Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 review

I'll spare you the 'interesting' tale of how I gained entry to the CW sponsored screening tonight, but I did and as a general event it was fantastic. Since I go to the movies a ridiculous amount at different venues and for different types of films I'm always looking for experiences that transcend just watching a movie. With some films I look for a lively crowd of spectators to provide some sort of running commentary on the film. Not necessarily actual diologue, but emotions and reactions to what they're experiencing. As far as that's concerned HP 7 and it's giddy bunch of fans there tonight were very entertaining and fairly close to the type of group I excepted. Well... perhaps a bit more tame. Oh and the film? Highly impressive.

For those who don't know my feelings on the long running Harry Potter franchise it goes like this. I think the first two films are GREAT for kids, but don't hold up well to anyone else. If you have kids and want an easy way to introduce them into this universe through cinema or into the fantasy adventure genre all together, they are great points of entry. Then came the third and fourth films which stand as two of my favorites. Three because of the best use of CGI in the entire series of films (this one included) and because they began to really flesh out the characters and universe more. Really most of what we say in three we are still seeing now design wise. However part 4 is my favorite of them all. For me it encompasses all the light, dark, adventure, humor and real world troubles this sort of story could contain and it does it very, very well. This brings us to the fifth and sixth films where David Yates took over directorial duties. For both of those films he was my biggest beef. Both films were photographed nicely and performed well, but his directing was rarely exciting and never packed any real emotion.

The best example was in the last film where the beloved Dumbledore dies. There was ways of shooting and editing that sequence to make it more dramatic and actually deliver something more from it, yet it was just another scene. Nothing special. So heading into the Deathly Hallows I figured it would be more of the same. Happily I was wrong. The film isn't perfect and it doesn't dethrone part 4 as my favorite, but it is now a close second. It seems Yates got the picture for the most part and impressively delivers stronger character moments and fairly decent action sequences. But really the best stuff in the film is the slow pieces. The long stretches without a ton of shoddy CGI and simply Radcliffe, Watson and Grint acting in fascinating, real world locations. If there was ever a time to be impressed with their acting abilities, this would be it.

The supporting cast of well-knowns return and don't have a ton of screen time, but in his few scenes Ralph Fiennes' Voldemort gets to play a bit more than in the last two films and almost reminds me of his grand debut in part 4. Back when he was the character we heard about for three films and then finally get to see in all his horrific glory. Here we see a bit more of his true malice in some great quiet scenes. It really makes me long to see the final confrontation between him and Harry. Not so much the fight, but the lead up to the fight. Harry and the gang are really 90% of the picture. Granted they are always the mainstay of things, but this time there are less character additions or action fills. Harry doesn't have all the answers as usual, but this time I kind of... feel it. It doesn't feel like there's the magical safety net that there used to be and getting out and away from Hogwarts makes it far more atmospheric. The foggy woods mixed with Desplat's quiet score and the general tone Yates sets brings it all together.

So what holds it back from greatness? Honestly it's simple things... well mostly. For some reason they still don't spend either the right time or the right amount of money on their CGI. The Dobby stuff near the end looks pretty good, but quite a bit of the beginning CG appears very dated. Also for a time they pull the old 'let's talk about what we don't show' game. This works when you're trying to avoid hard violence or something along those lines, but they decide to tell us about two rather important characters demise instead of showing us the lead up and/or what happened. It's not as if these scene were horribly violent or prolonged, but visually something ought to be delivered. It's as if Sirius died and someone walks in, tells the group and they have a moment of silence. And finally Yates hasn't quite got the hang of action sequences. His love of wanting to stay on the actors faces is well and good, but a nice wide shot or a longer wide shot to really show off the scope and magnitude of the event would be great. All of those issues however, happen within the first twenty to forty minutes of the two and half hour picture. So there was a lot of making up for me to still be really impressed.

I'm happy to eat crow on this. I'm happy that this turned out to be a fun fantasy adventure that hits the right notes. I don't really feel like this had a climax, but it certainly ends at the right moments. I'm not talking like "Empire Strikes Back" right moments; where everything feels horrible and all hope could be lost one way or another. I'm not even talking about "The Dark Knight" finale where it's a 'happy' ending, but with a less than favorable outcome for the hero. It's more of a just the right moment kind of thing. Power and momentum have swung the other direction for the moment, but the battle is far from over. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" is a hit already no matter what. But at least with this installment I feel that it's earned it and it actually has me looking forward to it's conclusion next July.

