My Thoughts on the 2012 Golden Globes

Well, here we are again!  We all know that I love the Oscars.  They are like my Super Bowl.  And that would make the Golden Globes like the conference champion game, or something like that.

The Globes are always a fun precursor to the Academy Awards, and give me just as much to cheer and complain about.  So how about this year?  Here are my thoughts on the winners.  This is of course for movies only.  I really don't watch enough TV to speak intelligently about the TV awards, though I do love me some Modern Family and Game of Thrones!

BEST PICTURE - DRAMA

The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
The Ides of March
Moneyball
War Horse

Winner:  The Descendants.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen this yet, but I have heard it is pretty good, though not as good as Payne's other films, Sideways and About Schmidt.  That said, out of this batch, I have heard that The Descendants was the frontrunner.

BEST ACTRESS - DRAMA

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Winner:  Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady.  Wow, this might be the most difficult category I have seen.  Possibly ever.  Any other year, any of these roles would have won, and it is their misfortune to be running up against each other like this!  I guessed Meryl Streep, but have to admit that I am rooting for Glenn Close to win the Oscar, since she has been nominated several times and has never won.

BEST ACTOR - DRAMA

George Clooney, The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Winner:  Clooney!  Playing against type, I heard he was excellent in The Descendants.  He is the frontrunner to win the Oscar, as well, though this makes me a liar since I have been saying this was Michael Fassbender or Ryan Gosling's year since between them, they seemed to be in every other movie this year...

BEST PICTURE - COMEDY OR MUSICAL

50/50
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Midnight in Paris
My Week with Marilyn

Winner:  The Artist.  As it should be.  This was a good category, though.  Midnight in Paris is easily Woody Allen's best in a decade.  Bridesmaids was a lot of fun (though I thought a tad overrated - sorry!).  And I have heard nothing but good things about 50/50 and My Week with Marilyn, though is the latter really a comedy?  But The Artist brought something new to the table, and by that I mean, something old.  It showed that the oldest storytelling techniques can still pull our heartstrings.  It is a remarkably clever film and I am glad it won.

BEST ACTRESS - COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Jodie Foster, Carnage
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
Kate Winslet, Carnage

Winner:  Michelle Williams.  While I still question My Week with Marilyn being a comedy, her performance as the iconic Monroe does look spot on.  Oh, well...

BEST ACTOR - COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Brendan Gleeson, The Guard
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50
Ryan Gosling, Crazy, Stupid, Love
Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris

Winner:  Jean Dujardin is brilliant.  That he can tell a whole story with just his body language is superb.    I think Clooney is still the frontrunner for the Oscar, but I am rooting for Dujardin all the way.

BEST ANIMATED FILM

The Adventures of TinTin
Arthur Christmas
Cars 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

Winner:  Adventures of TinTin.  Thank heavens the overrated Rango didn't win.  I don't get what everyone sees in this film.  It's not bad, but why is it getting so much love?  And how did Cars 2, the only Pixar movie to ever get slammed by critics and audiences, even get nominated??

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

The Flowers of War (China)
In the Land of Blood and Honey (USA)
The Kid with a Bike (Belgium)
A Separation (Iran)
The Skin I Live In (Spain)

Winner:  A Separation.  I knew this would win.  With Iran being in the news so much, I just had a feeling it would be on voters' radars.  Which is not a knock against the movie at all, since I have heard nothing but good things.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

Winner:  Octavia Spencer was fine in The Help, so I don't hold this against her.  But I was kind of hoping Berenice Bejo would win.  She totally enchanted me with her enthusiasm and sheer peppy-ness in The Artist.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
Albert Brooks, Drive
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Viggo Mortenson, A Dangerous Method
Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Winner:  Christopher Plummer.  I will always have a soft spot for Branagh, who I have been a big fan of ever since he launched onto the scene as "the next Olivier" back in 1989's Henry V.  And what more appropriate role to win for than by actually playing Oliver?  That said, Plummer is due.  A great performer with a long career of fine work, I'm glad Plummer took this home.  I will be hoping he wins the Oscar, too.

