J.D. Hansel

JD Hansel

Mad Max Review

by

What . . . the what?  I’m very confused about what on earth this movie is supposed to be.  The entire selling point of Mad Max – and the story synopsis on the back of the DVD case – is Max’s revenge plot.  But this plot is just the third act.  The entirety of acts one and two is spent setting up a conflict, rather than following one.  I’m not saying that every film must follow the standard Hollywood narrative format, but the best deviations from this format are the ones that deviate to saturate the conflict, not distract from it.  In comparison to my expectations, most of Mad Max just feels dull and pointless.

This film raises the usual questions that I struggle to answer when writing on a film I don’t like:

  1. Is it a good film even though it’s not my cup of tea?
  2. Can it be held accountable for not living up to its marketing if the film’s marketing is the problematic part?
  3. And is it really a bad thing when a film does not make it clear how it should be approached/read?

To answer the first question, I do think it is possible for me to recognize films that have many positive elements, even if I don’t particularly like them.  I have spent far too much time writing about Pan’s Labyrinth because I know that it is a very impressive film, yet somehow I hate it immensely.  I’m not sure that this movie is the same kind of situation.  Mad Max does not strike me as remarkably well-crafted, even for what it’s trying to be, regardless of whether or not I happen to like what it’s trying to be.  Perhaps the problem is that I cannot tell what it is that I was supposed to be getting out of it, but now that I know what the movie is about and what it spends its time focused on, I still don’t think I’d appreciate it more on my second viewing.  Its story is simply lacking.

For the second question, I don’t think I have a good answer.  If a movie’s marketing is really bad, but the film itself ends up being spectacular, I don’t think I could fault it much for the marketing.  After all, the marketing is not necessarily apart of the film itself, and is generally not really controlled (or even influenced much) by what the director and producer say.  On the other hand, if a film gives me less than what the marketing had me expecting, that’s a negative thing.  It shows that there’s potential there for a good movie, but the filmmakers didn’t make something as good as what the film could have been.  On the other other hand,  what’s especially difficult here is discerning when a film is just “different” from its marketing, but not particularly better or worse.  With Mad Max, it’s clear to me that all of the time spent “world building” in the first hour could have been spent on an exciting plot that properly mixed in the world building, sort of like The Princess Bride, and that would’ve been far more entertaining (without deviating from what was advertised or what the movie promised).

The last question is perhaps the most controversial, and what could easily make me seem like an idiot to a heck of a lot of people.  I’m going to answer this question with a yes, but I’m not sure that it’s a yes in every case.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my review of Pulp Fiction, which I have come to disagree with over time.  It seems to me that I only liked the film because I had heard Tarantino explain in an interview how to approach and/or process it.  I have come to recognize that, without an explanation of how to approach it, I couldn’t have understood it.  Not only that, but I couldn’t have understood how to understand it.  That, I think, is the key – I don’t need a filmmaker to hold my hand and explain everything to me, but I need to know what language I’m seeing before I can read it, or what game I’m playing before I can win it; the difficulty of the game is irrelevant.

I don’t really know if this review will make sense to anyone else.  I’m not even sure that it makes sense to me.  My goal has simply been to explore why I feel the way I do about this movie, and hopefully to understand myself (and cinema) better for having done so.  Mad Max is certainly a special film that has some value to it, but the vast majority of the film did not grab me, and I was left wanting much, much more.  Perhaps my problem is not so much the film as it is the glimpses it shows of what it could have been.

131-mad-max

Masters of the Universe Review

by

Yes, I know this movie is crap, but hear me out.

There are times in life when we need a certain kind of movie to deliver a certain kind of experience.  Very often for me, the experience I’m seeking is a movie that consistently bounces back and forth between being excellent . . . and being so bad it’s good.  The area in the middle is obviously dangerous territory – that’s where all the bad movies live.  But once in a blue moon, there’s a film that has many very strong elements, but its weak elements are so laughable that they don’t harm the movie at all; instead, they add to the film’s charm by being silly and dated.  I seem to have the easiest time finding this experience with cheesy ’80s movies, and I picked up Masters of the Universe from the library because it looked like a fairly standard example of an ’80s movie.  As luck would have it, this movie is the most ’80s movie I have ever seen – in all the best and worst ways – which makes it the perfect example of a movie that prances gracefully across the valley of mediocrity, leaping right from excellence to nanar and back again.

Let me be more specific about what makes it so bad (which I think paradoxically makes it delightful).  First of all, this is immensely cliché, to the point that they even stole elements of their story from Spaceballs (as was pointed out in the Nostalgia Critic review) and made all of the villain’s soldiers look just like Darth Vader.  The actors don’t give great performances for the most part, and everything feels scripted and rehearsed.  At times it feels almost as though they were trying to make the movie as underwhelming as possible, by moving the plot from a fantasy world to friggin’ New Jersey suburbs.  The logic of the film also makes no sense, as there are several occasions when the people of New Jersey should have noticed the crazy magic going on around them – and don’t even get me started on how ridiculously illogical that ending is.  (I mean, the ignorance of the obvious “grandfather paradox” problems makes the ending almost unbearable in a way.)

