Thoughts on Cinema

With at least 10 Christ the Redeemer pan shots, was Director Justin Lin paying tribute to Ministry’s Jesus Built my hotrod?

The Fast Five was every thing a thrill seeker wanted out of a guilty pleasure: Fast cars, cool stunts, hot women, exotic locales, a major heist followed by ultra intense chase scenes. Like a short order chef, director Justin Lin served it all up with the right ingredients of testosterone, chrome, and attitude. Having never kept the audience waiting, this film was easily the most satisfying action film in the first third of 2011.
Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), and Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) are on the run after busting Dominic out of prison. When a Rio de Janeiro kingpin of crime Reyes crossed the line in a deal gone badly, Toretto called in a team of previous Fast & Furious characters to clean him out, literally. Unfortunately Hobbes, a Special Forces agent played by Dwayne Johnson, was brought in to bring down Toretto’s crew. Can these thick as thieves’ characters stay alive long enough to buy back their freedom? Well look at it this way, the ending after the credits should tell you the premise of the 6th F&F

Released on bond from the Disney contract, Dwayne Johnson delivered a much-needed sizable threat to Vin Diesel. He was every bit as intimidating and his fight scene with Vin Diesel invoked the JR WWE RAW comment, “Bah Gawd King! The Rock is Back!” By ante up the complexity of the heist with various threats, this heist was the best of the series. Every character complimented the other, as the focus never went away from being a Heist movie. Most of all Fast Five has a fantastical look at romanticizing good-looking actors living a life on the run. For doing the time to see this film, you’re rewarded with every thing it has to offer.

If I had to rate Fast Five, it’s easily a shot of Jameson…fast, smooth, with a kick. Cheers!

Perhaps not as powerful as x-ray vision, Brandon Routh is still as perceptive as ever.

When there’s something rotting in seedy New Orleans, Private eye Dylan Dog was forced out of retirement to once again take on the mantle of a constable whose forte’ was investigating supernatural crimes. Very loosely based off the Italian source material, Dead of Night came off as a lighter episode of Supernatural. Brandon Routh played a very smooth, charismatic looking protagonist with a dark past that left him with a constricted affect and brooding good looks. His neurotic man servant played by Being Human’s Sam Huntington provided the campy laughs with girlish cries for help. Anita Briem played the damsel in distress whose father was murdered for a mysterious artifact. All of these ingredients served as Canadian director Kevin Munroe’s undead version of the Maltese Falcon. Unfortunately, Briem never bothered to generate any sense of fear or awe from his creatures. As a result, the stakes were never raised as the audience was led deeper into the story.

The hardest pill to swallow in this film was the inconsistent combat scenes. The narrative was so careful as to point out that vampire blood gave humans the strength of ten men. Essentially, vampires could easily kill a human being yet, a mortal like Dylan Dog not only trades punches with werewolves, vampires, seven foot zombies and a demonic god but he also survived being thrown through more barriers than Mick Foley in a Hell in a Cell match. Hence, the stakes were never raised nor the climax dire and as such, the film’s action was unremarkable.

Without the horror aspect, this film quickly lost any flavor beyond a generic detective story. If I had to rate this film, I’d give it a lite beer on the account that it was stingy with its potential for a truly unique campy horror/adventure film.

Cheers,
Ron

Few have a reaction like this anymore when they’re told the devil is after them.

Another crazy possessed girl is back with The Last Exorcism, an amateur mess that severely fails at trying to create anything truly scary or original.  It’s the latest pseudo-documentary with hopes of riding off the success of films like Paranormal Activity or at least make a profit with its low-budget fiasco.  Instead of using what made those films good or improving their mistakes, director Daniel Stamm loses track and ends up producing just a poorly done horror feature.

Taking place somewhere in the South, The Last Exorcism is about Cotton Marcus, a minister who decides to hire a camera crew to expose the Church’s fraud by performing a staged exorcism with a devout family.  What he and the crew don’t realize is that they may actually be dealing with a real possession.  It starts off like a Dateline special on minister Cotton Marcus, who sells himself more as a comedian than a minister as he slips a recipe for banana bread into his sermon without the parish realizing it, showing the church’s blinding hold over its people and validating his own hucksterism about religion.  The set up makes an interesting news special, but the film wants a “found footage” sense to it, and yet after the introduction on Marcus, there’s rarely a shot that actually feels like someone just filmed it.

