Edward Burns and (especially) Megan Fox need to fire their publicists. Friends With Kids gets a poster, with only six of the eight billed stars.

There are six top-billed actors in this film, and six of them appear on the poster.  The two missing actors are, of course, Megan Fox and Edward Burns.  Should we take any particular meaning to Fox's exclusion from the poster?  Burns hasn't been a 'name' since the mid-1990s, but Fox, come what may, remains a publicity machine.  I could speculate on whether or not Lionsgate is afraid that Fox's presence will scare off the older moviegoers that this film is surely targeting, but it would be just that - speculation.  Anyway, the film drops on March 9th, so we'll see.

Scott Mendelson

Burying the lead - Dreamworks Animation to make CGI/traditional hybrid!

The Hollywood Reporter is um... reporting that Dreamworks has lined it the three main vocal cast members for a newly-announced upcoming animated film.  The picture, entitled Me and My Shadow, concerns the plight of a shadow (Bill Hader) who grows tired of being attached to human Stanley Grubb (Josh Gadd). To quote the piece, "When a crime in the shadow community puts both of their lives in danger, Stan is forced to take control of Stanley, thrusting both of them into an adventure featuring a shadowy villain, who intends to lead a rebellion to take over the human world."  Kate Hudson will play Grubb's would-be love interest and I'll do my best to roll my eyes at a female character once again being merely described as 'the love interest'.  It will be directed by Mark Dindal, who is best known for directing the best non-Pixar animated film of the 2000s, The Emperor's New Groove (edit - I was too focused on American toons.  Spirited Away is arguably one of the best animated films ever).  Anyway, Me and My Shadow comes out November 13th, 2013.  What is buried halfway down the article is this golden nugget, something that should make animation fans take notice of this project in a big way:

"The movie will mix up CG and traditional animation (the shadow world will be handrawn while the human world will be CG), which the studio hopes will be pioneering and create an experience not seen before."  

Yup, that's right.  Ten years after the costly Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (budget - $60 million, worldwide gross - $80 million) marked the end for 2D 'hand-drawn' animation at the House of Katzenberg, traditional animation will be getting somewhat of a reprieve.  As it is, I actually stumbled upon Sinbad late last year and watched it for the first time.  It's not so much a *bad* movie as it is a somewhat slight one, a relatively small-scale adventure film concerning only a few major characters and with only a couple fine second-act action sequences to merit a mild recommendation.  But watching it did remind me of the genuine pleasures of 'hand-drawn' animated films, the way that gravity seems to apply only enough to give the various acts of daring do an appropriate physical weight.  What is also reminded me of was the pre-Little Mermaid era, when Disney cartoons weren't expected to be world-conquering blockbusters, merely solid entertainment for family audiences.  Sinbad's primary vice (other than casting Brad Pitt in a role that's tailor-made for Kevin Kline) was arguably is status as 'Dreamworks's big 2003 cartoon', with the $60 million price-tag (ah, when THAT was considered a big budget cartoon!) that came with it.

I'm certainly no snob against CGI animation (what was my favorite film of the year again?), but I do wish there was a bigger place for hand-drawn alongside CGI in large-scale animated features.  Anyway, Me and My Shadow can bring traditional animation out of the dungeon where it's rested since Disney's 2004 toon Home On the Range, where not even the $267 million worldwide gross of The Princess and the Frog could free it, then Dreamworks will have done the medium a genuine service.

Scott Mendelson

PRESS RELEASE: The Avengers to be released in IMAX (3D)

Not much to add here, but this is hardly a surprise.  Of course, now filmgoers like me who love IMAX have to hope that the converted 3D effects are actually halfway decent (Green Lantern is the high-water mark in this not terribly distinguished field).  Anyway, Marvel and Disney are clearly aiming gunning for the opening weekend record on May 4th, the same weekend where Spider-Man ($114 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($151 million) broke said record in 2002 and 2007.  What are your thoughts?  Are you a big enough fan of IMAX to justify watching yet-another live-action film that was shot in 2D but converted to 3D?  Or will your primary goal be finding the biggest 2D screen you can find?  Oh, and if I had known that the 3D poster above actually worked as 3D, I would have posted it last week (sometimes 3D embeds don't work on Blogger).  Anyway, it's a snazzy poster and I'll only add that poor Scarlett Johansson looks like that kid standing way back in the outfield hoping/praying that no one hits the baseball to her.  The full press release is after the jump.

Scott Mendelson

MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS TO BE RELEASED IN IMAX^®3D ON MAY 4, 2012

Los Angeles, CA – Jan. 31, 2012 – IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX; TSX:IMX) Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Studios today announced that the epic super hero adventureMarvel’s The Avengers will be digitally re-mastered into the immersive IMAX^® 3D format and released in IMAX^® digital theatres worldwide day-and-date on May 4, 2012.

Marvel’s The Avengers, based on the well-known Marvel comic book series, is written and directed by Joss Whedon and stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson.

     

Distributed by The Walt Disney Studios, Marvel’s The Avengers: An IMAX 3D Experience marks the third Marvel Studios film presented in IMAX, following the releases of Iron Man 2: The IMAX Experience in 2010 and Thor: An IMAX 3D Experience in 2011.

Marvel’s The Avengers is the second tentpole film from Walt Disney Pictures to be confirmed as part of IMAX’s 2012 film slate.  John Carter, which will be released on March 9, will play for 3 weeks in IMAX film theatres and 2 weeks in IMAX’s digital network.

“This highly anticipated gathering of Marvel’s epic superheroes combined with the brilliant vision of Joss Whedon is sure to wow audiences when presented in IMAX 3D,” said Greg Foster, Chairman and President of IMAX Filmed Entertainment.  “The Avengers is a perfect film to kick off our 2012 summer slate and we anticipate this limited IMAX engagement will be a must-see for fans around the world.”

The IMAX release of Marvel’s The Avengers will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX 3D Experience^® with proprietary IMAX DMR^® (Digital Re-mastering) technology. The crystal-clear images coupled with IMAX's customized theatre geometry and powerful digital audio create a unique environment that will make audiences feel as if they are in the movie.

Weekend Box Office (01/29/11): The Grey tops, while One For the Money and Man On a Ledge somewhat stumble.

In a somewhat refreshing turn of events, this weekend had three wide releases, all budgeted below $45 million and all technically geared towards adults.  And for the fourth straight weekend this month, an R-rated new release topped the box office yet again.  The top film of the weekend was Joe Carnahan's wilderness survival drama, The Grey.  The Liam Neeson vehicle, concerning plane crash survivors struggling to fend off death by various forms of nature (including wolves), opened with a solid $20 million.  Yes, that's slightly below the $21 million debut of Unknown and the $24 million debut of Taken around this time in 2011 and 2009, but those films were PG-13 while The Grey was rated R.  The picture scored a B- from Cinemascore, which is not surprising.  On one hand, it's a good movie, a thoughtful and introspective mediation on several men coming to terms with their forthcoming demise.  On the other hand, the film was sold as an action picture featuring Liam Neeson fighting wolves with his bare hands.  Without going into spoilers, that's not entirely accurate.  Still the film obviously has fans, as the picture scored a relatively rare 3x weekend multiplier.  Anyway, the film cost Open Road Films just $35 million, so this should be a solid moneymaker for the mini distributor even if the somewhat false advertising causes it to drop hard next weekend.

