J.D. Hansel

2015

Inside Out Review

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(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

PureFlix is – and I expect always shall be – my archenemy, but Pixar sure does come close.

Pixar seems to exist only to irk me specifically more than anyone else on the planet, and it has a few tricks for doing this that serve as “the Pixar old standbys.” To me, a movie that tries to tug on the heartstrings too soon is like a guy who gropes a woman’s bum in the first minute of a blind date.  It is blatantly violating, and yet Pixar gets away with it constantly.   Both Pixar and Disney have become notorious for killing off characters seemingly solely because they don’t know how else to hold our attention, or they think we’ll feel unsatisfied with our Disney experience if we don’t meet a certain tear quota.  I think it is largely because of Pixar that killing off a character in a children’s movie is no longer an act of courage, but ironically of cowardice, fearing that the audience cannot be emotionally moved enough by the characters without a death involved.  They also have one of the fundamental principles of storytelling backwards: anyone who’s taken a high-school-level class in journalism ought to know that empathy with a character is used to make the audience care about a situation, so to use a situation to try to make people empathize with a character is taking the horns by the bull.  Yet, somehow, projects under Lasseter’s thumb frequently use emotional, tragic circumstances in an attempt to make us care about a character – in lieu of simply writing a character that’s interesting from the get-go regardless of circumstances.

Above all, Pixar is notorious for an awe of “The Aw.”  “The Aw” can refer to either the sound a canned sitcom audience makes when a character is sad, or the sound that a stereotypical (or perhaps typical) preteen girl makes when brought joy by immense cuteness and sentimentality.  As a proud skeptical cynic, I find that watching Pixar with a crowd is comparable to being a punk rocker at a Carpenters concert – the urge to puke is overpowering.  Sometimes watching Pixar makes me feel more like being in a very strict religious school, except the intense dogma has been replaced with intense sappiness that is inflicted upon me.  Now, the studio that lives to make us cry – a prime directive I find mildly immoral and satanic – has the audacity to make a film about the importance of sadness.

So why in the name of Bing Bong do I love this movie?

Well, it was pleasant, impressive, and simply fun in every way from start to finish, and actually seemed to be aimed right at me for a change.  The film is the most imaginative commentary on the human mind I have ever seen, only closely followed by Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex.  As a big believer in the notion that the replacement of practical effects, puppetry, hand-drawn animation, and painted sets with CGI has largely been to the detriment of film, and I do think the film could have benefited from being a 2D or puppet film instead.  I must recognize, however, that this is probably the best all-CGI film I’ve seen in terms of visuals, so it’s certainly on par with The Lego Movie in at least one regard.  The way the human mind is imagined in this film is just so clever that one wants to spend forever wandering about this world, much like in The Wizard of Oz.

I also consider Inside Out to be Oz-like in terms of story structure, and unlike some films, this pulls off an Oz storyline without seeming weak or unoriginal for a second.  I think every screenwriter should study Inside Out as an example of how to write a nearly perfect screenplay.  It’s a very interesting premise to begin with, and the execution of the idea satisfies by exploring all of the areas of the mind that one would hope to see explored.  Pixar’s take on dreams was spot on, it’s take on memories was clever, and its joke about facts and opinions was absolutely brilliant.  Somehow this script is mostly a series of wonderfully clever jokes, but they never get in the way of the plot.  The characters were all delightful, and the casting was superb. I liked essentially every character in this movie – even Sadness.

This, of course, leads to my thoughts on both the portrayal of Sadness, and the use of sadness.  The role of Sadness essentially seems to be adding weight and significance to important people, places, and things in our lives by revealing how painful it would be to lose them.  This is just a modification of the age-old contrast excuse: bad must exist in order for good to have meaning.  Pardon me for getting philosophical, but I’m not a fan of this argument since knowledge of bad would actually be all that is required for good to have meaning, and no actual, existent bad is necessary in any form.  This means that sadness is still an unnecessary emotion if one has a sufficient amount of knowledge, understanding, perspective, and good reasoning. While Inside Out’s solution to the Sadness problem is not perfect, I do think it is acceptable, but I personally would have emphasized the important role sadness has in empathy.  This brings us to Bing Bong.