On the other hand, this movie looks gorgeous.  It’s one of the best looking I’ve seen because of its perfectly ’80s use of light, color, makeup, and old-fashioned special effects.  The movie fully embraces how ridiculous it is, and offers plenty of over-the-top performances, which only get better when James Tolkan (Mr. Strickland from Back to the Future) arrives on scene, making the movie even more ’80s.  The villain is so perfectly extravagant, and gives a wonderfully satisfying post-credits scene.  The story is also very focused on music, particularly from synthesizers, so at this point I think I might be overdosing on ’80s nostalgia.  And did I mention how awesome the color looks?

However, at the end of the day, I can understand why someone wouldn’t like this movie.  I can especially understand why a fan of the original TV series would hate this movie.  On the other hand, for those who want to inject deadly amounts of retro, nostalgic ’80s fantasy into their eyeballs, this movie delivers.  Enjoy responsibly; don’t drive while high on ’80s.

129 Masters of the Universe

Bowfinger Review

by

Frank is the best Frank that’s ever happened to me.

There are a few master craftsmen in the world of film direction that are rarely recognized as such, making for cranky rants from snobby movie buffs like me.  Generally, if a filmmaker is good at getting good reviews, and has done some memorable work, people associate his or her name with his/her film-making.  Frank Oz, on the other hand, has had quite the career as a director, and yet this is largely overshadowed by his time spent as a Muppet performer back in the day.  Seeing as how I am one of the geeky “Hensonites” who just adores the various skills that Frank has, it is important to me that people appreciate both his work as a puppeteer and as a director.  So, I’m adding his  to my Missionary List – the list of movies I promise to spread the word about at any opportunity like a missionary shares the gospel – where it will join the ranks of other underrated triumphs like Phantom of the Paradise, The Twelve Chairs, Play It Again, Sam, and even the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup.

This is one of those movies that is done in such a careful way, with such remarkable precision, that the knowledgeable spectator will be constantly aware that he/she is watching a master at work.  It’s special when a film carries an aura of craftsmanship that is always present, but never too disruptive of the feelings that the spectator is supposed to be experiencing.  The jokes, overall, do work well, even though I think that the same screenplay – perhaps eve with the same cast – could have made for a mediocre movie.  Heck, it would even be easy to hate the main character for being so sleazy.  Frank seems to be the element that makes everything about the film work the way it’s meant to, from the pacing to the mood.

While it’s not necessarily the funniest film I’ve ever watched, it has a number of very strong comedic moments, and is pleasant and fun throughout.  The performances from Steve Martin and Eddy Murphy are some of their best, and the story is written very cleverly with a smart resolution and satisfying ending.  It also has the benefit of being both a good movie on first-viewing and a good “Hindsight Movie” – a film that becomes more enjoyable when thinking about it in retrospect, or when watching it again.  I suspect this may not be uncommon for Oz films, since I really liked Little Shop of Horrors the first time I saw it, but over the years I have grown to obsess over it, and it has become a big part of who I am.  I can’t say for sure that I’ll ever love Bowfinger on a level that’s very close to how much I love Little Shop, but I can say that this is a movie I’ll happily sit down and watch again with whoever would be willing to join me.

If anyone is ever in need of a fun comedy film for movie night, this is one of my top recommendations.

127 Bowfinger

Colonia/The Colony Review

by

Note how my title for this article accounts for two alternate titles for the film.  When I watched this movie through the library not too long ago, it had yet to be released in theaters in the United Kingdom.  It was being promoted as The Colony in the UK, but on IMDb, its title was listed only as Colonia, without any reference to the title being promoted across the pond – not even in the page’s “Also Known As” section.  At first I wasn’t entirely positive that they were the same movie since IMDb didn’t say they were, which is obviously undesirable for the film’s marketers and distributors.  After the film’s UK release, at the time I’m writing this, the page has been updated to show The Colony as the official title at the very top of the page, and Colonia as the “original title” in smaller letters underneath The Colony.  Now the “AKA” page is confused, with Colonia listed as the international title, even though that’s not the official title at the top of the main IMDb page.  I mention all this nonsense to highlight the fact that this film matters so little to people that nobody has bothered to agree on what the official title is, because nobody cares about it in the slightest –  hence why it only made about 60 bucks at the UK box office during opening weekend.

That is just a darn shame.

