Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Originally posted on AD Forums on February 3, 2013. This review contains marked spoilers.

The whole reason I watched this movie was because of an AV Club comment. I wish I had taken down who wrote this immortal summary of the Robert Downey Jr.-led version of Sherlock Holmes, because it is probably the most accurate, pithy, profound summary of a film I've ever heard. The comment, mildly paraphrased, went something like "The Ritchie Sherlock Holmes is pretty faithful to the books, but instead of Sherlock finding clues, he punches people."

That's pretty much exactly the movie, in a nutshell. As a summer blockbuster action film, it has a lot of strengths, and is a remarkably good film, with plenty of visual inventiveness, fun casting, and a script that, while problematic, isn't completely asinine. As a Sherlock Holmes film, it's an absolutely preposterous exercise that somehow believes Holmes was an 1800s James Bond who uses his deductive skills most clearly to figure out how to punch people effectively.

The storyline is one of my problems with the film at large. My initial misgivings about the strong steeping of supernatural goings-on in the film SPOILER turned out to be completely unfounded by the ending, where Sherlock, for the first time in the movie, breaks down the entirety of Lord Blackwood's plot and monologues at the villain about its various groundings in reality, an enjoyable sequence if one ignores the fact that Sherlock really could just shoot this guy right now END SPOILER, but there is still a ridiculous amount of shadowy things that amount to nothing, sequel hooks (which I hate), characters that needed serious fleshing-out to have the kind of story impact that the film hopes they'd have, and the list goes on. One of my biggest problems with the film was SPOILER the nature of The Order of Four itself. The film establishes that most of the Order is "good" and practices "good" magic that influences the entirety of the world's operations, but that Lord Blackwood's "practical" magic is against their codes. So why are so many people willing to shift to Blackwood's side before that immolating demonstration of might, if their codas bind them to "good" magic? More importantly, because Sherlock reveals that all of Blackwood's arts were parlor tricks... what does The Order of Four actually do to influence the course of the world? Are they just a bunch of geriatric delusional sods? END SPOILER I'm probably dissecting a popcorn movie too much, and, weirdly, most of the movie holds up better to scrutiny than, say, Silver Linings Playbook.

In regards to the script executing characters... it succeeds and fails. (It's hard to give a proper analysis of the characters of Sherlock Holmes without going back to the books/other interpretations/common cultural consensus, so this will probably be the most biased part of the review for me.) I really did like Jude Law's interpretation of Watson head and shoulders above RDJ's Sherlock. Law not only nails the exasperation, but incredible loyalty, of Watson, but isn't portrayed as the complete moron he's usually made to be in popular culture. The script does Watson a lot of favors as a character, too: his affections for Mary Morstan (a near non-entity of a character) are nicely played, and his arc through the film, holding onto both her and the wild life he's become accustomed to with Sherlock, is remarkably subtle in a movie where bombast, bondage nudity, and punching things often substitute for nuance. As for RDJ's Sherlock, he is too much in the mold of the "rogue hero" that's been typified by Captain Jack Sparrow. The movie wants us to so desperately like Sherlock while conceding that you should find Sherlock aggravating. It can't have both, and the character suffers for it, especially as, in this iteration, we are supposed to see him as a genius, a viable romantic partner, someone worth defending, and someone who should be dropped off a bridge, sometimes all in the same moment. Too many paradoxes to work. For what it's worth, Downey Jr. plays this Sherlock-like character very well. He is appropriately ruggedly handsome and irksome in equal measure, and I can totally see his character slogging through a dirty, grimy, grotesque underworld just to find the frog fetus that'll unlock his case, unlike some of the more gorgeously polished actors who've played Sherlock (coughBenedictTimothyCarltonCumberbatchcough). The other problem with Watson and Holmes in this variant of the story, though, is that they are both presented as very intelligent individuals with their own individual strengths... whose primary mode of solving crimes is knocking the shit out of anyone in their sight line. I get that this is an action movie, but the integration of the action elements is wholly inorganic and distracting in all but one case (SPOILER the hog-slaughtering facility sequence END SPOILER). A beloved series predicated on intellectualism is probably the worst thing to ever turn into a beat-em-up action flick anyways.

I actually liked Irene Adler here more than I've liked other interpretations of her character, and I'm pretty sure that fell entirely on Rachel McAdams' acting, as she's turned into a slightly more capable version of your typical action-movie heroine here. She's being put in harms' way by lots of men, and only other men can save her! (At least she's not being turned straight by Sherlock, I guess. Poor Irene Adler.) Not exactly progressive, but again, Rachel McAdams plays her with a really nice mixture of guile, genuine concern, and shiftiness. Probably the worst bit of character execution regards Moriarty, aka the dude with a gun that looks like a knife. Finding out that this malevolent figure pulling the strings is little more than a sequel hook is pretty damn annoying. And as for Lord Blackwood... Mark Strong seriously looks like Evil Steve Carell and it was distracting.

