Cocalero

Cocalero was a Netflix reccomendation.  I had a passing interest in it, added it to my queue, and there it languished for two years.  It was the first movie in my play instant queue.  Every time I went to watch something else, it was there waiting patiently for me to notice it.  Last night, I noticed.

Cocalero is a documentary about Evo Morales and his campaign to become the first indigenous (read: Indian) president of Bolivia.  Much of the film focuses on his grass roots campaign and the people who support his bid for office.  While Morales is heavily entrenched in the unions and vocally pushes for a socialist government, Cocalero comes off as very apolitical.  It is more the portrait of a man than a portrait of a political movement or idea.

The camera work is very loose.  Lots of handheld shots as we follow Morales and his friends around Bolivia.  The quality is very low.  This is not a bad thing, but more of a technological nessecity.  The crew could not be expected to carry tons of film stock or heavy digital equiment all over the place.  The result is a wonderful, little film made with what looks like a high end camcorder.

Not too much to say for this movie.  The story was intriguing enough that I had to find out more about Morales the minute it ended.  Check it out if his story interests you.  If it doesn't, don't worry about it.  This is not one of the great "must see" documentaries (of which the last couple decades have produced many) but it's a fine one for those who enjoy documentaries.

8 out of 10

Snow White and the Huntsman

Why couldn't this movie be Evil Queen and the Dwarfs?  Seriously, they are the best thing about this movie.  But I guess I should get a few other things out of the way before I gush over Charlize Theron and a miniaturized who's who of British character actors.

The most important thing to say is that Snow White and the Huntsman is not a good movie.  But it's not a bad movie either.  I would say that it is watchable.  Outside of Theron and the design (especially sets and costumes), SWatH has some major issues.  Usually, I would break down the bad things and then follow it up with all the good things to kinda redeem the movie a bit.  But I think it'll serve this review better if I just go through any elements that deserve mention and note the good and bad of that element.

The Visuals:  The trailer for SWatH is pretty good.  This is because the visual style is very intriguing.  The film is full of beautiful imagery and strange creatures.  It's eye candy and it's really nice to see.  Sometimes the camera wanders off to explore (or show off) the worlds that the filmmakers created and the pacing (which is pretty shoddy anyway) hurts for it.  But on the whole, it's a very attractive film.

The Design:  Much of what makes the movies visuals so wonderful are the design elements.  Lots of
marvelous practical sets give weight to the scenes.  The costumes (by the incredible Colleen Atwood) are wonderful especially the ones Charlize Theron rocks throughout.  And the various monsters/creatures that are encountered are pretty cool.  I'll lump makeup in here too.  Awesome makeup work, especially on the dwarfs.

The Story:  Lazy.  That's a good word for it.  SWatH has 3 screenwriters: 1 who hasn't done much, 1
who writes cliched tripe, and 1 who writes incredible screenplays.  I'm sure that the first 2 did the bulk of the work with the 3rd doing a last minute polish.  The movie makes very little sense.  Outside of the concept to overthrow the evil queen, almost no character actions or decisions make any sense.  I spent most of the movie exasperatingly throwing my hands in the air and whispering, "Who the hell wrote this thing?" while my girlfriend continually shushed me. (There are only end credits so I had to wait the entire 2 hours to find out who the hell wrote it.)

The Effects:  Makeup could've gone here too, but I'm going to focus on the CGI (very little practical effects used).  Most of it is really good.  I find that effects artists really struggle with birds and SWatH's computer birds were among the best I've come across.  There are some really bad bits though (the fairies and woodland creatures) that may not have been so bad if the whole film's effects were of that quality.  But when seen immediately after (or sometimes right next to) the really great digital work, they look absolutely cartoony.  I laughed at the fairies.  They're that bad.