These kinds of movies are meant to feel authentic, natural, and real in a supernatural setting.  It’s what intensified the fear in films like The Blair Witch Project.  You should be able to buy into in what’s going on even if there are demons or monsters, but the film barely gives you the chance to accept this reality, especially during the two exorcism scenes.  The first one alternates between the bedroom where the ritual is being performed and the van where Cotton shows the nifty gadgets he uses for the hoax.  The second one, the big confrontation, cuts from person to person with multiple camera positions despite the fact that there is only one cameraman, hindering the natural realism this movie is intended to mimic.

The plot is just as problematic as Stamm tries to blindside the issues with a few curve balls and succeeds only in losing the focus of the narrative, but audience’s patience as well .  He keeps you guessing a little bit as he plays with the idea of whether or not the situation is actually real, but in the last act, he crashes the two possibilities together into a train-wreck of an ending.  Not two minutes after the film decides to go one way, it completely flips around and finishes with a reveal that only shocks by how absurd it is.

The Last Exorcism is marketed as another horror documentary, but the sloppy camera work, uninspired cutting, and ridiculously plotted storyline shows that Stamm was unable to make any sense out of this  mess.  In the hands of somebody who comprehends the appeal of the genre, this could’ve been the Cloverfield of exorcism movies, submerging you into an unreal situation and being terrified by whatever happens next.  Instead, the Last Exorcism is a piss-warm beer that leaves you desperately trying to wash the taste out of your mouth when it’s over.

Bring on the bad guys! Jeff Bridges does double duty much to our delight in Tron Legacy.

When Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) said, he made a discovery that was going to change every thing from medicine to religion, I thought he was referring to Disney’s attempt to ante’ up the precedent that Avatar had set. After all, the Christmas break has unofficially become the new summer blockbuster season from which, studios try to leech whatever disposable income was left after buying presents in an effort to push new technology that translated to higher movie ticket prices. Case in point, the average ticket in Manhattan was $14.25 before Avatar’s 3-D pushed the price to $20. Nearly a $6 increase per ticket. For a family of three, that’s $60 in the hole before even glancing at the concession stands. So after two years of hype, Tron Legacy was supposed to keep the fires burning for another season. Domestically Tron Legacy did not break boundaries. Via Box Office Mojo, Legacy grossed $172M with a production cost of $170M. Thanks to international and blu-ray sales, Legacy will spawn another sequel. Whether or not it will screen better is cloudy with a chance of backfire.

Kevin Flynn had been missing for two decades until Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) received a page from Flynn’s old office within the infamous arcade. Don’t ask why Alan, the creator of Tron, never bothered to look inside the grid but Disney was hoping you’d forget about that egregious plot hole. He decided to tell Kevin’s son, Sam Flynn what he had received and decided to allow him to search for his dad. As Sam followed his father’s footsteps into the grid, he discovered for himself that it’s more nightmarish and less adventurous than his dad had led him to believe. The result was a film that was largely uneven because it tried to be too many things, philosophical, theoretical, spiritual, and action packed.

Legacy delivered the visionary world of Tron on an unprecedented level utilizing CGI that the original could never dream to achieve. Deadly discs, light cycles, and light jets equated to multi-level, overly complex and visually stunning imagery that epitomized every gamer’s wet dream. It definitely took Tron to the next level but that’s not where the movie began to ‘derezz.’

Much like its predecessor, Tron Legacy tried to push the envelope by integrating a deeper science fiction component to the film. Does total freedom of information require giving up individuality and individual freedoms that western civilization holds dear? The idea of how using information for own personal cultivation brought about imperfection and dyslinear balance was the perfection that Kevin Flynn was looking for but his CLU identity could never understand. Neither could the audience. Like a Philip K. Dick novel, this topic is fret with deep philosophical and socioeconomic jargon that any nerd appreciated. Can it work as a film? Director Joseph Kosinski tried unsuccessfully to flesh the abstract component of Tron Legacy but such deep ideas idea aren’t always filmable especially when your producer was trying to sell toys, video games, posters, and good looking movie stars.