Truthfully, as an action movie - and discounting that making this canon an action film was a terribly weird idea - it has a lot to recommend it over other similar-minded films. The set work, costume design, and visuals (aside from some terrible CGI in the boatyard and regarding the construction of London Bridge) are beautiful, sumptuous, and work well for the setting. Again, aside from some terrible CGI, this is a beautiful-looking film, and, more importantly, a real-looking film. (Seriously, those frogs were disgusting-looking). The acting is uniformly excellent (even from Evil Steve Carell, who I didn't say much about because his whole character is "OMGZMENACING"), the cinematography is inventive and fun, and Guy Ritchie directs one hell of a good action movie. The visual language of Sherlock Holmes is top-tier. Much as I don't like the general idea of Sherlock punching people all the time, the fight scenes are well-choreographed and certainly more interesting and involving than most of Nolan's Dark Knight work. It's never a boring movie by any stretch of the movie, and damn it, the studio/Ritchie/the actors wanted to make this a really entertaining action movie. They certainly did that well.

But how on earth does one read Sherlock Holmes and go, "this is prime action movie material"? Part of me is torn between the fact that this is genuinely a well-designed crowd-pleaser, something that's very hard to find in this media environment. Another part of me wants to just be really annoyed at how I really didn't like what it did tot he canon. I'm gonna split the difference in my score. I really enjoyed watching this movie, and would probably enjoy watching it again, but its weird deviation from the logic of the novels does read to me as defilement.

***.5/*****

Les Miserables (2012)

Originally posted on AD Forums on December 31, 2012. This review contains heavy spoilers, which are unmarked.

I made the horrible mistake of getting really plastered the night before seeing Les Miserables. It wasn't the impending seeing of the film that made me drink - it was more that me and my girls found a Pokemon Drinking Game and went crazy. We then spent most of the evening drunkenly watching the newer Sherlock series (with Benedict Cumberbatch) and commented mostly on how awesome scene transitions and the wallpaper in Sherlock's apartment were. (Note: apparently I only notice good set design while drunk.) Why am I even bringing this up, you may ask?

Because Les Mis's biggest failing is scene placement and transitions. Never have I seen a film with so many moments that could've been fixed by a different director - and I'm going to go against the pack and suggest that the editor of this film also needs to take some blame for this. Most people have suggested that Tom Hooper has an obvious "problem" with using intense close-ups on his characters, but the intense close-ups themselves aren't the entire problem, and, in some instances, work absolutely beautifully (Gavroche's death is a pretty good instance of it - the constantly spiraling-ing camera, cutting to a wider shot of the one revolutionary who cared for him absolutely losing his shit, is a place where Hooper's claustrophobic focus is well-suited, and the dread over seeing the revolution's mascot about to be killed wouldn't have been accomplished well any other way). It's when there's no cutting away from those intense close-ups that there begins to be a problem. For my money, the worst-shot number is "A Heart Full of Love", because what is supposed to be a duet, and then a trio, never actually shows all two/three participants on screen at the same time. That's just directing 101... but the editor is just as culpable, for stringing together a bunch of unnerving close-ups without much invention. Even if Hooper didn't film all three participants at the same time, something we'll probably never know (because I don't see a different master cut of this ever being released), the editor is his accomplice in destroying the song's presentation.

Oddly, the transition out of that moment is one of the best ones, and the replacement of "On My Own" really helps to stretch out Eponine's threadbare story to fit the entire third act instead of just pieces of it. (I know it's threadbare. I played her. I love the girl but she doesn't have shit-all to do, and the movie gives her big letter-giving moment to Gavroche.) But the over-reliance on the jump cut suggests that Hooper had no idea how to move this story along. A few have commented on the camera into the sky thing, but I feel like it's a nice way to link the characters who it pulls away from - Valjean and Javert. The jumpiness of the camera, especially getting away from "Look Down" and into "In My Life" (which was also horrendously shot in that you don't know Cosette's sitting on a bed until she gets off of it), is disorienting, and only makes France seem moreso like the most claustrophobic environment ever invented. Again, in some cases, this claustrophobia really works - seeing Fantine's coworkers versus Fantine as if the audience is the foreman being crowded by them is rather inspired. And some times, Hooper does let his setting breathe - "Do You Hear the People Sing", "On My Own", and especially the Finale.

I won't say that any time Hooper pulled away from his close-ups, the movie immediately worked. That's horrifically reductive and lessens the power of quite a few songs, especially Anne Hathaway's and Eddie Redmayne's, who I'm certain would not be talked up so much for awards if their big scenes weren't filmed that way. The raw emotion of what appears to be a single take for both for them pours out from the screen, and nothing else is needed but their explosive voices. (Redmayne's version of Marius' "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" in particular stands out to me as being an incredible improvement over the stage. The versions I've seen revive the revolutionaries for a few moments as ghosts, and I was never comfortable with that imagery. The film eschews that, thankfully, which both makes the ending a powerful surprise for the audience, and doesn't take away from the depth of loneliness Marius is feeling in that moment, being the only one of his friends to survive a massacre.) I won't say that every open number is good, either. Helena Bonham-Carter really can't match Sacha Baron Cohen in "Master of the House", which is one of the most traditionally cinematically-staged numbers, but Mme. Thenardier is such a hard character to cast that I'm unsure if Hooper could've done better picking someone else.

