Wednesday, July 15, 2009 by Justin
THE MOVIE
I didn’t hate Revolutionary Road nearly as much as I expected to. Far from high praise, I know, but I don’t really like movies like this. I think the idea of exposing  the dark underbelly of apparent suburban bliss is one that’s been pretty well-mined over the past few decades, and I find that idea explored in 1950s America particularly tiresome (and life was definitely less-than-perfect for you back then if you weren’t a white male). I guess it’s because I know things weren’t as warm and fuzzy and happy in the ‘50s as the popular American cultural fiction goes that that juxtaposition between the fantasy and reality holds almost no dramatic impact for me; much of the same awful stuff that happens today happened back then too, it just wasn’t really talked about. It’s a concept that even Revolutionary Road director Sam Mendes himself explored previously in the overrated American Beauty, and while Revolutionary Road is based on the acclaimed novel by Richard Yates and reunites Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, it’s a movie that ultimately doesn’t say as much as it wants to.
The film follows a young married couple going through some rocky times. Actually those rocky times appear to start almost immediately after the wedding; because the couple is pretty much always fighting about something, it makes Revolutionary Road quite a downer to watch, like spending two hours trapped in a room with your arguing parents. It’s not exactly a light Friday night rental, and may be one of the worst date movies of the past five years. It starts off with the DiCaprio’s and Winslet’s characters meeting at a party, jump-cuts to them being married and miserable an undetermined number of years later, and things just get more depressing from there. They’re both miserable in their cookie-cutter existences, and while there’s a plot about a plan to drop everything and move to  Paris with their two kids, the movie’s really just about them coming to terms with the reality of their lives in conformity-obsessed 1950s America.
The best thing about Revolutionary Road is easily the acting. Everyone in the movie is excellent, with DiCaprio and Winslet both doing great work (Winslet earned a Golden Globe for her performance). The other actor that really stood out for me was Michael Shannon, who was one of the guys who lost to Heath Ledger for best supporting actor at the Oscars earlier this year. Shannon’s an actor I’ve been reading and hearing about for a while, but Revolutionary Road was the first thing I actually saw him in, and he’s brilliant. He’s only in a handful of scenes, playing a mathematician recently released from a mental asylum following a breakdown. Because the world of Revolutionary Road revolves entirely around appearances and status (“What will the neighbors think?!??”), his lack of any sort of social filter allows him to say things that nobody else is willing to, and his role as a sort of one-man Greek chorus injects the movie with new life every time he shows up.
Revolutionary Road is also a great-looking movie. While I’m not a fan of Mendes’ films in general, the man knows how make a movie look nice, and with the help of cinematographer Roger Deakins (who shoots most of the Coen brothers’ movies), Revolutionary Road never looks less that fantastic.
The worst criticism I can level at Revolutionary Road is tha t it deals with subjects that, for the most part, other films do a better job with. The first example that came to my mind while watching it was director Todd Field’s 2006 film Little Children, partly because that film also stars Kate Winslet as an unhappy suburban housewife (she also netted an Oscar nomination for it). That movie’s set in the modern day, but it’s also about the illusion of happiness and how the suburbs can become a gilded prison. But Field’s film, which is also based on a well-regarded novel, has a sense of humor about itself, and I ultimately found the characters – even a child-molester! – more relatable than I found the characters in Revolutionary Road. (I’ll stop the Little Children comparisons now, but seriously, it’s an excellent film and I recommend it highly.)
Revolutionary Road is a film that I didn’t particularly like, but not necessarily because it’s bad; it just didn’t resonate with me the way it meant to. While I wasn’t that taken with it, your mileage may vary.
