Movie Review: 'Hansel & Gretel'

by Wes King

Yesterday I had the, uh, pleasure to watch Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Following the trend of half-written, stylized, over violent horror/fantasy whatever-ness that Snow White and The Huntsman, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter paved the pathway for, it does nothing to add to the pseudo-genre, except now it’s taken Jeremy Renner down to its dismally low pit.

Hansel is a film so bold, so over the top, so campy and ridiculous, that in twenty years or so, I could see people illegally downloading this film to watch in the same way people today are still watching Sleepaway Camp. If you think that was a compliment, please, click on the red ‘X’ on the top-right corner of your screen, throw your computer out your window, and then bathe yourself in turpentine.

And then set your hair on fire.

And then die. This blog is not responsible for any feelings of self hatred or self harm one may inflict upon one’s self upon reading.

One thing Sleepaway Camp got right that Hansel failed completely was the presence of male nudity. Yup. Even though the nudie bit in Sleepaway Camp was gross and completely ridiculous, I would have been ok if we had a completely ridiculous flash of some hunky Jeremy Renner man-pieces. But, no. Instead we get some random girl ass for a good, solid minute, and in return we see Renner shirtless while hunched over for maybe twenty seconds.

The majority of the movie is over the top action sequences where Hansel and Gretel are beating up a bunch of ridiculously spry old hags with anachronistic guns and doing a bunch of really cool stunts. I probably should have put all that under a spoiler warning because I’m not entirely convinced anything else happened in the film.

Oh yeah, there was some other stuff, kind of like a weak, fermented, moldy condiment on top of the rest of the movie pretending to be some epic plot twist. I predicted it within the first ten minutes.

To conclude, if you know a douche bag, and you really, really, really hate this douche bag, take that douche bag to this movie.

Movie Review: 'Beasts of the Southern Wild'

Score: 5/5
by Brian Kesler

Benh Zeitlin is a newcomer to the directorial world of film, but you wouldn't know it from his beautiful work in 'Beasts of the Southern Wild.' The film is more of a visceral poem than a narrative, really. A film that explores our connection with nature, with each other, and the struggle of all living things to survive.

Our avatar to exploring these concepts is the remarkable Hushpuppy, a five-year-old girl living in a bayou community whose will to survive - emotionally and physically - is remarkable. The performance by the Oscar nominated Quvenzhane Wallis (who breaks a record for youngest nominee ever) strikes a chord in the soul. We follow Hushpuppy as she finds her place in her community, in her family, and in nature. Hushpuppy grabs chickens, crabs, and anything that has blood flowing through its body, puts the animals to her ear, and listens to the mysterious thumping within. She learns from her school teacher how to care for those around her, and she learns from her experiences with her isolated and polarizing father how to take care of herself.

The polar ice caps are melting, and they threaten to flood this swap land and all that live there. Trapped within the ice caps are ancient beasts who once had dominance over all other living things, but went extinct during the ice age. As the ice breaks apart, these beasts float - all the way from the Arctic - to the shores of Hushpuppy's home. As the lands flood, Hushpuppy and her daddy live with a small group of people on a boat. The beasts are released from the ice and roam the wild, looking for humans to consume. The ice that created extinction for so many animals, now threatens the extinction of mankind by melting.

Hushpuppy is a strong little girl. She likes to hear stories of her mama, and arm wrestle with her daddy. She likes to eat with her hands and show off her "guns." She doesn't cry - her daddy won't let her. She has the power to control her own destiny and doesn't put that to waste. She understands the perpetual doom of her own extinction and tries to make an impact on her surroundings, so that one day when "future scientists" are there, they'll know "once there was a Hushpuppy and she lived with her daddy." This culminates in a climactic scene where the ancient beasts charge toward little Hushpuppy, and she stands her ground against them.

