J.D. Hansel

Dramedy

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Review

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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.

103 The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Motorcycle Diaries Review

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I debated about whether or not I would review this film.  Keep in mind, I do not (at this time) review documentaries, mostly because I think approaching something that tries to accurately capture real history – or accurately capture a real person’s perspective on his/her history – is perhaps too great a task for me.  Assessing historical accuracy has never been my forte, and I I’m not sure how to review a story if that story is an unchangeable matter of fact.  Still, this movie is clearly not a documentary – it’s a fascinating “what if” movie that shows what a young, idealistic, quickly-evolving Che Guevara might have been like on his road trip through South America.  When viewed as such, it’s really quite fascinating.

This film breaks one of the rules of storytelling in a way, which polarizes the audience in terms of strength, effect, and maybe even aesthetic distance depending on what knowledge of Che the viewer has at the onset.  Generally, movies are very focused on set-ups and pay-offs, always making sure that every moment the audience sees will make the following scenes (and/or the previous scenes) more meaningful.  This film, however, is designed as a sort of prologue or prequel to the infamy of Che Guevara, so the set-ups for the irony, and arguably for the importance of each scene, are in all in the knowledge that the viewer supposedly has of what Che would become.  Fortunately, because I saw this movie in a film class, I was informed of Che’s legacy, controversy, and infamy, so I really enjoyed the movie.  However, had I not known who Che is, I would not have been able to enjoy the movie nearly as much – perhaps I would have hated it.  While I do think that this is a fun story that succeeds at opening up one’s mind to new ways of looking at history and the world, I must withhold my praise to some extent because the movie works best as a supplement to a separate story that the audience is left to figure out for themselves.

Still, after a tiny bit of research, this is a really different kind of road trip comedy that can be really enjoyable.

94 The Motorcycle Diaries

American Hustle Review

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I love my local library.  Its one problem is that I like it too much, so whenever I go in for just a short stop, I end up spending at least half an hour there.  Once I’m lost in the DVD section, there is only but one escape, and it is very rare: I have to find the movie that calls my name.  I need to hear the triumphant sound of the movie that is exactly what I need to watch that night, and it can take ages to succeed at such a quest.  One night, however, I found it – the movie that I had been longing to see for ages, and I could sense that it was finally time.  American Hustle had Jeff Lynne’s music all over it, which already gives it a leg up in the race to my top 50 favorite movies.  On top of that, the film stars actors that I like, and it’s written and directed by David O. Russell, whose film Silver Linings Playbook holds a very special place in my heart.  However, I had just heard that his new release, Joy, is a disappointment, so I hoped and prayed that this movie would be reminiscent of the previous film and not the latter.  Alas, it would seem God woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day, because American Hustle completely fell flat for me – and I’m starting to think I must not be in on the secret to enjoying it.

At this time of year, everyone’s talking about awards ceremonies that I don’t like.  We’ve seen time after time that the elite overlords behind such ceremonies, particularly the Academy, tend to embarrass themselves by making obviously nonsensical decisions.  The Oscars are being frowned upon right now for their lack of diversity among nominees, but they’ve been dropping the ball ever since they neglected to award Citizen Kane for Best Picture in favor of some flick called How Green Was My Valley.  They were mocked in 1979 for giving Best Original Song to “It Goes Like It Goes” – a song that was considered forgettable even at the time, let alone decades in the future – instead of the more obvious choice: “The Rainbow Connection.”  Don’t even get me started on The Lego Movie.  With my disdain for such inane awards as the Oscars, the Golden Globes, and the Grammy Awards, I have been greatly pleased by an excellent joke of Conan O’Brien’s that’s been trending: “At last night’s Golden Globes, the movie ‘The Martian’ won for Best Comedy or Musical.  In a related story, the Golden Globes won the prize for ‘Best Cop Drama or Best Latin Gospel Album.'”  The nominations have really never made much sense, but the most mind-boggling of them all is the notion that American Hustle is a great comedy.  I don’t see how it can be considered a great comedy when I honestly was unaware that it was a comedy until well after I’d finished watching it.

It’s no surprise that I had to look up the movie online to learn that it was a comedy (and learn why people found it enjoyable) if I consider the brutally realistic style.  The comedy of the film fluctuates between muted colors of humor that offer no punches, or harshness that goes far over the top in all the wrong directions.  I’ll address the hard-hitting humor first, and then I’ll spend a little longer on the weak humor.  There is a scene between Bradlee Cooper and Not Funny Louis C- nope.  I can’t finish typing it; it’s just too depressing to think of Louis C. K. as unfunny.  In short, he savagely beats Louis over the head with a telephone, and the scene uses awkward editing in an attempt to make the unwarranted violent abuse comical.  The problem, of course, is that it’s not over-the-top enough to be funny – there is no indication in the scene, to my memory at least, that this is not meant to be taken seriously.  I was watching an ugly beating, so I felt bad for the victim – and empathetic investment is the enemy of comedy.

