Let me first say that it has been exactly one year since my blog started. To be honest, I began writing most of the reviews that are dated on December 25, 2009 between October and late December, and after viewing Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" on Christmas, there was a mad rush to figure out a quick, efficient and inexpensive way to share my ideas on the internet, which brought me to blogger.com. Thus, there are more than several articles all dated December 25, 2009. Happy Anniversary.
Anyway, TCM often shows a short documentary about the letterbox format, a format many people complain about. I have truly never understood the complaints against this format, especially because those who complain never offer much reason behind their opinions. TCM's documentary features interviews with directors Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, Sydney Polluck, and Curtis Hanson.
To paraphrase the directors, basically every film of the past fifty-plus years has been filmed in a widescreen format, and so when these films are shown on television, they require the letterbox format so that the viewer is viewing the entire frame, exactly as the director wished it to be shown. If the letterbox is not there, then what happens is a process known as pan-and-scan, which dissects the picture so that the central image is expanded to a format that will fit a television screen, thus rendering it pixilated and a bit claustrophobic. Not only are you losing the visuals that help convey the movie, but as Scorsese says, you are in a sense re-directing the movie.
So as the directors say, if you see the letterbox format, do not be angry or frightened, but instead be grateful and content.
El Topo
Alejandro Jodorowsky's Western features a man in black accompanied by a naked child throughout the desert against little people and maimed people and naked women with a background of religious symbolism and drug-induced cinematography. This film, recently released on DVD and once a feature of midnight cinemas, is a better film than his follow-up, the even more psychadelic "Holy Mountain," and has its share of famous fans, from John Lennon to David Lynch. The element of absurdism is admirable and it's not an intolerable film; it's certainly an interesting step further to the left of Serigo Leone's Westerns, and it sure would make John Wayne furious. Still, this is one odd movie.
Arabian Nights
Famed Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini spent over two years in various different countries filming this silly wonder. The third part of his "life trilogy," (the other parts are a more watchable "The Decameron" and "The Cantebury Tales"), there is a nude character--full frontal, guys and gals--about every five minutes or so, and they're usually giggling, rarely acting, and often poorly-dubbed (even in its original Italian). Still, Pasolini somehow managed to get these naked actors to feel comfortable, and it properly prepared him for his next film and his actual masterpiece "Salo: 120 Days of Sodom." Beyond that, "Arabian Nights" is a chaotic, seemingly hastily-made movie that jumps from scene-to-scene with little thought. For further reading/viewing, read here, here and here, and view here (not work appropriate).
Black Samurai
Kierkegaard's "Fear and Tremblin" tells us that absurdism does not necessarily mean what is logically impossible but what is humanly impossible. "Black Samurai" is both. From 1977 (the year of "Star Wars" and "Annie Hall") this was blaxoitation gone far, far wrong. Jim Kelly from "Enter the Dragon" is a badass agent out to get a whiteass bad guy (who simultaenously plays with snakes and worships pagean gods). And Kelly has a pretty cool rocket pack.
There are others, like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" and "Harold and Maude" which are all absurd in a good way. They are also more widely known and therefore not as relevant for a discussion here. I can't necessarily say if these first three films are recommendable or not. Pasolini was a gifted man and his "Salo" is a haunting film worth the watch for brave viewers; "Arabian Nights" was not. Jodorowosky is an acquired taste and not for everyone. "Black Samurai" might rank as an it's-so-bad-it's-good film. Regardless, they are three of the oddest movies I have ever seen.
Sometimes I think Youtube was made for me. Buried deep in the vast pit of self-made cat videos, archival footage of historical events, and your favorite old TV shows are the most absurdly hilarious videos imaginable. In my opinion, some of them include the following: McDonalds Custodial Training Video
One of my first jobs was working at Arby's while in high school, but I can fervently proclaim that my experience was nothing like this video, portraying a hopelessly naive new custodian--a McC--at McDonalds. This new customer comes into work and ready to get his hands dirty. His manager really defines cheeky as she gives him the training wheels to succeed at McDonalds. The staff humiliate him as he cleans up the McDonalds restaurant so he can see McC. Who is McC? McC is the fast-food spirit who makes his presence known only when McDonalds restaurants are really, really clean (which is never). To further elaborate on just how bizarre this video is, the main character tells himself--nay, orders himself--to "finesse that wall--that's the way!" And finally, thank the Lord, he finds McC--in his own reflection! Now that's McDonalds--helping to destroy America one day at a time.