Speaking of casting, Russell Crowe wasn't a bad singer. He just had the completely wrong style for this type of operatic movie. He wouldn't be out of place in Hair, honestly - he has a nice rock-opera style which, unfortunately, no one else in this movie possesses. He's not nearly the disaster everyone is insisting he is. Crowe has a nice handle on the melodic qualities of his songs, and can actually sing. His style, compared to Seyfried's delicate soprano lilt, or Jackman's powerful embodiment of Valjean's internal turmoil, is just wildly out of place for the setting. I hope everyone going "you tried" doesn't put him off of trying other musicals, since he'd be a good asset to a more modern-styled film.

For me, the movie worked the best when the raw emotion of the thing was allowed to shine through. Hathaway and Redmayne's numbers were things I already mentioned, but there are multiple instances where the film pulls everything together so well it's hard not to cry/cheer. Spoiler alert: I bawled for like five minutes after the end of the film because it was such a perfectly realized version of the Finale. Everything about the stage version, with all the dead flooding the space and singing their song of hope, was so beautifully pulled together, and, because of the film's changes, having the Bishop sing the harmony with Valjean and Fantine instead of Eponine had an unbelievably strong resonance that the original stage version, great as it is, didn't quite match. And the grand sweep over the new barricade, with some choice close-ups of Eponine and Enjolras and Gavroche and all the dead... Christ. It's like Hooper and the editor poured all their efforts into making that one scene everything any stage fan of the show could want, and it worked.

Beyond that, there are so many subtle moments that at least showcased how well the actors knew and believed in their characters. For all Russell Crowe is being derided, I had no doubt about his acting ability as Javert, and the short scene where he pins his honor medal on Gavroche was a huge highlight for me. Its taciturn nature belies how hugely emotional and destructive this moment will ultimately be to him. One such that didn't work, and that I feel the need to point out because it's one of my favorite aspects of the stage show, is

Overall, I know I've kind of bounced back and forth on this, but this movie gets a solid B for me. The distinct visual language of this film isn't always suitable, but it works far more than it doesn't, and it creates its own version of an epic that still conveys the deep emotionality and distress of the setting. I really liked it, and will probably see it again, when I'm sure that I won't spend a ridiculous amount of time crying into my shirtsleeve.

***.5/*****

One other note: this is a weird personal thing, but I absolutely love that the people in this movie look "realistically filthy" instead of "stage filthy". Like Eponine, for instance. (Sorry, I really love her.) She doesn't look clean by any stretch of the imagination, but she doesn't have caked-on dirt all over her, or bruises or anything. She just has greasy hair, dirty clothes, and a smudge on her here and there. Same goes for Prostitute!Fantine, who looks realistically freezing to death.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

 Originally posted on AD Forums on January 19, 2012. Spoilers are marked in bold.

To say that Silver Linings Playbook shouldn't work as a film is a wild understatement. It should collapse completely, weighted down by the wildly shifting tones, the continual melange of weirdly bitter comedy and repetitive conflict. The script seems like it's trying to be Little Miss Sunshine and The Tuskeegee Experiment at the same time, which is probably one of the worst ideas ever. Jennifer Lawrence is about ten years too young to be playing her role of a world-weary, mentally shattered widow; characters randomly flit in and out of the film without any real rhyme or reason, except to prop up Pat/give Pat things to react to.

...that being said, I enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook a lot, despite all of its logical problems. This film is the exact opposite of your Les Miserables - it is extremely well-constructed, filmed beautifully, and acted to precision. It's the plot and characterization, or the gaping holes in both, that are the real problems here. While watching the film, everything is conducted with such specificity that the film seems tight as can be. A big aid to that is the two leads, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, who turn in potentially career-defining performances. Cooper, who introduced himself to the world as "Asshole Boyfriend in Wedding Crashers", is like a completely different person here, someone who embodies all of the paradoxical elements of Pat, someone who professes to be living life to its most positive while often being crushed and quelled by small quirks of reality. His portrayal of a bipolar man is not showy, doesn't rely on plate-smashing, and, because it doesn't fall to cliche, is painfully real and relatable. I particularly liked that Cooper punctuated a lot of the more intense scenes in the film with unbridled sobs, something that, to me, made him even more realistically human and broken. And enough cannot be said about how Lawrence takes Tiffany and makes her somehow toxic and winning at the same time. In the hands of a lesser actress, Tiffany would've seemed as flat, transparent, and abusive as any number of Japanese harem series "female protagonists" (the worst of which being Suzumiya Haruhi from the series of the same name) who do little to deserve their lovers' adulation and leave their respective partners coming off as complete masochists. But Lawrence is able to take scenes like Tiffany's diner breakdown and paint them truthfully - this woman is broken beyond belief, and it is not the obvious displays of violence and selfishness that attract Pat to her. It's the quieter moments she has, her willingness to take back her wild actions and defend Pat after accusing him of harassing her needlessly.