Once again, Jeff Bridges continued his streak of brilliant acting. He played both sides of the coin with great panache and sage wisdom. As Clu, Bridges’ CGI-ed youth showed no rust as it represented Flynn’s ego and overachieving will power gone mad. As Kevin Flynn, Bridges’ aged expressions expressed the appropriate vulnerability towards his son as he tried to make atones for his sins both in the real world and the grid. By far, the strongest narrative in the film was the Flynn character coming full circle with his legacy, ambition, and his tragic flaws. When his reach overextended his grasp, he paid the price. Tron Legacy was the ultimate inquiry into the soul of humanity in the modern age. Our bodies cannot possibly live long enough to satisfy the human desire to finish what we started. Is our immortality within the machines we created? A good question worth pondering on the way out of the cinema.

If I had to rate Tron Legacy, I’d give it well-aged Bourbon. Lively taste then a subtle after taste that makes you rethink what you had before taking another taste to fully enjoy it on another level.

Cheers,

Ron

Nursing My Sundays: MoCCA 2011

Learn a lot about the industry of commercial art through starving artists who never met a costumer they didn't like

Nursing Sundays: 2011 MoCCA Fest & the fallacy of Comic Cons

OP/Editorial: I was never more convinced that Comic Cons were reduced to a Winnebago sales pitch than the 2010 NY Comic Con. Pretty much every major comic book website, blogger, or TV personality failed to recognize the elephant in the room: Comic book movies weren’t translating to new readers. At the Image panel, pretty much the last 20 minutes was nothing but uncomfortable silence. Suddenly as a hand went up, the person called upon had asked, “Got any new movies coming out?” None of these established sites commented on the war between Marvel scribe Peter David and a fan over pricing. I loved the stink face on Rick Remender and Marjorie Liu. Nothing beat the body language of writers with their arms crossed and the facial expression, “I can’t wait for this panel to be over.” Forget the X-men panel, debate was so heated that you’d think the fan was asking David to move to the Marcy Projects over a $1 per issue. With all the individuals dressing up as it was the NY Halloween parade, this was the center of diehard geekery via the Disney route. I’m willing to bet very few of those individuals dressed up to be someone’s screen saver knew anything pertaining to the character they represented in the last 5 months. Shocked they didn’t have name tags of the comic book characters they dressed as. It’s about as sincere as fans who wear jerseys of players with their names on the back. If you can’t tell who #2 is, you shouldn’t come to Yankee stadium. However, there is hope for fans of comic books who want to attend a convention that doesn’t subscribe to Hollywood but rather humble writers and artists.

MoCCA 2011 didn’t support too many costumed attention whore clowns. On Sunday, I saw a lesbian couple dressed as Bucky and Batwoman. That was it. It’s because without the G4, MTV, and TV affiliations, you’re not going to see the theatrics. It’s a convention that supports self published creators who are often overshadowed by Marvel, DC, Image and other mainstream publishers.  Beware walking past any of the tables because starving artists can smell any loose change on you. As Ayn Rand taught us in the Fountainhead, society was always slower to come around to an innovative idea. Most of the most profound art in this world is about this very problem. So I’m sorry you brilliant minds, you’re going to have to suffer before you’re picked up. In the meantime, I’ll do what I can to help sell what most fans miss out when they are busy wiping the drool off their face whenever Geoff Johns, or Brian Michael Bendis walk the floor.

It never gets old when a creator signs your book. It just eels personal and intimate.