In my searches through the inter-webs for why people got a laugh out of this film, I found very, very few reasons given, even though its description on Rotten Tomatoes starts with the words “Riotously funny….”  One of the few jokes cited as a source of enjoyability was Cooper’s silly haircut.  Because this film is a period piece about the ’70s, a stupid haircut is merely an inevitable part of making the movie feel realistic, so I’ll need something better than that to come even close to a smile.  As I thought back on it, I recalled another scene that was an attempt at humor.  It’s pretty simple: Unattractive Jennifer La- no, I can’t bring myself to say that either, so let’s just say “the wife” swears in front of her little boy, and the little boy repeats the profanity in a way that’s accidentally quite offensive.  Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to read the words that I, J. D. Hansel, never imagined would be written about an iconic Oscar winner, but here they are: Anchorman 2 did this joke better.  That, my friends, is a travesty.

Let’s take another look at Jennifer Lawrence’s character.  She reminds me of “the pen squeaker.”  Yes, I’m talking about that guy in high school who had that pen which happened to make an annoying squeaking sound when it was twisted, and he would twist it frequently just to bug people.  If the intent was to annoy the girls sitting directly in front of the squeaker, I really enjoyed watching the pen squeaker make them squirm and yell for no good reason, but if the intent was to annoy me, it was not enjoyable in the least.  So I suspect that, if the audience understands that how much of an annoyance Lawrence is to everyone else is supposed to be funny , then the audience enjoys her, but personally, I felt like I was the victim of her excruciating irritability.  While Lawrence did play the character perfectly, the character will always stand out to me as a horrible reminder of how annoying my little siblings are when they scream and fuss all day.  I spent the last third of the film hoping that someone would just punch her out to end it all, but no such consolation was offered.

This is, in my view, one of the most overrated films of all time, right alongside Cabaret, but there are elements of it that I like.  The soundtrack is, as I expected, quite excellent.  Jeff Lynne’s contributions are naturally strong, but the other songs are really fun too.  The actors are clearly giving these performances their all, and they succeed at making me believe in their characters.  As far as cinematography goes, it would seem as through Russell found an Instagram filter for “Oscar bait” and used it for the entirety of the film, but within the constraints of the Oscar bait look, it is shot and edited well.  The best part, however, is the ending.  While I will not reveal all of the details, it’s nice to see that there was, in fact, an interesting and clever hustle being set up this whole time that makes the movie feel more purposeful.

However, for me it always boils down to the characters, the world, and the story.  If those three elements work together just right, it’s a great movie; if one of those elements is off, particularly the first, then we have a problem.  This movie did not work for me because the world felt too real for anything to pop, the story felt too unfocused and messy for it to hold my attention, and the characters made me want to run over the DVD with my car.  In the few days since I watched it, I’ve already forgotten much of the story, and I really don’t know how matters of such little importance took up so much screen time.  This movie is not so much about telling a good story as it is about showing off impressive directorial skills and a brilliant cast, making it such a narcissistic piece that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes even if they were sewn in place.   I am not surprised if people who appreciate films very differently than I do find themselves enjoying American Hustle, but for a film of this nature, one can only look at what it offers to each individual, and for me, it didn’t offer nearly enough.

89 American Hustle

Boogie Nights Review

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Interesting is an interesting word.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 hit film Boogie Nights was terribly difficult for me to watch to the finish.  I watched the film in pieces over a period of about two weeks, which is the longest I’ve ever dragged out any of my cinematic experiences without watching another movie before finishing.  Now, this is in part because I’ve been absurdly busy lately, and I’ve had no time to watch movies, but it’s partly because the film is not very interesting.  I had to make it through to the end of the film, however, because it’s very interesting.  This is why the word interesting is so tricky.

Boogie Nights has a story structure that’s not very JD-friendly.  The fact that the last portion of the film (which would ordinarily be used for a very important climax) was actually entitled, “Long Way Down (One Last Thing)” reveals that the scenes shown to us are not scenes that are necessary for a plot, but are instead whatever portions of the lives of these characters the director feels like depicting.  This gives the film a serious case of “And-Then” Syndrome, an issue that’s chastised by writers of several different productions (ranging from PIXAR to South Park) for being the guaranteed way to generate apathy.  For me, this is the kind of movie that leaves me with a blank expression on my face asking, “so… what’s your point?”  There’s not much to gain from a film that gives off vibes of “just being there,” and I find it dreadfully tedious.

