Four Stars

THG: Mockingjay – Part 2 Review

November 30, 2015 by JD Hansel

(MINOR SPOILERS)

The last film in a franchise is nearly always the hardest film in the lot to make, and the hardest to watch. It has the burden of being the “goodbye” that we know we won’t be satisfied with, but we won’t be satisfied without either. Ultimately, we want a sense of completion, but we also need a sense that, after the credits roll, everything will stay as it should be in the world of the film. Good characters are rewarded and satisfied, bad characters are punished, and the scope/nature of any character’s death fits the scope/nature of his or her life. Whatever part of the movie’s finale the viewers are pondering while leaving the theater becomes what the franchise means to them. This is a task of gigantic proportions that must be handled with extreme care, and I say The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -Part 2 is a good example of a conclusion that feels just about right.

The most impressive thing, however, is that we spend the whole movie (as we have for the whole franchise) rooting for Katniss to kill Snow, but once she has the chance to shoot him, we don’t want her to. This is an incredible feat to pull off, and it serves to turn the saying “remember who the real enemy is” into a question of what the real enemy is. A series that started as a controversial story about children going to war has evolved into a timeless fable about human nature. The dangers of history repeating itself offer more powerful terror than any of the horrific moments seen previously in the franchise, and the entire history of their dystopia is called into question during just one conversation. Our view of some of the characters change entirely, but I was happy to see that the most important characters got just about the endings they deserved, with hope in the future for the characters we care about most.

So, it pulls off the sequel game well, but setting my sequel standards aside, what do I think of it as a film? Well, the acting is just right, as usual, and the script seems largely well-written. The soundtrack is pretty standard, but I seem to recall enjoying some unique parts of the score here and there. The visuals seem even more gray than usual in this one, which is a pity, but I suppose I’m used to all that by now. Sadly, this movie did not have the kind of moving moments that nearly brought me to tears in the second and third films, but it did have one moment (the one captured in the image below) that had me on the edge of my seat trying to keep from cheering. This moment, however, is what makes it a great wrap-up, so I must conclude that this is not my favorite film in the Hunger Games franchise, but as a franchise finale, I adore it.

Mean Girls Review

September 29, 2015 by JD Hansel

First order of business: low pass filter. Maybe it was just the version of the film I happened to be watching – I watched it on Netflix – but there was a very high-pitch ringing sound that would appear in a few shots, seemingly from background noise that was not edited out by the sound editors. It became an annoyance because it was one of the very few things keeping me from really enjoying the film, and I suspect it probably could have been solved with a basic low pass filter. (The fact that my number one issue with the film is so minuscule and irrelevant is a good indicator that this is a good movie.) I think the sound is actually the worst part of the film, if sound includes the soundtrack, which does have some ugly tracks and some pathetic soundtrack clichés.

In fact, clichés are the film’s second-biggest problem, and even they are generally rather tame. It is clear that Mean Girls is trying to be smarter than the average high school girl movie, and with Tina Fey’s writing, it succeeds at doing so, but some of the same old scenes we’ve seen before in every other movie in the genre still find their way in throughout. Since I know I just wrote this in my Divergent review, I hate to repeat it so soon, but it is very relevant: a great film is not one that is without imperfections, but one that overcomes them with strong characters and stories that give the audience a good time. For me, between the cleverness of the story, the perfection of the cast, and the third point that I can’t think of but has to be included anyway because of the rule of threes, I had a good time.

The Ten Commandments (1956) Review

August 19, 2015 by JD Hansel

It’s hard to keep a long movie interesting. After all, some movies that are only 90 minutes long struggle to hold my attention, so when a movie goes over two and a half hours, that’s risky. (It is, however, understandable in many cases, because the length must be determined by what the story requires.) While I’ve never been able to make it all the way through any of the Lord of the Rings movies, I did enjoy the 1996 Hamlet, which has a running time of 242 minutes – about four hours. Little did I know when I picked up The Ten Commandments that it was almost as long, or that the experience I had yet to face would take days to complete.

Was it worth sitting through the whole thing? Yes. Unlike some movies I know, this film actually filled its long running time with many interesting characters expressing very intriguing drama, so it’s easy to get through a lot of the film in one sitting. Based on what I knew of DeMille’s work before I watched the film, I was already expecting the gorgeous visuals to keep my eyes glued to the screen, but I had no idea that my ears would be enticed as well by the absolutely excellent dialogue throughout. This is the kind of writing that inspires me. (I should mention that my ears were also listening for the epic score by Elmer Bernstein.)

So, in the end, while I’m not sure the story itself is my kind of story, and the film may suffer a little from a lack of focus, it is an excellent masterpiece that I cannot help but respect. While I think of Egypt and the dessert to be visually bland settings for a movie (since I like colorful, theatrical visuals, rather than tan, brown, or sandy visuals) this movie has some of the best and most cinematic shots I have ever seen. It finds a way to make a nearly-four-hour biography into a dramatic experience that I could never forget.

