The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - 2012

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" - 2012
Dir. by Peter Jackson - 2 hrs. 49 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Ordinarily, movies of this ilk aren't really my cup of tea.  I didn't see any of the "Lord of the Rings" films, none of the Harry Potters, and I particularly dislike films instinctively when the approach a three hour run time.  But for some reason, I decided to sit down and read J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" this year, and was blown away by the book.  Like, it was one of those books that you find yourself staying up two hours past when you should have went to sleep in order to finish reading the book.  The next morning suuuuuucked, but it was worth it.  I managed to put off seeing the first of the three films based on that book until now, figuring I could then piggyback into seeing the second installment while it was still in theatres (so look for a review of that sometime this week).

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is a hobbit (which is to say short, with huge hairy feet, a timid sort that lives in a hole in the ground), and an elderly one at the point when we meet him.  He figures it's time to tell his tale, that he wasn't always a respectable, timid sort, so it's autobio time.  Gandalf (Ian McKellan) shows up on Bilbo's doorstep, offering an invitation to adventure, which sounds terrible.  Nonetheless, thirteen dwarves show up, eat up all of Bilbo's food, and is (very) reluctantly sold on a very risky proposition; this band intends to go reclaim the dwarves' ancestral land, which was taken from them, and this also involves confronting and killing a giant dragon named Smaug.  So they journey.

Most importantly to me, "The Hobbit" doesn't feel like a movie of it's length.  It might seem excessive to make roughly nine hours of film out of one (fairly slim) novel, but the material doesn't lag, and neither does the movie.  The scenery is spectacular and fantastic and varied, exactly the kind of setting that you can just kick back and let your mind wander around in.  Once you get past the idea that you're watching a movie about D&D stuff, the story itself is very solid.  It varies from the personal story of Bilbo, who spends the movie trying to prove himself to everyone, including himself, to amazing action scenes (like the underground segments, or the fiery battle with the Orcs), and along the way sets some things in motion that will have to resolve themselves in the next two installments (I mean, I read the book, I know what's going to happen).

I'm probably late to the party on this one, but probably the most striking scene in the movie is the riddle-off between Bilbo and Gollum.  That's largely due to the spectacular animation of Gollum; it rivals the top Looney Tunes work in terms of facial expressions and elasticity of Gollum's features.  The character work is so distinct and specific, and a delight to watch.  There are a great number of fantastic scenes, but this is my favorite.

There's not a big point in getting much more specific about the first "The Hobbit" movie.  After the Lord of the Rings' success, this was as close to a sure thing as a huge budget movie could be.  It totally delivers, on top of that.  This movie did it's job; it was entertaining on it's own, and made me want to see the next one immediately.  I kind of wish I'd waited another year, so that I could have taken in all three in a row,  but I guess I can wait a year to finish off the trilogy.  If nothing else, I can always read the book again before then.

4 / 5 - TV (HD - Theatrical Version)

Observe and Report - 2009

"Observe and Report" - 2009
Dir. by Jody Hill - 1 hr. 26 min.

Red Band Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

In the summer of 2009, there were two movies about mall cops.  Maybe the idea had just reached the boiling point, maybe it was mere coincidence.  But the two movies couldn't have been more different.  "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" was another instance of Kevin James underachieving (and I like him, and think he's funny.  I just wish he'd do a movie that wasn't a waste of his comedic talents).  "Observe and Report" was just plain messed up.  F'd up, even.  I'm trying so hard not to drop an f-bomb here, but it would be entirely appropriate.  "Observe and Report" is not some cuddly, sight-gag laden Adam Sandler production.  As one of the characters states, mid hard-drug bender, "I ain't going to lie to you, Ronnie, there is nothing good about this at all."

The Ronnie in question is Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen), head of mall security.  He's the sort of guy who pushes to be allowed to carry actual firearms while working, and gets mad when the actual cops show up to do their job.  In this instance, it's because of a flasher, who keeps returning, and eventually traumatizes the girl that Ronnie has a crush on, Brandi (Anna Faris), who is a hot mess of a make-up counter girl at the mall's department store.  Ronnie and Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta) immediately butt heads, but Ronnie finally sees that he wants to be more than just a mall cop, he wants to be a real cop.  When that falls through, Ronnie has to return to working the mall, which is another straw on the straw heap.

