Ho Ho Home For the Holidays

You don't appreciate your family until you seperate from them.

It's all relative (no pun intended) of course, but my major goal for this year was to prove to myself that I can operate more-or-less independently and be reasonably successful. Unlike some of my friends who have jetted off on post-college European trips on their parents' dime, or moved back in with their folks, I'm doing everything I can do be on my own. Obviously, I still need my parents for a few things, but I've mostly been doing a pretty good job.

That having been said, when I returned home for Christmas, I really appreciated what I have here in Santa Barbara. While in college, returning home was sort of a given, but now that I'm on my own, it's more of a blessing. Man, I really REALLY hope I can live here permanently some day.

Anyway, Christmas was great, and overall went off without a hitch. I've really been enjoying my time off with nothing to do but relax and take it easy. And it might be the last time in a while that I get to do this, so I'm savoring it.

On to the reviews. And there are a lot of 'em.

1) I think "Kung Fu Panda" is the best thing I've seen from DreamWorks Animation, and one of the biggest surprises of the year. I thought the much-lauded "Shrek" movies were good, but overrated. And they aren't going to age well with time (some of their jokes are already rather dated).
However "Kung Fu Panda" has far sharper storytelling than anything else to come out of the Disney knock-off studio. And even more fantastic are the way the action scenes are handled with such slickness and style. At times the movie feels less like it's aimed for kids and more like it's meant for the Bruce Lee crowd. The use of color to set certain moods throughout the film is also really cool. I usually like my talking animal movies to be rather realistic (in "Finding Nemo" for example, there are times where it feels like you are looking at actual fish), but here I thoroughly enjoyed the exaggerated choices that were made; a lot of it reminded me of the old animated Disney "Robin Hood," with its world of anthropomorphized animals. I'm not entirely sure what rhinoceroses (rhinoceri?) and a Galapagos Tortoise were doing in China, but that's OK.
The main voice actors are also perfectly cast. As I've said before, I really think that Jack Black works well with animated movies because he is practically a living cartoon character anyway, and he is great as the titular Po the Panda. Dustin Hoffman also lends some nice gravitas as Po's unwilling kung fu master, Shi Fu (I think he's supposedy to be one of those raccoon-like red pandas). In fact, I think the crux of the story actually surrounds his character, as Shi Fu is the one who undergoes the most change throughout the film. The aching pain in Hoffman's voice during a few key scenes allow the movie to rise above the so-so kiddie fare we see being cranked out by the studios so often these days.
While the two leads are perfect, some of the supporting cast is misplaced or not needed. Casting the "furious five" as big-name actors is unnecessary (although I like the fact that each of the animals embodies one of the main kung fu styles). Lucy Liu doesn't really need to voice Viper, nor does Seth Rogen need to voice mantis, and David Cross is only so-so as Master Crane (and he actually looked more like a stork to me, anyway). My real beef was having Angelina Jolie voice Tigress, because I am finding myself getting more and more sick of her in the tabloids, and she CLEARLY doesn't need the money needed from some animated voice work, nor is her voice particularly exceptional or different from any other actress out there. Let somebody else do the role next time! The interesting choice is Jackie Chan as Master Monkey. He barely has any lines in the movie, as it is well-known that Jackie Chan can barely speak English anyway. Yet it's kinda cool that they honor the martial arts star by giving him a bit part in this film, so I'm on the fence on that choice.
Overall however, this is a great work of animation. It's too bad for the Dreamworks people that Pixar's "Wall-E" also came out this year, because that robot love story will no doubt take the Oscar (and deservedly so). Yet, while 2008 has been a disappointing year in movies overall, it has been a shining year for animation, between "Wall-E," "Bolt," and "Kung Fu Panda." And I still have yet to see Blue Sky's "Horton Hears a Who." Next year Disney is giving us "The Princess and the Frog," a return to classic 2-D animation. As a whole I love what animation is able to do, possibly more than live-action film, so I'm very excited that we're seeing a lot of good, visually dazzling, and somewhat daring work these days. I've got my fingers crossed on animation's future.

