The Predators Are All Right
After sucky life issues postponed the seventh annual FeeBQh, this became the only really free weekend Marisa and I will have between now and a couple of weeks after the wedding. We're not booked solid through the rest of July and August, mind, but we have at least one if not several things going on every weekend for a long time from here on out. So we made it a three-movie weekend in light of not knowing when we'll get the next three-movie weekend.
First we saw The Kids Are All Right with Katie and Kate. Some of the critical fawning over this movie may have to do with the paucity of mainstream-but-grown-up-safe entertainment over the past few months, but it's also a sweet, empathetic, well-acted, observant little movie about marriage and family dynamics. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are capable of doing great work, but often find themselves in parts that don't take full advantage of their gifts, but the lesbian couple they play in Kids is as well-written and multi-faceted as you'd hope from all of their roles. Mark Ruffalo is also excellent as the sperm-donor who meets his teenaged biological kids. The kids, Alice from Alice in Wonderland and a kid who apparently almost played Spider-Man, are also good, but they do suffer a tiny bit from the movie's simultaneous fairness and lack of focus; we get a well-rounded sense of these characters, but the movie doesn't always feel completely sure about which ones it's really about. I guess maybe that's intentional, since it's about how they function (and sometimes don't function) as a family, but sometimes I wanted a little more. But it's such a pleasure to see a movie where the dialogue sounds like something human beings you'd actually know might actually say, and no one is completely heroic or completely condemned.
Then we walked across and up town to see Predators with Andrew, Jon, Sara, and Cossar. Jon and Andrew are pretty much willing to see any movie featuring the Predator(s) at any time. It's odd, really, that this series has pockets of deep geek loyalty, verging on irrational -- as we were discussing before and after the movie, the Alien series (forever linked to the Predator series by their Fox ownership and the creatures' co-starring roles in the Alien vs. Predator comics, videogame, and feature film series) is sort of an auteur experiment, with Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet all putting their own stamp on the entries, while Predator tends to employ more journeyman-level directors -- which I think causes Alien vs. Predator movies to be seen, probably correctly, as more like Predator movies with the aliens from Aliens, not really a mixing of the two franchises' sensibilities, stomach-bursting notwithstanding. And yet the Predators do have a kind of appeal, maybe owing to their mysteriousness. They're not all-out animals like the Alien creatures; they're humanoidish, they walk upright, they fly spaceships... but across five movies, we know very little about them. There's a glimpse of their homeworld in the second Alien vs. Predator movie, though it doesn't quite include the shot I was hoping for of a Predator's office, car, children, etc. I imagine this speculation makes them such (semi-) enduring creations; at least, it makes them a lot of fun to talk about before and after the movie. (Example Topic: Predator mating rituals. Would they be violently revolting or revoltingly violent?)
So: if you're the type of person who is interested in watching another movie about Predators, Predators works really, really well. As in, I had a fucking awesome time watching it, and if you've ever bothered to watch Predator 2 or Alien vs. Predator, this is a movie you should also find quite enjoyable. That seems like such a weirdly specific recommendation, but I do understand why many critics I like (Ebert, the AV Club, Scott & Phillips, etc.) have dismissed it: if you're just sort of sick of the Predator series by now, this movie will not turn you around on it. It's not really suspenseful or scary, the Predators do about the same thing in plural that they do in their singular forms, and it offers only a few new tidbits or hints about how their lives work. It does move the action to some kind of Predator-owned game-preserve planet where various human badasses are dropped for some Most Dangerous Game action, but the jungle/forest setting and ensemble of badasses consciously recall the first Predator movie, to which these filmmakers basically consider this a restarting sequel. (Probably a wise move, although: I just rewatched Predator 2 while folding laundry, and it's not so bad. In fact, as far as demonstrably inferior eighties-style sequels go, it's pretty fun. Inessential, but fun. Then again, I don't consider the first Predator some kind of holy text or anything, and in fact find the idea that Danny Glover, who was 44 back in 1990, could even fight a Predator to a draw weirdly aspirational, so maybe I'm not the best nerd to ask).
But I don't mean to imply that the movie isn't well-crafted; it's more than defensible on technical terms, unlike Alien vs. Predator, which I enjoyed primarily because it delivered exactly what it promised (you might be surprised by the degree to which Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem does not deliver what it promises; then again, you might just call Rob and me idiots for taking our then-girlfriends to see it during a Christmas break a few years ago). The director, Nimrod Antal, has quietly made a couple of trim, smart, underseen B-movies, Vacancy and Armored, and Robert Rodriguez was smart to hire him. Predators is Antal's biggest (though still budgeted under $40 million), most ambitious (though still just a sequel to an eighties nostalgia property) and longest (though still under two hours) U.S. movie so far; that is to say, it would be easy to overstate his work on this movie, but it's good! His action sequences make sense, his compositions are sometimes striking, and he takes his material seriously, but not deadly seriously. The guy knows what he's doing with a camera, and it makes B-movie junk so much more fun to watch. Antal or Team Predators or whoever also cast a good B-movie cast: Adrien Brody, Laurence Fisbourne, Topher Grace, Boyd Crowder from Justified, and Danny Trejo, all fun to watch. The whole thing is just fun. If you like Predators.
