Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom directed Wes Anderson, staring Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton and introducing Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman in the main character roles (and they do a good job considering this is their first film). 

I've been following Wes Anderson's career since I fist saw his movie Rushmore, which is still one of the quirkiest and funniest comedies I've seen, but Anderson hasn't made a movie anywhere near as enjoyable as Rushmore. His movies since have felt overlong and paced as if a turtle was in a race, as as I will explain. I also liked his next movie The Royal Tenenbaums even though it clearly had a structure and focus problem, which clearly hindered the pacing of the movie that his previous movie Rushmore didn't have a problem with. Those problems became more compounded with next movie Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which was good but was starting to border on pretentious and quirky for the sake of being quirky.  Where as Rushmore was quirky, but that quirkiness was supported within the story and didn't feel like a hindrance.  It was more focused as it had a main character to follow whose quirkiness helped to define him and not vice versus a. I skipped his next movie The Darjeeling Limited because it just seemed very pretentious with a quirkiness that Anderson was becoming defined by instead of letting the quirkiness flow with the story.  With Rushmore the quirkiness organically mixed with the story but with the his later film this quirkiness seemed forced as it seemed with The Darjeeling Limited thus the reason I didn't see it. Then finally Anderson seemed back on form with Fantastic Mr. Fox. One of the strangest and most delightful kid's movies I've ever seen (and I use kid's movie in the loosest sense of the term, that's not from content but just from oddness). 

 Now I'm glad to say that Anderson has finally delivered an enjoyable live action movie that heralds back to his Rushmore days.  

Moonrise Kingdom delivers and the quirkiness doesn't feel forced, but flows with the narrative and characters in ways his previous movies had left behind. It's a simple story about two kids who fall in love, run away from home and the insuring pursuit of them that follows. The kids seem much older than their young years, but never did I doubt this because the story line supports this. The world Anderson creates in this movie is a joy to see and watch enfold before my eyes and his framing (of which Anderson is known for) of certain scenes are wonderful to behold. The world seems wholly believable and the way his characters interact within this world are funny and convincing. Another thing I like about this movie is how Anderson doesn't tell a lot things but shows what happens and leaves it up to the viewer to pay attention to what is happening.  If you pay attention there are things that happen which will seem confusing.  He shows instead of tells, but shows in a convincing manner that supports the story line instead of just showing for the sake of showing wherein lies the most problems with "art" movies. He doesn't use interpretation of a scene as a crutch to the viewer, but instead uses it as it's supposed to be used, to further the the storyline.  This is a fun, fairytale movie with delightful acting, a good solid story line, quirkiness in every frame, and a true love that is believable.

A Cry in the Dark

A Cry in the Dark directed by Fred Schepisi starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill.

About all I can say for this movie is that I saw it.  There's really not much else to say about other than Meryl Streep is the only other reason to see this movie because her performance is good as she portrays the mother whose baby got taken by a dingo.  She portrays the grieving mother with a coldness and detachment that is kind of striking but at the same time there's a lot empathy towards her because we know what really happened.  I don't care how she wants to embody her character, the viewer will always empathize with her because of how the first part of this movie was set up.


That's the major flaw in this movie is that they try and make a mystery out of the baby loss where there is no mystery.  They try and get the viewer to wonder if a dingo did take the baby or did something else happen?  But there's no real mystery about it because as the first part of the movie shows us, we know the baby was taken by a dingo.  There is no and if or buts about it.  A dingo took the baby.  So I don't care how characters after this fact act or what other things are brought to light.  A baby was taken by a dingo.  I saw it.  The movie showed it to me.  If the writer was going to try and form a mystery around this event, then the major event can't be shown or at least shown in a way where can honestly be asked.  But as this movie is set up no questions can honestly be asked where the viewer doesn't automatically side the mother and father of the story.

the mystery makes sense.  That's not the case here as no matter how much "questioning" the makers of this film want to add to the storyline, there is no mystery because they've already shown us everything. 

The Avengers: Season 2

The Avengers: Season 2. 

Finished watching this second season with the kids this morning and what another good season of the Avengers, looking forward to season three coming out whenever it does. This is one of the more adult, kid cartoons out there and I don't mean that in the content of the show but in how the story lines progress. They don't progress in the standard stand-a-lone content where things in one episode don't affect the other episodes but there is an over all story arc that each episode builds upon and requires a lot of paying attention to what is going on because things that happen in one episode do affect the other episodes. There's a lot live action shows that don't have anywhere near the in depth story line progression of this cartoon show. 

