Films You've Seen in 2017
Mar 23, 2017 5:17:53 GMT -8
Post by Jeremy on Mar 23, 2017 5:17:53 GMT -8
Admin Note: This thread was created on the original CT forum. for convenience, I've copied and pasted the posts made thus far onto this one. New posts begin on Page 4.
Jeremy:
New year. New films. New reviews and discussions!
I'll start us off with the first film I watched this year:
Hidden Figures (2016)
A period piece centered on the trials and victories of race presents a few problems. For one thing, films of this nature - which tend to be of the inspirational variety - are often formulaic and predictable. Additionally, these films can at times feel overly dramatic and even cheesy, due to the changing views of modern audiences. Which brings us to a third issue: The white people in these films are often written as unpleasant, racist caricatures. It's difficult to translate the racial divides of the 1960s to 21st-century audiences in ways that feel human and believable.
Yes, there are plenty of pitfalls in this kind of film - as we saw in movies like last year's well-meaning but straightforward Race. Yet surprisingly, Hidden Figures deftly sidesteps these problems in its retelling of the true story of three African-American women who broke barriers in 1960s NASA. How?
There are many things Hidden Figures does well, but at the center, one thing distinguishes it from the pack: It's funny. Maybe not "laugh out loud" funny, but there are plenty of moments throughout the film that inspire a chuckle, or at least an amused smile. This is a light, upbeat film which takes every opportunity to amuse us.
Consider how this affects the bigger picture. The addition of humor allows for a greater connection between film and audience. Our main characters take their world in stride, and we viewers follow suit. The white characters are refreshingly understated - rather than sexist, racist jerks, we get characters who feel like real people, simply placed in situations (black woman working alongside white men) uncomfortable to people in that era. The film never forces these situations down our throat, so it's easy to get drawn in. (The one character to feel at all like a "villain" in this film is the physicist played by Jim Parsons - but compared to that other physicist Parsons has played over the last decade, his character feels just as human as the rest.)
And, okay... this movie is formulaic and predictable. But when it's this entertaining and well-crafted, do I even need to care?
Post-Benjamin Button, Taraji P. Henson has had an uneven TV career - underused on Person of Interest, overdone on Empire. But here, she strikes a perfect note as Katherine Johnson, the woman who helped NASA launch John Glenn into space. It's good to see Johnson's story gaining more recognition (she was also featured in a recent episode of Timeless), and Henson is well-cast in the role.
The supporting cast is quite strong as well. Octavia Spencer, as always, is excellent, and Janelle Monae - a relative newcomer to the world of acting - is a lot of fun. Together, the three actresses form a solid emotional core for the film, helped by Kevin Costner and an underused Kirsten Dunst.
As you may have noticed from my posts in last year's thread, I was largely underwhelmed by mainstream cinema in 2016. But Hidden Figures (which technically premiered in late December, though its official wide release won't occur until later this week) was easily one of the best films I've watched in quite a while, and marks a great start to my cinematic adventures of 2017. Bravo.
Boscalyn:
The Martian (2015, dir. Ridley Scott)
So here's the thing. The Martian is directed by Ridley Scott, who directed films like Alien and Blade Runner which are heavy on atmosphere and post-human philosophy. Its screenplay is by Drew Goddard, whose work on the Buffyverse uses sci-fi conceits exclusively as a starting point for subversive character drama. And yet, The Martian is completely uninterested in atmosphere, philosophy, subversion, or character drama; the film spends its two-hour-plus runtime exclusively dedicated to following up on its tagline and BRING(ing) HIM HOME.
And yet, it has one thing going for it that singlehandedly justifies all that-- it really has the spirit of classic science fiction. The movies have left us so conditioned to sci-fi where the science is a backdrop for killing aliens or a metaphor for the human condition or whatever that it can be really refreshing to see a film where the science is just science. It's an unabashed celebration of problem solving with zero machismo. Which is nerdy as hell. But you know what? That's fine. Nerdy is fine. Yes, there's really no nuance, but there is an extended scene where Matt Damon works out how to communicate using a 360-degree-rotatable camera and hexidecimal. That's fun, right?
I'm not damning with faint praise! This was actually a very enjoyable film.
