Rand Is Tearing Us Apart
I've never read Ayn Rand. Like a ska phase, it's just something I never went though.
That's partly why I was intrigued by the notion of watching Atlas Shrugged, Part I on Easter. (Why we watch bad movies on Easter to begin with is another story.) Now that the ordeal is over, some thoughts:
*It sparked a discussion on the way home about how when a certain subgroups (like arch conservatives) feel underrepresented in media and want to kind of strike back at that, they often create something that's nothing but ideology. That's definitely the case with Atlas Shrugged. There's no surface entertainment value there, unless you really get a kick out of seeing people sitting around dinner tables and having business meetings.
*No, really: Even the climax of the movie-where you have a train speeding across Colorado at speeds never achieved by train before-has to be explained through expositional dialogue. There are shots of a train moving across a landscape, but also shots of landscape with no train.
*Really, really: The best part of the movie was when it showed machines replacing railroad tracks. Big machines doing things! Finally, some action.
*The movie gives the distinct impression that there's only one computer available for the executives of Taggart Transcontinental to share, and whoever is in charge of the computer has control of the company and can make whatever decisions he or she wants until it's time to pass the computer off to the next executive.
*I read the Wikipedia entries for the book and all of the movies afterward to see if I could suss out which problems came from the source material and which ones were specific to the movie. Apparently, in the book, the question "Who is John Galt?" is what you say in a tossed-off way when there's really no reason to answer a question. It's the equivalent of saying something like "Why is the sky blue?" It is not delivered that way in the movie. Instead, each character pauses dramatically, looks at another intently, and ask it as if knowing the answer would solve the world's problems.
*Similarly, I guess the book takes place in an alternate history in an unspecified time that borrows from the Depression Era 1930s and pre-Cold War 1950s. The movie? It takes place in 2016 on the dot. It had to work itself into knots trying to explain why some of our already-invented technologies aren't being used. (Gas is too expensive for planes…except sometimes.) Alternate not-specified year seems a lot easier to digest.
*Given the above, I wonder if you can make an entertaining movie out of the first third of Atlas Shrugged. I'd make it look more like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. (Instead, it looks like the scenes of every sci-fi TV show where they show you the insides of the Evil Corporation Behind It All.) I still don't know how someone could make all those business discussions dramatic, though. More walk-and-talks?
*Perfect ending: Watching the "Monorail" episode of The Simpsons afterward. There are a lot of surprising parallels, only this time the metal's no good. The songs are much better, though.
Thankfully, Atlas Shrugged isn’t the only movie I saw last month. Here are the other movies I saw in March.
Jack the Giant Slayer: B-
This movie was given a lot of grief for being "neither here nor there"-something I would say better applies to Admission, but we'll get to that-for being too violent to be for kids and too kiddie to be for adults. That's an odd criticism, since you should be able to aim straight down the middle like that and still make a movie that can appeal to everyone. (See: all of the amazing PG-13 movies in the world.) And making something more "adult" doesn't necessarily make it better, as Hansel and Gretel so painfully demonstrated earlier this year. Instead, Jack the Giant Slayer suffered from a lack of imagination. Case in point: Jack's wardrobe. Jack is played by Nicholas Hoult, and he's basically wearing the same thing he wore in Warm Bodies-hoodie, canvas pants-despite being in a fairy-tale kingdom from long, long ago. The giants and the beanstalk were pretty cool, but it didn't have the wonderful zip or wit of something like Stardust, which itself pales in comparison to The Princess Bride. Still, I'm a good audience for fairy-tale interpretations (remember how I just admitted to seeing Hansel and Gretel?), and I had a good time seeing another take on the Jack tale. And Ewan is always a good time.
The We and the I: A-
When I picture Michel Gondry, I picture the part in the Grinch when they show how his heart had grown three sizes. All of Gondry's movies have that much heart, even if they're about bullies riding a fictional Bronx bus driving kids home on the last day of school. It's about teenagers, and he really gets that adolescent energy, but it's also serious, sad, and silly. (In the case of Elijah, it's all of those at once.) This and Cosmopolis are my two favorite all-in-one-conveyance, heightened-reality movies as of late. (Sorry, Holy Motors.)
