“Am I going to be the asshole that suggests we got into this thing and went back in time?”
- Clark Duke
I subscribe to the philosophy that there is no such thing as a bad idea for a movie. It all depends on how you deliver it. I will concede however that some ideas are generally easier to screw up than others. A movie based on a Hot Tub Time Machine is one of those. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with the subject matter. It’s just that when the creators of a movie named “Hot Tub Time Machine” hit a rough patch in the production process whether it be in writing, acting, or editing, there is always the temptation to be all like, “Well, only people with absolutely no standards would go see a movie with a title like this anyway, so why on earth are we trying to make it good? Let’s just half-ass it and hopefully these morons will think it’s a so-bad-it’s-good movie.” I’m glad to say that somehow that didn’t happen here. This movie could have easily gone down the tempting road to comedy hell known as “so-bad-it’s-good” but instead followed through on the noble ambition of actually being funny. It all has to do with delivery.
The movie starts off by introducing four losers played by John Cusack, Craig Robinson (The Office), Rob Corddry (The Daily Show), and Clark Duke (ubiquitous dude in the background of the party in Superbad). John Cusack just got recently divorced. Craig Robinson works in a degrading animal related job. Clark Duke, John’s nephew, spends his days in the basement, playing a much more athletic version of himself in a second-life computer game. That might be somewhat redeeming if his character wasn’t currently in prison. Clark spends all of his time telling himself* to do more simulated pushups. Rob Corddry is the worst of all of them. He’s a raging alcoholic, friendless, clueless, and apparently very stupid when drunk. He accidentally almost kills himself by gunning his car to Motley Crue in his closed-off garage. Confronted with the sobering idea that their old friend just tried to kill himself (which he vehemently denies), the gang gets back together in an effort to get their mojo back: They go to the ski resort they frequented when young to have a nostalgic weekend of drunken debauchery. Here they find the aforementioned hot tub, jump in, get blackout drunk, hallucinate about Reagan and Aids, and are transported back to a pivotal weekend in their lives in 1986.
The movie assumes you know all about the paradoxes of time travel, so there isn’t much time wasted with the ground already covered by ‘Back to the Future.’ The huge conflict is Clark Duke’s neurotic fear that if the old guys change anything they did that weekend, then a bunch of butterflies are going to attack and he will cease to exist. Problem is that this weekend wasn’t very good for the guys. Cusack got stabbed in the eye with a fork while dumping his then girlfriend. Craig had a very mediocre performance with his band that ended his musical career. Rob got his ass kicked twice by an asshole ski-instructor. After one night, there is no telling whether any of them will actually go through with the humiliation. Rob Corddry in particular is not prone to giving a shit about any undue influence on the time-space continuum.
The movie is directed by a young director named Steve Pink and written by a trio of writers. The story idea belongs to Josh Heald. It is his first. The two others, Sean Anders and John Morris, have been involved in other Cusack pictures like Gross Pointe Blank and High Fidelity. The movie’s humor is very broad, raucous, and scatological. But it treats it well. I have always felt that the best way to treat a throw-up joke is to tell it without buildup so it is a surprise and then go straight into something else. You don’t want to linger there. There’s a particularly good one involving a cute squirrel and Rob Corddry’s hangover reaction to it. The “punch-line” lasts about half-a-second. That’s a good time period. It doesn’t take the audience any longer than that to get the joke. These guys know what they’re doing. The entire movie is very fast paced. When there is a scene that doesn’t work entirely or isn’t incredibly funny, Pink moves onto something else fairly quickly. Hot Tub Time Machine never rises to the heights of something like “The Hangover,” but it does the best with what it has and when it notices that it might be losing the audience, it pumps out the volume, ramps up the pace, and gives the actors free rein to act as broadly and loudly as possible.
The one revelation this movie has is Rob Corddry’s performance. I would liken it to Ed Helms’ performance in “The Hangover” last year. The guy has been funny forever on The Daily Show and in bit parts in other movies, but this is the first time that he has been given a substantial role that is custom tailored to his testorone-fueled sociopathic persona. He gives it his all and knocks it out of the park. This is the best work he has ever done. I’ve watched the guy for so long now that I felt kind of proud watching this movie. The ending of this movie is over-the-top, balls-to-the-walls, unjust, and uncalled for. But it works because it fits his performance perfectly.
