New Movie Reviews

Allegiant Review

April 23, 2016 by JD Hansel

Um . . . okay.

There’s a part of me that wants to say Veronica Roth painted herself into a corner with Insurgent by pushing the story outside of the place that made it almost unique, so I want to go easy on the movie. However, she really opened the door to speculation and imagination, because just about anything could have been beyond the wall, which makes me wonder why this part of the story wasn’t more intriguing and satisfying. I have so little to say about the movie because it made me feel so little. I think I’m experiencing from this movie what most “professional” critics experienced while watching the first two films in the series – a painful lack of inspired substance.

I do think there is enough cleverness and creativity in the world-building at play in this story for it to be a sufficient spectacle, and I also think that it did a good job at making me curious about what was to come. I suppose when this is added to the simple pleasure of spending more time with already familiar characters, it really can be a pleasant film to watch, which is why I did not have a bad time seeing it. In the future, however, I should hope that a movie with this large of a budget will do the work it takes to “wow” me.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Review

April 21, 2016 by JD Hansel

Hi. I’m J. D. Hansel.

Not the usual J. D. Hansel though – that is to say, not the J. D. who’s already seen the movie that he’s trying to review, and has had time to form an opinion about it. I’m J. D. in the middle of watching the movie. I am one hour, six minutes, and 39 seconds into The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and at this time I cannot say with certainty that I’ll be able to finish the film, because the protagonist has just been dared to do the unthinkable. While I do not wish to give it away, I need to make one thing clear – this is my worst nightmare. This movie is terribly horrific because it’s filled with my biggest social fears. I don’t feel safe while watching this film.

I haven’t been this uncomfortable in ages. What started as a seemingly innocent comedy has had me sweating in a cold room, and biting my fist to keep from yelling. I had to stop the movie because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’ve gone to do some chores, and I’ve gone for a walk, but PowerDVD is still sitting in my taskbar, eager to move on, and I still can’t muster up the courage to see what’s going to happen next. I even had to get the DVD case out of my sight, because just thinking about the film makes me shaky, queasy, and rather dehydrated. I’m trying to stall by getting other things done, so I’m in the middle of typing up an email to a Muppeteer I admire at the moment, because even that doesn’t make me quite as anxious as what I think I’m about to see if I play the movie for just ten more seconds. I might try to go play a video game to take my mind off of it, or perhaps I’ll do some packing to move back into my college dorm after spring break, but I still don’t know if I’ll be able to finish this nightmare.

It’s me again – the “normal” J. D. Hansel, under the influence of hindsight bias and time to overthink things, as usual. I’m glad that I’m back, because looking back on this film (which I watched almost a month ago), I can appreciate it more now than I could at the time when I was watching it. My problem, naturally, is that I cannot decide which opinion is more “true” or “pure” – the opinion formed while experiencing the film, or the opinion formed a little bit afterward while looking back at the whole. For this particular movie, I think that the answer is the former. Why? Because, I just now took a look at this movie’s trailer (as I often do to refresh my memory), and immediately my senses have returned to the state depicted in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MnX1wT7BRU

So, in order to recover a little bit, pardon me for a moment while I bang my fists on the keyboard and scream at the ceiling. SZAD.s.kaskssklksalaSZKLJsklkuhdkwkwqp’;wsikjnd9jhergpeehuefwmgwr,’l;wersdffeuhgdefrnklj4wert3pmoljmqhudf7yhegkmrergmk;vbdfidvbfzusdwf’l,ERT./dvslop;sdf.,lerg ,gert

In summery, this is one of the most important, absurd, genuine, horrible, amazing, beautiful, creative, bizarre, genius, unethical, idiotic, awesome, frustrating, glorious, deceitful, outstanding, terrifying, enlightening, enraging, cliche, original, heartfelt, heartbreaking, game-changing, life-changing, and stupefying works of art in the entire timeline of the galaxy. My inability to process such a thing fills me with unspeakable frustration. This is one of those rare films that will haunt me until I die. I know this is rather late in the article to present a thesis statement, but I suspect this aggravation is mostly due to the fact that it should just be a stupid, meaningless, unoriginal teen dramedy, but instead, it uses the deepest fears that were meant to be left unspoken to an extent that Stephen King, Alfred Hitchcock, Rod Serling, and the original Snuffleupagus puppet combined could never parallel.