The Dwarfs:  Awesome!  Awesome!  Awesome!  My favorite thing in the movie.  They're all played by very un-small British actors, many of whom you'll recognize if you squint hard enough past the prosthetics and crazy hair.  SWatH has 8 dwarfs but only six may be considered somewhat famous: Ian McShane (go watch Deadwood all of it), Ray Winstone (go watch Sexy Beast), Bob Hoskins (go watch The Long Good Friday), Toby Jones (go watch Infamous), Eddie Marsan (go watch Happy Go Lucky), and Nick Frost (go watch Hot Fuzz).  They show up, kick ass, wow you with the thought of the effects that made them possible, get you really hooked on them, and then are promptly relegated to the background and crummy attempts at comic relief.  Enjoy them while you can.

The Huntsman:  Chris Hemsworth does the best he can with the material.  I take that back.  If he didn't have that Scottish accent, he would've done the best he could with the material.  The accent is jarring especially in his voice over, but he makes up for it with a natural charisma that must be the envy of any actor working today.

The Princess:  Kristen Stewart continues to show the world that she is truly one of the worst actresses working today.  She spends the entire movie looking extremely uncomfortable.  It's the same look I have when I have a stomach ache and I'm still expected to be at work all day.  She also manages to always look like she's about to cry.  There are no points in the movie where discomfort is the appropriate emotion to convey and few where she should be about to cry (and her eyes are usually dry at those times).  I never once saw Snow White on the screen.  I only could see an actress who looked like she was really sad that she couldn't find a bathroom.

The Queen:  Charlize Theron as the evil queen, Ravenna (because she practices black magic and can turn into crows), owns this movie.  Theron's performance is worth the entire admission price.  Honestly, I was sad to see her defeated.  She understands that the script is ridiculous and plays it very over the top.

The best thing this film could've used was more of the actors to watch Ridley Scott's Legend.  Fantasy melodrama in a highly stylized film is not impossible.  In fact it can be great.  Unfortunately, SWatH is not great.  It's quality is worth a rental at best, but I worry that much of the grand visual style will be lost on the average TV screen.

6 out of 10

Men in Black 3

Are you looking for a fun film experience? I usually am, especially considering how rare they are. Men in Black 3 is one of those fun movies. The last decade of film has grown increasingly dark. Movie studios think that audiences want this, that we like "gritty" films (gritty being a code word for realistic but usually ends up being gloomy). Looking at the box office returns during the last decade, they may be on to something. But every once in a while, a fun, grit-less flick comes along to give us all a little break.

MiB3 is not perfect, however (it is nowhere near as good as the original but worlds beyond the sequel). The jokes are inconsistent. I only laughed or chuckled audibly 3 times. But MiB3 makes up for this in its cheerful tone. This is a huge credit to director Barry Sonnenfeld. He not only salvages this script, he elevates it. MiB3 was written by Etan Cohen who wrote Tropic Thunder and Idiocracy (go rent/buy them right now if you haven't seen them) so I came in with some high hopes. I was let down. Now anyone who has seen the films of Barry Sonnenfeld will recognize his hand all over MiB3. He makes brightly colored movies (another rarity these days) with fun characters (villians included) and a fast pace and light tone. While this is not one of his best, it has the same feel as his best (Get Shorty, Big Trouble, The Addams Family).

Will Smith brings his charm after a 4 year absence from theaters (I'd disappear after Seven Pounds too). I like that he plays Agent J as a little jaded. He's been in the agency long enough to not be overly surprised anymore. Much of the fun of the movie is his extreme casualness in dealing with the situations. Shooting aliens is now just a job.

Tommy Lee Jones (one of my favorite actors) is sadly not in MiB3 very much. This is necessary to the plot since Agent J is traveling back in time to save him, but I did miss his presence.

But lucky us, we get to watch the awesome Josh Brolin channel Tommy Lee Jones. The reason Brolin works as the young Agent K is not because he does a flawless impersonation of Jones (it does help though). It's because he's not the same man a the Agent K of the future. Brolin infuses Jones' gruffness with real feeling and it's a sort of relief from the deadpan Jones of the previous films to see Agent K joke and laugh and smile.