Zarnium:
I've seen Kubo and Moana in the last couple days. Kubo had a rather weak story, but the art and animation were excellent. Moana, though, was pretty fantastic all around. It's more by the numbers than Frozen, but I may have liked it a little more? It's a bit livelier in the dialogue department, Moana and Maui have some nice chemistry, and I liked that it's entirely non-romantic, which is a nice change of pace for a Disney Princess movie. And I say that as someone who really likes Frozen.
I think it's the immediacy of its appeal that draws me to it. Frozen is something that I didn't really get at first, but came to appreciate more as I read other people's takes on it and took a second look. Moana, on the other hand, is something that I was on board with from the get-go.
Oh, I also saw Passengers a couple weeks ago, albeit still in 2016. It was pretty good, Chris Pratt is always a blast to watch, but I do think it was maybe just a tad too beholden to classic male-female romantic tropes. I can't help but feel that something like this could've been more interesting if, say, the woman was the one who woke up first, or if it was about two gay dudes. Or, hell, it could've just been better if it hadn't had such a sappy Hollywood ending and really committed to facing the stark realities of the situation it presented.
Boscalyn:
Zarnium wrote:
Oh, I also saw Passengers a couple weeks ago, albeit still in 2016. It was pretty good, Chris Pratt is always a blast to watch, but I do think it was maybe just a tad too beholden to classic male-female romantic tropes. I can't help but feel that something like this could've been more interesting if, say, the woman was the one who woke up first, or if it was about two gay dudes. Or, hell, it could've just been better if it hadn't had such a sappy Hollywood ending and really committed to facing the stark realities of the situation it presented.
Oh right, this was the other reason I liked The Martian (Matt Damon and Chris Pratt look hella similar btw): no shoehorned love plot. Just science, but in a fun way.
Zarnium:
One other thing that bugged me about Passengers; the economic model that the corporation running the colonization effort uses makes no sense. Supposedly they're expecting to make "40 quadrillion dollars" in profit by taking 20% of the lifetime earnings of every colonist, but since it's a one-way trip and no resources will ever be sent back to Earth, it's logically impossible to transfer wealth. It also supposes that a colony of only 5,000 residents will somehow be able to produce 200 quadrillion dollars of value over the course of a halfway reasonable timeframe, which is absurd even when you take exponential population growth into account.
I know, I'm getting hung up on a throwaway line that has nothing to do with the plot. It still bugs me.
J.C.:
Passengers is really getting thrashed by the critics. Word I'm hearing is that it presents a deviant male stalker fantasy as romance. Are they going overboard, Zarnium?
Jeremy:
Funnily enough, I almost wound up seeing Passengers yesterday. My family had been hyped for the Pratt/Lawrence mashup for a while, and it was all but a given that we would see the movie. But the reviews may have killed some of that enthusiasm, and we made a last-minute change to Hidden Figures instead.
One thing I didn't mention in my review in the opening post: I am elated that this film was given a relatively tame PG rating. Most studios are afraid that audiences would see the rating and go "OMG! Kids' movie!" But the folks behind Hidden Figures understood that it's possible to make and market an adult-oriented movie without any adult content. (And it's probably a good idea to bring kids to this film, anyway - they might actually learn something about civil rights and the space race.)
Zarnium:
J.C. wrote:
Passengers is really getting thrashed by the critics. Word I'm hearing is that it presents a deviant male stalker fantasy as romance. Are they going overboard, Zarnium?
It's a bit of an edge case. Chris Pratt's character is clearly portrayed as being wrong for what he did, he acknowledges this and makes up for it about as much as he possibly could, gives Jennifer Lawrence plenty of space whenever she makes it clear she wants it, and her character holds him in contempt for a long time after finding out about what he did and nearly beats him to death at one point. At the same time, all of their strife is wrapped up a bit too neatly in the end without coming to an organic conclusion, and there's a last minute deus ex machina that gives Pratt an out from being held accountable for his actions. Throughout the film, Pratt also tends to be the primary mover of the plot and the one who takes action to cause or solve all of the problems, with Lawrence being a fairly passive character.
While I think that calling it a deviant male stalker fantasy is a tad overboard, there's certainly an uncomfortable element of it there that will naturally turn a lot of people off. My problem is more that the movie presents a very intriguing premise and then uses it to tell a fairly conventional Hollywood romance without really pushing the envelope in any way. Nonetheless, I think it's still better than its 31% at Rotten Tomatoes would have you believe.
J.C.:
Figured as much. I might give it a look, once it gets to DVD.
