Category: Reviews

One Of the Six Fundamental Machines

January 5, 2009

Other than that the showrunner is a geek’s geek, who has credits in RPGs, comics, and of course television in the last year, how did I like the show?

… that was way too overworked a sentence for the sake of a couple of cheap jokes. I want to put semi-colons in it, but I can’t figure out where.

Anyway, how’s Leverage? Well, it’s not great television so far. Five episodes in, and I can’t say I have a strong emotional attachment to any of the characters. I say so far because I think the potential exists — Timothy Hutton’s a solid actor and there’s backstory to be developed there, and I’ve seen Gina Bellman dig out emotional grounding from a character who’s way more superficial than Sophie. So I think there’s potential. But it’s also the case that the characters are currently collections of quirks; in the introductory sequences, we saw what they could do rather than who they were.

Which is OK! I mean, there’s a hacker and a combat specialist and a cat burglar and an actor and a plotter, which is cool. It’s not great television, but it is great fun, and I gotta say everyone’s clearly relishing their characters. Plus the con jobs are marvelous. Rogers is doing a great job with the narrative conceits, and the mini-flashbacks to reveal how a con worked are perfect. You get a nice juicy heist every week. I also like the structure a lot: the first con always breaks down, and Nate always has to think on his feet to get out on top.

We’re also getting some subtle, which is one of the other reasons I said “so far” above. There was a nice bit in “The Bank Job,” the most recent episode, where the wrong two characters are forced to pretend to be FBI agents. They’re really bad at it. For the first five seconds, I was all “oh god that’s bad acting, this is terrible,” until I realized “wait, that’s awesome acting, it’s the characters who can’t pull that off.” So I appreciated that. There is somewhat of a roleplaying game sensibility to this sucker, as S. pointed out in reference to the characters, and which also shows itself in the zeal with which the characters get put into bad situations.

Disgression begins:

Christian Kane looked familiar for a while to me; the other night, I was watching old Angel episodes. Right! He’s Lindsey from Wolfram & Hart, the mostly evil lawyer. But it does not end there, because you know who else shows up as a Wolfram & Hart lawyer? Daniel Dae Kim, who is probably better known for playing a supreme badass on Lost. It’s almost as if actors wind up appearing on multiple shows during the course of their careers.

Leverage is on my Tivo and it’s likely to stay there. Recommended.

The Given Day

October 23, 2008

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I want to do a big thoughtful post on Dennis Lehane’s newest novel, The Given Day, because hey, Lehane. Mystic River remains one of my favorite books ever. But…

I liked The Given Day a lot. It’s an easy read, it’s interesting history, and Lehane’s love for Boston shines through every page. I don’t, however, think it’s quite as significant a book as Lehane seems to think. It has to carry both the weight of Lehane’s discussion of race and class, which is great as always, and of historical information, which I think weighs the book down overly.

The book jacket makes excited note of how Babe Ruth, Calvin Coolidge, and various other historical figures are characters. That was a bad sign. While Babe Ruth in particular was used really well as a framing viewpoint character, and I’d love to read Lehane’s Babe Ruth novel, I was not so interested in the game of admiring how Lehane worked the other historical figures into the narrative. Yay for gratuitous J. Edgar Hoover.

So that’s the summary. Good book, and I liked it as a historical, but as a tutorial on Boston history in 1919 it fell flat. I’d recommend in paperback rather than hardcover.

Burn After Reading

September 15, 2008

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Spoilers.

This is a difficult movie. I laughed pretty hard through a lot of it, except where I was wincing. Sympathetic wincing, not angry wincing. The Coens are not in the business of making movies that are easy to figure out, and they don’t do open access. This is like that.

A lot of the criticism of this movie revolves around how unlikeable the characters are. Filmspotting talked about the Coen tendency to mock stupid characters. There’s no doubt that most of the protagonists are dumb and/or cold and/or malicious, but I don’t think I can write the movie off as an exercise in mockery.

