Time Capsule Review: "Away From Her"

I recently stumbled upon some reviews I did back in college for the La Salle Collegian. In the interest of condensing all of my reviews on this site, I've decided to upload them sporadically throughout the next few weeks. I've chosen not to update them, mostly because I like the concept of reviews as time capsules for how we feel about movies at the time we first see them.

First up: a review of Away From Her from October of 2007. As readers of this blog may have deduced by my reviews of Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell, I’m a big fan of writer/director Sarah Polley, so this seems as good a review to start with as any.

Julie Christie received an Oscar nomination for her
work in Away From Her.

In her first venture behind the camera, Sarah Polley, an acclaimed Canadian actress recognizable for lead roles in Go and the Dawn of the Dead remake, didn't take the easy way out. Despite being just 28 years old, she took on a film about a man who learns to redefine what it is to love his Alzheimer's-striken wife when her fragmenting memory causes her to leave him and their 44-year marriage behind. A difficult task no doubt, but Polley rose to the challenge and crafted Away From Her, one of 2007’s best films.

Based on Alice Munro’s short story, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” Polley’s screenplay (yes, she also wrote the screenplay) is relatively faithful to its source material, making only slight additions to flesh out the characters. Building upon those additions, the perfectly chosen cast is so good that they are able to not only translate but enhance Polley’s levelheaded take on the topic.

After 44 years of marriage with Grant (Gordon Pinsent), Fiona (Julie Christie) has begun to lose her memory. She begins to forget little things at first, such as putting a frying pan in the freezer. However, as her condition worsens, she decides she must move to a care facility, despite Grant’s desire to care for her at home for as long as possible. She decides on Meadowlake, a nursing home with a strict policy that says a resident can have no visits or phone calls during their first 30 days.

After the 30 day spell is up, Grant travels to the nursing home to discover he has been all but forgotten and that his wife has forged a close bond with her fellow resident, Aubrey (Michael Murphy). Although he is jealous, Grant does not resent Aubrey, but is instead saddened that another man has replaced him. In confiding with a friendly nurse (Kristen Thomson), he wonders if the whole thing isn't a show, if his wife isn't punishing him for an infidelity in his past. However, after learning a great deal of patience, he proves his love for his wife by making the ultimate sacrifice.

The cast really sells the story. The Oscar buzz swirling around Christie is warranted. At 66, she’s as radiant, witty and nuanced as she’s ever been. Meanwhile, the relatively unknown Pinsent (an actor of note in his native Canada) anchors the film. Playing an insular man, he expertly epitomizes the guilt and grief that consume his character. Never ringing a false note, he delivers a resonate performance that sells the movie. It’s impossible to view his performance here and not want to see him on the screen again.

The supporting cast is also solid. Murphy isn't given much to do, but Thomson is a spunky live-wire who both judges Grant and sympathizes with him at the same time. Additionally, Olympia Dukakis impresses as Aubrey’s wife, an abrasive woman who nevertheless feels a desire to be close to someone.

In talking about her film with the New York Times, Polley indicated she believes our culture has a hard time with love after the first year: “It is difficult, and it is painful, and it is a letdown. [But] that first year is so much less profound than what happens when you’re actually left with each other and yourself in an honest way. It was interesting to me to make a film about what love looked like after life had gotten in the way, and what remained.”

On that count, Polley succeeds with flying colors by showing a flawed relationship that can adapt and change because of the years of love invested. In Grant’s final decision, Polley asserts a true affirmation of love that is both tenderly uplifting and utterly heart breaking. A

Anderson Does His Thing and Does It Well With "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

An apprentice relationship is at the heart of The Grand Budapest Hotel.

In my review of Moonrise Kingdom, I floated the idea that writer/director Wes Anderson had reemerged as a critical darling after several years of stark criticism for his particular stylistic choices. I argued that he had done so by, oddly enough, leaning even harder into his supposed shortfalls – things like fussy production design, affected tone and stilted emotionality.