BEST DIRECTOR

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
George Clooney, The Ides of March
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Winner:  Martin Scorsese.  Wow, this was a surprise.  I did not expect Hazanavicius to lose.  That said, Scorsese is the mastermind of why Hugo works so well.  I probably would have still voted for Hazanavicius, but Hugo is a wonderful film and I am okay with Scorsese winning.

BEST SCREENPLAY

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, The Ides of March
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, The Descendants
Stan Chervin, Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball

Winner:  Woody Allen.  Well, here is the award that I am glad The Artist did not win for.  I'm not even sure why it was nominated, to be honest.  I expected Payne to win, but am fine with Woody Allen getting it.  The script was whimsical and creative and his take on Hemingway is downright brilliant.  

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Ludovic Bource, The Artist
Abel Korzenoiwski, W.E.
Trent Rezner, Atticus Ross, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Howard Shore, Hugo
John Williams, War Horse

Winner:  Ludovic Bource.  Despite relying on Bernard Hermann's brilliant Vertigo love theme for the climax of the film, Bource still produced an immense amount of music and was responsible for carrying the film forward.  He did a good job, so I think he deserved it.  For the record, as much as I love Williams, War Horse is way too sappy and I am tired of the atonal droning like that of Dragon Tattoo winning awards.  I don't care if it is effective in the movie...maybe that's just me being bitter.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG:

"Hello, Hello," Gnomeo and Juliet, Elton John and Bernie Taupin
"The Keeper," Machine Gun Preacher, Chris Cornell
"Lay Your Head Down," Albert Nobbs, Brian Byrne, Glenn Close
"The Living Proof," The Help, Mary J. Blige, Thomas Newman, Harvey Mason, Damon Thomas,
"Masterpiece," W.E. Madonna, Julie Frost, Jimmy Harry

Winner:  Madonna's "Masterpiece." It is better than her "Die Another Day," but that said, I don't think any of these songs are that memorable.  Where is "Muppet or Man" or "Life's a Happy Song," both terrific songs from The Muppets.  Those should have been nominated.  Where else would we get awesomely fun lyrics like, "If I am a muppet/then I'm a very manly muppet."

Okay, so that's what we got so far.  Stay tuned for when the Oscar nominations come out.  I'm ready to start complaining!

Legion

Legion

Full disclosure.  I enjoy apocalyptic movies.  Even when they aren't very good, I still think they are fun to watch.  There is something appealing about having a small band of would-be survivors wandering around as the world falls apart around them and as the audience tries to guess who is going to die in what order.  But sometimes, the concept just goes too far even for me.  So here is where we have Legion, the movie where God decides he wants to destroy sinful mankind, but instead of sending a flood he decides to send a bunch of monsters to attack a diner.

Oh, sure, it's technically more complicated than that - involving angels, prophecies, unborn saviors of humanity, blah blah blah.  Really this movie is about a bunch of monsters attacking a diner.  Inside the diner, we have a nice little cast led by Lucas Black, Dennis Quaid, Adrianne Palicki, Tyrese Gibson, and Charles S. Dutton.  They are protected by a fallen angel, Michael (played by Paul Bettany), who in the opening scene inexplicably cuts off his own wings and disgards his badass heavenly weapons in a misguided belief that a bunch of machine guns are more effective tools against the apocalypse.

I'll admit, I do admire one thing about the film; it tries to take its time in the beginning.  I like that they take time to slow build to the chaos.  We are introduced to everyone in the diner one at a time.  With a better script, that means we actually would have cared about these characters as they started dying.  I also enjoyed the one real good scene in the movie (and the scene that made the trailers so entertaining), when a little old demon grandma runs loose in the diner trying to kill everyone.  This scene had some over the top, Sam Raimi/Evil Dead-style silliness that made it really fun.  If only the whole movie had been like that...

