Birdman- Michael Keaton Returns

Though the ad campaign for this movie may seem confusing, the movie itself is much more so. 

"Birdman" follows the attempts of a washed-out superhero movie star Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) as he attempts to reinvigorate his career by writing, directing, and acting in a Broadway adaptation of a famous novel. Emma Stone plays his newly rehabilitated daughter and Edward Norton his dangerously deranged new actor. The story charts the struggling play as well as the telekinetic abilities and increasing psychosis of Riggan. It also features fantastic performances by Zach Galifinakis, Amy Ryan, and Naomi Watts.

A film like this defies genre. It is a thriller, a play within a movie, and a psychological profile of an aging man in the depths of post-stardom depression. Few movies outside of the work of Kubrick can claim to explore such a wide variety of themes and story-telling devices. The movie encompasses the role of actors, the effect of celebrity on a person's psyche, the effect of superhero movies on modern cinema, theatre vs. movies, modern criticism vs. art, social media and networking, and the nature of personal relationships in a world starved for truth.

The most compelling aspect of "Birdman" is its use of stylistic drumbeats and continuity of scene. Almost the entire soundtrack consists of a single drummer soloing continuously with intermittent breaks of classical music. The visual style is particularly fascinating as most of the movie is dominated by what is perceived to be one continuous scene; the cuts between scenes are cleverly hidden so as to be unnoticeable, giving the whole movie a constant feeling of rushing forward irresistibly. Every scene flows into the next without pause, lending to bizarre jumps in time and a blending of various locations into one. 

The genius of this visual choice is that the entirety of the film is designed to develop like a stage play. The camera moves in between locations by following characters through hallways in long tracking shots. These transition shots serve as the "scene changes," and often utilize a moment of darkness, reminiscent to the lights going down on a stage. The performances, though completely authentic, are largely theatrical in style, featuring dramatic monologues and angry confrontations between two characters. 

Another important facet of "Birdman" is its use of Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, and Edward Norton. All three are veterans of superhero movies; Norton for "The Incredible Hulk," Stone for her role of Gwen Stacy in "The Amazing Spiderman," and Keaton for his most famous role as Tim Burton's Batman. This was obviously quite intentional, as numerous references are made to the various actors that dominate the superhero movies of the past few years. Some commercials made it seem like Keaton once again plays a superhero, but this is not at all a superhero movie. Riggan's telekinetic abilities are kept unclear for the entire movie, and one questions whether he truly possesses the supernatural abilities as shown or if they are nothing more than an extension of his psychosis.

"Birdman" earns a WATCH IT for great performances stellar visual design and themes combined with a unique, percussive score. What did you think of the film? Leave your comments in the boxes below.

Guardians of the Galaxy-You Already Know It's Great, Why Are You Asking Me?

I know that this blog often reviews movies from decades past, but this review feels more untimely than those because everybody's already seen the damn thing.

"Guardians of the Galaxy" is a sci-fi superhero comedy set in the Marvel universe and featuring a diverse and fantastic cast. As a crime-fighting superhero team-up movie, comparisons to "The Avengers" are unavoidable, and you might be shocked by what I have to say about the two films. 

The movie follows Peter Quill (Chris Pratt of "Parks and Rec"), a rogue, galactic traveler with a trail of past lovers crisscrossing the galaxy...okay, he's Han Solo/Captain Kirk, alright? That doesn't make the character any less compelling as we see him lose his mother as a small child and get abducted by a group of junk-collecting pirates. We see Peter explore a desolate planet and venture through dark temples to find an ancient artifact...okay fine! He's Indiana Jones too, but he's still great. The artifact in question is a sphere containing one of the six Infinity Gems. Any comic book nerd worth their salt knows the significance of this item and it is fittingly the driving force of the entire movie as Peter meets up with the rest of the Guardians for different reasons. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is hired by Ronan, servant to Thanos and all around bad guy, to retrieve the Infinity Gem. Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) are bounty hunters trying to capture Peter. Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) is a lone warrior who lost his family to Ronan and seeks revenge. The five heroes make their way through the galaxy to protect the Infinity Gem and defeat Ronan.

I like this movie better than the Avengers movie. Now calm down and lower your pitchforks. I know that the Avengers franchise was a long time coming and has hailed as a shining beacon of nerd culture for years, but as a movie I believe that "Guardians" stacks up better. Right off the bat, every character's motivation is made very clear and every character is fleshed out. Every actor, including the vocal styles of Cooper and Diesel, was absolutely top notch and well suited to their character. These are the biggest issues that put this movie above the Avengers, because with the exceptions of Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo, the Avengers cast isn't as perfectly crafted as the Guardians. There are no weak links in the Guardians chain. Also, five main characters is much more manageable than six Avengers, plus Coulso, plus Fury, plus whoever the hell Cobie Smulders plays.

