Career Opportunities

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES (Bryan Gordon, 1991)

When I was in high school I entertained the notion that spending a full 24 hours with friends in Meijer, a Midwestern supermarket supercenter chain, would be a fun thing to do.  Everything one could want or need would be under that enormous roof.  I could eat three square meals, watch the row of display TVs, play the floor model video game console, read a book or magazine, and probably grab a nap in the camping section if a little shuteye was necessary.

Since Meijer is open 24 hours a day, attempting this feat was feasible, assuming management didn’t get suspicious of teenagers hanging out for such a long time.  I suppose a day of roaming the aisles of mega-commerce could be pulled off today if this feat still sounded appealing in any way.  Maybe the attraction would return if Jennifer Connelly wanted to accompany me on the adventure.  After all, according to CAREER OPPORTUNITIES a woman like her is attainable at your monolithic neighborhood discount retailer.  

In the 1991 comedy 21-year-old Jim Dodge (Frank Whaley) is living up to his surname as far as adulthood is concerned.  He has been fired from countless jobs, spins wild fictions of his activities, resides with his parents, and doesn’t show any concern that such an undistinguished existence is his present and foreseeable future in sleepy, working class Monroe, Illinois.

Jim’s dad (John M. Jackson) gives him one more chance to get his act together.  Otherwise it’s off to St. Louis to work for his uncle.  Jim is dropped at the front doors of Target and expected to come home with employment.  Things are looking up when he negotiates a plum hiring package from a middle manager (an uncredited John Candy), but it turns out Jim was mistaken for an operations manager candidate.  The offer is immediately withdrawn.  Instead Jim is presented with a virtually minimum wage job as the night janitor or nothing.

On his first night the head custodian (William Forsythe) locks Jim in the superstore and explains that he’ll be back at 7 a.m.  Jim puts his nose to the grindstone for a bit, but it isn’t long before he’s availing himself of the store’s wares and roller skating up and down the aisles in his underwear.  Then he glimpses a girl.  And not just any girl but The Girl.  Josie McClellan (Connelly), the beautiful daughter of the town’s wealthiest man, is there looking back at him.

Josie fell asleep in the dressing room while hiding there and weighing whether or not to shoplift.  As she explains to Jim, she resents her father and feels like her life peaked with high school.  A little petty theft might rattle her dad and grant her the personal freedom she doesn’t feel is available without drastic action, although she inevitably lacks the courage to follow through on her ill-considered plan.

During their overnight talks Josie senses that Jim is a kindred spirit in spite of their obvious differences.  Neither is happy with their current lots, but she has enough cash in her purse that they can pick a place on the map, run off together, and start anew.  Before they can follow through on their impetuous decision, a pair of bumbling crooks (Dermot Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney) break into the store and hold them hostage, sort of.

Although Bryan Gordon directs CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, the film so distinctly bears producer and screenwriter John Hughes’ fingerprints that one can be forgiven for thinking he’s behind the camera.  Jim is a deluded washout, yet he’s a character very much in the tradition of Ferris Bueller.  (Never mind that Whaley’s performance is in the register of Woody Allen as a ‘50s-styled Midwestern gentile.)  His verbal dexterity and flair for bold acts are meant to recall that high school hero, except the best Jim can do is impress grade school kids who readily swallow the baloney he feeds them.  Jim’s hometown knows him as a liar--Josie says so--yet the film can’t help but inexplicably view him as a charming dreamer.  Ferris Bueller pushed the limits but had the good sense not to be as self-sabotaging as Jim.

Jim and Josie don’t set all manner of painful traps to fend off the thieves, but HOME ALONE is also imprinted on CAREER OPPORTUNITIES.  Like an unattended child doing what mom and dad won’t allow, Jim indulges his whims with Target to himself...and so can you during regular shopping hours in their 1763 stores in 49 states.  (I have no idea what Target’s financial involvement was with the film, but surely it was a cozy corporate relationship.  Target’s bullseye logo is used in the on-screen opening title.)  The stupid robbers who interrupt Jim’s blissful evening with Josie might as well have driven across the state from failed burglaries in HOME ALONE’s Chicago suburb to Monroe.

The class-conscious romance is pure Hughes, although in this instance it hardly seems credible in spite of some nice moments Josie and Jim share as they open up to each other and discuss their disappointments.  Hughes displays a deft touch in Jim’s initial failure to listen to Josie as she reveals deep fears of what awaits her.  He’s so caught up in his own neuroses that he can’t take the time to pay attention to her in a way that it seems no one ever has.  Hughes’ skill in tapping adolescent longing is also evident in Jim’s remembrance of the brief contact he had with Josie in high school.  While he vividly recalls the time they danced not even for the duration of one song and wishes it could have been slightly more, she retains no knowledge of it.  

Such interactions and the confessions therein might have amounted to something substantial if CAREER OPPORTUNITIES were stripped to their heartfelt conversations.  That’s where the film’s modest strengths are found.  Instead the romance is broken up by the aforementioned criminals, Josie’s father (Noble Willingham) and a police officer (Barry Corbin) searching the town for her, and, most unnecessarily, cutaways of Jim’s dad engaged in a late night bout of stress eating.  With these regular diversions the bond between Jim and Josie becomes too easily forged, especially considering the distance with which Connelly plays her poor little rich girl character and the happy ending envisioned for these two.  