Oz the Great and Powerful: B
Unlike Nathaniel and Jesse (well, Jesse's mom), I haven't read a bazillion Oz books. I've only read the first, so I guess it was novel to see more stories set in the Oz world. I wish they'd gone a little further into that world and some of the non-1939 Wizard of Oz characters (like the China Girl, who was great), and it's a little troubling that pretty much all of the women in it were witches (and the witches be crazy-though the first book is partially about deposing women rulers and putting men in their place, so I guess that's consistent). But it certainly looked good, and had lots of Sam Raimi touches (Sam Raimi-est tornado ever!), and has that cool turn-of-the-century vibe. (I mean, look at the opening credit sequence.)
This was the first of two major James Franco performances this month. Honestly, I think he's more natural and more fully embodies Alien, his Florida-white-trash character in Spring Breakers, than he was as Oz. I try not to pay too much attention to early casting reports, but this was originally going to be Robert Downey, Jr.-and it was full of Downey's kind of sleazy, fast-talking charm, straight out of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. (Jesse says that Oz is basically Ash, and I wouldn't disagree.) Franco wasn't bad, but it felt to me like he was doing a Robert Downey, Jr./Bruce Campbell impression.
Spring Breakers: B
To be honest about how I felt about Spring Breakers, I have to separate myself from how much of a tool Harmony Korine seems like in real life (which I got to see first-hand at a Q&A session at the Museum of the Moving Image). On one level, which comes to the forefront after you hear him talk, it is a movie with a lot of young girls shakin' it in bikinis without much going on underneath. (People just up and leave the story multiple times for no reason.) But watching it, if you can forget about him for a second, it is lyrical and poetic-sort of a white trash Terrence Malick-and it's unlike any other movie that's out there. Plus, there's definitely a gonzo James Franco performance in there. (And the part where you see them rob a place from the point of view of the car that's waiting outside is pretty amazing.) In the end, though, it still comes across as Disney Girls Gone Wild-though that doesn't mean I didn't get a kick out of those guys who kept affecting a Franco voice and saying "look at my sheeeeit" during trivia.
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone: B
There haven't been any comedies in a while, and Burt Wonderstone is good for a laugh. I like movies that take place inside subcultures, and the magic subculture is definitely a good place to mine for jokes. This is especially true for the Criss Angel-style character since, as they point out often, it's hard to tell why what he does is classified as "magic." It's definitely a good idea to have a rivalry between that kind of "magician" and the Sigfried and Roy-style magicians. With the cast it lined up, it could've been even funnier, and the love story was pretty wan and unnecessary, but I can see myself watching this again if I came across it on cable.
The Croods: B-
Jesse and Nathaniel really liked this one, but to me "one of the best DreamWorks movies" still isn't enough to cross the line into greatness. (And I'd probably still prefer Kung Fu Panda.) Some of it was incredibly inventive. There were good action scenes, and I liked how it took place in an alternate prehistory, with animals and people and seismic events that certainly didn't happen in real life. The rest of it, though, I thought was a little typical: a rebellious daughter and an overprotective father. Meh. Also, I thought they were ugly, and not in a cute way.
The Call: D-
This is one of the few thrillers where the setup is the most enjoyable. A little bit after the major events of the movie get rolling, it starts going downhill. Then it falls off a cliff.
Admission: D
Admission is the epitome of "neither here nor there." It's kind of a drama, although it's not very dramatic, and kind of a comedy, but not very funny. It's about people who are kind of likable and kind of unlikable, but not in an interesting way, making some very annoying decisions. After a while, I found myself thinking that the movie wasn't engrossing, didn't make me laugh, or didn't put forth any interesting problems/solutions-so why was I there? If this is what's next in Tina Fey's career, it bodes ill. I don't know why she'd want to do this movie if she could write something a million times better for herself. Fingers crossed that's what happens next.
