The Lint Screen

Some film guru once stated that there are two types of movies: those stories about the human condition (timeless tales), and those that show you something you could never see otherwise (special effects extravaganzas).

Right now, you can see two prime examples of these movie types, each a standout in its particular weight class. For the human condition genre, we have the always scrappy Woody Allen weighing in with one of his best films of the past few decades: Midnight in Paris. And in the opposite corner, representing state of the art heavyweight special effects and 3-D whizbangery, Mr. over-the-top perennial heavyweight Michael Bay and his Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Both are worth seeing for different reasons.

I am a fan of the timeless tale human condition genre, and the simple premise of Midnight in Paris is one with real sticking power. Owen Wilson plays Gil, a successful Hollywood screenwriter who is miserable with his lot in life. He loves Paris, rainy nights and the romantic dream of writing the great novel. He yearns to be like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cole Porter and the posse of 1920′s artistic ex-pats who made Paris their home and playground. Gil is engaged to Inez, played by Rachel McAdams, a woman who was born into the finer things of life. Her parents are in Paris to help the couple make their wedding plans. Inez and her folks represent conformity, pragmatism, be-happy-with-what-you’ve-got-and-get-your-head-outta-the-cloudsism. They are the cold boot of reality kicking upside Gil’s silly romantic notions-filled head.

One night, Gil is alone on a contemplative stroll through the Paris streets. A clock strikes midnight, and a 1920′s auto rolls up and stops. The back door opens and Gil sees people in 1920′s dress slurping cocktails and laughing gayly. They invite him to join, and he does.

Off Gil goes to live it up with his heroes: Ernest, F. Scott, Zelda, Cole, Gertrude, Salvador, Pablo and more. He lives magically in his ideal period, the man out of time who finally finds his time. After a wild night, he is back to modern times and his modern life and modern problems. Like a junkie, once he’s had a taste of his pleasure-filled escape, he returns again and again to his midnight strolls that transport him back to his romanticized time.

Along the way, he falls in love– never a good idea for time travelers. And the happy couple have their own physics bending adventure with ironic and illuminating outcomes.

I’ll say no more than this is a charming, magical and lasting movie that uses imagination and the human condition as special effects to make a simple, yet profound point. And Owen Wilson is certainly not the Owen Wilson we saw in Marley & Me. Thank God.

Chalk one up for the Woodman and the human condition timeless tale with a dash of magic thrown in for good measure. This is a terrific film.

Which brings us to Transformers: Dark of the Moon. But before I get started, let me disclose my prejudices right up front.
1. I’m not a Michael Bay fan. His commercial work was great, his features work overblown.
2. I’m not a fan of big stupid special effects movies. For the most part, the stories are lame and the effects don’t stick in my memory banks.
3. I’m not a big fan of Shia LaBeouf. The guy doesn’t have much gravitas, soul, screen presence. He can act, but he’s like diluted vanilla.
4. Don’t much care for Transformers. This could be a result of having stepped on too many of the damn things when our kids played with them– a time when Transformers littered our house ready to transform from toys into implements of painful death.
5. I think most 3-D movies are gimmicks not worthy of the upcharge for the silly glasses required to view them

All these prejudices aside, I’m glad I saw this film. It was the coolest 3-D movie I’ve ever seen, and Michael Bay has some amazing camerawork. In a weird way, what makes Bay obnoxious in two dimensions makes him pretty spectacular in three. It’s like icing on top of frosting that somehow works for a visual feast worth attending.

The plot? Well, yeah, there’s a plot: an alien spacecraft crashes on the moon, N.A.S.A. alerts the White House and the next thing you know, J.F.K. initiates the space program to get a man on the moon to investigate before the Ruskies do. We all thought the moon mission was for pride, but it was to investigate the crashed alien spacecraft– why must our leaders always deceive us?

Yada blah blah yada and here we are in the present or near future and Autobots are helping our government and evil Decepticons (nasty Transformers who need a good talking to so that they’ll maybe straighten up and fly right!) want to take over our planet and the key to the whole shebang are some special rods that were on that spacecraft that crashed into the moon and well, Yada blah blah yada.

Yeah, there’s a plot and there’s some talented actors trapped in the plot: John Turturro, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Dr. McDreamy himself. Shia LeBeouf has him a hot new girlfriend, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and Michael Bay is more than happy to show us why she’s a star in the Victoria’s Secret catalog. The script does not develop her character any further than commentary from all perspectives that she’s a hottie. It doesn’t really matter, the humans serve only one purpose in this film: give some puny scale against which the mighty Transformers might dominate and intimidate.

And that’s where this film shines. The effects work is stunning. The 3-D shot composition, especially in master shots with tiny humans in foreground and massive Transformer and breathtaking vistas in background are what make this film worth forking over the extra bucks for the glasses.

If you cheap out and see the film in 2-D, be warned– you’ll only be magnifying the silliness of this affair.

The movie clocks in at over two and a half hours. It could have easily lost a half hour or forty-five minutes, but when you’re guorging yourself, what’s some extra cheese?

All in all, this film is worth sitting through for the amusement park adventure of the spectacular destruction of Chicago and some famous landmarks. Don’t expect much more than that, and you’ll enjoy your long, noisy ride.

 

Four movies for your two eyes, two ears.

“Burn After Reading”– You need to manage your expectations on this one, people. It’s being marketed as a comedy. If you walk in, sit down, fold your arms and say “O.K., clown-boys, make me laugh!” you won’t enjoy this movie as much as you should. Yes, there are some laughs in “Burn”.  Some laughs. But mostly it’s a quirky character-driven intricately plotted web of intrigue, vanity and stupidity. 