...because after grandma's exit via the business end of a shotgun, the movie gets bad.  Really bad.  And fast.  All logic gets thrown out the window, characters die in the lamest possible ways, and actors wait around, grimly moping about because they can't wait to be killed off so they can get the heck out of this trashy movie.  Worst of all, the movie stops even pretending to have any sort of logic, especially when the archangel Gabriel shows up to wreak havoc and block bullets with his super wings.  While Kevin Durand makes for an imposing and a strangely sympathetic villain, this whole climactic battle is terrible, starting bad, getting worse, and then occasionally pausing between punches to make some bold, theological statements that befuddle me ("You gave him what he asked for; I gave him what he needed.").

SPOILER: For the second time in a row, I am reviewing a film where the ending makes no sense.  So if God changes his mind and decides that he no longer wants the apocalypse to happen, then why are our surviving heroes driving around in the last scene, armed to the teeth and ready to wage the war against the next wave of possessed monster angels?  I think it is because the producers wanted to rip off the powerful last scene of Terminator, where a pregnant Sarah Conner drives around in the desert, armed and ready for Judgment Day.  But in Terminator, it all makes sense; Judgement Day is coming.  In Legion, Judgement Day has come and gone and everything is now cool again...so what's the big deal?  This movie makes my head hurt.

MVP: 
I have to give Paul Bettany some credit.  Although he is better known for his dramatic work, and his slight frame doesn't seem very tough, Bettany throws himself into the role with gritty earnestness.  Bettany must have known that he was making a garbage film, but that doesn't stop him from giving the same professionalism as he would in one of his Oscar contenders like A Beautiful Mind or Master and Commander.  He's a good actor, and a surprisingly solid action lead. Let's give him something better than this.

BEST LINE:
Michael: "And yet, in the midst of all this darkness, I see some people who will not be bowed.  I see people who will not give up, even when they know all hope is lost.  Some people, who realize being lost is so close to being found.  I see you, Jeep."  Here's an example of a bad line made good by Bettany's performance. It ends up being one of the few nice moments in the movie...

TRIVIA:  
The tattoos on Michael are written in Enochian, the language of angels supposedly revealed to John Dee and Edward Kelley in the 16th Century.   I have to admit, that is a pretty cool detail.  I wish the rest of the movie had been this thought-out.

Immortals

Immortals

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from Immortals and unbelievably, the movie did not even live up to those low expectations.  I didn't ask for much.  I just wanted something that looked cool and maybe had a fun fight or two.  That's not too much to ask for with director Tarsem Singh (The Cell), who has a keen eye for the visually stunning.  But right off the bat, I was disappointed.  Even though the movie's art direction seems like it would be cool, I couldn't tell because it is buried under murky photography and is hard to see.  Tarsem also pushes the costumes a bit too far - case in point, please refer to Ares' hat in the above picture.

As for the story, it is standard mythological fare.  King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) wants to release the evil Titans who are trapped in Mount Tartarus, thus destroying the Olympian gods and pretty much bringing about the end of the world.  The gods, led by Zeus (Luke Evans) need to stop him, but don't want to interfere because they think the humans have to exercise their free will or some nonsense like that.  Speaking of the humans, our heroes include Theseus (Henry Cavill), a beautiful oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto), and a random thief Stavros (Stephen Dorff).  Together, they will take us on a classic adventure!

Except it is not so classic.  The movie wasn't good when I was watching it and it got worse the more I thought about it.  I don't even know where to begin with some of the stupidity in this movie.  Unable to write objectively, maybe I will let the characters speak for me.  Be warned, MASSIVE SPOILERS below.  I plan on ruining the whole movie.