Hushpuppy's understanding of life is that it is one giant food chain. She witnesses things being consumed by bigger things, sometimes existentially. She sees her father being consumed by disease and her home being consumed by floods. She understands that in nature, everything has its place, and her place is at the whim of mother earth. If she be consumed by the storm, it's because the storm is higher up on the food chain. As her own extinction looms ever forward, however, she begins trying to survive against the will of nature. When she's confronted by the beasts, she doesn't try to harm them, and they don't try to harm her. They leave each other alone, allowing for their mutual survival and symbolically challenging, perhaps I'm reaching for it here, social Darwinism.

It's always great to try to find some higher purpose for the imagery of a film, but the key to this movie is to just let it pass over you. Like I said, the movie is not so much an intellectual narrative as it is a visceral poem. It floods the soul with feelings drawn out of images and sounds. What does the image of a wild little girl pressing a chicken's heart to her ear say to you? How does that image make you feel? Stanley Kubrick made his entire career out of searching for the perfect composition of images, not to make a statement, but to present an emotion or idea in the most effective way possible. The image of Hushpuppy next to the intimidating, extinct auroch doesn't have to have a higher purpose. What idea does that image present? How does it make you feel? That's the great power of the cinema.

Movie Review: 'Gangster Squad'

Rating: 2/5
by Brian Kesler

There is nothing special about 'Gangster Squad.' It is cut-and-paste film 101. It follows every genre convention religiously - to the point where it's laughable. In the contemporary world of film, genre conventions are not only passe but looked down upon. You might say the film does this on purpose as an homage to old gangster pictures, and you're probably right. But when Spielberg and Lucas set out to make an homage to 1930s serial adventures with 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' they broke new ground and took significant risks. They also knew how to film an action sequence. This movie takes no risks whatsoever, which makes for bland movie-going.

Set in 1940s Los Angeles, Gangster Squad follows a band of rogue police men who take it upon themselves to capture the most ruthless criminal in town, Mickey Cohen (Sean Pean). The good guys blow things up and walk toward the camera as flames bloom behind them. Their chief, played with much solemnity by Josh Brolin, gives standard "we're going in" speeches. Penn, as the hotheaded, Jewish kingpin, spends his time eating Lobster and mugging at cops in between his repeatedly dark metaphors and dangerous puns (when he tells a henchman, "You know the drill," the henchman literally pulls out an electric drill and drives it through a man's skull... clever... [note the sarcasm]). All of the puns and metaphors come complete with booming, dissonant chords for underscore. That's how you know his dialogue is really scary.

Of course, no Gangster film would be complete without a bombshell. The bombshell in this case is a red head, played by the beautiful Emma Stone. She is the property of the evil Cohen, but falls in love with one of the rogue cops - played by Ryan Gosling. Their plot is the most interesting if only for the tinge of development that these two actors manage to pull out of a less-than-generous screenplay. Gosling gives the best performance in the film, and it is of his own doing and not of the director's. If only the relationship between these two was given more room for exploration there might have been something beautiful between them.

Again, as with many recent films, this movie argues for vigilantism and bringing criminals to "justice" outside the boundaries of the law. Again, I will withhold criticizing the film for doing so, and merely reflect on it. There is a thirty second stretch of dialogue in which one character asks if the rogue police men are "doing the right thing." On second thought, I will criticize the film on the subject. If this thirty second piece of dialogue had been expanded as a major theme of the film, it would've had twice as much depth. But the movie doesn't explore it. The movie also never explores the implications of gun violence.

The debate is raging around us and it is evident that gun violence in Hollywood is glorified. But does it have a role in developing violent actions in people? I'd like to say no, but it still perturbs me the way in which guns are featured in the movies. Back in the '30s and '40s, any gun violence in a film had to be perpetrated by a bad guy and the bad guy then had to be brought to justice. Usually, this meant that the bad guy lets things get so out of control that it eventually leads to his own death. This was in the days of movie censorship. Of course, that is terribly one dimensional, and a good filmmaker will want to address thematic issues in complex light.