Coming in at third place was the second new release,  Katherine Heigl's, One For the Money.  The long-delayed adaptation of the first of seventeen Stephanie Plum novels was not screened for critics, and the Friday morning smack-down seemed to imply that Lionsgate chose wisely.  Despite awful reviews, poor buzz, and inexplicable tracking that predicted the film to open with just $5 million (huh?), the picture opened on the low end of Katherine Heigl's standard opening weekend comfort zone, with $11.7 million.  Say what you will about Heigl and her taste in projects, but she is an opener.  Killers with Ashton Kutcher opened to $16 million, Life As We Know It opened with $14.5 million last year and New Year's Eve (an ensemble piece where she was arguably the biggest box office star).  And the novels have been around since 1994, so whomever at Lionsgate was able to convince the pundits that the picture was only going to open with $5 million deserves a raise for successful management of expectations.  Now the meme is that the film 'over-performed' despite opening lower than any prior Katherine Heigl-as-lead movie in her relatively short career as a movie star.  Anyway, the film cost $40 million, so whether or not we see a sequel will depend on legs and overseas business.

The third and final new release was a qualified whiff.  The Summit Entertainment release, Man On a Ledge, opened with $8.3 million.  It's basically a B-movie thriller filled with the kind of stars that audiences have heard of but not the kind that put butts in the seats (Sam Worthington, Ed Harris, Anthony Mackie, Elizabeth Banks, etc).  But the picture cost $40 million, which is a bit much for a film without any real box office draws, so the film will have to have inexplicably strong overseas numbers to make a profit anytime soon.  On the plus side, Summit has plenty of foreign pre-sales locked up, and it's the sort of film that will play on TNT for the next 300 years.  For what it's worth, the film scored a B+ from Cinemascore, played 50% female, with 70% under 35 years old.  Of note in this case is the strange fact that Lionsgate now owns Summit Entertainment, a partnership that happened so fast that there was no time to move the respective release dates this weekend.  This will be a problem as several Summit releases will be going head-to-head with Lionsgate releases over 2012.  Another bit of trivia... both of the above films did have a promotion with discount-coupon site.  Groupon was offering discount tickets for One For the Money while Social Living with paired with Man On A Ledge. Whether or not that affected the weekend take (more tickets purchased due to the discount, although studios report the full value of all tickets sold) is not information I am privy to, but it is worth mentioning none-the-less.

 There's frankly not much to report in holdover news, so I'll try to keep this short.  Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol not only crossed the $200 million mark in the US this weekend, it surpassed the $545 million worldwide gross of Mission: Impossible II to become Tom Cruise's second-biggest worldwide hit.  The $591 cume for War of the Worlds is still within reach, possibly by the end of next weekend (it's at $571 million today).  With a surprise Best Picture Oscar nomination, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close dropped a decent 28% in weekend two.  The picture has $21 million in its second weekend of wide release and will surpass its $25 million budget this coming week.  The biggest beneficiary of Oscar nominations was The Descendants, which added 1400 new screens and jumped up 176% for a $6.5 million weekend.  The Alexander Payne-helmed George Clooney drama now has $58 million, which means it will surely surpass the $72 million gross for Sideways and probably the $81 million gross for Up in the Air.  The Artist may be the presumptive front runner for Best Picture, but it is still struggling past $15 million (it grossed $3.3 million this weekend and now has $16 million) and may not break $30 million even with the win.  Still, the film cost just $15 million so it will make money in the end, especially with overseas business factored in.  War Horse now has $75 million, Hugo has $98 million, while Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has amassed $20 million.

All three of last weekend's releases took hardy drops.  Haywire tumbled hardest, falling 55% in weekend two for a $4 million second weekend and a $15.5 million ten-day total.  It may not even reach its $23 million production budget, although the arty Steven Soderbergh action picture should have better luck overseas.  Red Tails dropped a decent 44%, for a $10.4 million second weekend.  With $32 million after ten days, the film may will likely recoup its $58 million production budget domestically.  Here's hoping that Fox can work its overseas magic.  Last weekend's box office champ, Underworld: Awakening, dropped an encouraging 50% in weekend two, for a $12.5 million second weekend and a ten day total of $44.6 million.  All three figures are high-water marks for the Underworld franchise, meaning that this should easily be the biggest grosser in the series even without that overseas 3D bump we discussed last weekend.  It's already pretty much matched the $45 million total gross of Rise of the Lycans, while it barely trails the $51 million total domestic gross of the first Underworld and is catching up to the final $62 million domestic gross of Underworld: Evolution.  In other news, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sits with $98 million, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows crossed the $180 million mark, Beauty and the Beast crossed $40 million, and Contraband sits with $56 million.

That's it for this weekend.  Join us next time when CBS Films debuts the Daniel Radcliffe period ghost story The Woman In Black, Fox releases the 'found-footage' super hero drama Chronicle, and Universal marshals Drew Barrymore, Kristen Bell, Dermot Mulroney, Ted Danson, Stephen Root, Tim Blake Nelson, and Rob Riggle to save a beached whale in Big Miracle.  Until then, take care and keep reading.

Scott Mendelson

Review: Tony Kaye's Detachment (2012) paints a grim picture of public education.

Detachment
2012
100 minutes
rated R
Opens in limited release on March 16th

by Scott Mendelson

Most of the ideas in Tony Kaye's Detachment are not revolutionary, especially not to anyone who has followed the last thirty years of debate regarding the public education system in America (Jonathan Kozel's many works of nonfiction come to mind).  And while the story is told in a style that sometimes veers in art-house cliche (sepia-toned flashbacks, first-person testimonial to an unseen listener, hand-held claustrophobia, etc), the picture is in the end devastating via its almost objective presentation of the issues at hand.  Sure, Kaye is saying, we know that public schools are underfunded, understaffed, and stuck with various federal mandates and (worst of all, argues Kaye) a deluge of unmotivated students whose parents only take an interest when it comes to rebutting disciplinary measures. But told through the eyes of a substitute teacher who is far more caring than he wants to be, the picture wonders why we're so accepting a system that doesn't seem to be all that successful for any number of American youths.

The plot is pretty simple: Henry Barthes (Adrien Brody) is starting an extended gig as a substitute teacher in an unnamed public high school.  Through his eyes we see the frustration, bitterness, cynicism, and acceptance of his full-time colleagues (played by, among others, James Caan, Lucy Liu, Christina Hendricks, and William Peterson, Blythe Danner, Tim Blake Nelson, and Marcia Gay Harden).  The primary blame is placed at the feet of seemingly disinterested parents, although programs like No Child Left Behind with its unfunded mandates and reliance on arbitrary test scores as the be all/end all judgement for struggling schools, takes their licks too.  Yes Mr. Barnes does provide token inspiration to his kids, almost despite himself, but it's merely because they take his blunt cynicism as a sign of respect.  This is, at its core, a character study of someone who has long since given up being the great inspiration to young minds, as well as a brutal deconstruction of that entire concept.

Much of what happens borders on cliche, especially when the film leaves the classroom. He struggles with a student who mistakes simple empathy for paternal/romantic affection, bonds with a female member of the faculty, and deals with a dementia-stricken grandparent (Louis Zorich).  But the film works because of the sheer understated power of its frank storytelling.  That last subplot plays out in a stunningly powerful fashion, as Brody's best scene involves offering a token amount of absolution to the dying old man that he really has no business providing.  Even the most absurd thread, which sees the overly compassionate educator basically adopting a child prostitute he meets on the street, plays out with an absolute lack of melodrama and ends in a refreshingly realistic fashion.  Adrien Brody is terrific throughout, anchoring the picture with a precise portrait of a man who doesn't particularly want to save the world, but finds himself so weighed down by his own misery that he occasionally steps up almost by accident.