Well, you can double down on that notion with his latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which focuses on the screwball consequences and whimsical violence that result when an elderly rich woman (Tilda Swinton) dies and leaves an invaluable painting to Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), her frequent lover and the concierge at the lavish Grand Budapest Hotel. Gustave is aided by his loyal lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori), all the while a fascist government rises in the background.

Once again, Anderson has been universally heralded for a film that very much dives down the rabbit hole. It’s simply amazing to me that people who found so many issues with underappreciated gems like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited would so readily herald Budapest, a production that is overwhelmingly concerned with artifice for artifice sake.

I don’t say that as a criticism – I greatly enjoyed the film, and am glad the critical consensus has come back around on (or, perhaps, finally caught up with) one of my favorite filmmakers. However, this is an odd movie for previous Anderson haters to love, because what starts out as a madcap crime caper evolves into mournful meditation on the lost appreciation of ornamental extravagance. Yes, I understand how they might appreciate that Anderson has found the perfect thematic match for his patented approach, but I would expect naysayers would scoff at such a message.

F. Murray Abraham shines in his first Anderson outing.

Budapest is as detached as any film in Anderson’s oeuvre – characters are murdered without pause and, in an epilogue, we learn of the terrible fates of several of our heroes with what amounts to a shrug. And yet, one could argue it’s the most personally reflective work of his career, one that acknowledges the obsessive fussiness and trifling airs, but ultimately concludes there is beauty in such accouterments. It's almost as if Anderson has heard his critics, and this is his response.

 

At a late point in the movie, one of our narrators – there are several narrators, organized like nesting dolls, because, well, why not – says of Gustave, “To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it. But, I will say: he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace.” It’s hard not to apply those words to Anderson himself, considering how out of time and place his work seems.

Budapest features a number of Anderson’s repertory players, but the main roles are awarded to newcomers like Fiennes, Revolori, Saoirse Ronan, F. Murray Abraham, and Jude Law. Some of his regulars are cast to inject personality into smaller roles (Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, and Jeff Goldblum), but countless others (Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson) turn up in gratuitous cameos that seem intentionally designed to enhance the decorative excess on display.

The cast does a nice job, but, despite the big ensemble, this is mostly a two-man show between an older and younger man. In that way, it’s reminiscent of Anderson’s masterpiece Rushmore, but the dynamic is so different that it’s really its own thing entirely.

Anderson uses a lot of miniature models in the film.

As the grown up Zero, Abraham is a standout, and I’m happy to report Dafoe and Goldblum provide the biggest gut busters, just as they did in Life Aquatic (for some fun, here are short clips of Dafoe and Goldblum from that one). But the movie orbits around Fiennes, a versatile actor who proves more than worthy of Anderson’s greatest character since Royal Tenenbaum. Gustave is a prissy fop that is overwhelmingly concerned with appearances and formality, but he also possesses an unmistakable charm and honor. Fiennes absolutely owns the role, and fans of In Bruges won’t be surprised at just how funny he can make an expletive.

 

Per usual, Anderson incorporates immaculately worked-over production designs. For many of the external shots, he returns to the world of miniature models he explored so expertly in Fantastic Mr. Fox, creating some really breathtaking imagery that adds to the embellished nature of the piece (for more on this, check out this article).

 

Budapest moves at a breakneck pace, and it serves as one of Anderson's zanier entries. It’s not quite at the level of a Rushmore or a The Royal Tenenbaums, but it does represent the work of an auteur at the top of his game. At one point in the film, Gustave defends his proclivity for bedding old ladies by saying something I think applies well to Anderson’s recent output, most especially this film:  “When you’re younger it’s all fillet steak, but as you get older you have to move on to the cheaper cuts, which is fine with me because I like those — more flavorful, so they say.” A

"Edge of Tomorrow" Provides Fun Commentary on Gaming Experience

Edge of Tomorrow plays with the time loop concept previously seen

in the likes of Groundhog Day and Source Code.