Somehow they found a way to incorporate death, and it’s in the most bizarre way, especially when one considers that people can recollect things that they’ve long forgotten, so a mere mention of Bing Bong from Riley’s mom could resurrect him.  Still, the decision to kill of Bing Bong is an odd one simply because it’s not really necessary, which just makes it feel like an excuse to get the audience crying. I suppose that he was, by the end of the movie, just dead weight, but he could have stuck around.  The cleverness of using his wagon to get back up over the Cliffs of Insanity made that scene powerful and impressive enough as it was, and the wagon had no need to stall.  This is, however, nitpicking.

Amazingly, nitpicking is all I can do to criticize it. This comes so amazingly close to the perfect screenplay that I am just as impressed as I’d hoped I would be.  I am so happy that Pixar finally made a hilarious, charming, and imaginative movie that’s right up my alley.  At last I can congratulate Lassiter, Docter, and the rest of the Pixar team for a job well done.

62 Inside Out

Tomorrowland Review

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When approximately 22 minutes had passed, the critics checked out. The first trailer for the film, which screamed with unwarranted mediocrity, instantly brewed a batch of immense apathy in the moviegoers’ heads.  The marketing was dreadful, so the critics were eagerly awaiting the chance to convict the movie of being dreadful as well.  They got their chance about 22 minutes in, when the film reaches the pinnacle of preachy.  All of the teachers tell the high school students that doom is inevitable – the end is near – and while our optimistic protagonist raises her hand to argue, they all choose to ignore her.  When she finally is given the chance to speak, she asks the obvious question, “Can we fix it?”  The teacher is stumped by the question, because apparently everyone in this movie lives in a world where no one has bothered to ask what we can do to make the world better.

But that’s not where the story really starts.  Let’s start earlier, at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Yes, the film starts there, at what was perhaps the biggest display of optimism about the future in history. The movie starts (as more Disney films should) by getting us excited about the movie we’re starting to watch, and giving us a dose of nostalgia while playing great Sherman Brothers music is a really good way to do that.  This is where audio-animatronics were revealed to the public, most notably in the attraction “It’s a Small World,” which is where audio-animatronic children can transport people to another dimension.  … No, really, that’s the ride’s purpose according to this movie. It takes them to a dimension where cliché visions of the future are re-hashed with gray CGI, creating a world of half-hearted semi-wonder, with a side of Diet Whimsy.  However, when viewed through the eyes of the child we’re following, Frank, there is some wonder to be found in it.  Fortunately, there are a few clever details and touches that seem rather original – especially the magic floating swimming pools – which make the clichés far more bearable than one would expect from just watching the trailer.

This, however, is not the focus of the film.  The focus of the film is Hugh Laurie’s speech at the end. The entirety of the film builds up to the moment when he finally explains what has been going on this whole time.  Essentially, visions of what will happen at the end of the world have been subtly broadcast directly into the minds of the people of earth.  This should obviously be a wake-up call to get to work on fixing the problem, but instead, humans acted like humans.  They ate it up, they yelled and fussed and complained about it, they preached that the end was near, and in the end, it became an excuse.  It became an excuse to act like they cared about what was important, while in reality they used what could have been a great chance to do some good as a chance to be lazy.

The cleverness of the film is that the whole movie builds up to the unveiling of a self-fulfilling prophecy machine (arguably a sci-fi equivalent to American cable news), and ultimately humankind is more to blame for the end of the world than any villain.  The problem with the film is in the delivery of this great concept. The use of real people, places, and events creates the sense that Tomorrowland is trying to depict the real world somewhat accurately.  This becomes a problem nine minutes in when “It’s a Small World” has a secret built-in tunnel to another dimension, at which point the suspension of disbelief is gone since not even Disney could pull of such a feat in the 1960s.  However, this part of the movie was not absurdist enough to effectively communicate to the audience the message they needed to hear: “THIS IS NOT YOUR WORLD; it’s a silly caricature of it.”