Hi, I'm the general of the Greek army.  So we totally have this problem.  This dude named Hyperion is totally like trying to attack Mount Tartarus and release the Titans.  And we have to go somewhere safe because I don't think our remote mountain village is safe enough, even though the only way in is through a single rocky path that can easily be defended by a blind, one-armed chipmunk and maybe an old lady for backup.  But no, it is totally not safe here.  I know - why don't we go to Mount Tartarus!  That's the last thing Hyperion would expect and there is a big wall there, so that's cool.

Hey, I'm Theseus.  Do you know the only thing that Hyperion needs to release the Titans is this awesome Epirus bow?  And I totally found it in this little cave in my easily defended remote mountain village where Hyperion will never find it.  But you know what?  Even though this bow is pretty much useless to me but super important to him, I think I will take it out of its hiding place and away from the easily defended remote mountain village because it looks nice and creates cool laser arrows.  And I am totally not going to walk into that obvious ambush.  Oh, bummer, I totally just walked into an ambush.

Hi, I'm Zeus.  Even though the Titans are my mortal enemies and unleashing them will bring about the end of the world, I am not going to let the other gods interfere with events below on earth.  In fact, I am so confidant that the kid Theseus is up to the task, that I am totally going to kill any of my fellow gods who try and help him...oh, snap!  My own children just helped him.  Theseus walked into an ambush, so my son Ares saved his life and my daughter Athena gave him super fast horses to catch Hyperion before he can attack Mount Tartarus.  I guess I am going to have to execute Ares with my slow motion fire whip.  Not a big deal; I don't really even have a need for a God of War because I am that confidant that Theseus will kick butt.  So, Ares can die.  But I will let Athena live because she's blond and her hat doesn't intimidate me.  And Theseus can keep those lightning fast horses because that's totally not interfering at all...

So...Zeus here again.  Theseus totally wasn't up to the task.  Hyperion fired the Epirus bow and released the Titans from their prison.  And now these goofy bastards are running around in circles like over-caffeinated teenagers after prom, and it is up to me and my other four gods to fight them now.  I totally could have used a God of War right about now.  Damn it.  

Last entry - Zeus.  So I lost all three of my fellow god buddies, but managed to defeat all the Titans. But not really!  Fooled you!  I am actually floating in the clouds, waging an eternal battle against millions of Titans.  But no worries, because I also now have millions of other good guy gods who just magically happen to be hanging out in the clouds, helping me out.  But you know what I just realized, I blew this whole problem out of proportion to begin with.  Because releasing the Titans totally didn't bring about the end of the world.  I know that because I just visited Theseus' son and he's a cute, little kid living in a remote little mountain village whose main square is overwhelmed by a giant plastic statue of his dad.  So the world is at peace.  And I am up here in the heavens, fighting a war that will last forever because I am stupid.  Zeus out.

Wait, I know what you are thinking, "James, the bad guys win?" Yes, yes, they kind of do.  But you know, it doesn't even matter because it has NO IMPACT in the world whatsoever.  We even have inspiring, happy ending ending music to trick us into thinking the good guys won.  But they didn't. So why the hell did they even make this movie?

Sure, there are a few moments here that I like.  I like that Tarsem depicts the gods as all young and beautiful (because let's face it, if you were a god, wouldn't you want to make yourself buff for all eternity?).  Luke Evans and Mickey Rourke seem to be having fun.  And the final fight between Theseus and Hyperion looked like it could have been pretty brutal if the camera had held still for a second.  But I don't want to talk about the good moments because they are few and far between and it all adds up to nothing.  This is a big, fat turd.  And the more I think about it, the more stinky it gets.

MVP:
I guess Luke Evans.  Despite the fact that the story forces Zeus to do something stupid time and time again, Evans approaches the role with enough dignity that I almost believe his actions.  Almost.  Evans is believable if his actions are not.  And he does approach the role with a charismatic physicality that is probably more in line with mythology than the old, wizened Zeus we normally see in movies.  I actually liked Evans a lot and hope he gets more work, despite this movie.

BEST LINE:
Ugh, do I have to think of one?  Bleah.