That being said, there's a lot going on in the script that makes little sense. Every time Pat gets in trouble, it seems like the same scene is being repeated ad nauseam, with no bearing on the story and no propelling the narrative. (The big climax at the dance is set up after the last of these "Pat in trouble" sequences in a gigantic dump of exposition, instead of being naturally threaded through the movie proper.) Similarly, with Tiffany, SPOILERS her sudden transformation into a sobbing sociopath for ten minutes before the dance competition, and being cured by the Demands of the Plot just in time for them to dance, was ridiculous. At least give the audience some sort of catharsis there, some sort of resolution before the two of them dance. There's an interesting idea presented midway through the film - that Jacki Weaver's mother character helped Tiffany ambush Pat on his runs - that is never elaborated on further or even mentioned. And something that would be treated as a massive betrayal of trust in any other film (not any other romantic movie, any other film in general), the reveal that Tiffany forged the letter from Nikki... is somehow a spur for Pat, who's been strongly devoted to the memory of his past marriage the entire movie, to write a letter confessing his love for Tiffany? And the crutch for them getting together in the end? That last one is a personal pet peeve of mine in romantic films in general - the need for characters to be paired up at the end to ensure some sort of 'happy ending'. I honestly feel like the Pat/Tiffany relationship would be a horrific mess of a relationship, considering she has some sort of undiagnosed disorder and he's bipolar enough to not be able to listen to certain music without breaking; this is one of those films where it would've been to the script's advantage to leave things ambiguous. END SPOILERS

The whole movie's tone, additionally, is incredibly ambiguous, in a somewhat bizarre way. The two leads suffer from various mental disorders, and those are portrayed rather realistically and with dramatic weight. Ditto to Robert DeNiro's gambling addictios, which is treated with serious, life-changing weight. But the potential mental problems of Pat's friend Danny, and his constant arrests, are played for laughs, as are DeNiro's superstitions, that whole bit with Pat knocking over the magazine rack, and pieces of Tiffany's diner scene. The film can't decide whether it wants us to sympathize with its characters, or if their actions are so ridiculous that they need to be laughed at. The constant flux between humor and drama isn't handled exceptionally well. Neither is anything requiring exposition - SPOILER there is literally no reason for Tiffany to start explaining how her husband died, when she decides to open up about it. END SPOILER The dialogue itself is very realistic, and the actors handle it well, but the script's structure is all over the place.

Weirdly, I wasn't bothered by these things when I was watching the movie. Like I said, the movie has a lot of things going for it, things that make it easy to overlook how fucking weird the entire setup is. The usage of various different methods of telling the story - steadicam, hand-held, super close-ups in dialogue, Glee spinning camera moves - give the proceedings appropriate gravity, especially during the dance rehearsal sequences, filled with joie de vivre, and during Pat's futile search for his wedding video, which utilizes the claustrophobia and franticness of the handheld camera shots well. The acting is uniformly well done, as stated earlier (and on the big Jacki Weaver debate, I thought, though she didn't do much, she gave a nice sense of understated grace to her performance as the one person in the neighborhood with her shit together); there is no fault to be found in the technical details, especially the editing and cinematography, which are varied and rich. But after reflecting on the film, the illusion of greatness really fell apart in my head. It truly is held together by the strength of Cooper and Lawrence.

***/*****

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987)

A part of this was originally posted on AD Forums on June 23, 2012. Spoilers are marked with bold text.

Very rarely anymore do we see films that dare to challenge our per-conceived notions about the realities of a given time frame. Nostalgia is its own curse, and whitewashes the unpleasant from our minds as we hone in and focus on only what we care to remember. This whitewashing and blurring is a focus of Todd Hayne's controversial film 'Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story', a forty-five minute exploration into the forces that killed one of America's brightest stars far too early. It's easy to see why this film is controversial: for starters, the whole movie is acted out by Barbie dolls, a sentence that sounds incredibly tasteless without any context. There's plenty of unlicensed music floating through the movie. Probably most importantly, this film portrays the Carpenter family as extremely controlling, abusive, and dysfunctional towards its most innocent member, and this portrayal is likely what kept this film from the public eye for years. It's now available, in its entirety, on YouTube, and actually seeing the movie not only sheds some light on how the controversial elements of the film are handled, but has instantly converted me into an incredible fan.

The use of dolls to play the characters does sound tasteless at first, especially given that this is the story of a woman who died trying to fit into an unrealistic standard that the media has forced on women for years. Barbie is, after all, a traditionally anti-feminist symbol, focusing entirely on a person's outer beauty to determine worth. To portray a story of a woman so thoroughly chained to society's unrealistic standards, the Barbie works spectacularly as a tool of satire and a tool of caution. What really makes this decision work is both the relative interchangeability of each doll - something that works especially well in comparing Karen's troubled relationships with both Richard and her eventual husband - and the fact that the dolls become extremely malleable under the narrative's force. Karen is literally whittled into a bony, misshapen toy to accentuate the horrors of her disease.

