The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Any movie involving eight-year-olds and Nazis is bound to be an upbeat romp through a child’s imagination, as we all know. Oh wait, upbeat romp? I mean depressing on par with The Downward Spiral. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas brings no surprises in its emotional direction. It is the story of a young boy named Bruno (Asa Butterfield), whose father is a Nazi commander. The boy and his family are forced to move to the countryside, and Bruno must leave all his friends behind. However, after a bit of exploring around the new house, Bruno finds a concentration camp, where he meets another boy his age. Only this boy happens to be on the other side of the fence.

Of course, Bruno does not understand the situation very well. Throughout much of the movie, he refers to the camp as a “farm,” and wonders why all the farmers are wearing pajamas. Much of the intended drama comes from this type of misunderstanding. Bruno’s ignorance is meant to reflect his innocence, and this innocence is meant to contrast the horrors of these camps quite directly. Needless to say, the boys’ friendship is one of the main sources of drama. The problem with that, however, is that neither boy can act incredibly well. Bruno plays his part fine, I suppose, though some of his more emotional reactions feel less than authentic. The other boy, Schmuel (Jack Scanlon), hardly does more than deliver his lines. His attempts at fear, shame, or, uh, more fear, are usually little more than him looking around rapidly. I suppose it’s asking a lot to expect eight-year-olds to carry such dramatic weight, but they could have done better.

That being said, I feel that the person doing the most emotional work was the mother’s makeup artist. The only time that I felt any character was really having a believable reaction to their surroundings was the mother’s (played by Vera Farmiga) reaction to a certain revelation about the camp, and much of her response came from the fact that she looked like she hadn’t slept for days. Whoever was doing her makeup did a great job. Kudos. Oh, and Pavel (the house’s Jewish servant) played his part very well, and was one of the more convincing characters.

At just over an hour and a half, there should have been more than enough material to keep the story engaging the entire time. I mean, you’re in Nazi Germany, it’s pretty fertile ground for storytelling. Yet for about a half hour in the middle of the film, the action dragged quite a bit. There were a number of scenes here that were comprised mainly of reaction shots of all the characters staring at each other, saying very little. If the pace had continued to drag much longer, I might have left. But I suppose if I could sit through Miracle at St. Anna, I could make it through this, a movie nearly half the length. Thankfully, it got interesting again and I was glad to have stayed.

The cinematography was one thing in particular that I did want to commend. There were a lot of shots that were particularly clever and helped shape the overall perspective and feel of the film. One in particular had Bruno sitting on the stairs at his new home, with a series of vertical bars between him and the camera, not only foreshadowing events to come but also declaring his distaste for the new house, which is well-guarded and which must, to him, feel like a prison. The home he lived in at the beginning was very open and in the city, where Bruno and his friends enjoyed running around, arms outstretched like wings…

While there were a few points in this film where I felt I was being slapped in the face with the message (though, realistically, it’s hard to be subtle with this subject matter), overall it was reasonable. I didn’t feel that anything extraordinarily new was brought to the table, but I didn’t feel entirely disappointed for having seen it. It’s not that it’s bad, really, it’s just not the most memorable movie I’ve seen recently. With an ending that’s just about as depressing as you could imagine based on the setup, you’re not going to leave this one in the cheeriest of moods. But you knew that already.

Role Models

 

After seeing Seann William Scott literally eat shit in American Wedding, I’ve always been wary of any movie willing to place him in a leading role. Fortunately, Role Models avoids his inevitable overuse by placing him in a co-starring role with the strong complementary character Danny (Paul Rudd), who actually tackles most of the drama. This formula, along with a phenomenal cast of secondary characters, makes this easily one of the most enjoyable comedies I’ve seen this year. 

Wheeler (Scott) and Danny (Rudd) are two friends/co-workers who visit elementary schools under the guise of preventative drug education, while at the same time pushing a questionable energy drink – “Minotaur. Taste the beast!” – to these same children. Under increasing pressure and decreasing morale, Danny has something of a bad day and lands the two in court. Once there, they are sentenced to 150 hours of community service in order to avoid jail time. But what community service might a degenerate sex-addict and a self-absorbed asshole possibly provide? Mentoring children, of course. 