Just as it helps to watch a Predators movie with Jon and Andrew and all of their enthusiasm, Marisa and I waited until Sara was back in town to see Eclipse. Our crowd, I have to say, wasn't as enjoyably giggly as it was for New Moon, although Taylor Lautner still got his share of laughs, or more than his share considering he's not, you know, actually funny on purpose. Moments of Eclipse are, though; the series has allowed small slivers of self-aware, on-purpose humor this time around, like showing some ankle at the beach. David Slade, director number three, doesn't exactly pull an Alfonso Cuaron, but he does manage to whip up some cooler action sequences and special effects than usual. But the series has also dug in its heels and effectively announced that it's not much interested in improvement beyond a certain point. All of the stuff they could do to make these movies more interesting, more cinematic, or more exciting just aren't going to happen, so the matter of this sequel maybe kinda-sorta being the best one so far is more or less moot, and maybe even self-defeating, because when the movies are this woeful, the novelty winds up counting for a lot, and something the third movie in a series does not so much have is novelty.
Speaking of worn-out, Amanda and Marisa and I caught up with Sex and the City 2 last week, because why not. Though it is a pretty bad movie, by the same token that I'm not sure how much it matters that Eclipse is a bit better than at least one of its predecessors, I'm not so sure that 2 Sex 2 Citier is all that much worse than its predecessor. It's at least a little bit less melodramatic, although Carrie maybe comes off as an even worse person this time around, like when she pouts for a day because the fantasy construct we'll call her hilarious and wise bestelling book gets a make-believe pan from a version of The New Yorker that sounds as if it's written by Perez Hilton. There are a few moments of what feel like honesty, like when Charlotte and Miranda bond over not always loving being a mom, but you could sit through a simulation of even-worse seasons of Sex and the City no one had to deal with until now to get a few moments of emotional honesty, or you could just watch The Kids Are All Right -- and the latter is a lot funnier, too. Then again, so is Predators. And Eclipse.
First we saw The Kids Are All Right with Katie and Kate. Some of the critical fawning over this movie may have to do with the paucity of mainstream-but-grown-up-safe entertainment over the past few months, but it's also a sweet, empathetic, well-acted, observant little movie about marriage and family dynamics. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are capable of doing great work, but often find themselves in parts that don't take full advantage of their gifts, but the lesbian couple they play in Kids is as well-written and multi-faceted as you'd hope from all of their roles. Mark Ruffalo is also excellent as the sperm-donor who meets his teenaged biological kids. The kids, Alice from Alice in Wonderland and a kid who apparently almost played Spider-Man, are also good, but they do suffer a tiny bit from the movie's simultaneous fairness and lack of focus; we get a well-rounded sense of these characters, but the movie doesn't always feel completely sure about which ones it's really about. I guess maybe that's intentional, since it's about how they function (and sometimes don't function) as a family, but sometimes I wanted a little more. But it's such a pleasure to see a movie where the dialogue sounds like something human beings you'd actually know might actually say, and no one is completely heroic or completely condemned.
Then we walked across and up town to see Predators with Andrew, Jon, Sara, and Cossar. Jon and Andrew are pretty much willing to see any movie featuring the Predator(s) at any time. It's odd, really, that this series has pockets of deep geek loyalty, verging on irrational -- as we were discussing before and after the movie, the Alien series (forever linked to the Predator series by their Fox ownership and the creatures' co-starring roles in the Alien vs. Predator comics, videogame, and feature film series) is sort of an auteur experiment, with Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet all putting their own stamp on the entries, while Predator tends to employ more journeyman-level directors -- which I think causes Alien vs. Predator movies to be seen, probably correctly, as more like Predator movies with the aliens from Aliens, not really a mixing of the two franchises' sensibilities, stomach-bursting notwithstanding. And yet the Predators do have a kind of appeal, maybe owing to their mysteriousness. They're not all-out animals like the Alien creatures; they're humanoidish, they walk upright, they fly spaceships... but across five movies, we know very little about them. There's a glimpse of their homeworld in the second Alien vs. Predator movie, though it doesn't quite include the shot I was hoping for of a Predator's office, car, children, etc. I imagine this speculation makes them such (semi-) enduring creations; at least, it makes them a lot of fun to talk about before and after the movie. (Example Topic: Predator mating rituals. Would they be violently revolting or revoltingly violent?)