The craft of the film is unbelievable. Even watching the horrible print I was watching, where images were blurred and fuzzed together with age (if only this film hadn't been attacked by the Carpenter family and we could get a nice shiny Criterion print - I'd bust open the savings account for that one, even), it's impossible to deny the amount of thought put into each image in each montage. The supermarket clips, with voice-over detailing the wealth of food now available post-WWII, combined with the placards detailing the dark details of anorexia, is a perfect juxtaposition (even though I had to pause to read some of the cards, thanks to quality issues). It even raises questions of its own - with all this food available, it insidiously suggests, is it any wonder that a woman would grow to pathologically fear what food will do to her physique? The ending is also a well-done masterstroke - the vague image of being spanked comes to the forefront of an emotionally shattered Karen, not to mention the horrifying yet pathetic sight of Karen eating mashed potatoes before traveling to a live-action sequence where SPOILER you realize that anorexia - the huge enemy of the entire film -wasn't the only pathological demon, and that Karen is also swigging Ipecac, and is also bulimic. SPOILER END The ending is incredibly powerful, even if you know Karen's full story, because of how it weaves together some of the disparate images Haynes has bombarded the audience with, finally giving them a psychological context.

When the film was made, the slightly out-of-focused images were intentional on the part of Haynes, and I think that, going back to the comments on nostalgia, it's intended to lure us into a false sense of dreaminess. The surreal is often at play in The Karen Carpenter Story, and treating Karen's life as a dreamy segue from her public persona as an angel of music is oddly appropriate, for a film that is simultaneously satirizing and condemning 

The only problem I have with the movie is the fact that Richard is fairly two-dimensional. The overall force of "the family" works well as an antagonist, because each member embodies a different type of control - Richard is an egomaniac, Karen's mother is smothering in the extreme, and Karen's father is simply dismissive of her interests. Karen's sickness works in tandem with these pressures. But separated from each other, they become exponentially weaker adversaries for her. The scene where Richard and Karen yell at each other doesn't work quite as well as other disagreement scenes because of the separations from the other antagonistic functions.

My parents raised me on the Carpenters' music, and I've actually been employed, through my school's work program, at the performing arts center that bears Karen's name on my college campus. I guess that makes her story more powerful to me, no matter how it's presented. Before the monitor in our lobby broke, I could sit in the lobby and watch Karen waste away before me, and wonder how such a beautiful, talented woman could ever think she wasn't good enough. This movie makes it a bit easier to understand.

The Hunger Games (2012) Review

Originally posted on AD Forums on March 26, 2012. Spoilers are marked in bold.

The phrase 'YA lit' didn't used to give people pause, but thanks to the omnipresence of what is possibly the most offensive book marketed to teenage girls ever, Twilight, in addition to a multitude of terrible movies marketed from teen-aimed literature both new (Eragon) and old (The Legend of the Seeker), the critical eye turned towards the latest YA adaptation to hit theaters, The Hunger Games, seems ravenous. I did not expect a masterpiece going into theaters. (Before you think I'm dropping into the realm of hyperbole later on, the movie isn't a masterpiece.) Me and my best friend had heard good things going in, which made us a little more excited than we normally would've been, but at the same time, we were cautious. (We were also more than a little disturbed that we were among the oldest non-parents in the theater. We couldn't quite figure out what the eight-year-olds were doing in our auditorium, but such is life.)

Overall, though, our caution was rewarded well. The Hunger Games was not the most brilliant movie, nor is it the best adaptation of a book, but it was a solid film that captured, if not the hefty emotional moments of the series, its tone and relentless fear excellently. The movie hews close to the book, and its added scenes, oddly, are more resonant in places than scenes lifted directly from Collins' work - we'll get into that.

Basically, the plot trajectory for the movie is summarized in its opening placards: The Hunger Games involve sacrificing 24 children of the 12 Districts, one boy and one girl, to a seemingly ruthless Capitol, which pits them against each other in a battle to the death. As soon as you see Katniss Everdeen on screen, it's made fairly obvious that she will be this year's Tribute from District 12, though she volunteers herself to save her fragile sister Primrose. With her fellow Tribute Peeta, she finds herself embroiled in a dangerous power struggle that she's only vaguely aware of as the ruthlessness of the other teens around her is made known.

As far as the movie goes, a lot of the troubles that one might have in adapting a book aren't evident. The script is tight, the only problems with it being either problems that the book itself had (keeping up the relentless pace of the novel tends to give emotional moments the shaft) or issues that arise from toning down the levels of gore and violence in the novel (SPOILER Rue's death suffers greatly in this aspect, as her killing in the book is incredibly animalistic; in a similar sense, Peeta's leg not festering towards the end of the Games leaves a lack of drama towards the end of the film END SPOILER). One nice device the film uses is making Caesar and his on-air partner expository characters for the audience; showing bits and pieces of what the Capitol viewing audience would see, and treating us like a Capitol audience, isn't the most creative filmic idea, but definitely gets the point across. The film adds sequences beyond this, and, without fail, they add to the story rather than detract from it. SPOILER Seneca Crane's death has been mentioned as an eerie one, and I wholly agree with that reading END SPOILER, but the rebellion in District 11 had a far more emotional tenor to it than the scene directly leading to said rebellion, SPOILER young Rue's death END SPOILER. Going back to 'things the book did that the movie shouldn't have done', Gale. Gale is such a nonentity in the first book, and barely there in the second, SPOILER that his status as a member of the 'love triangle' is almost laughable. END SPOILER The movie does nothing to rectify this, assuming that the marketers for the movie want to play up that aspect of the film. Gale's just there.