The Last Airbender review

With "The Last Airbender" M. Night Shyamalan has indeed made his worst film. This is coming from someone who actually does find "The Happening" entertaining on that 50's-60's cheap horror film way. All this said I don't buy this as the worst film of the summer. At the very least I can say TLA is nice to look at and James Newton Howard's score is as good as most of his for M. Night's films. The cinematography is dry, but in a refreshing way for the genre and hell I'll even give Shyamalan some credit for NOT falling into the pits of the genre as far as shots are concerned. There's a lot of issue with what's there (I'll get into that in a second), but after 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'Harry Potter' almost all fantasy films are shot in the same fashion ('The Golden Compass', 'The Chronicles of Narnia', 'Stardust' etc) and that's been killing me while watching them. At least when Night wasn't in extreme fucking close ups for no reason, he could lay down some interesting looking images here and there that wasn't all middle-earthy.

Ok, so why is this such a clusterfuck? First off what Shyamalan screws up is a potentially interesting beginning to what could be his trilogy. Since the money numbers are in, it's in that weird stage where a sequel might or might not happen considering it's budget was ... $280 million dollars and it's at $70 million right now. By the way if any of that money was accidentally sent to your house by mistake please contact someone at Paramount Pictures cause it damn sure was not used on this movie. With that kind of cash this film should've been about two and half hours long. In fact with this source material it would dictate a two and a half hour long movie. Instead we get 103 minutes that speeds along jumping where necessary and using action derivative language the whole time. It also plays the whole we'll talk about, but not show action through the means of weak appearing and disappearing narrations via Nicola Peltz's character Katara, whose voice could make an angel's anus bleed for weeks. The few fights scenes are over in a blink mostly and kind of awkwardly composed. The first one involving some earthbenders defending themselves against firebenders starts to seem impressive before ending about a minute in and doing little more than making a dirt wall and throwing some small rocks. As a mild fan of the series I can also say that is does change many aspects of the first season. Somethings are understandable and aren't that important at this state, while others might need to be addressed... like oh say... figuring out how to say the words 'Avatar' not 'Ovatar' and 'Aang' not 'Ung'.

That brings me to the acting of our three leads. Noah Ringer plays the young Aang who awakes and begins this pretty lackluster adventure. Ringer isn't an actor (and it shows). Shyamalan found him through tapes sent into Paramount looking for kids who could be these characters. He's apparently a martial artist and I'll say that's probably true as his moves and form seem quite on par with that. His acting is... well it ain't good, but compared with the other two characters he might as well be Daniel Day-Lewis. Jackson Rathbone ('Twilight's Jasper aka Willy Wonka) plays Sokka, Katara's older brother. Almost everything thing he says is cringe worthy. Part of it is due to some of the junk Shyamalan has written for him, but even when it's general stuff he performs like he's never acted before. Equally Peltz seems to have the most bizarre fucking reactions to everything. When things are at peace she looks like she's about to faint from frustration, when things are burning around her she's smiling and pleased. So either she's a mental case or she's an action junkie that gets her jollys from drowning people in mid air. I'm more incline to believe the prior though.

On the villain side we have 'Slumdog Millionaire' star Dev Patel as Prince Zuko, who was banished and disgraced by his father played by Cliff Curtis. Zuko can only return to his place in the empire by catching the avatar. Patel is one of the few here that actually works for me. Had the film been the length it should've I could maybe even see him getting a nice monologue to really pump up his villainy as well as the duality of his feelings towards Aang. Shaun Toub plays Zuko's Uncle Iroh who ain't so bad and tries to get Zuko to think that being an outcast isn't a bad thing. But ole' lonely Zuko just can't stop pissing and moaning about how he wants back in and blah, blah, blah. At some point Iroh should've told him to go bitch about it in his diary. Then there's Commander Zhao played by 'The Daily Show' star Aasif Mandvi. Not the role for him. I agree with the rest of the world by saying here's a role for a strong, meaty and actually frightening actor. This is the real bad guy to everybody in the story and Mandvi doesn't cut it.

