Archives for April 2016

The Peanuts Movie Review

April 6, 2016 by JD Hansel

I am fairly certain that, in the world of comedy (if not the world in general), it is a sin for me to say that I have never been much of a Peanuts fan. That’s not to say that I didn’t like the works of the Peanuts characters – I do enjoy their most famous Christmas special, among other staples of Schulz’ work – but I simply wasn’t exposed to them early enough in life to appreciate them the way so many others do. The Peanuts specials and comics have a kind of humor that is generally rather slow and deliberately underwhelming, as it focuses on a mumbling failure who tends to dread living. I certainly do identify with this kind of character, and I greatly appreciate Schulz’s approach to writing for the character, which is summed up in this simple, classic quote of his: “Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning.” With this in mind, I can’t help but look at the 2015 Peanuts film as a perfect example of both what it is I love about the Peanuts, and what it is that I just don’t know how to appreciate.

Right from the start, this film was full of surprises. The trailer alone stunned me with the distinction of its animation style, as it is probably the best use of CG animation I have seen since at least Inside Out, if not The Lego Movie. Because of the purity of the style, the film had earned my respect before I had even seen it, but then again, I was unsure as to whether or not it would be worth seeing. I am now glad that I did choose to see the film, because if I thought that the animation style was surprising, I was quite shocked to see how much I enjoyed the humor. No Peanuts production or comic had ever made me laugh so hard, and I think this is largely due to the way most of the jokes relied on the animation style. By doing this as a CG film rather than 2-D, this movie ensures that it does not appear to be a continuation of the old Peanuts specials, but rather an homage to the comedy and animation of older cartoons, making for an experience that’s easy to enjoy. However, both the laughs and the surprises grew fewer and fewer as the movie progressed, and I was bothered to find myself losing interest.

This is the problem. I eventually found myself playing a video game on the Wii U while the film was still on, because there was so little need to pay attention during most of the movie. The plot was predictable enough, so I didn’t really need to keep a close eye out for much, and the overall storytelling approach didn’t interest me much at all. Half of the movie seems to be spent on an irrelevant B-story taking place in Snoopy’s daydreams of chasing the Red Baron, which might have been worth including had they used the classic song, but even the superb sight gags towards the end of his fantasy aren’t quite enough of a pay-off to make it worth my time. The main story, obviously focused on Charlie Brown, was cute and relatable, but was still a little lacking in substance, and could have been over with much quicker. The ‘A’ story could have been a ‘B’ or ‘C’ story, and the Snoopy bits could have been two or three very brief scenes, which would have left room for a stronger ‘A’ story.

All that being said, this is a good movie. It’s fun, clean, and has both the frustration with life and the delightful purity required to make it feel like a classic Peanuts production. Getting a G-rated movie in 2015 was already miraculous, but it’s even more satisfying to find that it’s a good movie that adults can enjoy just as much (or maybe more) than children. It has a lot of charm and heart, which are very hard to generate without being sappy, but this movie does the job just fine. Forgive me for ending on such a cliché, low-hanging joke, but I can’t resist: “You’re a good movie, Charlie Brown.”

Rashômon Review

April 5, 2016 by JD Hansel

I like stories. I especially like stories when they are delivered with the standard Hollywood three-act narrative. It’s a good structure for movies, and I think that’s because of the logical form at play in the medium. Nearly every film that’s ever been screened – or perhaps every fiction ever invented – has built its story, whether or not the writer(s) realized it, on the following idea: given this fascinating set of circumstances, these fascinating events are what would/could follow (or, to express it in propositional logic, “C → E“). It makes sense that the first act would establish the circumstances and the main character that will be used to express their consequences, followed by a second act in which several chaotic events take place as a result of the established circumstances, a climax with the culmination of all of the chaos thus far, and finally a conclusion that sorts everything out into some sort of inevitable, orderly result. Naturally, I always get nervous when a director decides to break this form in favor of his/her own idea of whatever would be interesting to present on film. For this film, however, Kurosawa somehow managed to use the same logical principles, but with a different form than Hollywood’s, that strangely works beautifully for this story.