I Have a Bad Case of Diarrhea
I used to live in Korea and was an observer of the uniqueness that is Asian languages. According to Wikipedia, this video originated from a Japanese program called "Zuiikin' English" from 1992. The host of the show, some guy named Fernandez Verde, explained his odd pedagogical theory that individuals learn languages like they exercise. Whatever validity that theory had was eliminated by what followed.
Now, being a certified English teacher myself, I can confidently say that many English language-learners, and learners of any new language, want to know important phrases that they will likely use while interacting with native speakers. I sincerely doubt that "I have a bad case of diarrhea" is one of those phrases, but Mr. Verde and his team at "Zuiikin' English" disagree with me. This particular lesson opens with a young Japanese girl presumably in an English-speaking country, sitting down and in tremendous pain. She instructs a man with an American or Australian or German or something accent to "call an ambulance, please." He says he will and asks her where it hurts. After replying that her "stomach-uh" hurts, she cannot explain specifically what the problem is, so she resorts back to Japanese. Now we will be taught how to properly say the important phrase.
There's something in Japanese, then in a narrative, mono-tone voice comes, "I have a bad case of diarrhea." That would be absurd enough, but now here's where the pedagogy comes into play. Three Japanese women in spandex pump their firsts up as they sing, "I have-eh baed case of diarr-i-a!" (In the exercise, the word "diarrhea" is signaled by the crossing of their arms around their stomach.) Other useful expressions learned are "take anything you want" and "spare me my life" (for the same girl who is mugged by two men--what an awful trip she is having) and "hasta la vista, baby!" which, obviously, isn't English.
First of all, I cannot plausibly think of a situation where an ambulance is necessary for diarrhea. Second, if I'm learning another language, that's probably one of the last things I want to learn how to say. Damn you, Verde!
Hippie Gets His Own Show Teaching Yoga With the Help of a Giant Cock
Of all the creepy children's TV show hosts, this is undeniably the creepiest. This video starts with a middle-aged man named Yogi-Oki-Doakee (I think) and he's in an odd, aerobatic position I could never imagine Mr. Rogers in. Then, instead of Big Bird, in storms some sort of stereotypical, Jar Jar Binks-esque Jamaican rooster cocking his way around the set as if he's in need of a restraining order. The rooster says something along the lines of, "Yeah, man. You can milks (inaudible, inaudible, inaudible)." Then a bunch of children enter at great apparent risk. One is dressed as a soccer player, another as a karate kid, another as a ballerina, but they cannot enter until they give Yogi a very uncomfortable-looking hug. This video is in many ways similar to the previous two, and hell, probably the rest, in that with each passing moment, it gets more and more unexplainable. For example, Yogi uses some weird wind analogy to explain the importance of breathing, and then his fucking cow keeps mooing "remember to breath!"
At this moment, it becomes unethical at best and frightening at worst. As the children, all of them appearing younger than the age of ten, construct their yoga positions, Yogi moves about "helping" them. He whispers to one, "Are you breathing, Christian?" as he hovers above the boy who probably just pissed his pants from fear. Okay, now I really can't explain this guy's fucking behavior, because he then has his head under his ass as he mimics a chicken (I guess); two disturbed young girls stand by, not quite sure if crying will help or hinder their chances. My comments, desperate as they are to humor, will not do justice to the remaining minute of the video, so just watch, and keep your kids away from Yogi-Oagi-Doakee and his creepy yoga. As Youtube commenter RaymondIsWin wrote, "this guy is in prison, right? Right?"
Siskel and Ebert Uncensored
Siskel and Ebert have been mentioned frequently (here, here and here). One thing that I miss most about them is their humor, which was evidenced when this youtube video surfaced four years ago. The video contains three segments from the 1980s where the two are preparing promos for their show. The first part of this video is rather tense and awkward to watch as the two come close to screaming at each other. "This is not the part that's supposed to match, slick," an angry Ebert says. "Give it a moment's thought. What are we doing now? The promo. Do you know what they have to match? Nothing...welcome to the exciting world of television, a holy new field for you to begin to learn in." Siskel is clearly shaken. "Well-spoken, Roger," he mutters. "Well," is the reply, "that's something you rarely hear." Siskel does eventually get the last line. "That's this week on 'Siskel...and...Ebert...and the Movies'...and the asshole--and that's Roger!"