GRADE: C+
THE EXTRAS
The Revolutionary Road DVD has a nice collection of features. There’s commentary from director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe. I found the track to be fairly dry and uninteresting myself, but my apathy towards the film itself may have been a factor. There’s also a nicely in-depth mini-documentary on the making of the movie featuring interviews with the cast and crew, and a handful of deleted scenes with optional commentary from Mendes and Haythe. Labels: DVD review
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Friday, July 10, 2009 by Justin
There’s an odd-sounding movie I’ve been reading about sporadically online for the b etter part of the past year that has really piqued my interest, and the trailer for it finally hit the web this week. It’s called Big Fan, and it’s a drama about obsessive sports fandom. It’s the directorial debut of Robert D. Siegel, who penned the screenplay for The Wrestler, which was my choice as the second-best movie of last year. That alone is enough to vault Big Fan to a spot close to the top of my must-watch list, but it also stars comedian Patton Oswalt in the lead role. Oswalt is easily one of my favorite comics working today (I’m not a particularly devoted stand-up follower, but he’s one of a handful of comedians with an album on my iPod), and the promise of him delving into dark places as a New York Giants fan who’s WAY too into his team is pretty tantalizing. The track record of comedians doing drama is fairly solid (Tom Hanks, Robin Williams [sometimes], Jim Carrey [also sometimes], Denis Leary in Rescue Me, etc.), and Oswalt’s comedy is among the genuinely smartest I’ve heard, so I have high hopes about his serious turn in Big Fan. I can’t wait for this one. It's out August 28.
Check out the Big Fan trailer here courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.
Michael Moore has announced the title of his new documentary: Capitalism: A Love Story. Moore’s a filmmaker whose documentaries I often don’t like as much as I feel that I should, because I agree with him on a lot of issues; I just don’t always like the way he makes his points. (I also confess that I still haven’t seen his last film, Sicko, which I hear is quite good and not as obnoxious as some of his other work.) But if there ever was a topic tailor-made for Moore, it’s this economic mess and the government bailouts. Should be interesting stuff. If he can keep his ego and willingness to play fast and loose with the facts to make his point in check, Capitalism: A Love Story could be pretty great. Judge for yourself on October 2.
Check out the trailer for Moore’s latest via Apple. And last, but certainly not least, a new trailer for District 9, the crazy-looking sci-fi movie that I want to see so bad it’s like acid in my mouth. The first trailer hooked me. This new one makes me want to build a time machine so I don’t have to wait until August 14 to see this thing.
Labels: documentary, Movie news, sports movies, trailers
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009 by Justin
It’s time for the third (and slightly belated) part of my preview of the upcoming summer movies, this time looking at the big July releases. As usual, I haven’t actually seen any of these movies yet, so keep that in mind that these are just my opinions of the big summer blockbusters.
Public Enemies (July 1)
So for the second straight month, my list is topped by films already out. Holidays have a funny way of messing up the be st-laid plans. But I assume you all enjoy barbecues more than reading my thoughts on movies (if only by the slimmest of margins), so I figure you can forgive me. Anyway, Michael Mann’s film about the last days of legendary outlaw John Dillinger has been getting fairly middling reviews, but I’m still very much looking forward to checking it out myself. Mann’s one of my favorite filmmakers, and this cast looks pretty spectacular (Depp, Bale, Crudup), and it all adds up to make Public Enemies one of the movies I’ve been looking forward to the most this summer. I’ll check back in with my thoughts in the coming days.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (July 1)
This third installment in the animated franchise tied Transformers atop the box office last weekend, which is unsurprising considering how big the first two were. As usual, despite my love of animation, talking-animal kiddie flicks make my stomach turn, but evidently the kids dig this franchise. I still haven’t seen Up yet, but my understanding is that, quality wise, Pixar’s floating-house flick still is the cream of the animated crop this summer.