Contagion

Contagion

What if a super virus swept across the world, wiping out millions of people?  Hollywood has played with this idea before, but the result is usually a zombie movie or an action flick where Dustin Hoffman darts across the country looking for a diseased monkey, both of which are equally unrealistic to me.

So kudos to Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, which tries to depict what would really happen if the world was struck by a killer virus.  The movie does not necessarily tell a story in a traditional narrative sense - instead it throws in almost a dozen characters dealing with the virus in their own ways, which allows the audience to trace the growth of the MEV-1 virus and the ways it starts to rip society apart at the seams.  And the cast that Soderbergh has gathered for these different perspectives is superb - look at this: Laurence Fishburne, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Elliot Gould, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, John Hawkes, Sanaa Lathan.  It's quite a cast.

In some ways, this scattered narrative is the weakness in the film, preventing us from fully understanding the stories of some of the characters.  For example, Marion Cotillard's storyline starts as perhaps the most interesting - she is sent to Hong Kong to find the origin of the virus - but then her story takes a strange turn.  While I understand it from an intellectual level, I don't buy how it occurs in the movie.  It just feels like she is missing one or two key scenes to make her character work.   The same thing is true with Jude Law, who plays a blogger who rages about conspiracy theories and ends up contributing to the panic sweeping across the globe.  I had trouble understanding the ins and outs of what he was doing; I just knew he was not a good guy (of course, they make sure we know he's not a good buy by giving Jude Law a weird prosthetic tooth.  Only bad guys have weird teeth like that.  Unfortunately, this makeup decision backfires.  I probably missed important plot details because I couldn't pay attention to anything except that damn tooth!).

Then again, in some other ways, this fractured storyline is also a strength because it prevents the movie from falling into a Hollywood formula and keeps the whole crisis realistic and grounded.  Presenting the story this way makes it clear that this could happen to us someday.  The true horror of Contagion is seeing how easily this virus could spread, by shaking hands, by breathing on a casino chip for good luck, by simply holding onto a handrail on the bus.  These small moments are given great importance in Contagion because they are the mundane actions that would kill us if a super virus really did strike.  And that makes Contagion more scary than all the Saw movies combined.

I have to give the movie big props in one other way.  All too often, science is portrayed as either nerdy or dangerous in movies.  Contagion makes science cool.  It's rare to see the government in a positive light in the film, it is even more rare to see the government scientists as the real heroes.  I thought that was awesome and it was nice to see.

So all in all, Contagion is a solid film, not without some serious problems, but still a really good piece of work.  It is well-written, superbly acted, and thought provoking.  I feel with a little more work and a little less fake teeth, it could truly have been great.

BEST LINE:
Dr. Cheever: "We don't need to weaponize the bird flu.  The birds are doing that."

MVP: SPOILER ALERT!  The storyline that hit me the most was that of Dr. Erin Miers, played by Kate Winslet.  Miers is sent to Minnesota, where the virus seems to have entered the United States.  She has a tough job, tracking down the possible carriers, setting a triage for the inevitable deluge of infected, and all while dealing with a narrow-minded city council that doesn't want to stress out the town during the holidays.   But Miers goes through with her work, carefully and efficiently.  So imagine her surprise when she wakes up in the middle of the night, hacking and running a high fever.  Here is an example of what should be most frightening to all of us: someone who did everything right, who should not have gotten sick, and yet she still got hit with the virus.  And out of all of the characters in Contagion, it was Miers' fate that I was most concerned about.  The question of whether Miers would live or die had me hooked for the whole movie.  I give much of the credit to a low key, simple, but superb performance from Winslet.  In a movie full of great actors, she stood out.  So she wins the MVP!

Ronin

Ronin 

There is no denying the versatility of Robert DeNiro, one of the greatest actors of his generation.  The man can do almost anything, though he is best known for his gritty dramas, gangster films, and more recently, his comedies.  For me, none of these genres feature the DeNiro I prefer.  I actually like action badass DeNiro the best.  I know this is blasphemy in most circles, but I would rather watch DeNiro beat people up in Heat and Midnight Run then watch him go through the emotional wringers in classics like Raging Bull or Taxi Driver.  And I am not embarrassed to admit that!

