True Grit, or, Jeff Bridges is Awesome

True Grit is a movie made up of pieces, which never quite come together to form a coherent whole. While each of its stars, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and the charming Hailee Steinfeld, are great in their own roles, the roles themselves almost feel like they’re from three very different films – like the Coen Brothers couldn’t decide what kind of movie they were making.

Jeff Bridges, as the whiskey-soaked, gravelly Rooster Cogburn, hasn’t been this entertaining to watch since his turn as the Dude in another Coen Brothers piece. His performance is so gritty (if you’ll forgive my using the phrase) it almost leaves sand in your mouth – he’s rough, tough, and way past his prime. Watching him is like remembering the golden era of Western film, reminiscent of the gun-toting outlaws and town defending sheriffs. But he’s old, too, and more heart-breaking in his way than the tale of Mattie’s vengeance for her wrongfully slain father.

Let’s talk about Mattie: I don’t know where the Coens found Steinfeld, but she’s a treasure in this movie and I look forward to seeing her in future projects. Her Mattie Ross is self-possessed and righteous, quoting the law at anyone she perceives as standing wrongfully in her way. Her “good lawyer” back home does not feature bodily in the film, but pops up in almost all of her conversation. Steinfeld successfully brings to life Mattie’s precociousness and also her own illusions; that is, that wrongs will always be brought to right, and that the law will always triumph. Mattie has to learn some hard lessons about preconceived notions and, more importantly, about the way that people really work, but Steinfeld makes her believable.

Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger, Mr. LaBoeuf, is the wrong note in the film. I’ve never seen the original True Grit, so I don’t know how he played out in that version, but here LaBoeuf is played (wrongfully, I think) for laughs. He is too tight, too formal, too absurd. Damon is excellent in the role, but the role is wrong for the film.

That is the weak point of True Grit: it can’t decide if it wants to be serious, or if it wants to be absurd. And rather than becoming a serious film with moments of humor, it ends up as an emotionally weak film with moments of awkwardness. I never really felt the immediacy of Mattie’s problem; I was never invested in seeing her father’s killer brought to justice. The dialogue, which is mostly very smart, does distance the audience by occasionally becoming comically flat or tremendously melodramatic - no one uses contractions ("This scheme did not unfold like I had planned;" after cutting down a hanged man, "I do not know this man."). For a film all about family and justice and revenge, True Grit itself fell a little comically flat.

The Last Airbender, and why I didn't totally hate it

I didn't totally hate The Last Airbender.

I expected to. As my boyfriend can tell you, I'm occasionally too receptive to outside influence when it comes to movies, especially ones that garner strong reactions either positively or negatively. That's why I don't read reviews of movies I'm REALLY interested in - I want to make sure that when I see it, how I feel isn't influenced by other people's opinions.

In the case of The Last Airbender, it was impossible NOT to hear about what other people thought. Usually it involved visiting mortal harm on M. Night Shyamalan. And I don't disagree with them - he did some things with a franchise I'm extremely fond of that he should be ashamed of - but I also thought the film had some really beautiful moments. When our heroes enter the Southern Water Tribe city, for instance: it's impossible to watch that great, majestic glacier and not think of the White City of Gondor. And the choreography for the benders was lovely to watch, a combination of dance, tai chi, and martial arts.

The effects for the bending itself were interesting, but revealed one of three incredibly major problems I had with the film: the color palette is so muted and dark. Even when the fire benders are fighting, the flames aren't as bright or fearsome as they should be. The television show is so vibrant, and color is SO thematically important, that Shyamalan really did the property a disservice by making it so dim. There's an overabundance of blues and muted grays and whites that's just depressing, which leads me to my next problem...

It's so JOYLESS. The show had such a sense of humor, more so than just Sokka's comedic relief - Aang was a clown, and Momo and Appa where jokesters, and one of the show's real strengths was its ability to handle really serious situations and balance them with light-hearted moments. The film is so, unrelentingly somber, although Jackson Rathbone gets a couple of good moments (plus his line delivery is pretty excellent). Actually, that's a good segue for the BIGGEST problem I had with the movie...

Nicola Peltz is a TERRIBLE actress.

No, really. I know a lot of people had big problems with Noah Ringer as Aang, but he's not so bad. Humorless, like I was talking about earlier, but that's Shyamalan's shoddy directing and not the kid. He was fine. The problem was that Peltz ruined every single scene she was in, even when she didn't say anything: flat line delivery, bizarre and over-enthusiastic facial expressions when she was in the background (she reminded me of a kid doing a school play, actually), and some kind of energy-sucking awfulness that made all her scenes a chore. Ringer is actually quite likable in the scenes without Peltz, especially when he has a real actor like Dev Patel to bounce off of.