The film doesn't break any new ground thematically, but that's kind of the point.  We are no longer shocked by the various flaws in the system we use to educate our youngsters and yet we constantly take offense at the idea that so many young people seem to have misplaced priorities and/or don't feel that they are valued by society at large.  What sticks with you are individual moments.  Isiah Whitlock Jr. has a blistering scene as a bureaucrat lecturing the faculty about how low test scores are only important because they decrease property values.  Brody has a wonderful bit in the second act where he explicitly lays out why his young charges should actually give a damn about their own education.  And Lucy Liu has one of the best scenes of her career when she finally explodes at a young girl whose only ambition is to hang out with her boyfriend and 'do some modeling'.

The film loses a few points due to allow Hendricks's character to serve primarily as a romantic foil, and then allow her to make a rather inexplicable judgment call, as well as a climax that feels the need to bring finality to a story that shouldn't have a natural 'conclusion'.  But overall, Detachment works as a powerful character study and a searing indictment of the institutional disinterest in education that allows seemingly dedicated educators to eventually become as much a problem as a solution.  Whether taken as gospel or inflated allegory, Detachment is a powerful piece of art.

grade: A-                      

Finding Nemo, Pixar's best film, gets a 3D trailer...

It's not my favorite Pixar film.  That honor goes, on a given day, to either Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, or The Incredibles.  But Finding Nemo may be Pixar's most objectively perfect movie.  It is a distillation of the core Pixar theme: surviving in safety vs. living in danger.  It hits every emotional note and every comedic bit just right and works on two entirely different levels for kids and adults.  Kids find it funny as hell, while adults (especially parents I'd argue) find it moving as hell.  The film is just under nine years old, which means that there is an entire generation of young kids that doesn't even realize that the film has a prologue involving mass murder (a fact hilariously noted in an episode of The Simpsons last year, when Milhouse discovered the horror of the never-seen 'chapter 01' on his DVD).  Allison discovered the movie two years ago, it was the first full-length theatrical feature she ever sat down and watched with us, as well as the first film she wanted to watch multiple times (Allison being Allison, she almost immediately asked where Nemo's mommy was).  So I suppose the question is, will you see the 3D-converted version of Finding Nemo when it debuts in theaters on September 14th, 2012?  And if you have very young children, do you start the film on the first or second chapter when the kids want to watch it?

Scott Mendelson   

Review: Kill List (2012) is an experiment in genre-switch that fails to truly engage.

Kill List
2012
95 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Ben Wheatly's Kill List suffers from the believe that it is far more clever and original than it actually is.  It earns points for not exactly beginning and ending in the same genre, but the journey is frankly not worth the destination.  The film is technically a dime-a-dozen crime story about a hit man trying to do a job under trying circumstances.  Where it goes in the third act I will not reveal (although don't look too closely at the poster), but the majority of the film is taken up by somewhat cliched characters and relatively unengaging drama  Only the uncommonly gruesome violence, delivered in a clinical and brutal fashion, serves to distinguish the picture.  Even the third-act turn, while somewhat organic and slightly clever, loses points for eventually ending in an almost identical fashion to another 'extreme' horror drama from last year.


The plot, to wit, concerns two veteran hit-men on a job to kill three targets.  Jay (Neil Maskell) is recovering from a botched job a year ago, and his wife (MyAnna Buring) is giving him grief over financial obligations.  Joining him in this new and seemingly promising assignment is Gal (Michael Smiley), who is there as much to chaperone his old friend as do the job in question.  But as the body count rises and Jay and Sam's new employers keep upping the stakes, Jay's mentally instability threatens everything, including the safety of those around him.  That's all you need plot-wise, so I'll stop there.  But despite its billing as a crime thriller, the strongest portion of the film is actually the series of domestic arguments that make up much of the first third.
The bitter and authentic disputes between Jay and his wife Shel frankly are more compelling than the rote 'let's go find our targets and kill them' motions that follow.

There are moments that pique the viewer's interest, among them when at least one of their intended targets seems grateful for his execution, and its clear that writer/director Ben Wheatly (along with co-writer Amy Jump) are playing a relatively novel game.  The film basically exists in three different genres over its three acts.  In short, they are trying to make a film from specific genres that doesn't reveal itself as said genre until the characters realize it as well.  But good intentions don't make up for a somewhat faulty delivery.  Much of the second act is downright dull and monotonous, while the third act will leave the viewer alternately amused at the outcome and checking off the films where they've seen this material before.  Wheatly elicits solid performances from his cast, and its clear that he has the technical chops to excel somewhere down the line.


Kill List is an ambitious miss, a good and clever idea with no real energy of its own, a certain slack pace, and little to keep us entertained in the middle hour besides moments of graphic violence.  I appreciate and like the movie that Kill List wanted to be far more than the movie it is.

Grade: C

The lesson for this year's Oscar nominations? Don't be an R-rated film!

For a list of the complete nominations, go HERE.  As always, click on the movies with links for the original theatrical review.  I write a lot about the inexplicable trend of how the various year-end awards groups only consider 'appropriate' movies to be considered awards-material.  There is and always has been a certain disdain for populist entertainment, a trend that's only gotten worse as the independent film movement exploded in the early 1990s and the year-end Oscar bait-calender got more jam-packed over the last five weeks of the year.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II may have received almost unanimously rave reviews (96% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), but it doesn't count because it was a big-budget fantasy drama that is considered 'popular' entertainment.  Bridesmaids may have been one of the most successful R-rated comedies of recent years, a well-reviewed (90% on Rotten Tomatoes) comedy that may have been a game-changer in terms of how mass-market female-driven entertainments are viewed in terms of their commercial potential.  But no, it's not a character-driven dramedy that's one of the best films of the year, it's just that 'women shit in a sink' movie, so it's not worthy.  But a drama with Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock that's gasp... about 9/11?!  That's EXACTLY the kind of film that is supposed to be among the year's best, right?  And so it is that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a film with a 48% positive ranking on Rotten Tomatoes and a 46% score on Metacritic is now considering by the Academy to be one of the nine best films of the year.

Other than that insane nomination, today's Oscar nominations were a generally inoffensive bunch (I kinda hate Midnight In Paris, but it's a mid-summer release that plenty of people absolutely love).  The most surprising and egregious omissions were in the Original Screenplay category, where 50/50, Young Adult, and Win/Win didn't make the cut, losing out to surprise (and worthy) contenders Margin Call and A Seperation.  I would have tossed Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris script and The Artist, but that was never going to happen (alas, Allen is likely going to win).  The much-discussed voting system for Best Picture, which was intended to yield between five and ten Best Picture nominees (and, in my opinion, unofficially weed out the more mainstream contenders), had an interesting and frankly not terrible effect.  Since there was so much emphasis on a voter's absolute favorite film of the year, what we ended up with are nine films that can indeed be looked at as films the respective voters are passionate about.  A film like Tree of Life generally brought about a love/hate it attitude, but those that loved it were likely to consider it among their very favorites of the year, so it made the cut.  Moneyball is arguably a slight surprise, but again, there was a passionate 'this is the best film of the year' following.  Having a small niche in the Academy that loved it was more useful this year than merely being liked by everyone.  Which I guess explains the nomination for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but geez (I guess I have to see it now...).  At least my wild speculation last November may have been on the mark.