Blood: The Last Vampire (July 10, limited)
Speaking of animation, I’m a kinda-sorta anime fan, in that the stuff I like I really like, but as with anything, 90% of anime is unwatchable crap (I had to become something of an expert on the subject while at my old job, so I’ve seen quite a bit of it), but this action flick is a live-action adaptation of an anime I really like (with the same title). The plot follows a young Japanese girl in a school girl outfit (a fairly well-worn tradition in Japanese pop culture) who cuts up bat-looking vampires with a sword. Turns out she’s actually a vampire herself, and is much older than she appears. The anime is under an hour long, and barely spends any time on character development or even plot, really – vampires attack a U.S. military base in Japan in the ‘70s is about the extent of it – focusing instead on mood and some of the genuinely creepiest images I’ve ever seen in animation, and truly scary-looking vampire designs. The big question is whether this will hold up in a full-length movie. Seems sort of doubtful, but Blood is far enough up my alley on paper (swords, monsters, Japan) that I’ll definitely check it out.
Brüno (July 10)
I don’t typically let single reviews sway my opinion of movies going in, but I caught an early review of Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest last week that got my attention specifically because it said the film falls into exactly the trap I was afraid it would, which is that the character of Brüno, compared to Borat, is far more one-note, and this film is little more than Baron Cohen trying to shock bystanders with his gayness. If that’s true – which it very well may not be, as I think he really is something close to a proper genius – it’s pretty disappointing. I know many Americans are automatically uncomfortable with homosexuality, and while I’m sure there’s fodder for some decent comedy there, an entire movie built on that (or worse, the inherent ridiculousness of the fashion industry) will get old pretty quick. We’ll see though; I thought Borat was pretty amazing, and I’m still eager to see Brüno for myself.
I Love You, Beth Cooper (July 10)
Teen comedies, rather unsurprisingly, are not my thing, but this one looks worse than most. My thing with this movie, directed by Home Alone’s Chris Columbus and based on a novel by a former Simpsons writer (the film rights were sold before it was published; that’s not usually a great sign) is based on the fact that I’ve seen the trailer a couple of times and I still don’t know what it’s about. The premise is that some nerd, in his valedictorian speech, confesses his love for the hottest girl in school, and she later shows up at his house to take him out for a wild night on the town. The thing is, the trailer makes the titular Beth Cooper (played by Heroes starlet Hayden Panettiere) look sort of like a sociopath. So whether this movie is about the nerdy hero realizing that elevating someone you don’t even know onto an untouchable pedestal is actually a bad idea or whether she’ll turn out to just be “lovably crazy” (a form of crazy that only exists in the movies, I’ve found), I have no idea. I don’t want to see this movie, at all, but I’m pretty interested to find out what it’s actually about. The trailer’s so bad at conveying anything other than a collection of well-trodden high school jokes and crude sight gags that, as a guy who watches a lot of movie trailers, I’m sort of fascinated by it.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 15)
I don’t care about Harry Potter. But this thing will make tons of money, and I hear this is one of the best Potter movies yet. Enjoy.
(500) Days of Summer (July 17)
This indie romantic comedy has been getting some attention, but the trailer (which I admit is the sum total of my knowledge of this movie) looks sort of bland. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to get girl back….maybe I’m just old, but I feel like I’ve seen this movie before – a lot – and (500) Days of Summer doesn’t look like it’s doing anything different. I love the actors involved though – Joseph Gordon-Levitt has transformed into probably my favorite young actor working today, and like any good movie geek I have a serious crush on Zooey Deschanel – but unless I hear that this is some kind of once-in-a-generation insight into human relationships, it seems like just another cute-and-sappy indie romance. And I didn’t like Garden State enough to find that to be an exciting proposition.
G-Force (July 24)
A family comedy about a team of gerbil secret agents. In 3D. If I was 6 years old I’d probably be bugging my parents to take me to this. But I’m not, so I’m just going to go back to pretending this doesn’t exist. If you have kids, however, enjoy all the fart jokes and dated movie parodies.