What I don’t really understand is what the hell John Cusack is doing in this movie. Lately he seems to be telling his agent to look for the craziest ridiculous movies he can possibly be in, like say 2012. Cusack has always been somewhat funny but has never been a comedian. His persona is too earnest and dare I say, normal. I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something. He was inexplicably also in such movies as Being John Malkovich, Con Air, and Bullets Over Broadway. I didn’t particularly think he fit into any of those movies either. I’m not saying he did a bad job in this one. It was just a little distracting. What the hell is John Cusack, who at one time used to be A-list, doing in a Hot Tub Time Machine?
There are plenty of jokes and references to the 80s. Besides the parts where the characters point out Jerri Curls, leg warmers, and a black Michael Jackson, most are subtle like the iconic Sixteen Candles romantic framing, A Christmas Story inspired fight, and a direct homage to Back to the Future when Craig Robinson decides to bust out the Black Eyed Peas during his concert. Then there are supporting roles by such 80s stars like Crispin Glover and Chevy Chase as the comfortably unhelpful hot tub mechanic. The movie however doesn’t depend entirely on these references to make us laugh. It realizes that comedy requires more than just pointing them out and builds actual jokes off of the references. That’s the difference between a “so-bad-it’s-good” movie and an actually good one. The former requires an input of ironic awareness from the audience to make the jokes work. An actually good movie stands alone like say, this one.
Showing posts with label crispin glover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crispin glover. Show all posts
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Alice in Wonderland (4/5 Stars) March 15, 2010
Gorgeous Overpriced Nonsense
It goes without saying that having Tim Burton adapt a version of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ is a fantastic idea. I was very excited when I first heard about it. Even more so when the first pictures of it came out with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Once I learned that he had managed to get a Jabberwock into the story (something that had not been done in any previous adaptation) my anticipation was truly piqued. Having said that the movie is sort of a let down. I say it is a let down because it completely betrays the tone, theme, and characters of Lewis Carroll. But only ‘sort of’ because Tim Burton outdoes himself with an incredibly detailed and fantastic vision of Wonderland.
It goes without saying that Tim Burton should never try any story that is completely original (in fact besides Frankenweenie I don’t think he ever has.) The guy is just terrible at narrative cohesion and character development. This is perhaps why his best movies are adaptations of already complete stories like Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd while some of his not very good movies are adaptations of shorter stories that he unsuccessfully tries to elaborate a larger story on like Sleepy Hollow or invent an entirely new plot for like Planet of the Apes. This movie is of the former category. The original books are very episodic in nature and don’t easily translate into a movie already (saying this Walt Disney did an awesome job doing just that in the 1951 film). But this isn’t a straight adaptation. It is a sequel that takes place after the original books in which an adult Alice tumbles down the rabbit hole in an attempt to escape an awkward marriage proposal. Once in Wonderland she is confronted with a White Rabbit, a pair of not quite human twins named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, a Dodo, and a mouse. All of them can speak. They inform her that she is part of a prophecy that foretells the frabjous day when she will slay the Jabberwock. All of a sudden a bunch of armored red cards and a Bandersnatch rush out of the jungle and try to capture all of them. Apparently the Red Queen has been terrorizing the countryside for no particular reason. The White Queen can’t do anything about it because she’s like Ghandi. The Mad Hatter, well for his part, he’s completely insane. If you have trouble making sense of this then that’s probably because it doesn’t make any because like all nonsense it can’t.
The great thing about Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (and the reason that it is one of my favorite books) is not its flights of fancy or imagination. It’s the brilliancy of its logic and wordplay. Here’s a pretty good example, which is not in the movie:
‘Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
‘I’ve had nothing yet, ‘ Alice replied in an offended tone, ‘so I can’t take more.’
‘You mean you can’t take LESS,’ said the Hatter: ‘It’s very easy to take MORE than nothing.’
All good logical nonsense has three levels to it. The first is a flat statement of nonsense (Have more tea). The second is the reasoned response (I can’t take more). The third is the explanation of the earlier nonsense and the logical refutation of the reasoned response (take MORE than nothing). Carroll’s books are entirely full of this sort of thing. He is a brilliant wordsmith and probably impossible to have a normal conversation with. He has the ability to flip conversations onto their back and tickle them to death. The unifying theme in his book was always little Alice’s reaction to this nonsense. By nature she is an imaginative girl (Won’t read a book without pictures) who follows her curiosity without thinking (why not go down a rabbit hole? Curious and curiouser). But the new world she finds isn’t very kind to her. In fact, almost across the board everyone she meets is incredibly rude. Alice being good mannered tries to humor the odd creatures she meets but is bandied about with illogic and contemptuous behavior. The Red Queen tops them all by insisting on good manners while indecently shouting “Off With His Head!” at everyone. Finally Alice gets angry herself and ultimately rejects the nonsense and the dream (Who cares for you? You’re just a pack of cards!) This is not the embrace of imagination. It is quite the opposite. Alice’s arc is one of greater maturation. She is shedding childish silly things. It is fitting that Carroll was the tutor of the real Alice. The story is a perfect revenge of a schoolteacher. Take the uninterested daydreaming pupil and insert her into a world filled with even more childish, inattentive, rebellious, and ADD prone creatures. See how she likes it.
