Here's the first of a three-part summer reviews round-up. This one sees me living in the cinema, investigating a rare silent comedy and watching a BBC4 documentary about running.
MOVIES
CINEMA: The Lorax 3D (Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda) - In a plastic town where fresh air is controlled by a ruthless, smarmy capitalist, a young boy goes out in search of a real tree - to impress the ginger he loves. This amiable eco-animation - on the controversial topic of not cutting down all the world's trees - is from the burgeoning studio that created
Despicable Me. But while that original, deeply funny and winningly sentimental concoction had something for everyone, this one's aimed squarely at kids. Told largely in flashback by a be-whiskered man hiding in a shack,
The Lorax has some very nice moments - especially a sumptuous, uplifting journey along a river peopled with colourful, amusing fish, fowl and bears - and a fair number of jokes from its busy supporting cast (the fat bear is great value), but also an obvious story, a mediocre voice cast led by Zac Efron and Taylor Swift, and a disappointingly bland title character. I also have an issue with a film on this subject that shies away from referencing global warming, presumably due to concerns that it wouldn't rake in as much money. The kids in the theatre laughed quite a lot, especially at anyone being hit in the face, but this isn't in the same league as Renaud and Balda's last film. Good news, though,
Despicable Me 2 is on the way.
(2.5)
***
*SPOILERS*
CINEMA: The Amazing Spider-Man 3D (Marc Webb, 2012) – Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) bullied spider-bite superhero fights monster. That’s the premise covered, so what’s the new version like? Well, it’s a lot better than Raimi’s first effort, for starters, eschewing that cartoonish universe to present something real, credible and attractive, the emotions of the piece never far from the surface. Dealing with the hero’s abandonment by his parents makes the loss of his father substitute, Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen), far more resonant and powerful, giving the film a teary undercurrent that's aided immeasurably by the performances of Sheen and Garfield. The former can really phone it in at times, but for once he’s giving it his all, and the results are lovely. Garfield excels at playing these troubled, sensitive types, and creates sparks with real-life girlfriend Emma Stone (as his peppy girlfriend Gwen Stacy), who's fast becoming one of my favourite actresses. And has the laugh of a 50-year-old trucker. The film never quite gets over the main problem with Spider-Man movies – that seeing Spidey whizz between buildings is exhilarating, but seeing him fight a monster is boring, especially if it’s up a tower – but this is still a superior superhero movie, the tedious passages dealing with baddie Rhys Ifans (who turns into a big lizard) offset by fine performances, jolts of directorial invention (including a fantastic POV gimmick in two action sequences) and handling that keeps a lump in the throat for most of the running time. Unlike in the ludicrous
Spider-Man 3, its passages of humour spring from the mythology itself - like the hero barely able to comprehend his new-found strength - rather than from lazy legacy-bashing. It isn’t as good as
Superman Returns, or even
Spider-Man 2, but I’d take it over
The Dark Knight or
Avengers Assemble any day. PS: Has anyone noticed anything Freudian about the globs of gloop springing from the wrists of this teenage superhero? Because I certainly haven't.
(3)
Trivia note: Ifans' lizard looks like the goombas from the
Super Mario Bros movie.
***
CINEMA: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Lorene Scafaria, 2012) – An unfulfilled nice guy (Steve Carell) and a flaky 30-year-old (Keira Knightley) take a car trip to see their loved ones, just ahead of the apocalypse. This end-of-the-Earth romcom is too unfocused, episodic and erratic to be truly special, but it expands on its scenario in genuinely thoughtful ways, packs a significant emotional punch and benefits a great deal from Carell’s excellent performance, doing the quiet/sad thing familiar from
Dan in Real Life and
Crazy, Stupid, Love. Knightley’s also a lot better than she used to be. It's like
Melancholia, but with jokes.
(3)
***
*SPOILERS*
Exit Smiling (Sam Taylor, 1926) – Talentless bit part player Beatrice Lille dreams of being the vamp in the latest stinker from her cheapo touring company, Flamin’ Women; then she’s forced to play the part for real, waylaying a scurrilous banker to save the name of potential beau Jack Pickford. This witty silent comedy, co-devised and directed by Sam Taylor (who did some of Harold Lloyd’s finest) has a very funny first half, full of clever sight gags and amusing details - special mention to the "tail" joke - but a less satisfying second, built around two extended set pieces that don’t quite work. Still, there’s a lovely performance from Lille – a musical comedy stage star who was married to Robert Peel – appearing in her only silent film, and the melancholic pay-off is beautifully realised. Franklin Pangborn, in his first movie, is amusingly cast as a fey ham masquerading as a rugged stage hero.
(3)
Hear also: I sought this one out because Chris Edwards, of the Silent Volume blog, nominated it as his favourite pre-talkie comedy, on
this podcast here. It's a great listen.
***
*MINOR SPOILERS*
Our Idiot Brother (Jesse Peretz, 2011) - A selfless hippie (Paul Rudd), who really ought to be less trusting, goes to jail for selling weed to a uniformed police officer. When he gets out, he proceeds to accidentally wreck the lives of his nearest and dearest, all the time displaying a charming naivete that they just can't stomach. The film is quiet, ambling and, when it can be bothered, incredibly funny (the second scene with Rudd's parole officer has one stunning gag), with a pitch-perfect performance at its centre, though the way it sometimes squanders the talents of an extraordinary comic cast - giving Zooey Deschanel a largely straight part, while spending too long with Emily Mortimer's mewling sister - and climaxes in unfortunately conventional fashion, suggests something of the lazy, laissez faire manner of its stoner protagonist. It's a very nice piece of work, though, with an unusually idealistic hero. Fans of contemporary comedy will delight in seeing Rudd and Adam Scott on screen together, while the cast also includes Steve Coogan, Rashida Jones and Elizabeth Banks.