The stylistic choices in this film are perfect. The movie starts in a flashback in the 80s and the soundtrack of Top 40s hits from that time make the film that much better. The music is played up for laughs at many times, but it also serves as a genuine score that perfectly fits the tone. Whether it's a quite moment between characters or a roaring action sequence, there's always a classic hit to give the film that extra push from good to great. The visual style is also fantastic as the Guardians travel to various planets and destinations that are all unique and brilliant in their design, so much so that this movie should be a model for the new Star Wars films. Every new location is bright, vibrant, and imaginative in ways that few movies can match.

While every Joss Whedon movie is genuinely funny in is own way, the comedic chops of the Guardians are second to none. I saw this movie during its second week on a Tuesday and the theater was still rolling in the aisles at the pure hilarity that this movie manages to convey throughout. Pratt expertly plays the charming, bumbling rogue and every Guardian brings their own brand of comedy to the table. I'm incredibly surprised by whoever made the commercials for this movie and didn't give away any of the jokes but I'm glad they did. Walking into the theater without having any idea what I was about to see was a rare joy for a modern film.

The action sequences and special effects are also great but do I need to say that? All movies look good now, it's everything else that's difficult to pull off.

Ok, did anybody else notice the huge Galaga reference?

When Ronan ordered his ships to kamikaze dive bomb the city, Rocket immediately pulled Star Lord's ship close to the ground and aimed the cannons skyward. Then he said "Shoot the ships before they hit the ground!" That sentence is the entire premise, motivation, and instruction for the game Galaga. Also, Rocket's position as he strafed along the ground is the exact visual given by the ship you control in the arcade game.

Also, for background, in "The Avengers"- Marvel's other super hero mash-up crime-fighting team movie- there is a throwaway line where Tony Stark, on the bridge of the Hellicarrier, calls out a random worker for playing Galaga on his computer while he is supposed to be working. "That man is playing Galaga. He didn't think we'd notice, but we did."

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

"Guardians of the Galaxy" earns a WATCH IT TWICE for excellent performances from the entire cast, great musical and visual style, and impeccable comedic timing. I know that no one is going to disagree with me about how good this movie is, but what was your favorite character/location/scene? Let me know in the comments below.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes-They Don't Care Anymore, So Why Should I?

Vague references to a bunch of bullshit that doesn't pan out.

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is the sequel to the prequel to the reboot of the Planet of the Apes movie series and if I have to explain what is wrong with that then you might as well stop watching movies in general. It shows how a colony of apes and a colony of survivors of a human pandemic must work together and fight each other for mutual survival.

For a much better and more concise review of this film's merit and the state of Hollywood in general, visit Peter K. Rosenthal at The Onion here:
http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-reviews-dawn-of-the-planet-of-the-apes,36436/

The motifs of the movie are the nature of humanity, fear of humans toward outsiders and toward ourselves, and war caused by lack of communication. These are shown throughout the film in an adequate manner but really nothing to write home about. Or, really, for that matter, to write a review for. I just ended two sentences in a row with prepositions and I hate myself for. That.

The films seems to dance around in various themes and symbols without really committing to anything. The main ape's name is Caesar and the warlike structure of their society is sort of like Rome. Also, the apes live in the woods and hunt large packs of animals like the Native Americans. The king is betrayed by a friend, which is also like Caesar, but then the king's killer takes power and tries to control the king's family so it's more like Hamlet, except that the king doesn't die because they couldn't think up a Lion King-esque way that the king's ghost could visit his son so instead he just tells his son about the murder on his death bed. It's really just a bunch of impotent bullshit.

There's some hunting scenes, there are contrasting scenes that show the structure of the ape society versus the structure of the human society, and there are battle scenes. The scenes that show the home life are interesting but mostly predictable and the battles ebb and flow in a completely arbitrary way. One minute the apes and humans are working together and the next their fighting. One minute the apes are charging the front of the human base and the humans easily mow them down with machine guns and explosives but as soon as it seems that the apes are dying by the scores they suddenly break the wall and take over the entire human village. There's also some scenes where the apes and the humans work out relationships and family issues but I don't even care any more.

I really just can't commit any kind of emotion for this movie. Even hatred seems far to virile for this tepid, watered-down excuse for a story. It's not awful but it really should not have been made. "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" earns an AVOID IT for just being another example of Hollywood greed and apathy. Fuck it. Do you think this is a good movie? Please explain why you're wrong in the comments below.