Gimme the Loot: B+
Between this and The We and the I, the best movies I've seen so far this year have been about young people in the Bronx. If they're this good, I say keep 'em coming. I really appreciate the way Adam Leon says he wanted to tell a story about people in the Bronx that was more upbeat than the usual Bronx tales. (I feel the same way about the suburbs-I'd like to see someone tell a suburban story that's not about adultery and/or artistic deadness.) The plot meanders, but it's so enjoyable spending time with the characters that it doesn't matter.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation: B-
Most of this movie is standard issue to the point that it all blurs together in some kind of sandy-colored nothingness. The Rock is likeable as always, but Bruce Willis barely makes an impression. It says right in the title that the Joes have to retaliate for something, right? You can pretty much imagine how that all goes. HOWEVER, there is one amazing subplot that only becomes better by the fact that it's clearly wedged into the movie. Before it's introduced, we've spent most of our time in very military-looking settings (like the desert). Then it cuts to some beautiful-looking and colorful dojo, and-hey!-RZA shows up to give a fantastically rushed info-dump at lightning speed, and then these ninjas take off and start fighting on ziplines off the side of a mountain. I don't know if it's worth watching the movie just for that, but it certainly wakes you up if you somehow find yourself in the middle of G.I. Joe: Retaliation. For the next one, they should skip the army stuff entirely and just do a ninja movie.
The Place Beyond the Pines: A-
Even if I can't appreciate the upstateyness of the movie the way Jesse can, I still really enjoyed it. I loved how it was three movies in one, shifting from the Ryan Gosling story to the Bradley Cooper story to the story about their kids one after the other instead of all the same time, changing up the loyalties as it goes along. (The kids' storyline is the weakest because one of them is almost unredeemably awful while everyone else was a mixed bag.) I wasn't a fan of Blue Valentine, but this one did a better job of mixing in non-depressing elements (Ben Mendelsohn!) with the heavy stuff. I was into it and was happy that it was really long-I could've watched it for longer.
That's partly why I was intrigued by the notion of watching Atlas Shrugged, Part I on Easter. (Why we watch bad movies on Easter to begin with is another story.) Now that the ordeal is over, some thoughts:
*It sparked a discussion on the way home about how when a certain subgroups (like arch conservatives) feel underrepresented in media and want to kind of strike back at that, they often create something that's nothing but ideology. That's definitely the case with Atlas Shrugged. There's no surface entertainment value there, unless you really get a kick out of seeing people sitting around dinner tables and having business meetings.
*No, really: Even the climax of the movie-where you have a train speeding across Colorado at speeds never achieved by train before-has to be explained through expositional dialogue. There are shots of a train moving across a landscape, but also shots of landscape with no train.
*Really, really: The best part of the movie was when it showed machines replacing railroad tracks. Big machines doing things! Finally, some action.
*The movie gives the distinct impression that there's only one computer available for the executives of Taggart Transcontinental to share, and whoever is in charge of the computer has control of the company and can make whatever decisions he or she wants until it's time to pass the computer off to the next executive.
*I read the Wikipedia entries for the book and all of the movies afterward to see if I could suss out which problems came from the source material and which ones were specific to the movie. Apparently, in the book, the question "Who is John Galt?" is what you say in a tossed-off way when there's really no reason to answer a question. It's the equivalent of saying something like "Why is the sky blue?" It is not delivered that way in the movie. Instead, each character pauses dramatically, looks at another intently, and ask it as if knowing the answer would solve the world's problems.
*Similarly, I guess the book takes place in an alternate history in an unspecified time that borrows from the Depression Era 1930s and pre-Cold War 1950s. The movie? It takes place in 2016 on the dot. It had to work itself into knots trying to explain why some of our already-invented technologies aren't being used. (Gas is too expensive for planes…except sometimes.) Alternate not-specified year seems a lot easier to digest.