Let's talk about Patel; and Shaun Toub, and Cliff Curtis, and how the ENTIRE Fire Nation was awesomely badass and clearly the single best part of this film. Patel smolders with rage at the father who betrayed him and the family that despises him, while Toub protects him with a paternal fierceness that's incredible to watch. Say what you want about Shyamalan's casting, but I will go to my grave defending these people and the complexity they brought to a mostly flat landscape.

I would like to watch The Last Airbender again on a non-airplane screen, mainly to see what a real screen does for the color and also the sound quality. I can't really comment on the sound because of how AWFUL the speakers on the plane were, but I don't think there was anything obviously wrong with it. I honestly do hope the other two films planned for this franchise get made, because I think there's good stuff there - Shyamalan just needs to get over himself and let someone with talent direct it.

Fanboys (and why Roger Ebert is so, so wrong)

Today I want to talk about the criminally underrated, nearly-ignored, and almost uniformly poorly-reviewed Fanboys. Directed by Kyle Newman and starring Sam Huntington, Jay Baruchel, Kristen Bell, and Dan Fogler, this film has been called “…a celebration of an idiotic lifestyle,” (Roger Ebert), and “mildly cute, mildly drooly, [and] majorly too-late spoof/homage” (Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly). They’re both wrong.

Ebert’s biggest error comes from the fact that, apparently, he has never been a fan of anything in his life. Right at the outset of his review, he makes it clear that he simply doesn’t get it: “A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about them. They have mastered the "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.” If this was true, then the subject matter itself wouldn’t matter. Of course it does, it’s the only thing that matters. Ebert never stops to ask why people are fans of Star Wars, he assumes that that’s beside the point. And as the heroes of Fanboys can tell you, there are scores of reasons why Star Wars has captured the hearts and imaginations of movie-goers for over 30 years, and not just for the sake of fandom itself.

Fanboys is about a group of geeks that head across the country to break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, the goal of which is to see the rough cut of Episode I before anyone else. It’s a fairly typical road trip movie that’s also about knowing when to grow up and what’s important to take with you when you do. It is also about the unifying power of a cultural phenomenon that Windows, Hutch, Linus and Botts (our titular fanboys) have celebrated together since they were children – something made more poignant by the fact that Linus is dying of cancer (in a subplot which was the topic of a flaming internet debate, and which I’m glad ultimately stayed in the film. It keeps our boys from being parodies.), and won’t be around to share in their joy when Episode I is released in theaters.

At its heart, Fanboys is about that shared cultural experience. What Ebert so cynically calls “a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills,” is actually a celebration of a universal connection: when a bully shows up at the premier of Episode I and gives our heroes a good-natured high-five, they are justifiably confused…until he smiles jovially and says simply, “It’s the Wars, bro.” The angry pimp that terrorizes Windows and Hutch in Las Vegas has half-sleeve tattoos on both his arms (right side for Light Side, natch), and they are saved when he gets distracted defending the honor of Han Solo. It shows us, unapologetically, that we're all fans of something; the topic of the movie is Star Wars, but the devotion is a relate-able experience that everyone feels for something. Devotion for Star Wars (or anything else) is not an isolated phenomenon, and it’s certainly not reserved for the most hardcore – Fanboys shows us that, underneath, every one of us is a fanboy.

Except Roger Ebert.

(As a side note, Ebert has also apparently never heard of girl nerds. About Kristen Bell, thoroughly charming as Zoe, the estrogen antidote to all the testosterone on this trip, he sarcastically says “She’s almost better than the date who turns into a pizza and a six-pack when the deed is done.” This is, of course, in reference to the fact that she’s not only totally hot, but also a Star Wars geek. Hello, Mr. Ebert. My name is Martha, I’m totally cute, and I’m a complete nerd. And what’s more? I’m not the only one. Girl nerds are NOT A MYTH.

Did I just blow your mind?)

Vanessa Hudgens: Unexpected Acting Star

Sucker Punch is the best move Vanessa Hudgens could have made for her career. What’s more, I think it’s going to make her much more successful in the long run than her beau Zac Efron.