Jeremy:
Sing (2016)
The first voice you hear in Sing belongs to Jennifer Hudson. She belts out a classic rendition of "Golden Slumbers" that would do the Beatles proud. It's a moment that invokes memories of her work in Dreamgirls a decade ago - or at least, it would, if it weren't over and done with so quickly.
But such is the way of Sing. The latest animated flick from Illumination Entertainment, Sing darts quickly from one story beat to the next, from one musical number to the next, never taking a moment to let the audience just sit back and enjoy the melodies. And there are a lot of melodies worth enjoying - this film's soundtrack features at least a few lyrics from nearly every pop sensation in recent memory, as well as a whole slew of classical numbers. Even a musical novice like myself was impressed by the amount of recognizable tunes, as they whizzed by at an almost breathless pace. (The film features two renditions of Katy Perry's "Firework," only one of which even makes it to the chorus.)
This pace can be partly attributed to the sheer amount of story that's been crammed into the film's hour-and-forty-minutes running time. The basic setup - a singing competition in an anthropomorphic world - is solid enough on its own, but writer/director Garth Jennings (of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame) insists on giving every major character their own story arc. There are no fewer than six such arcs running through the film, and while the film boasts a string of likable characters (my favorite: Rosita, a pig voiced by Reese Witherspoon), few of them get the proper development they need. (One main character doesn't even get a proper arc resolution at all. I stuck around through the end credits to see if there was another scene at the end, but no dice.)
It's only in the final 30 minutes that Sing steps back and allows the music to flow. The showstopping climax - which gives us everything from Elton John to Taylor Swift - is the highlight of the film, even as each successive musical number seems intended to be the grand finale. But if you've stuck it through, you've likely grown used to the film's excessive plotting and lightning pace, and the last few songs will likely feel like a breath of fresh air.
Sing is above-average by the standards of Illumination Entertainment (which has previously given us Despicable Me and The Secret Life of Pets), but it's still far from perfect. Still, the film has charm and vigor, and is certainly never boring. And lest we forget: Matthew McConaughey singing the chorus of "Call Me Maybe." Oh, yeah.
Jeremy:
La La Land (2016)
Let me start by saying that La La Land is a lovely film.
Its visual palette is bright and colorful. Its direction is skilled and fluid. Its stars are charming and charismatic. And its songs - from the invigorating "Another Day of Sun" to the disquieting "Fools Who Dream" - are tuneful and evocative.
The film pays endearing tribute to the musical films that popularized the 1950s, at a time when the novelty of color film was just beginning to wear off and Hollywood was encouraged to fill each frame of their latest offerings with eye-popping visuals. La La Land has an abundance of such visuals, and with its wide array of song-and-dance numbers, it invokes memories of Singin' in the Rain and the many classics and imitators it spawned.
Director Damien Chazelle makes sure we understand the film's love of classic musicals, and of classic Hollywood in general. The music swoons in a way that's just sweet enough to remind you of the good ol' days, and the dance numbers - be they on a hilltop or amidst the stars of a planetarium - are silly in exactly the right way. There's even a clip from Rebel Without a Cause thrown in for good measure.
Yes, La La Land has all the ingredients to tug at the heartstrings. Its nostalgic value is so potent that you can easily understand why it become such an awards sensation - fourteen Oscar nominations, despite looking like a rather non-Oscar type of film.
Yet beneath this polished, nostalgic veneer - what is La La Land? It presents itself as a story between two young lovers (a common baseline for many classic feel-good musicals) and sets them in each other's orbit over the course of a year. We watch these two as they deal with their own lives, even as they try to make room for one another's. The resulting story is not so much whimsical as... pedestrian.
Now, let's be fair. A lot of the old-time Hollywood musicals featured pedestrian stories, too. But the difference is in the underlying motivation. Musicals from the '50s didn't put much stock into telling deep or intricate stories because they wanted to underscore the more whimsical aspects of music and dance. La La Land doesn't have this luxury - it's purposely designed as a modern-day recreation of the classics, and as I mentioned, bends over backwards to make that clear. And while that recreation is faithful and fun, I have to ask: Is that all there is?
Beyond the fact that the story is fairly by-the-numbers, the film suffers from overlength and a jarring pace. The characters, too, prove a weak link, once you get past all the musicality - while Gosling and Stone have excellent chemistry, the characters they're saddled with aren't all that deep or compelling. They fall in and out of love as the script demands it, but there rarely seems to be anything profound attached to their actions.