Unless you're Sasha Stone of Awards Daily, you probably didn't *love* The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, so it (rightfully) ended up honored for its one excellent element, Rooney Mara's star turn.  The Best Actress category is one of several where you could almost an entire alternate category under 'damn-well should have been nominated' (Charlize Theron, Kristen Wiig, Tilda Swinton, Kristen Dunst, and Elizabeth Olsen).  Happy semi-surprises popped up in the Best Actor category, with Demian Bichir scoring for his terrific lead performance in A Better Life and Gary Oldman scoring his first (!) Oscar nomination for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  As a result, Michael Fassbender lost out on what seemed a surefire nod for his star turn in Shame.  Less expected but still disappointing was Michael Shannon's failure to get a nod, in fact the entire shut-out of Take Shelter. Also annoying but expected was the nomination for Jessica Chastain (that's good) for The Help (again... Take friggin Shelter!!), meaning that The Help scored three acting noms (along with Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer) along with its Best Picture nomination (for the record, I like the movie and am glad that at least one critically-acclaimed populist entertainment made the cut).  In good news semi-surprises, Nick Nolte overcame Warrior's dreadful box office to score a much-deserved Best Supporting Actor nomination.  I hope he wins.

In somewhat refreshing news, Clint Eastwood's lukewarm J. Edgar was completely shut-out, due to the fact that no one really liked it (The Iron Lady, which is even worse, should have suffered the same fate). In a somewhat surprising turn, two animated films that no one has ever heard of, A Cat In Paris and Chico and Rita, took the two Best Animated Film slots that were supposed to be reserved for Pixar's Cars 2 and Steven Spielberg's motion-capture adventure The Adventures of Tintin.  I didn't like either film, but the omission of the popular Tintin again shows the Academy's issues with motion-capture both as a tool for animation and a form of acting (it's both, people...).  In other words, Andy Serkis's performance in Rise of the Planet of the Apes never had a shot.  Still, War Horse's deserved Best Picture nomination hopefully made up for Tintin's theoretical slight.  On the plus side, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots snuck in alongside presumptive favorite Rango.  Weirdly, the original song category had only two nominations.  "Real In Rio" (from Rio) and the now-presumptive favorite "Man or Muppet" (from The Muppets).  Ironically, in a year filled with films centered around nostalgia, the two that viewed nostalgia the most critically, The Muppets and Young Adult, were both mostly shut-out (and the most unchallenging of the bunch, The Artist, is probably going to win).

There were five nominees for Best Visual Effects, and I was heartened to see the terrific special effects for Transformers: Dark of the Moon sneak in despite the general (and somewhat justified) critical distaste for the franchise.  Somewhat surprising was the inclusion of Real Steel, with its surprisingly low-key robot-boxing effects work.  Along with presumptive favorite Rise of the Planet of the Apes, two of the five nominees were films that cost under $100 million.  The other two were Hugo (which led all films with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, arguably all deserved) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II (the latter of which only scored the usual three technical nods, along with Best Make-Up and Best Art Direction).

Overall,  the biggest disappointment was the lack of much outside-the-box thinking.  There was no Alan Rickman Best Supporting Actor nomination, no Kristen Wiig Best Actress nomination, no love for art-house darlings like Take Shelter or Martha Marcy May Marlene, a complete shut-out for Young Adult, and no real momentum for critically-acclaimed populist entertainment like the aforementioned Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II or Bridesmaids.  Heck, with as much respect as possible for Melissa McCarthy (who did her job and got laughs), her nomination as the biggest representation of the film is almost a slap against it, as a film filled with realistic and three-dimensional female characters received its only major acting nomination for its most over-the-top and least realistic character. If you want to see McCarthy ace a more three-dimensional role that doesn't base most of its humor around her unconventional (for Hollywood) appearance, track down The Nines.

And while I have no love for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it's exclusion along with Bridesmaids and Young Adult from the Best Picture category sends a clear 'only one token girl movie allowed' message.  You're going to read a lot of essays over the next week about how the Academy embraced a bunch of uplifting 'feel-good' movies over darker fare.  And frankly that's bunk, based on the misconception that The Help and War Horse are actually feel-good movies, rather than the pessimistic downers that they are (but then, there are people who actually think Precious has a happy ending too...).  What is clear is that the Academy basically ignored R-rated movies, as The Descendants was the only R-rated Best Picture nominee this year.  And if you look at those that theoretically could have made the cut (Young Adult, Bridesmaids, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Margin Call, Take Shelter, The Ides of March, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II, etc) nearly every single one of them was R-rated.

In a year when the once-dreaded MPAA rating made somewhat of a comeback, it is disheartening to see that  'adult films' pretty much got shut out not just in the Best Picture category but in many of the major categories as well.  Scrolling down the big six categories, only Albert Noobs (2 acting nods), Beginners (1 acting nod for Christopher Plummer), Margin Call (1 screenplay nod), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (1 acting nomination), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1 acting and 1 screenplay nod), Bridesmaids (1 acting and 1 screenplay nod), and The Descendants (4 nominations) were R-rated films, with a total of 13 out of a possible 44 nomination slots.  It would seem that the lesson this year is that if you want a shot at Oscar glory, make sure your film is rated PG-13 or PG...  Anyway, for my own personal year-in-review lists, go here.  As always, share your thoughts below.  What was the happiest surprise nod, and the most depressing omission?

Scott Mendelson    

Weekend Box Office (01/22/11): Underworld: Awakenings and Red Tails score. while Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Haywire falter slightly.

 Like clockwork, the fourth entry in the ongoing Underworld franchise debuted in the third weekend of January to take the top spot at the box office with a $20 million+ debut.  While the original opened in September of 2003, the rest of the films have all used the mid-January berth every three years.  As so it is that Underworld: Awakenings (trailer) debuted with $25.4 million this weekend.  In pure numbers, that's the second biggest debut of the series, behind the $30 million opening of Underworld: Evolution back in 2006.  But in terms of inflation/tickets sold/etc, it's actually a bit under the $22 million debut ($28 million adjusted for inflation) of the original Underworld.  Considering the last entry, Rise of the Lycans, was a stripped-down prequel lacking franchise star Kate Beckinsale, it's arguably more fair to compare this fourth entry to the first two films in the series.  As such, it's slightly lacking. The budget was $70 million (way up from parts 1 and 3, which cost just #22 million and $35 million respectively, and a bit up from the second film's $50 million budget) and the film had a theoretical 3D price-bump, yet the results weren't even up to the series's peak.  Still, Sony is playing a different game this time around...

The comparison that Sony hopes to emulate is not to the prior Underworld films (only the second of which crossed $100 million worldwide), but the late-2010 Sony release Resident Evil: Afterlife.  That too was a series that  had a bit budget increase on the fourth film as well as the 3D gimmick.  The previous three films in that series had done between $41 and $50 million in domestic box office and between $102 and $147 million worldwide.  The fourth entry pulled in $60 million domestic off a series-high $26 million debut, but it earned an absolutely stunning $296 million worldwide thanks to massive overseas numbers.  As I've noted any number of time elsewhere (like HERE and HERE), 3D is still a major factor in overseas markets, where 2D options are less plentiful and 3D films are that-much harder to pirate.  Sony would like for Underworld: Awakenings to surpass the $62 million gross of Underworld: Evolution, but merely surpassing that film's $111 million worldwide take won't justify the $70 million budget this time around.  Sony is playing a risky game, that those who flocked to one female-driven science-fiction action franchise that happens to be in 3D the fourth time around will flock to another with equal verve. So in this case, like a number of summer tent pole films, the domestic numbers are almost beside the point (it's done $13 million overseas thus far).  But for what it's worth, the film played 59% 3D, 15% IMAX, and 7% other 'large-screen' venues.  Meaning that just 28% of the audience watched Underworld IV in regular 35mm 2D.