So: if you're the type of person who is interested in watching another movie about Predators, Predators works really, really well. As in, I had a fucking awesome time watching it, and if you've ever bothered to watch Predator 2 or Alien vs. Predator, this is a movie you should also find quite enjoyable. That seems like such a weirdly specific recommendation, but I do understand why many critics I like (Ebert, the AV Club, Scott & Phillips, etc.) have dismissed it: if you're just sort of sick of the Predator series by now, this movie will not turn you around on it. It's not really suspenseful or scary, the Predators do about the same thing in plural that they do in their singular forms, and it offers only a few new tidbits or hints about how their lives work. It does move the action to some kind of Predator-owned game-preserve planet where various human badasses are dropped for some Most Dangerous Game action, but the jungle/forest setting and ensemble of badasses consciously recall the first Predator movie, to which these filmmakers basically consider this a restarting sequel. (Probably a wise move, although: I just rewatched Predator 2 while folding laundry, and it's not so bad. In fact, as far as demonstrably inferior eighties-style sequels go, it's pretty fun. Inessential, but fun. Then again, I don't consider the first Predator some kind of holy text or anything, and in fact find the idea that Danny Glover, who was 44 back in 1990, could even fight a Predator to a draw weirdly aspirational, so maybe I'm not the best nerd to ask).
But I don't mean to imply that the movie isn't well-crafted; it's more than defensible on technical terms, unlike Alien vs. Predator, which I enjoyed primarily because it delivered exactly what it promised (you might be surprised by the degree to which Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem does not deliver what it promises; then again, you might just call Rob and me idiots for taking our then-girlfriends to see it during a Christmas break a few years ago). The director, Nimrod Antal, has quietly made a couple of trim, smart, underseen B-movies, Vacancy and Armored, and Robert Rodriguez was smart to hire him. Predators is Antal's biggest (though still budgeted under $40 million), most ambitious (though still just a sequel to an eighties nostalgia property) and longest (though still under two hours) U.S. movie so far; that is to say, it would be easy to overstate his work on this movie, but it's good! His action sequences make sense, his compositions are sometimes striking, and he takes his material seriously, but not deadly seriously. The guy knows what he's doing with a camera, and it makes B-movie junk so much more fun to watch. Antal or Team Predators or whoever also cast a good B-movie cast: Adrien Brody, Laurence Fisbourne, Topher Grace, Boyd Crowder from Justified, and Danny Trejo, all fun to watch. The whole thing is just fun. If you like Predators.
Just as it helps to watch a Predators movie with Jon and Andrew and all of their enthusiasm, Marisa and I waited until Sara was back in town to see Eclipse. Our crowd, I have to say, wasn't as enjoyably giggly as it was for New Moon, although Taylor Lautner still got his share of laughs, or more than his share considering he's not, you know, actually funny on purpose. Moments of Eclipse are, though; the series has allowed small slivers of self-aware, on-purpose humor this time around, like showing some ankle at the beach. David Slade, director number three, doesn't exactly pull an Alfonso Cuaron, but he does manage to whip up some cooler action sequences and special effects than usual. But the series has also dug in its heels and effectively announced that it's not much interested in improvement beyond a certain point. All of the stuff they could do to make these movies more interesting, more cinematic, or more exciting just aren't going to happen, so the matter of this sequel maybe kinda-sorta being the best one so far is more or less moot, and maybe even self-defeating, because when the movies are this woeful, the novelty winds up counting for a lot, and something the third movie in a series does not so much have is novelty.
Speaking of worn-out, Amanda and Marisa and I caught up with Sex and the City 2 last week, because why not. Though it is a pretty bad movie, by the same token that I'm not sure how much it matters that Eclipse is a bit better than at least one of its predecessors, I'm not so sure that 2 Sex 2 Citier is all that much worse than its predecessor. It's at least a little bit less melodramatic, although Carrie maybe comes off as an even worse person this time around, like when she pouts for a day because the fantasy construct we'll call her hilarious and wise bestelling book gets a make-believe pan from a version of The New Yorker that sounds as if it's written by Perez Hilton. There are a few moments of what feel like honesty, like when Charlotte and Miranda bond over not always loving being a mom, but you could sit through a simulation of even-worse seasons of Sex and the City no one had to deal with until now to get a few moments of emotional honesty, or you could just watch The Kids Are All Right -- and the latter is a lot funnier, too. Then again, so is Predators. And Eclipse.