Perhaps I'm overthinking this. (What else is new?) La La Land has gained popularity by virtue of its faithfulness - faithfulness to recreating the style of old musicals, straight down to their relative shallowness. That is a virtue, I suppose.
As I said, La La Land is a lovely film.
But it's not a film that I can love.
Boscalyn:
Counter-opinion: MGM musicals are great and this film is great and you are wrong.
Supporting evidence.
Unkinhead:
[Jeremy wrote:
Yet beneath this polished, nostalgic veneer - what is La La Land? It presents itself as a story between two young lovers (a common baseline for many classic feel-good musicals) and sets them in each other's orbit over the course of a year. We watch these two as they deal with their own lives, even as they try to make room for one another's. The resulting story is not so much whimsical as... pedestrian.
Now, let's be fair. A lot of the old-time Hollywood musicals featured pedestrian stories, too. But the difference is in the underlying motivation. Musicals from the '50s didn't put much stock into telling deep or intricate stories because they wanted to underscore the more whimsical aspects of music and dance. La La Land doesn't have this luxury - it's purposely designed as a modern-day recreation of the classics, and as I mentioned, bends over backwards to make that clear. And while that recreation is faithful and fun, I have to ask: Is that all there is?
Beyond the fact that the story is fairly by-the-numbers, the film suffers from overlength and a jarring pace. The characters, too, prove a weak link, once you get past all the musicality - while Gosling and Stone have excellent chemistry, the characters they're saddled with aren't all that deep or compelling. They fall in and out of love as the script demands it, but there rarely seems to be anything profound attached to their actions.]
Hmm, I'm not sure I would say that a classic/standard love story is necessarily shallow by any means RE: Casablanca, and certainly not in this case, at least in my opinion. What this has going for it that "shallow" musicals don't?:
-Emotional Honesty (in contrast to superficial extravagance found most commonly in romances)
-Narrative Cleverness
While a love story is fairly common, I found the editing of the narrative to be rather fresh, emotional, surprising, and all the things. It also climaxed beautifully and didn't compromise and opt for a traditional simplistic ending. Surprised on the pacing criticism though, I thought that was perhaps the film's greatest strength.
My criticism of the film comes in two parts:
1) The opening act. The song is meh compared to the other numbers, the routine is rather unimpressive, and it serves only to show off in getting that huge one-shot of them all on the bridge (big whoop). It doesn't really serve anything other than "this is a musical!".
2) There is a kind of unattractive meshing of "Hey man we're just two normal peeps in Hollywood yo" story/character skeletons with the other aspect of "glamorous purposefully superficial 50's MGM musical" aspects. Because the set design, score, direction, and editing all imply we are in for a technically brilliant fantastic musical (the word "perfect" comes to mind), and so I find it a little off that the story and characters themselves directly oppose that structure (in the sense that they're singing is not at a professional level and their musical parts in the role aren't inherently as 'fantastic' so to speak as the opening sequence would have you think). Perhaps it only feels not right with the context of earlier musicals, perhaps some would see this as a pro and praise it in terms of subversion or originality, but I found it kind of disconcerting nonetheless.
The film's great though.
[Boscalyn wrote:
Supporting evidence.]
SNL still occasionally makes somewhat funny things?
guttersnipe:
All I've got to go on re: La La Land is that my best mate simply described it as "underwhelming" and it looks to me like the new Artist; y'know, the Big Studio Anachronistic Novelty rolled out in time for February to hoover up a bunch of Oscars and is subsequently forgotten about. And hoover I imagine it will, for 2016 looked like something of an annus horribilis for Hollywood, and I wasn't even paying attention to it for eleven months. Having said that, I am excited about Barry Jenkins and Tom Ford's sophomore efforts, and Raoul Peck's documentary I Am Not Your Negro.
J.C.:
It's much better than The Artist, which didn't even do a particularly good job of re-creating the actual style of silent films of the era.
But it's always very safe and easy to take the "underwhelming/overrated" position on things, which is why so many people do it.
Moonlight is a very good, nuanced, artful character piece, but I felt I got all I needed out of it on the first viewing. Whereas I'm much more likely to revisit La La Land in the near future, regardless of anything Oscar-related, because it delivers on a wider emotional spectrum, and on more diverse cinematic levels.