Meeting Sarah Glidden Up Close and Personal

I usually never walk the floor at a comic con. First of all, they’re always trying to push something on me without bargaining. My old school trick was to put $5 in my wallet and show the guy that was all I had. More often than not, he buckled and took it. Pretty much comic book retailers will take every red cent from you just to dump a book in your lap. I did however, talk to one creator, Sarah Glidden author of How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. I introduced myself and said, I really liked her speech at the DC Vertigo Panel, by far the only panel where every seat was filled. I gave her $3 for an excerpt and she nervously handed me back $6. I advised might want to hire an accountant to handle your money. Bought her book how to understand Israel in 60 days or less at NY Comic Con. I told her how much I admired her for not only telling a great story but also admitting that she didn’t know shit about Israel and the other half about being “selectively” Jewish outside of a few extra handy holidays they’d like off. It was unique to converse with a female artist/writer who did her work by hand on a journalist/memoir kind of commentary about what an American knows collides with the grim realities of the world. Kind of like when Obama was elected to be the anti-Bush and then re-instituted the same policies as Bush including extending Gitmo, I imagined some NSA guy opening the big book of reality and his face knowing fear. Suddenly all the talk, means nothing. Survival takes precedence. Her next book will be about Refugees from North Iraq in Syria. Looking forward to it.

No matter what panel you sit through, it's all about the ability to sell, sell, sell! A lesson Eisner taught all his disciples.

1330 Enterprising Will Eisner Panel with Jules Feiffer (Village Voice Editoral Cartoonist), Denis Kitchen (Kitchen Sink Press), and Paul Levitz (Legion of Superheroes, former DC President)

Living in a time when business doesn’t even know a thing about business. The way to make a zillion dollars off traditional syndicated strips are over. Must know how it applies in order to be a comic strip artist.-Jules Feiffer

Sitting in a room less than 10 feet away from a bunch of guys who pioneered the comic book industry, I felt humbled by the brutal honesty that these madmen delivered their thoughts on the Will Eisner way and a career in the funny books. The Will Eisner way was pretty much being a better business man than an artist. This is a concept that Picasso often spoke about. Loved the memories of working for Will Eisner who never spent any money on his studio except when a light bulb burned out. The panelists also spoke about recognition and that artists shouldn’t think this was the industry to get famous or expect a great living. It took Will Eisner 30 years for him to sniff some measure of recognition. While more people celebrate his work more now than ever, keep in mind what I said about Ayn Rand in the Fountainhead. Artists being famous long after they are gone.

Girl Power is a much needed breathe of fresh air in an industry dominated by men for over 50 yrs

1430 Pizza Island Studio Panel with Lisa Hanawalt, Sarah Glidden, Kate Beaton, Meredith Gran, Julie Wertz, and some French girl

It’s rare to have a panel with more than 1-2 female comic book creators together. It’s considered a phenomena to have an entire panel full of young female creators. It didn’t take long for the girls to figure out that pictures of their studio were a little too precious for a panel. This was one of the few panels that asked some really great questions. Many of these girls worked either as a secretary or in media after college. None of them followed mainstream American comic books. Most of them preferred fine art. That was interesting because almost all of them have a very cartoonist look about them. One of them was dropped by their publisher and might give up being a comic book creator if she doesn’t find work soon. Another mentioned that sometimes you’ll have to buy back your rights to your book in order to promote it better before re-selling it back to the publisher. None of them collaborate with each other at their studio. None of them party. Loneliness is the Long Distance Runner in this industry. Creators have colleagues but they wear many hats. Lastly, only the Canadian artist said she would stay in NYC. Affordability has its virtue especially with the internet.

An image is worth a thousand laughs when it comes to the New Yorker

15:30 The New Yorker Panel

This was a pretty entertaining panel in that each comic strip artist got to share samples of their work and their demented humor. I think these cats pretty much were happy to work for the New Yorker. One, it was steady salary. Two, it was steady salary. I think one of the panelists took over 700 submissions to finally get a strip published by the New Yorker. I found it interesting that some of the work not published due to its content did not include the controversial image of Barak Obama and his wife. Guess every one has their own taste including the editor in chief.

Art has played a huge role in political activism, World War 3 has been the watch dog for many stories around the world.