On the other hand, I do find the characters quite interesting, and characters are nearly half of the essence of a story.  I did want to know if Dirk was going to be a success, and if Amber was going to get to see her kid, and if Jack was going to find a way to stay afloat in the midst of new trends in the industry.  That being said, I wasn’t exactly on the edge of my seat waiting for the big reveal, because I knew there was no big reveal.  There was no moral of the story, no global implications, and no point – everything is presented matter-of-factly for anyone who’s curious about the field.  This, I think, it was it comes down to: the film is not interesting in the sense of keeping the audience invested and on the edge of their seats, but rather, its unique qualities persist to arouse curiosity, which is the kind of interesting at which this picture excels.

So, while it may not be my kind of film, I do think that, for the kind of film it is, it is done very impressively.  The cast is outstanding, and it is because of the cast that the characters keep us curious.  The soundtrack is one of the best that any movie has ever had, and the ’70s are captured brilliantly.  Even though the story does not appeal to me, and I probably wouldn’t recommend it to hardly anyone I know, I have to respect it for being so well done.  Also, Burt Reynolds’ character in this movie is just too darn likable.

84 Boogie Nights

Birdman Review

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I need to start with a spoiler warning since I don’t want to hold myself back from writing about whatever I find is most worth writing about, and this film has many interesting elements that I could focus on for much of the review if I chose to do so: it has a unique, seamless editing style that effectively creates the illusion of one continuous shot for the vast majority of the film (which eventually gets annoying since we humans need breaks in what we experience, but for most of the film it’s more of a spectacle than a burden), it has excellent performances from its superb cast, and its visuals are often very pleasing and impressive, but I think those who know my tastes well can guess that I want to talk about the ambiguity factor – after all, I am known for my issues with needless ambiguity, and this a perfect example, because, if given some thought, it becomes clear that either interpretation of the ending is stupid: either Keaton jumps to his death, meaning Stone has no reason to smile the way she does, or he randomly possesses the ability to magically fly like a bird for some reason; and to think, this all could have been avoided if not for the fact that critics love ambiguity, which makes sense in a way – it offers the viewer the chance to write a little portion of the film that makes it meaningful to him/her as an individual, but it relies on the erroneous assumption that the meaning the viewer projects onto the work of art actually matters, but here’s the catch – you, the viewer, don’t matter.

Your two cents are worthless.

If a work of art lacks definition and meaning to the extent that an observer can project his own meaning onto it without being right or wrong, it’s not deep.

It’s shallow, but with style.  It gestures towards possible meanings, but does not commit to any of them.

I can best explain it this way: a film that challenges it audience intelligently says, “when life gives you lemons, should you give them to the poor and hungry?”  An ambiguous film, on the other hand, just has a blind man hold up a coconut and say, “when life gives you melons,” and then it ends.  The second film in my example may leave the viewer asking more questions, which creates an illusion of thoughtfulness, but I’d say the first film is more important.

In other words, no matter how amazing the visuals may be, how perfect the editing may be, how smart the writing may be, or how spot-on the performances may be, it is important for a film that wants to add to any discussion to use complete sentences, or else it isn’t much of a contribution, it’s just a

81 Birdman-02

 

Edward Scissorhands Review

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Ah, now this is a movie for Halloween season.  It’s a classic tale of a man-made monster, and like most good monster stories, it shows us that the real monsters are always people.  Naturally, I was very excited about seeing this movie, and I had high hopes because it’s a Tim Burton film.  Burton was, visually speaking, the best director out there (until he abused his CG privileges), and Edward Scissorhands is as gorgeous as one could hope.  Between the unique setting, the strong characters, the delightful soundtrack, and the perfect cast, it really has an atmosphere of its own, making it entirely unforgettable.  I was pleased by the superb performance by Johnny Depp, and thrilled to see Vincent Price in the role he was born to play.  Everything is just for the story being told.

If only the story itself were better, this would be an excellent motion picture.  Alas, the story is almost entirely lacking in conflict or plot (a.k.a. “story”) for the first half.  It takes a very long time to get going, and once it does, it’s rather cliché and predictable.  The pace is absurdly slow for much of the film, with only some scenes toward the end feeling particularly exciting, and the ending is not entirely satisfactory.  However, we do see the main villain defeated, and we do learn the lesson that we all knew from the get-go we were going to learn, so I suppose the movie offered everything it promised.  Because of the issues with the screenplay, however, it just didn’t offer everything I would have wanted.

78 Edward Scissorhands