One aspect of the book the film really does get right is the frenetic tone. There is a lot of running, a lot of fear, a lot of tension. This mood works in the film's favor many times, only backfiring during one key sequence, and the sense of constantly being watched and tracked comes across very well.

Acting-wise, Jennifer Lawrence is best in show, but no one really drops the ball as far as acting goes. (We only saw Liam Hemsworth for about three seconds, so I can't really pass judgment on him beyond 'what the hell was that reaction face? And why are they watching the Games at work?') Josh Hutcherson is given the difficult task of being simultaneously dreamy and a two-faced ass, something he pulls off rather well. Towards the end, the script does move him into faceless prettyboy territory, sadly, but right about until the rule change, Hutcherson really conveys an uneasy personality blend. Elizabeth Banks is a particular stand-out of the supporting cast, though I appreciated the work of all of them. (It's a shame Bentley is likely to not be in the next film, that's all I'm saying.) And can I mention the boy who played Cato, Alexander Ludwig? Christ, that kid was scary as shit. He nailed that role. His last scene was probably the best, acting-wise, in the whole movie. Congratulations, Mr. Ludwig, I cannot wait to see more from you in the future.

Now for the bad. The special effects are... well, in some cases, really great. The control room looks brilliant. I'm sure that's where all the money went. However, what is arguably the most important scene in the film - the two District 12 champions on fire during the parade - looks absolutely terrible. As others have mentioned, hopefully the amount of money this film made will lead to a bigger effects budget, but I cannot fathom why the SFX money was not poured into that pivotal scene. The Games themselves, and the fallen images, have a nice broken-television feel to them, very artificial, though. There was one scene with a pan-up to something that looked obviously CGI but I honestly can't remember where that scene was, so I can't really comment on it.

There are also some scenes that fall emotionally flat. Lawrence's reactions and obvious awkwardness at the interview really stand out to me as a stumbling block - yes, the book stated she was awkward throughout the interview, but awkwardly charming, not awkwardly awkward. The potential awe one might have from her television debut is definitely muted by hewing too close to the book's definitions. SPOILER Rue's death, however, is the biggest problem. This moment is supposed to be one of the driving forces in Katniss making sure Peeta doesn't die in the Games, one of the reasons she heads off to find him, in her emotionally distraught state. Rue is supposed to be a stand-in for her sister as well - and we get none of that from the movie's fast pacing. It's hard to grasp why Katniss is openly sobbing in the woods in the film, where, in the book, the grisly nature of her death combined with her status as Primrose 2.0 make it obvious why Katniss is reeling. Thankfully, the film segways into a much more powerful segment about Rue's district in full-on rebellion after seeing the kindness Katniss affords them, which does provide some of the emotional heft missing from the earlier sequence. END SPOILER

People have mentioned the jittery camera, and honestly, my only problem with the camera was when the shots changed every two seconds for the early sequences of the movie. It was more frustrating than sickening, however, and that problem seemed to end the minute the Tributes got to the Capitol.

Since people are already talking Oscar chances, I think I can safely say Art Direction is a huge possibility, as is Costuming (depending on how AMPAS reads the Capitol clothing - yes, they are supposed to look inhumanly ridiculous in the book too). Sound Design and Sound Editing should be locks for nominations. If Actress turns out to be a pretty empty field, Lawrence might push through, but that would take a lot of other films outright bombing to happen. Picture will not happen.

All in all, this is a perfectly solid adaptation of the book, and stands well as a movie, despite having some obvious flaws. I'm probably going to see it again, for what its worth. Its flaws are not enough to mute its overall good quality.

****/*****

'Whitney' - The G Word (S1E20)

Most people are aware by now that Whitney, the sitcom starring Whitney Cummings as a version of herself navigating an incredibly stable long-term relationship she shares with a man named Alex, is not very good television. It purports itself to be a comedy, but very few laughs can be found in any given episode of the show. It also had the misfortune of being a terrible show being kept on the air while Internet darling Community was kept off the schedule for reasons still unknown, even though Community eventually returned to NBC. Whitney is a thoroughly terrible show, but it is subject to a vitriol usually reserved for shows like Toddlers and Tiaras, and, frankly, Whitney doesn't quite deserve that vitriol. It may be one of the shrillest, least funny comedies produced in the past five years, but it does not actively offend in the way, say, Glee is apt to do, and, every once in a while, can make a cogent point about something in a unique way.

'The G Word' is an episode that actually impressed me. No, it was not funny. That is nothing that we can expect from the show at this point in time. However, 'The G Word' tackles issues surrounding homosexuality with an understanding and grace that hasn't been seen on network television recently. It's an admirable effort, honestly. Because it was an episode of Whitney, I was unaware of 'The G Word''s existence until a friend of mine posted it on the shared Facebook wall for our acting troupe. We're doing a show about homophobia, and she said it had a very accepting, good portrayal of homosexuality in it. I was skeptical, but I watched it.

In the framework of the plot - bear with me, I have no idea who any of these characters really are - Whitney's friends Lily and Neal have just broken off an engagement, and Lily is despondent. Lily assumes that Neal must be going on dates with other women, and entrusts Whitney to find the truth. Since Whitney is that famous sitcom archetype - super-nosy protagonist - she dives into her task with gusto, taking along henpecked Alex with her (it should be noted that Alex really doesn't care) for a surprise visit to Neal's apartment. It turns out Neal is having a date... just with another man.