And after going through all this I still can't say this is this big awful piece of work. It sucks, it sucks on several levels, but I've seen worse. I question HIGHLY how critics actually liked "Macgruber" or how "Grown Ups" gets a critical pass. Honestly the whole bad press over this film got me thinking a few days ago about another director and his out of his element film. David Lynch's "Dune" had a very similar fate as this. Interestingly enough it has now achieved a cult status, but go back and read reviews from 1984 and it was pretty much called the worst film of the year and it was only January when it came out. "Dune" isn't good, but it's not utter shit. "The Last Airbender" isn't good, but it's not utter shit. Perhaps I find it difficult to fully destroy the idea of any film with an interesting concept, but I don't think it's a total wash.

I think with this film Shyamalan got scared while writing and scaled back to such a bogus level as to leave next to nothing for viewers to get wrapped up in. It reminds me of FOX's box office train of 90 minute, PG-13 films that were all cut to ribbons and by the time people saw them, they didn't make any sense, but they made money. If ever he were allowed to make a sequel to this (which I highly doubt) or to do another effects heavy film I offer up these thoughts... 1: if you subscribe to making an action film, don't puss out and NOT make one. 2: films can be and often should be longer than an hour and a half. 3: Fucking pay attention during casting sessions! And furthermore fire the fuck out of Peltz and Rathbone or send them on a weekend with Tom Hardy, Daniel Day-Lewis and Viola Davis. If they don't know how to act after hanging with them, then there's no hope for their careers. 4: Hire a writing buddy or someone to check what you're writing and make sure it doesn't involve people repeating the same lines over and over and over again. 5: I hear there are deleted scenes... GOOD. For the DVD Michael Mann the fuck outta your movie and throw it all in! Got different takes of some of the acting? PERFECT, put that in too. Any thing you can do to fix this is a good call.

So really that's all I have to say on the matter of "The Last Airbender". Admittedly even with a misstep with "Lady in the Water", I found it an interesting one. Honestly I like the guy because he does have a style that's all his own and isn't interested in compromising it in this day and age where a lot of movies look the identical. At the same time maybe it's time he really analyzes that style and figures that there is a way to still utilize it, but in a better way that's more in tune with what people want to watch in general and what people want to watch from him. Regardless of what people say I think he's still got some good stories in him, but God help him if he can't tell them better than this.

Alice in Wonderland review

Here's a list of everything I thought while watching Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland".
1. I wish I could get them to replay that amazing "Tron Legacy" trailer.
2. I've got a feeling I know where this film is going...
3. Is it too late to get into "Avatar"?
4. I wonder how would this have been if Terry Gilliam or Sam Raimi or Guillermo Del Toro or Alex Proyas made this instead?
5. Why is Johnny Depp dressed up like a gay Ronald McDonald with a Scottish accent?
6. I'm digging the voice combo of Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman and Stephen Fry. I wish every movie had those three in it together.
7. Wow, forty damn minutes before Anne Hathaway is on screen... lame.
8. This is some lackluster 3D.
9. I really want something to eat. I should've taken care of that at home while watching "Cold Case Files".
10. I really want to see that "Tron" trailer again.
11. The is an awful screenplay...
12-29. (General white noise while trying to like the movie)
30. Wow... this is perhaps as bad as "Corpse Bride".

That's really all of it in a nutshell. "Alice in Wonderland" is boring, drab, long, poorly written, disappointingly directed by Burton and with that 3D price tag slapped on, a rip off. And it's sad because of all the fantasy filmmakers out there Burton would be at the top of anyones list for something involving this story, but with his vision clouded with tons of cartoonish CGI, a story that straight outta Narnia and creatures that look like they were designed for Crash Banidcoot games in the late 90's... well... his vision sucks.

I'll begin with our Alice, young Mia Wasikowska who moves about wonderland... or underland I think some call it, as if she was moving through a video game the whole time. Her mono toned voice through the film and fairly dull characterization leaves much to be desired in ever caring about what happens to her. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter is simply annoying and stupid. He's an eyesore. He's Shaun White in pancake makeup serving tea instead of selling shitty video games with his name on them. Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen is actually... well... pretty good. As much as I hated the giant head deal, I think she did a fine job playing her and made her lamest lines work really well. Also some of the CGi animation looks pretty nice in the finished product, but the 3D is has pronounced as it was in "Bolt".

The journey through Wonderland also concludes in a very Super Nintendo like way, where the main character finally fights something huge and ridiculous, it's defeated by a series of simple, yet effective moves and you are treated for a fucking stupid song and dance finale with the Mad Hatter. Speaking of which... did we really did an action sequence with the lighting of "The Lord of the Rings", but the action of "Journey to the Center of the Earth"? If Burton and company's plan was to make me want to go back and watch better fantasy films like "Pan's Labyrinth" or "The Imaginaruim of Dr. Parnassus" then mission accomplished.