Edge of Tomorrow is Tom Cruise’s latest foray into science fiction. In the film, he plays Major William Cage a smarmy, army publicist who pisses off the wrong general leading to his getting thrown on the front lines of a battle against an invading alien force. Ill prepared for combat, Cage dies within minutes, but somehow he winds up in a time loop, forcing him to relive the experience again and again.

 

Cage’s situation enables him the opportunity to learn his environment, improve his skills, and, potentially, take down the seemingly unbeatable aliens (called mimics) once and for all. It also allows him to grow close to Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), a celebrated war hero who understands what he’s going through because she experienced the same thing earlier in the war.

 

Watching a film like this, it’s hard not to immediately draw parallels to other films, which neatly ties into thoughts from my last piece, a review that touched on how it’s impossible to judge films in a vacuum. A lot of people are labeling Edge of Tomorrow as Groundhog Day with action (an idea given extra relevance by the love interest having the name Rita), but Next and Source Code are even better comparison points given their genre trappings.

 

Director Doug Liman gets a lot of mileage out of the premise, using many of the same tricks employed by Groundhog Day and Source Code to not only avoid monotony, but also to provide a great deal of exposition, humor and depth. As happened in those films, our lead begins to fall for the girl, but, unfortunately, although he has developed feelings and gotten to know this woman over weeks, years, decades or more, she can’t know him at all.

 

There is a great scene set on a farm in which Cage tries to stall their next step, because he just wants to live in the moment with Rita and knows that, no matter what he does in this setting, she will soon take action in a way that ends her life. However, the script tells a lot more than it shows, and I would’ve preferred an additional scene or two showing Cage and Rita’s developing bond. Cruise deserves credit for doing a lot of heavy lifting to overcome that issue.

 

This is yet another science fiction movie that boils down to taking out

a central hub to neutralize an alien threat.

One major positive to having an clued-in love interest in a film like this is that Rita is aware what Cage going through, which at least helps circumvent the “if you think about it” issue that plagued the other two films. For instance, in Groundhog Day, I was always amused by the fact Phil (Bill Murray) is finally able to land Rita (Andie MacDowell) on the day he barely spends any time with her at all (since he’s so busy helping out the townsfolk). Spending an entire day romancing the woman gets him nowhere, but building himself into a local legend and sculpting one ice sculpture makes her willing to not only sleep with him, but to drop everything in her life, marry the guy and move to Punxsutawney as well.

 

That’s not enough to kill Groundhog Day – it’s actually my all-time favorite movie, and it’s not like we haven’t gotten a chance to see that relationship develop – but it is one of the best examples I can think of when a movie goes “forget the logic – all that matters is that it works for the audience” (another example: the whole “T-Rex pushes the car over the cliff that wasn’t there” thing in Jurassic Park). At least in Edge of Tomorrow, Rita knows they must have formed a bond and is able to judge Cage and react to him based on that knowledge.

 

Beyond the inclusion of a strong, in-the-know female, Edge of Tomorrow also distinguishes itself as a clever commentary on the video gaming experience. Cage is dropped into a very Halo-esque scenario each day, and when he dies he respawns back where he started, ready to learn from his mistakes and advance. The film has a great deal of fun with Cage’s exasperation related to his failures. Even though Liman edits the film so that we aren’t seeing the same things over and over again, there’s an underlying understanding that Cage is going through the motions each day to get the his last point of death. Cruise humorously translates the frustration every gamer has felt as the film wears on and he fails to make progress – one training scene even has him try to convince Blunt he’s good to continue despite having broken his leg just so he doesn’t have to go through the motions of getting to this point again.