Owen Gleiberman wrote a pretty good article on the film after he saw it a second time: variety.com/2017/film/columns/la ... 201950715/
Jeremy:
New year. New films. New reviews and discussions!
I'll start us off with the first film I watched this year:
Hidden Figures (2016)
A period piece centered on the trials and victories of race presents a few problems. For one thing, films of this nature - which tend to be of the inspirational variety - are often formulaic and predictable. Additionally, these films can at times feel overly dramatic and even cheesy, due to the changing views of modern audiences. Which brings us to a third issue: The white people in these films are often written as unpleasant, racist caricatures. It's difficult to translate the racial divides of the 1960s to 21st-century audiences in ways that feel human and believable.
Yes, there are plenty of pitfalls in this kind of film - as we saw in movies like last year's well-meaning but straightforward Race. Yet surprisingly, Hidden Figures deftly sidesteps these problems in its retelling of the true story of three African-American women who broke barriers in 1960s NASA. How?
There are many things Hidden Figures does well, but at the center, one thing distinguishes it from the pack: It's funny. Maybe not "laugh out loud" funny, but there are plenty of moments throughout the film that inspire a chuckle, or at least an amused smile. This is a light, upbeat film which takes every opportunity to amuse us.
Consider how this affects the bigger picture. The addition of humor allows for a greater connection between film and audience. Our main characters take their world in stride, and we viewers follow suit. The white characters are refreshingly understated - rather than sexist, racist jerks, we get characters who feel like real people, simply placed in situations (black woman working alongside white men) uncomfortable to people in that era. The film never forces these situations down our throat, so it's easy to get drawn in. (The one character to feel at all like a "villain" in this film is the physicist played by Jim Parsons - but compared to that other physicist Parsons has played over the last decade, his character feels just as human as the rest.)
And, okay... this movie is formulaic and predictable. But when it's this entertaining and well-crafted, do I even need to care?
Post-Benjamin Button, Taraji P. Henson has had an uneven TV career - underused on Person of Interest, overdone on Empire. But here, she strikes a perfect note as Katherine Johnson, the woman who helped NASA launch John Glenn into space. It's good to see Johnson's story gaining more recognition (she was also featured in a recent episode of Timeless), and Henson is well-cast in the role.
The supporting cast is quite strong as well. Octavia Spencer, as always, is excellent, and Janelle Monae - a relative newcomer to the world of acting - is a lot of fun. Together, the three actresses form a solid emotional core for the film, helped by Kevin Costner and an underused Kirsten Dunst.
As you may have noticed from my posts in last year's thread, I was largely underwhelmed by mainstream cinema in 2016. But Hidden Figures (which technically premiered in late December, though its official wide release won't occur until later this week) was easily one of the best films I've watched in quite a while, and marks a great start to my cinematic adventures of 2017. Bravo.
Boscalyn:
The Martian (2015, dir. Ridley Scott)
So here's the thing. The Martian is directed by Ridley Scott, who directed films like Alien and Blade Runner which are heavy on atmosphere and post-human philosophy. Its screenplay is by Drew Goddard, whose work on the Buffyverse uses sci-fi conceits exclusively as a starting point for subversive character drama. And yet, The Martian is completely uninterested in atmosphere, philosophy, subversion, or character drama; the film spends its two-hour-plus runtime exclusively dedicated to following up on its tagline and BRING(ing) HIM HOME.
And yet, it has one thing going for it that singlehandedly justifies all that-- it really has the spirit of classic science fiction. The movies have left us so conditioned to sci-fi where the science is a backdrop for killing aliens or a metaphor for the human condition or whatever that it can be really refreshing to see a film where the science is just science. It's an unabashed celebration of problem solving with zero machismo. Which is nerdy as hell. But you know what? That's fine. Nerdy is fine. Yes, there's really no nuance, but there is an extended scene where Matt Damon works out how to communicate using a 360-degree-rotatable camera and hexidecimal. That's fun, right?
I'm not damning with faint praise! This was actually a very enjoyable film.
Zarnium:
I've seen Kubo and Moana in the last couple days. Kubo had a rather weak story, but the art and animation were excellent. Moana, though, was pretty fantastic all around. It's more by the numbers than Frozen, but I may have liked it a little more? It's a bit livelier in the dialogue department, Moana and Maui have some nice chemistry, and I liked that it's entirely non-romantic, which is a nice change of pace for a Disney Princess movie. And I say that as someone who really likes Frozen.