The next one, which appears to be from the same shoot, features the two burying their hatchet in the best way men know how to--ignoring it, refusing to apologize, and instead ridiculing somebody else. In this case, those who will be ridiculed are Protestants (Siskel was Jewish and Ebert is Catholic). Siskel insists that WASPs run the country and everyone should ban together to overthrow them. Ebert is a little hesitant to get involved, but he eventually does, teasing Protestants as people who "sort of want a religion." Now Ebert's really having fun, noting that Jews and Catholics were "burning each other when Martin Luther was just a gleam in his mother's eye!" Then Siskel claims that the biggest decision a Protestant has to make is "what color yellow tie to fucking buy," and then Ebert says that Protestantism is "the only fucking religion that has the Reader's Digest as a prayer book."
The final segment (in this Youtube post it's played in the middle) is probably the funniest, as the two do what they did best--mock each other. Ebert mocks Siskel's stumbling of the English language and Siskel makes fun of Ebert's weight. Winner: Siskel comes close, but Ebert wins in all three.
For additional laughs, view one of the many clips of the two on Letterman.
Orson Welles Drunk Outtake
You may have thought that Orson Welles gave his best performance as a drunk man in "Touch of Evil," but then you haven't seen these outtakes from the 1970s. Welles--the man behind the War of the Worlds panic, "Citizen Kane" and guest star of "The Muppet Movie"--is really, really drunk in this footage of a commercial for, ironically, wine, constantly missing his ques and (if not for the respect the other actors and stand-ins likely had for him) really annoying the others. The best moment is when he utters "aaaghghaaagghaha" before delivering truly Shakespearean lines.
Hitler Reacts to Harry Potter
"Downfall" from Germany in 2004 is one of the greatest films ever made. Detailing Hitler's final days in his bunker, it featured a brilliant performance by Bruno Ganz. But Americans will always be amused by the German language; whether it's the Augustus Gloop/Guten Tag Hop Clop version or the angry Hitler version, it's always funny to us. So, some folks have taken one scene in which Hitler is very angry at his generals and re-dubbed it so that Hitler is addressing current-day topics. The topics are as varied as Kanye West to Second Life, but the funniest is certainly Hitler's reaction to Warner Bros.'s decision to postpone the release of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Informed of the decision, Hitler shakes as he removes his glasses and instructs anyone not a part of the "Harry Potter fandom" to leave, before screaming and shouting. His subordinate recommends they see "Twilight" instead, which really gets Adolf going. It's funny because of the German language, but also funny because Hitler was probably mad enough to complain of such a thing.
Olsen Twins Gimme Pizza
Recently, a paranoid Irishman watched archival footage of the release of Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus" from 1928. In barely a moment of footage, he spotted an elderly woman holding what appeared to be a cell--I'm sorry--mobile phone. Concluding that there was no other explanation, he posted at least one video and explained his conclusive hypothesis: that a time traveler dusted off the DeLorean and went back to 1928 to the premiere of a Chaplin film. By now it's been debunked as most likely being a hearing aid, but the point I'm trying to make is that nobody on Earth thought that the time-traveling lady with a cell phone would end up being analyzed by historians eighty years later. That lady is long gone and we will never know who she was. She is historically irrelevant, except for the fact that someone years later thought she was a time-traveler.
Similarly, for years people have pounded their chests telling us that there was a Munchkin who committed suicide on the set of "The Wizard of Oz." During the Tin Man scene in the forest (in which, if you pay very close attention, you will you notice several birds walking around the set), Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man dance away, and just before the next scene, it's there: a Munchkin, who we're told was depressed and heartbroken because of another Munchkin, hanging himself. Now we're also supposed to believe that several hundred people on the set didn't notice it, that the editing team didn't take out the shot and order re-takes, that a Munchkin was there even though the little people weren't filming their scenes yet, and that for decades nobody noticed a hanging person on the set of one of the world's most famous movies. It has since been clearly identified as a zoo bird, but the point is the same. Nobody, seventy years ago, thought that people would go back-and-forth about something so minuscule.