2) "Taken" This is a movie that has yet to come out in the United States, but I managed to get my hands on it early, and I thought it ROCKED. It's directed by the same French director who did "District B13" (which I have not seen, for the record). There's something to be said for a movie that keeps things down to the bare minumum. The first half hour shows Liam Neeson as a very loving father. He just LOVES his daughter (Maggie Grace). He loves her loves her LOVES HER, to the point that it almost gets a little creepy. We also get hints that he used to work in the CIA, or something like that.
Then his daughter goes to Europe and is kidnapped (or "Taken!"). For the next hour, Liam Neeson goes on a quest to get her back, no matter the cost. And I MEAN no matter the cost. Liam Neeson becomes a fucking locomotive, driving through everyone and anything to get at his daughter. Anything that is not involved in rescuing her is completely irrelevant.
It's really nice to see Liam Neeson finally get a role like this. He's played wise father-figure mentors many times before, but I've always felt there was something angrier and more badass lurking beneath the surface (we got a glimpse of it during his bad guy bait-and-switch in "Batman Begins" as Ras al Ghul). It's just awesome that here he gets to do nothing but kick ass and rock faces. My only minor complaint with the film was that it indirectly deals with the rather serious issue of human traffiking, but never really confronts it. Then again, that might have just slowed the movie down from Neeson's non-stop quest; this movie is proof that there's something to be said for simplicity and execution.

3) "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" Joss Wheddon (who I'm generally not a fan of) made this web series during the writer's strike as a way to stay creative and still not break any of the rules. I've always thought Wheddon is a tad overrated, despite what his die hard fanboys (and a hell of a lot of fanGIRLS) may say. And the fact that I've had many people tell me that they think my sensibilities and short films remind them of Wheddon's work only raises my hackles more. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" just isn't my cup of tea, and while I enjoyed "Serenity" on my first viewing, as I thought about it later I sort of realized how blatantly derivative it was of other, better, sci-fi franchises.
However I gotta say, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" was a lot of fun. Dr. Horrible, played by the always entertaining Neil Patrick Harris, is a wannabe mad scientist, competing for the affections of the girl he meets at the laundromat against his arch-nemesis, Captain Hammer, played with the perfect amount of swagger and idiocy by Nathon Fillion. Many of the best moments of the "web series" (you can't really call it a movie, exactly) belong to Fillion ("The hammer is my penis"), and the series also features a number of really catchy and well-written songs ("Penny's Song" in particular is one worth downloading and listening to on your iPod). It's also neat how Wheddon has incorporated the phenomenon of the Internet into the movie itself, as Dr. Horrible video-blogs to his viewers in a way reminiscent of all those youtubers out there. "Sex Drive" did something similiar with its creative use of IMs at the beginning of that film. It's cool to see moviemaking evolve with social technology.
"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" is in no way earth-shattering, but it's a creative way to showcase the adaptability of filmic storytelling into the new mellenium. And the fact that the web series is extremely low-budget is also encouraging. There's nothing in the film myself and my buddies couldn't do, were we just given the time. All that you really need to make a movie is a fun idea, a solid script, and enough energy to believe you can get it done. With "Dr. Horrible," Wheddon proves that the Internet is going to open doors, not close them.

4) "National Treasure 2" Ugh. I never saw the first "National Treasure," but I got roped into seeing the second one. My expectations were not very high, but even so, this was an overblown piece of garbage.
It starts out well enough. Having just visited Washington D.C. this summer, my interest in our nation's history is stronger than it ever was years ago when I actually took classes on American History (it's practically a decade too late, but hey, that's just the way it is). So it's kind of fun to see Nicholas Cage track down clues based around our American heritage, especially since I've been to a lot of the places he visits now.
However, I'm all for taking some poetic license for the sake of a fun adventure movie, but at a certain point the movie hits the tipping point. Suddenly, where we once were finding neat hidden clues in old desks and having a bit of fun with John Wilkes Boothe's "missing diary," we're suddenly kidnapping presidents, dealing with conspiracy theories, and finding lost golden cities underneath Mt. Rushmore. WHAT??? This is supposed to be somewhat embellished American History, not Indiana Jones! And will somebody please tell Nicholas Cage he is not an action star? It may have worked in "The Rock" because he was supposed to be somewhat buffoonish in that film, but that was over ten years ago! I know Nicholas Cage can be good in the right projects, but he never was an action hero, and that becomes more and more apparent the older he gets. And what the hell was Helen Mirren doing in this movie? This is her follow-up to her Oscar win? Was she re-modelng her kitchen, and did she need another paycheck? And boy, was Ed Harris completely useless. I hate that movies like this get cranked out periodocially, and that the general public continues to go see them. Blaah.

5) "Man on Wire" This was an interesting documentary about a tightrope walker who, during the 70s, walked across a tightrope strung between the Twin Towers.
Sure, the feat he accomplished is pretty amazing, and he didn't hurt anybody. But I couldn't help but think while watching this, "Holy shit, that is really dangerous and illegal." The most interesting parts of the movie are not how they snuck into the World Trade Center in order to pull it off. I'm curious, though, if the guy had just happened to fall to his death (even though he took precautions to train himself as much as possible), whether he would still be portrayed as a hero in the eyes of this documentary. It's hard to say.

