Renaissance

I was really excited about Renaissance before I saw it. I had seen pictures of the film, and I loved the stylized visuals of the movie. I support whenever any artist decides to do something untraditional with their work, especially in cases where they are attempting to emphasis certain points in the work. This is the same reason I really like Sin City, which used the visuals in order to better tell the story. However, after seeing Renaissance, I was just disappointed. The film had so much promise, but really it was just a poorly written detective story pushing a half-thought-out moral. It was pretty, but without much substance. Oh Renaissance, you could have been so much more.

At the beginning, everything is starting to work out well. We're introduced to the characters and a little mystery, and the film starts itself out well without any errors. Then, things just start sliding downhill. First, the mystery starts to fall apart because the film makes it too easy to separate the bad guys from the good guys. In this kind of film, you're supposed to be guessing who is good and who is bad. In the actual film, they were kind of going that route, but they were also pausing every once and a while to show you certain characters smiling menacingly, ruining the suspense.

Then, as things get revealed, they turn out not to be as interesting as you thought they might. Oh, a woman is trapped in a forest that grows as she walks? This is incredible and odd, I wonder what is happening to her... oh, she's in a computer-screen bubble with a treadmill in it.

My biggest complaint is the half-assed moral of the story: something along the lines of “without death, life is hell.” The main character has to make the decision to prevent the world from gaining the technology to become immortal. He does so because some old asian guy says it would suck to live forever. That's it. The movie doesn't go into why it would suck to live forever, it just assumes the audience would agree and moves on. Well, if that decision is so obvious, why does the villain still want the technology? And can we just suppose that living forever would suck? I mean, I understand the reasons it might, but I'm sure someone could probably provide some counter arguments. The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie explored this concept more than Renaissance.

I think I'd enjoy this movie if someone finished writing it. Until then, it just makes me angry.

Beowulf

I've heard many complaints that Beowulf does not follow the original story. I've heard many people tell me that they would not go see it because of this fact. Well, I hadn't read the story to begin with, so I figured I had nothing to lose. And I'm lucky, because Beowulf, though it takes its time to milk some of its visual effects, is a good film.

Now though I haven't read the book, I can tell when watching the movie that they wanted to go another direction. So many references were made to legends being passed down and stories being told that I got the idea that Beowulf is not a film version of the book, but rather about the book. In other words, it's the story of the story. The “Behind the Music” of the book. And in the end, thinking about the book actually helps the storyline, as one of the things that pain Beowulf in the film is that his story, his legend, is just a bit of a lie. I say to anyone who is complaining about the whole book thing, go see it. I'm pretty sure, though once again I should state I've never read the story, that this film can sit beside the book in much the same way Grendel (another book I've never read) sits beside the book. It isn't based on the book per-say, but it is about it.

Also, the 3D is kickass. Especially now that the new 3D glasses don't give you headaches anymore.

The Thing with Two Heads

One night, while I was visiting my parents, they told me they had saved a movie for me which they thought was right up my alley. Then, we all sat down, and they started playing The Thing with Two Heads off of their DVR. They were right.

The Thing with Two Heads is a great example of how a movie can frame the audience perspective, and also of how that framing can be changed based on who they think is watching the movie. The film is about an old white doctor who discovers a way to transplant a person's head onto the body of another. He has perfected this operation because he suffers from a disease and is trying to find a way to extend his life, since, as he reasons in the film, he as a doctor is more important than other people and should be kept alive so that his studies can be continued. However, when his disease starts to really hit him, and his staff can find no suitable body anywhere else, they are forced to use a black man who only agreed to be part of the program (of which he does not know the full extent) in order to escape federal execution and to buy himself more time to find the REAL criminal who framed him. When the doctor, a documented racist, wakes up and finds out what has happened, he's angry. When the convict wakes up and finds out what has happened, he's angry. The film then goes on to a ridiculous chase scene and some other stuff and then it ends. I'm sorry if I'm not being so specific here, but the movie doesn't really need any more recapping beyond this point.

Race is a big point in the movie. The doctor is evil because he undervalues the lives of others, he's racist, and he's white. The convict is good because he has been framed, and he's black. The movie doesn't bother expanding either of the characters. The only moral dilemma in the film is faced by a black doctor, who was hired by the racist one and then fired immediately after he found out he was black. Now this doctor must choose whether to save the white doctor or the convict. The conclusion he reaches is to save the convict, since he has committed no actual crime, and to leave the doctor to die, since he is evil and since he was supposed to die in the first place by his disease. After the scene in which we see the doctor's disembodied head on a table, hooked up to a blood machine and asking for help, we see all the black characters of the movie in a car, driving off and singing “Oh Happy Days.” It's ridiculous, but I can get behind the simple morals and the idea itself.

I'll just say that this is one of those movies which I'd like to remake. I think the concept had a lot of potential, but was carried out sloppily because the film industry just wanted to bank in on the post-civil rights era.

Jersey Girl

In 2004 Kevin Smith, director of a series of fan-acclaimed “dick and fart joke” movies, made his first PG-13 movie. It was a heart-warming tale which I feel is still a very strong film, even if it does follow some of the genre's formulas. However, Smith had the misfortune of casting a very popular couple who would soon become very unpopular. I'll just say it: Bennifer killed Jersey Girl.

