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Battle of the Polarizing Films: Drive (2011) vs The Tree of Life (2011)

November 13, 2012 in Best Of, Movie Reviews, Reviews

It’s November and I still haven’t finished reviewing my list of 2011 films. So here’s another film battle — this time,  between two of the most polarizing films of last year – Drive and The Tree of Life. I thought one of these films was amazing, and the other boring and pretentious — but can you guess which is which?

Drive (2011)

I had heard some mixed reviews of this Ryan Gosling neo-noir crime drama. Some said it was slow and boring and too violent for its own good. Others said it was one of the best films of the year.

The story follows Gosling’s unnamed lead character, who works as a mechanic by day and a getaway driver for criminals at night. You don’t know much about his past or background, but all you know is that he is one heck of a driver who can stay calm under the tensest of situations and a badass you wouldn’t want to mess with. He befriends a neighbour, played by Carey Mulligan, and her young son, whose father is in prison and owes protection money to the mob.

It’s a simple story driven by a fascinating character and a sublime performance from Gosling, who seems to be unable to do anything wrong these days. It’s also boosted by a superb all-star cast, including the omnipresent Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman and Christina Hendricks.

With the exception of Mulligan, who gives a good performance but feels miscast in the role, I loved everything about this riveting film, which had been hooked and on the edge of my seat from the opening sequence — which is, might I add, one of the best of any movie ever. I loved the tension and I loved the mystery of Gosling’s character — the calmer he was the more nervous I got. And I don’t often notice the soundtrack but this one’s was rocking — the ethereal-electronic-pop-dominated score was perfect for the look, style and feel of the film. (For some reason it reminded me a little of the video game Grand Theft Auto!)

As for the violence, yeah, it might have been a little excessive (elevator scene, anyone?) but I thought it fit in well with the overall tone and added an edge to the tension. I’ve always been a fan of well-executed violence (thanks, Tarantino), and I suppose this is a great example of it.

One of the best, and potentially one of the most memorable, films of the year for me.

5 stars out of 5

The Tree of Life (2011)

The buzz around The Tree of Life before I watched it was that it is a revolutionary piece of filmmaking that cements his place in cinematic history as one of the best directors of all time. But word of mouth from relatives was that it was so confusing and boring that walking out would have been a better option than staying until the end.

My previous experiences when it comes to Terrence Malick have not been positive. I remember when people were calling The Thin Red Line a vastly superior film to Saving Private Ryan and decided to check it out, but had too much trouble trying to decipher all of Nick Nolte’s mumbling to really understand what the fuss was all about. Then I watched his next effort, The New World with Colin Farrell, but I gave up on it about 20 minutes in after, again, failing to get through all the mumbling voice-overs. What’s this guy’s deal with incomprehensible philosophical mumblings?

Anyway, I thought as a more mature movie viewer, I would now be more capable of appreciating Malick’s art. But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy it. The Tree of Life had its fair share of mumblings as well, but that wasn’t its problem. Its problem was trying too hard to be “profound”, to be “different”, to be a “masterpiece.”

Essentially, this “experimental” film follows a middle-aged man’s (Sean Penn) memories of his childhood in Texas in the 1950s with his parents (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain), but at the same time it is also supposed to be some chronicle of the history of the universe that explores the meaning of life.

I don’t have a problem with ambitious projects, which this clearly is, but I suppose you need to be in the right kind of mood to enjoy The Tree of Life (ie, high on LSD or something). If you’re expecting a linear narrative with a clear story to tell, then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. But if you’re expecting a movie to suddenly turn into the National Geographic channel and show the images cosmos and dinosaurs and asteroids, and feel that it explains what life is all about, then you’ll probably love The Tree of Life.

I do appreciate the artistic merits of the film to some extent, as well as the beautiful images of nature that Malick projects onto the screen. The scenes depicting the children and their relationship with their father are also done well and occasionally stirring. In that sense I guess I don’t despise The Tree of Life like some others do, but at almost 140-minutes it was just too much to take and digest. Frankly, I was often bored and frustrated.

Maybe I’ll have more luck with Malick’s next film, To the Wonder, a romantic drama starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams. I heard people booed laughed at it during the Venice Film Festival earlier this year.

2 stars out of 5!

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Movie Review: Moneyball (2011)

March 19, 2012 in Movie Reviews, Reviews

To me, there is simply something romantic about the sport of baseball.  It really is the only sport where anything can happen until the last out and sometimes does.

The biographical sports drama, Moneyball, directed by Bennett Miller (Capote) and starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman, does an outstanding job of capturing the essence of that romance.  Based on the Michael Lewis’s book of the same name, it tells the true story of Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane (Pitt) and his attempt to use sabermetrics (basically statistical observations) to build a winning baseball team with limited money. It sounds kinda lame, I know — I thought it would be a boring movie too — but somehow, Moneyball works as a moving drama that hits all the right emotional notes.

