Review: Godzilla

Godzilla (2014): Written by Max Borenstein and directed by Gareth Edwards.  Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Bryan Cranston.  Running Time: 123 minutes.  Based on…..do I really have to say it???

Rating: 2.5/4

            After some deliberation, I find that my reaction to the latest addition to the Godzilla canon bears a striking resemblance to my reaction to last year’s Man of Steel, also a divisive reboot of a long-standing cultural icon.  Both are revivals of franchises that I have never been particularly drawn to, nor have I had much exposure to them.  Both are films that I sincerely hoped would nudge me towards being a fan, and give me a feeling for what keeps bringing so many people back to them.  And while both films certainly have their moments of power and awe, I walked away from each one feeling slightly underwhelmed by the overall experience (although I definitely think Godzilla is by far the superior of the two, in terms of overall quality). 

            We get an opening montage more or less establishing for us that the governments of the world have known of Godzilla’s existence for some time, and founded an international organization that has been monitoring him ever since the events of the first Godzilla film in 1954.  Furthermore, this organization, or more specifically, its lone on-screen representative Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (followed around by a sinful waste of Sally Hawkins) is aware of other creatures apparently from the same era as Godzilla.  One of them is discovered to have hatched in a cave in the Philippines, and soon afterwards, it turns up in a coastal Japanese town most definitely not called Fukushima, where it destroys the nuclear facility and effectively sets itself up in a cocoon there to feed off the remaining nuclear energy in the core (the explanation we eventually get is that these creatures are from a more radioactive era of earth’s history, and therefore feed off nuclear reactions). 

            Obviously, this is covered up by the world governments, much to the fury of nuclear scientist Joe Brody (played by Bryan Cranston), who survived the attack but lost his wife in the process, shown in the one genuinely great scene in the entire film featuring real, human emotion.  After the attack, we cut to 15 years later.  Brody’s son is now a munitions specialist for the US military, while Joe has made a hobby out of obsessively studying phenomena like what he witnessed at the plant, trying to prove that it was not, as the Japanese government claimed, an earthquake.  More out of exasperation that anything else, the son agrees to accompany him on one last trip to the quarantined facility to try and find out the truth.  There, they discover that it was, in fact, a monster that destroyed the facility all those years ago, and that the quarantine was merely put in place so that Ishiro and his colleagues could study it. 

            Shortly after they arrive, the creature, referred to by Ishiro as a MUTO, awakens, leaves the cocoon, and begins to leave a trail of destruction and death in its wake as it heads across the Pacific to San Francisco, where they realize it will meet up with another MUTO that recently awoke in the Nevada desert.  Assuring the military that they have no possible way of killing these creatures, Ishiro claims that there only hope is to lead Godzilla, accompanied by an entire naval fleet, to San Francisco as well, so that he can so battle with the great monsters from another age. 

            It’s a lot of exposition and build-up for a very basic monster-movie premise, but the serious amount of time needed to explain and show all this is not the reason that the film fell flat for me on more than a few occasions.  The movie makes a big deal of out very slowly building up the atmosphere of human terror of the awesome, supernatural might on display, waiting to fully show Godzilla and the MUTOs in action until the very end, and as far as the technical side goes, it handles itself very well.  The movie looks great, there’s none of the shaky-cam nonsense that ruined so much of Man of Steel (one big reason why it’s a superior reboot, all else aside), and every time we get to see Godzilla, the effects really are jaw-dropping.  The final battle taking place, for once, in a city not starting “New” and ending with “-ork,” is of a much different sort than the quick pace of last year’s Pacific Rim, with the monsters slower and more ponderous, but it’s still engaging and a ton of fun to watch. 

            No, the real issues start to pop up whenever the monsters are not screen, which, sadly, is most of the movie- the humans are not well written, and with the exception of the always-dependable Cranston and Watanabe, they are not well-acted or well-directed.  Taylor-Johnson could not come across blander if he had rice cakes stapled to his forehead, which is a major problem, because his relationship to his Dad and his efforts to get to San Francisco before the monsters do (his also-boring family is conveniently located right in the middle of the city) is clearly meant to be the emotional center of the film.  And….yeah, there’s no way around it, everything involving him and his family just does not do it for me.  I am yet to hear from anyone who thought that that aspect of the film worked.  Which is a shame, because if the film had focused more on the dad or Dr. Ishiro and on their issues, we might have a genuinely great film on our hands.  Hell, I would have loved to see a movie devoted solely to Dr. Ishiro, who seems to have a really fascinating backstory that never gets let out of the box. 

            Ultimately, the real question to answer is this; the flaws with how the human characters are handled aside, is it worth the wait once we finally get to a good, old-fashioned monster smackdown with a $160 million facelift?  I think it was for me.  The opening, centered around old man Brody, works great, and I loved the scope of the third act.  For myself, and for a lot of other people apparently, that was enough.  For others, it wasn’t.  To decide whether or not it works for you, you’ll just have to see for yourself. 

-Noah Franc 

Review: Beauty and the Beast

La Belle et la Bête (2014): Written by Christophe Gans and Sandra Vo-Ahn, directed by Christophe Gans.  Starring: Lea Seydoux, Vincent Cassel, Andre Dussollier.  Running Time: 112 minutes.  Based on the original fairytale by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. 

Rating: 1/4 Stars

            I will not conceal or skirt around my disappointment- I expected more from a live-action re-imagining of a classic French tale starring Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux.  It’s not bad in the sense that it does anything wrong, and at times the visual design approaches genuine beauty.  But any goodwill I have towards the film’s engrossing costumes or sets is undercut by the fact that, underneath all the admittedly pretty eye candy, there’s just nothing there.  At all. 