While much of the movie plays out predictably (If you’ve ever been to the movies before, you will likely guess 75% of the plot’s course in the first twenty minutes), most of the situations the characters find themselves in are fresh and fun (a camping trip involving far too much Lunesta and an engaged hottie, for one). Also, Role Models has one of most memorable and entertaining climaxes in recent memory, which goes down in a very unique and strangely heartwarming fashion. It does a great job of sewing together the events and people from the rest of the film, without feeling cheap or easy, which is a qualm I have with comedies all too often. It is far from ordinary, but it really works. And there was much rejoicing. 

All of this is made possible by a fantastic cast of characters, not one of whom feels out of place or in any way dull. Everyone has their place in the story, and each one is played extremely well. Bobb’e J. Thompson is hilarious as Ronnie, the destructive bastard child, and Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) lets his “freak flag” fly for Xanthia, an imaginary country he roleplay-fights to protect. Augie and Danny, as mentioned, carry most of the dramatic weight of the movie, and yes, you will probably start to get invested in their strange relationship. They do a great job together, no matter how (intentionally) awkward. While their stories make the movie’s dialogue worth following, Wheeler and Ronnie are comic gold together. The combination of Wheeler’s incredibly weak morals and Ronnie’s adoration for boobies take them through some great situations, none of which should be spoiled here. 

One of my favorite characters, though, was Gayle Sweeny, the head of the mentor organization, played by Jane Lynch. Most of what she says, while usually an attempt at intimidation, just comes out as ridiculous gibberish. “You can’t BS the BSer.” She insists, multiple times, before anyone has even really said anything to her. Every time she came on screen, I found myself pausing to make sure I heard what she was going to say. It’s unlikely that any other casting choice would have been able to pull off the character in quite the same way. 

The movie’s pacing was also excellent, with the action being split fairly evenly between the two pairs of characters (Wheeler and Ronnie / Danny and Augie). At no point did it seem to drag, though as mentioned, there were a few moments of disappointing formulaicism (I know that’s not a word, but… screw it, you know what I mean.). A few times I found myself almost depressed that I was able to guess exactly how a segment would play out, but maybe that’s just because I’m so damn good. Either way, the film’s predictability in no way detracted from my immense enjoyment of it. It was funny as hell (or at the very least engaging and entertaining) throughout, and I will probably be returning to see it again soon. It’s probably not a movie your mother will enjoy (I don’t know of many mothers who would enjoy watching a 10 year old kid repeatedly tell everyone around him to fuck off), but if you like a sprinkle of dirty humor and immaturity (Notice: a sprinkle, this is no Superbad. Also: Mmmmm… sprinkles…) in your comedy, you can’t go wrong with Role Models. Go ahead, Taste the Beast.

007: Quantum of Solace

First things first: What the hell does Quantum of Solace even mean? I just finished watching the movie, and I still have no idea. “Quantum” is mentioned once, I believe as the name of a company or something, but… what? It doesn’t make sense. And that’s a good introduction to my review, because there is a lot about this film that makes very little sense.

One of the primary things that I am curious about is the mind of M (who everyone is now suddenly calling Mum for some reason). She is constantly at odds with her own motivations, passionately denouncing Bond in one scene, and suddenly trusting him fully, for very little reason, in the next. Bond, too, is difficult to keep track of. Friends, enemies, women, all seem to mean very little to him. He’s perhaps too much of a bloodthirsty bastard this time around, which makes him difficult to care for. Personally, I’d prefer having my suave old buddy James back. I feel they took Mr. Craig’s badass Bond too far. He rarely seems to care about anything other than winning. There is a lot of talk revolving around the woman he lost at the end of Casino Royale, and some story moments claim to have something to do with her, but I had some trouble connecting some things (her ex-boyfriend? How does he fit in again? Wha?). Oh yeah, and everyone in this movie is an agent or a traitor. There are no normies, er, “civilians.” It all gets much more complicated than it needs to be, and the plot isn’t nearly interesting enough to keep me following everything.