Which is sad. I mean, it's not a great movie, but it's a good one. If I had to pick a great family movie about a father trying to take responsibility in his life, I'd pick Jersey Girl, because while it isn't very different in the basics, Smith's creativity and humor shows up in the nuances. I can forgive that Jersey Girl ends with the Father, Ben Afflec, running down the street to popular music from the 80's to get to his daughter's musical recital in time, because the song they perform is “God that's Good” from Sweeney Todd. It's heartwarming in a very cheesy and, conversely, dark way.

Some of the things that follow from Smith's other movies into this one is that the characters have many problems, and they don't exactly get “fixed” by the end of the film. More than that, the characters often succeed because they're screw-ups and because they don't know what they want. This way, the film isn't about morals, it's about Afflec's journey to becoming a responsible parent. In the end, he only gets part of what he wants, he just finds out it's the good part.

A Dirty Shame

My first encounter with John Waters was the film HairSpray. I really liked that movie. It was goofy, but sincere, and it made for some pretty sharp commentary if you were watching with a close eye. After that I saw Pecker and Cecil B. DeMented, and I became a fan. When I heard about A Dirty Shame, I had wanted to see it, but I knew it wouldn't open in any theater around where I lived, so I had to skip it. I forgot about it for a few years, until Netflix came along.

Thank you, Netflix.

A Dirty Shame, like many of Waters' movies, is a critique of social norms. However, this film extends far beyond his other recent works, heading back towards Pink Flamigos (in spirit, not in content). In a small suburban town, there is a war going on between the “neuters” and the “sex addicts,” with one demanding their neighborhood be brought back to decency, and the other searching for total and absolute sexual freedom. Our heros in this film are, of course, the sex addicts.

To become a sex addict, you have to suffer an accidental concussion. Each addict has a distinct fetish, each one incredibly bizarre, such as the policeman's man-child fetish (he enjoys dressing up like a baby), and one couple's love of “roman showers” (vomiting on one another). By forcing the audience to deal with these strange but mostly harmless fetishes, Waters moves to make sex less taboo, all the while revealing what a joke it all really is.

In the film, sex is seen as a healing force. Johnny Knoxville plays RayRay, a “sexual healer” who has the power to make flowers grow, float in the air, and raise the dead, all through sex acts. Knoxville's character, before he became a sex addict, was just a car mechanic and general hick. This is a nod towards the idea that over-acknowledgment of sexuality is a sign of lower intelligence. However, this over-acknowledgment is redeemed through the acts of healing that Knoxville performs, and sex turns back into something positive.

Surfs Up

This is a Sony Pictures animation that is much less lame than the trailers would have you believe. Are they trying to cash in on the whole Penguin craze that has caught everyone by storm? Yeah, probably, but it's a really good cash in, one that takes a unique approach to its storytelling, puts a lot of focus on its characters, and has a great visual design.

The film is based (I'll bet very lightly) on a true story, where all the characters are replaced by surfing penguins. In going with the true story angle, the film is edited and shown as if it were a documentary. Characters talk to cameramen, they participate in interviews, and even the camera work is toned down to look like someone is standing and shooting it, rather than the normal “camera” work of digital films where the camera flies around everywhere and can fit in impossible places. By making the film a pseudo-documentary, the audience is able to get that much more attached to the characters. They feel more real this way.

The whole documentary thing also lends itself to some of the jokes and lightheartedness of the film. The plot is stressed very little if the film suddenly cuts to a group of small penguins saying funny things, because we expect that kind of cut in a documentary. The film is also not limited to having a distinct time-line. We, as the audience, can focus more on what the editor of this “documentary” wanted to show us with their cuts, rather than worrying about the narrative order.

Finally, I'll just say the visual style of the film is incredible. Each penguin looks like a surfer, and floral “Hawaiian-shirt” patterns are blended into their feathers. The look is just right. You probably wouldn't think it, but this is a decent film, and while I'm not going to rush out to buy it, I wouldn't mind watching it again.

Bee Movie

Another Dreamworks animation. The think about Dreamworks is that they like to sell their animated films off of the names of the voice actors. Antz had Woody Allen. Shrek had Mike Meyers (and Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz, and...). And now Bee Movie has Jerry Seinfeld. This isn't so much a complaint as an observation. While they certainly use the star power, these actors have delivered great jobs in their animated films, and Seinfeld really works well in his role as a bee.

However, you get the idea that Dreamworks blew too much of their budget on star power. First off, it is an animated film, and the people (especially the kids) who see it won't really care that Chris Rock plays a small role. Secondly, when compared to the works of a studio like Pixar, Dreamworks just can't measure up.

Now let me say that I understand Pixar and Dreamworks are coming from two different angles. Pixar likes to work with moral tales that delve deep and have a focus on character development. Dreamworks likes to make comedies with slightly less moral fiber but a stronger focus on humor and innuendo for the adults in the theatre.

For this movie, Dreamworks just tried too hard with the humor. The plot is centered around the jokes, meaning some moments in the film are odd and don't quite fit with the total direction of the film, just to set up a funny line. The other thing is that the jokes in Bee Movie just aren't that funny.

Overall, the film comes across as more cute than funny, and probably deserves nothing more than a rental if you're curious.