The Words

In spite of myself, I find myself becoming fonder and fonder of Bradley Cooper.

I have never liked him - which is not to say I don't recognize his talent, I thought he was quite good in Wedding Crashers and The Hangover (I was thoroughly underwhelmed by Limitless, for more reasons than him).  I've just always gotten this incredible...smug feeling from him.  He seems smarmy to me, like in real life he'd be kind of sleazily good looking and take advantage of every drunk girl in the room.  (PLEASE NOTE: I have NO IDEA if this is true.  It's probably not.  But it's the air I got from him.)

Well, I'm coming around.  While The Words suffers sometimes from being too clever for most of its plot lines - including never actually stating that it's about Hemingway's lost manuscripts, even though it's totally about Hemingway's lost manuscripts - it is saved by completely absorbing performances and the very bold risks it takes.

Let's talk about that for a minute.  When I was picking a movie to see this weekend, I narrowed my choices down to Lawless and The Words.  The deciding factor, after weighing hearsay, actors, and subject matter, was length: The Words caps out at 97 minutes long.  Aside from movies intended for children, I can't even remember the last movie I saw in the theater that was less than two hours long.  The trend seems to  be toward longer and bigger stories, which isn't bad in and of itself, although it does make for some poor editing choices.  The Words, however, commits to its short length, with tight storytelling and good editing.  There's no wasted time here, and no wasted space.

The only real missed opportunity is Zoe Saldana as the wife of Bradley Cooper's suffering author, who only ever pops up to react to something he's done.  What she does, she does beautifully (no one can cry like Zoe), but she's better than this role, and could have brought some real edge to Dora if she'd been given more material to work with.

But the story is the real star of this show, with three twisting strands: you have Dennis Quaid as author Clayton Simmons, giving a reading of his book.  That book is about author Rory Jansen, struggling in NYC to get his labor-of-love manuscript published.  He finds an old manuscript (A Farewell to Arms disguised by cinematic convenience and a briefcase from the 1940's) and, after finding his despair in it (he will never be half the author this mystery writer is, woe), he publishes it under his name.  Jeremy Irons reads it, recognizes his own work, and finds Rory to tell him the true story behind the transformative writing.

That's a lot going on, but due to some beautiful cinematics and the aforementioned tight storytelling, there's no confusion about where or when you are in the story.  The only vagueness wanders in at the end, and it's there for a reason: you as the audience are meant to contemplate the truth of the words, and decide for yourself what the edges of the reality for all three writers (Quaid, Cooper, and Irons) are.  It's a lot of meat for such a short movie, and I appreciated the chance to chew on it.

The other big risk here is that The Words is not out to please its audience, or even to provide a satisfying conclusion.  It doesn't even really end.  It's a movie about a moment, and the immediate fallout of a decision, and the lingering self-doubt and guilt that gets left behind.  It is almost refreshing its unwillingness to satisfy anyone, the audience or the characters, and while I don't think I'd make a habit out of watching movies of this flavor, it certainly made for an interesting experience.

The Nature of Kids' Movies

I saw The Bourne Legacy, and I really enjoyed it - there's not much to say about it, though, because it's very similar in structure and tone to Matt Damon's Bourne Trilogy.  I don't think that's a weakness, though; I think it's ok for a movie to be formulaic when the formula works.  Jeremy Renner is an excellent choice to carry on the Bourne name, and I thought Legacy did a very good job expanding the universe and deepening the intrigue.  Good job!

What I really want to talk about today is the other movie I saw that weekend:

ParaNorman, the newest offering from Laika (who brought us, previously, the marvelous Coraline), can be pretty neatly divided into three acts.  The opening act, wherein we meet our hero and learn about his interesting talent (he can see and talk to ghosts), is excellent.  We get a solid sense of Norman and his obsession with zombies and horror movies, and in one beautiful scene we get to see the world the way he does (full of ghosts, who know him by name and wish him good morning on his way to school) and the way the world sees him (a boy with a backpack full of monster action figures who talks to thin air).  Norman is weird and lonely, but you get the feeling that he's largely made his loneliness into armor; the bullying gets him down, but he's also quick to reject motions of friendship by Neil, another outcast.

The second third, wherein we are introduced to the conflict, is the weakest of the film.  The ghosts largely vanish from the scene, appearing only when the plot needs them too, and the film waffles on what the conflict actually is - I got the feeling that it wasn't quite sure what kind of movie it wanted to be, what it wanted to focus on.  Things get a little blurry here.

Luckily, though, ParaNorman comes roaring back for a spectacular conclusion, which both wraps up the story and provides lots of growth for all characters involved.  This was one of the things I appreciated the most about ParaNorman: the characters experience and exhibit real, believable growth.  This, in addition to the wonderful messages about bullying, parental expectations, and the joy of being odd, made it, for me, a strong experience and great all-around kids' film.

As I said before, the last film we got from Laika was Coraline, in general a stronger movie than ParaNorman but very similar in tone and execution.  What I want to know is: why are there so few kids' movies like these?  It is becoming less true now with things like Frankenweenie on the horizon, but why has it taken so long for kids' programming to get its teeth back?  When I think about the shows and movies I watched as a kid (mostly tv, with things like Aaah! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life, and Invader Zim on my regular schedule, not to mention the stuff I stayed away from - Are You Afraid of the Dark?, anyone?), it seems like studios gentled down their kids' fare for a long time into almost unwatchable saccharine slop.

When I saw Monster House, a 2006 film from Columbia Pictures, I celebrated - that movie is wonderfully spooky and creepy, but never wanders outside of inappropriate for kids.  It was fun without being safe, and I (and the kids in my audience) gasped and cheered together through the course of the movie.  I wanted Monster House to be the lead-in to children's film getting its edge back - and now, six years later, it seems it finally is.  I think it's easy to forget sometimes that scary can be fun, and that there's nothing wrong with not playing it so safe in the arena of children's entertainment.  I'm eager to see what's next for animation, and it looks like this fall there are lots of films serving up the spooky.  Can't wait!