            The story we all know and love is narrated to us by a woman (who IS NOT Belle, let me make that clear) reading the tale out of a storybook for two young children (not Belle’s, obviously).  Belle (Lea Seydoux) was the youngest of the 6 children of a wealthy merchant, who, after some bad luck with his ships, loses everything and is forced to move a house in the country (most definitely not the house where the children are currently being read this story- nope, most definitely not).  The possibility of financial redemption briefly draws him and his oldest son back to the city, only to very promptly learn that their hopes were premature.  I say promptly, because it happens in the next scene, but clearly large swaths of time have passed, for ‘twas summer when they left and now everything is under snow.  This angers the son, for very obvious and legitimate reasons, who leaves, and apparently rips off a gang leader (his scar proves that he is Evil), whom the father then inadvertently crosses, causing him to flee into the woods, where he happens across the realm of the Beast, played in full-body-and-face makeup by Vincent Cassel. 

            ….…Good Lord, just writing that made me realize how utterly nonsensical the entire setup in the first act ends up being.  Yeesh. 

            Food and drink are waiting for the father, provided by the Beast’s minions.  Quick side note, instead of charming, funny, and musical household items, in this version the minions are what you would get if a Jawa mated with a Dachshund (yes, I’m sure there is a DeviantART page for that- no, for the love of God, do not post a link).  Along with food, he finds chests full of everything on the list of desired goodies for his remarkably memorable and fleshed-out not-Belle children.  The only thing missing?  A single rose, the only gift Belle (who, I repeat, is not the one narrating the story) wanted for herself.  As he sets out to leave, he attempts to pick one, but is then caught by the Beast, and told that if he does not return within a single day after delivering the gifts to his children, they will all be killed.

            This, of course, is what drives Belle (STOP it, she’s NOT the narrator, guys!) to offer herself to the Beast as a prisoner in order to save her father, leading to the emotional center of the entire story- Belle’s long-term imprisonment, her struggles to come to terms with her new life, and her developing relationship with the Beast as she tries to find out the secret behind his curse (spoiler alert; the secret is that it’s a terrible waste of a twist). 

            And sadly, even then the movie does not start to get more interesting.  And it was at this point that I recognized the film’s biggest issue, and a rather frightening one at that- you could swap out Seydoux and Cassel for pretty much anyone else, and it would not make one bit of difference in terms of the emotional impact of the story or characters.  Why this is, I do not know, but I would ere on the side of blaming the direction, or perhaps a bad contract with the studio.  We all know Seydoux can be a force of nature, but here, she doesn’t even appear to be trying.  She simply walks on-screen and announces, “Hi.  I am innocence embodied, y’all.  ‘N stuff.”  Cassel seems to be trying to pull the old dark-and-mysterious routine, but I can’t tell if he does it well, because the suit he’s stuffed into allows literally no facial wiggle-room with which to convey emotion.  That was perhaps an inevitable advantage Disney had when turning the story into an animated film- the physical limitations of makeup preventing the Beast to show emotion and growth simply do not exist in the animated world. 

            The script may also be to blame- every single story point is hit with a dead, perfunctory note, like the screenwriter was just checking off each point on his list of “Every Plot Point That Must Be In A Beast Movie.”  No character is given a line or moment that didn’t come across as trite exposition, and the sad result is that what should be a sweeping, magical, fairy-tale epic feels instead like an empty shell inside which something died several weeks ago. 

            My disappointment in this movie’s shortcomings is made all the more potent by the fact that the sets and visual design are perfect for the kind of mystical feel they obviously want the movie to have.  The colors jump and blend and contrast with each other wonderfully- pure white snow, blood-red and sky-blue and emerald-green dresses, mounds of roses, sunlight literally bathing the screen in gold- there’s one magnificent image of Belle falling into a frozen lake that set off every “prettyprettypretty” bell in my head.  The design of the castle and its interior is great- too bad we see next-to-nothing of it.  The Jawa-hound-mutants have an admittedly interesting design, and the narrator-who-is-not-Belle says they became her best friends during her captivity, but we really only have her word for it, because aside from a single scene that establishes that the entire pack basically stalks her everywhere, they are almost nowhere to be seen the entire time. 

            This is a pretty movie, a very, very pretty movie, but it’s superficial sheen only serves to make me more aware that, in all the areas that matter, this movie fails to deliver anything I could say was worth remembering afterwards.  If you like elaborate, old-school French get-up, have at it, but there are many other, better movies that can satisfy your most fashionable needs. 

-Noah Franc 

6 Reasons to Read Avatar: The Lost Adventures

            Thus far, I have been fully enjoying the Avatar comics continuing Aang and co.’s post-comet escapades just as much as I enjoyed the show (still my favorite show of all time, and sure to be the subject of a number of posts here before I either lose interest in this site, or transform it into something else).  I love seeing and appreciating how the new medium has allowed them to dive into certain aspects of the world a bit more than they were able to before.  Special mention goes to The Promise, which uses the thorny issue of the leftover Fire Nation colonies to reflect on some very, very similar conflicts in our world today, and about how such incredibly sensitive issues can be dealt with peacefully and bloodlessly.  Anyone who dismisses this franchise as “just more kid’s stuff” has clearly never bothered to watch even a single episode of the series or read a single chapter of the comics. 

            A great many of my friends have been reading along as well, and we are all eagerly anticipating the next chapter of the third series, The Rift, set to be released in July later this year.  However, while the main comic series have generated a lot of buzz, I have heard very little discussion concerning a side comic they’ve released as well, titled The Lost Adventures.  This series is not a set story like the other stuff they’ve come out with so far.  Rather, it’s a collection of 28 short tales taking place in between the episodes of the original show, many of them taking up no more than a few pages.  One imagines that a lot of the shorts there were ideas they never had the time or the space to bring into an actual episode of the series, and that they were initially shelved until putting them into comic form became an option. 