*Given the above, I wonder if you can make an entertaining movie out of the first third of Atlas Shrugged. I'd make it look more like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. (Instead, it looks like the scenes of every sci-fi TV show where they show you the insides of the Evil Corporation Behind It All.) I still don't know how someone could make all those business discussions dramatic, though. More walk-and-talks?
*Perfect ending: Watching the "Monorail" episode of The Simpsons afterward. There are a lot of surprising parallels, only this time the metal's no good. The songs are much better, though.
Thankfully, Atlas Shrugged isn’t the only movie I saw last month. Here are the other movies I saw in March.
Jack the Giant Slayer: B-
This movie was given a lot of grief for being "neither here nor there"-something I would say better applies to Admission, but we'll get to that-for being too violent to be for kids and too kiddie to be for adults. That's an odd criticism, since you should be able to aim straight down the middle like that and still make a movie that can appeal to everyone. (See: all of the amazing PG-13 movies in the world.) And making something more "adult" doesn't necessarily make it better, as Hansel and Gretel so painfully demonstrated earlier this year. Instead, Jack the Giant Slayer suffered from a lack of imagination. Case in point: Jack's wardrobe. Jack is played by Nicholas Hoult, and he's basically wearing the same thing he wore in Warm Bodies-hoodie, canvas pants-despite being in a fairy-tale kingdom from long, long ago. The giants and the beanstalk were pretty cool, but it didn't have the wonderful zip or wit of something like Stardust, which itself pales in comparison to The Princess Bride. Still, I'm a good audience for fairy-tale interpretations (remember how I just admitted to seeing Hansel and Gretel?), and I had a good time seeing another take on the Jack tale. And Ewan is always a good time.
The We and the I: A-
When I picture Michel Gondry, I picture the part in the Grinch when they show how his heart had grown three sizes. All of Gondry's movies have that much heart, even if they're about bullies riding a fictional Bronx bus driving kids home on the last day of school. It's about teenagers, and he really gets that adolescent energy, but it's also serious, sad, and silly. (In the case of Elijah, it's all of those at once.) This and Cosmopolis are my two favorite all-in-one-conveyance, heightened-reality movies as of late. (Sorry, Holy Motors.)
Oz the Great and Powerful: B
Unlike Nathaniel and Jesse (well, Jesse's mom), I haven't read a bazillion Oz books. I've only read the first, so I guess it was novel to see more stories set in the Oz world. I wish they'd gone a little further into that world and some of the non-1939 Wizard of Oz characters (like the China Girl, who was great), and it's a little troubling that pretty much all of the women in it were witches (and the witches be crazy-though the first book is partially about deposing women rulers and putting men in their place, so I guess that's consistent). But it certainly looked good, and had lots of Sam Raimi touches (Sam Raimi-est tornado ever!), and has that cool turn-of-the-century vibe. (I mean, look at the opening credit sequence.)
This was the first of two major James Franco performances this month. Honestly, I think he's more natural and more fully embodies Alien, his Florida-white-trash character in Spring Breakers, than he was as Oz. I try not to pay too much attention to early casting reports, but this was originally going to be Robert Downey, Jr.-and it was full of Downey's kind of sleazy, fast-talking charm, straight out of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. (Jesse says that Oz is basically Ash, and I wouldn't disagree.) Franco wasn't bad, but it felt to me like he was doing a Robert Downey, Jr./Bruce Campbell impression.
Spring Breakers: B
To be honest about how I felt about Spring Breakers, I have to separate myself from how much of a tool Harmony Korine seems like in real life (which I got to see first-hand at a Q&A session at the Museum of the Moving Image). On one level, which comes to the forefront after you hear him talk, it is a movie with a lot of young girls shakin' it in bikinis without much going on underneath. (People just up and leave the story multiple times for no reason.) But watching it, if you can forget about him for a second, it is lyrical and poetic-sort of a white trash Terrence Malick-and it's unlike any other movie that's out there. Plus, there's definitely a gonzo James Franco performance in there. (And the part where you see them rob a place from the point of view of the car that's waiting outside is pretty amazing.) In the end, though, it still comes across as Disney Girls Gone Wild-though that doesn't mean I didn't get a kick out of those guys who kept affecting a Franco voice and saying "look at my sheeeeit" during trivia.