For better and worse, CAREER OPPORTUNITIES plays like a hodgepodge of Hughes’ greatest hits. The themes resonate while the particulars don't translate as well to young adults.  The confidence that Jim and Josie can break out of their ruts and thrive together would be more convincing if they were headed to college and not a working world they are unequipped for.  The problem isn’t that CAREER OPPORTUNITIES devotes its heart to romantic fantasy but that it throws reason and reality to the wind for an off-putting guy and shortsighted girl.  After all, in the early morning hours sweeping floors at Target, you’re more likely to come face to face with a mess in aisle three needing cleaned up than the girl of your dreams with $52,000 in cash and looking to run away to California with you.

Grade: C-

The Three Stooges

THE THREE STOOGES (Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, 2012)

Directors and brothers Bobby and Peter Farrelly revive the cinematic hijinks of three idiot siblings in THE THREE STOOGES.  Split into three linked episodes, the film begins with baby brothers Moe, Larry, and Curly being tossed from a speeding car onto a Catholic orphanage’s doorstep.  The oddball boys struggle to win the hearts of adoptive parents, especially if they come as a package deal, so thirty-odd years later they’re still living with the good sisters and fellow parentless kids.

How much longer Moe (Chris Diamantopoulos), Larry (Sean Hayes), and Curly (Will Sasso) can stay is in doubt.  The orphanage needs $830,000 in short order to keep its doors open.  The boys volunteer to raise the money and head into the big city to save their home.

Fortune shines on them, or so they think, when a buxom woman and her supposed husband wish to hire them to ease his pain with a mercy killing.  Why, the couple is even seeking to pay the exact amount the orphanage needs for a night’s work.  Lydia (Sofia Vergara) and Mac (Craig Bierko), who is really her lover, want the Stooges to bump off her wealthy husband, but in the knuckleheads’  typical fashion, they bungle the job.  As they fail to earn the necessary cash, dissension divides their ranks.

THE THREE STOOGES is a rare modern slapstick film that succeeds with remarkable consistency.  There’s nothing new in the way these three galoots sling puns and cause hilarious physical pain to one another and anyone unfortunate to wander into their vicinity.  The Farrellys even borrow the comedic sound effects from the original shorts to punctuate all those eye pokes and knocking heads.  The terrifically timed, well-executed silliness is embraced without irony or any greater sense of purpose.  It delivers what it promises: scene after scene of low comedy done with relish.

Years ago it was reported that THE THREE STOOGES would star Jim Carrey, Sean Penn, and Benicio Del Toro.  Who knows what that unrealized alternate version would have looked like, but those top shelf actors would have been hard-pressed to come through any better than the less familiar stars who got the roles.  Diamantopoulos dons Moe’s bowl cut like a general’s stars and takes authoritative lead of this misfit trio with his rapidly barked orders and deployment of slaps and gouges.  Like a linebacker doing ballet, Sasso brings grace and innocence to Curly as the physical manifestation of the unfiltered id.  Hayes sounds like a dead ringer for the original Larry, and he slides comfortably into the laid-back, old-beyond-his-years manner that defines his personality and prematurely receding hairline.  The kid Moe, Larry, and Curly, played by Skyler Gisondo, Lance Chantiles-Wertz, and Robert Capron, do bang-up interpretations too.

THE THREE STOOGES is a celebration of the stupid that hits one square in the gut, yet the Farrellys ensure that none of the comedic violence feels malicious, even when the victims are easily scorned JERSEY SHORE cast members.  It’s all good fun that connects on a base level.  A nun is accidentally bonked in the face with the head of a sledgehammer.  The Stooges fend off hospital staff and security by wielding newborns producing prodigious urine streams.  The dimwitted trio ruins a golf course and kills who knows how many fish when they misinterpret what it means to get into the farm-raised salmon business.

The flatly shot STOOGES leaves much to be desired visually, but there is plenty to admire in the sharply constructed gags and anarchic spirit powering this lowbrow laugher.  The Farrellys have made a dumb movie, but it takes real skill to be this good at being brainless.

Grade: B

A Conversation with The Cabin in the Woods' Drew Goddard and Kristen Connolly

In THE CABIN IN THE WOODS a group of college friends set out for some fun in the wilderness but discover that someone or something is out to get them at their remote location.  To say much more about the clever horror-comedy from director and co-writer Drew Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon would be to spoil the surprises in a film that amusingly deconstructs scary movies while still aiming to terrify the audience.

In late March Goddard and lead actress Kristen Connolly, who plays the archetypal horror movie heroine, visited Otterbein University and WOCC TV3 to speak with me about THE CABIN IN THE WOODS.  Ideally this film is best seen without a lot of foreknowledge as to its particulars, so I focused the conversation on the genre.  The interview is mostly spoiler-free, but those who don't want anything ruined in advance should proceed with caution or watch a condensed version of my interview. 

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Mark Pfeiffer: THE CABIN IN THE WOODS plays as if it is a dialogue with horror films that preceded it. In a sense it’s a direct form of film criticism. What prompted you to tell the story in this way?

Drew Goddard:  It really just came from a place of love.  We just love horror movies.  I wrote this movie with my partner-in-crime Joss Whedon, and we just started from a place of us talking about our favorite horror movies and what made us scared and what made us cheer and what made us laugh and trying to figure out how to make the ultimate horror movie as it were.  From those discussions we just sat down and tried to write the best version of it we possibly could.

MP:  Was it in response to anything in particular, not necessarily a film but maybe a trend?