Frances McDormand and, oddly, George Clooney saved it from that. Clooney’s performance is really way overmannered — for most of the movie. After sleeping on it for a couple of days, though, I’ve come around to thinking that was purposeful. Clooney isn’t a great actor, but he’s a smart actor, and he can do subtle. Watch what he does with the character after he kills Brad Pitt. I think what we’re seeing is someone who’s overacting because the character overacts. The scene where he calls his wife and begs her to come home? That’s someone stripped of his pretensions, and I think Clooney played it perfectly. Not to mention the symbolism of destroying his own phallic substitute sex toy; he’s destroying his own facade right there, poor guy.

His earlier lines about his quick reactions and his, ha ha, “I’ve never discharged a firearm” are the set up. On first glance, that’s part of the fakery. Those are his lines which he uses to get laid. But the Pitt death shows us a) that he does have really good reflexes and b) that he really hasn’t fired his gun in anger before. That’s the hook demonstrating that there’s a person underneath it all.

McDormand’s role is less complex. It wasn’t hard at all for me to sympathize with her. Yeah, she does horribly stupid things, but she’s intensely lonely. Richard Jenkins humanizes her in a wonderful performance by letting us see why someone would love her. To a degree, she’s a monster — but with someone as decent as Jenkins emotionally involved with her, you can’t write her off as nothing but monstrosity.

So I do wind up — not liking them, but at least wishing them redemption. The arc of the movie brings them together, then thrusts them apart. They’re definitely the centerpiece. And in the end, of course, they’re the protagonists who get out of it all alive. If not happy.

With that in mind, it’s another tragedy. It’s just that the Coens have no scruples about tragic movies overlaid with brutal humor.

Anathem

September 10, 2008

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It is rather difficult to talk about Neal Stephenson’s newest without spoiling lots. In generic, cloudy, unsatisfying terms: it’s a Stephenson book, with lots of thought experiments and science and so forth. There are action scenes. The world changes dramatically during the course of the book, as a result of the actions of the protagonists. There is a romance of sorts, in which a practical female character falls for a slightly fuzzy-minded idealist.

The alien world setting is nice. I found myself very engaged by the society and the worldbuilding. Which is good, because there’s a lot of it before the plot proper starts.

OK, spoilers. Don’t get too excited, since it’s just gonna be a one-liner quip.

That Batman Movie

July 28, 2008

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We finally caught it over this last weekend. I guess a lot of other people did too, since it’s hit 300 million bucks already. I am eagerly waiting to find out if it has the sort of legs that’ll get it into the top five ever domestic, although I suspect it won’t.

Somewhat surprisingly, it didn’t blow me away. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t overwhelm me. Great acting, excellent plot and theme — I thought the whole balance of duty and public personae was superb, and it echoed through both good guys and bad guys. The early Scarecrow appearance was ideal.

Still and all, the movie needed to be half an hour shorter. I’m not sure what you’d cut — you could lose the foreign travel and edit out the cell phone moral dilemma, but you’d still have a movie that feels somewhat overstuffed. I’ve heard a lot of people call the movie relentless, and it was, and I liked that. I just think it would have been tighter with a couple fewer beats in the Joker’s plan.

Nobody’s ever accused Christopher Nolan of being insufficiently intricate, I suppose.

Second, the fight scenes were muddy. I have a sudden fear that I’m getting too old here, except I recall liking the fight scenes in the last Bond movie, so — crap. Yeah, I’m getting old. Well, the fight scenes were still muddy. Batman’s sonar vision did not help this in the least. Nolan’s not known as an action director, obviously, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but he ought to get someone to give him a hand with the fight scenes next time. In all fairness, the car chase was pretty great.

So as not to give the impression that I didn’t like the movie…

Really good acting all around; probably the best I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie. I loved that it wasn’t Batman’s movie — it was about Commissioner Gordon, the Joker, and Harvey Dent. All three of those guys were great. Particularly Gary Oldman. I wish it had been more Rachel Dawes’ movie, but even so, Maggie Gyllenhaal kicks Katie Holmes’ ass.

Batman really doesn’t make a lot of choices during the movie, and the one choice he does make is predicted and subverted by the Joker. That’s practically a theme — Harvey Dent takes Batman’s choices away from him, the Joker does it a few times, and so on. Thus, the aforementioned trio has to drive the movie, and they’re really good at it.