At least that’s what I got out of it. Tim Burton gets the exact opposite. In his movie, all the characters were apparently friends of Alice when she was there the first time. What’s more Alice never objects to the silly things that go on around her in this world. In fact, the whole moral of the story is to exalt your imagination. Alice needs to embrace her muchness and think impossible thoughts. This is okay a moral as any but it really hurts Carroll’s much strived for logical nonsense. Without the reasonable objections the movie never gets past the first level of simple stated nonsense. The effect of this is a movie completely deprived of laughs and any logical explanation of the silliness. At one point Johnny Depp recites the first stanza of Carroll’s famous poem ‘Jabberwocky.’ It goes something like this:
Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogroves
and the momewraths outgrabe.
Now since Alice doesn’t object or ask him what the hell he’s talking about, this stanza is never explained. If you haven’t read the book I feel sorry for you. I only truly appreciated it in the book after Humpty Dumpty explained all the portmanteaus contained within it. That stanza makes sense take my word for it.
So the story doesn’t make any sense, isn’t funny, and completely misinterprets the original masterpiece, why then am I giving it four stars. Well, because the movie is goddamn gorgeous that’s why. Say what you want about Burton’s storytelling skills but he is a consummate visual artist. Every setting, set decoration, and character in the movie has been lovingly crafted into his unique visionary style. Anne Hathaway as the White Queen is angelic. Mia Wasikowska, as Alice, looks fantastic in her suit of armor. Helena Bonham Carter and Crispin Glover make great rotten hearts. Johnny Depp looked…interesting? The White and Red Armies of chess pieces/cards are sights to behold. And the Jabberwock was everything I hoped it could be and more. None of the actors give very good performances because of the complete lack of motivation the characters have for anything they do, but hey they look great doing it. For the love of God, will somebody get Tim Burton a good screenwriter!
I must complain about one more thing, and that is the 3D ticket price and the vast hypocrisy that is behind. The ticket cost is now $16.50, four dollars more than the very high normal ticket price of $12.50. The extra four dollars are there to pay for the glasses. The theater will not let you bring in previously purchased glasses. You must buy them new every single time. At the end of the showing the theater has the audacity to ask us to “Go Green” and recycle the glasses, presumably so they can sell them once again for $4 to another unwitting customer. If the theater really cared a wit about the environment they would allow us to reuse the glasses ourselves. Then they wouldn’t have to make so many unnecessary copies of them. Go Green? Bullshit I say! Shame, movie industry, Shame!
It goes without saying that having Tim Burton adapt a version of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ is a fantastic idea. I was very excited when I first heard about it. Even more so when the first pictures of it came out with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. Once I learned that he had managed to get a Jabberwock into the story (something that had not been done in any previous adaptation) my anticipation was truly piqued. Having said that the movie is sort of a let down. I say it is a let down because it completely betrays the tone, theme, and characters of Lewis Carroll. But only ‘sort of’ because Tim Burton outdoes himself with an incredibly detailed and fantastic vision of Wonderland.
It goes without saying that Tim Burton should never try any story that is completely original (in fact besides Frankenweenie I don’t think he ever has.) The guy is just terrible at narrative cohesion and character development. This is perhaps why his best movies are adaptations of already complete stories like Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd while some of his not very good movies are adaptations of shorter stories that he unsuccessfully tries to elaborate a larger story on like Sleepy Hollow or invent an entirely new plot for like Planet of the Apes. This movie is of the former category. The original books are very episodic in nature and don’t easily translate into a movie already (saying this Walt Disney did an awesome job doing just that in the 1951 film). But this isn’t a straight adaptation. It is a sequel that takes place after the original books in which an adult Alice tumbles down the rabbit hole in an attempt to escape an awkward marriage proposal. Once in Wonderland she is confronted with a White Rabbit, a pair of not quite human twins named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, a Dodo, and a mouse. All of them can speak. They inform her that she is part of a prophecy that foretells the frabjous day when she will slay the Jabberwock. All of a sudden a bunch of armored red cards and a Bandersnatch rush out of the jungle and try to capture all of them. Apparently the Red Queen has been terrorizing the countryside for no particular reason. The White Queen can’t do anything about it because she’s like Ghandi. The Mad Hatter, well for his part, he’s completely insane. If you have trouble making sense of this then that’s probably because it doesn’t make any because like all nonsense it can’t.
