A slushy, mushy wintry mix

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When I told another critic at the screening of Winter’s Tale that it was adapted from a novel many consider to be one of greatest of last quarter of 20th century, I was given a blank stare. As in: Really? Are you kidding me? I don’t know this factoid because I’ve read Mark Helprin’s 1983 novel, which I honestly had never heard of before I saw advertisement for the movie. (And I like to think of myself as, if not well-read, at least aware of which great books I should have read.) I found out when I googled the movie. You certainly wouldn’t get the impression the source material was all that great from the movie, which is the first wonderfully bad, entertainingly bonkers movie I’ve seen in quite some time: Cheese masquerading as profundity, amateur-hour continuity errors, and laughably odd stunt casting.

But, you ask, was it not written, directed, and produced by Akiva Goldsman, who won an Oscar for writing A Beautiful Mind and also wrote the great Cinderella Man? Well, yes. But this is a good time for you to remember that he also wrote Batman & Robin, Lost in Space, and I, Robot. He needs a good director to fix his screenplays, usually Ron Howard, and Goldsman certainly is not that director, let alone Ron Howard.

Here’s the story: In the winter of 1916 in New York City, Peter Lake (Colin Ferrell) is a talented, self-effacing thief running from the minions of Pearly Soames (scenery-chewing Russell Crowe), who at first seems to be a sociopathic mobster but turns out to be an actual demon. Just as Peter is about to escape from New York, his mysteriously intuitive white horse indicates that he should rob a mansion. He breaks in and discovers, befriends, and falls in love with the free-spirited, delightful, and consumptive Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay, best known for playing the similar and similarly doomed Lady Sybil on Downton Abby).

Pearly finds out about Beverly after going into a fugue state and drawing a picture of her in blood, and he tries to kidnap her in order to draw Peter out. But Peter saves Beverly on his white horse, which sprouts wings when they jump off a cliff. They walk along the frozen Hudson River until they reach the Penn’s country mansion, where Beverly’s father (William Hurt) almost instantaneously accepts a poor thief as his daughter’s suitor. I guess his reasoning is: She’s dying. Does it matter?

For some mystical reason, Pearly can’t leave New York City to go after Peter unless he asks permission of Lucifer. As in the Devil. Who is played by a lazy Will Smith. Since Smith shows up pretty early, this is not a spoiler, but the shock of seeing him in this already oddball movie caused the screening audience to burst out in laughter. Other totally bizarre cast members include Kevin Duran, Norm Lewis, Graham Greene (playing, really, another wise Indian), and Oscar winners Jennifer Connolly and, most absurdly, Eva Marie Saint. Saint’s character is eight in 1916 but inexplicably still alive and working as a publishing company’s CEO in 2014, when the film’s third act takes place. Peter is also still alive, but he’s the same age as he was in 1916, still making Pearly very angry, and still friends with that white horse. Because magic.

Thematically, the film is saying something about love, destiny, selflessness, miracles, and the balance between good and evil, but even if it’s clear in Helprin’s book, Goldsman turns it all into a muddle of clichéd platitudes and simplistic swooning. His use of the green screen effects are messy and error-ridden, he uses the score to announce every emotion, and his editing is so ham-fisted that he can’t even manipulate a tear during the sad-sappy death scenes. Worse, in the one scene that Russell Crowe bears his impressive chest, it’s shaved clean. I blame Goldsman for that, too.

Winter’s Tale
Written and Directed by Akiva Goldsman
Starring Colin Ferrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, and Russell Crowe
Rated PG-13
At your local multiplex

 

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The greatest advertisement ever made

LEGO

The Lego Movie could be the greatest advertisement ever made. I mean in this in two ways: First, after I saw the movie, I walked immediately to Target and bought Legos, the first time I’d given myself and not a child Legos since I was a child myself. I’m sure that the sales for Legos, one of the world’s most popular toys for decades, will increase dramatically because of the film. Second, the reason people are going to run to the toy stores is not just because the movie is an effective argument for the greatness of the Legos as toys, but it’s great movie in and of itself, despite that it is based on a toy and meant, despite its story’s ironically anti-corporate themes, ultimately to sell toys.

