"Cloud Atlas": Long Movie, Short Review

So the reason I have been terrible about updating lately is because I've been hella busy all of a sudden, with hardly any time to read or enjoy films, let alone write about them.

This weekend, however, I saw Cloud Atlas in theaters, and I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it--even after reading the lukewarm reviews. Sure, the stories get a little sentimental and dare I say corny at times, and the visuals, while not uninteresting, stick largely to conventional filmmaking techniques,  but it's still engaging, exciting, and has you thinking about it long after the movie is over. Most convincing of all, I really want to read the book now, so the movie succeeds at promoting the book, if anything.

Cloud Atlas is a science fiction and philosophical tale following six interconnected stories and spanning several genres: historical, action, comedy,  drama, dystpoian, and post-apocalyptic. Connections are made with recurring images, the same actor playing different characters, and characters in one story mentioned or appearing in another story. While each story has its own arc, they are woven together to build up collective suspense and a common theme. The movie begins, and ends, with the chronologically final story, implying cyclical life as well as interconnectedness and the butterfly effect (this ain't nothing like that movie, by the way).

The six stories--three in the past, one in the present, and two in the future--are, for the most part, woven well together, each thread related to the one shown before it in some way. While I think the setup was weak initially--I have a hard time remembering why Frobisher decided to work for the aging composer on a whim, or why Ewing had to go see his father-in-law's plantation in the Pacific, for example--the Wachowskis and Tom Twyker cut away from one story to the next at suspenseful moments, and don't wait too long to return to it. I couldn't figure out the connection between the stories at first, but after giving it some thought, you can work out a loose thread, in which Ewing's actions in the chronologically first story ripples across time, and each story affects the next.

While the casting of the same actors in multiple roles makes it more interesting in trying to figure out the connections between the stories and characters, I found this choice on the Wachowskis' part (in the novel, apparently, only a birthmark connects certain characters together) to be confusing and, at times, questionable. Several of the actors play parts in every storyline (looking it up on imdb), but not all of them play consequential roles in each one, nor does the characters that each one plays are necessarily connected to one another. It takes some deliberation, at least, to figure out what the birthmark characters and the same-actor characters have in common.

More troubling is the cross-racial roles some of the actors--mainly, the white, male actors--had to play. Though an entire storyline clearly takes place in a futuristic Korea, Doona Bae, who plays the heroine of this storyline, is also the only Asian actor cast in a speaking role for this storyline. (please correct me if I'm wrong) The other main characters--Hae-Joo Chang, Boardman Mephi, Seer Rhee--are played by actors in "Yellowface." Considering the fact that the same actor, same souls idea doesn't necessarily hold much water upon closer examination, why did they decide to cast almost all white actors in obviously Asian parts? Sure, Doona Bae and Halle Berry play white women in other storylines, but playing white is very different, because there is no shortage of white representation in movies. This is also the one storyline that takes place in a nonwhite country, and almost stereotypically so--the city of Neo Seoul is hyper-technological, heartless, and patriarchical--also does not sit well with me, though that would be more of a critique of the source material than the movie.

I have this to say, though: the costuming and make-up are stupendous in this movie. Tom Hanks' various transformations are particularly striking.

A few more criticisms: while after a while I got the feel of what they were saying in the post-apocalyptic storyline (in which they speak a sort of pidgin English),  it was difficult to understand them at first. There are moment in the other storylines as well, in which the dialogue is difficult to be deciphered--heavy British and Irish accents did not help matters. The film, while awesome and epic, also tends to stick to stories of heroes and villains, even if the hero has to undergo a transformation and not everything is black and white--that is, the movie relies upon tropes we know well.

Overall, I did enjoy the movie, and may indeed read the book eventually. I would give it 3.5 stars out of 5. Oppression score: 4, because even though there were plenty of strong women, homosexual characters, even a story that put old people  as the protagonists, the yellowface thing could have easily been avoided altogether. Definitely a movie to go to the movies to see, though.