Just some good examples of this: the last season ended with Captain America being kidnapped by the Skrull (who are shape shifters).  So when this season begins Captain America is not the real Captain America but a Skrull who is undermining the Avengers and doing his best to help the Skrull empire take over the world.  The first 5 or so episodes have this happening in it to the extent that my son had two Captain America toys and one of them was the Skrull Captain America and the other was the real Captain America.  This Skrull invasion really affected everything in this season.  Iron Man took a back seat to most of this season as he started not trusting any of the Avengers because he couldn't figure out who was a Skrull or not, so he figured he'd just not trust anyone.  Shield had their Helo Carrier blown up during the Skrull invasion had to live out of basically a rent-a-base the whole season.  Hulk got taken captive because of the Captain America Skrull so he wasn't there for the better part of the season and when he came back it was Hulk smash time, something both my son and daughter were excited about.  Ant Man wasn't here this season because of some choices he made from the last season and then had them finally dealt with this season in some surprising ways.  Then one of the major plot lines from Season one dealing with Chang - whose from the future and came to kill Captain America because of a choice he made that affected Chang's present - finally arises near the end of the second Season where Captain America has to make that choice. 

The level of in depth story telling just blew me away as I watched each episode, clearly the writers weren't just writing as they went but had written things down in advance. This is sort of a children version of Game of the Thrones, the storyline supports itself that well.  I wish Marvel comics would have this same type of arc set up in their comics, instead of just flying by the seat of their pants. 

This is also type of show that actually makes the Black Panther and Hawkeye really cool which is something Marvel comics has never been able to do, the writing is that good for the show. Also some new members are brought in as are a lot of the other super heroes from Marvel comics making this a feast for all of the nerds out there - of which I am one. The last episode brought in one of my favorite Marvel characters: Galactus for a huge show down and was a worthy season ender.  Now bring on the third Season.

21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street directed by I don't know and I don't really care and after looking at the IMDB website there were two directors on this movie, which explains a lot. Staring John Hill (one of the most overrated actors/comedians in Hollywood that Hollywood keeps pushing on the public, as they keep putting him in about every movie known to man, doing their best to make him a star, when in fact if you're a star you don't need to be pushed in that direction your initial talent and charisma will take there, you don't have to led there) and Channing Tatum (another one of these "hot-young" actors that Hollywood keeps trying to make a star when in fact he hasn't done anything or been in anything that really amounts to much of anything, to even remotely put him in that star category, but for some reason Hollywood is going to keep pushing him on us until we see him as a star, which will work at least for a time, as it does with that atrocious show American Idol and the "winners".  Man I hate that Hollywood machine about as much as I hate the media and politicians). 

This movie ranks up there with Meet the Parents for me, in that as the movie progresses, I feel absolutely no sympathy at all for the main characters because of the decisions they make put them in the situations that turn out bad.  It was the same with Meet the Parents, the main character continued to keep lying all the time, so I never felt nothing for him when the situation went bad because he put himself in that situation.  This movie is the same way.  The main characters make so many stupid and down right idiotic decisions throughout this movie that I have no compassion or empathy for them at all when things go bad.  In fact I want them to get hurt or injured when things go wrong because of how stupid those choices were.  I don't feel sorry for a person or character when their choices (fully known to them) dictate the actions that now surround them. This happens a lot in 21 Jump Street and I never felt sorry for these characters and the situations they were in, when in fact I found myself rooting for the other people in the scenes and wanting the main characters to be handed their comeuppance, which in my limited knowledge of writing is never a good thing unless that's the intention of the writer and here it clearly wasn't. 

I mean these guys go through the movie blowing stuff up, wrecking up class rooms, throwing a party where high school students consume alcohol and drugs (and these are the cops/heroes/good guys), and generally doing all sorts of destruction to the city/school and no one seems to really care about it. This movie made me long for the good old days of Lethal Weapon where story line and characters actually mattered because in this movie they don't seem to matter at all. Like I've said before when has dick and fart jokes become the normal mode of comedy, it so lacks the wit and humor of how comedy used to be.  There's no subtlety anymore it's all in your face humor. Don't get me wrong there are some moments where I was laughing out loud, but those moments couldn't outweigh the extreme insanity of most of this movie that had me scratching my head in confusion at the inconsistencies on display. 

The one aspect of the movie I really liked the movie didn't explore it at all and that is the jock hanging out with the nerd students I generally found that interesting and actually a lot of stuff to the story line when the writers actually wanted to follow the story. 

How did this movie make as money as it did?

Mortal Instruments Book Two: City of Ashes

Mortal Instruments Book Two: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare.