            Because it doesn’t tell a definitive story meant to be permanent part of franchise canon, I can understand why people may have overlooked this particular installment in the comic series, especially since most of the tales center around brief, silly little gags.  However, hidden amongst the whimsy of most of the Lost Adventures are some incredibly beautiful, sad, or poignant moments that make the book just as worth your time as the main comics.  And to convince you, dear readers, to do so, I present to you my Top 6 Reasons to Read The Lost Adventures.  Enjoy! 

6. The return of Jin

            A minor, more personal reason to start off the list.  Anyone else remember the brief scene in Tales of Ba Sing Se where Zuko goes on a date with Jin, a regular Earth Kingdom girl?  I sure do.  It’s such a brief scene, and is easily overshadowed by the gut punch of Iroh’s song later on, but I find myself endlessly fascinated by it whenever I revisit that particular episode.  It’s a brief (and obviously futile) attempt by Zuko to approach some sense of normalcy in his life, and on top of that, it’s really the only time we see him interact one-on-one with a female character who lacks fierce bending or fighting prowess, and the obvious uncomfortableness and awkwardness that comes from that dichotomy has a lot of resonance for anyone who ever feels constrained when trying to deal with a “normal” situation they simply have no experience with.  So, for me, it was nice to see a small token of closure, after a fashion, for their brief moments together. 

5. Seeing the world and characters rendered in an impressive variety of art styles

            Even with the changes in animation studios during Korra, the look of the shows has changed very, very little since the show’s inception, so I especially liked seeing such a wide variety of artists with their own styles take a stab at depicting these characters, sometimes looking exactly like the show, and sometimes looking like something that dropped out of an alternate dimension.   In addition to Mike and Brian themselves, a total of 26 different writers and artists contributed their talents to the making of this particular series, and it’s a lot of fun noting the differences in style and picking out your favorite ones. 

4. Sokka tries to become a Fire Nation soldier…..and it is hilarious

            Out of all the bits in this comic, with the possible exception of my #1 pick on the list, this is the part I sincerely wish had become its own episode in the series.  While journeying through the Fire Nation in Book Three, Sokka gets a crazy idea (again) to join the Fire Nation army to get a sense for their organization and tactics.  And that right there should be enough for you to know what you’re getting from this story.  It is funny in all the right ways, plus it features the return of my beloved fake-beard-and-stache. 

3. We finally (briefly) get a face-off between Toph and Bumi

            Admit it, every one of you reading this always wondered what would happen if Toph and Bumi squared off against each other.  I know it, and you all know it too.  And believe it or not, it is within the pages of The Lost Adventures that we finally get an idea of what the two of them going at it might look like, and how freaking dangerous it would be for all concerned.  No, it doesn’t go on as long as I might have wished, but still, fanboy service delivered is fanboy service delivered. 

2. This look exchanged between Aang and Sokka (Combustion Man Story)

            The entire story in which this moment takes place is itself one of the better ones of the book- Aang and Sokka decide to hop onto a Fire Nation train for a brief joy ride during one of their traveling breaks.  Sadly, they soon find out they aren’t alone, as Combustion Man appears, again out of nowhere, in another effort to kill Aang. 

            This would be on the list anyway purely as a result of Combustion Man being in this one, since his handful of scenes were among my favorites in all of Book Three (what can I say, I love me some surly, silent villains).  The best part of the whole story, though, is the above look that Aang Sokka share for a brief moment after the magnitude of the danger to themselves and the innocent people with them becomes painfully clear- not only is Combustion Man clearly willing to kill anyone and everyone on the train if it means getting the Avatar, he has also wrought so much damage to the train that the brakes no longer work, and they then see that the train is heading for a massive gorge. 

            I think what makes this image so effective is how perfectly it captures every possible emotion they are feeling at that precise instant.  Worry for both themselves and the poor people caught in the middle of their fight.  Frustration and sadness that even the pleasure of a simple joyride, as long as the war lasts, is and will continue to be denied them.  Exhaustion at once again having to fight a battle neither of them asked for or even wanted.  And finally, most importantly, a steely determination to do the right thing and stop both Combustion Man and the train, even though the easier path would be for them to just cut and run.  It brilliantly sums up all of their experience and growth over the course of the story up to that point.  It’s just a great piece of artwork. 

1. The “Relics” Story

           Easily the darkest and most serious chapter in the book, rivaling anything seen in the show.  Aang comes across a trader in a small town selling what he realizes are genuine airbender artifacts.  After being told where he found them, he tracks down the location and sees promising signs that he may have discovered a genuine airbender hideout, where some of his people may still be alive. 

            To his painful dismay, however, he finds out it was just another trick of Zhou’s.  He used the trader and the artifacts he’d assembled at the hideout to draw the attention of the Avatar, knowing he could never resist the opportunity to find out if any of his people survived.  The really tragic part, though, is when Zhou reveals that this tactic was actually used a LOT in the early years of the war, and hints that a very large number of airbenders who initially escaped the assault on the temples were thus captured, and likely killed. 

            Aang uses his cleverness to escape, obviously, and he safely makes his way back to Katara and Sokka, but even then, the chapter ends on a somber and sad note, with Aang wondering how many of his people feel prey to such a gruesome trick.  It’s another example of the show’s writers refusing to shy away from many of the darker, more complex, and more difficult themes raised by the story, and it is, in my opinion, the biggest reason why anyone who considers themselves a fan of the show needs to check out The Lost Adventures. 

           

            And that is my list!  Next up will hopefully be a film review, followed by my personal ranking of all the Avengers movies that have been released thus far, because why not jump on that particular bandwagon?  Until next time, dear readers. 

-Noah Franc 

Review- Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014): Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFreely, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.  Starring: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, Hayley Atwell, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson.  Running Time: 136 minutes. 