Which brings me to the Olsen twins. Filmed sometime in the early 1990s at the height of their popularity, the Olsen twins made a musical piece about a group of young girls cravin' for some pizza. Since then it has become lost in the closets of dusty VHS tapes, until somebody thought it would sound a lot funnier slowed down. They were right. This video is hysterical. To bring the previous points into this, nobody during the filming of this video ever thought that years later they would see something like this. The three supporting actresses probably regretted their performances (particularly the girl with brown hair saying something about "whip cream poured like waterfalls") but if you were them, you would probably be content with the fact that years later nobody would be able to identify you from the videos. Then comes somebody who has way too much time on their hands and releases a four-minute version of your worst performance for over two million people to see. The rest is history.
Youtube is only about a decade old. Lets hope there are many, many more decades to come of comedy gold.
James Newton Howard's score starts off "Dave" with that certain "West Wing" sense of optimism. The music would be fitting for a president, except the president in this film doesn't seem to like Washington, his wife, or even his dogs as he throws the leash to the ground as soon as he's away from the cameras. Dave (Kevin Kline), however, is perfectly happy in his working-class job as the manager of a temporary employment agency and also a presidential impersonator, as he looks remarkably similar to the incumbent president. While Dave is sort of an everyday hard-working man like many of Jimmy Stewart's characters, Kline's portrayal of President Mitchell is reminiscent of Phil Hartman's impersonation of Ronald Reagan on "Saturday Night Live," at one moment smiling for the cameras and then ordering missiles to be dropped on the communists.
One day, a Secret Service agent (Ving Rhames) instructs Dave that the government needs his help. Dave is asked if he will assume the role as President Mitchell for the entire country while the President is busy; Dave can surmise that of course, the President must be doing some very top-secret duty if an ordinary man like Dave will temporarily assume the role of the presidency. And just like that, the President is gone, and Dave is acting. And Dave really, really likes being president.
But the President's top-secret duty is to carry on an affair with his secretary (Laura Linney). While doing so he suffers from a massive stroke, and now the President's Chief of Staff (Frank Langella) and speech writer (Kevin Dunn) have a bit of a problem. Dave is asked if he can stay on for a bit longer, to which he accepts, though hesitantly. But there are some ambitious reasons for such a move on the Chief of Staff's part; he desperately wants to be president himself, and he's "not going to let some Boy Scout" (the vice president, played by Ben Kingsley) take it away from him. (Langella played an infamous president on Broadway and film years later.) Langella is more terrifying than he was as Dracula when he gives Dave that icy stare to prod him how to behave in the White House.
Dave seems to be enjoying the job but is puzzled as to why the First Lady (Sigourney Weaver) hates him--the President--so much. Still, he will do what he can to make things right, and he starts by bringing some charisma and compassion to the job. With the help of an accountant friend (Charles Grodin) he manages to balance the budget so that funding for a homeless shelter can remain, setting up a conflict with his very mean-spirited Chief of Staff.
There are several humorous cameos in Dave, including Jay Leno, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the pundits of the McLaughlin Group, Chris Dodd, Tom Harkin, Paul Simon (the senator, not the singer), Helen Thomas (seventeen years before her comments on Israel resulted in the end of her career), Ben Stein, and Tip O'Neill. Also appearing is Oliver Stone, poking fun at his image as he explains to Larry King his conspiracy idea regarding the impostor president based on the shape of his chin.
When I was a kid, Tim Curry was in everything. He was the creepy (and by creepy I mean so scary that his fellow cast members avoided him) clown that helped make "It" regarded as the most frightening television miniseries in history. He was singing as a river of destructive oil in "Ferngully: The Last Rainforest". He stole the show from Tom Cruise as a demonic lord in Ridley Scott's "Legend" with hours of Oscar-nominated makeup on him. He was the best part of an all-star cast in "Clue," stumbling his away around a mysterious house with one or several murderers, and the only good part of John Huston's "Annie." He was also hysterical in "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," as a hotel manager accused by a movie-within-a-movie character of smoochin' with a gangster's brother. He was practically omnipresent.