This book was actually worse than the first book.  I cared even less about the two main characters in this book than I did in the first book.  They are just flat out annoying.  I kept wanting bad things to happen to them and when they did, I kept wanting those bad things to continue to happen to them.  But alas, it just wasn't meant to be.  It was to the point were I was cheering the villain on throughout this book, because he was so much more likable, and interesting than the two bland lead characters that were being forced onto me at every page and with every sentence.  I will not be reading the next books in this series anytime soon, this book annoyed me so much.  At least Rowling knew to focus on the story of Harry Potter versus the insane romance of a teenager, because crossing into that territory is like trying to solve the riddle of the Sphinx.  

This book also does the cardinal sin when a continuing series, and that is, to not really expand on the mythology of the world building.  The world Clare built is very interesting, with lots of layers and extra worlds, but instead of building this world she instead chooses to force on a love love triangle - or I should say it's now become more of a love octagon - onto the reader.  This whole teenage romance thing has just never done anything for me and makes the scenes between the two "star-crossed lovers" pathetic and dull to no end.  I just didn't care.  The main story line is so much more interesting than the emotional state of two characters I don't care about, but instead Clare chooses to focus on them, instead of what is interesting and that's the story line.  But then again who I am to argue, because these books have sold in the millions - so therefore I must be wrong.  Wait, The Davinci Code also sold in the millions and it was, literally, one of the worst written stories I've ever read and also had some of the worst cliche ridden characters I've every come across that they made Michael Bay's characters look like Shakespeare characters by comparison.  But ultimately what do I know?  The general public has spoken with their money, so therefore I must be wrong.

I really hated this book so much so, that the last 100 pages or so, I skimmed through the majority of the action scenes just to get to the conversation scenes so I could find out what was basically going on, so I could just finish the book and move onto something better.  I did much the same thing with Brown's book also, which had a good storyline and good ideas but the characters and plot twists were so forced, much like this book, that in the end I just gave up caring about what was going on and just wanted to end the insanity.

Now it's ended and I'm moving on to better things that don't have teen romance or love octagons that feel more at home in a daytime soap opera than a book like this.  It's a shame really because there is a good story here wanting to be told.

Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond directed by Edward Zwick starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly. 

I’ll tell you what, Edward Zwick is one of the rare directors who makes movies that are normally about something, but unlike most of the Hollywood leftists, who seem to think preaching is the only form of communication. Edward Zwick actually makes movies that are good and entertaining and when the movie is over you don’t feel like you’ve been preached at or have had your intelligence insulted. 

Blood Diamond is the kind of movie that exposes the exploitation of the diamond business in Africa, but unlike most of Hollywood, in Zwick’s film there are so many villains that pointing the finger at whose evil does no good.  Everyone is evil and in the end a life is a hell of a lot more precious than any diamond ever will be. By then end of the film that's one thing that rings true: life versus a diamond. I never for once felt he was hitting me over the head with this idea. 

Another thing that makes this movie really fire on all cylinders is that DiCaprio’s character, who’s a smuggler and scoundrel, stays that way throughout the film and doesn’t have some change of heart moment, which was a bold move to make for the movie.  It made his character all the more real and only helped to strengthen the message being presented here. All in all it’s actually a very bold screenplay as it doesn’t adhere to a lot of the typical Hollywood cliches.  Don’t get me wrong there are a few in place but I felt they were earned, whereas the typical ones: cynic finally finds a heart, the leading man sleeps with leading lady, and let’s not kill the bad guy when we have the chance, instead let’s keep him around a little longer so he can come back later for a more dramatic death scene.  All of these typical clichés are abandoned leaving this screenplay with a very focused storyline. All of this is only helped by Zwick’s direction and the many on the location shots that only add to the theme of the movie. It’s a good movie, with a good screenplay, and some solid acting.

Rise of the Gaurdians

Rise of the Guardians by Dreamworks. 

Another good kid’s movie to be released last year and one my kids thoroughly enjoyed. They sat glued to couch as the movie went on. 

This movie did a good job of world building for Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Sandman, the Tooth Fairy, and Jack Frost. Then they did a good job of creating some interesting characters to inhabit these worlds. It still amazes me that children’s cartoons have more in depth story lines and characterization than live action movies.  I am constantly amazed by this and will continue to be amazed by this as time goes on.  This was a movie that earned all of the emotion that was woven throughout it, none of it felt cheap. One of my favorite scenes is when the little boy Jamie sees Jack Frost for the first time: the amazement in eyes was just priceless. The end scene where Sandman comes back and his sand dreams start walking and flying around the small town was just an awe inspiring moment, there are too few of those in live action movies. 

Dreamworks also did a good job of voice casting for the characters as the actors and actress they hired brought some solid weight to their respected characters. This is a movie that has a simple story line, nothing really complicated – it’s the find-your-true-self story line, but because they have some good characters to inhabit their world it makes things move along with good speed. I had a fun time with the kids as we watched a really good movie.