Rating: 3.5/4

            Once the post-Avengers 1 works of the Marvel saga started up last year, the whole endeavor vaulted past the line where newcomers could waltz into any of the films and feel fairly safe, diving right into either-you’re-with-this-or-you-aren’t territory.  And given the fact that the films have all, for the most part, played it as safe as they could for a project this insane, and have stuck to plenty of traditional tropes and story archetypes, I can understand those who gave up a long time ago and have sworn off Superhero movies until this particular cinematic era dies down and the dust has a chance to settle. 

            Me, I’m still just enjoying the ride.  Sure, none of the movies have managed to reach any real emotional depths with their characters (although this one is easily the best in that regard), and a few of them (I’m looking at you, Ironman 2) were, quite frankly, not that good at all.  But when they’ve worked, they’ve worked just fine for me, and like with Thor 2, The Winter Soldier actually succeeds in being an improvement over its perfectly fine predecessor. 

            Whereas Thor 2 and Ironman 3 focused on how the events of The Avengers affected their mains on a personal level, The Winter Soldier attempts the extra mile by focusing less on how it affected Captain America himself- his continuing arc is still, primarily, adjusting to the changes (and sometimes lack thereof) in the world since he was frozen in the Arctic.  Instead, much broader strokes are used to delve into how the world of us regular people, and particularly the super spy agency SHIELD, has decided to adapt its policies in response to the literal hole in space and time ripped open by Loki in New York.  Specifically, they are now in the process of developing a whole fleet of those AWESOME aircraft-carrier-planes, programmed with a special system designed to “calculate threats before they even happen,” so that SHIELD can act preemptively.  If 13 years of post-9/11 US policy aren’t enough for anyone to not get the obvious allegory in two seconds tops, then this really, really isn’t the movie for you.   

            The approaching launch of this fleet, along with a general turn for the worse (in Captain America’s opinion) in terms of how SHIELD operates, has the good Cap worried about where America, and indeed the world, is headed.  Before he has the chance to piece any of the parts together, however, outside forces begin to move, and he, Nick Fury, Black Widow, and their few remaining allies find themselves under constant attack from enemies within and without SHIELD, led by a mysterious and apparently decades-old assassin called the Winter Soldier, who bears a mysterious metal arm capable of stopping the Captain’s massive wonder-metal shield without so much as a grunt of effort.  The race is on to see if Rogers and his crew can figure out who’s behind what in time to save millions of potential victims. 

            I don’t know yet if I agree with many other reviewers that this is the BEST film yet in the Avengers franchise, but the more I think about it, the fewer reasons I can come up with to disagree.  This is an excellent action flick, solid all the way through, even if it does drag a bit towards the end.  If I had one personal nitpick, it would be that we get less of Rogers’ struggles to adapt to the 21^st century than I would have liked, but what we do get is very well-done.  A lone scene with him and Peggy from the first film (now slowly dying in a hospital) is probably the most powerful personal moment we’ve yet had in one of these movies, the kind of scene we could never get from Tony Stark or the bombastic Thor (although Loki has come close more than once).  A few more scenes in that vein would have made for a nice balance with the constant action beats.  Thankfully, my issues with that were alleviated by the fight scenes being (for the most part) expertly choreographed and filmed.  There is some shaky-cam, sometimes, but only infrequently.  Most of the time, the camera is pulled back enough that we can really enjoy the action, seeing every punch, kick, knife-thrust, and ricochet from the shield.  If only every action movie could be this confident in itself….

            Chris Evans shines as he’s never been able to before as the real heart of the Avengers squad.  There is a quiet humility to his bearing, and a nice sincerity, that would be utterly impossible to get out of Downey’s egotistical Stark or Hemsworth’s I-am-literally-a-God Thor.  We might be able to get some scenes like that with Bruce Banner, but Lord knows if they’re ever going to attempt another movie centered around him.  Maybe he’ll get a subplot in Avengers 2.  Fortunately, he is not the only character getting some long-overdue depth.  I remarked in an earlier post that this series had thus far not done anything interesting with Johansson’s Black Widow.  It seems I spoke to soon, because here she finally gets to be something other than blatant fan service (although there are still a few shots centered squarely on her swinging buttocks).  We don’t get a fully fleshed-out backstory (and I sincerely hope we never do), but we do get to enjoy her and Rogers developing a genuine rapport and sense of confidence in each other.  It’s that rare male-female action team-up that never feels the need to throw in a will-they-won’t-they romantic subplot, which I always find to be a blessing. 

            Samuel L. Jackson is Samuel L. Jackson playing Samuel L. Jackson, but even he gets to become a little bit more than Generic Badass McGee, and we get a needed sense of the danger inherent in working solely within a world where everyone never stops going behind the backs of everyone else, and how that can shape someone over time.  His major counterweight and foil is Robert Redford’s Alexander Pierce, a fellow high official within SHIELD.  What exactly happens concerning his character I will not dare spoil here, but I will give Redford credit for bringing such a perfect balance to his character that it’s difficult to judge which side he’s really on until he out-and-out turns to the camera and SAYS where he stands.  It’s a performance as powerfully subtle as Evans’, and if we didn’t already have Loki, he would be my favorite antagonist of the entire franchise this far.  In a series that always stands the risk of drowning itself in its own silliness, bringing in a veteran like Redford for a bit role brings a bit of much-needed gravitas to the world.  

            We also have another major side character show up in Sam Wilson, aka Falcon, whose jetpack-wings combo is my new favorite toy of the Marvel universe (now if only someone would pull out Jean Starwin’s caster gun from Outlaw Star).  And, wonder of wonders, unlike the much-abused Iron Patriot, he ACTUALLY gets to contribute to the heroics in the third act!  Fancy that!  Alright, alright, I promise I’ll stop beating that particular dead horse, but it really is a relief to see an additional character of color getting decent screen time.  Even more promising, it looks like the two of them will be teaming up in the next Captain American movie, which reminded me that this series is yet to include a straight-up buddy adventure romp. 