When censorship ended and the MPAA took over, there was a huge surge in anti-hero movies. 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,' 'Bonnie and Clyde,' 'Taxi Driver,' and 'The Godfather,' were all big Hollywood hits in which the protagonists were not virtuous, but villainous. It is worth noting, however, that their acts were given different perspective then the movie characters of today's filmmaking. Consider in 'Gangster Squad,' that every time someone shoots somebody else or pulls out a gun, it is filmed in a manner to make the audience think it is "cool." We see the results of violent acts long enough to get a thrill out of it, and then we are spared having to acknowledge that lives really do end when a bullet goes through someone's skull. There is no underlying theme pertaining to guns or the violence they are capable of.

As a comparative example: While people have claimed 'Taxi Driver' was responsible for the assassination attempt of President Reagan, it's very important to realize that director Martin Scorsese does not glorify the guns when anti-hero Travis Bickle purchases them, practices with them, or uses them. When he buys them, Scorsese pays special attention to the unsettling dialogue and focuses the camera on DeNiro's face. There is no music; there are no slick sound effects. When he is practicing with targets and finding ways to hide the weapons, Scorsese sets images of DeNiro's troubled eyes against Bernard Hermann's unhinging score. We then see the unwinding of Travis's mind in the famous "You talkin' to me?" scene (which has more character development in two minutes than 'Gangster Squad' has in two hours). And when Travis finally uses these destructive weapons, Scorsese lets us see and hear the results of his brutality with steady shots and zero musical score, so that we are forced to live the experience as it might actually happen. Scorsese then subjects us to a painfully slow overhead, panning shot (think Hitchcock) that forces us to look at the bloody trail of one man's arsenal. By the end of 'Taxi Driver,' Travis is treated as a hero, a vigilante who freed an underage prostitute from the grips of her pimp. But having been on the journey with Travis, we have to wonder if it's really a simple matter of heroism. This is a man who craves solitude, who is unable to connect with humanity, who constantly sees sin around him and yet can't help his cravings to go to pornographic movie theatres. He does kill the pimps and rescue the prostitute, but only after having a mental breakdown and failing to kill a prominent presidential candidate. Scorsese's last shot is of Bickle's eyes through the rear view mirror. Travis glances into the mirror, directly into the camera, for a brief moment and there is a skip in the music. We are left to wonder what chaos Travis is capable of and/or will commit in the future. That's how violence used to be portrayed in movies: with complexity. Likewise, in 'The Godfather,' we still get the sense that Michael is doing wrong, even as our protagonist. Coppola doesn't just show him killing people, he does it juxtaposed to the baptism of his newborn nephew. That's filmmaking. Not this junk.

How I Sorta Popped My 'Godfather: Part II' Cherry

by Wes King

I really hate that this will be the first review I do on this blog. Not because I disliked The Godfather: Part II, but because I was so incredibly exhausted that my mind could not focus on its intelligent dialogue and steady pace.  While I was hoping for my Godfather: Part II cherry to be popped, it would seem my exhaustion thickened my movie-viewing hymen and my cherry was simply poked repeatedly. With that lovely image out of the way, let me get on with some of the great things I did notice, despite my fatigued state.

The Godfather: Part II is brilliantly shot and scripted. The dialogue is essential, as it makes up most of the film, and the framing of the film is simply wonderful. It truly deserves much more attention than my tired mind could supply. The film is genre-defining for “gangster films” yet no comparable gangster film has been seen for decades. It is violent without resorting to over-the-top car chases, shoot outs, explosions, half-naked screaming ladies, or buckets of blood drenching the shot. Instead, the violence in The Godfather: Part II (and its predecessor) is executed straightforwardly in a brisk, swift manner. This form of execution creates a somewhat morbid reverence and honesty, without glorifying the despicable acts portrayed.

The two intertwining stories of The Godfather: Part II—that of Vito Corleone and his son, Michael—serve as both a contrast and a comparison of the two “Godfather” characters, and it is stunning to watch unfold. I am hesitant to say much more, as I believe I am in great need to re-watch the film in a more stable frame of mind.

The Godfather: Part II is a great film, that I am glad I was able to view, and I can’t wait to spend the time watching it again. However, next time I plan to delve myself into its dense plot and give it the proper viewing it deserves.  However, next time I plan for my cherry to explode so marvelously that I’ll be cleaning it up for days.