Ex-Disney princess, former face of High School Musical, and temporary scandale, Hudgens has never registered in my mind as more than, say, Selena Gomez. She’s generically pretty, of average talent, and almost entirely forgettable. I have never found her offensive, but I also don’t go out of my way to watch her in things. In short, up to this film she has been one of a thousand fresh faced Disney starlets, vaguely entertaining and entirely disposable. Her acting resume up until now has included High School Musicals 1-3, something called Bandslam, and a surprising blip early on (Thirteen). Oh, and a bunch of random Disney show guest spots.

Enter Sucker Punch. I know it’s early to be speculating on this film – the trailer has only recently been publicized, and deciphering the plot line is a sticky tangled mess, but you only have to look at the (heavily photoshopped) posters to know that this is so far outside of Hudgens’ established acting zone it’s practically on another planet. She appears in a leather-and-nylon heist-style body suit, with lots of buckles, an awesome pair of goggles, and a gun that’s bigger than I am. She looks dirty. She looks a little scary. And she looks like a badass. (The Ultimate Badass title goes to Jena Malone, who not only looks like she can kill you with her brain in her shot, but can now deadlift 300 pounds as a result from the physical training she did for the film.)

Suffice to say, it’s a long way from Disney. It’s also connected to a director known for his gritty, action-filled noir influenced violence films (300, Watchmen, Dawn of the Dead). AND, to top off that already intriguing cake, she’s surrounded by established and capable actors, including Jon Hamm and Carla Gugino. The true test will be to see how she does in the film, but all in all, it looks like a remarkable set-up and could be her vehicle to a more diverse acting career. And if she proves her chops as an action girl star, we’ve got one more kick-ass chick in Hollywood, and that’s never a bad thing.

In contrast, here’s what Zac Efron has been doing (keep in mind, he’s supposed to be the more talented and more successful star than Hudgens): 17 Again and Charlie St. Cloud. Fluffy, romantic one-notes. He did do a pretty good turn in Hairspray, but since that’s SO closely related to High School Musical, I have a hard time thinking about it in terms of advancing his career.

Go you, Vanessa. Show us how a Disney girl can grow up and be awesome.

Inception, and the Problem With Trailers

I saw Inception last night, but that's not what I want to talk about right now. I think the major media outlets and the rest of the world are doing a really good job of promoting how awesome and well-conceived and visually stunning Inception is, so it's really enough to say that I agree with them and think you should all go see the movie right now. What I WOULD like to talk about is the distressing habit of trailers to ruin movies.

Before Inception I watched three trailers: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, The Social Network, and The Town. Wall Street is a sequel, so it's a pretty good guess that the film will be about Shia LaBeouf following Michael Douglas into nefarious money-making schemes and Carey Mulligan saving them all by being adorable. The Social Network is about all those privacy and copyright issues we've all grown to know and love because we use Facebook every day. These movies are being marketed on their familiarity to us - the trailers can tell us anything because we already know everything. And that's ok.

But The Town has potential to be surprising and exhilarating. Ben Affleck is a bank robber trying to make good in a small New England town, girlfriend and everything. Except that his girlfriend was the hostage in an earlier bank robbery, and it turns out that Affleck was one of the robbers in that incident. Instant drama. But how thrilling would it have been to be watching that movie, and to not know that that connection existed? What a reveal that could have been! Except that it's in the trailer, and now the film pretty much has no surprises for us.

Somewhere, at some point, movie producers decided that audiences didn't want surprises. The biggest evidence of this is the staggering number of sequels and remakes being pumped out of Hollywood; they're practically no-risk, because the litmus test has already happened. And now trailers are performing the same function, by using what should be key plot points as artificial hooks. It makes me feel like studios don't trust me as an audience member, which is ludicrously condescending.

And what's more, we know have PROOF that this doesn't need to happen. What did you know about Inception from the trailers and ad campaigns? Practically nothing - in fact, Christopher Nolan banked the whole profit of the film on not telling us anything. And it worked. Inception made $64 million in its opening weekend, and continues to profit by that endangered species, word-of-mouth publicity. Nolan trusted us an audience to choose to see his film even though (and more importantly, because) we'd be surprised by it. Not only did this make me want to Inception pretty desperately, but it also makes me more inclined to see films Christopher Nolan makes, because he has made me feel like he respects me as an audience member more than other directors or studios. And I appreciate that immensely more than I appreciate being spoon-fed an idea because someone doesn't trust me to "get it."