DG:  Not really.  Certainly there’s stuff that we’ve seen in horror films that we don’t care for, but the movie wasn’t really directly commenting on that.  It was more about celebrating the genre as best as we possibly could.

MP:  The genre can be looked upon as being disreputable, but the film argues that horror movies fulfill a necessary purpose.  I’m curious what you think horror can do that other films maybe aren’t able to do as well.

DG:  I think first and foremost the experience of watching a good horror film with an audience, there’s nothing like it.  It must be that it gets us in touch with something primal inside of us that needs to be released in the relative safety of the theater.  I’m not sure, but I know when you feel that energy, that electricity when you’re in a good horror movie and the audience is all screaming together as one and laughing together and feeling that release, there’s nothing like it.  I think we must have this primal need to look at our own darkness and then be relieved that that’s not actually happening to us at the end of the day.

MP:  Kristen, as a performer, how do you respond to that?  Is it different?

Kristen Connolly:  You mean performing in a horror movie as opposed to a different (genre film)?

MP:  Right.

KC:  Yeah, sure.  I shot a little tiny independent movie after this, and it was a romantic comedy.  It was a lot of night shoots, and I was sitting around on the couch.   I was like, “What the hell are we doing?  Let’s get moving.  I’m going to fall asleep if we don’t something.”

DG:  Aren’t I supposed to be screaming?

KC:  Yeah, shouldn’t I be running and yelling and crying and covered in something?  I hadn’t really thought about it before.  I was talking about this with Fran (Kranz, co-star in THE CABIN IN THE WOODS).  It’s such a different experience working on a horror movie and one that I think people don’t appreciate how hard it is.  It’s just physically demanding. It’s emotionally demanding. And to be in that state of terror is very draining, but it’s really exciting also.  There’s nothing like it.

MP:  Does that create a different bond between the actors than it would on another type of film?

KC:  Yeah, I think so.  Our group got really close really quickly.  I’m sure part of that was running around in the woods together at 5 o’clock in the morning.  We all really bonded, and we all really took care of each other, I think.

MP:  The film gives the impression that this is way out in the middle of nowhere.  Was it actually as remote as it seems?

DG:  Pretty much.  We were really in the middle of nowhere in the Vancouver woods, and so we felt cut off.  Certainly on those night shoots you had trouble discerning the movie from reality.  I certainly started to get freaked out about 3 a.m.  I don’t know about you.

KC:  Yeah.  Oh, definitely.  And we had bears on set one day too.  That was pretty exciting.  I think they put out trays of Chinese food, and then all of a sudden there were six bears wandering around the set.

DG:  Bears love Chinese food.  A lot of people didn’t know that.  That’s what we learned from THE CABIN IN THE WOODS. 

MP:  While the film certainly upholds horror movies, it also feels free to criticize them.  What frustrates you about what you see in contemporary horror pictures?

DG:  I feel like I can always tell when the director doesn’t love horror movies or doesn’t love his characters, more importantly.  There’s a feeling of we’re just setting these people up to get knocked off.  And then taking that a step further, I can always tell when the characters within a horror movie don’t care about each other.  That was really important for the five of them, and they all got that immediately that they need to look out for one another.  I think you can feel that energy.  You can always feel in a bad horror movie when a friend of theirs gets killed, they’re all immediately, “Well, we gotta keep running.  Forget that person!  We don’t care!”  We made a real effort to find that bond, not just between director and characters but between characters themselves.

MP:  Kristen, what was the challenge for you playing a character whose most important characteristic is that in a sense she is an archetype for horror films?

KC:  To be honest I didn’t really think about that much while we were shooting.  I know we talked about it early on.  I think there are a lot of outside elements that do the work of that for you.  My focus was really on the relationships between the characters and the friendship between Dana and Marty and between all of them as a group.  I think that the costume does some of the work, that the writing does a lot of the work, and I think the audience’s perceptions of what that role is do a lot of the work as well.  So as far as playing an archetype, I didn’t feel like I was doing that.

DG:  Yeah, I always said, “Don’t worry about the archetype.  You play the character.  I will worry about the archetype.  That’s my job.”  Because it’s a strange thing we ask of our cast.  In this movie there are sort of two roles.  They’re playing their character, and then there’s an archetype, and they sort of switch in and out depending on where we are in the movie.  That can be very tricky.  It was always about making sure we’re just emotionally relating to the person and not the idea.

MP:  With that then, keeping the audience in concert with what you’re trying to do, what was most important to you in how you kept everybody in line?  The movie does bounce back and forth quite a bit, more so than I would have expected.  So that everyone is, “OK, I get what you’re going for, but I’m still invested in the main story,” as it were.

DG:  First and foremost, tell the story.  That’s the rule.  If we’re getting too off point, then it had to go and don’t worry too much about the second layer and the third layer and the fourth layer, just know that that will organically come to the story.  Our first responsibility is telling an entertaining story for the audience. 

MP:  I hadn’t read much about the film before seeing it on purpose, especially with South by Southwest and starting to hear reactions.  What was interesting to me upfront is that there’s this really jarring scene that if your expectations are essentially that it’s teenagers in the woods.  What were you hoping to accomplish with that?  What do you think that does to an audience that is coming in like I was?