I guess the first thing that you'd have to understand that calling this a "dark comedy" would be understating things a bit.  "Observe and Report" is literally watching the world poke a mentally unstable, aggressive man with a chip on his shoulder with a stick, over and over again.  Writer/director Jody Hill has done another movie you might not have seen (the excellent "The Foot Fist Way"), and co-created an HBO series you might have seen, "Eastbound and Down."  But if you've seen either of those, you'd understand the tone of this film.  Seth Rogen is perfect for this role (it's before he slimmed down a bit), he's got enough of a physical presence that when he gets aggressive or a little unhinged, you can feel the danger.  And indeed, there are a couple of scenes where he ends up in fights, and more than holds his own.  Whether he was right in the first place is another matter, but he's no quitter.

In terms of the story, it's unfortunate that Ronnie is in a situation where he has no positive role models.  His co-workers aren't any smarter than he is, and Dennis (Michael Pena) actively leads him down the wrong road.  His mother is a blackout drunk, and the one person in the entire world who even kind of has his act together, Detective Harrison, takes an immediate disliking to Ronnie, going so far as abandoning him in the worst neighborhood in the town, just to amuse himself.  In terms of the cast, there's a lot of talent here.  Anna Faris is totally committed to her alcoholic, pill-popping, party girl with puffed up lips.  Michael Pena is a riot; seeing him in any position of authority is practically a sacrilege to the uniform he's in, which should tell you how scuzzy he is here.  Ray Liotta's great at yelling at people, and he has a lot of opportunities to do so.  Aziz Ansari even has a small part that he wrings a lot out of.

Probably the best scene of the movie is one where Det. Harrison invites Ronnie down to the police station to break the news that Ronnie didn't pass the psychological test, and couldn't be a cop.  But first, Harrison invites one of his co-workers to hide in his closet to listen in.  Halfway through breaking the news, the co-worker just walks out of the closet, and says that the whole thing wasn't funny, but sad, so he was leaving.  He doesn't even wait for Ronnie to leave, he just walks.  That seems to be the aim of the movie.  Ronnie doesn't get any of the best lines, he's no saint, nothing breaks his way, but he dusts himself off and perseveres, and he wins that way.  Even when he's doing things he probably shouldn't do, he's still sympathetic.  That's what makes this dark, dark comedy work, and makes it funny, instead of depressing.  Sometimes you can win just by not quitting, which is a pretty realistic message to offer.

3.5 / 5 - Blu-Ray

Team America: World Police - 2004

"Team America: World Police" - 2004
Dir. by Trey Parker - 1 hr. 38 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

There is one thing that Trey Parker (and long-time collaborator Matt Stone) manage to do better than anyone else: make cheesy, horrible material based on cheesy, horrible material, and have it come out awesome and funny.  The problem with making something deliberately awful and low-rent is that even if you succeed at your goals one hundred percent, you're still left with something awful and low-rent.  There's no way to win this game; for ninety-nine percent of people, if you start with crap, you end up with crap.  But "Team America: World Police" is proof that Parker and Stone belong to the one percent; a political action movie about terrorism made with puppets (with visible strings) is a patently bad idea that ends up being hilarious and awesome.

After a strike against terrorists in Paris that leaves the city in ruins and their squad leader dead, Team America is in need of a new leader.  Gary, a Broadway actor working on a play called "Lease," is recruited for the team.  He reluctantly joins, and Team America must work to thwart Kim Jong-Il's diabolical plot, and face off against the Film Actor's Guild, led by Alec Baldwin, and their liberal criticism of Team America.

Usually, making a film that makes liberal use of action movie cliches would end up lame and difficult to watch.  Viewers are sophisticated enough at this point that just pointing out the tropes of a genre isn't sufficient as a critique or as a basis for satire without something more being brought to the situation.  Genre films work largely because the filmmakers are able to use the cliches, and not draw attention to them while using them.  But making an action movie with puppets?  Perfect.  There are still action scenes (even a Matrix moment), there are explosions and lines delivered through gritted teeth.  But the fact that it's all done with puppets makes "Team America" pretty funny.  That, and Parker (and Stone) deliberately and gleefully go flying past the line of appropriateness over and over again.