At this point is where you'd expect a sitcom as shoddily put together as Whitney to go completely off the rails, throwing in every stereotypical gay joke known to man and otherwise humiliating Neal as a character. Or, in true sitcom fashion, to have it be a huge wacky misunderstanding - Steven, the other man on the 'date', is just a coworker! They were having a business meeting! It was exactly as Neal told Alex and Whitney when they entered the apartment! Cue audience laughter! Oddly enough, and much to my eternal surprise, it didn't go like that. Neal rushes over to Whitney's apartment and shares that he doesn't really know what to do, because he did love Lily when they were engaged, but obviously has feelings for Steven. Whitney tells Neal that he should just try and open up to their friends, because hiding from them is going to get him nowhere.

And in terms of acceptance from friends, the episode serves as a pretty good primer on what you should and should not do when a friend comes out to you. Alex has probably the best reaction out of everyone else in the episode - simply saying 'cool' and offering Neal a beer. Alex consistently treats Neal like a person throughout the entire episode, respectful of his privacy and acting as if there is nothing different about his friend. (Whitney thinks he underreacted, but she is a shrill harridan that should never be trusted.) Lily comes in a close second - though she uses the term 'fluid' to describe Neal's sexuality, a word that I think is a bit of a cop-out to avoid saying that someone might be bisexual, she accepts Neal's sexuality with grace, and does not attack him for leaving her at all. Color me impressed that, on a show as terribly written as Whitney, Lily didn't blame Neal or Steven for leaving her in the dark, and actually took the time to listen to his issues.

Of course, this being a sitcom, there are some 'wacky hijinks' elements to this. A male peripheral character I didn't catch the name of was immediately offended that Neal was never attracted to him, then spent much of the rest of the episode in the background trying to impress him. Thankfully, we got no follow-up on this, as it was unfunny and stupid. Also, a blonde female peripheral character seems to exist to get drunk and make double entendres that weren't funny. Her reaction was pretty blase to the whole sexual identity thing, mostly because she needed to plow ahead with her double entendres. Also, since this is a 'sitcom', there were apparently things called 'jokes' that didn't quite work out. The ending in particular was jarring - after an episode of lovely stereotype-defying speech, the tag involves Lily thinking of maybe hitting up the bartender who sent her a drink in the beginning of the episode, only for Neal to inform her that particular bartender is definitely gay. Lily then declares that she obviously has a type. Way to erase everything you just did, episode.

But in any case, I feel like we should tip our hats to 'The G Word' for even maintaining that dignity and respect for... 21 minutes. Given that Whitney is a crass, poorly-written exercise on its best days, managing to provide a respectful tone in dealing with an individual's sexuality, even sandwiched between horrible jokes, is almost miraculous, especially considering the nonsense that shows like Glee have been foisting on LGBT cast members and viewers. Never thought I'd say this, but good job at something, Whitney. You have one episode to be proud of.

The South Park Retrospective, Part Three

Grouping Three: Celebrities and Their Function in South Park

Trapped in the Closet (season nine)

Fishsticks (season thirteen)

Originally posted on March 15, 2011 on AD Forums.

Celebrities do not usually end up looking good on South Park. It’s a fact of life. Britney Spears gets horrifically mutilated in the episode she appeared in, to make a point about the destructive nature of paparazzi on human beings. Sarah Jessica Parker gets shot in Scrotie McBoogerballs, mainly because she’s Sarah Jessica Parker and is apparently incredibly ugly. (She’s not that bad looking. Is she?) We can go on. And on. And on. I could have literally picked any duo of episodes and probably made the argument that celebrities are paradoxically portrayed as humans worthy of being treated like any other human, and otherworldly beings whose stupidity and fanaticism is even more boundless than that of the adult denizens of South Park, but I went with two episodes that are probably best known for their portrayals of celebrities and the idiotic lengths to which, in this universe, they will go to ingrain themselves into a society that seems to uniformly not care for them on a personal level while being oddly fascinated with them, with disastrous results.

This is most obvious in Trapped in the Closet, one of the most infamous episodes of South Park for tackling two subsections of America that tend to not like being tackled: Scientology and Tom Cruise. The main thrust of the episode – the conflict between Stan Marsh, who is believed by Scientologists to be the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, and the upper-level Scientologists who know the truth about this so-called ‘religion’ – is often forgotten in the popular landscape for what might be the simplest subplot in a sitcom ever. Tom Cruise, going to pay his respects to Stan, the new prophet of Scientology, is devastated by Stan saying that he isn’t as great an actor as Leonardo DiCaprio (okay), Gene Hackman (all right), or Jon Heder, the man who gave us Napoleon Dynamite (…well, he was the best part of ‘When In Rome’), and locks himself inside Stan’s closet to grieve. Thus starts a cavalcade of people, from a remarkably sane Randy Marsh to Nicole Kidman to R. Kelly begging Tom Cruise to ‘come out of the closet’.