The Ugly Truth (July 24)
Another summer romantic comedy. I doubt this stunningly generic-looking rom-com, about a stuffy TV producer (Katherine Heigl) who is (presumably eventually) charmed by a roguish ladies-man author/speaker (Gerard Butler, playing a really, really watered-down version of Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia). I hate movies like this with a fiery passion, but many people dig them, which I can understand. But we already had one paint-by-numbers romantic comedy turn into a surprise hit this summer in The Proposal, and I doubt there’s room for two.
Orphan (July 24) 
I guess it’s because I don’t have kids, but I’ve never fully grasped the appeal of the “creepy kids” subgenre of horror. And those movies don’t tend to do all that well, at least they haven’t lately, so I’m a bit puzzled by this one, about a young couple that adopts a young girl after they lose their own unborn child. Turns out she’s either a psycho killer or a psycho killer with powers (the trailer is unclear; personally I like the powers idea), and all sorts of craziness ensues. The actors in this one are pretty solid though, with Vera Farmiga (the psychiatrist in The Departed) and Peter Sarsgaard as the couple, so at least the performances will presumably be decent. This also doesn’t really feel like a summer movie, but sometimes that kind of counter-programming works (see the success of The Proposal). Orphan seems pretty stock to me, but I’m just a jackass who writes about movies on the Internet.
Funny People (July 31)
I’ve really enjoyed Judd Apatow’s previous two directorial efforts, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, although I find them to be a bit overrated (which doesn’t mean they’re bad, I just think people seem to praise them more than they deserve), but I find his tendency towards the more saccharine aspects of romantic comedies and comedies in general to be his least appealing quality as a filmmaker. (The part where the plot kicks in and Things Get Serious is precisely the point where I lose interest in the vast majority of big-budget studio comedies.) The word I’ve heard on this film, about a comic-turned-Hollywood superstar’s cancer scare, set against the backdrop of the comedy scene, is that it’s really a sappy drama masquerading as a comedy, and all the funny bits are in the trailer. While, if true, that certainly doesn’t mean Funny People will be bad, it does mean I will probably wait for DVD for this one. I like the Anchorman-producing Judd Apatow, not the Judd Apatow who tries to make me cry via Adam Sandler dealing with cancer. I expect a big first weekend based on Apatow’s previous hits, but it’s a toss-up as to where things go from there. Who knows, maybe Apatow doing drama will be well-received. Stranger things have happened. Labels: movie previews
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Friday, June 26, 2009 by Justin
Like most people who thoroughly enjoyed Michael Bay’s original Transformers movie, I’ve been eagerly anticipating the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, for the better part of a year. And while it’s  getting savaged pretty seriously by critics from what I’ve seen – as I type this it has a 22% Freshness rating on RottenTomatoes – I certainly didn’t hate it. It doesn’t fire on all cylinders the way the original did (I still consider it a near-perfect summer blockbuster), but the action is a lot of fun, and on a scale that appropriately tops the first movie. But where the first Transformers surprised me by keeping me interested during the parts with the talking humans, that’s precisely the problem Revenge of the Fallen runs into.
There’s more action in Revenge of the Fallen than the original, and it’s mostly pretty awesome, but the film itself is sloppier and not paced nearly as well. There’s a chunk in the middle that felt like it lasted over an hour where not much happens other than Sam (Shia LeBeouf) and his crew (Megan Fox as his girlfriend and three to four comedy relief characters) bounce around from place to place chasing some expository MacGuffin (instead of the cube from the previous film, it’s the Matrix of Leadership, a nice reference to the 1986 Transformers animated movie, but it ultimately means nothing). Way too much of the screen time is devoted to what is clearly filler and time-wasting, and for a movie that clocks in at around two-and-a-half hours, it’s just weird. A fun summer blockbuster shouldn’t be a slog to sit through; there’s easily 40 minutes or so (and possibly entire characters) that could have been cut from this film and it wouldn’t have affected the flow of the story one bit. That story is also overly complicated, dwelling a bit too much on the mythology and history of the Transformers universe. I love giant robots more than most, but even I found that stuff tiresome after a while. I don’t care about which Autobot begat which, I just want to see them fight.