There are two kinds of great stuff in "Team America": the soundtrack, and the scenes where it's even better because it's puppets doing awful things.  Much of the movie is just the cliche action scenes, but executed with absurd seriousness, and really great, ridiculous lines.  But there are also two great comedic scenes, even beyond the standard-issue action material that's been made funny.  There's an extended sex scene between two characters.  Does it matter that neither of the puppets have genitals?  Nope.  It's actually funnier, because I'm pretty sure everyone's taken two Barbie dolls and made them do X-rated things to each other, if only to get a quick laugh out of one of your friends.  So the idea of someone doing that in a multi-million dollar film, and having it projected onto big screen all across the world?  Awesome.  The other great scene is the dicks, pussies, and assholes analogy that Gary launches into, when called upon to out-act Alec Baldwin.  The monologue sums up everything great about Parker and Stone's material; it's so vulgar it's hard to repeat publicly, it's completely insane, and yet makes perfect sense.

And, as you might expect by now, any soundtrack by the "South Park" guys is going to be a complete winner.  It's really hard not to want to run around screaming, "America, fuck yeah!" after seeing "Team America."  There's more than just that one song, though, and I'm left scratching my head at how I could have managed not to have acquired this soundtrack by now.  That's going to have to be rectified sooner rather than later.

"Team America: World Police" isn't the best film that Parker and Stone have made; the South Park film is probably untoppable.  But it's probably the second best movie they've made, maybe only because they had something resembling a budget this time around.  There's no way this will leave you disappointed, unless you simply can't fathom that being too patriotic is a thing, and a thing to mock.  But then again, if that was the case, you'd have to be one of those people that get duped by "The Onion" headlines not to know exactly what you were getting in for when you sat down and watched this movie.

3.5 / 5 - TV (HD)

Rockshow - 1980

"Rockshow" - 1980
Dir. by Paul McCartney - 1 hr. 42 min.

Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

This review is going to be very much a statement of when I'm writing this.  Five years ago, or ten, things probably would have looked very different.  But in 2013, Paul McCartney seems to be taking a well-earned victory lap.  He's got a pretty darned good new album (titled "New"), the re-issue campaign of the Beatles catalog a few years back rekindled a lot of interest in that material.  People are finally remembering that they liked Paul (and by that, I mean he's more visible than he's been in years, even if he's been consistently recording and touring for pretty much forever).  His recent concert on Jimmy Fallon's show was a joyous romp through his history, and into the future.  But a subtext to all of this is that he's doing amazing things and looking pretty spry, considering his age.

Now, the Beatles stopped touring before too long (and they were sometimes playing 15 minute concerts when they were still playing live), so there's not much extended footage of them from the sixties.  If your curiosity has been piqued by Macca's recent resurgence, you might start to wonder what a show of his might have looked like when you didn't have to add a qualifier to your enjoyment of his performances.  "Rockshow" is one such answer to that; it was recorded during Paul McCartney & Wings' tours during 1975 and 1976 (this film is a composite of four different concerts).  This is a full-length show (just how full-length kind of depends on which version you're watching, I caught a TV airing of it that included commercials (that I fast-forwarded through), so I couldn't tell you exactly what the run time was), an arena show at that, not a gimmicky "intimate" performance.  It includes songs from both the Beatles and Wings; and other than wanting more Beatles songs, there's probably not that many songs missing if one was to compile an ideal Macca setlist.

So, when you turn back the clock and watch "Rockshow," the thing that's probably most striking is how energetic and at-ease Paul seems playing his songs.  The arrangements aren't strikingly different from what you already know, this is simply a document of a time and place.  I've always preferred entire shows instead of compiling together a handful; the warts-and-all approach is more fascinating than cherry-picking performances for whatever is closest to the studio versions.  There doesn't feel like there's any of that kind of shagginess allowed to show here; I don't know if that's simply due to the professionalism and polish of the performances, or if it's been left on the cutting room floor.