The plot seems standard, even clichéd at first. Emmet (Chris Pratt) is a construction worker in a city that runs with clockwork precision: Everyone is perfectly regimented, efficient, and properly tasked. Everyone loves the same song “Everything is Awesome!” and the same TV show “Where’s My Pants?” and their leader President Business (Will Ferrell). The president is actually a dictator with a massive army of evil robots and nasty cops (the leader of which is voiced by Liam Neeson) at his command, and he is planning to destroy the Lego universe using a weapon called the Kragle.

There are some who want to stop the president, and they all believe prophesy that the most important, interesting, and best person ever, known as the Special, will find the Piece of Resistance, which will stop the weapon. One night after work, Emmet sees a mysterious woman at his work site and in trying to talk to her, falls down a hole and find the Piece. The woman, a black-and-blue haired ninja-like warrior, tells Emmet he is the Special, and she brings him to a council of the Master Builders, populated by Lego people who can take any collection of Lego piece and magically, with Matrix-like abilities create anything. (That this can actually be visually understood is because the animation depicts this universe entirely made up Lego pieces, from the people to the vehicles, to even clouds and smoke.) They all assume Emmet must be one, but he’s not. Nevertheless, he is expected to lead them against President Business.

As in most underdog-hero movies, the result of the quest and conflict is pretty much preordained, but writers and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, in addition to mixing witty and sly adult-oriented jokes with kid-pleasing slapstick, which they do better than most animated films of the last several years, work on multiple thematic levels, creating a morally and ethically complex film out of what could have been a cynical advertisement. (See, for example, the Transformers, GI Joe, and Pokemon movies.) And they present us with a surprising and surprisingly moving third act that cements the film as both a morality tale and a marketing ploy.

The film sets up a battle between mindless, automated corporate capitalism and creativity, freedom, and, in a way, mysticism. Emmet discovers that the latter is vastly preferred to the former by meeting the wild and diverse Lego people from across the Lego dimensions: the Wild West, pirates, space, DC superheroes, Star Wars, and one land that is not a branded type of Lego where utterly free-form experimentation rules. The characters Emmet meets are delightfully constructed, from Morgan Freeman’s God-like Vitruvius to Will Arnett’s brilliant parody of Christian Bale’s Batman and Charlie Day’s zippy and dippy Benny, a “1980-something space guy.” All of them help Emmet realize his destiny and save the Lego universe.

The point is clear – maybe too clearly and bluntly made – that following instructions has its place, but the joy in life comes from exercising imagination, embracing diversity, and following the road less travelled. Not surprisingly, Fox News has already started trashing The Lego Movie for its politics. I guess few things scare Republicans more than children who think for themselves and don’t worship President Business.

The Lego Movie
Written and Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Starring Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, and Will Ferrell
Rated PG
At your local multiplex

 

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Short, not so sweet

JustBeforeLosing_WEBIf you’re like most people, when choosing your Oscar pool picks, you guess on a bunch on them, and definitely for the winners of the three short film awards. For many years, the short films were nearly impossible to see; the compilations of all of the nominees often didn’t show up at theater until after the Academy Awards were given, and they were usually only around for a week. Even after the advent of YouTube and iTunes, it’s still been bizarrely hard to see the films. However, not only are the Animation and Live Action films showing for a second week in San Diego (with the Documentaries opening February 28), but almost all of the films will be available online on February 25. They are worth seeing, and not only to increase your chance of winning the pool.

The animated films are always particularly interesting because they tend not to look anything like the big budget blockbuster animated films put out by Disney and Dreamworks. They’re much more artful, abstract, and complex with characters less likely to have been developed through a focus group of six years. The short films tend to be darker and edgier, but this year, with one exception, they are cheerfully sweet paeans to responsibility, often to pets. The most straightforward is Room on the Broom, which features the voices of Simon Peg and Gillian Anderson in about a witch who keeps adopting more pets (cat, dog, bird, frog), the weight of whom eventually becomes too much for her broom to handle. Also, there’s a dragon pursuing them. The animals and their expressions are cute, but the story is most appropriate for five-year-olds. Mr. Hublot is also about pets, with a very odd, partly mechanical man taking in a robotic dog and dealing with its increasing size. The most interesting thing about the film is the intricate steampunk world the man and dog live in, but there doesn’t seem to be a thematic reason for its setting. Still, it’s visually stunning.