Moneyball is, at its heart, an underdog story. Beane was a high school standout that made it to the majors but failed to live up to expectations, and as GM of the Athletics, he constantly faced an uphill battle with one of the smallest budgets in the MLB and constantly losing good players because they can’t afford them. By chance, he comes across Peter Brand (Hill), a young Yale economics grad who introduces him to sabermetrics, a system of player selection that was ridiculed and almost regarded as blasphemous amongst Beane’s old (in experience and age) staff.

Personally, I knew very little about what actually happened in real life, which made Moneyball an exhilarating experience to watch. If it wasn’t a true story I would assumed it was too good to be true — you really can’t make this kind of drama up. And full credit to Miller for approaching the story with a steady hand and the requisite subtlety, without overplaying things too much, something a lesser director easily could have done. It’s not so much the baseball action as it is the action behind the baseball, if you know what I mean.

As a result, Moneyball achieves the rare feat of being a sports movie that doesn’t feel bogged down by cliches. It helps that the baseball action looks incredibly authentic, and you could have fooled me into believing that what I was watching was real game footage.

The screenplay by Steve Zaillian and Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) also plays a big part in the film’s success. As is typical of Sorkin’s writing, Moneyball‘s screenplay is witty and sharp, with awesome dialogue and no wasted words.

But of course, it’s the terrific performance of Brad Pitt that anchors the film from start to finish. I’m not sure about an Oscar win, but the nomination was certainly well-deserved. I can’t say I can agree with Jonah Hill’s nomination for best supporting actor though. Sure, it’s one of the rare times he isn’t playing an obnoxious bozo, but was his supporting performance really one of the top five of the year?

The only other minor complaint I have is the slightly over long 133 minute running time, but given the amount of things that happen throughout the film I didn’t find it that big of a deal.

I’m not sure if you need to be a baseball fan to appreciate film, but for me, Moneyball was a personal delight — a film about taking chances, believing in yourself, and ultimately, knowing what is important.

4.5 stars out of 5!

PS: Young Kerris Dorsey, who plays Pitt’s daughter, almost steals the show with her few scenes. I am currently hooked on her rendition of Lenka’s The Show, which has a key role in the film.

 

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Movie Review: Megamind (2010)

December 17, 2010 in Movie Reviews

I’m not usually the biggest fan of animation, but Megamind, featuring the vocal talents of Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt, is one rare animated film that I’ve actually been dying to see. A story where the anti-superhero villain is the protagonist seemed like a perfect opportunity for lots of laughs, and the trailers certainly delivered. The only thing I was afraid of was that the trailers had shown all the best bits.

Well, the trailers did show a lot of the funniest parts of the movie, as expected, but Megamind has enough gas in the tank to make it probably the second best animated film of the year (behind Toy Story 3, which I am yet to review). That said, I can’t really think of any other animated films off the top of my head right now…

The strange thing with Megamind (the character, not the film) is that even though he’s kind of the reversal of the archetypal superhero, the film is still rather formulaic. There aren’t many surprises here, and just about everything that happens in the movie follows a familiar pattern — from the set-up to the twists to the romance to the redemptive finale.

But it’s still very funny — even some of the jokes I had unfortunately seen in the trailers were still funny, which is a rare and special attribute for a comedy. Much of the humor comes from the kind of random silliness we’re accustomed to from Will Ferrell, but the film also does a hilarious job of making fun of the superhero stereotypes.

Ferrell is of course fabulous as the titular character, with a voice that is, at least to me, not immediately recognizable. The same can probably be said for Fey and Pitt, though Hill and David Cross (the man who was both an analyst and a therapist, ie, the world’s first ‘analrapist’ — Mr Tobias Funke from Arrested Development) are dead giveaways.

Megamind isn’t a pioneer or classic in the animated space, but it’s wickedly funny and plenty of fun. A good one for both adults and the kids.

3.75 out of 5!

PS: I watched the film in 2D because I refused to be ripped off by the 3D prices and endure the crappy glasses.

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Movie Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

November 7, 2009 in Movie Reviews

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I had been wanting to watch the big screen adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s bestseller The Time Traveler’s Wife ever since I heard it was being made (it was actually optioned by Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt before the novel was even published).

It is such a beautiful book, taking a seemingly ridiculous, science-fictionesque premise to deliver a tragic love story that somehow works.  One of those rare stories that made the outrageous feel normal because the characters and what they felt for each other was so painfully real.

I’m glad to say that the film version, while not perfect by any means, is very good, capturing the essence of the relationship between Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana), a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to unintentionally and periodically time travel, and Claire Abshire (Rachel McAdams), the girl he was destined to fall in love with.

Of course, the success of a movie like this depends largely on the performances of the leads.  When I first heard that Eric Bana was cast as Henry, I was sceptical because he didn’t appear to fit the novel’s description.  But as I watched him, it became clear to me that he was spot on for the role.  He captures Henry’s love, pain and fear so well in a wonderfully controlled performance.  On the other hand, it doesn’t matter who Rachel McAdams plays.  She is so sweet, beautiful and classy that it’s not hard to believe anyone will fall madly in love with her.