            Ironically, it’s the actual Winter Soldier who really ends up getting the short end of the stick, with no more than a few token scenes to establish the genuine threat he poses with that metal arm of his.  There is also, of course, a twist concerning his character, which if nothing else makes me very interested in seeing where they take his character in future films.  That combined with the credit scenes has me even more excited for the next Avengers film next year, so that evens out his absences in my book. 

            If you are a fan of either the Avengers franchise as a whole or if you just appreciate good action, The Winter Soldier is definitely a must-see.  It’s an early start this year to the blockbusters apparently.  We shall see what this year brings next. 

-Noah Franc 

Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014): Written and directed by Wed Anderson.  Starring: Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Léa Seydoux, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, Tony Revolori.  Running Time: 99 minutes. 

Rating: 4/4

            When looking at the general body of Wes Anderson’s work, it’s all too easy to see his strange mix of the outlandish and the dark as simply the strange, meaningless byproduct of a person too caught up in his own fantastical whimsy to be able to piece together something of genuine substance or deeper emotional importance.  And without a doubt, his methods and styles of telling his tremendously strange tales lend themselves to such misinterpretation, making no effort to bring uninitiated newcomers in on the joke.  Which is, for me, tremendously unfortunate, because when I look beyond the unabashed silliness in his movies, I find a treasure trove of interpretation, symbolism, allegory, and philosophical commentary that is clearly the product of a piercingly intelligent and sharply organized mind, albeit a partially insane one.  This became clear to me after seeing Anderson’s previous film, Moonrise Kingdom (which I still consider to be a minor masterpiece), and this impression has only been strengthened by his newest contribution to the world, The Grand Budapest Hotel.  

            The story begins in the future (relative to the main plot), working its way backward before skipping forward again.  A young girl, all alone, enters a graveyard to hang a key on the tombstone of a writer, obviously honored as a national treasure, made clear by the rows upon rows of shiny, gaudy room keys covering the stone marking of his final remains.  The girls opens the book (titled, of course, The Grand Budapest Hotel), and we suddenly jump back in time, seeing the writer as an old man (played by Tom Wilkinson), who begins to explain to us (and it is most definitely us, not some off-screen cameraman) how he chanced across the story of the hotel. 

            This leads to the next time skip, as Jude Law, playing the writer as a younger man, visits the hotel in questions shortly before it was torn down for being unprofitable (and, let’s be honest, for having become a massive, Soviet-esque eyesore).  During his stay, he encounters Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), the mysterious owner of the hotel and a number of castles around Europe.  After meeting him in the baths, Zero agrees to tell the writer the story of how he came into possession of the old establishment. 

            We are now led once more into the recesses of time to the main story.  Zero, a young refuge, successfully wins the confidence and respect of Gustave H. (a magnificently comical and boyish Ralph Fiennes), the concierge of the Budapest when it was still the go-to, gloriously tacky resort for all manner of aged, wealthy clientele.  Gustave rules this establish as a benevolent dictator, exacting in his standards, yet given over to composing his own, God-awful poetry and reciting it at every staff dinner.  Zero is a slight wisp of a lad, soaking in every word Gustave tells him, determined to make his mentor proud. 

            While not necessarily the focus of the story, it is the relationship between Zero and Gustave that provides most of the film’s emotional center.  At first, it looks like their characters and interactions will be nothing more than skin-deep farce- Gustave is overweening, pompous, and demanding to a ludicrous extreme.  Zero is wide-eyed and innocent, merely seeking to become a carbon copy of Gustave.  Thankfully, Anderson very quickly moves to dissuade such notions almost from the get-to.  Gustave strives so very hard to be the model of a respectable, “civilized” gentleman, yet he sleeps with nearly all of his regular clientele (the gender of a given client being of no apparent concern).  He is unfailingly polite even when threatened with death (which soon becomes a regular occurance), but when his patience runs out, few sailors in the British navy could hope to match his verbose swearing.  A working-class background is hinted at, but never explored, leaving the man an enigma wrapped in a mystery.  Zero is equally complex, although we do get a bit more of his backstory.  He has seen tragedy and war, but never allows its terrors to prevent him from seeking love in the form of a village bakery girl.  And his determination and resourcefulness soon win him not only the respect, but eventually the deep love and friendship of Gustave.  Instead of staying in rigid, master/apprentice roles, the two become a dynamic team in every sense of the word, and seeing this change wrought over time is not only funny, but also immensely touching at times. 

            Zero’s love for said bakery girl, Agatha, deserves special mention, even though it is not a terribly large part of the film.  This is not deliberate ignorance on the part of Zero, or even Anderson, since it is quite clear that the focus is on Zero and Gustave.  Her few moments are, however, suffused with a love and a reverence that few protagonists manage to show for their significant others.  They may not be on-screen together for long, but their few scenes together, along with a minor reveal concerning the future of Zero’s ownership of the hotel, provide some of the more genuine romantic moments I’ve seen in theaters in recent years.  

            To briefly return to the aforementioned story- the second act of the movie kicks in when one of Gustave’s favorite elder female guests, Tilda Swinton looking unrecognizable in old-lady makeup, dies under suspicious circumstances (a failure to resolve this part of the story is one of the film's few flaws).  He immediately falls under suspect, primarily because the woman willed to him an immensely valuable painting, which her vicious son (Adrian Brody) is determined to regain.  To this end he lets loose his vicious attack-dog of a lackey (a wonderfully evil William Dafoe) to keep the family lawyer quiet (Jeff Goldblum) and to make sure Gustave meets a brutal end before he can discover the secret of the woman’s horrible murder.  What follows- a serious of chase sequences, prison happenstances, an encounter with a secret society of hotel managers, enchantingly beautiful cakes, and the takeover of the Budapest by an SS mock-up called the “ZZ”- is not something I can delve into without spoiling the whole, wonderful affair.  Suffice it to say that it is a wonderful journey well worth every minute spent in the theater. 