Movie Review: 'Django Unchained'

by Brian Kesler

4/5 stars

Tarantino's latest film, 'Django Unchained,' follows a freed slave and his German sidekick as they prowl the southland and shoot, stab, kill, and bloody up arrogant white plantation owners. They do so to the especially nasty slavers. Some of them feed their slaves to ravenous dogs, force them to wear chains, lash them 'til they bleed, and treat slave women as prostitutes. Some of the slaves win favor with the plantation owners and help them carry out their cruel deeds. These men and women, too, are brutally killed by Django and Schultz. It's sort of a Western, except in the South. If the plot sounds like another Tarantino film, 'Inglorious Basterds,' that's because they are the same concept in different historical and racial perspectives.

There's a certain unnerving enjoyment in seeing these slave owners get what they deserve, just as there was an enjoyment in seeing Hitler's body machine-gunned until it was barely recognizable in 'Inglorious Basterds.' This film is not as good as 'Inglorious Basterds.' There was a level of sophistication and unparalleled filmmaking in that movie. 'Basterds' had long stretches of dialogue that triggered suspense, rather than action. The characters in that movie were more interesting, the dialogue unsurpassed, the pace genius, and the plot tight. It was also less violent. Probably not in its visual representation of violence, but in its thematic use of violence, yes. This film has a far more serious and disturbing plot. It gets up close and personal with the real, historical, and painful toils black Americans suffered in the pre-war South. It is therefore, unenlightening - and distracting - when the film resorts to a Hollywood shoot-em-up climax.

This film also follows a cultural trend that concerns me. As I've said in a previous post, violence in film is sometimes necessary and artistic - even in copious amounts - as long as it serves a purpose to the thematic arc of the plot. This film qualifies. But, it's what it has to say about violence that irks me. An ideological tidal wave has struck America in the form of Libertarianism. While there are worthy elements from this ideology, just as with any other, extremism is easy to come by. With all the superhero films, and comic book movies making it big at the box office, there is a trending approval of vigilantism among Americans. Part of that trend are movies, like this one (they seem to be growing in numbers each year) which suggest that revenge is the same as justice. In the film, a certain disgusting character regards himself as a Francophile and, in the nature of his infatuation with all things French, names one of his slaves D'Artagnan, whom he forces to fight-to-the-death with other slaves. After witnessing the Francophile torture and kill this slave, Schultz (the German sidekick) asks him whether he thinks Alexander Dumas would approve naming a slave after one of his characters. Dumas was black, you see. Shultz then proceeds to kill the Francophile and he, himself, ends up dying a hero.

I wonder if Schultz had read another work by Dumas: 'The Count of Monte Cristo.' You see, the trend used to show violence in a different light. 'The Count of Monte Cristo,' like 'Django Unchained,' is about revenge. However, the overall thematic statement Alexander Dumas makes in his masterpiece is that revenge is not the same thing as justice; that the attempt at revenge, or the longing for revenge, will eventually destroy not only your own integrity, but everything you're fighting to protect. It is only recently that our culture has given in to Ayn Rand Objectivism and denied that there is any social contract we have with one another. We have a justice system in place. We have a police force to protect us. Vigilantism and revenge are wrong and go against the very definition of a civilized society.

However, I can't hold this against the film. As a lover of art, it is inappropriate for me to interject my own ideological outlook into the work of an artist, who may express something I disagree with, but - nevertheless - does it well. Tarantino's films all have to do with vengeance in some form, and this film follows the theme. It carries over his wonderful dialogue, his eye for composition, and his unparalleled sense of humor. The plot needs tightening up, the film is overlong, and the climax is disappointing - especially when it revolves around a flat character like Broomhilda - but these faults don't diminish the fact that Tarantino is a filmmaker to be reckoned with.

Movie Review: Les Miserables

by Brian Kesler

2.5/5 stars

(This review assumes you've seen either the movie or stage show, or read the book, or just know the plot, as I don't explain it any.)