I think it's the immediacy of its appeal that draws me to it. Frozen is something that I didn't really get at first, but came to appreciate more as I read other people's takes on it and took a second look. Moana, on the other hand, is something that I was on board with from the get-go.
Oh, I also saw Passengers a couple weeks ago, albeit still in 2016. It was pretty good, Chris Pratt is always a blast to watch, but I do think it was maybe just a tad too beholden to classic male-female romantic tropes. I can't help but feel that something like this could've been more interesting if, say, the woman was the one who woke up first, or if it was about two gay dudes. Or, hell, it could've just been better if it hadn't had such a sappy Hollywood ending and really committed to facing the stark realities of the situation it presented.
Boscalyn:
Zarnium wrote:
Oh, I also saw Passengers a couple weeks ago, albeit still in 2016. It was pretty good, Chris Pratt is always a blast to watch, but I do think it was maybe just a tad too beholden to classic male-female romantic tropes. I can't help but feel that something like this could've been more interesting if, say, the woman was the one who woke up first, or if it was about two gay dudes. Or, hell, it could've just been better if it hadn't had such a sappy Hollywood ending and really committed to facing the stark realities of the situation it presented.
Oh right, this was the other reason I liked The Martian (Matt Damon and Chris Pratt look hella similar btw): no shoehorned love plot. Just science, but in a fun way.
Zarnium:
One other thing that bugged me about Passengers; the economic model that the corporation running the colonization effort uses makes no sense. Supposedly they're expecting to make "40 quadrillion dollars" in profit by taking 20% of the lifetime earnings of every colonist, but since it's a one-way trip and no resources will ever be sent back to Earth, it's logically impossible to transfer wealth. It also supposes that a colony of only 5,000 residents will somehow be able to produce 200 quadrillion dollars of value over the course of a halfway reasonable timeframe, which is absurd even when you take exponential population growth into account.
I know, I'm getting hung up on a throwaway line that has nothing to do with the plot. It still bugs me.
J.C.:
Passengers is really getting thrashed by the critics. Word I'm hearing is that it presents a deviant male stalker fantasy as romance. Are they going overboard, Zarnium?
Jeremy:
Funnily enough, I almost wound up seeing Passengers yesterday. My family had been hyped for the Pratt/Lawrence mashup for a while, and it was all but a given that we would see the movie. But the reviews may have killed some of that enthusiasm, and we made a last-minute change to Hidden Figures instead.
One thing I didn't mention in my review in the opening post: I am elated that this film was given a relatively tame PG rating. Most studios are afraid that audiences would see the rating and go "OMG! Kids' movie!" But the folks behind Hidden Figures understood that it's possible to make and market an adult-oriented movie without any adult content. (And it's probably a good idea to bring kids to this film, anyway - they might actually learn something about civil rights and the space race.)
Zarnium:
J.C. wrote:
Passengers is really getting thrashed by the critics. Word I'm hearing is that it presents a deviant male stalker fantasy as romance. Are they going overboard, Zarnium?
It's a bit of an edge case. Chris Pratt's character is clearly portrayed as being wrong for what he did, he acknowledges this and makes up for it about as much as he possibly could, gives Jennifer Lawrence plenty of space whenever she makes it clear she wants it, and her character holds him in contempt for a long time after finding out about what he did and nearly beats him to death at one point. At the same time, all of their strife is wrapped up a bit too neatly in the end without coming to an organic conclusion, and there's a last minute deus ex machina that gives Pratt an out from being held accountable for his actions. Throughout the film, Pratt also tends to be the primary mover of the plot and the one who takes action to cause or solve all of the problems, with Lawrence being a fairly passive character.
While I think that calling it a deviant male stalker fantasy is a tad overboard, there's certainly an uncomfortable element of it there that will naturally turn a lot of people off. My problem is more that the movie presents a very intriguing premise and then uses it to tell a fairly conventional Hollywood romance without really pushing the envelope in any way. Nonetheless, I think it's still better than its 31% at Rotten Tomatoes would have you believe.
J.C.:
Figured as much. I might give it a look, once it gets to DVD.