 

The film is pretty great from start to finish, but it really crackles in the middle third. I was somewhat annoyed it devolves into the typical mission concerned with blowing up a central hub, which, if you recall, also occurred in Cruise’s last sci-fi vehicle Oblivion (Why do so many damn movies resort to this plot point? The only trope more popular in the action genre seems to be the powerful object that falls into the wrong hands). It’s a little more forgivable here given that this movie is intentionally aping and commenting on what it’s like to play a video game, and, well, that’s a pretty common endpoint in alien invasion first-person shooters.

 

The film concludes with a questionable denouement that arbitrarily betrays the established logic of the film. It’s sort of cribbed right from Next, but not as annoying as it was there, because it feels more earned (I’m trying not to ruin either movie here, but if you’ve seen both, you’ll get what I mean). Regardless, as with Groundhog Day, the ending isn’t enough to hurt my view of the film. Edge of Tomorrow is an enjoyable, smart and well-drawn actioner – the kind it would behoove Hollywood to make a lot more of. A-

Processing "The Croods," "Frankweenie" and "Frozen" as a New Dad

The Croods plays like your typical DreamWorks Animation film.

Film criticism is not a science. We can try all we want to be objective about it – to talk about things like plot structure, character development, stylistic choices or technical ingenuity – but it all really boils down to how a film makes us feel.

 

Some of that derives from the aforementioned elements, but a lot of it has to do with personal bias, preferences and past experiences. That’s why someone like me can dislike an accomplished and critically-adored film like 2001: A Space Odyssey while enjoying a flawed and largely dismissed one like Hook. It’s also why opinions toward movies can change. Some movies will be diminished by repeated viewings (i.e. Crash), while others improve each time out (i.e. Step Brothers).

 

It’s a dynamic process – one that leaves little room for certainty and makes it impossible to judge cinema in a vacuum. That’s actually one of the things I love about movies, and, really, all forms of art.

 

For that reason, I try to judge films on their own terms, but that only works to an extent. I know that even when I attempt to judge movies on their merit or intent, my previous history with film and my own personal baggage still manages to play a big role in my reactions.

 

I mention all of this as a preamble to a joint review of three animated films I watched recently – The Croods, Frankenweenie and Frozen. My reason for doing so? I’ve come to realize that becoming a father has altered the way I gauge these movies, putting emphasis on the simple question "Would I be cool with my kid watching this?"

 

Concerning The Croods, the answer is a definite yes, which is odd, because I found it to be little more than a passable film overall. DreamWorks Animation has done a great job launching distinct animated franchises, but I’ve rarely loved anything they’ve done. Excluding the first two Shrek films (which were pretty great) and the last two (which were pretty blah), I’d classify everything they do as "good... enough." Even their better offerings, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon, have failed to really move the needle for me beyond muted appreciation.

 

The Croods, which focuses on a caveman family with an overprotective dad (Nicolas Cage) and an adventure-seeking teenage daughter (Emma Stone), is the poster boy for how I feel about DreamWorks Animation as a whole. I appreciate the impressive visual display of interesting creatures and color schemes, but the film is a middling effort with a routine plot and a lot of thin characterizations.

 

Still, there is something to be said for a film that hits its marks, and it's hard to deny the film manages to be an emotionally effective enterprise. In terms of quality, it actually reminds me a lot of Night at the Museum – not good, but competent and cute with a decent message for kids. And, of course, that’s the big takeaway for me, now that I’m a dad. It basically repackages the father-daughter dynamic from Little Mermaid in a way that’s fair to both the father and the daughter, and I like that ultimately, the story is just a vibrant jaunt about cherishing and understanding your family.

Frankenweenie has that recognizable Burton animation style.

 At the opposite end of the spectrum is Frankenweenie, a film I expected to love, but found a chore to sit through. Even though I feel like he’s gone off the reels in most of his recent work, I love Tim Burton’s twisted sensibility and style, and I’m also cool with films that are just as much about paying homage to earlier classics, as they are about telling a story. However, Paranorman did that whole thing and did it better, while also including an array of worthwhile characters to boot.