The most gorgeous of the short animated films is inarguably Feral, about a little boy found in the snow by a hunter who tries to civilize him. The film is dark, even creepy, and the drawing, slightly abstracted and reminiscent of woodblock prints, communicates the emotional power of the boy’s confusion and fear. The artwork in Possession is just as effective, using a more finely detailed anime style to tell the story of a samurai who is trapped by the supposedly inanimate objects in an abandoned house where he spends the night. The most likely winner is Get is Horse! which is actually eighty years old, a recently unearthed Walt Disney-drawn Mickey Mouse cartoon. It’s cute and has a few moments ingenious, but it’s also only in this short list because of its creator, not its quality. Feral should win the Oscar, but it’s unlikely with Walt in the mix.

While the animated shorts are actually better than the animated features this year, the live action shorts don’t even approach the excellence of the dramatic features. In fact, only two of them seem Oscar worthy. The highest profile of the lot is The Voorman Problem, which is based on a David Mitchell story and starring Martin Freeman (from Sherlock and The Hobbit films) and Tom Hollander. The latter is an inmate who claims to be a good, and the former his incredulous psychiatrist. The film is so slight it’s basically one a plot twist and the end credits. Do I Have To Take Care of Everything? is about a Finnish family that has a lot of trouble getting ready for a wedding. It’s cute and silly. That Wasn’t Me is not cute or sweet; it’s viciously violent, wildly over-acted action film about Spaniards kidnapped by child soldiers in Africa. It’s a subpar Blood Diamond.

Helium, in Danish, is one of the good shorts. An angelic boy dying of an unnamed disease in a hospital is befriended by a bearded, oversensitive orderly who tells him stories about a magical land called Helium where people go when they are no longer alive. As Enzo the orderly, Casper Crump is enormously charismatic and heartbreaking. As good is Leá Drucker in the French Just Before Losing Everything, a tense, unnerving depiction of the several hours before a battered woman and her children escape her husband. She is fierce, unflappable, heroic, and Xavier Legrand’s direction is flawless. He will win the Oscar.

The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2014: Animation
The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2014: Live Action
Various writers, directors, and actors
Not Rated
On iTunes February 25

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His computer’s voice is Her

Her 1

Two years ago, Apple introduced Siri, a program for their iPhones that acts like a personal assistant, complete with a female voice. You talk to it, it talks back, and the famous advertisements featured conversations between celebrities and Siri made her seem, well, intelligent. Anyone who has used Siri knows Siri isn’t as helpful as advertised and or all that smart, but in Her, Spike Jonze’s astonishing and moving masterpiece, the personal assistant program that Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) buys on a lark is not just helpful and smart, but intuitive and, most importantly, emotional.

The surprisingly real artificial intelligence is a science fiction trope that has been mined many times, most profoundly in Blade Runner and AI, but usually these stories focus on the program’s development of sentience and the horrid consequences therein. Her, however, does something very different by exploring what happens when a human and an artificial intelligence fall in love.

Not far in the future, Theodore works at a company that produces handwritten letters for clients; Theodore writes love letters for couples, missives from parents to children, thank you notes. The irony is readily apparent: While he writes deeply and beautifully emotional words for others, Theodore is depressed, isolated, and not in touch with or much aware of his own emotions. He has recently split with his wife (Rooney Mara), with whom he had a tortured, angry relationship.

After a particularly sad failed blind date, he comes across a display for a new artificially intelligent personal assistant. After he installs it, a female voice emanates from his computer and introduces herself as Samantha, who is voiced by Scarlett Johansson. She doesn’t sound like Siri, but rather like a human woman who lives inside a computer or a phone. She is warm, funny, devoted to Theodore, and, surprising for a computer program, she has free will. They fall in love, and since Samantha is only a voice and has a life on the internet that Theodore cannot see, complications ensue.