The great thing about Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (and the reason that it is one of my favorite books) is not its flights of fancy or imagination. It’s the brilliancy of its logic and wordplay. Here’s a pretty good example, which is not in the movie:
‘Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
‘I’ve had nothing yet, ‘ Alice replied in an offended tone, ‘so I can’t take more.’
‘You mean you can’t take LESS,’ said the Hatter: ‘It’s very easy to take MORE than nothing.’
All good logical nonsense has three levels to it. The first is a flat statement of nonsense (Have more tea). The second is the reasoned response (I can’t take more). The third is the explanation of the earlier nonsense and the logical refutation of the reasoned response (take MORE than nothing). Carroll’s books are entirely full of this sort of thing. He is a brilliant wordsmith and probably impossible to have a normal conversation with. He has the ability to flip conversations onto their back and tickle them to death. The unifying theme in his book was always little Alice’s reaction to this nonsense. By nature she is an imaginative girl (Won’t read a book without pictures) who follows her curiosity without thinking (why not go down a rabbit hole? Curious and curiouser). But the new world she finds isn’t very kind to her. In fact, almost across the board everyone she meets is incredibly rude. Alice being good mannered tries to humor the odd creatures she meets but is bandied about with illogic and contemptuous behavior. The Red Queen tops them all by insisting on good manners while indecently shouting “Off With His Head!” at everyone. Finally Alice gets angry herself and ultimately rejects the nonsense and the dream (Who cares for you? You’re just a pack of cards!) This is not the embrace of imagination. It is quite the opposite. Alice’s arc is one of greater maturation. She is shedding childish silly things. It is fitting that Carroll was the tutor of the real Alice. The story is a perfect revenge of a schoolteacher. Take the uninterested daydreaming pupil and insert her into a world filled with even more childish, inattentive, rebellious, and ADD prone creatures. See how she likes it.
At least that’s what I got out of it. Tim Burton gets the exact opposite. In his movie, all the characters were apparently friends of Alice when she was there the first time. What’s more Alice never objects to the silly things that go on around her in this world. In fact, the whole moral of the story is to exalt your imagination. Alice needs to embrace her muchness and think impossible thoughts. This is okay a moral as any but it really hurts Carroll’s much strived for logical nonsense. Without the reasonable objections the movie never gets past the first level of simple stated nonsense. The effect of this is a movie completely deprived of laughs and any logical explanation of the silliness. At one point Johnny Depp recites the first stanza of Carroll’s famous poem ‘Jabberwocky.’ It goes something like this:
Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogroves
and the momewraths outgrabe.
Now since Alice doesn’t object or ask him what the hell he’s talking about, this stanza is never explained. If you haven’t read the book I feel sorry for you. I only truly appreciated it in the book after Humpty Dumpty explained all the portmanteaus contained within it. That stanza makes sense take my word for it.
So the story doesn’t make any sense, isn’t funny, and completely misinterprets the original masterpiece, why then am I giving it four stars. Well, because the movie is goddamn gorgeous that’s why. Say what you want about Burton’s storytelling skills but he is a consummate visual artist. Every setting, set decoration, and character in the movie has been lovingly crafted into his unique visionary style. Anne Hathaway as the White Queen is angelic. Mia Wasikowska, as Alice, looks fantastic in her suit of armor. Helena Bonham Carter and Crispin Glover make great rotten hearts. Johnny Depp looked…interesting? The White and Red Armies of chess pieces/cards are sights to behold. And the Jabberwock was everything I hoped it could be and more. None of the actors give very good performances because of the complete lack of motivation the characters have for anything they do, but hey they look great doing it. For the love of God, will somebody get Tim Burton a good screenwriter!
I must complain about one more thing, and that is the 3D ticket price and the vast hypocrisy that is behind. The ticket cost is now $16.50, four dollars more than the very high normal ticket price of $12.50. The extra four dollars are there to pay for the glasses. The theater will not let you bring in previously purchased glasses. You must buy them new every single time. At the end of the showing the theater has the audacity to ask us to “Go Green” and recycle the glasses, presumably so they can sell them once again for $4 to another unwitting customer. If the theater really cared a wit about the environment they would allow us to reuse the glasses ourselves. Then they wouldn’t have to make so many unnecessary copies of them. Go Green? Bullshit I say! Shame, movie industry, Shame!
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