 

Frankenweenie revolves around Victor Frankenstein, a little boy whose love of invention and science comes second only to his love for his dog Sparky. When Sparky is hit by a car, Victor brings him back to life using electricity, and he’s mostly the same, besides a need to be plugged into an outlet for charging every so often.

 

When the other kids in Victor’s science class find out what he’s accomplished, they worry he will win the upcoming science fair, and so they decide to follow suit and bring their dead animals back as well. But since their animals aren’t brought back with love (or something like that), they come back as evils monsters and begin assaulting the town.

 

The film is a little boring and hard to connect with. We can identify with Victor’s love for Sparky, but beyond that, there isn’t much here to gravitate toward. There are a variety of child characters, but beyond the one modeled off of Igor, their personalities are practically indistinguishable. Well, that’s not entirely true – the casual racism revolving around the Asian kid is very distinguishable.  

 

And if racism wasn’t enough for me to not want my kid to watch this, Burton seals the deal with the film’s message. The idea of doing an animated feature that deals with the death of a beloved pet is a solid concept, and it could potentially make for a valuable film for children, a sort of aid in the development of coping skills. For much of its runtime, Frankenweenie seems like it will be that type of movie, and then there’s an exchange between Victor and his dad at the end after Sparky has died for a second time. Victor says “I thought you said I had to let go,” only for his dad to reply “Sometimes adults don’t know what they’re talking about.”

 

Umm, what?

 

On its face, I don’t mind an animated film going in that direction. The Croods, which I just admitted to being totally fine with, gets a whole lot of mileage out the dad character needing to change his tune. But having this line in this context is ridiculous. It basically tells kids, “Hey, if your pet dies, don’t get over it. Cling on forever. Oh, and, umm, parents are dumb for saying otherwise.” This film is mediocre as it is, but throw in that kind of lesson and some racism? Count me out.

Frozen is basically the story of two sisters who overcome bad parenting.

Meanwhile, Frozen is certainly the best film of the three, and offers further proof of how far Walt Disney Animation Studios has come the last seven or eight years. After its 90's resurgence, the studio fell into a major rut and quickly became the ugly stepsister of the more beloved Pixar. Lilo & Stich and The Emperor's New Groove were both nice products, but the early 2000's were some pretty dark times overall. Fortunately, Disney began reestablishing a consistent level of quality, starting with the likes of  Meet the Robinsons, The Princess and the Frog and Bolt before advancing to superior works like Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph (which, to me, is easily the greatest animated film since Wall-E) and now Frozen.

 

There's certainly a lot to like about the film. It's seriously gorgeous – what they accomplish with snow effects is just awe inspiring. The soundtrack is filled with some great original tunes, including the Oscar-winning "Let It Go." And the central focus on the power of sisterhood is pretty damn cool.

 

At the same time, there's some stuff in here I have issues with. The film focuses on princesses Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell), who are an inseparable pair when we first meet them. Elsa possess magic powers that allow her to produce ice and snow at will, and at the beginning of the film she accidentally hurts Anna while playing.

 

In response, the girls' parents have Anna healed by a troll king and then wipe her memory of Elsa's powers. They then isolate Elsa from Anna, a move that was probably only meant to be temporary until she learned to control her powers, but that becomes permanent when the parents die in a boating accident.

 

So right off the bat, the film starts with some crazy bad parenting in which a king and queen decide to deal with their daughter's issues by taking away her one support beam instead of, I don't know, just telling her not to use her powers when playing. Meanwhile, daughter two is left totally in the dark, feeling all sorts of rejection. Really makes me second guess my issues with that “Sometimes adults don’t know what they’re talking about" concept.