There are a number of really intense action sequences, though, so even when you find yourself checking the clock during some of the so-called “drama,” chances are that there is a chase/fight/kill scene just around the corner. These are, in Bond tradition, tense and engaging, though the modern trend of over-editing has unfortunately infected 007 quite thoroughly by now. While not to the level of The Bourne Supremacy or Batman Begins, the frantic cuts and over-caffeinated cameraman certainly do come out to play a bit too often. I think it’s possible to remember how a car is driven without constantly being reminded by twenty different quarter-second shots of a pedal being slammed throughout a chase scene. Speaking of chase scenes, a friend noted that the chases covered pretty much all the bases. There was a chase scene in a car, a chase on foot, an aerial chase, and a boat chase. The only thing missing is the underwater submarine-chase, or perhaps one in outer space. Perhaps next time, Mr. Bond.

The acting is mostly strong, though a few of the less-important characters fell a bit short. Some of Bond’s lesser enemies, for example, just don’t feel authentic at all. They don’t really detract from the experience much, though, as the main characters all put on their best angry face and go to town.

Quantum of Solace isn’t going to dethrone your favorite Bond movie, but if it’s action you’re looking for, it does bring the thunder. I can’t really recommend paying full price to see it at the theatre unless you really like ass-kicking. However, if you just want to see some high-budget explosions and chase scenes, and you have no interest in a dynamic plot that makes sense and keeps you engaged, this is your Bond.

Max Payne

 

A sub-par (read: shitty) video game movie is not a novel idea. From Mortal Kombat to Doom, we have seen epic game stories torn down to their least-engaging elements and squeezed into a two-hour disaster that betrays the filmmaker’s total ignorance of their particular game. Max Payne was no different. The characters, the story, and the atmosphere all wish that they were recreating some bit of the Payne world, but they fail miserably. The only thing that comes close to being reminiscent of the actual games are the environments. When the snow is falling and people are walking around in it, a distant memory of gameplay is evoked. Otherwise, we are all lost.

Mark Wahlberg does a decent job as the broken man of the hour, yet for most of the film, he reminded me nothing of the character he was portraying. He was just another angsty Mark Wahlberg character. There is not nearly enough vengeance during the vast majority of the film for him to feel like Payne. Max Payne is a man who snaps and goes on a rampage. This Payne is much more depressed. He feels like he is still holding onto something. He just becomes another cliché detective with a gun. Max Payne gets his answers through hot lead and super slow-mo, not through dead-end leads and feeling sorry for himself. Thankfully, though, there was a ten-minute segment where he began to hint at the character he was playing, but his drug-induced rampage is far too temporary. The two gunfights in the movie are excellent, but last for maybe 3 minutes each. This is the only point of the film that really got my interest, and it was over far too quickly.

On the story front, I felt somehow disconnected from the tragic events of Max’s past. Perhaps because I knew it was coming, or perhaps because it was just so poorly (and repeatedly) translated to the screen. The story has a new “twist” every step of the way, and it all comes together with a pretty generic explanation that doesn’t draw any emotion whatsoever. The villains in the film are pretty bland, as well, and the big betrayal isn’t as much of a shock as it is a “Really? Are you serious?” moment.

The introduction of the valkyries was something that I had puzzled about over every trailer I had seen for this movie. There were no winged demons in the games, so why are they everywhere in the trailers? Well, they’re everywhere in the movie as well, and their purpose is, shall we say, less than adequately explained. There’s some talk by the overly-knowledgeable tattoo artist (which reminds me of a Ben Stiller cameo in its absurdity) about the creatures, yet their actual purpose in this world remains fairly fuzzy.