This is the latest offering from Joel & Ethan Coen (who some call “The Coen Brothers”, I call them “Those Kooky Coen Kids”). They’re hot off the Oscar-heavy success of “No Country For Old Men” and here they definitely toss a change up from the heavy drama of that jewel.

I’ll eagerly to see anything the Coens make, after all they’ve made some of the most interesting and enjoyable films of recent times:  ”O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, “Miller’s Crossing”, “The Big Leboski”, “Fargo”, “Raising Arizona”, “Blood Simple”, “Barton Fink” and more).

In “Burn After Reading”, you’ve got star power galore with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, John Malkovich. You’ve got nepotism with Frances McDormand playing a lead (she’s the wife of Joel Coen, but she’s always terrific and probably doesn’t need the inside connection). You’ve got great character actors in Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins and J.K. Simmons. You’ve got a free-wheeling story that just keeps spinning inter-connected plot lines and catapults the story along to a conclusion that is fulfilling, believable and as arbitrary as life itself.

I did miss Roger Deakins, who has been the director of photography for just about all the later Coen films. “Burn” does not have the cinematic grandeur and camera movement as previous Coen flicks, but it does keep you moving and guessing and enjoying the ride, so what the hell, enjoy your time off Mr. Deakins… but please come back soon. I miss you.

“Tropic Thunder”– There’s a reason this film is doing some serious box office business: it does what a comedy is supposed to do, give your lungs a healthy workout. This is one seriously funny movie.

But even if it wasn’t funny, it’s a pretty good action-adventure film thanks to some beautiful cinematography by two time Oscar winner John Toll and excellent directing by Ben Stiller.

Stiller co-wrote this yukfest with actor Justin Theroux and the incomparable Ethan Coen (moonlighting while Joel slept with wife Frances).

The premise of the movie is the making of a big budget movie based on a  best selling book about the Vietnam War called “Tropic Thunder”.  

The main attraction is Robert Downey, Jr., playing 5-time Oscar-winning Australian actor Kirk Lazarus. Kirk is the ultimate method actor so for the role of an African-American sergeant, he has a controversial skin- tinting procedure. Downey plays it to the hilt as brother fighting for The Man. But a white dude playing black does not play well with fellow actor Alpa Chino, who really is black, played superbly by Brandon T. Jackson. 

This is the year of Robert Downey, Jr. With this role and playing the lead in “Iron Man”, he stars in two of the best movies of the year, with another promising one (“The Soloist”) on the horizon.

Ben Stiller gobbles his scenes as the Sly Stallone-like mega-action-fading-star Tugg Speedman. His obsequious agent is ably played by Matthew McConaughey (who amazingly plays the entire role shirted).

Jack Black plays a drug addicted co-star who’s made his fame in a series of successful ‘fart films’ (can you say “Eddie Murphy”?) and now wants to be taken seriously as an AC-TOR. 

And the big buzz of the film is Tom Cruise playing an obnoxiously overbearing ball-busting studio head. Cruise has great make-up, rage and screen presence, and you can tell he loved every minute of playing this outrageous jerk.

This movie is decidedly politically incorrect, raunchy, sophomoric and foul– so if you’re easily offended rent “The Sound of Music”, eat taffy and pray for a gentler world. But if you’re up for some good laughs and fun pyrotechnics, grab a chair and kiss a couple hours goodbye. It’s well worth the trip.

“Vicky Christina Barcelona” – Woody Allen is a machine who’s been churning out movies for 42 years. He earned his chops as a master of comedies, defiantly made a series of soberingly depressing dramas and has bobbed about with light dramas, comic capers and interesting character studies. This movie is one of his human stories.

Vicky is played by the beautiful Rebecca Hall. She’s a confident woman engaged to a Mr. Conformity in NYC. She is more pragmatist than poet. She believes she knows herself and her destiny.  She marches through life with firm footed certainty.

Christina is played by the luminous Scarlett Johansson. She’s a flighty insecure woman who is looking for love in all the wrong places but remains a hopeless romantic. She is open to possibilities and growth, unsure of every step she takes but knowing it will lead to something that could be better. She is an artist on her journey of discovery.

Vicky and Christina are enjoying a summer holiday in guess where– Barcelona (boy, the movie’s title gives away the entire story). They encounter an egocentric artist named Juan Antonio, wonderfully played by Javier Bardem (it’s hard to believe this is the same dude who lugged around the bovine-skull-crushing air gun in “No Country For Old Men”). He is on a hedonistic bender, on the rebound from a toxic relationship with his ex-wife, Maria Elena (played by Penelope Cruz).

Juan Anotonio proposes a threesome to Vicky and Christina. He loses that proposal, but gets involved with each beauty individually. He and Christina become an item, his unstable ex enters the scene, more things happen and then some other things happen, too.

I’ll say no more except this movie is a must-see for anyone who ponders the human condition and enjoys adult stories that make your brain contemplate life. Good on you, Woody.

“In Bruges”– You’ll have to rent this puppy, but go ahead and get it in your queue today. This tale of two hired killers in the Belgium resort Bruges is a fun romp well acted by Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell (his performance here is almost good enough to wipe away the stench and sin of starring in “Alexander”). Ralph Fiennes is their irate boss back in the U.K., and as you probably guessed, there is a racist dwarf (sorry, little person). 

It was written and directed by celebrated Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. This is an impressive debut for an incredible talent. It’s beautifully shot with a hauntingly beautiful musical score. Don’t even get me started on the impressive work of the Best Boy.

Give it a go. You’ll love being In Bruges, and won’t soon forget the trip.