 

Since Anna has no parents and has been shut out by her sister, she becomes so desperate for love that she swoons at the notion of any man showing interest in her. I respect this complicated state of mind as a concept, but in execution, Anna just plays as a very weak role model for young girls. There's a song in the film called "Love Is an Open Door" that is meant to be ironic, but I'm not sure how well that comes across to little kids. The song trivializes what love really means, and, I suspect, these aspects of the story will be fleshed out and play very well in the inevitable Broadway adaptation. However, in the film, it's a troublesome thing, a jaunty exercise that kids will take at face value.

 

The film ends in a good place, with the girls reuniting and Anna learning about what love is, so in many ways I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill in my critique. But something about the thing really bugs me, even though I can acknowledge this is a pretty good film.  Like I said, so much about film is about how it makes you feel, regardless of attempts at some sort of objectivity.

 

The Croods C+ / Frankweenie C / Frozen B+

"Neighbors" Nicely Uses Comedic Battle to Comment on Transition Into Parenting

Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne have a nice chemistry as the new parents.

Parenthood has been a phenomenal experience, but it's hard to deny that it has necessitated a slew of lifestyle changes for me and my wife. We don’t go out with our friends as much. We don’t sleep through the night. We don’t do a whole slew of things we used to do.

That includes going to the movie theater, which is one reason my writing on here has been so sparse the last few months. It’s crazy for a movie buff like me to type this, but we’re nearly half-way through the year, and I’ve seen a grand total of two 2014 releases, only one of which was in the theater (the other was The Monuments Men, which I reviewed here).

With that in mind, it’s kind of fitting that that one trip to the theater was to see Neighbors, a movie that focuses on a young married couple adjusting to becoming parents. Once or twice during the movie, my wife leaned over to me and said “That’s us,” and she wasn’t far off. Her analogy cast her as the luminous Rose Byrne and me as the shlubby Seth Rogen. That doesn’t exactly seem fair, but it’s hard to deny Neighbors is a movie that speaks to our current situation.

The dynamic between the central couple of the film is easy to relate to, and Rogen and Byrne have an easy chemistry that really elevates the material. This is a movie featuring a couple at war with a hard-partying fraternity, and while it contains the types of gags that setup would suggest, the most amusing scenes involve the interplay between the couple and the knowing observations about getting older.

And that’s appropriate, because while the movie is ostensibly about the conflict between the upstart parents and the douchey frat guys, that part is really just a clever externalization of what the film's actually about -- the internal clash between burgeoning responsibility and the reckless impulsiveness of youth. At one point in the film, the couple cripples the fraternity to the point that they can no longer host all-night parties. They’ve won, and yet the couple overplays their hand, mostly because the madness has livened up a life that has become overly ordinary.

In a refreshingly atypical move, the film makes the wife complicit in the shenanigans instead of relegating her to the sidelines as a disapproving nag. In addition to opening up more comedic possibilities, this decision helps enhance the thematic through line of the story. My favorite moment in the film involves a marital argument over who gets to be the Kevin James and who gets saddled with responsibility. It's a silly way in to a fine point about the roles society places on men and women that go way beyond the basic provider/nurturer paradigm.

You'd think the trailers would've ruined the DeNiro Party joke, but the

best part is the way Rogen reacts to some of the ill-conceived costumes.

Gender politics excluded, these themes also infiltrate the fraternity ranks. Although most of the brothers are one-note jokes, the main duo of Zac Efron and Dave Franco gets a significantly developed and wonderfully weird bromance that is colored by their vastly different views about the transition into adulthood. Both are fun-loving party guys, but for the Efron character, the fraternity is everything, while the Franco character sees it as fun bullshit he does in between classes and job fairs.

The four principles all do nice work. Rogen amiably anchors the film, and Franco brings an off-kilter energy to a role that's pretty close to the one he essayed in 21 Jump Street (reviewed here) – the savvy hip bro who happens to be cast as a villain.

Meanwhile, Efron brings a wounded humanity to a role that's pitched a lot darker than every other character in the piece. One scene in particular is so note-perfect creepy that I'm just as impressed with his willingness to go there as I am with the skill he displays in during it.