Thankfully, when they do, it’s pretty spectacular. I’ve read a few complaints that the action is hard to follow – most of the robots look similar enough to each other that it can be tough to discern who’s doing what to whom when they fight – but I didn’t really find it to be much of a problem. There are also a ton of new robots, most of whom go unnamed and don’t get much to do, but they make the final battle scene feel more epic compared to the first movie, which ended with a skirmish between a handful of Autobots and Decepticons. Some of the new characters are awesome, like the Autobot Corvette, Sideswipe (a personal fave from childhood), and the massive Decepticon, Devastator.
My other big problem with Revenge of the Fallen is that there are way too many comedy relief characters. There are at least five characters in this movie, human and Transformer, that serve no purpose other than to act goofy and try to elicit laughs. I realize this is a movie aimed largely at younger audiences, so I understand the need for that sort of thing (I appreciated LeBeouf’s comic talents in the first movie; sadly he gets very little of that this time around), but FIVE is simply too many for one movie (especially considering they spend most of their screen time together). Worst of all, the filmmakers – the jury appears to be out on whether the responsibility for this lies with the screenwriters, Michael Bay or the voice actors; everyone’s passing the buck it seems – have an unfortunate tendency to rely on cringe-inducing ethnic stereotypes for the comic relief Transformers. The two getting the most attention are Skids and Mudflap, a pair of twin Autobots who seem to have adopted hip-hop style. They have gold teeth, goofy features, and can’t read. A mini-controversy seems to be brewing over them, and while I didn’t like them much either, for me it was more because they were just unfunny and annoying rather than my being offended.
Overall I still had fun for the most part while watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. In terms of story it’s an unfortunate step backwards from the first, but the action is more plentiful than the first Transformers, and considering that’s what I was there to see, I’m more able than most to forgive an overlong, occasionally plodding plot. I’m not going to say I wasn’t a little disappointed that Revenge of the Fallen isn’t as tight and efficient as the first film, but it’s still a pretty good time at the movies.
GRADE: B
Labels: Movie review, Theme weeks
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by Justin
To celebrate the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, it's Transformers week here at the Captivate movie blog. Today I'm sitting down with the new DVD release of the first season of the original 1980s cartoon, and on Friday I'll be reviewing Revenge of the Fallen. So kick back and enjoy my ramblings about giant robots who turn into trucks and jet planes.THE SHOW
Ah, nostalgia. I’m guiltier than most of looking back on beloved things from my childhood with rose-colored glasses, except I usually find that  when I revisit those things as an adult, they’re actually pretty bad (see The Neverending Story). Such is the case with most children’s entertainment; it typically just doesn’t hold up to adult scrutiny. There are obviously some exceptions to this – I love the original Star Wars movies as much today as I did as a kid – but my expectations going into reviewing the spiffy new 25th anniversary DVD collection of the first season of the original Transformers cartoon were guarded at best (also: I am old). While I was pleasantly surprised by the show – which has the same basic story of the blockbuster movies, following a war between sentient alien robots taking place on Earth – I still can’t really discern how much of my being entertained was due to nostalgia (but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say “quite a bit”).
The original Transformers, for context’s sake, was probably the one thing (or “property,” in the more cynical parlance of our times) I loved more than Star Wars when I was a kid. That changed as I got older, somewhat predictably, but back in the day before I was a geek who watched cartoons and collected toys (as I write this I’m looking at Japanese import figurines of the ‘80s-era Megatron and Starscream I picked up a few months ago sitting among the menagerie of toys on my desk), I was a kid who watched cartoons and collected toys, and Transformers was as good as it got. I distinctly remember watching all 16 episodes from this DVD set sitting on my living room floor as part of my weekday Transformers/G.I. Joe afterschool double-bill. While Transformers is obviously a show intended for children, and one with the primary objective of selling toys (a box full of old plastic doodads at my parents’ place proves it was quite effective), the storytelling is more complex than I remember it being. Storylines and plots go across several episodes, and because the characters are giant robots, the creators seem surprisingly free to show the Autobots and Decepticons get violent with each other. The animation ranges from decent to sort of sketchy, but it’s nowhere near as crude as some of the other cartoons of the era. Overall the show holds up pretty well considering it’s a quarter-century old.