 

The next big opener was the surprisingly solid debut for Red Tails (review).  The Lucasfilm-produced Tuskegee Airmen action drama debuted with a pretty terrific $19.1 million.  The longtime passion project for George Lucas was a rarity in today's marketplace, a big budget ($58 million) action film centered entirely around an African-American cast.  Even with the financial strength of six Star Wars films, Lucas was unable to get funding for the film, so he dipped into his own pockets to produce and market the picture while allowing 20th Century Fox to distribute.  The success or failure of this one will depend on legs and word of mouth (it apparently received an A from Cinemascore), but the 3.1x weekend multiplier bodes well.  As expected, the film was marketed heavily in African American communities and the opening weekend was apparently made up partially from African American schoolkids who had been bused to matinee showings.  Fair or not, the film will likely be seen as a test case for larger-budget genre fare starring African Americans, so it's worth rooting for even if you liked the movie less than I did.

The last wide-release opening was Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, which opened with $9 million.  The film cost just $23 million and was the experimental auteur's foray into pure action film making. The gimmick is that he cast a completely untested actress name Gina Corano, whose prior claim to fame is being an MMA champion.  Point being, she most certainly can and does fight convincingly onscreen, but she can't act worth a damn and everyone knows it.  One of the perverse pleasures of the film is watching Soderbergh cut around and otherwise obscure the performance of his lead character, whose lack of acting ability really isn't her fault (she's not an actress, she's a professional ass-kicker).  The film received a D+ from Cinemascore, which is a bit surprising.  It surely is an artier and more at-arms-length clinical kind of action picture, but it certainly delivers the goods (my brother-in-law, who isn't exactly a hardcore fan of stereotypical art house cinema, loved it).  Anyway, after the explosive success of Contagion ($135 million worldwide on a $60 million budget), Soderbergh has some leeway to play around a bit.

The other major debut was the wide-release of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (review).  The Tom Hanks/Sandra Bullock post-9/11 drama has been playing in six theaters since Christmas day. The film pulled down an okay $10.5 million in its first weekend of wide release.  The would-be Oscar bait film is expected to get mostly shut out on Tuesday, so the $25 million drama will have to get by on old-fashioned word-of-mouth and/or star power.  In holdover news, Contraband (essay) had a mediocre 49% drop in weekend two, ending its tenth day with $46 million.  Since the film cost just $25 million to produce, this is an unmitigated win for Mark Wahlberg and Universal.  Beauty and the Beast 3D (review) dropped a harsh 51% for a $8.5 million second weekend.  That's not nearly as strong as the 26% drop for The Lion King 3D (review) last September, but again, these 3D-converted re releases are pretty much free money.  So a $33 million current cume is enough to push the whole movie over the $200 million mark in America.  Joyful Noise dropped 45% in weekend two, giving the $30 million church gospel drama $21.9 million in ten days.

In holiday holdover news, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (review) is just shy of the $200 million mark ($197 million), while Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (review) will cross $180 million this week (it's at $178 million now, having crossed $400 million worldwide late last week).  The Iron Lady took just a 31% drop in weekend two of wide release, giving the film over $12.6 million thus far and a solid foothold when Meryl Streep's inevitable Oscar nomination arrives on Tuesday.  The Descendants (review) and (non-Oscar bait) The Devil Inside have both passed $50 million, while would-be Oscar front runner The Artist (review/essay) now sits with $12 million and should-be frontrunner Hugo (review) just crossed $55 million.   The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (review) now sits with $94 million while both Steven Spielberg films, The Adventures of Tintin (review) and War Horse (review) are at $72 million.  Expect all three to disappear pretty quickly if Oscar doesn't shine on them this week.  Holding somewhat strong despite the likelihood of Oscar love are Young Adult (review) at $16 million and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy (review) with $18 million.  Both darn-well should be leading the pack on Tuesday, but alas...      

That's it for this weekend.  Join us next weekend when Liam Neeson battles snow, cold, and wolves in The Grey, while Katherine Heigl starts what could be a very large franchise with One For the Money (based on the first of seventeen novels featuring bounty hunter Stephanie Plum).  Sam Worthington leads a solid cast (Elizabeth Banks, Anthony Mackie, Ed Harris) in Man on a Ledge.  Expect the usual Oscar nomination whining on Tuesday morning, but otherwise take care.

Scott Mendelson

Pet Peeve of the day: Attention action filmmakers - security guards are people too!

As a whole, Contraband is a pretty unremarkable would-be thriller.  There is almost no real action, and much of the middle act is a series of monotonous scenes of Kate Beckinsale being threatened and/or beaten by Giovanni Ribisi.  While Ribisi's character felt the need to continually antagonize Mark Wahlberg's family after Wahlberg has already agreed to do the crime in question is to be debated, since you'd think you wouldn't want to antagonize the professional criminal who is being entrusted with your precious cargo.  Anyway, Wahlberg is the classic 'former criminal gone straight' archetype, complete with a loving wife and kids.  If I my spoil the not-so shocking ending of the picture (...SPOILER WARNING...), Contraband ends on a mostly happy note, with Wahlberg having gotten away with the crime, protected his family (including his imperiled brother-in-law), and scored a large amount of capital for himself and his crew.  And even though Wahlberg's character is actually an accessory to a mid-film heist that ends in the wanton murder of about half-a-dozen people, he's still an okay guy.  After all, they were just security guards.

The first girl I dated in college was a young woman whose father was a security driver for some financial institution or another.  I never met the man, but if I ever had I would have been tempted to ask him about how those in his profession are treated like absolutely expendable bugs on a windshield.  Starting with Die Hard (where Alexander Godunov popped two guards at the very start of the Nakatomi Plaza takeover) and continuing through any number of Die Hard rip-offs over the last 24 years, few action films about terrorists are complete without an opening siege that sees the point-blank execution of any number of security people as the villains make their way to their base of hostage-taking/weapons-hijacking.  And almost never are these hapless souls actually mourned by anyone else in the picture.  Half the time they are literally forgotten as the film gets into gear.  And what of their expendability in various hard-boiled crime pictures?  We hear over and over again how top-notch Robert De Niro's heist team is in Michael Mann's Heat.  Yet the first time we see them pull a job, they end up having to whack all three truck guards purely to show that Kevin Gage is kinda crazy (note - this also happens in Mann's 1987 film LA Takedown, which Heat is a remake of).  Last time I checked, unless you were a terrorist or a hit-man, I'm pretty sure your reputation as a professional criminal was judged by how few corpses you left behind and, as is the case here, how well you chose your associates.  But because the people whom De Niro's crew bumps off are security guards as opposed to cops and/or traditionally innocent bystanders, they retain their 'expert criminals' ranking until they start screw up their big downtown LA bank robbery at the end of act two.  Even more disconcerting is when the hero of a film slaughters such security personal as indiscriminately as the bad guys, but keeps their nobility because it's for a 'just cause' (think The Matrix or Prince of Persia).