Jeremy:
Sing (2016)
The first voice you hear in Sing belongs to Jennifer Hudson. She belts out a classic rendition of "Golden Slumbers" that would do the Beatles proud. It's a moment that invokes memories of her work in Dreamgirls a decade ago - or at least, it would, if it weren't over and done with so quickly.
But such is the way of Sing. The latest animated flick from Illumination Entertainment, Sing darts quickly from one story beat to the next, from one musical number to the next, never taking a moment to let the audience just sit back and enjoy the melodies. And there are a lot of melodies worth enjoying - this film's soundtrack features at least a few lyrics from nearly every pop sensation in recent memory, as well as a whole slew of classical numbers. Even a musical novice like myself was impressed by the amount of recognizable tunes, as they whizzed by at an almost breathless pace. (The film features two renditions of Katy Perry's "Firework," only one of which even makes it to the chorus.)
This pace can be partly attributed to the sheer amount of story that's been crammed into the film's hour-and-forty-minutes running time. The basic setup - a singing competition in an anthropomorphic world - is solid enough on its own, but writer/director Garth Jennings (of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame) insists on giving every major character their own story arc. There are no fewer than six such arcs running through the film, and while the film boasts a string of likable characters (my favorite: Rosita, a pig voiced by Reese Witherspoon), few of them get the proper development they need. (One main character doesn't even get a proper arc resolution at all. I stuck around through the end credits to see if there was another scene at the end, but no dice.)
It's only in the final 30 minutes that Sing steps back and allows the music to flow. The showstopping climax - which gives us everything from Elton John to Taylor Swift - is the highlight of the film, even as each successive musical number seems intended to be the grand finale. But if you've stuck it through, you've likely grown used to the film's excessive plotting and lightning pace, and the last few songs will likely feel like a breath of fresh air.
Sing is above-average by the standards of Illumination Entertainment (which has previously given us Despicable Me and The Secret Life of Pets), but it's still far from perfect. Still, the film has charm and vigor, and is certainly never boring. And lest we forget: Matthew McConaughey singing the chorus of "Call Me Maybe." Oh, yeah.
Jeremy:
La La Land (2016)
Let me start by saying that La La Land is a lovely film.
Its visual palette is bright and colorful. Its direction is skilled and fluid. Its stars are charming and charismatic. And its songs - from the invigorating "Another Day of Sun" to the disquieting "Fools Who Dream" - are tuneful and evocative.
The film pays endearing tribute to the musical films that popularized the 1950s, at a time when the novelty of color film was just beginning to wear off and Hollywood was encouraged to fill each frame of their latest offerings with eye-popping visuals. La La Land has an abundance of such visuals, and with its wide array of song-and-dance numbers, it invokes memories of Singin' in the Rain and the many classics and imitators it spawned.
Director Damien Chazelle makes sure we understand the film's love of classic musicals, and of classic Hollywood in general. The music swoons in a way that's just sweet enough to remind you of the good ol' days, and the dance numbers - be they on a hilltop or amidst the stars of a planetarium - are silly in exactly the right way. There's even a clip from Rebel Without a Cause thrown in for good measure.
Yes, La La Land has all the ingredients to tug at the heartstrings. Its nostalgic value is so potent that you can easily understand why it become such an awards sensation - fourteen Oscar nominations, despite looking like a rather non-Oscar type of film.
Yet beneath this polished, nostalgic veneer - what is La La Land? It presents itself as a story between two young lovers (a common baseline for many classic feel-good musicals) and sets them in each other's orbit over the course of a year. We watch these two as they deal with their own lives, even as they try to make room for one another's. The resulting story is not so much whimsical as... pedestrian.
Now, let's be fair. A lot of the old-time Hollywood musicals featured pedestrian stories, too. But the difference is in the underlying motivation. Musicals from the '50s didn't put much stock into telling deep or intricate stories because they wanted to underscore the more whimsical aspects of music and dance. La La Land doesn't have this luxury - it's purposely designed as a modern-day recreation of the classics, and as I mentioned, bends over backwards to make that clear. And while that recreation is faithful and fun, I have to ask: Is that all there is?
Beyond the fact that the story is fairly by-the-numbers, the film suffers from overlength and a jarring pace. The characters, too, prove a weak link, once you get past all the musicality - while Gosling and Stone have excellent chemistry, the characters they're saddled with aren't all that deep or compelling. They fall in and out of love as the script demands it, but there rarely seems to be anything profound attached to their actions.
