Movie Roundup! Early Summer, 2013

The family and I have seen a few movies lately. Here are a few thoughts. SPOILERS!

Man of Steel – Saw this over the weekend and enjoyed the latest reboot of the Superman franchise. Superman himself didn’t show a lot of personality (other than brooding) so the film lacked the charm of Christopher Reeve’s portrayal, which translated into a noticeable lack of humor in this somewhat grim, death-filled spectacle. Putting aside the billions dead when Krypton explodes, there are probably tens of thousands of Americans killed as super-beings throw each other through Metropolis skyscrapers, causing entire blocks to collapse. (Seriously, what is it with recent movies (see also Star Trek and The Avengers) and collapsing building porn?) Despite early misgivings, I enjoyed the out of sequence storytelling device and I thought Russell Crowe, as Superman’s father, Jor-El, brought some serious, warm humanity to the film. The origin story is significantly changed as well as Superman’s childhood and relationship with Lois Lane, but I thought it a decent setup for sequels. I was disappointed that General Zod wasn’t put to better use although I did like that they humanized him a bit. I would also like to have seen more from him and his minions. Still, it was a decent reboot and I look forward to the next one.

Django Unchained! - Carol, Rachel and I watched this on DirecTV pay-per-view. After the horrible clusterfudge that was Deathproof, Quentin Tarantino’s contribution to Grindhouse, I had given up hope on Tarantino. Deathproof was talky, slow, contrived, and felt more like a terrible parody of Tarantino than something he created. I was so bored and uncomfortable watching it that I almost walked out, something I never do. Inglorious Basterds from 2009 was something of a return to form as well as being a very entertaining movie, but it still had some issues with self-indulgence. Django Unchained!, however, was excellent. There’s a lot of dialogue (duh) but it’s witty, engaging and to the point, not filled with needless digressions. Christoph Walz, as an absolutely moral, upright bounty hunter (who kills people) radiates humor, warmth and intelligence. It’s a real pleasure to see how he’s always one step ahead of everyone else. Jamie Foxx, as freed slave turned bounty hunter, Django, is intense and quiet, but also excellent. These two performances anchor what is a very brutal, fantasy revenge flick which doesn’t hesitate to show the horrors of slavery. Tarantino’s script and direction are also under control (although unfortunately not enough to prevent his own glaring cameo) and while the story comes close to crossing the line into absurdity, it doesn’t. I’m really glad I saw this. (Warning, one scene involving two men fighting was REALLY brutal. I turned my head.)

Stephen King’s The Shining – The first book I read on my Kindle was The Shining, which I really enjoyed. Since I’ve seen Stanley Kubrick’s film, The Shining, many times, I wanted to see the 1997 TV mini-series starring Steven Weber and Rebecca DeMornay which reportedly stays much closer to the book. Unfortunately, it wasn’t available on Netflix or Amazon Prime, so I ended up watching a low resolution version on YouTube. Even so, I did enjoy it and got a kick out of seeing some of the scenes not in Kubrick’s version. The biggest revelation to me was Rebecca DeMornay who, believe it or not, I never found that attractive. I thought she was great in this and very beautiful. On the other hand, the mini-series failed in one significant aspect: it wasn’t scary. Danny’s supposed-to-be frightening supernatural advisor, Tony, was kind of silly. And although he did a fine job in the impossible role of following up Jack Nicholson’s iconic performance, Weber chasing Danny through the halls of the Overlook with an oversized croquet mallet while shouting “Come out you young pup and take your medicine!” in his angriest voice just didn’t do it. Surprisingly, the hotel, which was the actual hotel that inspired King to write the novel, also wasn’t scary. Kubrick’s fake, creepy, intentionally impossible hotel beat out the real thing.

Next up, World War Z in theatres with Ben and Monsters University with the whole family.

Inglourious Basterds

Saw this yesterday with Rachel and some friends. I thought that doing a movie of a more traditional genre, in this case WWII, might temper Tarantino a bit. It did to the extent that the storyline is pretty linear; there’s no time-jumping here. But the funky music, the title cards, the 70’s graphics, the endless dialogue, it’s all here. The use of a spaghetti western theme identifies the film as uniquely Tarantino’s within the first five seconds.

I won’t go into the storyline but to say that it’s interesting, deals with separate lives intersecting, and does have some big surprises. Brad Pitt, as the leader of the Basterds, is a lot of fun, and Christoph Waltz as the main Nazi villain is amazing; it’s an Oscar-worthy performance. (This, even though there is a scene with him fetishistically eating a piece of strudel, over-foleyed so you hear every single chew. That’s Tarantino’s way of upping the tension and as a person who hates to hear other people eat, it was extremely annoying.) The two female leads, Diane Kruger, of National Treasure fame, and Mélanie Laurent are lovely, charismatic and excellent.

My only quibbles are that Tarantino is still self-indulgent to the point of tedium and there isn’t enough of the Basterds. Several of his dialogue scenes go way too long, a trait that rendered his last short film “Deathproof”, part 2 of Grindhouse, absolutely unwatchable. It’s not nearly as bad here as the acting and the writing are much better, but it’s still too much. The problem with the Basterds is that they show up early and then disappear for long stretches. You never get to know any of them and so they’re all underdeveloped.

So, not his best but still a fascinating, interesting film that’s worth seeing. Beware some rather graphic violence (duh) if that kind of thing bothers you.

Further note: Tarantino won’t explain why the title is misspelled. He says explaining would eliminate the artistic reason he did it in the first place. I think he just forgot to spell-check.