DG:  I think we wanted to say first and foremost, “This is not your average, everyday horror movie.”  We wanted to tell the audience right away we’re not playing cute.  This is a different movie.  This is something that you have not seen before, and we’re going to take it to new and exciting places.  It was one of the first scenes that we came up with because that’s the sort of scene in a traditional movie that would go right in the middle.  Oh, here’s the big reveal and then move on.  And that’s what a lot of people who’ve seen the trailer are worried about.  Oh, we’re giving this away.  I’m like, no, that’s actually the first two minutes of the film.  We’re actually not giving anything away.  Just trust us.  We’re saving a lot for you.

MP:  Kristen, this is your first lead role?

KC:  Uh huh.

MP:  How was the whole experience for you?

KC:  It was amazing.  I felt just so lucky to be a part of it and that Joss and Drew gave me this amazing opportunity and as much responsibility.  I was like, “Really, are you guys sure you want me?”  And I got to do so much stuff in this.  I know that you warned me early on this is going to be really hard, it’s going to be really, really hard.  And I was like, “No, I go to the gym.  I’ll be fine.”  But there’s nothing that can really prepare you for it.  It was an amazing learning experience for me and an amazing amount of fun and then to go to the theater and see it has just been--I’m going to get emotional--it’s been just really a wonderful experience.

MP:  Is that perhaps greater because the film has had to take a longer period of time to get in front of audiences?

KC:  Maybe.  I don’t know.  It could be.  It was a long time, and I think we all loved the movie so much that we really wanted to show it to people and knew that it was awesome.  We just didn’t know exactly what route it was going to take getting into movie theaters. To have it premiere at South by Southwest, to have it be with Lionsgate, it seems like everything has just worked out so perfectly, and it’s just been really extraordinary.

MP:  The movie does tap into what fuels nightmares and even some of the cultural differences that we have--you have the stuff with the Japanese horror films, which are clearly of a different model than what we get typically in America--and even the things that seem to bubble up and be of the moment of what seems to scare people.  For instance, you end up choosing the redneck zombie torture family, which is certainly something we’ve seen plenty of times, but at the same point, people don’t have that experience.  That’s not a natural fear that you have that you’re going to encounter these sorts of folks.  I’m just curious why you think that sort of monster or even the ones that do recur, why that resonates with audiences or even with yourself.

DG:  It’s hard because we deal with so many nightmares in THE CABIN IN THE WOODS.  I don’t want to spoil too much.  Just the concept of monsters in general is something that’s interesting to me.  I don’t know why any individual monster is more scary or less scary to some people.  It’s just some things resonate with people, some things don’t, and that changes over time.  It changes who we are.  We dealt with this a lot in CLOVERFIELD when this post 9/11 world where monsters suddenly became much scarier if they didn’t have a purpose behind them and it was just something rampaging.  I think that reflected what we were feeling as a culture.  And now we’re in this different time and the menace has a little bit more motivation behind it.  But again, that’s just reflective of the time.  It just evolves with time as society evolves.

MP:  Youth and beauty are always despoiled in these kinds of pictures.  That has been consistent whether you want to go back 30, 40, 50 years or today.

DG:  Even further.

MP:  Is that ultimately what’s underlying the fear in these films?

DG:  Certainly the question that interested me the most in making this film is--and it’s not just horror films--society has this need to idealize and marginalize youth and then destroy it.  And that’s not just in movies, that’s in society.  And that’s not just in current society, that’s been happening since the dawn of man.  We have put kids up on a pedestal only to sacrifice them, throw them into a volcano, destroy them publicly.   We keep doing it.  We have this weird worship of the youthful energy.  You see it now.  We idealize youth and then we send them off to war just to be slaughtered on the front lines.  As we get older we’re not fighting the wars, we’re letting these kids do it.  The question of why we need to do that, it serves some social purpose, but I don’t know what it is.  But the question of why is very much at the heart of this movie.

MP:  I may be reaching on this one, but looking at the stuff that you’ve written for television in particular that even applies to this film, there’s a view of reality of what we know and then there’s this invisible force designing it all behind the scenes.  Is that coincidence or is there something that draws you to this idea that you keep returning to it?

DG:  Yeah, I suppose so.  It is that age old question of free will or predestination.  I don’t know that I know the answer but I am fascinated by it.  I am fascinated by “am I free to make my choices or am I forced to make my choices because of the world around me”.  I do keep coming back to that, I suppose, but it’s never conscious.  I just notice it later after I’ve read my own script. 

MP:  I guess if you want to get into auteur theory it naturally goes right into that.  Well, we haven’t really talked about Joss Whedon and his involvement with the project.  Maybe both of you could speak to what collaborating with him was like.

DG:  I’ve been working with him for awhile.  My first job was as a staff writer on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER for Joss, and I got that job because I was the world’s biggest Joss Whedon fan.  When I first saw BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER I was in college, and it was like a bomb went off.  It was like, oh, somebody’s actually doing the most interesting, edgy filmmaking in the world and it’s on television on the WB.  I couldn’t believe that that was happening.  I love his writing.  He’s my favorite writer of all-time.  To get to work for him on BUFFY was a dream come true.  We’ve just kept that relationship going.  I’m always trying to find ways to work with him because I feel like he is one of those crazed geniuses you see once in a generation.  He’s just a joy.

KC:  Fran said something yesterday that I think is really true that Joss, without really doing anything, he just inspires you to want to do your best work.  And I think it’s because he’s always so supportive of people and he’s such a kind, nice person, but he’s also just so smart and it makes you really want to step it up.  I’m really glad actually that I didn’t know much of his stuff when I came out to meet you guys and that I didn’t know much of LOST either because I would have been a nervous wreck in that audition, so I think it’s probably good that I didn’t watch all of it until after.  I was like, “Oh my God, these guys are so smart.”