Then, you're left with a few things to judge this concert film by.  First, it sounds pretty good.  You're probably going to keep reaching for your remote to crank it up when one of your faves pops up; I sure did.  Secondly, there's not a ton in the way of stage presentation, which is entirely appropriate for the era this was filmed in.  When concertgoers bought a ticket, they were expecting to see a band that could play their instruments and their songs live, and play them well, and that what you get here.  There's a brief laser thingy towards the end, but there are no dancers, or elaborate stage set-ups.  "Rockshow" is, literally, a straight-forward concert film.  Thirdly, the song selection is pretty good.

If you're expecting more than those three things, this might be depressingly straight-forward for you.  "Rockshow" is good, but I can't imagine watching it more than once or twice.  It's most interesting as a document of a particular point in the career of one of the finest composers of the 20th century, when he was at the peak of his powers and packing out football stadiums (part of this was filmed at the late, not-so-great Kingdome, a Tupperware bowl of a stadium that could hold upwards of sixty thousand people).  I'm glad this document exists; it's useful to be able to go back and see what the real deal looked like, without having to peer through the haze of nostalgia and knighthoods.

3 / 5 - TV (HD)

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism - 1971

"W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism" - 1971
Dir. by Dusan Makavejev - 1 hr. 24 min.

Clip

by Clayton Hollifield

Sometimes, I'm just in the mood for a supremely weird movie, and as I learned from "Sweet Movie," anything from director Dusan Makavejev is a sure bet in that regard.  "W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism" is the movie that immediately preceded "Sweet Movie," and it's definitely work from the same mind.  Part of that is that there's only a minimal attempt at continuity (at least in a traditional sense), part of it is including Yugoslavian content (yeah, I know that's not one country any more), but it's more or less that once you've seen something by Makavejev, it's unlikely you'd confuse his work with anyone else's, even other directors who incorporate surrealist streaks.

So, talking about the "plot" of "WR" isn't necessarily going to be entirely useful.  This is an episodic movie that blends documentary footage and plots with fiction plots.  The basis of "WR" is Wilhelm Reich's work (just follow the wikilink if you want to know more), which he explored after fleeing the Nazis and Europe, settling in the United States.  His work supposed that orgasms were the basis of life energy, and tried to build a unified theory of life and health around that.  The fiction segments basically follow Milena (Milena Dravic) and her attempt to seduce a Russian figure skater, Vladimir Ilyich (Ivica Vidovic), as well as her public rabble-rousing about the importance of sex, both in people's everyday life and as a cornerstone to successful public policy.  Also, there are threads involving Tuli Kupferberg (of The Fugs fame), Jackie Curtis (a Warhol cohort), and footage of Joseph Stalin, among others.

Where to begin?  One of the things that really endeared this film to me is that there was a point to it.  It's somewhat unusual to blend nonfiction and fiction into a cohesive narrative (and I'm not saying the narrative was entirely cohesive, just that it did all build to the same point, even if the different segments seemed unrelated by anything other than theme).  But the narrative was generally about Reich's ideas about the orgasm's importance (a narrator informs us at one point that the average person has about four thousand of them over the course of their life), and that neuroses arise from thwarting that impulse.  It doesn't matter whether or not you or I buy into that, what matters is that the film states it's purpose, explores the matter at hand, and then presents a fictional exploration of the confrontation between the need for sexual gratification and the Soviet Communist movement's suppression of that need.

Another positive point to "WR": I've got at least half a dozen tabs open in my browser, just to properly explain any of the stuff that's in the film.  This is the sort of piece of art that dangles threads in front of you, hoping that you'll choose to further explore at least one or two of them.  That's somewhat obscured by the surreal and shocking scenes in the film, but those are to be expected (and welcomed; that's kind of the point of watching a film in this vein).  The impact of some of the scenes in the film have been dulled by time (in particular, Jackie Curtis talking frankly about his relationship with another guy, including talk of gay marriage, was less shocking than it might have once been).  Part of that is that the internet has made footage of people engaged in coitus depressingly pedestrian and common.  So seeing two (or more) people going at it isn't as titillating as it could be.  On the other hand, there's lack of self-awareness, rock-hard abs, and southern hemisphere grooming habits, and the presence of a sense of playfulness and joy in most of these scenes that make them fun to watch (like an invitation to enjoy yourself, versus someone yelling at you to get off right fucking now).  Maybe you've wondered exactly how a plaster caster goes about the business of making such a cast; this movie will solve that riddle.