Premium Rush: a Thrilling Bike Ride

Premium Rush is only the second movie I've seen in theaters this year--and on opening weekend, no less. It looks like it won't make much at the box office: it debuted 7th this past weekend, just ahead of the new conservative documentary 2016: Obama's America (which you can't pay me to see). Considering the timing, and the pro-cycling theme of the movie, I'm not surprised. Premium Rush is a low-key action movie, with no explosions or a lot of shooting. Instead, the thrill lies in the chase: car on bike, bike on bike, bike on foot, car on foot, foot on foot, and so on. Fans of urban cycling and Joseph Gordon-Levitt shouldn't be disappointed--though perhaps fans of following the rules of the road will be.

(mild spoilers follow)

The story follows a daredevil courier named Wiley, who's assigned to a special delivery: a "premium rush" (hence the title). All goes smoothly until he's stopped by an NYPD detective who, it turns out, has a really bad gambling problem, and wants the package desperately. Wiley refuses, of course, as this courier service is a secure service, and so the chase begins. Later, when Wiley loses the detective for a moment, a hapless bicycle cop catches him breaking road rules, and will stop at nothing to catch him. Along the way we meet some courier colleagues of Wiley's, among them overconfident rival Manny and ex-girlfriend Vanessa, who help him deliver the package. Throughout the film we go backward and forward in time, obtaining a new piece of the puzzle, building up suspense and excitement all the way.

The story is pretty much what you'd expect from a popcorn thriller like this--though I couldn't guess at the contents of the envelope until I was given sufficient clues, so it's not predictable, and the coincidences aren't that far-fetched. Aside from a chaotic, claustrophobic flashback that occurs after Wiley gets into an accident, the camera work is well done: we feel the same rush as the couriers do when they ride. Special effects, thankfully, are sparing, used only to enhance the experience of navigating the bustling streets of NYC on two wheels and for slo-mo. And like the NPR reviewer said, the setting actually feels like New York: from the gridlocked traffic to the rude pedestrians to the slightly grimy look and feel of the objects surrounding them. The cast is also quite diverse, giving a far more accurate representation of NYC residents.

Characterization was also well-done here. There is a villain to hate, and some of the cop characters come off as a little doofy, NYC road users as assholish. But this is being told from a courier's point of view (mostly). Wiley, our hero, is certainly likeable enough (thanks in part to JGL's charm), though not without his flaws. He preaches the gospel of Brakeless Fixie, and almost as overconfident as his rival, breaking dozens of road rules over the course of the movie. We get a real sense of who the characters are simply from the way they act and talk to one another: a sign of really good screenwriting. The little backstory that we need to know is woven seamlessly into clipped cell phone conversations. And as far as the couriers go--I believe it. Tough, daring, aggressive, and they don't take shit from anybody--including the cops.

This movie is largely harmless in the category of stereotyping and oppression: nobody likes cops anyway; many cyclists are assholes (especially in NYC, I'm sure); there's sufficient diversity of race and gender; and members of the lower classes are whom we root for. However, I did have a problem with how aggressive Manny and Wiley were in, um, expressing their affection for Vanessa, and even more so by the dispatcher's blatant sexual harassment. Vanessa's a tough chick, and I was hopping she'd punch him out, any of them out--but she just pushes them away or brushes it off as a joke. She says in the movie that she wants to quit couriering so she can have a "steady job"; but maybe she's just sick of all the harassment.

Overall, the movie works as a great commercial for bicycle couriers--or, at least, urban cycling: exciting, well-constructed, and suspenseful. General Score: 4 stars out of 5. Oppression Score: 3 (mainly for the sexual harassment thing). Highly recommended if you just want to watch a fun popcorn flick and forget the world for two hours.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going out for a bike ride.

Introducing a New Rating Rubric!

Before I post my next review, I'd like to take some time to explain a second dimension with which I will be rating books, movies, and the like. In case you haven't noticed by now, I'm pretty lefty, and I usually take a paragraph or two to point out any problematic content in the story in question. So, why not build upon that and add a handy rating system to gauge the severity of the oppressive content?

