Sometimes, when one digs through the dung pile long enough, a nugget of gold can be found. This is the only way to describe the experience of watching Hamlet 2.
The story: Failed actor Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) has taken up the job of a stereotypical drama teacher in Tucson, Arizona, a land of drive-thru liquor stores and large Mexican populations. Vaguely described complications enlarge his drama class of normally two students to about twenty, 18 of them being Latino “jocks” and/or stoners. After being notified that drama was about to be canceled, Marschz decided to write a play that will save the department class. That play is Hamlet 2, an idea offensive to theatre aficionados, with such sexual/political/spiritual content to offend anyone else. Wackiness ensues. [Read more →]
Today is that day, gentle reader. Today is the day I write of my cinematic disappointment.
Stoner films have a proud history, though not a credited or cultured one. Cheech and Chong are the collective Orson Welles of marijuana films, giving one an idea of the quality stoner films aspire to. Unfortunately, Pineapple Express fails to live up to even this low-bar ideal. [Read more →]
August 5th, 2008 by Jeffrey Williams · No Comments
Never Go Full-Retard: A Review of Tropic Thunder
By Aaron J. Shay
My history with Ben Stiller is as follows:
Being exposed repeatedly to “Keeping the Faith” at Jewish Sunday school when they didn’t have anything for us to learn. Decent movie, at least for the first three times.
Being forced to watch “Meet the Parents” as a replacement for a final in high school Advanced Placement English, where I would periodically have to excuse myself to hit my head against the wall to get rid of the pain. True story, ask Mr. Balla of Bellevue Senior High School. He probably heard the thuds in the hall.
Being completely underwhelmed by “Zoolander.”
That’s it.
Needless to say, when I got the opportunity to see “Tropic Thunder,” I was prepared to be tortured. Jack Black has done nothing but fail to live up to his potential whenever I saw a movie of his, and Robert Downey Junior… in black-face. There were so many things that could go wrong with this movie… Especially considering the fact that Ben Stiller directed it and had a hand in writing it.
Luckily, I laughed the whole way through and enjoyed this movie. There may come a time when I’ll write a bad review, guys. Today is not that day. [Read more →]
When it comes to the movies, is there such a thing as too big? With the inflation of expectations and ticket prices, audiences are demanding more from their movies than ever before. We want spectacle and quality; we want to be dazzled by the fantastic and touched with real emotion; we want movies to make us think while we shut our brains off for the ride.
The major studios are more than happy to pursue these paradoxical audience expectations, behaving like Microsoft coding a new OS when it comes to their tentpole releases. Ambition and bravado trump practicality, utility, or audience need. More graphics, more wisecracks, and more simulated emotions get shoved into screenplays until they collapse under the countless cross-purposes. Simply put, studios are reactive beasts, eagerly chasing after every audience’s critical whim in a desperate bid to please.
Freshly leaked to YouTube is Oliver Stone’s trailer for “W“.
The script pages were previously leaked, and he’s racing to have the movie in theaters by election season. The trailer isn’t bad - though obviously it’s a rush job. There’s no cartoonish Will Ferrell impersonation, or cheap shots . The more I hear, the more curious I am about this project. When he has a mind to do it, Stone is a great filmmaker, and nothing fuels his engine like controversy.
Truly, the most controversial thing thing Stone could do is to treat W like a legitimate tragic hero.
And what’s downright eerie is the casting - Rumsfeld, Bush Sr, and Rove look a little off, but Rice, Cheney, Powell, and Laura Bush are frightening dead ringers.
See it here, and click it quick before the lawyers pull it down.
By Aaron Shay
It’s rare when a second film in any given franchise is superior to the original.
When I got word of Guillermo Del Toro trying again to breathe life into the Hellboy franchise, I was puzzled. The first film was a mediocre attempt to blend Men in Black, The Mummy, and The City of Lost Children. The second film continues the visual mood but structures a story with a more genuinely epic conflict, pitting the world of Myth against the world of Humanity. The film also continues to plum the depths of Hellboy’s character: The first film explored his identity, while this new film explores the demonic hero’s place in Human society by presenting a tempting alternative.
The story: A long, long, time ago, humans were at war with the mythical creatures of the world for control. The mythical creatures, in order to beat the powerful humans, created an army of indestructible soldiers, the titular Golden Army. So merciless were these warriors to cause horror in the King. So he and the humans made a pact: mythical creatures would keep the forests and man would have every other piece of land for themselves. You can see where this is going. So, zoom to the modern day, where the son of the King returns from exile to awaken the Golden Army and exact revenge on humans for breaking the pact. Who’s going to stop him?