Perhaps I'm overthinking this. (What else is new?) La La Land has gained popularity by virtue of its faithfulness - faithfulness to recreating the style of old musicals, straight down to their relative shallowness. That is a virtue, I suppose.
As I said, La La Land is a lovely film.
But it's not a film that I can love.
Boscalyn:
Counter-opinion: MGM musicals are great and this film is great and you are wrong.
Supporting evidence.
Unkinhead:
[Jeremy wrote:
Yet beneath this polished, nostalgic veneer - what is La La Land? It presents itself as a story between two young lovers (a common baseline for many classic feel-good musicals) and sets them in each other's orbit over the course of a year. We watch these two as they deal with their own lives, even as they try to make room for one another's. The resulting story is not so much whimsical as... pedestrian.
Now, let's be fair. A lot of the old-time Hollywood musicals featured pedestrian stories, too. But the difference is in the underlying motivation. Musicals from the '50s didn't put much stock into telling deep or intricate stories because they wanted to underscore the more whimsical aspects of music and dance. La La Land doesn't have this luxury - it's purposely designed as a modern-day recreation of the classics, and as I mentioned, bends over backwards to make that clear. And while that recreation is faithful and fun, I have to ask: Is that all there is?
Beyond the fact that the story is fairly by-the-numbers, the film suffers from overlength and a jarring pace. The characters, too, prove a weak link, once you get past all the musicality - while Gosling and Stone have excellent chemistry, the characters they're saddled with aren't all that deep or compelling. They fall in and out of love as the script demands it, but there rarely seems to be anything profound attached to their actions.]
Hmm, I'm not sure I would say that a classic/standard love story is necessarily shallow by any means RE: Casablanca, and certainly not in this case, at least in my opinion. What this has going for it that "shallow" musicals don't?:
-Emotional Honesty (in contrast to superficial extravagance found most commonly in romances)
-Narrative Cleverness
While a love story is fairly common, I found the editing of the narrative to be rather fresh, emotional, surprising, and all the things. It also climaxed beautifully and didn't compromise and opt for a traditional simplistic ending. Surprised on the pacing criticism though, I thought that was perhaps the film's greatest strength.
My criticism of the film comes in two parts:
1) The opening act. The song is meh compared to the other numbers, the routine is rather unimpressive, and it serves only to show off in getting that huge one-shot of them all on the bridge (big whoop). It doesn't really serve anything other than "this is a musical!".
2) There is a kind of unattractive meshing of "Hey man we're just two normal peeps in Hollywood yo" story/character skeletons with the other aspect of "glamorous purposefully superficial 50's MGM musical" aspects. Because the set design, score, direction, and editing all imply we are in for a technically brilliant fantastic musical (the word "perfect" comes to mind), and so I find it a little off that the story and characters themselves directly oppose that structure (in the sense that they're singing is not at a professional level and their musical parts in the role aren't inherently as 'fantastic' so to speak as the opening sequence would have you think). Perhaps it only feels not right with the context of earlier musicals, perhaps some would see this as a pro and praise it in terms of subversion or originality, but I found it kind of disconcerting nonetheless.
The film's great though.
[Boscalyn wrote:
Supporting evidence.]
SNL still occasionally makes somewhat funny things?
guttersnipe:
All I've got to go on re: La La Land is that my best mate simply described it as "underwhelming" and it looks to me like the new Artist; y'know, the Big Studio Anachronistic Novelty rolled out in time for February to hoover up a bunch of Oscars and is subsequently forgotten about. And hoover I imagine it will, for 2016 looked like something of an annus horribilis for Hollywood, and I wasn't even paying attention to it for eleven months. Having said that, I am excited about Barry Jenkins and Tom Ford's sophomore efforts, and Raoul Peck's documentary I Am Not Your Negro.
J.C.:
It's much better than The Artist, which didn't even do a particularly good job of re-creating the actual style of silent films of the era.
But it's always very safe and easy to take the "underwhelming/overrated" position on things, which is why so many people do it.
Moonlight is a very good, nuanced, artful character piece, but I felt I got all I needed out of it on the first viewing. Whereas I'm much more likely to revisit La La Land in the near future, regardless of anything Oscar-related, because it delivers on a wider emotional spectrum, and on more diverse cinematic levels.
Owen Gleiberman wrote a pretty good article on the film after he saw it a second time: variety.com/2017/film/columns/la ... 201950715/