Deja Fu

Up was the best Pixar movie I’ve seen outside of The Incredibles.

It’s very rare to see this level of story development in a so-called “children’s” animated feature and I defy any parent to explain how their five year-old understood anything in the first ten minutes, never mind how it relates to the central conflict within the protagonist.

This is another prime example of how animated films can be for everyone, not just (and even not primarily for) children without having to resort to prurient sex and violence.

Carl’s struggle is timeless and, more likely than not, prone to be something we all have to encounter at some point. However, as moving as it was, it’s certainly not something I would wish on my niece, for example.

It’s time to start chipping away at the idea that animation is for children. Not that they should be robbed of their own content, let me make that perfectly clear, but rather that we ought to be able to enjoy the pleasures of the medium ourselves, without it being “dumbed down.”

I might make an exception for the marketing department, however. Based on the trailers, I can only imagine they were struck deaf and dumb at the idea of selling a piece of art as if it were Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych. Honestly, I pity them.

-K

I saw this over the weekend and was simply blown away. Iron Man is the best movie adaptation of a comic book character since Batman Begins and one of the best, period.

The story of industrialist Tony Stark (played to the hilt by Robert Downey Jr.) as he invents the “Iron Man” armor as a way of escaping terrorist agents of the Mandarin (updated from 1960s North Vietnamese communists) is smart, funny and bold. Downey’s performance is a showpiece and from the opening moments as he banters with G.I.s in a Humvee convoy, he never fails to impress. Gwyneth Paltrow (as his assistant Pepper Potts), Jeff Bridges (as Obadiah Stane) and Terrence Howard (as Stark’s best friend James Rhodes) give good performances themselves and serve to establish the microcosm that is Stark’s world.

The effects are fantastic, with Industrial Light and Magic once again proving they can create the impossible. The armor looks incredible and, most surprisingly, plausible. The attention to detail was astonishing and watching it in action a delight. ILM really outdid themselves here.

The story is a classic origin story, complete with the obligatory bad guy. However, unlike the Fantastic Four, a good balance is struck between exposition and action, which gives the movie a great sense of inertia. Not once did I feel everything slowed to the point where I was hoping something would happen just to get things moving again. The dialogue is dry, sarcastic and Downey does a great job with it.

After having to endure a slew of mediocre comic book movies over the last couple of years, Iron Man was refreshing. Not only is it a great comic book movie, it’s a good movie over all. Director Jon Favreau should be given the green light for the remaining two films in his proposed trilogy yesterday and Downey may have found the role which will be his Captain Jack Sparrow.

-K

Awake – the opposite of what I had become less than halfway through this snorefest from director Joby Harold, starring Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba and Terrence Howard.

Seriously. I got hit because I was snoring loudly. I then proceeded to go back to sleep.

-K

In April, 1992, Chris McCandless began hiking along the Stampede Trail, near Denali National Park, Alaska. Carrying few provisions, including a .22 rifle, a bag of rice and a book on the local flora and fauna, he soon discovered an abandoned bus and made it his base camp. For almost 120 days, McCandless lived off his rice, small game and birds, and edible plants that grew in the area. On September 6, 1992, his body was found by a group of hikers. He had been dead for almost two weeks.

An adaptation by Sean Penn (who wrote and directed the film) of Jon Krakauer’s book by the same name, Into the Wild chronicles McCandless journey beginning shortly after he graduated from Emory University in 1990 and proceeded to donate his savings – $24,000 – to Oxfam. The film follows his adventures of the next two years as he drives westward, abandons his car, and hitchhikes his way through California; his work in a grain elevator in South Dakota, where he first begins to talk about an Alaska trip; his kayak trip down the Colorado River all the way into Mexico, ultimately winding up in the Gulf of California; and the people he met and befriended, all the while traveling and living under a pseudonym – Alexander Supertramp.

More dramatization than actual documentary, the film does stay close to the facts that are known about McCandless and his two-year sojourn, during which time he had no contact with his family, friends, or anyone who would have known him as anything other than “Alex.” Emile Hirsch, who I last saw in The Girl Next Door, puts in a great performance, as does Hal Holbrook as Ron Franz, an older man who befriends McCandless right before he leaves for his “great Alaskan adventure.”

I suppose the oddest thing is that, for whatever reason, this movie managed to get under my skin. Maybe I recognize the headstrong personality in myself. Maybe it’s the idea of doing what you want to do, rather than what others expect. Maybe it’s as Morgan says – that I see he was satisfied with his life when there’s so much dissatisfaction in my own. I don’t know.

What I do know is that McCandless has been written and talked about as everything from a suicidal kook, to a modern day Thoreau, living life away from the corrupting influence of society. And any story that manages to draw so many opinions from opposite ends of the spectrum deserves to be known.

-K

Finally saw this last night and wasn’t disappointed in the slightest.

No Country for Old Men tells the story of Llewelyn Moss, a man who stumbles upon a drug deal gone sour and attempts to make off with the cash that was to be used. As he attempts to evade pursuit from Mexican gangs and various other characters, he’s also being tracked by a Texas sheriff. However, in typical Coen brothers fashion, nothing is as simple as it seems.

The Coen brothers adapted the film from the novel by Pulitzer prize-winning author, Cormac McCarthy. I haven’t read the novel yet, but having seen the movie is cause enough to put it in the queue. While I’ve never been a big fan of Westerns, it might be time to finally find out of McCarthy’s reputation for bleakness is well-deserved.

Like many other Coen brothers films, some people may have problems with the pacing, which is methodical in its buildup to the final scenes, as well as the ending. I can’t say a whole lot except that if you’ve seen Fargo, or Barton Fink then you’ll have a rough idea as to how the ending is structured. It turns a lot of people off, but I happen to enjoy it.

Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones give wonderful performances, but Javier Bardem is absolutely brilliant as an assassin set on Moss’ trail. He rightfully won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance. As Morgan observed, he’s creepy enough when he’s just on screen and then he opens his mouth and speaks for a minute and becomes even creepier.

After having endured Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men was a welcome return to the dark, gritty film noir of their earlier works like Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing and The Man Who Wasn’t There. It rightfully earned four Academy awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay in addition to Bardem’s win and will definitely be seen again sometime soon.

Here’s hoping this is the beginning of a new resurgence for them, although I understand their next film, Burn After Reading, is another comedy, albeit set in the world of the CIA.

-K