Continuing with the theory of the South Park mirror world, the implicit thought behind these implorations is that, in this world, there would be no repercussions for Cruise were he to come out of the closet. Obviously this is supposed to be a knowing wink at our own reality, where Tom Cruise’s sexuality is a terribly-kept secret, but it goes back to how, in South Park, homosexuality really isn’t a huge deal to the straight citizens of South Park. However, going with our central thesis of this analysis, the main thrust of Tom Cruise’s existential crisis that causes him to lock himself in a ten-year-old’s closet is an overwhelming sense that he is not cared for. Which, in Stan’s case, he really isn’t. Randy could probably give a shit, too, seeing as he’s stuck trying to get a man out of his son’s bedroom. However, the amount of media attention devoted to the efforts to get Cruise out of the closet is overwhelming. National news, other prominent celebrities, other Scientologists, and a dangerously armed R. Kelly are all at hand to witness the latest madness perpetrated by a celebrity. The paradox of how the South Park universe relates to celebrity, unlike the funhouse mirror that takes overreaction to an extreme and deemphasizes current America’s treatment of homosexuality as a novelty or a danger, could easily be said to be a direct translation of current America’s attitude towards celebrity – we consume so much unnecessary information about the rich and famous that we idolize, yet so many of us have stories of personal irritation or distaste about meeting some of these people in person. It is the idea of the collective hive mind fighting against the individual reaction, another iteration of one of South Park’s favorite themes – us vs. them.

Of course, also present in Trapped in the Closet is a rather incredible sequence of events where Stan becomes the prophet of Scientology and is informed of just how completely whacked the whole enterprise is. His ideas to reinvigorate the church, which are antithetical to its main mission (to scam people, according to an elder Scientologist), are met with cries that Stan is going to get sued, and Cruise, John Travolta, and R. Kelly all come out of the closet to assert they will sue Stan’s ass into oblivion. But this plot, which is completely straight satire, doesn’t elucidate much of the South Park world. The next episode will not deal with Stan getting sued. But the celebrities will remain idiots crying for attention, and South Park will continue to see all these celebrities turn up for no real reason.

Case in point: the second episode being analyzed, Fishsticks. Like the preceding analysis, there is an interesting plot in the foreground of the episode that deals with the creative tensions of having a partnership while working on a comedic venture, with Jimmy coming up with a pretty dumb, but mildly funny, pun about people who like ‘fishsticks’ being gay fish. (If you aren’t getting it, this will help. Prepare to be mildly impressed by the power of puns.) Since Cartman was in the room during the creation of the joke, he immediately begins to lay claim to its popularity in the world at large, leaving Jimmy torn over what to do about Cartman’s rampant lying. If you read this like one might read many Terrance and Phillip episodes – as a treatise on Parker and Stone’s working process and the issues they face when it comes to making the show and dealing with each other’s quirks – it’s a fascinating episode that pretty much flat-out says that sometimes these guys have issues with crediting and with each other. Episodes that admit these issues in a more raw, blunter fashion generally raise a lot of consternation in the fandom (wait until we get to You’re Getting Old!); the fact that this episode’s nuanced look at people being assholes to each other slipped by is definitely a product of Kanye West taking over the entire episode in the public consciousness.

Basically, Kanye West doesn’t get the fishsticks joke, and is sure that people are calling him a gay fish. On a cultural level, everyone has told West all he needs to know prior to this episode – he is, after all, the genius voice of a generation, not a gay fish. The collective masses are now, in West’s mind, turning against him, attacking him, endlessly fascinated with shaming him with a slur that’s not even a slur.

On the individual level, the people who run interference for Kanye tend to treat him, at the very best, with a complete lack of artifice. His posse makes a valiant effort to explain that no one thinks he personally is a gay fish. Cartman, Jimmy, and Carlos Mencia end up terrified of West because of his complete lack of comprehension. Compared to the faceless masses who laugh endlessly at the stupid pun, West is regarded as either completely crazy, or someone to simply wave off. The dichotomy becomes clear once again in the South Park universe. The individual will never have the same opinion as the masses.

As I wrote this, there were plenty of other episodes I thought of that fit this dichotomy nicely (particularly Stupid Spoiled Whore…, which, if I wasn’t already about two weeks behind in delivering this analysis, I would definitely weave in, due to its portrayal of Paris Hilton as incredibly mentally disturbed, making the individual continually fearful for his safety, and collectively a source of pride and idolatry for the female population). But the similarities in Trapped and Fishsticks’ receptions made them an excellent pairing. Beyond the paradoxical enamored collective and irritated/terrified individual paradigm that shows up often in celebrity stories, there are the same generalized conflicts that appear in many South Park episodes: religious authority vs. the common man, Cartman versus the world (except Craig, who has apparently learned that the best way to deal with Eric is to just let him do whatever he wants and move on with one’s life), sense against the nonsensical. In terms of fleshing out our South Park universe, our overreacting mob, such a staple of the show, is given purpose in relation to celebrity, while the individual is usually given to an extreme viewpoint.

Next time, we’ll switch away from the South Park world construction for a bit to focus on physical comedy and animation, with Casa Bonita, which is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen put to film, and Osama Bin Laden has Farty Pants