The new DVDs are clearly intended to capitalize on the new movies and if you were a fan of the original show like I was, the new Season 1 set is fun little blast of nostalgia. If you’ve got kids of your own and they’re into the new movies, then I’m sure they’ll appreciate the classic cartoon.
GRADE: B
THE EXTRAS
The bonus features on this new Transformers DVD set is aimed squarely at the nostalgia crowd. The main attraction is a featurette on the origin and evolution of the Transformers brand through toys and cartoons and comic books, featuring interviews with Hasbro execs and comic writers and such. It’s really interesting stuff for an old fan like myself, especially learning that Transformers started when American toy executives tried to market Japanese transforming-robot toys (which were all the rage overseas) to North American audiences by attaching a story to it – the now-familiar tale of Cybertron and the war between the Autobots and Decepticons – and that was the spark that ignited the whole phenomenon. Considering it was dreamed up by a bunch of marketing people at a toy company (aided by comics writers), the storyline at the core of Transformers really has stood the test of time to a rather remarkable degree. It’s probably tied to my childhood attachment to the Transformers franchise, but I actually found myself wishing the featurette ran beyond its 15 minutes.
There’s a handful of vintage toy commercials from when the toy line launched in the ‘80s, and even more than the show itself, it prompted a flood of old memories. But even better is a rarely-seen (I don’t remember it and I watched this show religiously) PSA with Bumblebee in the mold of the classic G.I. Joe “knowing is half the battle” spots. Running away from home, apparently, is a bad idea. Thanks Transformers!Labels: animation, DVD review, Theme weeks
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Friday, June 19, 2009 by Justin
THE MOVIE
Defiance is a movie about the Bielski partisans, Jews who fought the Nazis guerilla-style during World War II from the forests of what was then German-occupied Poland (now Belarus) led by the Bielski brothers. It was co-written and directed by Edward Zwic k, who also made Glory, Legends of the Fall and The Last Samurai. Zwick certainly has a taste for historical dramas with lots of action, and Defiance is no different. It’s a very well-made film that’s very respectful of the true-life story it’s telling, and it succeeds largely because of the cast of actors Zwick has assembled to tell the Bielskis’ story.
Daniel Craig, easily the most talented actor to play James Bond since Sean Connery sipped martinis and karate-chopped Russian spies, does some quality work as Tuvia Bielski, the reluctant leader of the Bielski Otriad, who, along with his brothers Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Asael(Billy Elliot’s Jamie Bell, who has turned into an excellent actor), turned a group of Jews hiding out from the Nazis in the forests into a band of resistance fighters. Usually the “reluctant hero” is just a quick way for screenwriters to give the protagonist an artificial character arc, but in this case, Craig really makes you believe that this guy initially wanted no part of being any kind of leader. At first he’s just concerned with keeping himself and his two brothers alive, and he initially almost resents the growing number of refugees coming to him seeking shelter and some semblance of security. If you only know Craig from the new Bond movies, Defiance will set you straight: this guy can act.
I’ve liked Liev Schreiber in everything I’ve seen him in, and Defiance may be the best work of his I’ve watched. He gets the meatier, if smaller, role of Zus, the more hot-headed of the two senior Bielskis who eventually quits the Otriad to join the Russian army in its fight against the Nazis, but his loyalty to and love for his brothers is never in doubt. The relationship .jpg) between Zus and Tuvia forms the core of Defiance, and having two great actors in those roles goes a long way to making this movie as good as it is.