As my overall rating is based on five, and we all love multiples of five, this "Oppression Scale" will be based on 10. 1 means little to no oppressive content (which will be few, I'm sure) and a 10 will be OMG RACIST SEXIST CLASSIST HOMOPHOBIC BULLSHIT! Most likely, a "good" book will have a low oppression score, and a "bad" book will have a high oppression score. I predict that many will score around 3-7. Now, this score is obviously entirely subjective, as different people will be bothered by different content to varying degrees. And no, cliche's will not be counted--unless they're racist cliche's.

Let's take an example: The Hunger Games (book). It features a strong female character, a diversity of races (shown in a good light), and is critical of violence and reality TV. However, I don't think Collins goes far enough in portraying the horror of forced violence, and is inconsistent in Katniss's reactions to violence and death. Overall, these are pretty weak criticisms, so I'll rate it a 2. I don't think we need to be too concerned about this book.

As for an example on the other end of the spectrum: Fifty Shades of Grey. There is nothing redeemable about this book. Christian and Ana's relationship is abusive, yet the author tries to make it seem like an ideal romance. And given that so many women seem to think that this is OK, that makes it even worse. I haven't actually read the whole thing myself--I credit Jennfer Armintrout and her wonderful recaps for cluing me in on the details. And since I haven't read the whole thing, I'll just give it a 9: highly oppressive.

So, that's how it works! Look for it in coming reviews!

The Hunger Games Movie Review; Or, How the Movie is Never, Ever Better than the Book

So it looks like The Hunger Games is going to be a real blockbuster trilogy, along with the books, following Harry Potter and Twilight before it. There was some slight nervous anticipation before it came out in theaters a couple weeks ago, nail-biting over the fact that the protagonist was female and if the movie was going to be any good. There was criticism early on about the fact that the casting call for Katniss called for a specifically white woman, and the fact that the person who ultimately played her was a blonde in real life. I myself was a little miffed about the imperfect appearances (in stark contrast to the first Harry Potter movie, where each person looked the part)--Peeta needed blue eyes, Gale's hair needed to be longer and his skin darker, Haymitch was definitely not blond (and he needed to be more messed up!), and Snow needed to have had some work done. Katniss's criticism goes without saying. I also imagined Rue to be darker-skinned (after all, she's described in the book as having dark brown skin), but the actor who played her fit the part anyway. I'm not going to touch on all those racist Hunger Games fans who thought that Rue wasn't supposed to be black: you people need to pay more attention in both English and History class.

In spite of that negative impression, I was excited to see this movie, not nervous about it like with The Golden Compass (LOVE the books, do not ever want to see the movie!). I went to see it on opening day in a packed theater--we probably bought some of the few tickets left available for that showing. And I liked it a lot; I wanted to just go and read the books again immediately afterward. Though the movie was over two hours, and a bit slow to start, it breezed through the story, much like an abridged version of the book (which isn't really necessary). The shaky-camera thing was odd in the beginning, when there wasn't that much going on, and I wanted more scenes pre-Hunger Games--preferably more with Cinna. People say Lenny Kravitz did a good job, but there wasn't that much for him to do... And the scene when the tributes from District 12 are set on fire is supposed to be incredible, but I was underwhelmed. So, they just wear fire for capes?

Once the Hunger Games begins, though, the film finds its legs, and it captures all the important plot points with seamless faithfulness to the source material. Rue's death was as tragic as it was in the books. However, they did sort of mangle the end: we don't see much of what happens to Katniss and Peeta after the Games end--they don't even look as fucked up as they are in the book--and the rift that forms between them on their way home. Even earlier, as the Games are about to end, they changed Cato's death to make him even more pitiful than he needed to be, and I imagined the moment with the berries to be more dramatic, because they were going to send a big fuck-you to the capitol.

There were plenty of other deviations (such as when Katniss receives the Mockingjay pin) and omissions from the book, predictable in any movie adaptation of a story longer than 60 pages. This is how books are superior to time-constrained media like films: the audience has a chance to get to know the characters, and in the case of speculative fiction, the world, better. We learn a lot of juicy details that wouldn't even make it into a screenplay, let alone a rough cut.