6) "This Christmas" Several years ago, a movie called "Barbershop" made a big splash because it was considered such a hit movie for the black community to rally behind. I HATED this movie, and frankly, thought the black community should be outraged that this was what people expected them to take pride in. Yet somehow critics liked "Barbershop," and the movie did well enough to even warrant a sequel.
I liked "This Christmas" a lot more (despite the pointlessly bland title). It's about an all-black family coming together for Christmastime. I thought all the characters were much better defined, I thought it was well-acted, and all the family struggles seemed much more natural to me. "Barbershop" felt almost like a whole bunch of idiotic stereotypes (I have NO CLUE what Cedric the Entertainer said throughout that entire film), but "This Christmas" seemed like a bunch of actual real people who all just happened to be black.
The first half hour is a bit discombobulating, as you are introduced to a LOT of characters very quickly, without knowing what their relationships are to each other, but after one orients onself, the movie starts to open up and take off. It's also cool to see a cast without any big names that I could tell, yet almost all of whom are fine actors. I liked it.

7) "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" Some critics are calling this David Fincher's best, but I thoroughly disagree. It's a good movie, but it's got some big flaws that drag it down.
For one thing, Fincher's movies are always ver long. I actually tend to enjoy really long movies. I won't say that "Benjamin Button" dragged exactly, but it certainly could have used the omission of a few things to keep the running time down. The fairy-tale-esque "tell-me-a-story" presentation, as a girl talks to her mother in a hospital as she dies did not exactly work, as it always took away from the far more interesting story of Benjamin's life itself. Even so, I did like the use of Hurricane Katrina as a symbol of approaching death. Since every audience member knows EXACTLY what sort of damage Katrina is about to bring to the young woman and dying mother, though they are oblivious to it, its coming dread offers a nice symbol of the futility of escaping death. However other symbols, such as the backwards-turning clock and the hummingbird, were useless, ham-handed, and not needed. And as for the guy who got struck by lightning over-and-over again...it was funny, but it was just a gimmick.
Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett of course give great performances, and are perfect for their roles. I've always felt that Cate Blanchett really belonged in a different era of filmmaking. She seems like a relic from the golden age of Hollywood; someone who ought to be sharing the screen with the likes of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn (come to think of it, Blanchett actually PLAYED Katherine Hepburn in "The Aviator," right?). Brad Pitt also rises to the occasion to play the ideal backwards-aging man. There's a moment, when Benjamin and Daisy (Blanchett) meet "in the middle" and are the same age, that Daisy murmurs, "You're perfect." Everyone in the audience chuckled, and I could hear every female audience member swoon. I like Brad Pitt, but I am so jealous of the guy. It's impossible to compete. He IS perfect.
Yet it is Fincher's attention to detail that makes the movie really shine. As is the case with all his films, every shot looks like a beautiful painting. His cinematographers are likely to get the Oscar. And the real stars of the movie are his makeup and special effects team. As a budding hopeful filmmaker, I scrutinized every shot to try and figure out "how they did that." Yet in some sequences I had to give up. I have no idea how they made old man-baby Brad Pitt in the early scenes, or how the makeup crew managed to make him look exactly like we remembered him from the late 80s/early 90s when he first entered our consciousness. And the same goes for Blanchett. How did they make her so convincingly look like she is in her teens? When did they use complicated makeup only? Did they use computers? Was it motion-capture? How did they pull this off?
Technically yes, "Benjamin Button" is quite the feat. However it's very hard to make a grand-style romance in these cynical times, and I don't think Fincher succeeded. I'm honestly not sure this type of film CAN be pulled off anymore. Fincher's best has still got to be "Fight Club," followed by the sadly underappreciated "Zodiac." Then I'd place "Se7en," and finally this one. I haven't seen "Panic Room," and it's very hard for me to forgive the atrocity "Alien3" that dragged down one of my favorite franchises, even if he was only a newbie at that time.
One thing I thought was also interesting about "Benjamin Button" was the composition of the audience. It's no secret I see a fair amount of movies (seeing as that has become of the point of this blog and everything), and I like to see movies in theaters when I can. Usually, for almost any movie I see, the audience tends to be a lot of people in their teens, twenties, and thirties. Once you hit the forty to fifty age range, things start to level out. However in "Benjamin Button" the audience was mostly made up of elderly people. People in their sixties, seventies, even eighties! I think it's cool that a large production such as this can attract such an unlikely demographic into theaters. I like to think all these old people got a lot more out of the movie than a "young whippersnapper" such as myself did. I never respected the elderly enough when I was younger. I wish I had.
Yes, "Benjamin Button" has issues. But it succeeds in its overall goal to contemplate the passage of life. I recommend checking it out.

Blog ya next year, bitches!