1630 World War Three Panel

Here’s my problem with activist comic book creators, they are about as manipulative and one sided as the establishment they create. So while WW3 invokes Daumier, the Masses, and other socio-political issues. art and politics, propaganda  they forget to mention how activists unfairly pick their battles. Reckless images don’t tell the whole story but elicit a response. Any human being will elicit an emotional response upon seeing an image of a homeless black man on the street as a white man in a business suit walks by. That says nothing of the situation of class warfare, misplaced spending, etc. It’s a mean spirited way to symbolize a villain. Noting no criticism of Clinton’s banking policy leading to the housing market crash or Obama adopting Bush’s foreign policies. Every slide except 2 were personal criticisms of Reagan and Bush. While it’s deserving, I still didn’t understand what Peter Kuper meant when he said, oh we criticize indiscriminately. Really? Could have fooled me. At least half these guys, said “luck..” to ambitious artists trying to make their way in the world today.

For me, that was the best advice given at MoCCA 2011 where the place of art is uncertain in the midst of movies, and circus conventions threatening to blot it out.

Cheers,

Ron

In a prude nation like England speak only when spoken to, be discreet, and never waste a word when only one will do.

At one point or another, every one has had to deal with speaking in front of an audience and if you remember distinctly, how the weight of one sentence generated so much anxiety never mind, it felt like an eternity to finish. The source of anxiety was the key to the riddle of George VI’s stuttering issues in the King’s Speech directed by Tom Hooper. With a brother who abdicated the throne for a divorced socialite and a Second World War on the horizon, George VI (Colin Firth) has a problem. He can’t seem to get his words out when it counts most. When all else failed, unorthodox practitioner Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) was called in to work on his phonetic enunciation.

The King’s Speech took place during a fascinating time when socializing between the classes in England was very uncommon. One could be thrown in prison for merely calling a Royal Family member by the vernacular. Radio was the only methodology to reach every corner of the country. The purpose, description of the event, and structure of the words meant every thing in terms of getting the nation to support a cause. Perhaps there was no more important message than that of asking a country to go to war and trust in one man.

The relationship between George VI and Lionel Logue wasn’t so much an actual depiction but an allegory of trust issues between the classes. Neither man respected each other despite very formal pleasantries. Sometimes more is less in terms of the quality of life that each man held. After King George VI took the throne, he came home to find out his private life had changed forever when his children chose to curtsey instead of running to his open arms for a hug in his own home. Family life became as much a business as Royal life. Mr. Logue never had such problems as displaying public affection but he certainly enjoyed torturing George VI whenever he had the opportunity. In politics, no one is devoid of ego and that goes double for any citizen who loved to defend their apathy towards their country. This movie was effective in portraying that the problems and distrust between ‘them and us’ was never anything recent, just subtler.

Today speech is a lost art form especially with the advent of video. A person can appear to be a complete mess of a speaker but pan to show his assets and suddenly speech doesn’t matter. Speech should matter because it is a reflection of the handle and control over not only yourself but more importantly the use of the language to communicate an idea.

If I had to rate the King’s Speech, I have to describe it with a rich, full-bodied red wine full of class, dignity, and respect.

Cheers,
Ron

Pointing phallic objects at your enemy was the name of the game in Your Highness.

In a tale of two princes, Thadeous (Danny McBride) and Fabious (James Franco) were polar opposites until a naughty wizard stole Franco’s bride and so a raunchy sword and sorcery adventure began in Your Highness. As a companion piece to the Pineapple Express, Director David Gordon Green reunited with his boys and added the talents of Oscar winner Natalie Portman and Tobey Jones with cameos from Charles Dance and Zooey Deschanel. With more brand names than an Adam Sandler comedy, Your Highness had some potential to grow up as the love child of Men in Tights meets Monty Python. Alas my lords and ladies of the D20, this film never made its saving throw. However it had its moments with McBride basically running around with an implied “kick me” sign on his back and literally a Minotaur penis tied around his neck.

If you’re looking for top shelf, lowbrow humor Your Highness delivered more phallic jokes than any 3 Kevin Smith films combined in a tribute to fans of the Dragon lance novels. Unfortunately, it never chose a wise path from which to move the humor in a direction that anted up the laughs. Basically McBride was the butt of every joke in the film, many of which you could see coming from Fistandantalus’s tower. As a result, none of the talent received enough experience points from the dungeon master to level up because the jokes were never on anyone else. Like 3-day-old mead, every thing was exhausted by the second act.