And this isn't coming from some I hate Tim Burton thing. I think he's ok. He's made many films I don't like ("Corpse Bride", "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "Edward Scissorhands"), he's made films I love ("Ed Wood", "Sleepy Hollow", "Sweeny Todd") and many in the middle ("Mars Attacks!", "Planet of the Apes", "Batman"). However I do not think he's some unbeatable, champion filmmaker. This being a good example of why I feel he's not that. I think he needs to swing back into his old roots and try making something with less CGI crap and do things old school. Then it seemed like his work looked and moved better, you know. You had characters that were interesting and not just wild eyed crazies throwing things about. Rumor has it he's going to make "Return of Sleeping Beauty" or something of that nature. I'm not sure what to think, but perhaps he should stay away from kiddie flicks for a while. At least long enough that he can remember what telling a story means and making visually interesting films, not candy coated needles for the eyes.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus review

For anyone who has never seen a Terry Gilliam film, then here's what I will say. If you take Tim Burton, loose a degree of the dark look and shift that to the actual tone of the picture and then throw some paint and crazy into the mix, you've got yourself a Gilliam picture. The man is creative and sometimes too creative for his own good. In fact if you wiki Terry Gilliam you can easily discover just how many of his films revolve around some kind of conflict either with studios, producers, actors, the Writer's Guild of America or all the above. In the case of "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" however, he had the worst thing possible to happen, which was the death of his lead actor Heath Ledger.

So two or three years later we get Ledger's final performance piece and finally... FINALLY Gilliam has created maybe his best work. I say this being a big fan, but knowing the flaws within his work involving pacing, characters and just him going hog wild and forgetting what the damn story was all about. No, here is a perfect fantasy film that's original, funny, jarring at times, sexy, thrilling and one of the best pictures of 2009 (although I can't officially list it). The first thing I'll say is that I'm actually surprised at how much Ledger was in the film. He's actually pretty much throughout the whole thing minus the effects sequences in which he enters the mirror into Dr. Parnassus's mind. In those sequences for some... I won't say who... their appearance changes, thus Tony is played by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law. It never feels stapled onto the original story or idea, it feels genuine.

But really his character Tony isn't quite as important as Dr. Parnassus, played by Christopher Plummer and damn well I should say. His lovely daughter and assistant with the show Valentina played by Lily Cole. And the devil Mr. Nick played by the always entertaining Tom Waits (who will also been seen in "The Book of Eli"). The real plot involves them and the bet... well... bets made between Parnassus and Mr. Nick. Mainly the one in which for immortality with the woman of his dreams, Mr. Nick would get any child he fathered with the woman when the child reaches sixteen; and guess who has a birthday coming up. Of course Valentina has no idea about this, but Anton, the other assistant who's head over heels in love with her does and Parnassus' long time friend Percy played by Vern Troyer.

Hope is restored thanks to the devil, but not without something up his sleeve as usual. The addition of Tony to the traveling show also proves most helpful, except to Anton because all of Valentina's attention has gone to him. Now let's talk about the glorious imaginarium. It's pretty damn cool. The effects both CGI and practical are impressive and very much in keeping with Gilliam's true style. I'll say it's not quite as dark as some of his past pictures, but it doesn't need to be like oh say "The Fisher King". But there is dark places it goes to and some extremely funny sequences that really show off that humor and creative muscle he's got.

I do wish more of his films were floating around in Wal-Mart and what not so more people would pick them up. It seems like Tim Burton has some stranglehold cult love from goth kids, tweens and people who like movies and hang around Hot Topic. But ask them about Guillermo Del Toro, Terry Gilliam or even someone like Nick Castle (gotta love "The Last Starfighter") and they give you blank stares. I imagine it's because Burton's stuff is more out in the mainstream and Gilliam has remained independent most of his career. And given his history I'm really sure it was by choice. But if there is one of his films to see, let you begin with this one. It's a real love letter to his friends and fans and in many ways it's the kind of movie I've always wanted to see his name attached to. This is perfect fantasy.