From the beginning, the tone of the film puts the audience in a mood to hear a story, as we see what almost seems like an equivalent to a man walking into a bar our of the rain to tell a story to the bartender. We know right away that we’re about to hear a dreadful tale, and the flashbacks are no surprise. Flashbacks had been long-established by this point, so everyone knew what they were and how to “read” them. We also understand the cinematic grammar of a court hearing, so the way that the flashbacks are organized and presented makes sense. Ultimately, the form of this film still retains the basic concept of presenting circumstances and the events that would follow from them, but if Hollywood’s form is a bowling ball hitting the pins, Kurosawa’s form is a cue stick hitting the triangle of object balls – the point isn’t to push everything in one direction, but to scatter in every direction. In other words, Kurosawa uses a structure that shoots various mutations of a story in different directions, and we are meant to make sense of the general ideas running throughout all of them in order to make sense of the conclusion.

What is perhaps most impressive about this movie is that it offers satisfaction without answering the film’s main question. While I do not wish to give too much away, I will say that the ending is a hopeful response to the events of the film . . . in a way. Rather than having a conclusion that is set up directly by the events that take place in the story, this film ends with more of an Our Town ending by ending on an answer to the film’s theme, and even the film’s form. The form of the film is inseparable from the plot, so both the form and plot keep the audience curious about what’s to come. We can still play “the movie game” of trying to guess where the plot will go because the grammar of the film is intuitive enough, but the ending makes one realize that the game is not the point. The point, like with most stories, is the moral we learn from the fable, which makes Rashomon a very fascinating sort of fairy tale.

Romero Review

April 1, 2016 by JD Hansel

I have decided to relieve myself of duty. For almost 21 months now, I have been reviewing every movie I watch for my first time, with only a few exceptions (such documentaries, or movies I have only seen through Mystery Science Theater and related productions). At this time, however, I am concluding this journey by ending the “mandatory” status of my online movie reviews. This is the 100th movie I have reviewed in this series, so it is a fitting place to end. Why is this particular film special enough to serve as the conclusion to an important chapter of my life’s story? Because I believe that experiencing Romero was a significant turning point in my life; for I now understand the nature of humankind.

Pardon me for being even more pretentious and over-dramatic than Romero itself, but this is a very telling film about what people always have done, and what we always shall do. What we see in this movie is the struggle to combat oppression. Over and over and over again, all throughout history, people are required to stand up and fight just to be called people. Humans are always finding new excuses to oppress people, as can be seen in just the recent history of Africa, Brazil, Panama, Cuba, and of course the United States, among several others that my readers will just have to research for themselves. I haven’t time to list every instance in the past century in which an entire populations have been denied their basic rights, and have been treated worse than animals.

This is what humans do. We harm without reason, we kill without cause, and we torture for pure pleasure. We silence those with whom we disagree and deafen ourselves with the gunshots that kill them. We invent new ways to kill more people more quickly, to hurt more people more violently. We dehumanize anyone we feel we must in order to manage our own fragile, pathetic emotions. This is what we do. This is what we are.

However, it is not all we are. What makes the human race such a fascinating species is not the fact that we are so oppressive and abusive that revolutions of liberation are commonplace, but rather the fact that we have made these revolutions commonplace by refusing to tolerate intolerance. People consistently demand liberty and are even willing to die in order to obtain liberty for the posterity of their people. If evil is in power, we will find a way to overthrow that power, no matter how long it takes us to do so. This is what we do.

This is what we are.

This movie contains many other elements that I could obviously discuss in more depth. The Hollywood white-washing is, of course, quite embarrassing, and the way that this movie cherry-picks information (such as the unsettling fact that the United States was supporting the oppressive government of El Salvador at the time by providing training and arms for the abusive soldiers) can be frustrating. I have little to add about any connection to certain characters in the story, and some of the characters were a mustache shy of a cartoon villain, but I will say that Raúl Juliá’s performance as Romero truly did move me. If one considers it to be a religious film – which I suppose is fair since it was produced in part by a Catholic production company – than it is certainly one of the best. It may be slow and boring at the start, but the more the film reveals about the evils humankind must endure, and about the powerful response humankind fires back at these evils, the more the viewer must appreciate the beauty of liberation.