The biggest problem with Tom Hooper's film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical 'Les Miserables,' is that it isn't meant to be a movie. Stage and screen are two wildly different mediums, and this adaptation of 'Les Miserables' is so faithful to the musical that its status as a film is hindered. Fans of the stage production will most likely love it. Movie buffs will most likely be unimpressed. Unfortunately, I'm a movie buff and a fan of the original production, so my insides were confused during the entire thing.

The faults are apparent right from the beginning. The plot has to cover a lot of ground, and the musical accomplishes this through continuous singing. On a stage, the actors occupy the same space, so when a character is seen going from place to place within a matter of seconds, it isn't jarring like it is when we go from shot to shot of the character going from one place to another. The result is that, after the opening number, the first twenty minutes of the film is a giant montage. It seems like it is rushing through the plot, because it is.

While the stage musical effectively utilizes sing-through style to get through the many plot points, there are musical moments that are completely useless to the film. Film is a more intimate medium. On stage, the Bishop must sing to Valjean to establish the importance of such a seemingly insignificant character. On film, where we inhabit a real world and see the characters up close, the priest would have been better established through simple dialogue and shot composition. On stage, it's necessary for Marius and Cosette to sing their affection for one another, and it doesn't seem odd that they do so because they occupy such a large space. On film, when the camera is up close and personal, we can establish this connection - and much more effectively - through the characters simply looking at one another. The song, 'A Heart Full of Love,' becomes completely unnecessary, and if a song in a musical isn't absolutely imperative for the character to sing, it should be axed.

One moment where a character singing is imperative is 'I Dreamed a Dream.' Fantine becomes so broken and downtrodden, that there is no other possible way for her to express this than through song. Anne Hathaway performs this singing soliloquy so gorgeously that there wasn't a dry eye in the theater, including mine. It represents moments of greatness that this film attains. Unfortunately, all of those moments are established by actors and not direction.

Let's get this out of the way: Tom Hooper is not a good director. I know he won an Academy Award for direction. That's because the Academy is stupid. 'The King's Speech' was a phenomenal film. It benefited from a tight screenplay with witty dialogue and impeccable performances. Not Tom Hooper's direction. Here, he doesn't benefit from a tight screenplay or dialogue, and the result is sloppy direction and obvious visual motifs. The opening number of the film is set up like this: Shot of Javert looking down on Valjean; Shot of Valjean looking up at Javert; Shot of some prisoner pulling a rope; Shot of Javert looking down on Valjean; Shot of Valjean looking up at Javert; Shot of some prisoner pulling a rope; Shot of Javert looking down on Valjean; etc. etc. etc. We get it. There is a relationship between Valjean and Javert being established, you don't have to be so obvious about it. Another moment comes during 'Stars' sung by Javert on a high ledge that Javert could easily slip off of. Hooper is sure to film Javert's feet walking along it, about to fall. An obvious foreshadow to Javert's ultimate demise. The song consists of Russell Crowe walking back and forth with the camera following him. Can't we just have an actor standing still during a song? And can't we just allow the camera to remain motionless? 'God on High' is another example. The song could've been effective as a simple prayer over Marius' sleeping body. Instead, Hugh Jackman is directed to walk all over the place as he sings, sapping any intimacy right out of the number.

In 'Les Miserables,' Hooper attempts to bring the musical to a softer, grittier level, but the musical is inherently big, bombastic, sappy, and operatic. It is impossible to do a faithful film adaptation if you want the characters to be anything but one dimensional. Tom Hooper's attempt at dimension is to film every ballad close up and in one shot, and to have the characters cry uncontrollably. There are a lot of ballads in 'Les Miserables,' and they are all filmed in this manner. After the twentieth ballad of a character up close and crying like a crazy person, I just wanted to rip my teeth out. You don't have to contort your face and scrunch your eyes together to make 'On My Own' an emotional song. Towards the end, I was getting impatient. I get it, you all know how to cry on cue, you've been doing it the entire film.

There are also moments when characters actively provide exposition through song. Again, this was a necessity of the musical, not for film. We don't need Valjean to sing to us that he's the mayor of the town. All we need is a shot to establish this. Exposition in film shouldn't appear as though the character is explaining something for the audience's benefit. It happens all too often in this film.

