At the movies: Jimmy and Stiggs.

 

Jimmy and Stiggs kicked my ass, emotionally. There are times when you have to reckon with the friendships that come apart for all manner of reasons, and the ache gets so loud you can't hear anything else. This movie is like that.

At the movies: Guardians of the Galaxy 3D.

I've been a fan of James Gunn's work since I first saw Tromeo and Juliet at a friend's apartment in Murfreesboro way back in the late '90s. I was so bowled over by what that film did that I even saw both of the Scooby-Doo movies he wrote. Fortunately, with the Dawn of the Dead remake, it all got back on track, and Slither and Super continued in that fashion. So there's history there, and I have to doff my theoretical hat to Marvel, because with Shane Black last year and now James Gunn, they've taken some of my favorite writer/directors and made them A-list players - and this is something that can only benefit our culture immeasurably.

So please do check out my review of this film for the Scene. It's a lot of fun, and it brings me great joy on multiple levels.

At the movies: Super 8.

Sorry for the delay on this one, but due to Bonnaroo and some eCommunications issues, my Super 8 review didn't go up online until Saturday. Fortunately, you can experience it here. In keeping with my newfound freedom to

SUPER 8

***

The Lamb family is reeling from the tragic death of steelworker/mother Elizabeth, leaving son Joe and Sheriff's Deputy Jack (Kyle "Coach from Friday Night Lights" Chandler) to figure out a whole new way of life without her. Lillian, Ohio's smalltown charms keep the Deputy occupied, but never with anything too terribly serious. Yet the two Lambs are growing farther apart, with young Joe throwing himself into making a Super 8 zombie film with a bunch of his friends. It's a concept that resonates in the work of this film's executive producer Steven Spielberg, and one that finds commonality in the dreams of countless kids who've wanted to use the movies to tell big stories of their own.

These are an interesting bunch of kids, and we get to know each of them, getting a feel for their different backgrounds and attitudes, but understanding how the urge to make something awesome has tied them together. Special praise is due Charles, the director and writer of the film the kids are making, played by newcomer Riley Griffiths; his is the best fat kid character in a movie since Brett Kelly in Bad Santa. And Elle Fanning, who stole the uneven Somewhere away from Stephen Dorff just last year, is remarkable here. She has a rehearsal scene that hits with a power you wouldn't expect (very Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive); there's an electric quality to how she taps into emotions, finding the perfect mesh of precision and passion. Also, Glynn Turman makes a visceral impression as the school biology teacher, who here more than karmically atones for his character's actions in 1984's Gremlins, just one of the many subtle in-jokes for fans of classic critter cinema.

Super 8 is determinedly Spielbergian, but that's sort of the point. It's been marketing itself with a great trailer that incorporates all the tropes of Spielberg's 80s work, utilizing its kids' ensemble and mysterious SciFi whatsit in a way that practically promises you "E.T., but with a scarier alien." There is raw emotional pain at the center of this film, dealing with serious issues and deeply felt family conflicts, and it's in that aspect that the film is truest to its late 70s/early 80s Spielberg influences.

What's funny is that the Spielberg production that is more accurately comparable to this film is The Goonies. The way it ties family troubles into adventure and peril will resonate with any child of 70s or 80s film, and writer/director/producer J.J. Abrams, at his best, aims to create a work that gives kids today some significant emotional commonality with previous generations. And that's admirable.

If it never quite reaches the greatness of its aims, I'm still inclined to show it some love.The opening scene does an exceptional job of saying volumes without saying a word, like one of those Truman Capote sentences that are concise, yet hold forth much meaning. A sign is the signifier for the Lamb family, one that sets up much of the engine that drives the film.

Abrams juggles so many different elements and exceptional moments for so long that it feels like he could conceivably go the distance and knock one out of the park. That is, until a three-minute chunk of the film combines some unfortunately-timed anthropomorphism, a gloppy ton of sentimentality, and a literalization of the film's primary theme that threatens to derail things completely. Things have been going so well for so long it's hard to get too mad, but it really means the difference between a fun popcorn epic and a new classic of across-the-board storytelling.

One thing that Abrams does, making his own definitive statement about the social history of the U.S. since the late 70s/early 80s, is gleefully destroy suburbia on both figurative and literal levels. Spielberg's films found comfort in the small communities whose families had fled the city, and Abrams takes some insane joy in allowing late-70s suburban life to be destroyed by the military industrial complex and the boiling anger that its ideologies instilled. If its alien isn't up to Cloverfield standard (say what you will about that uneven effort, but it had an exquisite monster) or to H.R. Giger's monsterpiece, it tries for mystery and menace for a good 90% of its runtime, which is certainly the way to do it. Super 8 has ambition and style, and several great young adult performances. I wonder what works it will inspire from future generations?

A note for the prospective viewer. Something happens during the ending credits that makes everything pull together with a majesty that is incredibly heartening. Don't be in such a rush to leave, and let your theatre know not to bring up the lights too soon.

At the movies: Paul.

So, apparently I liked this movie way more than the rest of the world (barring Steve K and Zack H). I acknowledge some of its flaws, but I stand by it as being a lot weirder and more complex than it's getting credit for.

Also, it does that epic tracking shot along the underside of a spacecraft, and I just adore that.

At the movies: Avatar.

I yearn for the days back when the new James Cameron film didn’t also happen to be the most expensive movie ever made.

There’s an elegant grace to the way his scripts and ingenious approach to designing technical hardware meshed back in the early 80s, and 1984’s The Terminator and 1986’s Aliens serve as scrappy and inventive genre masterpieces that cemented the brilliant Canadian as the go-to guy for innovative SciFi and action.