Some of the strongest humor was subtle homage to the love of the Tolkien world. An apropos tongue in cheek homage to the Lord of the Rings films by utilizing cinematography worked as well as some of the recreations of familiar scenes. Green has a lot of love for the world of dungeons and dragons but the humor beats you over the head that it took you out of the loving fun and affection for his geeky roots.

If I had to rate Your Highness, I give it a pabst blue ribbon from the can. An old familiar friend that invokes good times but also a taste I can get tired of pretty quickly.

Cheers,

Ron

The best of intentions can often lead to some harsh lessons in life and love.

When the usher at the Village East Cinema actively warned every person who bought a ticket for Blue Valentine not to see this movie with your significant other, an overwhelming feeling of Caveat Emptor washed over every cinemaphile in the vicinity.

Serendipity was a cruel muse in Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine. It’s a story about how two people fall in love but ultimately end up miserable. The film plots two starting points in time that ultimately converge at a point where the two individuals played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams simultaneously marry and divorce. If the brief synopsis sounded generic, it was. Plots in romantic films are rarely innovative. Judging from the rate of divorce society hasn’t been learning from its mistakes. In fact, one would argue more people are falling out of love than ever before. However, it’s not so much where the story in Blue Valentine began or its predictable ending but rather the contrast of temperature generated by the two acting powerhouses in each forthcoming scene in one moment in time juxtaposed against the other moment in the time line.

Due to the quality of acting, Blue Valentine created its own category that was equal parts love story and horror film, not of the Fatal Attraction variety but more of one that made anyone unlucky in love re-visit the demons of past tortured relationships and reopened a few old wounds in the process. Both Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams challenged themselves to create believable compelling characters that are naïve by no fault of their own. Dean (Gosling) was a free spirit who never had an agenda in life. He hoped to get by in life with good looks and clinging to his idealistic vision of love. He was forced out of his comfort zone and into the role of committing to something that he would later leave unfulfilled. Cindy (Williams) fell for Dean’s humor and dreamer mentality but it’s clear she never really loved him. She just felt guilty when he was beaten to a pulp by her ex-boyfriend for their affair. When Cindy found out she was pregnant, she went to Dean without ever really finding out who the father was. It’s a moment of great personal sacrifice and serious contemplation. As the couple aged, the wear and tear of being parents and struggling took its toll. Her compromises and having lived with Dean’s complacency and drinking drove her mad. Cindy didn’t become her parents but lived a nightmare worse than even she could have imagined.

Through their performances, the film never tried to rationalize why people fall in love or do the things that they do. Emotions cannot be rationalized, thus the complexity in spontaneity with human nature. The only thing that can be measured in a relationship is cause and effect. Certainly these two well-intentioned individuals weren’t exactly honest with themselves or each other when they signed up for marriage. It’s brutal honesty and heartbreaking in a way that Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart would shed a tear.

If I had to rate Blue Valentine, I’d give it a well aged, Scotch with a lot of personality and familiarity that is hard to swallow but good to the last drop.

Cheers,
Ron

Emily Browning aka Babydoll stares into the abyss of her mind or is that the inglorious mess of this movie?

Five anonymous young ladies with nicknames you might expect to get lap dances plot to escape from an asylum in Sucker Punch. Like something out of Mathew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle, Zach Snyder manifested his own multiple worlds within one body as the ultimate forbidden planet for fan boys. From the mind of one imprisoned girl, young sexpots in costumed high heels fought 10ft samurais, robots, a zombie Kaiser, and a dragon. Unfortunately, all these fictional food groups from so many genres of geekdom were randomly shuffled into a linear format reminiscent of standardized video gaming. When the impact of the reality didn’t measure up to the fantasy, the CGI spell was shattered and left behind a cathartic unidentifiable mess of a movie.

Director Zach Snyder has always had an eye for rich, captivating visuals that were capable of creating awe. Complemented with strong source material, he’s able to navigate a story and at least observe the traffic lights that serve as transition points in character development. The direction in Sucker Punch more closely resembled the Lindsay Lohan School of Driving. Intoxicated with imagery, he ran too many red lights, and went off the bridge of no return. Unfortunately, his 7th feature film served as a cautionary tale when a box office name brand was allowed to run wild without any inhibitions. With Man of Steel, Zach Snyder has raised the stakes even higher and one wonders how does Warner Brothers feel about him directing one of their flagship characters?