(3)
***
The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson, 2008) - Johnson's follow-up to the incomparable high school noir Brick - one of the best films of the last decade - is a caper movie in the
Topkapi vein, set in the present day but dressed in '30s gangster movie garb. (I hadn't noticed the influence of
Paper Moon, but Johnson has mentioned it and that also comes through in spots.) Gentle, sweet-natured Bloom (Adrien Brody) and his overbearing, pudgy brother Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) are con men. Stephen sketches the elaborate ruses, which hop continents and require the supporting services of both a phony Belgian (Robbie Coltrane) and a paedophile mentor (Maximillian Schell), but it's Bloom who forces the naive female mark to fall head-over-heels in love with him. Now the target is childlike millionairess Rachel Weisz, only this time he's falling for her. Or is he? And does she like him? And is Ruffalo playing them both? It's a fun movie - startling with a superb, significant, self-contained chapter about the pair's early life that has something of the flavour of
Pushing Daisies' opening gambits - it looks and sounds terrific, and it takes unpredictable diversions within the standard heist framework, all the time anchored by Brody's lovely, sensitive, sad-eyed characterisation.
But at the same time there's something slightly insubstantial about the film, at least on first viewing. Johnson has a wonderful ear for clever and colourful dialogue - if occasionally undercut by recourse to post-modern irony - but the film often seems so light that you fear it might untether and float away. That is a criticism in itself, but it also leads to a more important problem. When he attempts to incorporate a subplot about child abuse, it seems firstly unnecessary, secondly implausible and thirdly slightly bizarre. Perhaps Johnson was going for something
Withnailian, but that film was adult, morally complex and dealt with men crushing on men - with everyone coming out unscathed. It is only a minor part of the movie, but that wrongheaded attempt to inject something so dark into a veritable souffle of a picture hangs like a pall over the next half-hour. Johnson's introduction of weighty themes concerning love and familial loyalty are more successful, particularly towards the end, but he doesn't invest quite enough realism and humanity in these caricatures to reap the same rewards as, say,
The Royal Tenenbaums. There's also a certain smugness that, while fully understandable from the guy who just made Brick, nevertheless grates in places. So: Brody's great, the apposite music, smart dialogue and stylish visuals are a treat, and there's rarely a dull moment, but the film is a little too light, self-satisfied and occasionally confused to form a worthy successor to the extraordinary
Brick. Maybe
Looper will do it.
(3)
***
Monsters vs Aliens (Rob Letterman, 2009) - Apparently jobless cipher Susan (Reese Witherspoon) is hit by a meteor on her wedding day, infusing her with super strength, turning her hair white and causing her to grow about 50ft tall. Recruited (i.e. shut up in a big cage) by the government, she's called into action along with her new pals - all vaguely patterned after apparently misunderstood monsters of years past, like Mothra, The Beast From the Black Lagoon, The Blob and The Fly - following an alien attack. The premise isn't fleshed out particularly well, the action is mediocre and the moral can largely be filed under "common sense" but, after a slow start, the film becomes unexpectedly, disarmingly hilarious, with just about everything Seth Rogen's gelatinous blob Bob does being laugh-out-loud funny. There are still tedious non-sequiturs, and the usual stellar Dreamworks voice cast produces mixed results (Witherspoon, Paul Rudd and Rainn Wilson add surprisingly little), but the comic scenes where Bob discusses his fiancee Derek, Susan reveals her monster name and the group destroy a fence are just magnificent.
(2.5)
***
You Again (Andy Fickman, 2010) – Thin comedy about a successful, together PR exec (Kristen Bell), who discovers that her beloved elder brother is set to marry the bully who made her life hell in high school, and returns home to break it up. It’s not very good, or at all funny, and
Bell’s considerable talents are wasted yet again on the big screen, but the movie does at least tread an intelligent line between forgive-and-forget and trash-the-wedding, and the final gag is quite unexpected. The supporting cast includes Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis, if that persuades you either way.
(1.5)
***
TV
The Race That Shocked the World (Daniel Gordon, 2012) – An excellent, hour-long documentary on perhaps my favourite subject of all time, the 100m final of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. It’s brilliantly edited and researched, combining precise, insightful character studies of the main players – particularly disgraced champion Ben Johnson and lionised annoyance Carl Lewis – with a revelatory (if, inevitably, statistically light) examination of the drug use rampant at the time: there’s one little detail about some athletes wearing braces on their teeth to combat the side-effects of steroids that is absolutely fascinating. The BBC’s
Reputations film, from 2001, was also an intelligent and balanced piece on Johnson, but this does a better job of explaining the drugs issue, and also benefits from the scope of the interviewees, which helps put Johnson’s self-serving soundbytes in context. The Canadian remains unable to take responsibility for anything he ever did, which makes it hard for you to side with him, but I can’t help it: I’ll always prefer him to Lewis. My only disappointment with the film is that it somewhat rushes the aftermath of the race, but that’s probably inevitable given the short running time.
(3.5)
See also: There's a new book out about the race, which should hopefully drop onto my doormat this week. I'll pop up a review on here when I've finished it.
***
The Office (US) (Season 1, 2005) – This was a decent debut season. The pilot is distractingly derivative of the source, but it soon picks up, and the final episode – guest-starring a slightly ill-used Amy Adams – is the best of the lot. Steve Carell's Brent-alike is often just too embarrassing to be amusing (I know that is some people’s idea of funny), but Krasinski is great in the Tim role (even sporting what appears to be Martin Freeman’s hair), Rainn Wilson looks like he’s going to be the runaway star – he's a very funny guy – and the supporting cast is very promising. I know I’m seven years late to the party, but I’m looking forward to the rest.
(3)