Austin Powers Review

July 22, 2015 by JD Hansel

Some of us are blessed, at one point or another in life, with a special kind of friendship. It’s a magical thing when one can plan a get-together without actually planning anything but getting together, secure in the knowledge that it’ll be a fun time no matter what happens. With certain special friends, one could even sprawl out on the lawn and watch the grass die for hours, and yet it would still be a delight. This is my only explanation for how a film as pointless Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery can be so enjoyable.

At the heart of the picture is a bunch of lovable characters. In spite of the shortcomings that could make a person of Austin’s intelligence unlikable, it’s clear that Austin doesn’t know any better than to be… well, Austin. He may be a moron, but he clearly means well, and he strives to do good work (often with success). Dr. Evil still has an innocence about him because, much like Dr. Doofenshmirtz, he does what he feels he’s supposed to be doing. He’s playing the role in life that he truly believes he’s meant to play, and he tries his best, although he’s constantly conquered by a fool. The Charles Schulz concept of empathy generated by being “more acquainted with losing than winning” applies here. Evil’s son also seems to mean well, but is just confused. This film even found a way to make the flat protagonist from Cabaret likable, and that is no small feat. In spite of the number of scenes that do not really move the plot along, we would watch these characters in any number of situations, regardless of whether or not we were getting a proper story.

This actually may challenge a theory of mine to which I have been quite devoted: “People don’t go to a movie theater to watch a film, but to experience a story.” I now suspect I must amend that to include, “and/or explore ideas,” but might that be redundant? After all, at the heart of a story is the exploration of an idea, namely showing what would happen if a particular character were put in a peculiar situation, with a narrative built to explicate the idea. That, I think, is the root of all storytelling, and perhaps it is because of that that we can forgive a scene or two that would conventionally be forbidden from a screenwriting standpoint (e.g. showing Dr. Evil and his son in a support group, which has no relevance to the plot whatsoever). I may go so far as to say that the deliberate ignorance of conventional storytelling (as seen in the Monty Python films) is not only forgivable, but has a disorderly and chaotic quality that only adds to the comedy.

So, in short, while I don’t think I laughed aloud as much as I would have hoped, I do think this movie has an irresistible joyful quality about it. It is a celebration of freedom, of heroism, and of the 1960s. It is very visually appealing and stylistically crafted. The soundtrack is not only perfect for the story, but would be great to have in my music collection. Its leading lady does a stupendous job at portraying the type of competent and intelligent woman that is most desirable for stories in this age of film. Another thing to note is that I actually had seen the third film in the series many years ago, and although I did not remember it well, I’ve been surprised by just how much I enjoy seeing these characters again and going back to this whimsical world of bizarre lunacy. It may not have been a huge laugh for me, and I may not have related to the characters as much as I would like in order to really care about them, but I must confess that the film is undeniably quite well done, baby.

This Is Spinal Tap Review

June 18, 2015 by JD Hansel

I don’t review documentaries. I just wouldn’t know how. Generally speaking, the world of film production can be split into two career paths: documentary and narrative. The difference is actually pretty big since it is the role of the narrative filmmaker to tell a cohesive narrative story with a plot, whereas the documentary filmmaker has to find an interesting way to document history, which generally includes a story of sorts. Because of this, a documentary can be done in many different ways, and most of them are valid, just as long as the information being conveyed is accurate and/or expressed effectively. To me, that makes a documentary harder to judge. Add this to the fact that the writers have limited control over the story since it’s based on reality, and the fact that a lot of documentaries are made for television (while I only do theatrical releases), and it should be pretty clear why I can’t bring myself to review the docs I watch.

Then there’s This Is Spinal Tap, which is a scripted story with fictional characters, making it more like a narrative, but it’s done in a documentary style. Those in the know refer to this as a mockumentary, although this film calls itself a “rockumentary” because it concerns the lives of members of a hard rock group in the 1980s. There’s actually very little story, and it seems more like a compilation of SNL-like sketches than a real movie, but that’s where the documentary style really helps. When I watch a documentary – especially one that’s largely just following musicians around – I don’t expect plot. I just expect to learn about interesting characters, which is what this film provides.

One of the rules I have for movies is that it should be difficult to watch broken up over a span of days. Ideally, I should hate to pause the movie for a second (if I’m seeing it first viewing). If I wouldn’t mind pausing it to go watch something else, coming back to the film to watch the rest the following week, that’s usually a sign that the story isn’t right. This film, which I felt fine with pausing, can get away with it because it’s simply understood that the story isn’t the point – the only goal is to get laughs. Thankfully, the film meets that goal, although I did not laugh as much as I wanted to. Instead of laughter of various degrees throughout the film, I actually had a few really big laughs during specific, spaced out parts of the film. Most of the times when I was not getting a good laugh felt like filler, but I may have just been missing the parody of other music documentaries at the time. Either way, this mockumentary is a good time, and I highly recommend it to fans of documentaries, rock music history, or comedy in general.

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

May 20, 2015 by JD Hansel

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.