Before my time, there was of course the film that first made him famous: "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in 1975. After the successful run in London and Los Angeles as "The Rocky Horror Show," the film version, with Curry as a Dr. Frankenstein-esque character singing and dancing his way around the house/space ship, has obviously become a cult class. It has also been in the news recently: "Glee" dedicated an entire episode to it, and Curry was honored as celebrities, including Evan Rachel Wood, Danny DeVito, George Lopez and Jack Nicholson, recreated the show on the stage for a benefit concert. (It didn't hurt, also, when vintage footage of a younger Russell Crowe performing in the show recently turned up.) "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," a film he once grew sick of due to the passionate (to say the least) response it had with many fans (it is the longest-running movie showing in history), acknowledged in an interview on "Fresh Air" that he recognizes it as a right-of-passage film for many. (One of the film's biggest fans, he claims, was Princess Diana.)
Curry will appear in John Landis's "Burke and Hare," and fellow star Simon Pegg seems thrilled enough that he has posted a picture of the two of them on Twitter. But to suggest that suddenly Curry has rebounded out of nowhere would be an inaccurate way to describe this talented individual. According to IMDb, he has appeared in over two-hundred projects as an actor, eight this year alone. Three of his films ("The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "Clue," and "It") will soon be remade.
Roger Ebert wrote in his review of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," a film he didn't like, that Curry was the most enjoyable cast member to watch because, for one, he was the only one (according to Ebert) who looked like he was having fun. Indeed, Curry seems to be always having fun in his films. He has a taste for the hyperbole, which heightens the enjoyment, whether he's complimenting Sylvester Stallone's daughter's big, round diphthongs in "Oscar," or going toe-to-fin with Kermit the Frog in "Muppet Treasure Island," or butchering a Romanian accent in the guilty-pleasure film "Congo."
Tim Curry has never quite been a main-stream actor. Often he is "the guy from..." or something like that; many of his performances may forever be lost in the Nickelodeon vault of history and time. But many of his films have gained cult film status, such as "Times Square," in which he played a radio show host. The film was not particularly well-reviewed upon its release in 1980, but since has become celebrated by the queer community for its portrayal of young (implied) lesbians. "Clue," likewise, virtually became unknown despite its all-star cast, solid reviews, and famous title. It was only with the popularity of home video and its frequent showing on Comedy Central that it became well-known. Of course, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in 1975 was the firm visualization of surreal camp, with its tribute to B-horror and science fiction movies, rock 'n' roll, and transvestism. Curry, likewise, has never really been a leading man, and he has claimed in interviews that he doesn't want to be one. He usually is his best when surrounded by other talented performers.
He has won several awards, like an Emmy in the 1990s for providing the voice of Captain Hook in the animated show "Peter Pan and the Pirates." He has also been nominated for a Tony twice, first as playing the title role in "Amadeus" opposite Ian McKellen in 1980 and again as King Arthur in "Spamalot" in 2005. Still, something even as prestigious as a Golden Globe or even a Hollywood Star has been kept from him. (But he did open the Oscars one year.) In essence, Tim Curry is Hollywood's best kept secret for a quarter-of-a-century.
A friend once explained to me the strategy of tic-tac-toe. Everyone who has ever played the game, he said, has at least once strove for the center of the board. The thinking is that the center offers the greatest destination for security. But the center gives the illusion of safety, my friend told me.
Essentially, going to the center is disadvantageous for several reasons. One, you've wasted a move to go to other areas (say the left, for reasons of being cute), and in tic-tac-toe there are few moves to make. Second, being in the center not only does not help you construct a scenario where your opponent doesn't have enough moves to stop you winning, but actually hinders you from winning. "You basically win by your opponent not noticing that you have amassed a strategic position," he told me.
Now we have the case of Barack Obama. By now, it has been a bit of time since the "shellacking" of 2010 (remember President Bush's "thumping" four years ago?). The Democrats suffered a humbling defeat of losing control of the House of Representatives and thus a great deal of Obama's agenda (most notably climate change legislation, immigration reform, and LGBT rights legislation). Is it time for Obama to move to the center?