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone: B
There haven't been any comedies in a while, and Burt Wonderstone is good for a laugh. I like movies that take place inside subcultures, and the magic subculture is definitely a good place to mine for jokes. This is especially true for the Criss Angel-style character since, as they point out often, it's hard to tell why what he does is classified as "magic." It's definitely a good idea to have a rivalry between that kind of "magician" and the Sigfried and Roy-style magicians. With the cast it lined up, it could've been even funnier, and the love story was pretty wan and unnecessary, but I can see myself watching this again if I came across it on cable.
The Croods: B-
Jesse and Nathaniel really liked this one, but to me "one of the best DreamWorks movies" still isn't enough to cross the line into greatness. (And I'd probably still prefer Kung Fu Panda.) Some of it was incredibly inventive. There were good action scenes, and I liked how it took place in an alternate prehistory, with animals and people and seismic events that certainly didn't happen in real life. The rest of it, though, I thought was a little typical: a rebellious daughter and an overprotective father. Meh. Also, I thought they were ugly, and not in a cute way.
The Call: D-
This is one of the few thrillers where the setup is the most enjoyable. A little bit after the major events of the movie get rolling, it starts going downhill. Then it falls off a cliff.
Admission: D
Admission is the epitome of "neither here nor there." It's kind of a drama, although it's not very dramatic, and kind of a comedy, but not very funny. It's about people who are kind of likable and kind of unlikable, but not in an interesting way, making some very annoying decisions. After a while, I found myself thinking that the movie wasn't engrossing, didn't make me laugh, or didn't put forth any interesting problems/solutions-so why was I there? If this is what's next in Tina Fey's career, it bodes ill. I don't know why she'd want to do this movie if she could write something a million times better for herself. Fingers crossed that's what happens next.
Gimme the Loot: B+
Between this and The We and the I, the best movies I've seen so far this year have been about young people in the Bronx. If they're this good, I say keep 'em coming. I really appreciate the way Adam Leon says he wanted to tell a story about people in the Bronx that was more upbeat than the usual Bronx tales. (I feel the same way about the suburbs-I'd like to see someone tell a suburban story that's not about adultery and/or artistic deadness.) The plot meanders, but it's so enjoyable spending time with the characters that it doesn't matter.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation: B-
Most of this movie is standard issue to the point that it all blurs together in some kind of sandy-colored nothingness. The Rock is likeable as always, but Bruce Willis barely makes an impression. It says right in the title that the Joes have to retaliate for something, right? You can pretty much imagine how that all goes. HOWEVER, there is one amazing subplot that only becomes better by the fact that it's clearly wedged into the movie. Before it's introduced, we've spent most of our time in very military-looking settings (like the desert). Then it cuts to some beautiful-looking and colorful dojo, and-hey!-RZA shows up to give a fantastically rushed info-dump at lightning speed, and then these ninjas take off and start fighting on ziplines off the side of a mountain. I don't know if it's worth watching the movie just for that, but it certainly wakes you up if you somehow find yourself in the middle of G.I. Joe: Retaliation. For the next one, they should skip the army stuff entirely and just do a ninja movie.
The Place Beyond the Pines: A-
Even if I can't appreciate the upstateyness of the movie the way Jesse can, I still really enjoyed it. I loved how it was three movies in one, shifting from the Ryan Gosling story to the Bradley Cooper story to the story about their kids one after the other instead of all the same time, changing up the loyalties as it goes along. (The kids' storyline is the weakest because one of them is almost unredeemably awful while everyone else was a mixed bag.) I wasn't a fan of Blue Valentine, but this one did a better job of mixing in non-depressing elements (Ben Mendelsohn!) with the heavy stuff. I was into it and was happy that it was really long-I could've watched it for longer.