MP:  You’ve come more from a theater background.

KC:  I do, yeah.

MP:  How’s that transition been for you to do especially something like this, which has got to be vastly different from KING LEAR or some of the other things you’ve done?

KC: Although we were saying yesterday that Fran, his character isn’t that unlike the fool in KING LEAR.  I think that the approach to the work is the same.  It’s the same character work you do no matter what medium it is.  You’re not rehearsing really, so with this the shooting is the rehearsal, and you just try things and do it as many times as you can and as many different ways as you can whereas in rehearsal you sort of try those things out and then piece together what you like.  You’re an editor, I guess.  It’s funny, since I’ve finished school most of what I’ve done have been horror movies and Shakespeare.  I don’t know what the connection is.

DG:  There’s a lot of blood in both.

KC:  Yeah, exactly, a lot of blood.

MP:  What’s next for each of you after this?

DG:  I’m just having so much fun with this movie that I want to watch it with as many audiences as possible.  It’s really a fun movie to watch with an audience, so I’m on the CABIN world tour for the next month or so just checking this thing out.

KC:  I’m kind of doing the same for the next few weeks just going around watching the movie and talking about the movie.  Then I start a new series in April, HOUSE OF CARDS.  David Fincher is directing it, and it’s for Netflix.  It’s kind of a new thing, so hopefully it’ll be a lot of fun.

MP:  Clearly this is the sort of movie where seeing it with an audience is going to be a different experience than watching it at a press screening or even watching it at home.  What have been your observations as you’ve been at these various events seeing people reacting to it, hopefully in ways you anticipated and, I think maybe even hopefully, in ways you didn’t?

DG:  The thing that’s nice is, we knew if you’re a horror fan, you’re going to like this movie because we’ve got something for you in this movie. But the thing that’s been really satisfying for me is to hear the reaction afterwards.  A lot of people say, “I don’t even like horror movies, and I loved this film.”  That’s kind of surprising. That’s nice because it feels like I’m helping people see what I love about horror films and help expand that.  That’s been really nice.

KC:  There are moments in the movie--I can’t really say what they are--but I love hearing the audience respond every night.  There are a few that get the same reaction every time, and then there are different places where people laugh at something that maybe they didn’t laugh at the last time.  So that’s been really fun, to hear people enjoying the movie as much as I think we all enjoyed making the movie.

Wrath of the Titans

WRATH OF THE TITANS (Jonathan Liebesman, 2012)

Although Perseus (Sam Worthington), the son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), could be so much more than a fisherman and widowered father, he is content to pass his days in this humble manner in WRATH OF THE TITANS.  Family problems force him to abandon the low-key life he has chosen, though.

Zeus comes to Perseus with a dire warning that his imprisoned father, Kronos, is becoming more powerful and may soon break out of Tartarus.  Perseus doesn’t want to get involved, but when Zeus is taken captive in the underground prison by his brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes), he accepts that he must again come to the rescue of those mortal and, for the time being, immortal.

Joining Perseus on this adventure are the battle-tested queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike) and Poseidon’s son, the mischievous demigod Agenor (Toby Kebbell).  Along the way they must fend off many monsters, fight Perseus’s half-brother Ares (Édgar Ramírez), and break into Tartarus.

Even if it isn’t saying much, WRATH OF THE TITANS stands as a minor improvement to its predecessor.  The various CGI beasts that attack Perseus and crew boast inventively nasty designs. The fearsome Kronos resembles a stories-tall nightmare eruption from hell in vaguely humanoid form.  Ancient times are brought alive in an eye-popping digital world of gods, demigods, and men.

Director Jonathan Liebesman previously helmed the visually incoherent BATTLE LOS ANGELES, which was my pick for last year’s worst film, but in WRATH OF THE TITANS he manages the action scenes with a bit more patience than what has become the standard practice for chaotically shot and edited blockbusters.  To satisfy my taste he could still slow it down a bit more to allow for greater appreciation of all the computer wizardry involved in the action.  Nevertheless, at least this is a step in the right direction.

WRATH OF THE TITANS works not to take itself too seriously and hints that something of substance resides between the setpieces.  As Hephaestus, who possesses a map into and out of Tartarus, Bill Nighy provides welcome comic relief.  The screenplay identifies potentially rich thematic terrain with gods losing their strength because the people are  becoming more secular and praying less to them.  That exploring a contemporary theological concern is treated as fallow ground within popcorn entertainment comes as no surprise yet adds to the list of the film’s missed opportunities.

The trip into the Labyrinth ranks as the biggest and most bewildering chance that WRATH OF THE TITANS blows.  Rather than exploring the untold challenges and mysteries within it, the trip through the maze is brief and mostly uneventful. Like much of WRATH OF THE TITANS, these scenes are navigated with the dispassionate and ceaseless forward momentum inherent in following and completing GPS directions.  Perseus gets where he needs to go, but his journey contains as much excitement as there comes from being told to drive straight for a hundred miles.

Grade: C-

Mirror Mirror

MIRROR MIRROR (Tarsem Singh, 2012)

MIRROR MIRROR retells the story of Snow White (Lily Collins), although The Queen (Julia Roberts) insists this account belongs to her.  Snow’s father, The King, disappeared many years ago and is presumed dead, which leaves her at the mercy of her cruel stepmother.  