There wasn't really that much that I didn't like about "WR."  Sure, it's a ragged, crass, graphic film, but that's why I wanted to watch it in the first place.  Those are it's positive points.  Ultimately, I can see why the Communist approach to lovemaking was of importance to a director from a country surrounded by the Eastern Bloc, but I don't place the same amount of importance on that dilemma as Makavejev does.  So that material was watchable, but not compelling to me, which means that I wasn't spellbound by a lot of the second half of "WR."  But I can't hate a film that has Tuli from the Fugs jerking off a rifle; that's timeless and hilarious.

3 / 5 - Streaming

Monkey on My Back - 1957

"Monkey on My Back" - 1957
Dir. by Andre De Toth - 1 hr. 34 min.

Official Trailer
by Clayton Hollifield

Ever since one of my friends showed me a very special episode of "Little House on the Prairie" that dealt with one of the characters getting hooked on morphine, I've got a soft spot for old movies that deal with drug addiction or use.  At this point in time, there are so many first-hand accounts in both literature and film that go through the process in excruciating detail that it's kind of hard to fake (or be deliberately misleading) about this stuff anymore.  But in the past?  Well, that's how stuff like "Reefer Madness" came to exist.  So when a '50s era film about a boxer that got hooked on the needle popped up on the TCM program guide, I was in.

"Monkey on My Back" is based on the true story of a prize-fighter named Barney Ross (Cameron Mitchell).  Barney was a champion and a high-roller, but lived a fast lifestyle that depleted his earnings more quickly than he could bring them home.  This was a point of contention between Barney and his girlfriend, Cathy (Dianne Foster), and eventually caused Cathy to leave when Barney's gambling habits intensified after his retirement from boxing.  When Cathy took off, Barney took a left turn and enlisted in the Marines, eventually being sent to Guadalcanal during World War II.  Before leaving, he patched things up with Cathy, and they got married.  Barney was a war hero, but contracted malaria in the process, which was treated with morphine.  It didn't take long before Barney was hooked on the stuff, and was sent home from the war effort with a Silver Star and a taste for morphine (a fairly common result from wars of this era).

"Monkey on My Back" ended up being surprisingly watchable, way beyond my hope of some drug-related absurdity.  Sure, some of Barney's behavior seems a little overblown, but for entertainment's sake, I didn't mind it.  Cameron Mitchell does a good job of playing the character's arc, from the super-confident boxing champ all the way through Barney's descent into drug hell.  His wife's character often times comes off a bit icily, but the way the story is set up, she's constantly being put upon (and this is the story of Barney Ross, not of his wife), so her being nearly constantly upset with him seems appropriate.  The tone of the film, understandably, is fairly dark, culminating in a scene that I found pretty shocking.  At the depths of Barney's problems, he actually shoots up in an alley while ducking the police, which is kind of outrageous (in a good way).

There's a number of ways where the approach to this material is vastly different to how it would be approached now.  In "Monkey on My Back," despite the title, the drug material isn't the bulk of the film.  The first act establishes Barney as a successful boxer at the end of his career, with a rocky transition into retirement.  The second act is mostly war material, which further establishes Barney as not just a famous athlete, but a war hero to boot.  It's not until near the end of the second act where Barney gets hooked on morphine, and we explore the depths he sinks to (peaking with him shooting up in an alley).  As promised by the beginning of the film, Barney's rehab is the culmination and afterward to the film.  Opposed to a film like last year's "Flight," which didn't even bother to establish the main character as anything but a remorseless addict from the opening scene, and then wallowed in the main character's addiction in graphic detail for the duration of the film, "Monkey" taking the time to establish that it's main character is actually more than just a vessel to fill up with drugs before showing the depths comes off as charming, and even more than that, good storytelling.  After all, if you don't know where someone was before their fall, what does the bottoming out represent beyond simple addiction misery porn?