Godzilla-Matthew Broderick's Day Off

Finally, a real Godzilla movie in America!

For those of you that don't know, the 1998 Godzilla featuring Matthew Broderick was so hated by Toho, the company that owns the rights to Godzilla, that they decided that it was not, in fact, a Godzilla movie. Despite the movie's title, the monster featured throughout the film is actually "Zilla," a completely different beast. Which is good, because Godzilla isn't a pregnant, size-changing, iguana-looking motherfucker that can be killed with a few missiles. Godzilla fucking rules.

The new American Godzilla begins in Japan, as it should. Actually, the title sequence begins with old archive footage of the nuclear tests on islands in the Pacific. According to the film, these "tests" were actually the military attempts to destroy Godzilla, who could not be destroyed even by repeated nuclear assaults. We then see Ken Watanabe as Ishiro Serizawa discover a collapsed mine that reveals the remains of an enormous creature and the freshly hatched egg of another one. Bryan Cranston is Joe Brody, a scientist working for a nuclear plant in Japan as it is destroyed by a mysterious natural disaster. He spends the next few decades trying to uncover a government conspiracy that quarantined the areas surrounding the plant. We also follow Aaron Taylor-Johnson as his son, Ford Brody as he travels the world following the path of the monstrous creatures that have arisen to wreak havoc on the surface world.

What I love most about the new incarnation of Godzilla is that the plot revolves entirely around the monsters. The human moments, however, help to anchor the monsters in reality and help to create a more emotional impact with the audience. The monsters have their own stories, and even though their mythology stretches back to millions of years before humans came into existence, their paths and those of the human characters interact in surprising ways. For example, one of the biggest themes is the power of family, shown by Ford's begrudging love of his father and his dedication to keep his family safe though he is separated from his wife and son for almost the entirety of his screen time.

As I said, the movie focuses solely on the monsters. All of the humans, even Bryan Cranston, are entirely secondary to the real action of the movie. This perfectly reflects the true meaning of the film, that man is powerless in the face of nature. Originally, Godzilla was a metaphor for the destruction of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the modern imagining, Godzilla and the other monsters are a metaphor for natural disasters. Case in point: the first big disaster of the movie is the destruction of a Japanese nuclear power plant by what is believed to be an earthquake. Though the movie version took place in 1999 instead of 2011, this perfectly reflects the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The rest of the film follows suit, as many of the scenes of destruction are eerily similar to news footage of earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters. The monsters truly show the power of Mother Nature against the feeble efforts of mankind.

"Godzilla" earns a SEE IT for awesome (meaning "inspiring awe") set pieces that emphasize the incredible scale of the action throughout epic monster battles. Leave your comments on Godzilla in the comments below.

Safety Not Guaranteed-Enjoyment Guaranteed

I don't quite know how to classify this movie, so I'll call it a dramedy rom-com.

"Safety Not Guaranteed" is a fascinating movie because of its origins in the annuls of the internet. The story is that a few years back a man posted an advertisement asking for a companion to time travel with him. The interesting part is that it is unclear whether somebody actually posted the ad or somebody posted in an online forum claiming that somebody else posted an ad. So this movie is either based on a story or it is based on a story about a story.

The movie follows Aubrey Plaza as a depressed twenty-something working as an intern for a magazine. She volunteers to track down a man advertising for a time travel companion and finds the strange gentleman to be more than she can understand. As she continues to gain his trust to find information for the article, she groes to understand the man and his reasons for wishing to travel through time.

The film follows its bizarre premise through to the end but manages to bring a surprising amount of heart to the equation. "Safety Not Guaranteed" explores themes of loss, love, nostalgia, longing, and faith through the lens of a confusing rabbit hole of convoluted lies and deception, set to a jaunty rom-com with fittingly jovial music. The movie manages to weave an enjoyable story while keeping you guessing at the real nature of the story and the truth that surrounds the story.

"Safety Not Guaranteed" gets a Watch It for an interesting tale wrapped in a memorable premise and enjoyable storytelling. Disagree with me? Great! Let me know in the comments below.

Transcendence-Terminator: Judgement Depp

Well, at least he lost the white face paint...

"Transcendence" is a new movie starring Johnny Depp that, get this, is NOT directed by Tim Burton and is therefore a palatable piece of media. Johnny Depp portrays Dr. Will Caster, a brilliant mathematician and computer researcher who is targeted by the anti-technology group RIFT and is rapidly dying as an effect of an assassination attempt. As his body decays, his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) constructs a computer to replicate his brain patterns and preserve his mind.