            The constant theme woven throughout the story is the paradox that is humanity’s ability to be both beautiful and brutal, and how the two are never fully reconciled with each other, and perhaps never will be.  And if I had to sum up the film in one sentence, it would be in the form of a question related to this very conflict- are our efforts to hold back the base, the rude, and violent in ourselves noble and brave, or pathetic and hopeless?  Is Gustave a tragic hero for striving to desperately to maintain his tiny little oasis in a sea of darkness?  Zero himself, as an old man, confides to the writer that he’s never sure Gustave’s world existed in the first place, or if it did, “it died long before he was born.”  He then adds an afterthought, which only adds to the ambiguity of what the answer to my question is, if such an answer is even relevant; “He certainly did his best to maintain the illusion.” 

            The Grand Budapest Hotel is every bit as wacky, zany, and whimsical as we’ve come to expect from Wes Anderson.  Like with Moonrise Kingdom though, the silly is permeated with a sense of nostalgic sadness, whispers of things lost, and things that never were, and never could be.  Its outer appearances to the contrary, it is a weighty film, another wonderful accomplishment from one of the most unique filmmakers alive today, and a resoundingly strong start for another year in film. 

-Noah Franc 

Why Zoe Saldana needs to be Wonder Woman

                I was in the middle of watching the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer for about the third time when it hit me- Zoe Saldana needs to play Wonder Woman. 

                I can’t be the only one thinking this, right?  I can’t be.  It seems too obvious.  And yet, I’ve heard nothing from anyone else suggesting this.  And before you try to interrupt me, yes, I am aware that Gal Gadot is currently cast as Wonder Woman for the (supposedly) upcoming Batman/Superman combo act.  You’ll have to forgive me for being skeptical, at least for the immediate future, that that will actually pan out.  The movie has already been pushed back another year to avoid the space-time-continuum-obliterating singularity that would have resulted had that film really ended up duking it out for box office dominance with Avengers 2 and Star Wars 7 in 2015 (just thinking about even the possibility of that happening gave me the shivers).  And Nolan’s Batman trilogy aside, Warner Brothers has had a terribly troubled time of it making any other efforts of theirs stick, capped by the ongoing debate over whether or not Man of Steel went way too far, so for now, shut up and let me fantasize about that particular casting choice getting flushed down the tube somewhere down the line. 

                Look, there’s no getting around a very uncomfortable truth when you look at a lineup of the main characters of each superhero/comic-book film that’s come out since this current age roughly began with the release of Batman Begins and Marvel’s launching of the Avengers project; all of them (at least the ones to get prominent, successful releases) have been about white men.  All of them, without exception.  No main female characters, no main characters of color other than Greek yoghurt.  The lone African-American characters of note thus far have been Idris Elba’s Heimdall (granted, an AWESOME bit character), and War Machine, and anyone who’s been following this blog long-term already knows how I feel about his on-screen treatment.  Same goes for Pepper Pots (worst waste of a superpower EVER), and while I proffer my hat to Scarlett Johansson for her considerable efforts as Black Widow, there’s no use pretending her existence on screen is not purely a product of the studio wanting a token fan-service character on screen to kind of balance out the gender factor (but NOT the race one).  Case in point- the very first shot of her in The Avengers is literally a 3D breaking-image of her boobs threatening to burst out of the screen.  There is also Nick Fury, but he barely counts, because Samuel L. Jackson is not bothering to create a character or give a performance for that role. 

                Granted, it does look like this will be partially remedied this year.  The Winter Soldier will introduce Falcon to the Marvel movie universe (also a side role, but still), and Guardians of the Galaxy will feature a female co-lead (possibly two?) duking it out right alongside the guys.  A female co-lead who, coincidentally, is being played by Zoe Saldana. 

                Which brings me back to my original point; we need, in a very bad way, a superhero movie starring a female hero.  We need, in an equally bad way, a superhero movie played by a minority, be it black, Hispanic, Asian, or (my personal preference) Native American (ahem, Lone Ranger is racist horseshit, ahem).  An African-American (or Hispanic, or Native American) Wonder Woman is the perfect, kill-two-birds-with-one-stone solution for both problems. 

                As far as a need for a female comic book hero is concerned, Wonder Woman is the obvious choice, because she is easily the most well-known female comic figure currently in existence, and honestly, she’s every bit as pervasive and recognizable a part of our culture as Batman and Superman are, so it’s really nothing short of a federal crime that the latter two have a combined 13 movies between them (no, really), and Wonder Woman has…..none.  No, the direct-to-video one doesn’t count, I’m talking about a big-screen, summer release with full studio backing.  So, yeah, there’s no good reason this to not have already happened. 

                Now, as far as having a lead of color is concerned…..okay, obviously, the big issue here is that, since comics started out within the white domain, there really aren’t any mainstream, instantly recognizable superhero figures who are “traditionally” portrayed as anything other than white.  Hence the inexplicable outrage over Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall in the Thor series, even though he has been nothing other than amazing in both films thus far.  There was the black Green Lantern in the Justice League show (which is the version I actually grew up with, it’s still the only image I can conjure up when you say the words “Green Lantern” to me), but again, that’s a show, and it’s a lone example among dozens of Green Lantern incarnations.  So in order for this very pressing issue to be properly tackled, a studio, any studio, is going to have to gird their loins, get in a good stretch, pick a character, making a daring, all-balls-to-the-wall casting pick, and just stick with it to the end, taking on all the pain and, to be polite, utter bullshit that will inevitably be piled on them as a result.    