The consistency of the Barney Ross character also helps; he's a man who doesn't really ever consider what tomorrow will bring, and repeatedly finds himself in over his head.  That provides the basis for a pretty solid movie, one that's way more watchable (and way less absurd than many films of its vintage that deal with this subject matter might be) than I figured it might be.  Plus, you get three films in one; a boxing film, a war film, and a drug film!  There's a good chance that one of the three might hit one of your sweet spots.

3 / 5 - TV

Hitchcock - 2012

"Hitchcock" - 2012
Dir. by Sacha Gervasi - 1 hr. 38 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I'm pretty sure that if you put Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette, and Michael Wincott in the same movie, the results are going to be, at the absolute minimum, fairly watchable.  When you put those people in a movie about Alfred Hitchcock and the making of "Psycho," you're got something going.  And this was a good movie, an easy one to get into and watch, and it also falls prey to the need to explore a legendary figure's clay feet.  Since that's a large part of the tension of the movie, it's understandable, and ultimately, Hitchcock himself isn't lessened by any of this, but it's not really a trend that I'd want to encourage.

Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins), fresh off the success of "North by Northwest," is searching for his next project, his final film on his studio contract.  Hitch settles on adapting "Psycho," a novel by Robert Bloch, about serial killer Ed Gein, but is met with incredible resistance.  Hitch ends up having to finance the film himself, relying heavily on it's success.  The pressure of everything starts to get the better of him, and his marriage (and professional partnership) with Alma (Helen Mirren) starts to show cracks.  For his part, he's jealous of Alma's friendship with another writer, and for her part, she's jealous of the attention Hitch pays to the young starlets that he directs, like Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) and Vera Miles (Jessica Biel).

There are two things that pull at "Hitchcock" upon an initial viewing; there's a lot more drama in the story if you don't know much about the man himself, or about "Psycho."  At the same time, I'm not entirely sure why anyone would want to see this movie if they weren't already interested in Hitchcock, or about the making of "Psycho."  Since I knew a bit about Hitchcock and his career, many of the things that were supposed to be dramatic came off instead as people who were proven wrong in time trying to flex their muscles on him and his work.  That lends a lightness to the proceedings (it's a lot harder to get mad at a studio head telling Hitchcock that they don't want to do "Psycho" when you know that the movie itself became a basis for a part of the Universal Studios tour at the theme parks, which suggests at least a basic level of success for the film) that helps the movie fly by.  That leaves most of the heavy dramatic lifting up to Hitchcock's mercurial relationship with his wife, the strains of making a film that you're paying every dime for, and for the possibility that Alma might step out on Hitch with the writer that she's working with, Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston).

The problem with watching a "behind the scenes" movie is that you're going to have to get into some stuff you'd probably rather not know about someone.  "Hitchcock" isn't really a muckraking movie, but there's difficulty with incorporating the peeping tom/gluttonous/jealous side of Hitch with his work, which still represents some of the finest films ever made.  It shouldn't matter that he sometimes had harsh words for his wife, or that both of them were occasionally stubborn; that's real life.  But since this is essentially the story of Alma getting her due (she, at one point, declines a by-line, saying that the people who matter would know that she was invovled), both publicly and from Hitchcock himself, it's important to show her being occasionally taken for granted, mistreated, and to be less than thrilled about that.

"Hitchcock" is a smooth ride, one that rewards fans of the director and of "Psycho" both.  And with the cast involved, there aren't any weak spots to be found.  It's kind of a feel-good story, which is odd for the characters involved, but it still works.  There wasn't much drama to be found, but that was probably by design; a lot of this story demands a certain level of knowledge of it's viewers.  And the reward is that both Alma gets her due, and we all get confirmation that even if nobody believed it at the time, Alfred knew exactly what he was doing.

3 / 5 - TV (HD)