P.S. A Column On Things

WALL-E

4 stars out of 5

Is this the summer of great animation, or what? The academy is going to face a difficult choice at Oscar-time, with all the world class animation. Great stories, great animation, great voice acting.

The latest in the series is Wall-E. So many things are swirling in my mind after watching this film. First of all, years ago a commentator I respected said if the film is entertaining and you can follow it with the sound turned off, it's good animation. This is good animation. For that matter, the short cartoon that precedes Wall-E, "Presto," is just about perfect. Not a word of dialog. Hysterically funny. I am frequently late to movies. Don't be late for this one (and stay for the credits too; as usual, Pixar does cute stuff during the credits). I have the same feeling I have after almost all Pixar short subjects--I want to see these characters again.

Speaking of the "dialog not needed" rule for good animation, back in the 80s, when Disney was am premium channel and my daughters hung on it dearly, most of the programming was old Disney cartoons. Watching them as an adult made me realize that most early Disney cartoon shorts were almost entirely without dialog. It was only in the late 30s and beyond that Walt caved in to orthodoxy and had everyone talking all the time.

Another thing swirling through my head was that Pixar follows the old Warner Brothers animation rule: simple stories and bright colors for the kids, sly political and social references for the adults. Clearly, the Pixar people have a sense of history and are taking the best ideas of those who have gone before. In the case of Wall-E, Fred Willard as president of the Buy N Large stores, who also becomes President of--the country? The world?--uses the phrase "stay the course" during a speech and is depicted as not too bright. No kid is going to get that, but I laughed out loud. Also, the Autopilot is a direct homage to HAL from the move 2001, as is the music (Thus Spake Zarathustra) to which the captain crawls in a critical scene.

As for voice talent, Eve and Wall-E are voiced by unknowns, who do a great job with the very minimal dialog assigned to these characters. John Ratzenberger, Pixar's good-luck charm, provides voice talent once more, this time as "John," the first person knocked from his floating chair by Wall-E. I am a huge fan of Sigourney Weaver, the voice of the computer--her casting itself is a very inside cultural reference, given her starring roles in Alien and Galaxy Quest."

First class fun for the whole family. Go see it.

Wanted

3 stars out of 5

Speaking of old Hollywood, as I was in the previous review, I like the fact that "back in the day," actors had a persona, and they either played it or played against it, as opposed to the chameleon-like character of most modern actors and actresses (what's a Dustin Hoffman role? A Meryl Streep role?). By this I mean that Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Betty Bacall, Joan Crawford and Katherine Hepburn, no matter what their role, were nearly always playing a variation on themselves--or at least on their screen image. Sometimes, Stewart, for example, played the "anti-Stewart," but that just made the role more effective, because you had trouble accepting that a guy that nice would do something so evil.

We may be returning to those days. In Wanted, James "King of Scotland" McAvoy, Morgan "I narrate everything James Earl Jones doesn't" Freeman and Angelina "Bad movie-proof" Jolie all riff on their previous screen images, to good effect. The film is formulaic, but McAvoy is sweet and innocent, Freeman God-like and Jolie a sex bomb. That makes them fun to watch.

It isn't art; you aren't going to change from having seen about it, nor are you going to talk about it after you get home (unless you're me). But it is diverting and entertaining and the special effects are Matrix-level amazing (and derivative, for that matter). If it's playing around the corner--or Wall-E or Hancock is sold out--go ahead and give it a try.

Neal Vitale Reviews: WALL-E

[Ed. note: Neal's review and mine crossed in the e-mail; I figured there was no harm in us both having our say!]