But it's Byrne who emerges as the film's MVP. Up until recently, sadness seemed her chief acting emotion (Wicker Park, Troy, Damages), but with Bridesmaids, Get Him to the Greek (reviewed here), and now this, she's proven to have a full range of comic talent as well. The script makes allowances to let her use her natural Australian accent, which enables her to really embrace the loose, improvisation style that an actor like Rogen thrives in.

Still, the film isn't perfect. The resolution is a little tidy, and since the movie plays things mostly straight, it’s a little jarring when the far-fetched plot points pop up. It's awfully hard to believe the cops or the schools' officials wouldn't hammer down on this fraternity more severely, especially given the bodily injury and intentional harassment with a child in the mix. And the idea that college girls would boldly purchase dildos made from the molds of frat boy penises is hard to accept, even though I appreciated the subplot as a gonzo critique on the tired trope of making a calendar to raise money.

Neighbors marks another success for Nicholas Stoller, a director who consistently puts an emphasis on grounding comedy with complex characters and relatable emotions. It doesn’t reach the heights of his Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but does exceed Get Him to the Greek and The Five Year Engagement. If the former’s a home run and the latter two are doubles, you can score Neighbors a triple. Regardless of how you classify the hits, the dude’s batting .1000. A-

Clooney Disappoints With Disjointed and Treacly "The Monuments Men"

The Monuments Men has a hell of a cast.

I expected to love The Monuments Men.

It features a plethora of actors I adore in George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, and John Goodman. It's based on a fascinating, true-life story about a platoon of art historians and curators tasked with reclaiming and returning art Hitler pillaged during WWII after it was discovered he planned to destroy it all if he lost the war. And it's written, directed and produced by Clooney, a Hollywood icon with eclectic tastes and a consistent desire to work on quality films.

 

And yet, having finally seen it, I have to say I'm disappointed. It's good in spurts and looks fantastic, but it's a tonal, episodic mess that's far too preachy and treacly for its own good. 

 

In case the trailer didn't give it away, The Monuments Men is a message movie. It has a theme -- art and culture are important to defining who we are and are worth risking your neck for -- and it hits that theme hard. 

Conceptually, that's a good thing, but unfortunately the film goes overboard on the sentimentality, straining for poignancy at every turn. The film's heart is in the right place, but it has too much on-the-nose monologuing and a laughable denouement that's a direct descendant of the one from the otherwise splendid Saving Private Ryan. The end result is a product that feels awfully artificial.

 

Meanwhile, the tone of the film is all over the place. Clooney seems to be going for the jauntiness of Ocean's 11 mixed with the schmaltz of a Capra film, which doesn't play to his strengths as a writer/director. Clooney has proven adept at serious civic lessons (Good Night, and Good Luck), but inept at light comedy (Leatherheads). Unfortunately, mixing the two together doesn't really work.

 

Bill Murray and Bob Balaban do a lot with a little, which I guess is

kind of their thing in general, so why not here.

All that being said, The Monuments Men's biggest problem is it's lack of narrative drive. The script breaks its characters into teams, sending them off on various objectives that don't really build toward anything in the way tasks would in a heist film along the lines of the Ocean films. This results in a movie that feels like a loosely connected series of vignettes, some of which are interesting, most of which feel like wheel spinning and all of which don't coalesce into a dynamic whole. The film has more in common with the likes of Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve than was probably intended.

 

The tandem of Murray and Bob Balaban get all the best material. There's a nice scene in which the two stumble into a Mexican standoff of sorts with an SS soldier, another where Murray gets emotional over a recorded message sent from his family at Christmas, and a third where the two come across a former Nazi we know to be a baddie but they do not. Each scene with these guys is interesting -- sadly that cannot be said about the rest of the Monuments Men.