                Alright, alright, I’ve extrapolated long enough.  That the first movie featuring a female hero will be Wonder Woman goes without question.  And I think most people (that is, most people with functioning frontal lobes) would be perfectly fine with her being cast by a woman of color, provided, obviously, that it’s a smart casting choice.  So why do I think that perfect choice is Zoe Saldana? 

                Well, to be blunt?  Why the hell not?  What isn’t there to like about that?  First off, her action chops should not be a question mark in anyone’s eyes, given her roles in 3 massively successful summer action blockbusters (Avatar, Star Trek, Star Trek Running Into Darkbrain), and her role in Guardians looks like it will be even more fighting-heavy than her previous films.  Granted, the sequences in Avatar were done almost solely with a massive special effects department, which included CGing nearly all of the actual fighting, but there’s no use pretending for a second that the eventual Wonder Woman movie will be any different.  The days of Bruce Lees, Jackie Chans, and Keanu Reeves dominating major summer action pieces will likely be a thing of the past before too long. 

                Second, and most importantly, the woman is a damn, damn good actress, evidenced by the fact that, although the previous movies of hers mentioned above were primarily visual spectacles with mostly shallow characters and tired plot devices, she was able, in each and every case, to give a performance on which each of the films end up turning.  She’s the most interesting character giving the most heartfelt performance in Avatar (where nearly every other performance was just as phoned in as the effects), and she has been the soul of a Star Trek reboot that is starting to stretch itself thin attempting to hide how little service it does to nearly every other member of the crew.  It is an impressive feat to be able to shine through even the laziest Abrams screenplay, one that far too many people seem to be underestimating (although plenty are not). 

                In short, she is a gorgeous and immensely talented woman, I’d argue one of the most underrated actresses in the business today, and her own personal record in summer blockbusters thus far has been impeccable.  She has all the needed chutzpah to give us a Wonder Woman worth remembering, regardless of how the rest of the movie ends up being.  It’s worked for Marvel thus far, there’s no reason it can’t work for Warner Brothers, if they would only see the light. 

                So there you have it.  I believe quite firmly that the smartest move any American movie studio could make in the immediate future would be to throw their weight behind a Wonder Woman project that makes the bold, courageous decision to make her a woman of color (perhaps getting a female director to take the helm?), and I further posit that Zoe Saldana is, at present, the perfect actress in the game to take on such a great and laudable challenge.  Disagree?  Don’t care, it’s my blog, but feel free to lambast me in the comments either way. 

                Let’s do this people.  Zoe Saldana for Wonder Woman.  Make it so. 

-Noah Franc 

Reflections on the 2014 Oscars:

                Another awards season has come and gone, and now we can finally dive into the long, long waiting period until the really good stuff of 2014 hits theaters.  That’s sarcasm, obviously, since some good stuff has already broken through early; I am eagerly awaiting the German release of The Lego Movie, and The Grand Budapest Hotel won’t be too far behind.  For now, though, let’s take one last opportunity to look back at the past year of film and the ever-controversial awards seasons. 

                Looking back, I’m surprised at how free of vitriol, controversy, and bad choices this year’s Oscars ceremony was.  True, the awards were not spread around as liberally as last year, when 8 of the 9 Best Picture nominees had at least one trophy to take home (granted, the fact that the lone one left out in the cold was the ferociously beautiful Beasts of the Southern Wild was its own special travesty).  Only 4 of the Best Picture nominees won anything at all, and with the exception of the documentaries, shorts, and foreign films (whose ghettoization will one day be another hurdle for the Academy to clear), only Frozen, Blue Jasmine, and the Great Gatsby walked away with anything out of the rest of the nominees.  Also, there were really no surprises to speak of, other than Great Gatsby’s second award for Production Design, which I felt should have been given to 12 Years A Slave to give it a leg up over the significantly less-powerful Dallas Buyers Club. 

                Before I go further, a breakdown of the winning films:

Gravity- 7 (Visual Effects, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Soundtrack, Cinematography, Director)

12 Years A Slave- 3 (Picture, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay)

Dallas Buyers Club- 3 (Actor, Supporting Actor, Makeup)

Frozen- 2 (Animated Feature, Song)

The Great Gatsby- 2 (Production Design, Costumes)

Her- 1 (Original Screenplay)

Blue Jasmine- 1 (Actress)

20 Feet From Stardom- 1 (Documentary Feature)

The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life- 1 (Documentary Short)

The Great Beauty- 1 (Foreign Language Film)

Mr. Hublot- 1 (Animated Short)

Helium- 1 (Live-Action Short)

                In a way, however, the lack of surprise was a pleasant change this time around, since Oscar-related surprises tend to be of the more disappointing, “they-gave-the-Oscar-to-THAT-instead?” variety.  The Wolf of Wall Street will simply join the ranks of influential, highly-regarded Scorsese fair that also didn’t win (still disappointing, but hardly surprising), Inside Llewyn Davis will become another ahead-of-its-time cult classic for the Coen brothers, and while most of the other films nominated were nearly all deserving of being talked about last night, no others were really so powerfully overwhelming as to absolutely demand getting something, unlike the powerhouse lineup from last year. 

                Before I go into the performances and show itself, as well as the speeches, I will devote one final line to American Hustle.  I do sort of understand why lots of people liked the movie.  But really, it is still baffling to me that two such alright movies, from the same director and involving the same cast, could ever combine for more nominations than Inside Llewyn Davis, Zero Dark Thirty, Her, and The Master combined.  This has been an odd two years, and I sincerely hope this phase of David Russell’s career is over and he can go back to making genuinely great movies like The Fighter.  And that Jennifer Lawrence finally starts to grow as an actress by taking on roles that she can actually play. 