The plot seemed almost silly when I first heard about it, but Spike Jonze’s script gives Theodore and Samantha such a complex, sweet, and difficult relationship, the odd conceit of the film is quickly subsumed by a profound romance. It also helps that Jonze has created such a complete world of the near future, a world as complete as those in Being John Malkovich and Where the Wild Things Are. The art direction, which focuses on pastels and soft postmodern architecture, is beautifully shot by the great cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema. It’s one of the most beautiful visions of the future I’ve seen on film.

As much as Her is about Spike Jonze’s genius, it is also a vehicle for Joaquin Phoenix’s incredible talents. After his intensely dark turn in The Master, seeing him as Theodore, who is sweet, sensitive, very much in love, and nearly heroic in his emotional journey, is a revelation. I always assumed that Phoenix’s characters would always be some shade of creepy; even his Johnny Cash was rather unnerving. But Theodore is the sort character Tom Hanks used to play. Phoenix, however, seems perfectly cast, even if it’s a surprising role. He is becoming the great actor of his generation.

Her
Written and Directed by Spike Jonze
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, and Amy Adams
Rated R
At your local multiplex

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The Westons are a hurricane

August Osage CountyIn 2008, Tracy Letts’s three-and-a-half hour comic tragedy August: Osage County won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for Best Play, and it was considered one of the theatrical events of the first decade of the century. Transforming the play into a film was a no-brainer, but whittling three-and-a-half hours to a more cinematically appropriate two and recasting box office draws is not a no-brainer; it’s hard. And for some reason, the great TV producer John Wells, who had never directed a film before and certainly not such a prestige picture, was picked to helm this process. I’m not sure if anyone could have successfully made the transition (except maybe Mike Nichols), but Wells was clearly overwhelmed by the task of working with Letts’s adaptation and a nearly pyrotechnic cast. The movie is a searing, funny potboiler, but if you’ve never seen the play (as I have not), it’s hard to imagine how this movie could have come from the great dramas of recent memory.

In the heat of August in Oklahoma, the poet patriarch of the Weston family Beverly (Sam Shepard) goes missing and his children and their spouses come to the house to help their cancer-ridden, drug-addled mother Violet (Meryl Streep). There are three daughters, bitter Barbara (Julia Roberts), who moved away with her husband Bill (Ewan McGregor); put-upon Ivy, who stayed (Julianne Nicholson); and seemingly shallow Karen (Juliet Lewis), who also left Oklahoma, but unlike Barbara was not missed. Violet’s loud, busy sister Mattie (Margo Martindale) and her kind, slow-spoken husband Charlie (Chris Cooper) also come, and eventually so does their son, the supposed loser Little Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch).

This is an angry, damaged, and extremely dysfunctional family, and after Beverly is found dead, the festering conflicts explode: Barbara and Bill are separated and everyone finds out; their daughter Jean (Abigail Breslin) is sullen and precocious; Ivy and Little Charles are having a secret affair; Karen had brought her fiancé, the caddish Steve (Dermot Mulroney); Mattie and Charlie are failing to hold it all together; Violet is angry at all of them, particularly Barbara and Beverly, and she has no filter, no control, a lot of cigarettes, Jackie O. sunglasses, and a fabulous wig.

As these characters tumble towards a series of rather astonishing, rather appalling, and narratively unearned climaxes, it’s easy to see why all of these actors signed up for the movie. Every role is juicy, full of dark emotions and caustic words, and they all seem to be having a good time. All except for Julianne Nicholson, who plays perhaps the only true tragic figure in the story, and her subtlety and control and perpetual sadness make her work quite remarkable up against, particularly, Roberts and Streep. Roberts does some of her best work at Barbara, even if it is as caustic as anything she’s ever done. Barbara is not happy woman.

This is not surprising considering her mother is Violet, who is part Cruella de Vil, part Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, part Mommie Dearest. While she was nominated for a Golden Globe, along with Roberts, Streep’s performance as Violet is one of her worst. She’s uncharacteristically unhinged, chewing up her children and the scenery, ranting and raving with much more energy than a dying sedative addict would have. With Violet as the heart of the film, Wells’s direction of Streep should have been much more restrained, believable. But instead, Streep is personified chaos. I can see the reasoning behind that choice, since the Westons are a hurricane.

August: Osage County
Directed by John Wells
Written by Tracy Letts
Starring Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, and Margo Martindale
Rated R
At your local multiplex

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