Saturday, March 10, 2012

Killer Robots, The Vampire Next Door, an Elephant Named Rosie, and Minny's "Special" Chocolate Pie: Four Recent Movies I Liked


     The Help

     The first movie I saw this year was hands down the best.  The Help is reminiscent of The Blind Side and The King’s Speech as a thought-provoking film that seemed to come out of nowhere and spoke volumes about the world in which we live.  The performances are pitch-perfect, from Emma Stone as white writer Skeeter, deciding to write a book about the plight of black workers in the 60’s (“the help”), to Viola Davis as put-upon maid Aibileen and Octavia L. Spencer as the sassy and brassy Minny Jackson, and I’d even have to applaud Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard’s daughter) as the completely brainwashed southern belle Hilly Holbrook, who doesn’t see these maids as human beings, and Allison Janney as Skeeter’s Mom Charlotte, who feels backed into a corner by a group of overbearing white women, and fires the old black maid Constantine (Cicely Tyson) her family loved.
The critics were not unanimous in their praise of this film, the biggest complaint seeming to be the movie’s broad stereotypical characters and that they aimed for emotion without much intellectual challenge.  After all, this is the film that gave a new (and amusingly literal) meaning to the phrase “Eat my s***!”  I can see their point, but so what?  This film still manages to breach a subject that deserves to be breached, and tackles it in a fun, often ballsy, crowd-pleasing way.  I guess I sometimes enjoy films the critics find easy and trite.  Case in point:  New Year’s Eve and Joyful Noise.

Water for Elephants

Not only The Help, but Water for Elephants, the second movie we chose for our Friday night get-togethers (chosen by yours truly) was also very enjoyable!  I like period films like this, with its luscious cinematography telling a compelling and entertaining story about a time long ago.  It’s like Midnight in Paris, and like the main character in that film (which I have yet to see), it offers the audience to step into the past, perhaps an idealized vision of long ago, to experience the sights and sounds and wonders of the time.  This story takes place in the 1930’s, as Robert Patterson’s character Jacob, a promising veterinary student, suddenly has his world come crashing down upon him with the death of his parents, and winds up in a circus, run by a ruthless man named August who has his sights set on being bigger than Ringling.  He rules his world with an iron fist, including all the circus workers, the animals, and his wife Marlena (played by Reese Witherspoon).  It isn’t long before Jacob and Marlena come together over the purchase and training of an elephant named Rosie.  
The tighter August keeps a grip on everyone and everything around him, the more danger he causes for all, including Rosie, himself, and the two star-crossed lovers Jacob and Marlena.  Some stony critics complained that the leads Patterson and Witherspoon didn’t have much chemistry, but for me, I was completely caught up in the story.  This was, for me, a vibrant, nostalgic, and engaging cinematic treat.  

Terminator Salvation

Even though I liked it, it's definitely not the best of the Terminator movies.
            I didn’t keep up on the TV show Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, and I don’t think a lot of people did since it was canceled after only two seasons (and the first was only 9 episodes).  As for the movies, I was one of the few people who even liked the third Terminator film when everyone else was saying it wasn’t as good as the first two.  Frankly, they’re right, but that doesn’t mean I still didn’t enjoy the third film, and I enjoyed this fourth film too, despite Christian Bale’s performance (still unemotionally growling like the Dark Knight) and some glaring plot holes, such as the fact that the unstoppable terminators and the evil cognizant computer system Skynet don’t immediately kill either John Conner or Kyle Reese when the opportunity presents itself.   Skynet knows young Kyle Reese has something to do with John Conner, but doesn’t seem able to connect the dots and realize that Kyle will be sent back in time at some point in the future to protect John’s mother Sarah, and that in so doing, Kyle will actually become John’s father.  Still, when both are in Skynet’s clutches, they make a big show of it, but don’t kill them.  One terminator, when given the chance, doesn’t kill Kyle, but instead straps him to a table.  In this respect, the terminators aren’t the unstoppable killing machines they were in the first three movies; instead, they’re more similar to the Penguin or the Riddler from Batman, devising intricate plans that won’t kill our heroes, and will allow them the chance to escape!
With this withering critique off my chest, I will also say that there was a lot here that impressed me.  Some of the special effects were great, such as those unique terminator-motorcycles or those creepy, snake-like terminator machines called hydrobots.  I also really liked the addition of the character Marcus Wright played by Sam Worthington as a convict given a new lease on life when he finds himself resurrected in this future world, only to later discover he is one of the machines.  And I’ve always liked Anton Yelchin.  He makes a very believable and sympathetic Kyle Reese here.

Fright Night

This must be the month of Anton Yelchin!  Here, he plays the character of Charlie Brewster in this remake of the old 80’s horror film about a kid who discovers his next door neighbor is a vampire.  Comparing the two versions side by side, there are some things I liked about the old version, and some things I liked about the newer version.  As the characters go, I liked both versions of Charlie and the vampire Jerry Dandrich.  Charlie’s mom was better in the new version, played by Toni Collette.  All the other characters, from Charlie’s girlfriend Amy to his friend Evil Ed to famous horror movie vampire killer Peter Vincent were all better in the first movie (Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys, and Roddy McDowell vs. Imogen Poots, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and David Tennant).  Amy was cuter and Stephen Geoffrey’s was just so goofy as Ed in the 1985 classic, and Roddy McDowell brought a certain level of charm that is mostly missing in Tennant’s portrayal of a Chriss Angel-type of gothic, douchebag illusionist.
            Despite the cast mostly being better in the first film from 1985, this new film boasts a more realistic story, a darker atmosphere, and a scarier vampire.  Colin Farrell oozes a cool menace here, when he’s not totally vamping out with the CGI effects.  In fact, that is the film’s major drawback.  The creepy vampires in the original, with the impossibly huge mouths filled with huge jagged teeth are replaced by rather unreal looking CGI creatures here.  There’s something to be said for the more organic effects of the old days, and perhaps a bit of B-movie charm, which have been replaced by cold CGI pyrotechnics and the smutty and dark realism in the remakes.
Still, I was not disappointed in this film.  The best scene:  Charlie sneaks into Jerry’s house to save a female classmate who has just been bitten by the vampire Jerry.  As they try to sneak out of the house, Jerry makes several trips between the living room and kitchen, stopping every so often and looking around, as if he senses something.  Charlie and this girl manage to make it out of the house, but as they exit the front door, the camera swings back around to show Jerry in the hallway, watching them leave with a knowing smile on his lips.  The girl is profusely thanking Charlie for saving her, and they grab hands and start running away from the house, but as they leave the shadow of the overhang covering Jerry’s front porch and run out into the sun, the girl suddenly bursts into torrents of blood and vanishes, leaving Charlie, and the viewer, momentarily shocked.  Once bitten, even though still a victim, she was already a vampire!  She just didn't know it yet.

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