 Not every dead body has to be accounted for in every action film or crime drama.  Not every slain member of the 'good guys' requires a funeral.  But the sheer brazenness in which the security guard above all other classifications of people in film, is randomly and brutally murdered without consequence is and always has been a bit disconcerting.  It's basically a cheap tactic to amp up the body count without killing any major characters or too many hostages over the course of the film.  When 'heroes' like Contraband's Mark Wahlberg escape legal culpability or even moral denouncement when they stand by without commentary while their buddies commit such murders, when films like Live Free Or Die Hard feature the point-blank execution of countless such security personal while keeping its PG-13 rating, when any number of films both good and bad (Speed, Hellboy, Demolition Man, etc) treat such murders as 'no big deal',  the message being sent is that bank guards, armored truck drivers and other such protectors don't really count as full-fledged human beings on the scale of movie morality.  Thus ends the pet peeve of the day... Feel free to share your thoughts below.  Do you know anyone who works in security and if so, have they ever complained about the large-scale body count that their profession has racked up onscreen?

Scott Mendelson                 

Review: Red Tails (2012) is a low-key, mostly entertaining history lesson/B-movie.

Red Tails
2012
120 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

The strongest aspect of director Anthony Hemingway and producer George Lucas's Red Tails is that it lives in a somewhat Utopian film industry where African-American dramas aren't all that big of a deal.  The picture may have an unfair burden of proving the bankability of larger-budget ($58 million) genre fare revolving entirely around African Americans, but you don't see that sweat onscreen.  It treats itself not like a test case, or a passion project for one of the more financially successful independent filmmakers of our age, but merely a B-movie action drama that involves actors like Cuba Cooding Jr. Terrence Howard, and David Oyelowo.  Red Tails may be (unfortunately) an anomaly, but those behind and in front of the camera treat this as if it were one of many minority-led historical dramas that open each month at the local multiplex.

The plot, to wit, concerns six Air Force pilots in what was known as the Tuskegee program, along with two superior officers (played by Gooding Jr. and Howard).  The drama on the ground is pretty boiler-plate stuff, although it's delivered with such a low-key, no-nonsense fashion that it works by not slathering on the melodrama for cheap emotional points. Terence Blanchard's score does not overemphasize every emotional cue and there is a bare minimum of what might otherwise be considered 'big important speeches'.  You will be surprised at just how many seemingly major dramatic beats are allowed to play out with minimal score, and that includes the major action sequences.  No one will win an Oscar here, and there are quite a few examples of 'on-the-nose' dialogue (most of it delivered by the comparatively hammy white actors), but the leading airmen have a natural and relaxed chemistry that allows us to look past the occasionally clunky dialogue and divergence into cliche.  Only Oyelowo's half-baked romantic subplot represents a true problem, both because it isn't the slightest bit engaging and because it pads the otherwise relatively tight narrative right up to the two hour mark.  Nate Parker's commanding officer has a needless subplot involving alcohol abuse, but it doesn't become a major part of his character.

But as an action film, it is an unmitigated triumph.  There are four major action sequences in this picture, and they are pretty much all rock-solid.  Befitting the man who directed most of the Star Wars films, the aerial battles in Red Tails are pretty superb, with (say it with me now...) long fluid takes and a clear sense of time and place.  The action sequences are cut not for maximum intensity, but clarity and compensation.  Since each mission has a specific goal, the picture explicitly spells out just what the objective is beforehand, allow us to not only follow the individual fighter planes in the sky, but keep track of the broader mission at hand.  Since director Hemingway's prior experience is mostly character-driven television shows (he's directed several episodes of Treme and the 2010 zombie outbreak of Community), one may presume that much of the film's action was spearheaded by Lucas.  But if I'm selling Hemingway short in the technical department, then what it means is that he should start appearing on 'the list' when studios start searching for tent pole directors.    

I liked that the film didn't drown itself in inspiring 'feel-good' moments. I like that the one 'white air-pilots learn to respect their African-American colleagues' is basically played for laughs, and the primary racist antagonist (Bryan Cranston) gets no real comeuppance. I like that it's told exclusively from the point of view of those who actually partook in said missions.  I like that the picture is told with a certain no-nonsense objectivity.  It doesn't rub our noses in the idea that African American soldiers had just as much courage and bled the same blood as their Caucasian counterparts, because it trusts us to already know that should-be obvious fact.  The film is a straight-shot drama about men of color proving themselves in battle when their abilities were in doubt by those in command.  One could argue that its relatively simple characters and thin narrative makes it resemble a B-movie from 1952 and that would be pretty true.  But considering the current Oscar front runner is a film that would probably be considered a B-movie in 1927, I'm not sure that's a fair charge.  Red Tails is a truly old-fashioned drama, but it is told with a lack of pomp and overwrought melodrama that makes it easier to overlook its genuine flaws.

In a just world, Red Tails would be a B-movie that happens to feature an African-American cast, one of many.  Instead, like The Help and Tyler Perry's pictures, it is burdened as the sole representation of what it happens to be.  In this case, it is the rare mid-budget African-American action film.  That so many critics can't let go of their Star Wars prequel bitterness doesn't help either, as Lucas makes the film all-too easy a target.  But Red Tails is a true B-movie, warts and all, that barely works due to its unassuming presentation, relaxed and natural acting from its leads, and some cracker-jack action sequences.  It is not a great film, but it does pass muster as a good movie.

Grade: B-      

The Hunger Games gets a (seemingly) final theatrical one-sheet.

This looks like the final poster and official theatrical one-sheet.  The tagline operates both in relation to the story and Lionsgate's optimistic box office predictions.  This one, arguably one of the higher-profile films of the Spring, drops two months from Monday.  I hope Lionsgate has the courage not to cut another trailer, since their first teaser does a splendid job of not giving away the whole picture.  Anyway, as always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson

Chuck Norris is not the cause, merely an alibi. The irony of a PG-13 Expendables II.

This story broke yesterday (I first read it yesterday morning at Collider), but since it was based on a translation of an interview that actor Chuck Norris gave to a Polish magazine, I thought I'd wait to make sure it wasn't a mistranslation.  But Sylvester Stallone has confirmed to Ain't It Cool News that The Expendables II will indeed be PG-13, although his explanation doesn't specifically blame Mr. Norris.  To wit, here, translated into English, is the 'offending' portion of Chuck Norris's interview:

"In Expendables 2, there was a lot of vulgar dialogue in the screenplay. For this reason, many young people wouldn’t be able to watch this. But I don’t play in movies like this,” Norris explained. “Due to that I said I won’t be a part of that if the hardcore language is not erased. Producers accepted my conditions and the movie will be classified in the category of PG-13."

And here is Sly Stallone's confirmation:

"Harry (Knowles), the film is fantastic with Van Damme turning in an inspired performance... Our final battle is one for the ages. The PG13 rumor is true, but before your readers pass judgement, trust me when I say this film is LARGE in every way and delivers on every level. This movie touches on many emotions which we want to share with the broadest audience possible, BUT, fear not, this Barbeque of Grand scale Ass Bashing will not leave anyone hungry..."