And DeNiro is in fine badass form in Ronin, a robust and smart thriller from the late 90s, directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) and featuring an amazing cast includes Jean Reno (The Professional), Natasha McElhome (The Truman Show), Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings), Jonathan Pryce (Brazil), and Stellan Skarsgard (Good Will Hunting).

The film is smarter than your average action flick, which is immediately obvious from the title.  Ronins were masterless samurai, who wandered the countryside looking for work or hiring themselves out as mercenaries.  Our heroes in Ronin are in a similar dilemma.  They are all special forces or former intelligence operatives from both sides of the Iron Curtain.  Now that the Cold War is over, they find themselves devoid of any purpose and willing to be hired by the highest bidder.  The bidder in this case is an extreme branch of the IRA, who want to steal an extremely valuable and important briefcase, the contents of which are top secret.

What follows is a wild and crazy jaunt through France, with some terrific gunfights and two AMAZING car chases.  There is a lot of quality in Ronin, starting with the terrific cast.  Everyone carries their weight, with DeNiro providing an especially smart performance that anchors the film.  The script is also excellent, full of tough guy one liners provided by excellent playwright and filmmaker David Mamet.  I also like that the script refuses to dumb itself down for the audience.  Our cast is playing catchup for most of the movie and we are in the fog with them.  The movie is not confusing, but it is definitely complicated and lacking in any kind of exposition, so you definitely need to pay attention.  But again, I think this is all a good thing!

It is a shame that the film starts to fall apart in the last half hour.  It's not that the film becomes bad.  I suppose the problem is that it just runs out of steam.  There is so much momentum building to that second car chase at the 2/3 mark, that everything after it seems kind of blah.  And when your climactic fight is kind of blah, that's a problem.

But this doesn't change the fact that for most of its running time, Ronin is a tough and fantastic thriller, with great writing, expert direction and top notch acting.  I miss this DeNiro.  I wish he would stop making Focker movies and pick up a gun again.


MVP:
As much as I like Robert DeNiro in this movie, he is not the MVP.  The MVP goes to Car Chases.  This may seem silly, but when you see the movie you will understand.  These are two of the most exciting car chases I've seen, the second of which might actually be the best car chase I have ever seen.  I know Bullett is the gold standard of car chases, but DeNiro's run through the back streets of Arles blows it out of the water.  Not even a contest.  So for me, this is an easy one!

BEST LINE:
Spence: You ever kill anybody?
Sam: I hurt somebody's feelings once.

TRIVIA:
David Mamet worked on the film as a script doctor, but actually rewrote huge portions of the story and dialogue.  There was a dispute about who should get what credit, with the WGA ruling that the story and top script credit should go to the original writer, J.D. Zeik.   Mamet then asked for his name to be either removed from the credits or replaced by his pseudonym, Richard Weisz.  I don't have an opinion on this because I don't know how much work Zeik did.  He may have done a lot and deserved his credit, for all I know.  But I do know that the best dialogue sounds like Mamet, and I'm willing to bet that he is responsible for much of the final product.  The final credits do read J.D. Zeik and Richard Weisz.

Your Highness

Your Highness

After the success of Pineapple Express, director David Gordon Green and actors Danny McBride and James Franco decided to take a risk - let's make a rated-R fantasy comedy, something that is just as down and dirty as their first film together, but this time with dragons.  The result was almost a complete box office flop.  Maybe Green and McBride misjudged their audience; Your Highness was catering to the same crowd that enjoyed Pineapple Express and that's not necessarily the audience that cares much for swords and sorcery, even when there is weed involved...