At the end of the day, this is a good movie. I would recommend MiB3 to anyone who enjoyed the first film in the series. And let's all just try to forget that Men in Black 2 ever happened.

7.5 out of 10

Wrath of the Titans

It's better than "Clash of the Titans." While not hard to do (most movies are better than "Clash"), this is the probably the highest praise I can give to this unnecessary sequel. "Wrath of the Titans" follows the newest adventures of Perseus (played dully, as usual, by Sam Worthington) as he attempts to collect three godly weapons in order to save his father Zeus from Hades and Ares. Should he fail, the uber-god Kronos will be unleashed to destroy the world.

"Wrath" has many issues. One of my biggest problems was that the gods' power is prayer-based. People are praying to the gods less and less and as such, they are becoming more mortal. Hades and Ares seek to release Kronos, because he'll grant them immortality (presumably without prayer). Yet, they existed before mankind without a problem. They imprisoned Kronos before mankind. So even if Kronos can keep a god alive, he was not there to do so between his imprisonment and the advent of humans. Also Kronos needs the last of Zeus dwindling power to free himself, so how could he be powerful enough to grant immortality to prayer-based gods after he kills everyone on earth?

Now some people might say, "Doug, you're over-thinking this. It's just a mindless action movie." Whenever someone says that a movie is mindless (regardless of genre), they're really saying it's a bad movie. Movies can be uncomplicated and require little thought. But movies rife with plot holes and contradictions are poorly written. There is a difference. "Wrath" is the latter.

This is not to say that "Wrath" is without any worth. I'll just rattle off some of my issues with it, so I can clear the air and focus on the good stuff. (1) Everyone speaks with an English accent except for 3 or 4 actors. And those few really sound out of place. Distractingly so. (2) What are Perseus' strengths and weaknesses? In the same scene he blocks himself from a fireblast with a piece of wood (without burning his fingers somehow) but he follows that up with being thrown through a 4 foot thick stone wall unscathed. But wait, less than a minute later he is thrown through another, thinner wall and is injured by that. Sometimes, he is super strong; sometimes, not. Whatever suits the "drama," I guess. (3) Are you interested in mythology? Don't be. This is a movie about people and gods that happen to have the same name as other ancient people and gods. The similarities end there. (4) Every attempt at humor falls flat. Every single one. (5) The cyclops may be the worst CGI I've seen in a large budget movie in years. (6) The minotaur looks like Sloth from Goonies with driftwood glued to his head. (7) At the end, Perseus is told to find the power inside him. In a movie about gods, I should expect a deus ex machina, but this was completely unearned. Perseus should have spent the whole movie finding that power so he could wield it in the climax, not just having Zeus say, "Oh. By the way, Perseus, you've got god powers now." (8) The movie thinks you're dumb. Everything will be explained to you. Every action taken will be announced before it is taken. Feel free to start the movie at any time be it scene 1 or 20, some character will tell you what has happened and what is going to happen. Ugh. (9) When a god dies and turns to dust, it is done using the worst CGI I've seen since the cyclops.

Now that I've got that out of the way, there are some good bits in "Wrath of the Titans." The actors that play the gods are all phenomenal. Liam Neeson is appropriately kingly and powerful as Zeus. Bill Nighy hams it up as Hephaestus. Ralph Fiennes is creepy and still sympathetic as Hades. But the stand out among the gods is Edgar Ramirez as Ares. He always seems on the edge of violence and actually gives weight to his poorly written "daddy issues" subplot. (Ramirez is an actor to watch for. Do whatever you can to buy or rent or whatever a copy of the 3 film series Carlos. He's incredible in it.) And as actors go, Andromeda is back but with a new actress in the role. Alexa Davalos has been replaced (I'd say upgraded) with Rosamund Pike. Pike is an actress who shines in every film she's in and she does not disappoint here. She makes wretched dialogue sound natural. She receives the bulk of the reaction shots in the film, not just because she's wonderful to look at but because she's usually the only one acting. Some of the action is good, some is too shaky to tell what even happened (minotaur fight). But when the camera stops moving, we are treated to some very nice shots. The best shots are the epic scale establishing shots usually showing some temple or landscape from great distance.