 

Actually, that's not entirely fair -- Hugh Bonneville gets some nice grace notes to play in his brief role as a washed out alcoholic who gets a second chance to make something of himself as part of this operation. But the rest is pretty piss poor. Goodman and Jean Dujardin, last seen together on screen in The Artist, get the shortest shrift with a collection of scenes that add up to very little and aren't even involving or cute in and of themselves (a factor that saves many of the vignettes featuring the likes of Clooney, Damon and Blanchett). 

 

Thinking on the film, I'm left to wonder if this story might have made for a better documentary. In such a context, the disjointed nature wouldn't seem so bad, and more time could've been spent with historians and the men themselves (or, at the very least, their descendants).

 

As it is, this is a flawed film that mostly wastes the assembled talent because the script doesn't really work on the macro level, despite some micro successes. I'd still rather have my movie stars working on whiffs like this than lower ceiling cookie cutter crap, but The Monuments Men just didn't work for me. C+

"This Is The End" and "The World's End" Provide Distinct Pleasures, Despite Similar Topics and Uninspiring Finales

This Is the End features comedy actors playing themselves with
the narcissism dialed up to 11.

It’s funny how often two extremely similar movies hit theaters in the same relative time period. Deep Impact and Armageddon. Antz and A Bug’s Life. Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman. The list goes on, but I’ll stop here.

Joining that list last year was a pair of comedies about a group of guys dealing with the end of the world – This is the End and The World’s End.

Interestingly, these films not only share the same basic plot; they produce similar results as well. Both manage to mine comedy for pathos related to the changing dynamics of friendship, and both are pretty fantastic until they run out of steam in the final reel.

The former comes from the minds of Judd Apatow disciples Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg , and stars a number of Apatow’s regular players (Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Roberts, Danny McBride, and Jay Baruchel) as outlandish versions of themselves. They, along with a number of other celebrities, deal with a very biblical apocalypse while hiding out in Franco’s Hollywood home.

The latter is the third and final film in the Cornetto trilogy, a series of film collaborations between filmmaker Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost that put the duo in various genre sendups. Previously, they riffed on zombie flicks (Sean of the Dead) and buddy cop action comedies (Hot Fuzz). Here the focus is on Gary King, a bottomed-out addict who reunites his former school chums (Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan) to complete a bar crawl in their home town, which just so happens to have been invaded by body-snatching aliens.

The World's End offers heavy drama wrapped in a genre-riffing shell.

Although they each use the end of the world to wax poetic on male relationships, they both really explore different dynamics beyond that. This is the End examines hypocrisy, celebrity and religion, while The World’s End deals with addiction, regret and the perils of technology.

This Is the End is easily the funnier of the two – it’s probably the funniest film of the last few years really. That’s not a knock on The World’s End, which is actually more of a dark drama in action-comedy clothing. Gary is certainly the most developed character in the two films, and Pegg really sells the guy’s pain.

Tech aspects are certainly better in The World’s End, but that’s to be expected. Unlike their previous writing collaborations (Superbad, Pineapple Express, The Green Hornet), Rogen and Goldberg avoided having an accomplished director take the reins, opting instead to direct This Is The End themselves. They do a competent job, but it’s clear they aren’t visual stylists. Wright on the other hand – that’s sort of his forte, so it’s hardly surprising that The World’s End has some knockout visuals. A dynamite fight scene in a bar bathroom is particularly impressive.

Ultimately, I prefer This Is The End – it’s a hell of a lot funnier, and it just feels a lot fresher than The World’s End, which is basically a retread of many of the themes of Sean of the Dead, just with Pegg and Frost switching archetypes.

Much like Hot Fuzz, The World’s End drags at parts and could’ve benefited from another round in the editing room. That’s sort of a weird thing to type because it’s such a tightly plotted piece, especially compared to This Is The End, which, still feels more finely trimmed even though it’s practically the same length and has a meandering, improvisational vibe to it.

In the end, both films are worth recommending, and I definitely think they’re distinct enough that viewers won’t feel like they’re watching the same movie twice.

This Is the End A-, The World’s End B