Rotten Tomatoes shows a score of 23% for this film, but critics ought to know by now how to approach a film of this kind in such a way that they can appreciate its stronger elements.  The first obvious thing that everyone should be able to figure out from the trailer (and the poster) is that it’s pseudo-Oscar-bait.  It’s got a lot of the elements of an Oscar winner – focus on an unrecognized oppressed people, historical drama, etc. – but is ultimately not thoughtful, artistic, or impressive enough for such an award.  It’s a popcorn flick in disguise as something more meaningful.  The second thing to recognize right off the bat is that most of it will not be creative or artistic in stylistic approach, instead aiming for a realism that will, in theory, emphasize the sense that these are real, historical events on screen.  Third, and perhaps most important of all, is the fact that this is in no way striving for historical accuracy, and hardly even strives to honor those involved in the real events upon which it is based – again, it’s a popcorn flick that’s hiding behind a toupee and a monocle.

Once this is understood, now the film can be enjoyed for what it is.  While I have very little patience for the kind of realistic style the film employs, I will say that I think the story is really good.  For this reason, I propose that this movie is highly underrated – which is honestly the only reason why I felt the need to review it.  The story has a number of elements throughout that are painfully predictable, but that’s partially because it’s hitting all of the notes it needs to in order to have the dramatic irony it seeks.  Furthermore, the most important part of the story from an emotional standpoint – that being the fate of our two main characters – is not at all predictable.

I was on the edge of my seat, intensely concerned for what would happen to the protagonists, not only until the climax, but until the credits rolled.  Yeah.  That had to happen before I was sure of whether or not they’d make it, and that’s because it’s easy to make the case that either ending is adequately set up.  While I’m not sure that it’s a positive sign that the ending was arbitrary from the standpoint of the story’s structure and what it necessitated, the effect was ultimately a good one – I got a thrill, and few movies can give me the kind of thrill that this one did.  Consequently, I say the movie gives all it promises, and perhaps even a little more, so I say it passes.

126 Colonia

Romancing the Stone Review

by

I’m a little conflicted.  This movie is loaded with clichés.  I generally don’t like it when a film is very cliché, but this movie is different.  First of all, it’s from the early ’80s, so many of these things that seem cliche today may have been totally original at the time.  Secondly, the fact that the movie is cliché does not mean it’s boring – it’s actually very exciting.

I’m not a fan of action for action’s sake, but the action in this film works well.  I’m very impressed by the way that what would traditionally be considered a “man’s action flick” that makes up one part of the story and the “chick flick” that makes the rest of it are integrated excellently to make a rounded film that anyone can enjoy.  It’s a very ’80s movie with a fun adventure, good performances, interesting twists, enjoyable romance, and one heck of a theme song.  It’s no surprise that this team-up of director Robert Zemeckis and composer Alan Silvestri soon led to Back to the Future, but let’s not let the magnificence of the BttF franchise overshadow the delightful movie that launched Zemeckis in the beginning.

125 Romancing the Stone

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape Review

by

Some of my readers – if I may presume I have readers – may be aware that I have three younger brothers.  The oldest of the three is Brian, who has down-syndrome, which has made my family’s dynamic an interesting one.  As of the time I’m writing this, he’s eighteen years old, and he adds a lot of joy to the family, although he also adds some challenges that we wouldn’t have with a more ordinary teenager.  Brian, however, is not the reason I watched this movie.  I watched it because of my youngest brother, Grayson, who insisted that I watch it with him.  For whatever reason, he adored the movie, but as is common for him, he couldn’t explain why.  I was willing to humor him and watch it since it had such critical acclaim, but it unfortunately strikes me as the average “critic porn.”

I have so little to say about this movie because the movie gives me so little to review.  What’s actually accomplished by the events of this film?  How is the ending necessitated?  How does it even make sense?  Where do they even live in the end?  What the heck was the point of the plotline with FoodLand?  Oh, and the other question – why do I care?

I don’t understand what substance Johnny Depp’s character has that’s supposed to make me like him or root for him.  I also don’t understand why I’m supposed to like the girl that he likes.  When she says the line, “I’m not into that whole ‘external beauty’ thing,” I immediately dismiss her as the kind of pseudo-intellectual hipster that’s not worth my time.  So why is she worth the screen time?  And if I’m really supposed to care about her, how does the movie expect me to be satisfied with an ending in which she only sees our main characters for a couple months of the year?

What I think I understand is why it’s received such acclaim.  The acting is good, considering what the characters are.  I have to give credit to Leonardo DiCaprio for his excellent performance, but of course good acting is never the best measure of a film.  The “story” is fairly interesting, and I must credit the film for keeping me from getting too bored, which could have happened easily with a film in this genre.  It obviously deals with a tricky subject matter, which always gets the attention of the critics, but even with how similar my experiences with my family can be to the experiences of the family in this film, I just don’t care enough about the family to really enjoy the movie.  I get what it’s trying to do, and it does that well, but I would never try to do what it’s trying to do, simply because I don’t care for Oscarbait.

124 What's Eating Gilbert Grape