Since it seems impossible for me to figure out how many stars I ought to give this film, I’ll have to try to focus on some aspects other than the horror. The author of the book, Stephen Lucifer Chbosky, directed this film, and this has both good and bad effects on the movie. The good effect, of course, is that he knows how to tell the story, since it’s his story, and I firmly believe that the writing and directing of a film are generally best done by the same person. This film serves as evidence for this theory of mine, because much of the story is expressed excellently in ways that any other director would probably not try. Not to mention, one scene uses music even more powerfully than the average musical film in the scene featuring “Come on Eileen” – and this kind of perfection is what cinema was meant to be. However, since his background is in writing more than directing, and since he had not yet directed a film on this scale, some of his work is technically lacking. I’m specifically thinking of the scene towards the beginning in the bleachers (when Sam is introduced), because the editing is so unprofessional and awkward that I laughed so hard that I fell on the ground.

Still, it is the characters and conflicts that make a movie more interesting than the technical side of things, so these are what I’ll prioritize. The characters are largely likable when they’re supposed to be, and Charlie is as relatable as the author intended. Each of the actors performed completely believably, although frequently I found I couldn’t quite believe Watson’s American accent – not that I could have done a better English accent, so perhaps I shouldn’t complain. The characters and conflict had all been done in such a way that I couldn’t help but get really invested in the story, but I think this leads to my problem with the film.

One of the greatest sensations I have experienced is when I watch a movie or television program that uses the social anxiety of the audience to make a scene that is both terrifying and hilarious at the same time. The awkwardness of the situations towards the end of Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam and the Next Gen. episode “Hollow Pursuits” can generate two very different emotional responses at the same time, one of which has me peeking through my fingers, and the other has me rolling with laughter. What must be kept in mind is that this only works if the balance is kept just right, with the laughter serving as a spoon full of sugar. In this film, it’s clear that the balance is off – I couldn’t laugh when I wanted to laugh because I felt far too uncomfortable; frankly, I felt violated.

I felt as though the movie had struck me right in the heart, and used my fears to destroy me. Even now, over a month after I watched the movie, the anxiety it induced is still too strong to be considered wholly ethical. Oddly, however, my problem with the film is not so much its attack on the audience, but the way it tries to make everything better with the ending. The ending is when the movie tries to seem caring for its audience by putting a little Hello Kitty Band-Aid on the bloody slash it slit. The happy ending is highly inappropriate, and is even deceitful, since the only friends he made in school (aside from the teacher) are only seen on occasion when they come to visit, meaning our protagonist logically should feel lonely and miserable during 90% of the school year. The worst part is that it’s in the guise of a very cliche young adult novel dramedy, making it the kind of movie that’s not supposed to be a masterpiece, which just adds to the disrespect I feel the film is showing me. If the movie is going to injure me this badly, it needs to finish me off, to put me out of my misery by making a depressing ending that will make the horrors I experienced worth something. I’ve often considered how fun it would be for me to make the most depressing film of all time, so it could be used as a tool to show what it’s like to have depression, but to do that I would have the decency to go all the way and end the film with a thought that will make the viewers wish they were dead – with none of Chbosky’s false hope for consolation.

While I am exceedingly tempted to give this movie four and a half stars (part of me even demands five) for being so powerful, impacting, and unbelievably moving, I’m afraid that I must give this a low, low, low rating for its cruel abuse of the medium of cinema. However, I must recommend it to everyone, and even tout it as a great achievement of cinema, because it’s a more elegant and beautiful abuse than I could have ever imagined.

Deadpool Review

April 9, 2016 by JD Hansel

This is, first and foremost, a comic book movie. I would not consider this to be a farcical comedy film that simply borrows elements from superhero stories, or that parodies comic books in the way that Holy Musical B@man does. This is a comic book movie that borrows from the farcical comedy. When looked at this way, it is a unique and very admirable film, which may even be ahead of its time.

I will address the issue that so many have had with this picture, which is its offensive nature. It is deliberately as inappropriate for children as possible, and many consider it terribly “dirty” or immoral. With as much as I may have been disgusted at times by some of the bloody and/or horrific images used, I do wish to respond to the complaints that it went too far with two main thoughts to consider. The first of these points looks at it as comedy. I very much appreciate Groucho Marx’s criticism of dirty comedy, but I do think that even the filthiest comedy can very good comedy – perhaps even intellectual comedy – if it is cleverly and creatively crafted (and I think even Groucho got a little risque on occasion). In this movie, clearly the writers did put thought and care into the dirty comedy, and most importantly, they used it to ruin, taint, or disgrace the comic book movie, which is exactly the kind of thing that comedy should do. My second point is that the reason why the film had to be this way is to make Deadpool a unique character. He seems to me to be completely separate from both the usual kind of Marvel hero, and the kind of hero that appears in comedy projects based on more official heroes.

Not every little bit of the film is perfect, and far better critics than I have already done a fine job at expressing why/how this is, so I will not waste my time with it. What I will say is that I am pleased that this year has introduced something new and original to cinema, which I think has the potential to make the movies a lot more fun.

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.