The movie was predictably clean: everybody looked quite clean and healthy for starving civilians and beat-up games contestants. While they could have done something with makeup to produce the haggard effect, I'm not really surprised that everybody looks pretty damn good in the movie. More realistic portrayals of what humans look like has long been relegated to the indie film circuit.

So, while I wasn't one hundred percent thrilled with the look of the film, it was really well done as a movie, with moments that will leave you tense with anticipation even if you've read the books, and enough excitment to have you wanting more. (and there should have been more!) I look forward to the sequel, and hope that it's even better than the first. If you've been thinking about seeing this movie, go ahead and see it: you could do a LOT worse. 3 out of 5 stars.

Movie Review: Young Adult

Now, I don't usually go to the movies very often, but for some reason I went a lot this year. I've seen a total of five movies in theatres this year--NEW movies, too. I haven't seen that many new movies in theatres since I was a kid. Maybe not even then: come to think of it, this is probably a new record for me. Anyway, a lot of the movies I saw garnered a lot of hype--Black Swan, Harry Potter, 50/50, and Melancholia were all much-talked-about. I liked them all--with Melancholia being the unequivocally best one of the bunch--but none had surprised me quite like Young Adult did.

Young Adult is the second collaboration between screenwriter Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman, their first being Juno. Juno was cute and quirky, occupying a hyperrealistic world of ultra-hip jargon and unconventional romance. Young Adult, on the other hand, ventures into much more sobering (pun intended) territory. The protagonist of Young Adult, Mavis Gary is a recently divorced (and apparently depressed) thirtysomething woman struggling to write the final novel in the young-adult series that she took over as author. While procrastinating, she comes across an invitation to her high school boyfriend's baby's naming ceremony, and after thinking about it all day, she decides to head back to her hometown to win him back.

It's pretty plain that Mavis is destined for failure early on: in her early encounters with Buddy, he's cheerful and kinda hokey, and while she keeps on discussing the past as if things haven't changed, he clearly has changed, accepting responsibility as a husband and father in what seems to be a pretty solid, egalitarian relationship. As much as the laughingstock nerd-turned-confidante in Patton Oswalt's character warns that she is making a big mistake, Mavis continues down into this marriage-destroying mission until it ends in tears--that being her own.

Mavis' reputation as a Queen Bee is evident through her blindly selfish pursuit of her high school sweetheart, and she's pretty mean to just about everyone but Buddy Slade--unless she's pretending to be nice. Yet she's become a pitiful character, slaving over a YA series that she can't even call her own, drinking heavily almost every night and spending her days watching TV (or else getting done up to see Buddy). It's obvious that she is suffering from depression, alcoholism, or (most likely) both. However, no one but Patton Oswalt's character, even her parents (in a telling scene, Mavis admits outright that she's an alcoholic, with her mother only responding "No you're not"--and not in a nice way), recognizes this. As much of a trainwreck her life becomes, it's hard not to hope that she does learn and grow from the experience. In the end it appears that she gets back on her feet--the novel, at least, is finished--but it's otherwise ambiguous.

Young Adult contrasts sharply with Juno, not only in the darker tone and heightened drama, but also in its realism. Music played a minimal role in creating atmosphere, though one song did serve as a crucial forewarning to Mavis sometime during the film. The dialogue is more natural than clever. Images, which are a large part of the film medium, are repeated and emphasized (such as Mavis lying in bed the morning after with a sleeping shirtless guy, unimpressed). The dialogue was very spot-on for real life, and of course the acting was great--especially by Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt. Buddy and Beth Slade seemed a little too content and cheerful (at least until towards the end), though perhaps they were exaggerating their contentedness on purpose, as some are wont to do in the presence of exes. The scenes leading up to the final one are painful to watch, especially for those sensitive to secondhand embarrassment. Nor does the ending tie itself up nicely. This is not a typical comedy--in fact, it's more of a comedy-drama (or, as I prefer it, a "tragicomedy"). Which was not what I at all expected.