What is strange about this is not that Stallone and his band of 80s and 2000s action stars are catering to the whims of one very over-the-hill action icon, or that Norris thinks that hearing profanity is more harmful to youngsters than watching over-the-top violence (in a pre-Sopranos/24 era, Walker: Texas Ranger was once considered the most violent show on television).  No what's strange is that the first Expendables, judging on the theatrical cut, was clearly intended to be a PG-13 in the first place.  Watching the film back in August 2010, I distinctly remember thinking that this was an awfully soft R, and that up until a certain third-act action sequence involving Stallone with a knife, it appeared that there wasn't going to be all that much R-rated violence at all.  Stallone and company waffled back and forth prior to the film's release about its rating, and I am still convinced to this day that it was always intended to be a PG-13 movie.

As I mentioned in my initial theatrical review, the film is basically a PG-13 action picture with periodic bits of R-rated gore tossed in.  But most of these scenes feel like inserts and many of them are basically stand-alone moments.  For example, the opening gun-battle aboard a cargo chip (which is basically the only first-act action sequence) is relatively bloodless, especially as the night-vision goggles renders much of the violence in various infrared colors.  But the opening salvo of that sequence, when Lundgren blows a guy in half with a projectile weapon, is the only thing about that sequence that merits an R-rating, and its shot and edited in such a way that it could have been easily removed from the film without harming the narrative.  It's a completely stand-alone sequence.  Most of the hard violence is like that, and it all feels like it was either inserted during reshoots or originally shot in such a way that it could be easily altered depending on the ratings requirements.  The big second act sequence (when Statham strafes the 40-some fighters from a plane) has almost no gore to speak of, while the big third-act gore highlight (Stallone rescues Giselle Itie from rape-minded captors via bloody knife-work) can almost completely cut out when the film comes to FX in a year or so (since she ends up as Eric Roberts's hostage in the finale anyway, it's a needless sequence).  

The only extended sequence that would have needed severe altering is the climactic moment when Terry Crews uses a 'bfg' to blow a dozen or so enemy soldiers to smithereens.  And even that moment, if the blood is CGI (which I don't recall) could have been cut around.  Not only is most of the violence the kind of big body count/low gore stylized carnage that can usually skate by with a PG-13, the film isn't exactly filled with profanity.  According to Screen It, there are just 46 instances of any profanity in the 105 minute picture, with only eight F-words during that time.  Frankly, I don't remember hearing a single one, but Screen It is a trusted source on this kind of thing, so I'll only say that I distinctly remember Eric Roberts using the word 'friggin' at least twice in moments of anger.  Point being, you have only eight uses of the word 'fuck'.   I can't say if they were or were not looped in after the fact, or whether they were intended to be looped if need be, but you still have a 'hard R' action movie with only a few real gore highlights, all of which were stand-alone and existing almost out of context with the rest of the picture. Add to that just a smattering of R-rated language and absolutely no sexual content, and it's pretty clear that The Expendables was intended to be a PG-13 picture at least during principal photography.

It is only the strong worldwide success of the first The Expendables that makes Stallone's announcement a surprise.  How much of the excitement over the first picture was actually based on its R-rating I can only speculate, but I would speculate that it didn't hurt in the least.  But Lionsgate and whomever is distributing the picture overseas surely want those under-17 ticket-buyers, especially as it's a sequel and thus likely to draw in those who enjoyed the original regardless of its rating. Chuck Norris just gave them an excuse to neuter the film for theatrical release.  The question is whether they will need his permission to release an R-rated cut on Blu Ray several months later...

Scott Mendelson

Review: Miss Bala (2012) is a jolting and relentless bit of nasty business.

Miss Bala
2012
113 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Gerardo Naranjo's bracing and relatively uncompromising Miss Bala operates on two levels.  On the surface, it is a harrowing descent into a slice of hell, seen through the eyes on a single unwitting participant.  Its genre elements kick into gear at around the fifteen-minute mark and never let up until the sobering conclusion.  As a propulsive exercise, it exists as the kind of 'you are there' experience that would put most 'found-footage' horror films to shame.  But it also exists as a brutal reminder of the absurdity of the ongoing drug war and the deplorable circumstances that exist for women in all-too many countries, as well as the lack of options for escaping said circumstances.  It does not really need the onscreen text that more-or-less spells out its message just as the credits roll.  The film itself operates as a powerful social statement, on top of being a pretty solid thriller.

Since the majority of the film is based in constant tension, woe-be-it for me to divulge anything that occurs past the first reel.  Simply put, the film stars Stephanie Sigman as Laura Guerrero, a young woman in Baja, Mexico who sees participation in a beauty pageant as a gateway out of her poverty-stricken existence.  Following the initial admittance process, she and her friend Suzu decide to celebrate at a local somewhat seedy nightclub.  Soon enough, random chance leaves her a witness to a massacre when drug gangs break into the club and gun down a dozen or so party goers.  Laura escapes from the carnage and makes her way home, only to attempt to track down Suzu, who went missing amid the chaos.  It's at this point that things truly go south, and thus at this point I shall stop discussing the plot.

Once the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan, the picture roars along at an unchecked pace.  But while it's tempting to call it a roller-coaster ride, it's actually something more unnerving.  It's a roller coaster set completely in the dark, with no signs of what will happen next or just what's waiting behind the next corner.  Sigman is in nearly every frame, and her hypnotic performance helps the film avoid turning into a kind of exploitation picture.  The tension sets in as we realize that there really is little that Laura can do or say to affect the outcome other than keep her head just below water and hope for the best.  In a city where corruption is standard, a young woman (especially a young woman) trapped in this maze of horrors is left with no one to turn to even if she does manage to break free.

The picture does threaten to grow slightly monotonous towards the end of the second act, as it comes close to becoming a case of 'okay, what terrible thing is going to happen to Laura and/or what awful thing is she going to have to do next?'.  But the film builds to a genuinely compelling climax, and the final moments aren't so much bracing or head-snapping so much as bitter and sad.  In the end it does work as a pure thriller, albeit not the 'fun' kind.  It also operates as a powerful piece of commentary, explicitly critiquing a system that slaughters tens-of-thousands of Mexicans every year so that Americans (among others) theoretically have a harder time buying drugs.  For people who are already in the grip of poverty, for a gender that often takes disenfranchisement for granted, heaping a genocidal drug war on top of it would be almost comical if the results weren't so catastrophic.

Miss Bala may be a pure stylistic genre exercise at its core, but its thrills and skill is all the more potent for actually having something important to say.

Grade: B+          

Blaming the victim: The problem with Beauty & the Beast isn't Belle but the Beast.

Note -For what it's worth, the 3D conversion left me unimpressed.  If you want to see it, do it because you want to see the picture on the big screen again, not because the 3D conversion adds any real value.  If you want to read a similar retrospective discussion of The Lion King, go HERE.  

I've long joked that I was able to ruin Disney's Beauty and the Beast merely by uttering two words: "Stockholm Syndrome".  Having sampled the film in 3D over the weekend, it remains one of the just-plain weirder Disney cartoons in recent times. It is still a highly entertaining and visually impressive bit of entertainment.  It's easy to see and remember (I was eleven when I saw it the weekend after Thanksgiving in 1991 as part of a double-sneak preview following Father of the Bride) how those who thought of Disney animated films as relative trifles like Robin Hood or Oliver and Company were knocked back by the sheer seriousness and scale on display.  Even more than The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast was arguably the first Disney cartoon since the initial batch (think Pinocchio and Bambi) that felt like a grand-scale MOVIE.  But watching it again, for the second time in two years (I bought the 2D Blu Ray over Hanukkah 2010), there are a few things that bear mentioning, both about the movie itself and the nature of how its critiqued.