I don't recommend "Wrath of the Titans," but I also don't discourage it like it's predecessor. It's large-scale Hollywood mediocrity. It's the kind of thing you watch when there's nothing else to watch.

5 out of 10

Shinobi No Mono

This is the first in a series of films about ninjas.  This is not the kind of movie one might expect from a ninja tale.  This is a very historical, realistic portrayal of assassins.  The ninjas here are essentially sneaky samurai.

The story centers on a young ninja named Goemon.  He is charged with the task of assassinating the warlord Nobunaga.  But after an affair with his master's wife (and her accidental death), Goemon is shamed into becoming a thief for his master, Sandayo.  Goemon meets an equally shamed woman (a prostitute) and they fall in love, which leads Goemon to swear off being a ninja.  But Sandayo threatens Goemon's new found love and in order to save her, Goemon must complete his mission.  Cue ninja action!

This is a very basic tale.  It is more of a drama about shame and discovering your priorities than a balls out ninja action movie.  Just remember, there is nothing special about the ninja other than they are sneaky.  Not to say that the ninja don't kick ass in the movie, it's just that they are very human.

I love old jidai geki movies, but most are about samurai (because samurai kick more ass than ninjas).  It was nice to have a change of pace and see a different warrior with different techniques.  Very good movie.  I plan on finding the rest of the series. 

Ranking: 7 out of 10

The Crazies

To continue the chain from "Two Evil Eyes," I treated myself to George Romero's "The Crazies."  I saw the remake (which is surprisingly good), but this film blew it out of the water.

The story involves a biological weapon that accidentally infects a small town turning the inhabitants into deranged murderers.  Before too long, the movie splits into two stories: one follows the military leaders as they try to deal with the problem and the other follows a band of uninfected people as they try to escape the town.

The plot involving the military is the best.  For the most part, this felt like an installment in the "Dead" series.  It has a feel that evokes the end of "Night of the Living Dead" and the beginning of "Dawn of the Dead" (it actually was filmed between "Night" and "Dawn").  And whereas most movies that set a dark tone and then attempt to add humor fail miserably, "The Crazies" walks that fine line with incredible aplomb.  It's nice to chuckle every once and again, especially during a film so heavy with bureaucratic bickering and violence.

Awesome!  Awesome!  Awesome!  This is my favorite on my 5 movie Netflix streaming marathon (beating "The Church" by a narrow margin).  Check this one out!

Rating: 7.75 out of 10 (like I said, narrow margin)

The Church

The next movie in my Netflix streaming run ties in rather nicely with the last one.  This time, I watched "The Church" which was written and produced by Dario Argento.

The concept is pretty simple and satisfying.  Back in Ye Olde Tymes, a group of Teutonic Knights slaughter a village because they believe they are witches (they might actually be).  The Knights put the villagers in a mass grave and build a Gothic cathedral over it (they obviously didn't see "Poltergeist").  Then, we come to Modern Times.  Many people are in the cathedral for various reasons: a restoration crew (who fuck everything up), a bride and her friends (looking to get some awesome wedding photos despite not being wed there), tourists (demon fodder), and the various priests and church workers.  The restoration crew jackhammers through the floor into the mass grave and releases the evil.  These old churches apparently has only one door and the demons lock it.  People get possessed.  People die in awesome ways.  And the day must be saved by a 14 year old Asia Argento!

This was a way better movie than it probably ever deserved to be.  I really, REALLY enjoyed it.  The acting is on par with a late 80s Italian horror film but the execution is wonderful.  There is always something happening (a rarity among 80s genre movies) and it is always fun. 

There is a great creepy atmosphere to this movie, which is much added by a great score by Philip Glass.  Throw in a couple of Goblin tracks and you've got the makings of a must-see horror flick.

Anyone who likes horror should check this out.  Please, treat yourself to "The Church."

Rating:  7.5 out of 10