Zwick treats his subjects with great respect, and wisely doesn’t try to turn Defiance into a history lesson (his own words, from the commentary) and keeps the scale of the story small. Aside from some text at the opening of the movie, Defiance takes for granted that the viewer is familiar with the plight of European Jews during World War II (and really, there’s no excuse not to be). It helps him tell the Bielski brothers’ story clearly and concisely, and he never gets bogged down with details of what was going on elsewhere during the war. In that sense, Defiance seems less like a World War II movie than a movie that happens to be set during World War II. Part of this is likely due to the fact that Defiance had a relatively small budget, but it’s a testament to the filmmakers that you wouldn’t know it to look at it; Defiance, like all of Zwick’s work, is a great-looking movie.
As much as the marketing tried to sell it as an action movie – and there are more than a few battles, but they’re nasty affairs rather than sexy, stylized sho.jpg) ot-‘em-up sequences – it’s really a drama about what these people went through during their time in the woods, and its fascinating, compelling stuff. It’s serious without being depressing, and it never feels preachy (which was my primary complaint with Zwick’s last movie, the noble yet heavy-handed Blood Diamond). And as much as Craig’s character is heroic through his deeds and the lives he and his brothers save, Zwick also doesn’t shy away from the fact that sometimes their actions were brutal and difficult to justify. Guerilla-style warfare doesn’t really lend itself to honour and nobility, and it never feels like the movie tries to gloss over that fact.
Overall I was quite impressed with Defiance. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s a solid film that blends gritty, well-executed action sequences and human drama to tell a remarkable true-life story of heroism.
GRADE: B+
THE EXTRAS
There’s a commentary track from Zwick that starts off sounding oddly prepared, sort of like he’s giving a lecture, but he soon relaxes into a more conversational tone. But the fact that he seems to have prepared for the commentary means it’s actually quite informative both in terms of the historical origins of the story as well as details of the production itself.
There’s also a pair of above-average featurettes, one focusing on the production, which is surprisingly in-depth considering it’s relatively brief running time, covering everything from the cast to the costumes, as well as a very nice mini-documentary about the children and grandchildren of the Bielskis. It’s quite affecting watching Tuvia Bielski’s children talk about their father opening up to them to discuss his experiences, and it’s hard not to be moved watching them get choked up talking about the harrowing experiences of their fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles. And watching them visit the movie set – clearly a special experience for all of them – is the sort of thing that elevates the Defiance disc above the usual extras you find on most DVDs.
Labels: DVD review
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009 by Justin
THE MOVIE
Fanboys is a horrendously bad movie, possibly the worst thing I’ve reviewed for this blog. The story of this “comedy” follows a group of geeks who embark on a road trip to break into George Lucas’ ranch to steal a copy of Star Wars: Episode I months before its release in the summer of 1999 because one of them is dying of cancer and won’t survive to see its theatrical release. On its own, that premise could be mined for laughs, but it would have to be by more talented people than the creators of Fanboys, because this movie sucks. Hard.
I’m enough of a Star Wars geek that Fanboys should be right up my proverbial alley. It’s filled with references large and small to George Lucas’ sci-fi/fantasy saga, and I got every single one. But none of them are funny. To their credit, the filmmakers do expand their jokes beyond purely Star Wars references, but those aren’t funny either. One of two good jokes in the entire movie is that the security guards at Lucas’ ranch are dressed like the android guards in Lucas’ debut feature film, THX-1138. Aside from that, Fanboys is a collection of nerd stereotypes and weak sophomoric humour.