You get three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
The first thing to commend in The Golden Army is Del Toro’s use of puppetry. For this production, he acquired the services of the Jim Henson Shop’s artisans, a move which was vital to the production. At one point, the team of heroes enters a Mos Eisley style bazaar called the Troll Market, featuring many creepy yet intriguing wares and dark, mysterious denizens, such as a man with a miniature castle on his head. Del Toro has come to realize, as many of his viewers have, that costumes and puppets are still more real than computers, so he only uses CGI when necessary, such as when animating an army of seventy times seventy indestructible goblin-made soldiers. He leaves the trolls to be costumed.
Allow me to get the critique out of the way: [Read more →]
The Los Angeles Times posted pieces from Kenneth Turan and Charles McNulty, their stud film and theater critics, respectively. It’s part of an “ongoing series” (which is newspaper-ese for “slow news day”), but the conceit is great.
Each critic was asked if there was a review that they regretted writing. The question itself is the job-interview analog of “So what’s your biggest weakness?” It’s a tough question to ask anyone and get an honest answer. The answer isn’t going to be an honest sharing, instead, it’s a carefully chosen anecdote that makes the respondant look wiser and provides a platform for sharing a worldly lesson.
The good news is that one critic offers a very insightful look into the role of the critic and the pitfalls they face. Turan’s piece is like his reviews - mildly informative and tepid.
What criticism offers, ideally, is informed, thoughtful, well-written opinion, an expression of personal taste based on knowledge, experience
Yawn. That’s what he teaches in a USC class, and it’s almost as interesting as an amateur lecturer holding forth before a class of bored and over-privileged film students.
Charles McNulty’s piece knocks the answer out of the park. It’s mostly about theater, but the take on criticism in general is enlightening.
Yes, I have often found the plays of Martin McDonagh and Neil LaBute to be manipulative, I don’t always think Tony Kushner is dramatically up to the task of his unfailingly big ideas, and I’m on record as saying it’s premature to induct Tracy Letts into the pantheon for “August: Osage County.” But these writers are too good not to be challenged. And as my loyalty lies with the art form, not with institutions or individuals…
That concept - that loyalty lies to the art form - is the real key to being a successful critic. Any critic who offers a free pass because of a name, a studio, or a budget, isn’t worth the ink they waste.
McNulty’s ‘regret’ anecdote is terrific, and shows the care and precision that big-league critics must use when crafting their reviews. Small shades of nuance can make a big difference on a theater’s marquee. And as he writes at the close of his piece:
…criticism survives because each of these remarkable writers understood that there was something of greater value to their theater writing than fallible opinion. With implacable style, they allow us to observe a mind wrestling with itself, then dare us to join them in the fray.
Just as pretty flowers spring can spring forth from beds of manure, the tedious Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is turning out to be quite the fertilizer for interesting critical writing.
Earlier posts here have alluded to the underground re-make of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Two Mississippi teenagers spent most of the 1980’s making a home-made shot-by-shot recreation of Raiders. An article from Lee Sandlin in the Chicago Reader provides a must-read take on the project.
Sandlin does an excellent job of excoriating the original Raiders
Raiders is a global adventure with no romance, a historical epic with no feeling for the past, a thriller with no trace of real danger. It means nothing, feels like nothing, and carries the implicit message that absolutely nothing matters.
His take on the world of film before Raiders and after it is worthy reading on it’s own. What’s more thrilling to read is his rave review of Raiders Of The Lost Ark - The Adaptation. [Read more →]
This site is dedicated to film criticism and commentary on popular culture. You won't find artificial grading or some arbitrary, empirical ranking that tells you how to feel about a particular film. Thumbs up, five stars, and scales from one to ten are meaningless. Deciding if you like something or not is your job as a viewer, and to think any reviewer can tell you how to feel about a film is absurd.
Good criticism should focus more on how a film works, and why. It's not about defining your opinions. Instead it should give you a more refined way of expressing what you like about a film, or help give you a different way of thinking about what you disliked.
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Submissions are welcome on any relevant topic – music writers are especially encouraged. And as always - think about what you're seeing, trust your instincts, and look for the good whereever you can.
