J.D. Hansel

New Movie Reviews

Sunset Boulevard Review

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Every now and again, I’m quite surprised which members of my family decide to sit down by the TV and join me in watching a movie that I wouldn’t think is his/her kind of thing.  This happened most recently when I was spending a weekend at my parents’ house and I put Sunset Boulevard on the big screen.  This is a dark, dramatic satire of Hollywood mixed with Gothic chills and romantic comedy from 1950, yet my 12-year-old sister decided to watch it with me.  What made this so special is that Sunset Boulevard happens to be not only a great film by one of my favorite directors, but also a very useful teaching tool.

The first reason why this film is helpful for learning about film history is that it concerns icons of silent cinema, so it re-introduces its viewers to the era with a focus on Cecil B. DeMille, cameos by actors from the time, and an impression of Charlie Chaplin (a very good one, I might add).  Oddly, this actually makes it a very good example of 1950s cinema as well.  The films of the 1950s generally seem to show an awareness of the fact that Hollywood was in a state of crisis as its studio system was falling apart and its Code was weakening, and this film, much like 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, parallels this with the crisis actors from the silent era faced when they had to learn how to succeed in the sound era.  This film, then, offers the flip side to Singin’ in the Rain, showing how tragic it was for the stars (like Lena) who couldn’t keep shining through the 1930s.  The one thing that makes this a poor example of 1950s film is that it can be seen as a film noir (a relatively small genre) due to its uncommon traits and tropes – voice-over narration explaining the story of how a man died, chilling exploration of the psychology of madness, a narrative about choosing between the good girl and the intimidating woman, deep, jagged shadows and wild chiaroscuro lighting, and general sense that everything is spiraling down towards a gloomy, unsettling end.

Best of all, Sunset Boulevard is a good example of a great film.  This is Billy Wilder at his best, bringing together a great cast and working through serious psychological subjects with a a healthy dose of comedy.  The script is smart, carefully setting up its rather forced story in a way that somehow still feels natural and giving nearly every significant character some wonderful, clever dialogue.  Gloria Swanson, of course, steals the show as Norma Desmond – I could taste the scenery she was chewing – and the performance she gives is surely one of the finest (and one of the most over-the-top) in all of cinema’s history.  The film is made that much better by its stunning visuals, which could have simply been there for the heck of it, but Wilder puts them to good use aiding the story, defining the characters, and saturating the drama.  The film that results may be rather slow and boring at times, but it is still one of the best introductions to Classical Hollywood cinema I know, and I hope to watch it with the rest of my family someday.  If Norma Desmond ever needed proof that the pictures didn’t get small, this is it.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) Review

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The story of Baron Munchausen is an old one, even though there’s really not much of a story here.  I’ve seen the old German film adaptation of this story from the 1940s, and while many hold it as a great classic of cinema, I find it unbearable.  That being said, it is imaginative, and whimsical, so I wondered what a good director/screenwriter would do with it, so I naturally became curious about Terry Gilliam’s version from the ’80s.  (I also have a big fascination with ’80s fantasy cinema, so this one’s been on my list for a long time now.)  Fortunately, Gilliam greatly improved this story by giving it more structure, but unfortunately, he negates his improvements with an ending that makes little sense.

What I like about this film is that there is a clear main cast of characters and a clear quest that serves as a through-line for all of the zany misadventures around the world (and outside the world).  Unlike the 1942 film, it is very clear in this movie which of the characters have special abilities, what abilities those are, and what these characters have to do with the Baron, so none of them throw the audience off-guard or feel too random (it’s particularly helpful that they’re part of the opening exposition).  There’s also a sense that each scene – or at least each location on the baron’s journey – makes a contribution to the story, so the story doesn’t feel too random or arbitrary.  While all of this helps make the movie far more enjoyable to watch by allowing the viewer to focus on enjoying the fantasy, by the end of the film it is entirely unclear what has happened.  There actually doesn’t seem to be any possible explanation for how the events that have occurred could have possibly occurred, unless one buys into the artsy, peusdo-intellectual notion that two or three contradictory stories can be true at the same time in cinema, which is exactly the kind of sophistry I would expect Gilliam to express.  Still, as disappointing and irritating that I find it that the film makes no sense and seemingly has no point, the cast is good, the comedy is fun, and the visuals are, predictably, absolutely delightful, making this film worth the watch for any lover of fantasy.

Toni Erdmann Review

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The past few years have seen a strikingly large number of films that have made a big splash unexpectedly, shaking up cinema and dividing critics.  From La La Land to Deadpool, or maybe even LEGO Batman, much of the fun of seeing a popular movie from 2016 is the experience of bafflement brought on by how unlikely it is that such a film could get a wide release in theaters with how far it strays from what studio execs normally like.  Toni Erdmann presents the European side of the story.  Some people I’ve known who’ve seen it find it entirely ordinary, whereas some critics think it’s a sign that cinema’s not dead.  As a contemporary German film, one would expect a certain set of features that this film does, in fact, have: hyper-realism, a focus on real world issues (without neatly simplifying them to straightforward sermons), unsettling use of nudity, sex, and violence, and unconventional engagement with America’s entertainment industries.  That being said, it does all this with a strange style – with a sentiment that’s difficult to pinpoint because it swings so far from being very objective, logical, and factual to being fun entertainment cinema, and then fully into raw depression.  With such a strange hodgepodge of emotion, it’s difficult for people to discern how best to categorize the film in terms of genre.