Unlike the Usual Suspects, there’s no source or reference for the wild imagination a little girl who lived in a house more closely resembling the Adams Family in what looks to be some time before 8 tracks were replaced by cassettes. So where do the ideas for all these creatures and imagery come from in Baby doll’s mind? Never mind that. Why wouldn’t a girl sentenced to lobotomy by her stepdad, fantasize about getting revenge? In an asylum where molestation and rape of women seemed implied, one has doubts that its victims imagine themselves as burlesque combat machines.

This film aimed to encourage empowerment and fighting for control over your life as a defenseless girl but the themes were an afterthought after it was revealed Baby Doll (Browning)’s doorway into the fantasy world was performing a shimmy that entranced her victims. As the dance number distracted them, the other girls could carry out their plan to escape. Fortunately Snyder spared the audience from watching a barely legal girl dance provocatively in front of the slimiest men caught on film.

Note to the producers of Sucker Punch, in order to make a successful movie you’re going to need 5 things:
1. Plot
2. Screen play
3. Direction
4. Acting
5. Ativan
For movie lovers everywhere, you might need a prescription of Valium before indulging this painful mess of a movie.

If I had to rate Sucker Punch, I’d give it a Four Loko Red Bull suicide note.

Cheers,
Ron

“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold…”

The Old West has its mythic gunslingers such as Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, and Jesse James, but now, another name can be added to that list.  His name: Rango.  As the most unusual character to wear a ten-gallon hat, Rango, a method-acting chameleon, takes you on a thrilling, hilarious quest way over his scaly, delusional head.

Director Gore Verbinski’s animated feature follows the title character (voiced by Johnny Depp) through the barren desert after his glass tank falls out of a car.  From the moment Rango realizes his hostile predicament, the film delivers plenty of laughs with slap-stick gags and referential humor in the form of hallucinations and a cameo by Depp’s friend and former role, Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).  There is also a disparity in the age-level of humor as it’s anchored by Western images and dialogue consisting of diction that few children will get.  It’s not necessarily a flaw that the film’s aim is skewed more towards grown-ups, but anyone under the age of ten won’t understand words like “prostate” used in some of the quick one-liners, nor will they realize how many Westerns are given homage to, playing on the nostalgia of an older generation.

Once Rango stumbles upon the town of Dirt and its animal inhabitants, the lizard puts on a façade of a western badass, selling himself to the townsfolk as something he’s not.  The film lingers on this build-up of lies with the audience anticipating for it all to collapse, but before Rango follows a predictable path, Verbinski pushes the film into unforeseen territory with exhilarating gunfights and aerial battles.  Half-way through the second act, the film jettisons forward like a rollercoaster in the desert with adventurous set-pieces that trump most of what Hollywood has offered lately with its live-action blockbusters.  When the film takes a break from the gunfire, it plunges head-first into a surrealistic fairytale through trippy moments of epiphany more creative and entertaining than any drug-based comedy.

The biggest highlight of the film lies within the gorgeous animation.  Standing toe-to-toe with Pixar, the vast color palette and fine details give life to each character as they bask in the desert lighting.  Close-ups revel in the most minute features from the scales on Rango’s face to the dry mud in a prospector’s fur.  The character designs are also exceptionally unique, playing on the tropes of the Old West and blending them with the most unusual critters you’ll find chilling at a saloon, from an outlaw gila monster and his reptilian posse silencing everyone with their entrance to the town-drunk turkey getting thrown out of the bar.  There are even a few characters that may appear gruesome or frightening, such as the menacing Rattlesnake Jake with his demon-red eyes and malicious slithering.

Verbinski delivers a heaping plate of cinematic enjoyment with the twisted world of Rango, making the film a refreshing ice-cold beer in the desert sun.  It’s dirty and beautiful at the same time, a mesmerizing combination on the foundation of a familiar, yet quirky plot that remains head and shoulders above the majority of animated features released in the past few years.

-Sean