Let me first say that everyone should calm down. For starters, the past three presidents who lost control of the House during their first term (Truman, Eisenhower, and Clinton) were re-elected, and I stand by my prediction that Obama will win re-election in 2012, even with Republicans in the House and a high unemployment rate. Second, this is the first time in decades that the opposition party did not take back both houses of Congress, and there is one reason for that--the Tea Party. Yes, the Tea Party might be have given further momentum in the goal of re-taking the House, but it undoubtedly cost the Republican Party the Senate. Because of the Tea Party, we still have Harry Reid, a senator who would have been defeated by any other Republican besides Sharon Angle. Because of the Tea Party, we do not have a Ken Buck or Christine O'Donnell or a Linda McMahon. We probably won't have a Joe Miller. And Mitch McConnell is still the Senate Minority Leader. Fifty-three Democratic senate seats looks a lot better than forty-eight, which is what it would be without the Tea Party.
On to the larger point, it may seem like the necessary thing for Obama to do is compromise. I'm not totally opposed to compromise, although I still believe bipartisanship is very overrated. Still, that does not mean Obama should pretend that the Earth is suddenly clean or that a Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal should be shelved or that all (excuse me, any) of the Bush tax cuts should be extended. Only two centrists presidents--Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton--won re-election in the past hundred years. Paul Begala has argued that Obama needs a centrist economic policy. Fine, I guess. Begala knows more than I do--he was, after all, a top level adviser to President Clinton.
But a major ideological shift to the center is not the right path. At this point, for Obama, the center is an illusion for safety. The center is where he will be most vulnerable to Republican attacks. Obama can still win the independent vote by not going to the center (it worked for him two years ago). So there's no need for him to make such a move, and, other than some areas, I doubt he will.
The opening sequences of "Machete" start in the same style of Robert Rodriquez's "Planet Terror" portion of "Grindhouse," with scratchy film as a homage to the 1970s grindhouse films he enjoyed. There is head-slicing from the beginning as the title character, played by Danny Trejo, storms a rusty old house filled with bad guys and carries a woman to safety. The woman, while still unclothed, returns the favor by slicing Machete's leg and brings out the bad guy, who then has her shot.
The bad guy is a Mexican drug cartel played by Steven Seagal and despite his Mexican nationality, wields a potent samurai sword. There are other villains who pop up--Jeff Fahey reprises his role from the "Machete" trailer first seen in "Grindhouse" as a businessman who simultaneously is the backbone behind the political career of a state senator named John McLaughlin (Robert De Niro). McLaughlin utilizes the fierce anti-immigrant stance of Texas to create the appearance of an assassination attempt by Machete and thereby increase his poll numbers. Don Johnson is also here as a brutal militiaman happy to shoot away at illegal immigrants. He's as fierce as Bull Connor and doesn't "speak Mexican" but is still angry that immigrants are on his Daddy's land and worried that Texas will become part of Mexico (again). Jessica Alba plays a Latina immigration officer doing her job to protect the law. Perhaps her heart will change when she meets Machete. Michelle Rodriquez plays Luz, who runs a taco stand but also leads a network of immigration help services. Lindsay Lohan plays the daughter of Fahey's character who also aspires to be a model.
Most of the actors are enjoyable to watch, especially Trejo and De Niro. This is Trejo's fifth appearance as the character; the first two were in Rodriquez's "Spy Kids" films, so this might be the only character in cinematic history who has appeared both in PG-rated family fun and R-rated sex and violence action. Johnson and Seagal are surprisingly effective also, as is Seagal.
I usually like Robert Rodriquez. His "Sin City" is one of the greatest films in recent memory, and his "Planet Terror" was better than the other portion of "Grindhouse" (Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof"). But with "Machete," there is a certain level of stupidity that cannot be tolerated, especially when human intestines is used as a grappling. I'm not as a good a Catholic as I used to be, but I still get disturbed by images of a priest shooting guys' heads off in a church. There are elements of silliness that are frankly too silly. To put it simply, there are many good parts but much more bad parts.
The previous "Toy Story" films centered around a boy named Andy and his toys. "What are my toys doing when I leave my room?" must have been a universal question for young children when they saw the first film fifteen years ago and the impetus for such a film. "What should I do with my toys now that I've grown up?" is probably no less common of a question.