The cast of Fanboys isn’t terrible, on paper. Dan Fogler is capable of making me laugh (I’ve caught bits of Balls of Fury on cable and it seems surprisingly watchable), but here he’s just a standard obnoxious loudmouth. Jay Baruchel, one of the secret weapons in Tropic Thunder, is wasted. (He’s a nerd with big glasses! And he’s called “Windows” because he’s into computers! Get it?!?!?) The only cast member who acquits herself well is Kristen Bell as the token girl. Leaving aside the implausibility of a girl that smart and cute hanging out with a bunch of losers like this (and I say this while sitting comfortably on the “losers” side of the cosmic equation; I speak from experience), her character of a ballsy, take-no-guff chick who’s more capable than all the guys put together, is a nice echo of Princess Leia’s character in the original 1977 Star Wars. For all the geek references and cameos peppered throughout Fanboys, the movie’s ultimate undoing is that it’s just not funny. Nothing is clever, the bulk of the jokes are obvious, and when they’re not they’re just stupid. (If you’re a co medy screenwriter and you come up with a scene where the male heroes unwittingly enter a gay bar, just go ahead and kill yourself. Or, if you’re not into dramatic gestures, find another job.) I vaguely recall reading somewhere that there was a mini-controversy over the studio’s handling of Fanboys’ release – it sat on a shelf for a couple of years and apparently the studio was a bit apprehensive about a so-called comedy in which one of the leads has terminal cancer – but a far more plausible explanation is that they saw that this movie is terrible and were reluctant to dump it on an unsuspecting public. My inner geek could never imagine I could write this, but even Kristin Bell in the Slave Leia bikini can’t save this one. Ninety minutes staring at a wall would be time better spent.
GRADE: F
THE EXTRAS
There’s a commentary track with director Kyle Newman and the cast, which has a nicely jovial tone, particularly when the actors, who seem to get along famously, swap jokes and amusing stories from their time filming the movie. Newman steps in to moderate a few times, but the more he tries to discuss why certain things are funny (and they never actually are), the more ridiculous he sounds.
Also included are a pile of deleted scenes, a handful of fluffy featurettes about how great the movie is, and a series of webisodes made during production. It’s a nice enough DVD package; too bad the movie sucks.
Labels: comedy, DVD review, Star Wars
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Justin Anderson spends his days as Special Features Editor for Captivate in Canada, and (most of) his afternoons, evenings and weekends watching movies on his giant TV. He spent three years as an assistant editor at the Canadian music industry trade magazine Canadian Music Network, about a year-and-a-half of which he was also the editor of its DVD/video spinoff, Canadian Entertainment Network. He also co-founded and co-edited the online humour website Somethingspace, which, for an all-too-brief period from 2002 to 2003, cured cancer and solved global poverty.
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the dark underbelly of apparent suburban bliss is one that’s been pretty well-mined over the past few decades, and I find that idea explored in 1950s America particularly tiresome (and life was definitely less-than-perfect for you back then if you weren’t a white male). I guess it’s because I know things weren’t as warm and fuzzy and happy in the ‘50s as the popular American cultural fiction goes that that juxtaposition between the fantasy and reality holds almost no dramatic impact for me; much of the same awful stuff that happens today happened back then too, it just wasn’t really talked about. It’s a concept that even Revolutionary Road director Sam Mendes himself explored previously in the overrated American Beauty, and while Revolutionary Road is based on the acclaimed novel by Richard Yates and reunites Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, it’s a movie that ultimately doesn’t say as much as it wants to.
Paris with their two kids, the movie’s really just about them coming to terms with the reality of their lives in conformity-obsessed 1950s America.
t it deals with subjects that, for the most part, other films do a better job with. The first example that came to my mind while watching it was director Todd Field’s 2006 film Little Children, partly because that film also stars Kate Winslet as an unhappy suburban housewife (she also netted an Oscar nomination for it). That movie’s set in the modern day, but it’s also about the illusion of happiness and how the suburbs can become a gilded prison. But Field’s film, which is also based on a well-regarded novel, has a sense of humor about itself, and I ultimately found the characters – even a child-molester! – more relatable than I found the characters in Revolutionary Road. (I’ll stop the Little Children comparisons now, but seriously, it’s an excellent film and I recommend it highly.)
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