While it’s been marketed as a comedy, this feels sort of like cheating since most of the film isn’t as fun as the trailers (which give the impression of a Coen Brothers film) would have one believe.  There is clearly such a strong element of family drama in the film, and arguably some sort of political drama as well, in a sense, that there is good reason to think of this as a drama with comedic moments, but fortunately, the term “dramedy” allows us to stop worrying about such a dispute.  I would argue, however, that the film is first and foremost a comedy, and that’s because of how the film engages with Freudian comedy theory.  When the movie engages with comedy, it’s a kind of awkward comedy that doesn’t just let the viewer laugh at characters who act strangely or get into awkward situations, a la The Office, but rather makes the audience feel personally uncomfortable.  I almost feel bad about being in the room at a time when the characters are so vulnerable, and consequently I can’t help but laugh for the sake of release, and it’s also funny because of how unaware the characters seem to be of the absurdity of their own situation.  I think this is why, while the whole movie is, in a word, relentless, the funny scenes stand out as the most memorable.  The film essentially presents a panorama of all the different kinds of “confrontation with the uncomfortable” that cinema has to offer, but it’s the funny scenes that make it something particularly special.

The Dark Knight Review

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I hate giving this film a positive review.  I really do hate to do it.  This film is just so gray and so obsessed with realism, whereas I like my Batman with color and camp.  This film more or less sums up everything I don’t like about DC’s current films – it’s all the top ways to ruin a superhero movie for J. D. Hansel all rolled into one package.  Every time I think the movie is finally starting to move towards the end, it takes another turn and goes off towards a different climax than I expected, drawing out the film as much as possible.  I know we’re all supposed to love this movie, or at the very least we’re supposed to love this version of The Joker, but even him I found irritating – he just never stopped talking with that annoying voice and dialect.  To put it simply, the version of Batman presented here is relentless in its efforts to make me take a grown man in a bat costume fighting a silly clown entirely seriously, and I just have to ask, why so serious?

Now, all of these complaints are issues I pretty much knew I would have with the film before I saw it, so my expectations were low to begin with, but there’s one thing that’s made me feel the need to give it credit: the screenplay.  Not everything about the writing tickles my fancy – I’ve already mentioned how lengthy and convoluted it seems – but this is to be expected since gritty action just isn’t my genre.  What I do know is that a good movie uses its first few minutes to build up “hype” for the rest of the film, and this film does just that, with an opening that is, again, not my cup of tea in terms of style, but still fun, captivating, and well-executed.  More importantly, I had no idea just how many quotes that are commonly used in pop culture – even used by me – come from this movie.  Watching The Dark Knight was, in this sense, like reading Shakespeare or The Bible because I kept learning more and more about where common phrases I take for granted (e.g. “Some people just want to watch the world burn”) originate.  For this reason, I’ll give it credit for bringing the superhero genre to a new level of classy, intelligent writing.

Wizards Review

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This movie is extremely different from what I was expecting, which is odd since my expectations were neither rigid nor conventional, so I should have been a tough audience to surprise.  Ralph Bakshi, however, is full of surprises, and his creativity knows no bounds.  Unfortunately, creativity sometimes needs some constraints in order to be understandable to those who are not the thinker, and Wizards lacks the lucidity it requires.  The best example of this is how the film suggests an army in a fantasy world improves its performance simply by watching a projected film reel of Nazis to get pumped up, without any understanding of the Nazi party’s tenants.  It’s a strange idea, but the way it is expressed visually makes it stranger: the reel isn’t projected onto any particular space, instead appearing behind the army as though the Nazi film filled the air and/or the soldiers in the fantasy world were becoming part of the film.  This isn’t simply a matter of openness of interpretation – this is cinematically illegible, and it is typical of the rest of the movie, which seems to follow dream logic more than narrative logic and expects the audience to buy into many unexplained, confusing plot points.  When this is combined with the bizarre characters, unsettling sexual imagery, and poorly executed climax, the result is a film that, in spite of its inspired artistry, has little substance and no coherence, making it regrettably difficult to tolerate.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) Review

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Thanks to Tim Burton, this movie is sometimes called “the good Alice in Wonderland.”  I understand why – nostalgia goggles can do that to even the best of us.  The problem is that this movie just isn’t very good.  Sure, the 2010 film has problems and may be highly annoying to some, but at least its story is actually a story.  The original Lewis Carroll story isn’t a story.  It’s a drug trip.  And that’s what this movie is as well.

Now, I don’t want to fault the movie for problems it could not help but inherit from its source material, which is the only reason I’m giving this movie such a high rating – if Disney had come up with the story, I’d be giving it two and a half stars at best.  I’m still not even sure that the other elements of the movie merit this rating, because a lot of the film is just unbearable.  Surely Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum could have been done in a way that’s less excruciatingly irritating, and surely certain parts of the story could have been given a few more small splashed of humor.  The soundtrack is so-so, with some songs I really like a lot, others I think do the job just well enough, and others I find either forgettable or stupid.

So, I’m giving this a nice rating because of two redeeming qualities: first is the casting of a few of the main characters.  I really like the Cheshire Cat in this movie, and the Mad Hatter is one of the great Ed Winn performances.  The one who really steals the show, however, is Alice, voiced by Kathryn Beaumont.  Her voice is absolutely perfect for the part, and perhaps just perfect in general – I could easily listen to it all day.  The second redeeming quality is the visual style, as this might just be, in some respects at least, the most visually pleasing animated film I have ever seen.  It’s got all of the curves and colors one would want a trippy wonderland to have, and its style also serves to mark its particular moment in animation history.  The resulting film is one that I don’t enjoy watching very much – it was a struggle to finish it quite frankly – but I do enjoy looking at it and listening to it, so I’ll let it slide.

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