4 stars out of 5

As embarrassing as it may sound, I was so looking forward to WALL-E that my wife and daughter arranged to take me to see it for my birthday. That level of expectation is almost always a recipe for disappointment and, while I liked WALL-E  a great deal, I had hoped for more.This latest writing/directing effort from fellow Bostonian and Red Sox fan Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life) and the gang at Pixar is a charming delight, recounting the adventures of winsome robots (and a resilient roach) as they try to aid bringing life back to Earth in a post-apocalyptic future. The film's first forty-odd minutes are dialog-free and a brilliant exercise in anthropomorphism, as we are beguiled and charmed, first by the behavior, mannerisms, and sounds of the title droid (including "his" fondness for Hello Dolly), then by the "romance" that ensues when a probe robot arrives to explore Earth via a noisy rocket landing. But while the messages about environmental abuse, exploitive big business, and sedentary American culture are developed nicely over the balance of the film, and there is the requisite climactic battle of good vs. evil, much of the rest of the film frankly drags. What makes this film so worth seeing is the magic of that opening sequence, WALL-E at its best - warm, clever, and completely original. (That is, along with the wonderful short, Presto, which precedes WALL-E, in standard Pixar fashion.)

Get Smart

3 stars out of 5

Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's silly and trivial idea from the 60s (a stupid, bumbling spy), gets refurbished and, with no offense meant to Don Adams and Barbara Felton, greatly improved with Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99. Summary: Not as bad as the reviews (whereas, according to my daughter, Love Guru is as bad as its reviews, which makes me sad for Mike Myers, whose work I generally love).

In this iteration, Smart is not a bumbler and an idiot, but a naive genius. It still works for me. Several reviewers said there was too much action-adventure and too little humor. I'll agree with the first part; less blowing things up would have been fine. And we could have done without some of the touchy-feely. But there was plenty of laugh-out-loud fun too. Maybe you had to have been there for the original television series, as I was (I admit it--huge fan. Also loved its serious doppelganger, Man from Uncle). In this society, we get trained to laugh at comedy catch phrases (Wanna buy a duck? You eeeediot! Schwing. Now cut that out! Hey, Abbott! Tain't funny McGee) regardless of their context. So, that could be part of it. I admit, there were times when I laughed alone. But there were also enough times when all of us, young and old, laughed together that I can't believe it's just TVLand reruns.

Get Smart (the movie) is funny, good but not great. Go rent some of the TV episodes. Now that's Mel Brooks/Buck Henry at their unbridled best. Would you believe, their second best?

Roman De Gare

3 stars out of 5.

Boy, there's nothing the French like better than a confusing non-linear narrative huh? That will show Hollywood! The audience--we spit on the audience. Let them follow the "plot" if they can. Or so it seems. Anyway, while this subtitled mystery flummoxed me, they at least offered an explanation at the end (no spoilers here), which is more than David Lynch would have done. And, best of all, it was one of those rare French films which featured neither Gérard Depardieu nor any of the other old familiar faces (except Dominique Pinion, the ghost writer, who has been in quite a few French films that made it to these shores). Entertaining if you like being both baffled and perplexed, and don't mind being poked every few minutes by the person sitting next to you, looking for an explanation. Entertainment? Maybe. Art? Maybe. Brain-teasing? For sure.

Up the Yangtze

3 stars out of 5

This is a documentary so good it makes you wonder if it is really a documentary. I mean, how can they find people as perfect as "Cindy" and "Jerry," and how did they get some of the footage? No spoilers here, but there is at least one scene that is amazingly out of left field, and makes you wonder how the filmmaker was allowed to be in the room, or allowed to use the footage. Three cheers for Yu Shui as the reluctant Cindy, Chen Bo Yu as Jerry, and Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang, for preserving the look and feel of the banks of the Yangtze river before it disappears behind the Three Gorges Dam. A masterpiece of long-form documentary work. See it if you care either about good documentary work, or the Chinese countryside.

Neal Vitale Reviews: Kung Fu Panda

4 stars out of 5

I normally wouldn't pile on, with a second review of a film that Paul has already covered (June 8 column) and one which I give the same rating (4 stars), but I get to that evaluation a little differently than Paul. Kung Fu Panda is funny and endearing, with strong voiceover performances by Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, and the rest of an eclectic cast that includes Lucy Liu, Ian McShane, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and Seth Rogen, but it does drag at times and the plot is telegraphed and predictable. But, for me, the film is award-worthy simply on the basis of the animation - it is beautifully done, with exquisite detail, echoing the loveliest of the Chinese martial arts genre (think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). As a visually stunning work, Kung Fu Panda is not to be missed.