The movie follows the course of Will, in computer form, as his mind expands and becomes more powerful, controlling much of the internet's power and building an underground research complex to continue experimentation and technological developments. Will soon becomes near omnipotent and the military, allied with RIFT, attempts to shut him down.

The film is well-paced and thrilling, but the intrigue of the film does not come from the spectacle of CGI or the brief battle scenes, but rather from the chaotic mind of Will. The film adeptly serves as both a sci-fi movie and a psychological thriller as Will's mind is brought into question. The main question that hangs over the entire film is whether Will's mind was successful transferred into the computer or is the AI simply pretending to be him? However, the larger question is whether a computer can successfully replicate a human mind to the point that there is no difference between the replication and the original. Can a human mind truly be created? These questions culminate in one of the final scenes of the movie which brings into the question the motivations of every major character. The final moments of the movie indicate the tiniest glimmer of hope imaginable but leaves the film with a resonant sense of completion.

"Transcendence" earns a "Watch It" for surprising philosophical questions exemplified in an engaging sci-fi thriller. I must confess, as soon as I saw Mr. Depp's face on the poster of this film I set my expectations as low as possible and came out shockingly impressed.

As always, please leave your comments below and let me know what you thought of "Transcendence."

The Truman Show-Well, Now I'm Paranoid

I feel like this was just a short documentary on Jim Carrey's real life.

"The Truman Show" shows the life of one man is exists as entertainment for the rest of the world. Everyday Truman Burbank lives his life and ignores dozens of hints that the world around him is not real. The world has been watching Truman's life from birth, 24 hours a day for 30 years. Truman is an overly cheery and quirky man who seems to have a spring attached to the bottoms of his feet with each step.

The film follows Truman's suspicions as he begins to accept that the idyllic world in which he is enveloped cannot be real and everyone that he meets on the street is a facet of the world that has been pulled over his eyes to blind him from the truth.

Woah. It just got pretty Matrixy in here. They both seem to pull from similar source material, namely the Allegory of the Cave, and both movies fail to grasp the lesson to be gained from this thousand year-old parable. At the end of the movie, Truman, with the help of his Morpheus character, a woman with whom he had a brief fling in college, finally reaches the point where he has escaped the all-seeing eyes of the cameras that surround him and finds the edge of the false world in which he has been imprisoned for his entire existence. Truman has been deeply programmed to fear water and boats, but overcomes this to sail to the painted blue wall that made up the sky above the horizon. He finds the exit leading to the real world and opens it as he is once again found by the cameras. Truman stands before the door.

The creator of Truman's world, Christof, speaks to Truman from the heavens of the domed reality and tells Truman that he is on TV but will not leave his world because he is afraid. Truman turns to the camera, giving his signature "Good afternoon, good evening, and good night" before exiting through the open door to Christof's surprise. As he leaves the television forever, the viewing world cheers, happy that Truman has finally found peace and has been given the chance to enter reality.

This is where "The Truman Show," like the Matrix before it, fails to grasp the Allegory of the Cave. One man has the possibility to leave the cave and become exposed to the outside world, but as soon as he attempts to release the rest of the cave dwellers from their prison, he finds that they are so deeply ingrained in the system that they cannot possibly accept any other truth. Truman was born into the cave, but he manages to bring the entire viewing audiences into the cave with him. The viewers are more involved with Truman's life than their own, and the film has multiple depictions of parents neglecting to feed children and obsessed fans wasting away in blithering happiness in front of the television set. I guess Ray Bradbury was right. When Truman exits the cave, he forces the viewing audience to exit with him, entering a new reality where Truman will no longer be on the screen to comfort them and entertain them at all hours. Mere minutes after Truman left the show, there would be riots in the streets. People unable to cope with such a drastic change to their lives would commit mass suicides and society as a whole would grind to a halt. We would like to believe that Truman would meet up with his lost lover, but in reality she would be killed before he could even reach her. Truman himself would be destroyed attempting to leave his cave, as his own life was an idyllic wonderland and reality is filled with millions of wild, destructive people thirsting for his blood.

Even if the hellish uprising of millions of distraught fans did not happen, Truman could never have a normal life. He would be swamped by thousands of fans every day who know every intimate detail of his life. Truman would either become a Messiah or a destroyer of worlds.

Despite the radical implications of the story, "The Truman Show" is an entertaining ride. I give it a "Watch It" for a unique story and great, over-the-top cheesy acting.

Disagree with me? Great! Let me know in the comments below.