                Now, about the show itself.  There are, supposedly, people who found it boring.  Why, I cannot imagine, because the show was a far, far sight better than the past few telecasts, especially considering the drab jobs of the past few years.  Ellen kept it loose, as always, and while she kept the humor light, she at least found a few ways to literally keep the audience on their toes.  Everything was as mercilessly drawn-out as always, but at least there were more, better performances that were much better spaced this year.  It was a pleasant change to actually hear ALL the songs performed, even in shortened versions.  Shockingly, Idina Menzel was the worst of the bunch.  Why, I can’t fathom, but I couldn’t help but feel that she was a) holding back a cold, or b) really, really nervous about that mike she kept smothering her mouth with.  Why did she even have one?  Pipes like hers, she shouldn’t need to be amplified in a space like that. 

                I really have nothing to offer in regards to the presenters or the montages.  Bill Murray’s shout-out to Harold Ramis was easily one of the night’s most moving moments, the kind of personal, off-script addition that ceremonies like this are always in desperate need of.  More of that would have been appreciated, but as it stood, there were no major issues or hiccups that broke my enjoyment. 

                Looking at the speeches themselves, I would have to select Steve McQueen’s as my favorite, partially because it ended with him pouncing upon his crew like Shere Khan, but largely because he used the historic chance to provide the single-greatest argument for his film winning Best Picture (aside from the fact that it was, you know, one of the year’s best films); not only is American slavery still an indelible and unavoidable part of our society to this very day, the film is also powerfully and viscerally relevant because slavery just as bad (and in many cases, worse) as that depicted in the film still happens to this very day.  And we cannot allow ourselves to forget that, even if we need such stark reminders every so often. 

                Cuaron’s was my second favorite by a close margin (oh Lord, he nearly made ME cry), followed by McConaughey’s (which I found hilarious), Lupita’s (gracious and heart-warming as ever), and Blanchett’s (the world IS round, Fox News).  The word that I can use to describe the night as a whole, really, was pleasant. 

                There is, of course, the usual debate that gets brought up this time of year; are the Oscars really relevant, and is there any value left in holding something up that so, so often, merely reinforces the limited and narrow worldviews of a tiny sliver of the population of a single country in a world of 7 billion people?  This argument is given particular weight when one considers the slew of important, ground-breaking, and damn-bear revolutionary films that are inevitably ignored by nearly all awards ceremonies, not just the Oscars.  The Wolf of Wall Street is no less an incredible cinematic achievement (and is no less relevant and important to our society) than 12 Years A Slave, but only the latter will have any awards attached to its name.  Cloud Atlas, 2001, Citizen Kane, Psycho, and many, many other highly regarded, influential, and ground-breaking fair have no awards attached to their name, and yet their legacy is undeniable. 

                Does such inevitable snobbery make the Oscars irrelevant?  Does it mean they are ultimately worthless, and that any honors they bestow on a movie should be treated, at best, with utter disregard, and at worst, with contempt?  Does the fact that Oscar glory ultimately has no impact on the long-term legacy of a film (other than perhaps being road markers in the careers of particular figures in cinema) make them useless? 

                Those questions have never been more relevant than today, where the number of great movies made outside the traditional studio system  vastly exceed those made within it.  I don’t pretend to have any new, groundbreaking arguments either way up my sleeve.  All I have is my opinion, and in my opinion, no, the Oscars are not irrelevant, nor do I want them to be.  I believe that it is important to at least try to have a regular method of selecting, praising, and formally honoring the best of each year’s crop of films, just as its important to have awards and honors for music, literature, sports, scientific achievements, peace movements, and anything else where good can be done.  What’s crucial, of course, is to remember that all such efforts to laud and applaud the worthiest of human achievements will always fall short in some ways.  There will always be great works that don’t get their due until much, much later.  And while that can be sad, and sometimes heartbreaking, I am of the opinion that our efforts to the contrary are still worthwhile. 

                In a way, the proliferation of film outside traditional, white-male-dominated power structures has also allowed awards systems to break out of said molds as well.  The Oscars no longer stand alone as THE definitive awards of the year.  The Globes, the BAFTAs, and a slew of guild awards and critic’s choice awards of all possible stripes have it more possible than ever for deserving films to be recognized by someone, somewhere.  My beloved Inside Llewyn Davis may have only been tossed handful of Globe and Oscar nods, but it received over 70 nominations from other associated voting groups and awards associations, and won 20 of them, including the Grand Prix award at Cannes. 

                Maybe those awards don’t make the same impact that the Oscars do, since those awards are really the only ones people outside diehard film circles pay the slightest bit of attention to, and that has been and is a problem, but at least it’s something.  I fully admit that the Oscars are problematic, as much now as they have ever been.  But the last 5 years have actually provided me with much more hope that I would have had otherwise for the future of mainstream film.  Since 2009, we have seen the first female (Kathryn Bigelow), Asian (Ang Lee), and Hispanic (Alfonso Cuaron) to take home Best Director, and the first movies to win Best Picture that were directed by a woman (The Hurt Locker) and a black man (12 Years A Slave).  The expansion of the Best Picture category, while allowing some lesser fare to sneak in, has also allowed a broader interpretation of what constitutes a “best movie” and has inspired some great debates, and has allowed the kind of small-budget indie and sci-fi fare to get Best Picture nods that otherwise would have never been allowed near the red carpet (Beasts of the Southern Wild, Her, District 9, and Inception, to name a few). 

                It’s a work in progress, make no mistake.  But then again, we all are, and so are our stories and movies.  I’m just happy to be part of the process, in my own, small way. 

                Here’s to another great year in film.  It’s already looking like a good one. 

-Noah Franc