mind, and puts it in tangible jeopardy. It gives new meaning to the term “psychological thriller”: it’s a thriller inside someone’s psychology. It’s amazing that no one’s done it before, at least not this literally. And the genius of this premise is that Nolan ties up his philosophical questions so closely with the action that the two become one and the same. His chase scene is not just visceral, they’re ideological. This has always been a fixture of Nolan’s filmmaking, from the mind games of “Memento” to the ethical dilemmas of “The Dark Knight.” But never before has the connection been this strong and intuitive.

The plot is something that is best to experience in the theater, but here are the bones: Leonardo DiCaprio is Cobb, a neurotic genius who directs operations to steal ideas from dreams. His team includes a second-in-command (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an architect (Ellen Page), a “forger,” a chemist, and a patron. Together, they embark on their most ambitious mission yet, but encounter psychological hangups that do more damage to their plans than any hit man could. The plot, though complex, is not difficult to follow. Nolan gives us the information when we need it, occasionally spoon-feeding exposition to help us along.

Visually, the film is chock full of set pieces and stunner moments, which have supplied the film with its major marketing push. We get gorgeous slow motion shots with water, cityscapes unfolding before our eyes, anti-gravity choreography, an Escher drawing come to life. I found myself with my jaw open more than once. The film has moments of explosive creativity, especially when illustrating the effects of outside stimuli on a dreamer (you’ll see what I mean). Aside from the set pieces, the overall visual mood is slick, calculated, and pitch-perfect. There is the sense of hot and cold imagery; slow, artistic vistas of dreamers placed alongside breathless fights and chases.

With regard to the sci-fi environment, “Inception” innovates within the lines. Undeniably, the film owes a great debt to “The Matrix,” both thematically and stylistically. Put some “agents” in an alternate reality, tell them the rules, and then watch the stakes elevate and apply to “real life.” The ideas of time travel, awakening, and alternate realities are becoming less and less shocking to us, and “Inception” shows its influences: The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, The Truman Show, even Harry Potter. “Inception” is not a movie you would call wildly imaginative. But imaginative it is, and there were many times I found myself nodding and grinning as I saw its world unfold. The ideas of time bending connected with dreams were fascinating and well executed, especially in the finale. We do hear the rules of the game quite often, perhaps the way Nolan explained them to himself in a Word Document while developing the plot. Throughout the film, the setup and plot development continued to prove themselves clever, if not shocking. The multi-layered planning and plot structure at work here certainly make strides in the genre, enough to make “The Matrix” look too big and obvious.

A movie like “Inception” seems like it would be made for the wow-factor, but the thing that distinguishes the film from other smart thrillers is the surprisingly soulful backbone of human nature that holds it together. The film is philosophical from the get-go, and invokes all kinds of questions about the nature of ideas and creativity. As the team goes in to plant an idea in a man’s mind, they have to ask themselves questions about what makes us believe: what it takes for an idea to get its hooks in us. And the film’s answer is surprisingly un-cerebral: at our core, we are full of feelings, intuitions, longings. It’s the viscera that hook us, not facts or reason.

This idea would be merely an interesting aside were it not for DiCaprio’s Cobb, a neurotic, driven mess of a man who happens to be both the greatest asset and the greatest danger to the expedition. Despite his intimate knowledge of the depths of the human mind, he can’t get a handle on his own regrets and wishes. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that the greatest stakes are not invested in the enterprise itself but rather in Cobb’s tangled heart. As we delve further into Cobb, we delve further into ourselves: what are our greatest doubts? What do we really hold to be true at our core? What villains do we harbor and feed inside our own minds? Do our memories and dreams become confused?

As a thriller, “Inception” delivers, keeping audiences tense and gape-jawed. As a cerebral drama, “Inception” offers enough to keep you tossing and turning at night. But what truly makes the movie memorable is how it delves into issues on a personal and unexpectedly touching level. The film’s crisis is personal, but the stakes are literal. It puts faces to our doubts and beliefs, presents our thoughts and dreams in a form we can follow with bated breath. In the end, its weight is just as much emotional as it is cerebral. “Inception” understands that our dreams get at what we are really about, and makes a real effort to offer its thesis on the matter. This movie is certainly Big Hollywood. But if a summer popcorn flick can make you gasp, cry, and stay too long in the lobby arguing with your friends about the ending, I don’t know what more you would want at the multiplex.

Myth:
Escaping to another world
Awakening

Moral:
The things we hold closest can be the things to hurt us
Feelings have a huge sway over humans

Zeitgeist Factor:
In a world where we live so much in public with presence in social networking, it seems at times that the last safe place we have is our own mind. “Inception” messes with that by saying that even that refuge might not be so stable. Similarly, “Inception” shows us a familiar postmodern principle in that the way we thought the world operated is not necessarily true, and we must open our minds to alternate realities or ways of seeing.