Thadeous (McBride) and Fabious (Franco) are princes of the realm, but they couldn't be more different.  Fabious is brave and charismatic, beloved by the entire kingdom.  Thadeous, on the other hand, is a complete loser who is committed to a life of leisure, recreational drugs, and torturing his manservant, Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker).  When Fabious' fiance, Belladonna (New Girl's Zooey Deschanel) is kidnapped by an evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux, American Psycho), the two brothers must team up on the ultimate quest to rescue the girl, defeat the wizard, and save the kingdom.  Along the way, they of course run into a whole slew of characters, including a badass warrior, Isabel (Natalie Portman) who is on a quest of her own.

Overall, the movie is a bit of a mixed bag.  It is nowhere near as bad as its thrashing at the box office would suggest.  For one thing, the cast is great and throw themselves into the insanity with relish.  I expected fine comedy from the leads, but I was surprised to also see more serious actors such as Toby Jones (Captain America), Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) and Damien Lewis (Band of Brothers) making fine contributions to the craziness.  Everyone looks like they are having a great time, which of course makes the movie more enjoyable.

I suppose that maybe the cast and crew were having so much fun that they didn't think through the movie enough. The storyline is amusing and the number of possibilities is endless, but Your Highness is really just a series of naughty jokes, one after another after another.  Some of them I have to admit are hilarious (especially a handful of really raunchy jokes related to a minotaur they battle in a labyrinth), but way too many of them are misfires.  It is a bit of a surprise, actually, considering that much of the primaries were brought over from Pineapple Express, which deftly mixed the raunch with some genuine wit and cleverness.  I just feel that there are so many missed opportunities to poke fun at the genre here.  Perhaps David Gordon Green should have let Justin Theroux have a hand in the script. In addition to being a fine comedian (and he does make a very funny villain here), Theroux is a very witty writer, having worked on Iron Man 2 and Tropic Thunder.  Maybe giving Theroux a whack at the script would have helped.

So there you go.  Your Highness is not awful, but it is also nowhere near as good as it could have been.  Overall, it's just okay.  At some point, it will be making the rounds on FX.  I think that would be a good time to check it out. 


BEST LINE:
Leezar to Belladonna: "I'm just not attracted to you right now!!!"

MVP:
With great comedians like McBride, Franco, and Deschanel running around, I was surprised that they were all outgunned by Rasmus Hardiker as Courtney, Thadeous' hapless manservant.  I have never heard of this dude before, but he is terrific, bringing the right amount of absurd pathetic loyalty to the role.  This is a hard role to play.  Hapless manservants are often the comic relief in other films, and I have always found them to be annoying.  I am also generally bothered by their unending loyalty, despite how mean or selfish the master is.  I just never really buy it.  But I never once doubted Courtney's unconditional love for his master.  And he just nails it.  He's terrific.  Plus, he can make Triangle Face, which I think is hilarious, even if Thadeous is terrified of it!

TRIVIA: 
This movie came out of a little game Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green would play.  Someone would name a random title and the other would come up with a story to match it.  Someone suggested "Your Highness" and the storyline suggested was about "a prince who gets stoned and fights dragons."

Now, most importantly, not meaning to make a shameless plug, but I think it relates to what we are talking about, and especially about what does not work about Your Highness.  My brother wrote a book!  He has been working on it for the better part of a decade and it attempts the same type of parody as Your Highness, only with a real sense of wit and cleverness.  While Your Highness tends to fall back on raunch, this book genuinely tackles the cliches of the fantasy genre and twists their funny bone.  The book is called The Armpit of Evil and it is super inexpensive on Amazon (only $2.99!!), so I think you should all check it out!!!  I am also including the link to Your Highness, but I highly recommend you gravitate towards Armpit instead.  Here is the link:

Black Death

Black Death

Well, it is October again, which means I am returning to the wonderful world of horror films for a few weeks!  First on the list is the recent Black Death, a low budget horror film that came out of England last year.  The film never really found an audience here in the United States, though I am willing to bet that a wide theatrical release with a real marketing campaign would have helped.  It is a pity no studio got behind Black Death, but it is actually really quite good.