Another notable failure in this movie include the casting of Mila Kunis as Mona Sax. Now, for anyone who knows Mona from the games, this is a very obvious mistake. There is no resemblance in appearance or demeanor between the two. For others, watching the movie will make the mistake clear. I don’t know who thought that Meg Griffin would be a good choice for the beautiful femme fatale, but her bouncy voice doesn’t lend itself to semi-automatic weaponry and grit. Fail.

For fans of the games, there are enough small references to the game (the nightclub, for one) to merit an eventual watching. For anyone else, though, you probably shouldn’t bother. The acting is sub-par, the plot is flimsy and too convoluted for its own good, and there are practically no traces of film noir to be found. The storytelling style of the games is far superior, and without even an attempt at some gritty narration, this movie fails in its attempt to recreate this action hero’s journey. Certainly not worth a trip to the theater and $10.

Miracle at St. Anna

Here is my first film review. Enjoy!

Spike Lee dropped the ball on this one. Hard. To call anything about this film a miracle would be lying. In fact, the only miracle I can think of is that I managed to stay in the theater the entire time (I did struggle to maintain consciousness, though). This two hour and forty minute behemoth certainly had enough time to make some very strong statements and, in an ideal world, could have connected the audience to its characters to an exceptional degree. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it did none of these things.

Basically, the bulk of the film takes place in WWII Italy, in a flashback of a veteran who commits a seemingly unprovoked murder in the film’s present. The story follows four black American soldiers who get cut off from the rest of their comrades (in one of the most puzzlingly extreme white demonizations ever put to film) and are forced to take shelter in a small Tuscan village, where they believe themselves surrounded by Nazi forces. Now, to say that this is the main plot of the film might not be entirely true – St. Anna has an incredible number of unnecessary side-plot and sub-plots, which, when the majority of our story is already flashback, end up serving only to convolute and hide the actual story. For the first two hours, I was consistently amazed at the introduction of more and more characters. Even past the point of super-saturation, we got more characters. In a style better suited for horror films, however, many of these characters were only introduced so that they could be killed off later in a grasp for emotional impact. Some of the sub-plots were absolutely nothing more than vessels for audience sympathy toward characters non-integral to the plot, so that their inevitable demise would (hopefully) carry emotional weight. Unfortunately, some of these textbook characters, such as the love interest who brought nothing but a very nice pair of breasts to the screen, were clearly pointless and thus felt more like bait than anything.

By the time the movie returned to its current-events setting, the “shocker” of an ending was already painfully obvious, and its excessive exposition dragged just as much as the rest of the film. The film was much too long. The actual content simply didn’t fill the epic war-movie format very well, and much of the film felt like filler. A flashback within a flashback is usually a bad sign from the start, and with no bearing on the trajectory of the plot, one can only guess at why the numerous pointless scenes were never cut in favor of a more reasonable-length feature. To be honest, though, even if it ran only an hour and a half, this movie would struggle to maintain interesting content. Far too much of the movie was composed of characters exchanging looks that said nothing and advanced nothing.

I would like to attempt to round this out with at least one positive comment, but am struggling to think of something truly noteworthy and good that this film brings forward. The acting ranged from abysmal to at-least-she’s-hot, and the dialogue was often laughably bad. Something tells me the phrase “Nigga please!” wasn’t exactly common parlance in the forties. Also, I would like an explanation of the purpose of the Nazi radio-woman? For about twenty minutes, she basically guides the actions and conversations of anyone who graces the screen, yet after that she is never referred to or used in any way again. Cut it! A few minutes of random characters’ thoughts on God (with no introduction, mind you, just a misplaced montage of deeper thoughts on religion)? Where’d that come from, and why? Cut! A heavy-handed commentary on racism through an ice-cream shop? Cut!! At twenty minutes, the plot might have sufficed as an entertaining and interesting short film. But at almost three hours, your time would be much better spent seeing anything else and regretting it for that extra hour. If, perhaps, Miracle at St. Anna had at least contained the aforementioned miracle, the film would have felt a bit more complete. No such luck.