Snow’s youth and beauty threaten The Queen, and she keeps the girl confined to the palace grounds.  On the cusp of her eighteenth birthday Snow sneaks out and encounters Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer), who has been robbed and bound by small bandits.  After freeing him, she heads into the nearby town and discovers that the Queen has made the lives of these simple folk quite miserable.

The Prince’s arrival offers the prospect of economic salvation through marriage for the financially strapped Queen, but first she needs to remove Snow White from the picture. She arranges to have her killed, but her servant Brighton (Nathan Lane) can’t follow through, not that he tells The Queen.  Snow is taken in by the jolly band of thieves and plots to overthrow The Queen.

The ill fit between MIRROR MIRROR’s screenplay and its director's sensibilities dooms the comedic fairy tale from the outset.  Tarsem Singh excels at staging visual extravaganzas, and in that respect he often delivers what one desires from a fantastical story like this. Costume designer Eiko Ishioka’s work on MIRROR MIRROR, her final film, features strange and imaginative outfits.  Ishioka’s arty creations in her other collaborations with Singh have ranked among the most memorable aspects of those films.  In this instance the clothes steal the show from their wearers, making this umpteenth rendition of SNOW WHITE nearly worth seeing for the peculiar attire alone.

The sets, which look like they were built on a studio lot in the 1950s or ‘60s, produce an effect similar to that in pop-up storybooks.  While it’s an inspired flourish, sometimes the surroundings appear cheaply constructed and washed out.  Singh presents a visually distinctive world for the familiar tale, but in paling in comparison to the lavish lands of THE FALL and IMMORTALS, it seems like a halfhearted or budget-restricted attempt.

Singh’s handling of scripts does not match his knack for imagery.  This weakness is more visible than ever in MIRROR MIRROR.  The silly jokes and whimsical tone collapse under Singh’s heavy hand and lack of timing.  Roberts’ catty take on the evil Queen and Hammer’s uninhibited goofiness hint at the potential for a winking tribute to and fond puncturing of fairy tales a la THE PRINCESS BRIDE, but MIRROR MIRROR is more labored than playful.

To its credit, MIRROR MIRROR makes more interesting characters out of the dwarves than they’re usually granted.  Still, the snarky humor comes off as tired and obvious, and weird accents, like the queen’s disgusting beauty routine and a wildly out-of-place rape joke, seem better suited for a film that isn’t otherwise tame kiddie fare.  

Grade: C-

Trollhunter (Trolljegeren)

TROLLHUNTER (TROLLJEGEREN) (André Øvredal, 2010)

A trio of Norwegian college filmmakers follow a secretive man they believe is poaching bears and set out to expose his illegal activities.  Fashioning themselves documentarians working in the tradition of Michael Moore, they keep up their pursuit of him despite having interview requests rebuffed multiple times.  When Hans (Otto Jespersen) finally consents to reveal what keeps him busy all hours of the night, his answer is not one they anticipated.  Hans claims to hunt trolls.

The students--interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), sound engineer Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen)--are greatly amused by such an outrageous assertion, but after accompanying Hans on a search and being chased by a giant, lumbering, three-headed creature, they are duly convinced that trolls exist.  Possessing the first video evidence of trolls is bound to reward them with fame and fortune, and they continue to travel with Hans to collect more proof that the mythical beings are real.

TROLLHUNTER (TROLLJEGEREN) adopts the form of a found footage documentary, which translates as lots of banal conversations, abundant shots of the Scandinavian countryside, and competent but shaky handheld camerawork.  The format is inherently forgiving toward these shortcomings, if not outright encouraging of them.  While the style grants TROLLHUNTER the opportunity to take the cheap way out in showing (or not showing) the trolls, the special effects crew aims high and impresses with the design and realism in the gnarled creatures.

As robust as the FX work is, the meat of the film is narratively undernourished. There’s plenty of driving on highways and trudging through woods but little in terms of story or character, at least as far as the college students are concerned.  They need to be more engaging even if their actions aren’t.

Conversely, Jespersen amuses with the workmanlike approach he invests in his weary lone ranger patrolling the territories.  Hans’ matter-of-fact style, as if he’s placing cheese in mousetraps and swatting flies rather than baiting and blasting towering beasts, brings droll humor to the rather absurd situations he encounters. TROLLHUNTER can’t quite decide if it is playing the run-ins with trolls for laughs or scares.  Jespersen’s dry wit suggests that director André Øvredal should have favored the former.

Grade: C+

Casa de mi Padre

CASA DE MI PADRE (Matt Piedmont, 2012)

The sweet but stupid Armando Alvarez (Will Ferrell) is delighted when his brother Raul (Diego Luna) returns home to their father’s ranch in CASA DE MI PADRE, but their reunion may rip the Mexican family apart.  Although he wouldn’t dream of betraying his brother’s trust, Armando fights a strong attraction to Raul’s fiancée Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez).  Of greater concern is the revelation that Raul’s business success comes from dealing drugs.  Armando feels that Raul’s actions bring great shame on the family, not to mention that it makes them targets of rival dealer La Onza (Gael García Bernal).

CASA DE MI PADRE succeeds at mimicking the look and feel of inspirations as varied as Mexican melodramas, spaghetti westerns, and schlock cinema.  The painted backdrops, cheap sets, and overheated dialogue are parts of the joke and parts of the simple charm.  It’s a strange, ambitious film that feels as much like an affectionate experiment in Z-grade moviemaking as GRINDHOUSE even if the aim is to poke fun at the sources rather than venerate them.