Now, twenty-plus years down the road, he’s finally given us his follow-up to Titanic. How do you, in fact, follow up the biggest movie in the history of the world? With a three hour epic about culture clash, greed, evolution, and blue feline aliens with exterior ganglia capable of linking with any other indigenous life directly at the nervous system.

Also, there’s an inordinate amount of weaponry and a lot of explosions. Humans bad, aliens good, terrestrial spirituality viable, free market not so much. Characters, no. Archetypes, certainly.

Avatar is a bounty of visual riches. So much artistry and effort went into the creation of the film’s multiple environments that it becomes entirely possible to just soak in its atmosphere, disregarding the often obvious or clunky dialogue. The world of Pandora is so well laid-out with its multitudes of life that you could tell all sorts of stories in it- it’s just kind of a bummer that this particular one feels so played out (if looking for major influences, start with Cameron’s own Aliens, Dances with Wolves, Dune, Nightbreed, The New World, and eXistenZ).

If nothing else, this film cements the absolute divinity of Sigourney Weaver, who brings class, grit, bemused pragmatism, and fierce decency to her part. She gets the film’s most moving moment, and it’s her history as both icon and alien expert that give the uneven script its perceptible subtexts.

But the one thing I wanted from this film is something we get just a taste of in his highly enjoyable documentary Aliens of the Deep. An early scene, fairly inconsequential to the overall investigation of underwater volcanic habitats, but one that delivers a viscerality that even the highest-powered computers can’t manufacture. An extended tracking shot through an office, navigating rows of desks.

No people, no explosions, no redefining of the medium. Just physical space at constant time, something breathtakingly real. But I’d never bet the man out. He’s nimble, and thrives on limitations. I look forward to what comes next. And any film that can create this kind of hardcore debate (and believe you me, it has) speaks well to the future of the medium.

But the scoreboard doesn't lie: beautiful and derivative. Occasionally visionary, sometimes quite stupid. Worth seeing, certainly. But an odd parable, with uncertain lessons. Perhaps it's the goy's teeth, all over again?

At the movies: District 9.

After being consecutively blindsided by two stinkers which tried to excuse their own craptitude by meekly saying that escapist explosive-oriented toy-generated spectacles were their own reason for existing, audiences will find the pleasures of District 9 to be a buffet of everything a moviegoer could want.

It’s a SciFi action film with awesome guns and great creatures, it’s an allegorical examination of national responses to otherness (that the film is South African in origin is rather remarkable, though at no point is the word Apartheid ever mentioned), it’s a deadpan funny mockumentary (a colleague calls this aspect of the film “The Office, but with aliens”), it’s a foreign film with a hefty portion of subtitled alien or Afrikaans dialogue, it’s a hero story of a middle-management corporate lackey (the exceptionally good Sharlto Copley) who gets put in the middle of an untenable situation and overcomes his own prejudices (and even learns a few lessons) while at the same time expanding his own definitions of the world, it’s a gory Cronenbergian nightmare of alienation from one’s own body (and sometimes the alienation of one’s head from one’s body), and it’s a political issue film as well.

If you took I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, The Fly, Alien Nation, Sarafina!, and Robocop, then Brundleflied them together, you might get District 9, but why take that chance. Director Neill Blomkamp (and Executive Producer Peter Jackson) have made something that, while fulfilling all obligations of the summer blockbuster (including precocious brilliant child character- though he has multiple mandibles and a chitinous carapace- and a love story derailed by betrayal) still manages to give the audience a more expansive experience.

It’s like watching a social interest documentary, a grindhouse splatter flick, and a family drama all at the same time. And if by its end, the film feels almost exhausting, it has a style and ambition that is to be lauded. If nothing else, there’s now no excuse for filmmakers to say that big summer cinema has to be brainless.

At the movies: The Day The Earth Stood Still 'O8

A new take on Robert Wise's 1951 Sci-Fi classic about extraterrestrial intervention in Earth's burgeoning nuclear arms race, The Day The Earth Stood Still has been reimagined for contemporary audiences and issues, with Keanu Reeves taking over for Michael Rennie as alien spokesbeing Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly in the Jennifer Connelly role of empathetic female presence.

Tackling a beloved classic is always a risky step; video store walls and Netflix queues are filled with the wreckage of contemporary remakes of Hollywood evergreens, most of which serve no real purpose other than cashing in on a well-known name or concept or piece of iconography. Director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) has some mighty big shoes to fill, as Wise's career covered everything from space opera (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and ghost stories (The Haunting) to musical stalwarts like The Sound of Music and West Side Story. Granted, today's audiences expect different things from their mopvies than people did in 1951, but it's hard to retain any sincere optimism when one finds out that Fox (a studio who has a rather spotty record with genre material over the last few years- X-Men 3, Babylon A.D., Alien vs Predator 1 and 2, I'm talking to you, specifically) is involved.

But the big surprise is that The Day The Earth Stood Still isn't a big mess. It's got some very effective moments, a great central conceit (Keanu Reeves as alien spokesthing is inherently great), some decent effects, and a complete refutation of the Independence Day school of alien encounters. The most interesting thing that this new version brings to the table is in casting Will Smith's son as the pivotal human who must learn to evolve beyond xenophobic jingoism and become a truly civilized being.

I'm hoping that Derrickson has made a film that will change some minds and shake up some sensibilities, as the 1951 original did. It's certainly a step up from Emily Rose, and it's better as a remake than it has any right to be. Not essential viewing, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's trying...