But Disney wouldn’t be brave enough to say that, would they?  Naturally, they think they must make the audience believe that it is the world we’re living in so that we’re shocked.  Disney seems to think we won’t be invested in the film if what’s on screen is too surrealistic.  Therein lies the irony – the movie itself becomes the machine it antagonizes by saying, “This is reality and it stinks,” rather than saying, “This could be reality.”  (As if that isn’t bad enough, it commits an even worse crime by saying that our reality includes certain special people who inevitably improve the world.  So if I, the viewer, don’t think I’m one of those people, why would I feel motivated to make the world a better place?)  This could have been avoided had the film been an absurdist comedy, creating a world with obviously stupid caricatures of mankind, which takes away the preachy tone, while simultaneously allowing the filmmakers to scream to the world, “DON’T YOU DARE LET YOUR WORLD BE ANYTHING LIKE THIS LUDICROUS ONE.”

To be fair, there are other interesting elements of the film to discuss as well, such as the clever concept of a society where all the world’s geniuses got together in another dimension.  In terms of characters, I find it hard to believe that the lead actress is a genius, but I suppose she at least does a decent job at making the character likable.  Frank’s a pretty good character on the whole, and Hugh Laurie does a nice job with his part too, but none of them are as charming or impressive as Raffey Cassidy, who plays the little girl named “Athena.”  She’s kind of amazing, and I really like this character, but I spent half the movie waiting for the writers to kill her off since I could tell they’d do it eventually.  Her death was probably the most predictable part of the story though, as most of the film kept me wondering what was going to happen next.  The movie surprisingly handles exposition well using the old trick of making the audience want answers, and then providing them, rather than explaining to the audience what we haven’t asked to have explained.  Still, part of why the story took interesting and surprising turns that kept me wanting answers is the lack of any logic in the story whatsoever.  I was constantly finding things that the robotic characters, being computers at heart, should have handled much more logically, so I felt more like I was watching a to-be-CinemaSins than a Disney classic – another issue that could have been dodged with a tongue-in-cheek approach.

Still, at the heart of the film is its message, and while the message seems straightforward, I don’t think the critics and I agree on what the message is.  The message I choose to take from the film is that I need to get off my butt, roll up my sleeves, and get to work on making the world a better place, but I suspect that that resonated with me since I’ve already felt that way for so long.  For the average viewer, I fear that this may not have been received the same way.  There is always a danger in an optimistic message as such messages tend to ignore reality and substitute it with the way they’d like to see the world.  This movie is, to some degree, guilty of ignoring reality, which does bother me.  It does, however, use clever ideas, a fun story, and interesting characters to give the world the slap in the face it needs and say, “You have no excuse now – go get to work and make the world better.”

58 Tomorrowland

Mad Max: Fury Road Review

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Okay, let’s do something weird.  Let’s compare Mad Max: Fury Road to Avengers: Age of Ultron.  I think this is an interesting comparison since they’re both sequels in big action movie franchises that happen to be out in theaters at the same time right now. They both have large fan bases since their characters have been around for many decades.  What makes this comparison especially interesting is that they both have simple, largely cliché storylines that we are all familiar with, but everyone seems to be mostly okay with this since a strong, unique story is not the focus of either film.

As I noted in my review of the Avengers sequel, Age of Ultron’s story seems to be an excuse for the characters to play off of one another, and that is the story’s only purpose.  The story is not meant to surprise and wow, but there is the obligatory surprise death, as well as some unique twists and turns in the story to make it more interesting.  Fury Road is fascinating since the story is an excuse to do some crazy action sequences.  The story is simply about getting from point A to point B, then back to point A.  Again, there are some surprises and unique touches, and this film does go out of its way to add several clever little details that make its post-apocalyptic world absolutely ingenious.

That being said, there is a serious problem in this focusing choice.  As I have said before, you can say that film is a visual medium, but the medium is really about telling stories.  At the heart of a story are its characters, so it follows that an old, cliché story can be made new and interesting just by having strong characters driving the story, as seen in Age of Ultron.  (It is incredibly important that the audience is invested in the characters in order for this to work, and the investment must not be exclusively from circumstances, or else the empathy may run out when the circumstances change as the story turns.)  So, there is danger to putting characters over story, but it can be done well, which I cannot say for putting action and visuals over both story and characters.  This focus puts the technical aspects involved in achieving investment in the characters and story over the investment itself, which is rather silly.