However, a person’s enjoyment of the movie may well depend on how much they can accept the time travelling premise.  If you find the idea stupid, then it’s unlikely you’ll give the film much of a chance.  I think it’s quite possible for someone, especially if they haven’t read the book, to get a bit confused with all the travelling back and forth through time.  It’s easy to put up your hands and say ‘this is all too silly’ and let it overshadow the central love story.  On the other hand, if you can overlook some of the unexplained holes in the logic and just accept the premise (a pre-requisite for sci-fi films), then you may find yourself absorbed in Henry and Claire’s complex relationship.  For me personally, it was the type of film where the flaws become easier to forgive because it knows how to tug the heart strings.

Keeping in mind that the novel is 546 pages and spans a lifetime, the film adaptation is surprisingly short, clocking in at only 108 minutes.  This naturally means that the film lacks the full emotional depth of the novel (few films can match the novel in that regard anyway).  In condensing the book to fit the screen, characters were cut, roles were reduced and subplots were canned.  Nevertheless, I believe this actually worked in the film’s favour rather than against it.  It kept the focus solely on Claire and Henry’s relationship, and prevented the story from dragging on too long, which it did start to feel towards the final quarter.  It would have been very easy to make this a 2 hour 45 minute-plus movie, but I applaud the restraint from director Robert Schwentke (Flightplan) in keeping the running time manageable.  Trying to be truthful to the source material while keeping the film from being overlong can be a tough balance, but for the most part I think Schwentke and screenwriters Jeremy Leven (The Notebook) and Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) did a decent job in the circumstances.

Perhaps I am a little biased because I’m a big fan of the two leads, but I believe  The Time Traveler’s Wife is a solid adaptation of a novel that was extremely difficult to adapt.  Those who are fans of the novel will likely either love it or hate it.  As for newcomers to this story, I’m not sure, but judging from the number of red, watery eyes I witnessed stepping out of the cinema (including my wife’s), my guess is that more people than not will be moved by it.

4 out of 5 stars!

[PS: I was surprised that the film relied mostly on make-up and not technology to show the aging process (which, after Benjamin Button, we know can do an extraordinary job).  Unfortunately this means the physical transformations of the characters are not as pronounced as they could have been.]

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Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds (2009)

August 23, 2009 in Movie Reviews

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One thing I’ve always liked about Quentin Tarantino movies is that they are unpredictable.  You may know the basic outline of the story, but rarely do you know where the scene is heading.  Anything can happen.  Anyone can die.  You just go along for the ride and have fun.  His latest, Inglourious Basterds, is an entertaining, enjoyable film that contains much of Tarantino’s trademark dialogue, humour, gratuitous violence and wacky characters, but it’s not quite the Tarantino masterpiece I had hoped for.

Inglourious Basterds is set once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France, and tells a two-pronged, history-altering tale through 5 interrelated parts.  The less known about the plot the better, or it would spoil some of the neat little surprises (isn’t it always the case?).  Let’s just say there are Nazi hunters, Jew hunters, SS officers, movie stars and cinema owners.  As Tarantino intended, it feels like a western movie set during World War II (complete with western-style music).

Each of the 5 parts has a lot of build up, filled mostly with engaging dialogue.  And that’s the great thing about Tarantino – he can fill a scene with slow, creeping tension just from a couple of guys talking.  However, I got the feeling that Tarantino may have fallen in love with the story and the characters of his own movie too much.  Some of the conversations were just too long and occasionally felt a little tedious – and this is coming from someone who loves Tarantino’s dialogue.  The movie is 2 hours and 29 minutes long, but perhaps could have been about 15-20 minutes shorter to make the overall package a little tighter. 

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Christoph Waltz is dynamite as Colonel Hans Landa

That’s my main complaint.  Everything else was pretty darn marvellous.  From the meticulous sets to the costume designs to the camera angles, it’s clear Tarantino knows what he’s doing.  Like some of Tarantino’s best works, there are several memorable scenes and images that fans will no doubt re-enact themselves with a chuckle.  And needless to say, the acting from the ensemble cast was superb.  Brad Pitt is hilarious as Aldo Raine, the leader of the Basterds (though entirely replaceable in my opinion), and Eli Roth is both creepy and amusing as the ‘Bear Jew’.  Michael Fassenbender also impressed me with his screen presence as Lt Archie Hilcox.  Of the two main female cast members, French actress Melanie Laurent outshines Diane Kruger, though both are excellent.  The one that absolutely blew me away, however, was Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, who deservingly won the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his portrayal of the brilliant Colonel Hans Landa.  If the Oscars were held now he’d definitely get my vote for Best Actor.

4 out of 5 stars!

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