In "Toy Story 3," Andy (voiced in all three films by John Morris) is now getting ready for college and obviously finds no use for his toys which he previously loved. What does fate have in store for a toy whose owner is getting ready to leave for college? The gang is here again--Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, Estelle Harris as Mrs. Potato Head, Wallace Shawn as Rex, John Ratzenberger as Hamm, R. Lee Ermey as Sarge, and Joan Cusack as Jessie. Jim Varney, who voiced Slinky the Dog and who passed away in 2000, is now voiced by Blake Clark.
There are also new characters. Michael Keaton is Ken, who despite his narcissism (and adamant denial about being a girl's toy), finds new love with (of course) Barbie (voiced by Jodi Benson). Whoopi Goldberg is also here as a purple octopus (I think), and Timothy Dalton is a toy hedgehog who is also a thespian. Ned Beatty is Lots-O-Huggin Bear, or simply Lots, the leader of the group of toys the original gang encounters at Sunnyside, the daycare center they are accidentally donated to. Realizing that the children at Sunnyside are too young for them and that Andy is looking for his toys, they decide to try and escape.
Something I liked about the previous two "Toy Story" films and this one as well is the way in which adult themes are presented to younger audiences. When "Shrek" was released in 2001, I remember adults talking about all the "adult" moments in the film, though in that case it was mainly with heavily suggested innuendos. In the case of the "Toy Story" films, the themes have been those of alienation, depression, jealousy, identity confusion, abandonment and a lack of fulfillment. Most of this, I suspect, goes over the heads of its target audience; I was about eight-years-old when I saw the first "Toy Story" film and I doubt I recognized any of those themes.
I was fortunate not to have seen this film in 3-D. If I could lend my voice to the debate (which will soon pass away) on the use of 3-D in films, it is this: 3-D is awful. What is particularly annoying about the use of it is how stupid filmmakers must feel the audience members are. 3-D imagery is not necessary to try and wash away the boundaries between audience and projected images. Plato's cave allegory that there is a separation between the real and the copy should be enough proof. Our brains are efficient enough to understand the copy that is the cinema--we don't need a pair of uncomfortable and expensive glasses to help us. And from what I've heard, 3-D did nothing to enhance the viewing experience of "Toy Story 3."
In some ways "Toy Story 3" is too much of a repeat of the second installment, with an angry, villainous toy bitter about what his owner did to him and intent on preventing the other toys from achieving their happiness. It's also a bit crowded with characters, and even scary at times. The monkey might be the scariest character since Pale Man in "Pan's Labyrinth," and there's a scene which exemplifies how petrifying preschoolers are.
But there is a magic in this film that goes beyond nostalgia and sentimentality. In 1995 "Toy Story" initiated the brilliance of Pixar. Since then we have been blessed with "Finding Nemo," "Wall-E," and "Up." "Toy Story 3" provides a necessary sense of cloture and catharsis for these characters, but let's hope it will not be the last wonderful film from Pixar.
"If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances." Thus wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose "The Scarlet Letter" serves as an influence for Will Gluck's "Easy A," a film about a teenage girl who indeed has dreamed strange things and tried to make them look truthful with unending consequences.
Emma Stone is Olive, a sharp and witty yet fairly unknown high schooler with essentially one close friend and a bit hungry for a need of belongingness. Olive is generally well-liked, at least to those who know her. She spends one weekend listening and singing to bad music, and then uses her imagination to create a story of how she actually lost her virginity to a "gentleman." While Olive is generally well-liked, there is a group who does not like her, and that is a group of Christian students lead by Marianne (Amanda Bynes). Marianee's friend taunts Olive in class, and Olive retorts, resulting in her first trip to the principal's office.
She receives a detention and spends one afternoon cleaning the school with her fellow troublemaker Brandon (Dan Byrd), who is gay and harassed on a daily basis. Brandon painfully tells Olive that he has had enough with the bullying, and he wants her to extend the make-believe. He asks her to pretend to have sex with him. That way, everyone will know once and for all that he is indeed quite straight.
Anyway, requests like this continue. Students with desperate "needs" request her "service" and thus Olive is rewarded with gift cards, coupons, and attention. Her life begins to resemble the protagonist of "The Scarlet Letter," which is being read in class. The trajectory begins to spiral downward as things progress.