In the 1340s, the plague has descended over England, sweeping across the countryside and eventually killing 1/3 to 1/2 of the total population.  But there is one village out in the marshes that is unaffected by the plague.  No one knows why the village has been spared, but there are rumors of witchcraft and devil worship.  A group of religious warriors led by Ulric (Sean Bean, Lord of the Rings) is sent by the local bishop to investigate, guided by a young monk named Osmond (Eddie Redmayne, The Other Boleyn Girl).

First, let's talk about what's good.  I love the look of this movie.  I don't think I have seen the Middles Ages look quite so bleak and real.  Black Death does a fantastic job of depicting the bubonic plague, really showing how desperate and horrifying it was, and how it drove much of the country into paranoia and savagery.  I was impressed with this bleak setting, and would have liked to have seen even more of it.  I also really like the cast, which is uniformly great, and also includes Carice van Houten (Black Book) as Langiva, the leader of the village (and possibly a witch), Tim McInnerny (Black Adder), and a nice cameo from David Warner (Tron).

What I also like about the film is that while it is simple in story structure, there is actually a lot happening under the surface.  Now in the 21st Century, I don't think we can comprehend something as devastating as the Black Death.  Think about this - literally half the people you know dead all within the last year.  How would you react?  What would you think?  How paranoid would you be?  What if you're next?  Would such devastation drive you to religion or away from it?  These are questions that this movie asks by showing us how the warriors and the villagers react to the trying times.  Sometimes we feel like the villagers are right, sometimes we find ourselves agreeing with the warriors.  And this is probably the film's greatest strength, how it is adeptly shifts our sympathies from one side to the other, leaving us unsure of who to trust and who to root for.  It is a cleverly conceived by director Christopher Jones and writer Dario Poloni.

And I will be honest, I always preferred this style of horror film, which is more about atmosphere and the slow build, to the hack and slasher genres that most people watch today.  I would take a good Hammer Film over a Friday 13th movie any day of the week.  Black Death isn't even really scary at all, but it is eerie and unsettling, and probably has more of an impact as a result.

There are a few problems with the film, the biggest of which is an over-reliance on shaky cam.  I am tired of directors thinking that handheld cameras means the film will be more artsy.  Just hold the camera steady so I can see what's happening!!! The shaky cam (or what I call earthquake cam) gets annoying in the first third and then all but ruins the one major battle scene in the movie.  Thankfully, once Ulric and company arrive at the village, the camera work settles down a bit.

I also have some problems with the ending.  The climax bounces from some brilliant moments (most involving the kickass Sean Bean) and some highly questionable moments.  Then we are left with a coda, which while thematically is related, just seems tacked on for no other reason than to depress us.

But overall, this is a rock solid film with some great performances and atmosphere.  You should check it out!

BEST LINE:  
It's all in his delivery, but I like it when Wulfstan explains to the naive Osmond that: "A necromancer...is one who plucks the dead from the cold earth...and breaths new life into them."

MVP:
As much as I like Sean Bean, (and he does deliver the single coolest moment of the movie), I have to give the MVP to John Lynch, who plays the warrior Wulfstan.  Wulfstan was easily my favorite character.  Everyone else in the motley crew of warriors are either greedy, bloodthirsty, way too fanatical or full of wimpy angst. Wulfstan is a fighter, but he is a good man, probably the best man in the movie.  And as the crew traveled through the plague ravaged countryside and the bandit riddled forest, it was his fate that I was most concerned about.  Maybe that is a failing of the movie since I should have been more worried about Osmond and Ulric, but I prefer to view it as a testament to John Lynch's accessible performance.  Plus, he looks a bit like Scott Bakula in battle armor.  And that's kinda cool.

TRIVIA: 
Lena Headey (who also played Sean Bean's nemesis on Game of Thrones) was set to play Langiva, but was replaced by van Houten.