Cody said in an interview with NPR that she had sought to turn several rom-com tropes on their head--and she accomplished just that. For one, it's just a comedy--I did not think of it as a rom-com in the slightest. The romantic arc is more of the subplot to the real story going on, which is Mavis' desperation to return to the time when she was happiest. The possibilities aren't tied up in a neat little knot at the end--instead, they spread out into the imagination of the audience. Naturally, as someone who has filled in the blanks in many a movie in my head countless times, I like ambiguity when it's done right. While I'm generally lukewarm towards Diablo Cody, I think she's outdone herself with Young Adult. Good on all involved, in fact. I give it a 4 out of 5 stars.

Announcement

Reader, for several reasons that I will not get into here, I have not had the time or the energy to create material that can thusly be posted here. Maybe if/when things work out I'll be back in business.

However, I am currently updating two tumblr blogs that can always use suggestions and contributors.

http://musicalmagical.tumblr.com/

http://reviewsashaikus.tumblr.com/

If you're on Tumblr, follow me! Maybe I'll follow you in return. :)

Hidden Gems: All I Wanna Do (aka The Hairy Bird/Strike)

I've found that Gawker's a really good place to find something new. This goes for just about everything: books, music, movies, TV shows...

While the articles on this site amalgamation do talk about these different forms of entertainment, one can find some interesting recommendations in the comments, which are often far better for the researcher of precious pieces of art that fell out of range of the pop-culture radar (or at least, my pop-culture radar) dominant in one's time.

The other day I uncovered such a discovery: a reference to a movie this commenter dubbed "The Hairy Bird." I was intrigued, especially since one of the movie's stars is Kirsten Dunst (an actor I'm rather fond of) and centers around an all-girl's school (a setting that I am at least intrigued by, if I haven't watched a lot of movies/read a lot of books about girls' schools). I immediately searched for it online, under the name of "Strike! (All I Wanna Do)"... and in the title credits it's called "All I Wanna Do"...with a vaguely pubic peach-colored bird prancing around the names in the cartoon opening. Why it goes by so many titles, I'm not sure...and I'm not really a fan of any of them.



The premise: in the 1960s, an all-girl's school is about to go co-ed due to a lack of funds, and several of the girls object to this change. Thus, they plot to thwart the Board's plans, which include making the boys of the school they're to merge with look like their true selves--that is, assholes.

I liked the movie a lot. It's an adventurous girls' school comedy that endorses empowering, testosterone-free havens of learning for girls--and presents that case in a compelling way. While there are a few tropes typical of this kinds of movie (the girls rebel, there's a prissy stuck-up foil who's picked on by the protagonists, and all wrongs are righted in the end, and rather quickly), All I Wanna Do stood out drastically from a lot of the other high school movies I've seen. Not least because female solidarity and sexuality were central themes.

The cast is, naturally, predominantly female, the teenaged girls are horny (even in 1961!) and not ashamed to admit it. The characters also had other interests besides boys, and most had careers in mind for their post-secondary plans. Dunst's character could be labeled the "mean girl;" but her meanness has a different motive. And in the end, she grows and changes--not a comeuppance. Of course, her status as a "mean girl" is more attributable to her role as a clever mischief-maker than as one of the "popular girls." She and the primary protagonist do become friends, after all. The one characterization I had specific issue with was that of Heather Matarazzo's (of Princess Diaries and Welcome to the Dollhouse recognition), who played a girl who obviously suffered from disordered eating, if not bulimia--and the others, who were supposed to be friends, treated it like it was just some weird diet. Granted, they probably didn't know how bad eating disorders really were in the 60s, but a tad bit of sensitivity would have helped. (On the other hand, her roommate, another not-conventially-pretty character, was much more self-confident)

But what truly shines is the dialogue. In addition to the kooky catchphrases like "up your ziggy with a wa-wa brush", the characters express thoughts pertaining to the larger themes of the movie in realistic ways... even if they came off as a little obvious. I had not really thought about how co-education marginalized women for decades because the boys were too often considered the smarter, more capable, and more valuable members of the classroom, as they were the ones who were expected to go to college and have a career. At an all-girl's school, girls were better able to learn because they weren't being ignored. It made me think, and further sympathize with the protagonists. As stuffy as the girls' school was, they were all up against the man--quite literally.

Plus this movie's really funny. I give it four out of five stars for sheer uniqueness and entertainment value!