Also, Heath Ledger’s performance is about as scary-good as people are saying; emphasis on scary. The movie’s worth it just for that.

Starman Omnibus

July 24, 2008

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The Starman Omnibus is awesome. Probably less awesome if you’re not a fan. DC’s going to do six volumes, which are slated to include every issue of Starman plus all the related material (e.g., the Shade miniseries and so on).

The art’s still gorgeous, if less surprising than it was at the time of publication. Beautiful art deco cityscapes, excellent use of shadow and darkness. Tony Harris was so good. It benefits from the high quality of the hardcover’s paper, too.

And there’s nothing wrong with the story. James Robinson notes in the afterword that he was after the sort of weirdness/superhero fusion that early Vertigo had, before the editoral dictate to separate Vertigo from mainstream DC. He nailed it. The additional dollop of DC continuity fetish that he brought to the table probably wasn’t strictly speaking necessary, but I’m not sure it hurts.

Five more volumes to come, at around 18-20 comic book issues per volume. Not too bad. I’m hearing DC is doing omnibus-style volumes for other books as well; good call.

Weekend Entertainment Pursuits, Part II

June 30, 2008

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Wanted sucked rocks. Here’s a list of the good:

Set pieces: the skyscraper assassination, the sunroof bit, the keyboard across the face.
Angelina Jolie’s performance, which was surprisingly nuanced and subtle, especially at the end.
The Russian thriller-verging-on-horror aesthetic: the knife fight in the denoument.
Timur Bekmambetov bringing in his Russian homeboy Konstantin Khabensky to play a supporting role.
Curving bullets.

And the bad:

That’s not a plot, Timur.
That’s not an American accent, Wesley.
Blurred choppy confusing action sequences. And I like fast cuts.
Misogyny to beat the band, lovingly preserved from the original comic.
No wasting Terrence Stamp, please.
What the hell? The rat bit? That makes no sense.
Come to think of it, the weird recuperation pools kept changing, too.
After all that talk about how assassination can be moral because it saves lives, the train? Excuse me?

The scales balance poorly. There were way more blurred choppy confusing action sequences than there were excellent set pieces. If the action had been all good, I might have forgotten about the lack of creamy moral center. However, none of the victory conditions were achieved. Pity.

Redbelt

May 13, 2008

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Redbelt wound up being ultimately unsatisfying for me, which was all the more regrettable given that 95% of the movie rocked. Jeffwik noted last night that he’d never seen a Mamet movie which progressed towards an emotional climax in the way Redbelt attempts, and on reflection I think that’s exactly it. Mamet was working a bit outside his comfort zone, and almost nails it, but I’m not sure the guy knows how to do a story in which good guys win at the end.

Which is a pity, because he builds tension and despair about as well as anyone in the business. The story is positively claustrophobic, not in the scenery but in the way Chiwetel Ejiofor’s options contract and dwindle. He’s in a bad state, and then there’s a ray of hope, and then it vanishes hard. He’s the perfect actor for this, too — it’s another movie where he nails the tough determined moralist who suffers for his morals. See also Dirty Pretty Things. So you’ve got this foreboding, mannered atmosphere to work with.

About five minutes before the movie ended, I thought it was going to be another despairing Mamet ending, which would be OK by me. The moment when Ejiofor turns back was beautifully staged, too: silhouettes with no dialogue, just an action and a decision. That worked. And the culminating fight scene was unlikely, but on the margins of plausible. And again, it’s Mamet. One can accept some artifice in a Mamet movie.

But the last two beats fall flat. Perhaps one would have been all right. The fact that the two redemptive moments are identical, two separate people performing the same action — that was leaden for me. Yes, we get it. Ejiofor is noble and is recognized as such. Just… not twice.

Of course, this is the story equivalent of the repetitive overlapping Mamet dialogue I love, so perhaps I’m getting what I deserve. Still, it just broke my acceptance of the artificial world.

Which is a shame, because other than that it’s one of the best things he’s done in years. There’s the usual cast of Mamet regulars doing the things they do, plus Ejiofor, plus Tim Allen (who’s awesome). The aforementioned tension hooked me emotionally; I cared about the outcome. I’d even still recommend it. I just wanted the climax to match up with the rest of the movie.