"The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" **** out of ****

The Lovely Bones review

Every now and again I'll see a trailer for something and I won't have that thought was 'wow, I've gotta see that now' or 'that's something that's gonna be kick ass' or something along those lines. By the way I tend to think that a good bit no matter what genre it is; my mind is like an 80's G.I. Joe figure with two catch phrases. Sometimes I see something and I think on it for a good while and then see what the vibe strikes me as and what not. I subtract even who is involved in the picture, which is 95% of the time is a big deal to me and I just see what's the vibe I get from it. Peter Jackon's "The Lovely Bones" was one that hit me down the road and I kept it in my head that 'this seems like something I'm gonna love'. Granted I've thought this before and been dead wrong, but in this case I wasn't. I watched it yesterday morning and much of what was in the film is still stuck in my head, running around and around.

I've never read the book, although now I very much want to and from what I hear there are things taken out, which isn't surprising; although the biggest one is the lack of the rape scene. I'll get back to that later though. The first thing I noticed and hooked me into the picture was the 1970's look and feel of it. I mean this is down right 70's to the nitty gritty and it looks perfect. The feel however comes from two sources; one is cinematographer Andrew Lesine, who gives the film that slight grainy, glowing Bob Clark look and the other is all Jackson. What a lot of people don't know is that Jackson's real style isn't how "The Lord of the Rings" was shot. I'll say that the final installment had some in it, but that was much more restrained. "King Kong" had a good bit of his style in it (probably why I loved it so much), but really his old splatter films and his dramas speak of his true blue style. Jackson loves a lot of camera movement, sometimes normal and sometimes these irregular pattern shifts. His lenses provide a global scope on things at times and it all feels like films I've seen made in the 70's and 80's.

As most people do know the film is about little Suzie Salmon who at age fourteen is murdered by one of her neighbors and from her own piece of heaven watchers her family during the aftermath. Saoirse Ronan, the young Oscar nominated actress who stole the show in "Atonement" again displays range and great depth. She makes you like this character and in many ways identify with her as well. In fact there's such great deal of that and done so well that I imagine several people would've walked out had the rape and murder scene been in the film. Make no mistake about it those is no way you can make those things not ugly and horrible in this situation and then easily recover the film you had before that despite the better things that follow. Granted you know what happened and are given more than enough clues to back it up, to show it would've been horror for horrors sake. It's the same reason for some of the restraint Del Toro had at the end of "Pan's Labyrinth"; somethings you don't really want or need to see.

The aftermath with the family is equally interesting as you see the various ways in which people deal with grief. For her father (played by Mark Wahlberg) it was hope and later obsession with the case and the people around him. Her older sister felt the same way and her mother (played by Rachel Weisz) went through heavy depression and goes as far as to leave the family for a short time. All the while Suzie's killer, Mr. George Harvey continues his life and is getting comfortable with little to no suspension on him. Stanley Tucci plays Harvey and this is really an impressive and key role for him. When you see a character actor like him in a dozen films you start to see the same dude everytime. Not here. Tucci is completely invisible in this guy down to the voice. This is the only supporting acting work I've seen that actually rivals Christoph Waltz performance in "Inglorious Basterds".

The depiction of heaven was something that many were concerned about after the trailers. I admit was a bit put off by some of it then too, but within the movie it's something much bolder and much more interesting and this is why Peter Jackson is a fantastic film maker. He has created a movie that not just is set in the 70's and 80's, but could be right out of that time period as well. In several ways this is a film that's directed towards teen audiences as much as adults and has subject matter that's identifiable to them, but isn't bullshity. It's also a fantasy film in many ways which is very much how rough subject matter was covered in films then and often illustrated its point better than regular dramas about similar subject matter. And there is bits of dark humor within it all was well which points away from the darkness of the picture, but only for it's moment and despite how grim it all sounds, the film is quite beautiful. Not just in the fantastical elements, but with the family dynamic and seeing their progression as times passes.

"The Lovely Bones" interestingly enough isn't being pushed as hard as other awardy movies. For Paramount and Dreamworks their big dog is "Up in the Air" (which I'll see soon) so this has fallen by the wayside. My hope however is that people do go out and see this film, awards or not and see how they feel about it. As much as I do love it, it does strike me as a film which could divide people, which is understandable in certain ways. I do urge those who see and like "The Lovely Bones" to see Jackson's other drama/tragedy "Heavenly Creatures" which is slightly more brutal, but equally as fantastic and inspired as this. A brilliant piece of work.

"The Lovely Bones" **** out of ****