You know who else makes trailers like this? Trailers that give you a taste of a concept, without telling you much of the story and certainly without giving any plot keys away? Pixar. Remember the first teaser for Wall-E? Some starscapes and that adorable robotic voice. Later, we got to see the little dude gazing soulfully up at the sky, and finally we learned that he'd developed imagination and a personality. That was all. Wall-E made $63 million on its opening weekend. I could also quote you stats on UP and Toy Story 3, because they're similar stories. This isn't quite the same animal, since at this point Pixar has basically proved that they can't actually make BAD movies, but the point is the same: Pixar gives us a taste and a striking visual and trusts us to come to the theater on those legs alone. And it WORKS.

I hope it's a lesson other studios can learn.

The Human Centi-WHUT

I'd like to address an issue that is facing modern cinema, and that deeply concerns me. It has to do with a genre of film that I don't have a lot to do with, because I have a serious problem with horror. Any horror movie you watched that made you say, "Hey, that wasn't so scary," I guarantee it terrified me. There are TRAILERS I can't watch because they scare me so deeply. I once saw a trailer for the movie Slither and repressed it so deeply that when I had a nightmare about it, I had no idea where the images came to me from.

But I'm fascinated by horror: I can't watch it, but I read all about it. I beg people to know the ends to the movies I'm too chicken to see. I can spend hours on Wikipedia reading about these movies that I'll never see. You can imagine my fascination when I stumbled across a film called The Human Centipede, accompanied by a poster of a silhouetted person with two extra sets of arms. "Oh," I thought. "It's a monster movie. About a mutant person. With extra hands, and maybe extra legs."

Oh, how little did I know...

The trailer didn't work on my computer and now I know this is a blessing. The Human Centipede is a nightmare film the likes of which I hope never to see again. The plot is grotesquely simple: a mad doctor kidnaps three people and stitches them together into a "human centipede," connected by their digestive systems. Mouth to ass. And this is where I died a little inside.

Is this really what the horror film genre has sunk to? What happened to subtlety? What happened to letting our own minds provide the scare? Hitchcock knew how to scare without blood. Stephen King and his movie adapters understood that a a skillfully placed noise could make you shudder better than a medical freak show. When did filmgoers decide they'd rather experience vomit-inducing imagery than eerie cinematography?

How To Train Your Dragon

Dreamworks doesn't have a very good reputation with moviegoers right now, and I only understand part of that. I skipped Monsters Vs. Aliens, with good reason I think, but the first two Shrek movies where a romping good time and Kung Fu Panda was fun seasoned with the right amounts of comedy, sweetness, and old-fashioned ass kicking. So I wasn't as skeptical going in to How To Train Your Dragon as some people may have been, and I feel like my open-mindedness was justly rewarded.

Every part of this movie is good. Dreamworks has definitely stepped up their game in terms of animation, and Dragon is visually their best work by miles. Sweeping skies and pounding waves make up the backdrop of this Viking story, with a few idyllic forest scenes and a waterfall tucked away for emphasis. One of Dreamworks' flaws in the past has been over-filling their scenes, so that you get overwhelmed by the amount of STUFF in the frame (that isn't rendered nearly as well as, oh, Pixar) but here wide spaces are used to dramatic effect. Watching the little black dragon sweep through a backdrop of mounded clouds is breath-taking.

Speaking of that little black dragon, Toothless and his lizardy friends are the absolute show stealers here. Jay Baruchel's Hiccup doesn't compete with them for the attention they command; instead, he seems to spend most of the time presenting them for appreciation. Toothless, his sleek, black adopted friend, is somewhere between a housecat, a leopard, and a really big snake - he's intelligent, and fierce, but inclined to roll in the grass to scratch an itch, or prepare a pounce from a rocky ledge. I was fascinated by the other varieties of dragon that are also in play; a two-headed beast, a long and pointy one that sets itself on fire, a stubby fat one that resembles a junebug. They're unique, and exceptional, and they're not pretty - these dragons are not romanticized, and I appreciated that.

The Vikings are, for the most part, not nearly as interesting, but they fill their story roles well. The voice cast helps enormously with that: Baruchel is funny, self-deprecating, with perfect vocal inflection for the max amount of comedic timing possible. Gerard Butler is gruff and awkward (and doesn't hide his Scottish accent, THANK GOD) and the perfect duo with Craig Ferguson, who plays a blacksmith missing several limbs. The Vikings are funny but never clownish, which went a long way to keeping the tension in necessary places; even though, intellectually, I KNEW everything would turn out ok in the end, the film kept enough gravity that I was at the edge of my seat as it neared its climax.

Even if you don't like fantasy, even if animation isn't your thing, see this one. It's touching, poignant, silly, and will cause you to gasp in excitement. (As a side note, I did not see it in 3D and I didn't feel like I was missing anything.)