Reading this review, it might seem like I just hated this movie. I didn't, though. The theatre nerd within me was nostalgic and giddy. I would actively become excited at a new use of orchestration or the start of a song I really liked. But, ultimately, I would rather have been watching this on stage. It was not movie material. Had there been no stage show, and the composers began writing this material for a film, the final product would have been vastly different. As it is, however, the filmmakers had to remain faithful to the show to please purists and theatre-heads. Those people will be pleased. Movie people? Not so much.

Movie Review: 'Life of Pi'

by Brian Kesler 

5/5 stars

WARNING: Spoilers Abound

There are two basic stories about the creation of life. In one, life began with a single celled organism that separated in two. In the other, God created Adam, and from Adam's rib created Eve. They are both true. One story represents the factual truth, but the other provides an emotional connection to the creation of life.

The underlying message of 'Life of Pi' is that, while religious text and belief might be impossibly fantastical, it provides a fuller, more emotional understanding of life and the human spirit. The film accomplishes this through a "plot twist" that may leave some viewers let down. But it is the pivotal moment in understanding the underlying thematic core of the character and his journey of survival.

The film opens with our protagonist revealing the story of how he took on his name: Pi. He took the name after the irrational mathematical number used to measure the distance in a circle. The number has so many decimal places that it is nearly impossible for the human mind to comprehend, which is why the number is represented by a symbol and often shortened to a comprehensible three digits. This sets the story up, symbolically, and foreshadows the nature of the story we are about to see.

Pi and his family are traveling from their native India, where they owned and operated a zoo, to Canada, with many of the zoo animals on board for sale in America. A storm hits and the boat sinks, killing Pi's family, and the entire crew of the ship. The only surviving members are Pi and a few of the zoo animals, who congregate on a life boat. The animals include a zebra, an orangutang, and a hyena. Pi witnesses the hyena attack and kill the zebra and, eventually, the orangutang. Then, suddenly, a tiger emerges from a clandestine section of the life boat and kills the hyena. The rest of the film involves Pi struggling for survival in the middle of the Pacific and setting up territorial dominance over the tiger, eventually leading to peace between the two.

With the wrong director, this film could have been a bombastic blockbuster with no soul, but the poetic quietude of Ang Lee gives the film an emotional current which propels the adventures of Pi and his tiger, whose name is Richard Parker, to a more substantial level. The visual impact of the film is truly wondrous. Since the 1960s, color in film has not been a major factor in story development, but with the influence of Pixar, and their invention of the color script, the use of color in film has become a distinguishing factor in the filmmaking trends of the new decade. Color is used here to heighten Pi's journey and to establish important plot developments. It's also just awesome to look at. The isolation of Pi and the dynamic between he and Richard Parker are represented by the merging mirror reflection of sky and sea.

This reflection is symbolically important. When Pi finally reaches the Mexican shore and recovers, he is asked to recount his journey. His story is met with skepticism and disapproval, and he is pressured to tell the "truth." Pi, then, tells another story - one in which some of the crew members of the ship, and his mother, were on the life boat with him and horrors ensued. From Ang's directorial directness, we know that this new story is actually what happened, and that the story we've invested ourselves in was only invented by Pi as a way to overcome the harsh realities of his actual journey - just like the number 3.14 is represented by a symbol as the complexity of the number surpasses human comprehension. In the context of understanding the reality of what happened, the tiger represents a dimension of Pi's character: his anger, his impatience, his animalistic simplicity. These are all things Pi must overcome. To survive, he must discipline himself and learn to control his emotional insecurity. This is represented by Pi's efforts to tame Richard Parker.

By the end of the film, an adult Pi asks a listener, whom he had conveyed both stories, which one he preferred. The listener draws parallels between the two stories and, after a thought, firmly confirms that he prefers the story with the tiger. It is important to note that Pi regards both stories as the truth. One is the factual truth, while the other is the thematic truth. Just like the story of the creation of life, we are more emotionally invested in the thematic truth, because of the parallels and underlying symbolism. 'Life of Pi' is one of the best films of the year.