In regards to very visual-oriented films, I have three main criticisms, all of which can be avoided if a visual film is very careful. First of all, visual storytelling is very desirable only if the story is worth telling in the first place.  Secondly, there’s an old saying that reminds me of the place of visuals in film: “Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”  What concerns me whenever I hear someone say that film is a visual medium is that they may get the impression that film is about the visuals, even though visuals are merely film’s means of expression, which I know because of the meaning of the concept of communication itself. Third, what is the purpose of a beautiful window that looks out to nothing but a brick wall?

The question that must now be asked, as I have been asking myself that since I saw the first ten minutes of the film, is this: is Mad Max guilty of the pitfalls mentioned above? Well, addressing the first crime, the story may very well be worth telling, but it has actually been told before. The plot can basically be summarized as follows: a girl escapes her dreary civilization and goes on a journey with some friends and new acquaintances to get to a beautiful green place where their dreams can come true, only to go right back home to where she started in the first place.  That is the plot to The Wizard of Oz.  Oz also had a brilliant visual style, but people remember the characters, and what the characters said, far more than the visual style, which I don’t think could ever be said for a film like Mad Max.  In regards to the second and third criticisms, the point of the film, from what I can tell, was to make a good-looking action movie, and everything else was secondary. So, yes, it is very guilty.

I suppose that means I should hate this movie, but I don’t. Throughout the movie, I was constantly experiencing overwhelming admiration, which is a credit to the film.  That being said, what I wanted to experience was not only admiration, but entertainment, and that was lacking because of the criticisms explained above.  Compare this to Frank Oz’s Little Shop of Horrors, which is visually excellent, but the visuals are always serving to express the mood of the piece, the context of the story, the emotions of the characters, the theme of the music, and other elements that make the story work better.  In Mad Max, I see the visuals serving to create an interesting and visually amazing context for the story, but the story still seems to be lacking. Part of this is due to the characters.

Many of the characters are just fine, but there were few who really made me care about whether they lived or died.  The titular character, Max, was not one of the few. As noted in the Walker brothers’ fantastic review of this film, Max is really more of an observer than anything else, and he could essentially be played by anyone.  By the end of the movie, viewers should ask themselves, “What do I really remember about Max that makes him unique?”  The answer is probably, “very little,” which is unfortunate. The real protagonist in the film, Furiosa, is a bit more interesting, but not by all that much.  The best scene in the movie, however, is a short scene in which the film actually takes a breather (thank heavens) and allows for a nice conversation between Nux and Capable, which made me finally CARE about some of the characters.

My final point, which I once again borrow from the Walker brothers’ review, is that this movie is a great experiment.  Much like with Pulp Fiction, I like it a lot as an experiment or project, but I have a hard time calling it a movie.  This is so vastly different from my schema of movies (or at least good movies) since I have always seen the movie theater as a temple built to glorify great storytelling, and I do not see Mad Max as such.  I do see Mad Max: Fury Road as being great art, and a groundbreaking achievement in cinema.  I admire and respect what it brings to the table for moviegoers and filmmakers, and I hope it will lead to many great action movies in the future, which is why I recommend that fans of film see it.  (Not to mention, everyone must see the guy with the fiery guitar, who adds a lot to the already impressive soundtrack.)  However, I will continue to criticize the film harshly because I stand by my strong ideology that people do not go into a movie theater to watch a movie, but rather to experience a story.

56 Mad Max Fury Road

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

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First of all, everyone needs to see the first Avengers movie, preferably after seeingCaptain America and Iron Man.  Then, watch Avengers, and after that, Capt 2 and maybe a few of the others in between.  After that, you care about all the characters in Avengers: Age of Ultron.  That’s really all that matters with this movie.

The movie is an excuse to hang out with the characters.  That’s all.  The story is not really special, and the visuals are typical for this kind of film.  (I will give it props for its excellent opening, which is very impressive, but I prefer the look of the current Daredevil series to the look of the Avengers films.)  The movie is really a blast so long as you really enjoy seeing what the characters throw at one another (figuratively and literally) and you enjoy good bantering, drama, one liners, and character development.  The story is, at the very least, set up so that the audience is very interested in seeing what the characters will do next, and how they’ll get out of tricky situations.  It’s a fun summer movie, and that’s all it needed to be.  I highly recommend it.

54 Avengers Age of Ultron