Iron Man

May 5, 2008

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I have been driving Susan nuts by humming the Black Sabbath song incessantly. “I… am… Iron Man!” Which are not the actual lyrics. “Dah dah dah dah dah dah dah, dah dah dah!”

Does everyone know I put spoilers in my reviews? OK, good.

I think it’s the best acting we’ve ever seen in a superhero movie. Downey’s fussy and scared and pissed off in appropriate measure. In a way, yeah, he’s playing himself in that Tony Stark has addiction problems and a lot of money. On the other hand, Downey isn’t living a life overshadowed by the achievements of his father, with a mentor who he looks to for paternal wisdom. So there’s that.

Likewise, Jeff Bridges is good. It’s tricky to make the big fight scenes work, what with the masks and all. Bridges does this nice slow patient simmer throughout the movie, which means it’s easy to believe that the big giant suit of armor is letting out all that tension through the thrill of physical violence. You know it’s Bridges inside there not because he takes his hat off at the end, but because Bridges portrayed a character who’d get off on acting the way the suit acts.

Also good: Paltrow! Not expected. I’ve seen her turn in good performances, but it’s usually in the chilly socially superior roles, so I wasn’t expecting her to do a good job as Pepper Potts. Possibly it’s that she needs a character with a lot of reserve and a lot of pride? Either way, yep, that worked. And Terrence Howard is great as Stark’s other pal. I’ve literally never seen him before — no, I lie, I’ve seen Dead Presidents. But I don’t remember it. Anyway, he’s got kind of a thankless role, but I liked him holding down the acting fort while Tony’s jetting around with a mask on in foreign airspace.

OK, so great acting. Allow me to summarize the CGI with this: “Yep, the CGI isn’t getting in the way of the movie any more, good times.”

The script, well, I liked the dialogue. Unfortunately, I think the plot reveals that Favreau falls prey to one of the comic book movie traps; he doesn’t give the story enough weight. You kind of want to do something, even just a throwaway, to establish why Stark is willing to use the same battery for both his pacemaker and his powered armor. And it’s helpful to explain why modern surgery is unable to get shrapnel fragments out of someone, given that an electromagnet can hold ’em back from penetrating the heart. Maybe turning up the power on the magnet would help?

I think it bugs me a little in retrospect — and it didn’t bug me during the movie at all — because you can maybe work around that stuff. Tony’s obviously too busy to get surgery, and he’s a stubborn bastard, so throw that line in there. The scene with Pepper swapping out fusion generators is a great scene, but it means that Tony clearly can build multiples of the thing, so there’s no reason not to put one (or two) in each suit of armor. I’m not a screenwriter, so I won’t come up with a glib fix. It’s just a plot hole of minor importance.

None of this kept me from thinking it’s in the top echelon of superhero movies. Again: best acting. And a good script, mostly, just with those few casual flaws.

Forbidden Kingdom

April 22, 2008

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Quickie review of Forbidden Kingdom:

Two of the fight scenes are excellent, and the rest are pretty good.

I mean, you’re not seeing it for the plot, which is light. You’re seeing it because it’s the first time Jet Li and Jackie Chan have been in a movie together, and despite the fact that you’re nervous about Rob Minkoff’s directing (I mean, The Lion King?), Woo-ping Yuen is a great action choreographer.

It works out pretty well. Michael Angarano is not a completely embarassing martial arts actor; in particular, during his one extended fight scene, he does a decent job of being outclassed by the Witch of the Wolves. Everyone else is solid, of course. The Jackie Chan/Jet Li fight scene is superb and just about as good as you’d have wanted it to be, even with both of them aging.

And as far as I can tell, all the Westerners involved have a fondness for Hong Kong martial arts flicks. Nobody’s trying to dress this up or make it deep — it’s just another kung fu movie with a big premise and some time travel. Exposition is for art movies. If you don’t know who the Eight Immortals are, you can either find out on your own or live without understanding some of the references.

So I liked it, even though the South Boston accents were abysmal.