Continuity errors, bad splices, mannequins utilized as extras, and an actor noticeably breathing while his character is supposed to be thought dead are employed for laughs, but these gags are inserted without scare quotes.  Cast and crew fully commit to being good at making a bad film.

For all of the rigorousness put into recreating lackluster movies of yesteryear, CASA DE MI PADRE often misses in one key area.  It isn’t funny for significant stretches. Director Matt Piedmont, screenwriter Andrew Steele, and the actors identify the unintentional hilarity when sincere efforts yield terrible results but aren’t able to add to it with consistently good jokes of their own.  After awhile CASA DE MI PADRE begins to play as a conceptual exercise rather than a legitimately funny movie in its own right.

As best as I can tell--which is to say, not very well--Ferrell performs respectably speaking Spanish for the whole film, and he’s to be commended for venturing into left field for CASA DE MI PADRE.  Many screen comedians who have reached his level of success tend to play it safe.  While CASA DE MI PADRE comes up short in the laughs department, it’s a suitably weird project that demonstrates Ferrell has retained his adventurousness.  Here’s hoping next time around the creative risks he takes are funnier.

Grade: C

21 Jump Street

21 JUMP STREET (Phil Lord and Chris Miller, 2012)

In 21 JUMP STREET new police officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) botch reading the Miranda rights to a suspect and are promptly reassigned to an undercover program.  They are to pose as high school students and find the the dealers and supplier of a synthetic drug already responsible for one kid’s death.

Although they became friends while training to be on the force, the mismatched cops were on opposite ends of the social spectrum when they went to high school the first time.  Schmidt was the geeky Eminem wannabe who excelled in academics and failed socially.  Jenko was the dumb jock lucky to be a graduating member of the class of 2005.

When Jenko confuses their assumed identities, they end up swapping positions on the social ladder.  Schmidt gets into the cool crowd and lets it go to his head while Jenko lands with the nerds and discovers the joy of using science to blow up things.

Other than the premise of supposedly young looking law enforcement officers going undercover as teenagers, 21 JUMP STREET isn’t terribly concerned with being faithful to the late ‘80s Fox television series it’s based on.  That’s not a problem, as the source material doesn’t require reverential treatment, and in fact the action-comedy is a lot more enjoyable since it doesn’t try to earn points by wallowing in nostalgia or replicate what preceded it.

Instead 21 JUMP STREET is a smartly stupid buddy comedy that plays with the ridiculousness of its set-up.  Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and screenwriter Michael Bacall don’t ignore the elephant in the room--that Hill and Tatum couldn’t pass as teens--but gleefully point out the absurdities of the entire arrangement.  Lord and Miller co-directed the funny and inventive CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, and they’ve brought that animated film’s zany sense of humor to live action in a way that seems perfectly ordinary within a cartoonish situation.

Still, the best jokes are often rooted in small, everyday observations that come at Schmidt and Jenko’s expense.  They find today’s high school landscape foreign to the one they knew.  Their debate over how to wear a backpack--one strap or two?--and bewilderment at the different fashions and social conventions bring plenty to laugh at in the rapidity of changes in youth culture and adults trying to keep up with it.

21 JUMP STREET wouldn’t deliver as many big laughs as it does if Hill and Tatum didn’t commit so fully to looking dumb.  Hill throws himself into singing a song as Peter Pan in a drama club audition and trying to run a track relay while high as a kite.  Tatum’s lunkhead act amuses when words betray him, such as when he pronounces the abbreviation for AP Chemistry, and in the excitement he gets from hanging with the kids he would have snickered at when they were his peers.  Tatum was pretty funny in a small role in THE DILEMMA.  In 21 JUMP STREET he’s found a good way of playing against his looks for big comedic payoffs.  He and Hill make a fun tandem.

Grade: B

John Carter

JOHN CARTER (Andrew Stanton, 2012)

Former Civil War Confederate captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) desires nothing more than to forget the tragedy that fell upon his family and search for a cave of gold, but you can’t always get what you want.  The title character in JOHN CARTER does find that gilded cave but has no time to claim its riches.  Instead he is involved in a brief clash with the strange man he discovers in it and then awakens in the middle of a red desert.

Although he doesn’t know it at first, John Carter has been transported to Mars, or Barsoom, as the natives refer to it.  He’s captured by a tribe of fifteen-feet tall, four-armed Green Martians called Tharks.  In this situation John is regarded as the alien creature.  Being on Mars imparts John with great strength and a spectacular jumping ability, which delights the Tharks’ leader Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe).  He will be safe as long as he performs for his captors.

When the war between the humanoid Red Martians spills into the Tharks’ territory, John puts his physical skills to use saving the princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins).  She’s trying to protect the city-state of Helium and not marry Sab Than (Dominic West) of Zodanga, who hopes to overtake her home by matrimony if martial force won’t suffice.  Sab Than is backed by the shape-shifting, immortal White Martians known as Therns.  They wish to create chaos and destruction on Barsoom.  Matai Shang (Mark Strong), the primary Thern advising Sab Than, is concerned that John Carter could ruin the plans they are trying to put in motion.

John Carter, Dejah Thoris, and Tars Tarkas’s disgraced daughter Sola (Samantha Morton) set out for the holy land that might hold the answer for his return to Earth, but inevitably they get pulled back into the fight between Helium and Zodanga.