Mongol

4 out of 5 stars

Historically dubious. If you want the details, you can Google it for yourself. Like all biopics, Mongol (aka "Genghis Khan, The Early Years) uses elision to make the story more exciting, and creates both new characters and composite characters. The date cards (1192 Year of the Black Rat for example) are there to make you think it is all precise and historic. It isn't. Like all biopics, Mongol is more about our time than the time it represents. Like all biopics by people of one culture (Russians) about people of another (Mongolians), there are inevitable charges of racism and stereotyping. Also, the Mongolian woman (we asked to be sure) who was our waitress at the Swad Indian restaurant last night told us her friends had seen it and were not impressed with the history.

All that said, I now know more about Ghengis Khan than I did before, and am more interested in him, his life and Mongol history. I have also seen an amazingly epic motion picture, with great writing, directing, acting and dialog, which entertained and enthralled me. If you want history, read a book. If you want epic entertainment, go see Mongol.

The Incredible Hulk

3.5 stars

Incredible? No. Pretty good? Yes. Which puts me in the good company of 1,000 American newspaper and magazine headline writers who can't resists playing off the "incredible" in the title.

But first, R, my younger daughter, asked me what Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) meant when he made a cameo appearance at the end of the film, when he told Gen. Ross (William Hurt) that he was "putting together a team" which might contain the Hulk. I explained to her that this meant Marvel was planning to make a movie version of the Avengers. As early baby boomers may recall, the Hulk was a member of the Avengers during the first two issues, then became a target of the group for some time afterwards. Stark funded the Avengers, and served as a member in his role as Iron Man.

This is a substantially better movie than the previous Hulk film; Edward Norton (Bruce Banner), Liv Tyler (Betty Ross) and Hurt (Gen. Ross), are just better casting than Eric Bana Jennifer Connelly and Sam Elliott. Zak Penn wrote a better script, and who knew that Louis Leterrier could, given this kind of material, be a better director than Ang Lee. In fact, it is a "reboot," (in the way that Batman Returns was a reboot of the Batman franchise), and this time the Hulk may have legs. Well, he always had legs, but you know what I mean...

This film concentrates on the essence of the Hulk--the conflicted nature of mild-mannered Banner, trying to control his Hulkiness. If there had been anger-management classes in the 60s, surely creators Stan Lee (who appears in a cameo as the gamma poisoning victim) and Jack Kirby would have sent Banner to one. As it is, Penn has to bring this archetypal cold war-based "hero" into the 21st century. Like most Marvel heroes (Spiderman: radioactive spider; Fantastic Four: Cosmic rays), Hulk is a victim of radioactivity--but you won't learn that from the film. So, like all Marvel heroes, Banner is flawed, human, tortured and beset with bad breaks and bad luck. This film shows us what that might be like. And it mixes in enough slam-bang action sequences to entertain the less cerebral viewer.

Norton is a genius, Tyler is a cipher, and Hurt is... well, his usual great self. I can't wait for the next one--because it might be even better.

Neal Vitale Reviews: Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

3.5 stars out of five

Young filmmaker Chris Bell, fresh out of USC's film school, has made an interesting and ambitious documentary that tries to connect - not altogether successfully - pop culture, politics, and steroid use. Bell focuses on his own history and that of his brothers - weightlifters all - and provides good insights into the fuzzy logic that renders certain performance-enhancing drugs and practices acceptable and legal while others aren't. The revelations of cheating by Olympic athletes like Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson are eye-opening, and there are plenty of disturbing but not surprising points made about professional sports, nutritional supplements, and muscle magazines. Bell creates a sad yet engaging portrait of his family, but Bigger, Stronger, Faster* loses its punch as it reaches for broader political and cultural pressures and precedents to rationalize his brothers' bad decisions and unrealistic expectations.