I haven't read "The Scarlet Letter" but I do know enough about it to understand the allegories. The condemnation the lead characters in these two stories is symbolic, to me at least, of the double-standard facing women. A male who engages in sexual activity and has numerous sleeping partners is considered a stud; a female in the same situation is a slut. I also can recall from my school days that the author of "The Scarlet Letter" was Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great-great-grandson of John Hathorne, a judge of the Salem Witch Trials and who is portrayed in Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" as being of the most vicious of the group. There is definitely a hint of that sentiment in "Easy A."
This film is much like "Mean Girls" and "Juno" before it, centering on female leads struggling with what Erikson would have described as identity versus role confusion. "Easy A" does not do enough to distinguish itself from the two, but it is quite funny. Like the two mentioned films, it becomes evident that actual people, whether they be teenagers or parents or teachers or Christian fundamentalists, do not in fact talk and act as they do in this film. But the farcical nature is forgiven, because these characters and the actors portraying them are very funny. The movie has an entertaining cast, with Thomas Hayden Church as Olive's favorite teacher, Lisa Kudrow as his wife who is also the school's guidance counselor, Malcolm MacDowell as the school's principal, Fred Armisen as a local preacher, and Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as Olive's parents.
But the real gem of this production is Emma Stone. There is a perfect sense of sarcasm in her tone, a lack of intonation which is surprisingly effective and a slightly raspy voice mixed with her confidence in the risks she takes as a performer that make her really enjoyable to watch. It can be written with assurance that she will continue to entertain and her audiences will be quite fortunate.
Roger Ebert used his review of "Shaolin Soccer" as a vehicle to describe his theory of the star-rating system in movies. He said, "When you ask a friend if 'Hellboy' is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to 'Mystic River,' you're asking if it's any good compared to 'The Punisher.' And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if 'Superman' is four, then 'Hellboy' is three, and 'The Punisher' is two."
If I might be excused for unoriginality, the same theory can be applied here. "The Expendables," directed by Sylvester Stallone and featuring Stallon and a whole host of other tough guys, is a film that needs to be taken for what it's worth. Here is a film not comparable to "Superman," or "Gone With the Wind" or "The Exorcist" or "The Fog of War," but it's a film comparable to "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which is better than "The Expendables," or "Die Hard 2," which ranks at two stars to the three stars of "The Expendables." Several days before I saw "The Expendables," I watched "Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy," a documentary about a young Chinese girl adopted into an American family and a much more compelling movie. I have, however, just deliberately violated Ebert's rule. "The Expendables" and "Wo Ai Ni, Mommy" are not really comparable films; yes, perhaps they work better for different people, but they must be seen through different prisms.
Stallone is the leader of a group of mercenaries dubbed the Expendables, simply because, of course, they are expendable. They are tough, brutal (yet surprisingly sensitive) individuals. They have Austrian, British, Chinese, Swedish, Latin American, and Stallone accents. They are played by actors who have helped define the tough-guy action genre for decades: Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren. Also appearing are Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, and Eric Roberts. To add to the delight, there are simultaneous cameos by Bruce Willis and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his first appearance in six years.
The Expendables are hired to remove a general who has led a coup de'tat on the fictional island of Vilena. This general is the puppet to a merciless ex-CIA agent James Munroe (Roberts). (Say what you will about the film being stupid, but intelligent viewers will recognize not only the ironies of the villain's name related to the president whose Doctrine dealt with Latin America but also the plot's similarities to the Noreiga situation of the late 1980s. Additionally, it appears Stallon has heeded Mickey Rourke's plea for directors to star hiring Roberts again.)
One thing about the film that struck me is that it is not as violent as I expected. Indeed, there were decapitations, exploding bodies, and knives in throats, but it's not nausea-inducing. The result is that the movie is quite fun, despite some things that are troublesome. One is a silly moment at the film's resolution, and another is the violence towards women. There is only one female character in this whole movie (thereby violating the Bechtel Test), and she's beaten up pretty badly for no logical reason. Additionally and expectedly, the final act of the film falls victim to a ridiculous amount of annoying explosions.
It could be expected that such a film, with an unbelievable amount of testosterone and improbable sequences, would be labeled as "dumb." There are dumber things in our world today, but this is not a type of "dumb" that makes me lose sleep at night.
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