If all of this sounds ridiculously complicated, it is.  That’s not even accounting for the triple introductions, including the framing story in which John Carter is thought dead and his cousin Edgar Rice Burroughs (Daryl Sabara) reads about his adventure on Mars.  The plot dump requires an adjustment period to get one’s footing.  Clearly director and co-writer Andrew Stanton, the FINDING NEMO and WALL-E helmer making his live-action debut, and screenwriters Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon are trying to do right by the Burroughs stories.  (Yes, the author, who wrote a series of novels about life on Mars, is also a character in the film.)  They go to great lengths to adapt a mythology likely unfamiliar to the majority of the blockbuster-seeking crowd.  While their ambition is to be admired, the volume of information to process makes for a rocky first half.

Once JOHN CARTER gets past laying out the specifics of the various Martian cultures and tensions, it settles into a pleasant groove that recalls the old Saturday afternoon serials or, more accurately, the STAR WARS and Indiana Jones films inspired by them.  Stanton understands that this is first and foremost a rip-roaring adventure not meant to be taken too seriously, and he does a nice job layering in light touches and comedic moments, particularly with the Martian version of a dog.

The action sequences are high on CGI spectacle but fail to stand out from what’s been done in other sci-fi and fantasy extravaganzas.  (It doesn’t help that the 3D is absolutely of no consequence.)  A colosseum battle scene features the film’s best combination of effects, thrills, and humor, yet there’s the nagging feeling that it’s indebted to a similar stretch in STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES.  The source material for the adaptation was published in 1912, so JOHN CARTER may have been doomed to feel derivative through no fault of its own.

Unlike its shaky beginning, JOHN CARTER ends strongly and brings the depth of feeling for the main character and his dilemma that is absent for much of the running time.  John Carter gradually acclimates to Mars so that a place where he didn’t want to be begins to feel like home.  Oddly enough, the film has the same effect.  JOHN CARTER delivers a rough welcome to Burroughs’ vision of Mars, but I wouldn’t mind returning for future adventures, assuming this entry reaps enough money at the box office.

Grade: C+

A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin)

A SEPARATION (JODAEIYE NADER AZ SIMIN) (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)

In A SEPARATION Nader (Peyman Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) have reached a major disagreement in their fourteen-year marriage.  They and their eleven-year-old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) have received their visas, but the window to use them will soon be closing.  Simin wishes to leave Iran for the United States because she wants a better life for her daughter than what she believes awaits her in their home country.  Nader refuses to go because he must take care of his Alzheimer’s stricken father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi).

Feeling as though she has no alternative, Simin files for a divorce.  She freely admits that her husband does not treat her poorly.  Nader does not wish to end their relationship.  Informed of these facts, the judge sees no just cause for granting the divorce.  Simin expresses her displeasure by moving into her parents’ home.

With his wife gone, Nader needs someone to attend to his father while he works.  He hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat), a poor woman who must make a long commute to Tehran to earn her pay.  The requirements of the job present challenges that may exceed what she can handle, but Razieh needs the money, especially with her hotheaded husband Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini) in debt to creditors.

The situation takes a turn for the worse when Nader makes two discoveries not to his liking and fires her on the spot.  The outcome of their argument leads to legal charges that could bring serious trouble to both families.

Writer-director Asghar Farhadi performs some kind of miracle with the tension and complexity he produces from such a simple set-up.  Even more impressively, he does it by observing all sides fairly and having them present the truth as they know it.  Here are two couples attempting to make the best of their undesirable circumstances at home and in the judicial system, yet the more they try to wiggle their ways out of their problems, the more serious the consequences become.

Certainly plenty is at stake in the legal dispute, but as information is revealed in testimony, the repercussions for each side threaten to greatly exceed what any of them could have anticipated.  Even striving to make things right after a difficult investigation can have negative, unforeseeable results.  Relationships are also at risk. Nader and Simin were happily married, and their choices can be justified.  What is the correct decision when improving a child’s prospects means abandoning an ill parent or reliant relative?

The stress of picking between impossible options creates the cracks.  Endeavoring to heal them increases the fractures.  Being right within a marriage and the court is important to all parties, but the cost can be steep, especially when arriving at the superior judgment is practically unachievable.

Farhadi’s exceptional screenplay for A SEPARATION is a model of dramatic structure.  The makers of Hollywood thrillers wish they could turn out films this nerve-racking, let alone ones that achieve such narrative pressure through ordinary conversations that spouses and legal combatants might engage in.

The uniformly excellent cast pulls audience loyalties with great skill.  Moadi gains sympathy as the wounded spouse and suffering child, but he also plays Nader with stubbornness and anger that can make him difficult to support at times.  Hatami stands firm as a protective mother whose singular mindset can exacerbate matters.  Bayat attracts compassion and aggravates through her effort to act properly according to rigid expectations.

A SEPARATION isn’t strictly about divorce or other marital parting of ways, but a crucial portion consists of providing perspective on how spousal divisions and disagreements affect children.  Termeh and Razieh’s young daughter are mostly silent witnesses to the domestic and legal battles around them.  In a film teeming with emotional potency, the most devastating moments come in the acknowledgment that regardless of what the adults sort out, these girls are bystanders who absorb significant injuries of their own.

Grade: A


(Note:  A SEPARATION was not seen in time for consideration among my picks for the best films of 2011.  If it had, it would have ranked third on my Top 10 list.)