First of all, the film serves as a template for how Disney cartoons would be constructed for the next fifteen years or so, give-or-take the influence of Pixar and Dreamworks.  Beauty and the Beast mixes overtly dark and serious subject matter and high drama with almost inappropriately cartoon-ish supporting characters that act as an antidote to the 'tough' moments.  The picture literally bounces from one extreme to another for much of its running time, following up a dark plot-driven scene (such as Belle being imprisoned in the castle) with a light and relatively superfluous moment (Gaston's big song, which exists only for a final moment that sets up a 'Let's get Belle's father committed!' subplot that comes and goes in ten seconds).  The same standard applies for the action finale, which establishes an iron-clad pattern that would be followed in countless later Disney films (The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, A Bug's Life, Mulan, Tarzan, etc).  Namely, the climax has the colorful supporting characters (in this case the various servants/household items) fending off hordes of nameless enemies in a comical and crowd-pleasing fashion while the main protagonist (the Beast) and main antagonist (Gaston) square off in a brutally serious and eventually fatal showdown.  The balancing of tone, which wasn't always perfectly successful in every given picture, was the key that allowed Disney to tell grander, more adult-pleasing stories that still entertained the younger audiences.

But twenty years later, most of the discussion of the picture focuses on the core romantic arc of Belle and her deformed and cursed prince.  As I said above, I often referred to the picture as "Stockholm Syndrome: The Movie", which pretty much sums up the relationship.  On the surface, the young and beautiful Belle is imprisoned by the monstrous beast and rather quickly comes to love him as he gradually begins to go from captor to protector, friend, and then finally theoretical lover.  Feminist scholars have long argued that the film sends a terrible message to audiences (especially young girls) by basically showcasing an abusive and power-imbalanced relationship as some kind of ideal fairy-tale romance.  While the film is no feminist triumph, it's a little more complicated than that.  Looking back on the film again, the picture does a strong job in the first act setting up Belle as someone who might actually fall for said scenario even without the kind of social conditioning that exists in a captor/captive situation.  Belle is shown as being so unhappy with her 'provincial life' that it stands to reason that she may be susceptible to the theoretical allure of basically partaking in the kind of harlequin romance adventures that she reads about in the opening song.  Whether or not Belle indeed has Schizoid Personality Disorder, or whether she merely has the same kind of 'Gee, now I get to live out my somewhat dangerous romantic fantasies' experience as Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone, Belle spends the first third of the film utterly miserable and with no plausible potential for improvement on the horizon.  It doesn't seem quite as insane that she'd allow herself to fully envelop herself in the 'perils of Pauline' scenario she finds herself in.

Like Bella in the Twilight Saga films (I have not read the books), Belle eventually embraces, no matter how unhealthy it might be, circumstances that allow her to escape her current surroundings; where she doesn't fit in and doesn't feel like she belongs anyway.  That the circumstance that she finds herself in is basically a captor/captive romance that is, by nature, based on a certain amount of submission, is an objective statement that doesn't necessarily make the picture 'bad'.  We may choose to condemn her decisions, especially in light of the Beast's almost non-existent growth as a character (more on that below). But the only 'problem' with the character of Belle and the core relationship of the film is that it is in fact aimed at young children who are in no position to comprehend the creepy and (to certain personalities) erotic undertones of dominance, submission, the desire of some women to 'fix' damaged souls, 'animal magnetism', etc on display.  If Beauty and the Beast were an adult erotic drama, Belle's fleshed out personality quirks and her dark romance with the Beast would be accepted without too much criticism (and, it must be said, the threat of rape would certainly be ever-present in the first half of the picture).  So while on one hand I actually appreciated the film more the last two viewings than I had in a long while (it's actually borderline psycho-sexual for a Disney cartoon), it's also something I'll have to have conversations with my daughter about when she gets a little older.  This demographic issue doesn't make Beauty and the Beast by itself a bad movie, but merely one that requires a bit more parental guidance than the likes of Hercules or Mulan.

But where the film really drops the ball, where it arguably merits every bit of criticism tossed its way, is in its depiction of the Beast and his servants. We can argue back and forth about whether the filmmakers intend to present Belle as a prototypical romantic heroine or whether we are supposed to notice and acknowledge her personality quirks along the way.  But there is little doubt that we are supposed to truly believe in the Beast's change-of-heart, and that he has become a better man who deserves the love of a woman such as Belle.  And quite frankly he does not in the least.  Just going by the second act onward (since Belle is captured in the climax of act one), he goes from angry, violent, abusive, and near-psychotic in his treatment of his prisoner to... less so.  The various candles and teacups and clocks all inform him that if he would just stop being such a grouch that surely this girl would quickly learn to love him.  But is that all it should take?  The Beast doesn't become incredibly gallant or uncommonly noble.  He doesn't become fantastically romantic and, since this is a Disney film, we're not supposed to take any carnal attractions into account.  Basically the Beast merely finds it within himself to treat Belle with what is generally known as 'basic human decency'.

Throughout the second act, he constantly indulges in self-pity about the fact that Belle can only see him as a monster, when in fact she's merely seeing him as the abusive asshole/jailer that he is.  By the time the film reaches its climax he has merely become.... not a monster.  He becomes polite, lets her roam the castle without fear, allows her access to his gigantic library, and eventually invites her to a formal dinner and dance.  That's it! His most selfless moment is allowing Belle to leave the castle to look after her father, who has become lost in the woods in an effort to rescue her.  But since he is directly responsible for that situation, it really doesn't mean that much that he allows her to save her own father.  Not allowing a sick old man to freeze to death in the woods is what you'd think would be 'bare minimum' in terms of how humans are supposed to treat other humans.  The Beast doesn't win Belle over by doing anything other than what any rational and decent-hearted human being should have damn-well done in the first place. The Beast, his various servants, and by virtue the film itself is basically teaching kids that all it takes to win the heart of the girl of your dreams is merely not acting like a borderline psychopath.  And it also preaches that this formally-cruel, domineering, abusive, and hostage-taking tyrant (who, according to a newly-added to the Blu-Ray song "Human Again", is also illiterate) is absolutely a prize merely after he puts a halt to his very worst personality traits.  He doesn't so much become 'good' as stop being 'bad'.

There is a lot of talk about how to prevent sexual violence and sexual harassment without explicitly/implicitly blaming and/or putting the burden of prevention on girls and women. And, as I've written before when discussing Twilight (HERE), the constant criticism that Bella Swan faces for her perhaps poor choices in boyfriends allows the male side of that equation (Edward and Jacob) apparent immunity from being rather dreadful boyfriend material in the first place.  Thus it is the case here, where we've spent twenty years attacking Belle for her perhaps unimpressive choice in suitors while not bothering to attack the Beast for actually being a terrible would-be lover.  The film, I would argue, doesn't present Belle as being a prototypical female role model anymore than Ariel was (Ariel also has serious issues and feelings of longing that exist long before she meets Prince Eric).  But the film's explicit endorsement of the Beast as a genuine 'catch' and his presentation as a heavily romantic figure purely by his virtue of not being evil, is a disconcerting one that merits additional criticism.  In the end, the rush to condemn the character of Belle (the hostage) while overlooking the Beast (the hostage taker) is a classic case of 'blame the girl first and last' when it comes to discussing the alleged feminism-related flaws in pop-entertainment.  If he truly makes her happy, then Belle deserves a lifetime of happiness with the now-human prince.  But on the basis of his onscreen behavior, the Beast does not deserve Belle.

Scott Mendelson