Cloud Atlas (5/5 Stars)

Earning the Melodrama

Ultimate Truth, Matters of Life and Death, Good and Evil, Chance and Fate, Love and Hate, The Inherent Nature of Man, The Shape of Things to Come, the Natural Order of Things, The Meaning of Life. All are weighty and serious subject. But just because something is serious does not a good movie make. In fact, it is far more difficult to make a good movie out of something serious than it is to make a good movie out of something trivial.  Bad movies about weighty subjects are worse than just bad. They are disrespectful. The best example I can think of is any movie about the Holocaust. If you are going to bring that up, it better be in a great movie. It is a subject that simply should not be half-assed. In this way, I tend to judge movies like “Cloud Atlas” which contain all of the above themes in a hypercritical way. They have to earn their melodrama. 

This movie is based on the book “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell and has been screen-written and directed by Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run”) and Lana and Andy Wachowski. The Wachowski’s have made great and terrible movies before. Very rarely are they ever in between. Their best has to be “The Matrix,” a movie with such top-notch action sequences that plenty of people probably did not notice its strong currents of philosophy and theology. Their worst was “V for Vendetta,” a disturbingly obvious piece of left-wing propaganda. Both movies display exceptional talent on behalf of its directors but as Roger Ebert is wont to say, it is the best directors that often make the worst movies.

It is my pleasure than to let you know that “Cloud Atlas” is one of the best movies of the year. It is a beautiful movie of great scope and ambition that sets out to achieve many many things and succeeds in practically all of them. The little inconsistencies or confusing tidbits that do exist can be readily filed under “who gives a shit.” 

“Cloud Atlas” is composed a six different stories employing the same actors that take place in different times and places, seamlessly edited together. The first story takes place in 1849. The main character, a procurer of Maori slaves played by Jim Sturgess, takes ill on a long ocean voyage between New Zealand and England and forms an unlikely bond with a Maori stowaway.  The second story takes place in 1936 London. The main character, a young “degenerate” played by Ben Whishaw, infiltrates himself within the household of an aging composer with plans to become an invaluable apprentice before revealing his true identity as a disinherited relative. The third story takes place in 1972 Long Island. The main character, a reporter played by Halle Berry, is investigating a corporate conspiracy to cover-up an impending meltdown at a nuclear power plant. The fourth story takes place in 2012 London. The main character, a down-and-out publisher played by Jim Broadbent, comes into a stroke of good when his client murders a book critic which makes his book, "Knuckle Sandwich," become a best seller. Unfortunately the author’s thug friends want their piece of the profits and the publisher has already spent it all on old debts. The fifth story takes place in 2144 New Seoul. The main character, an artificial human made specifically for slave labor played by Doona Bae, is rescued from her fast food restaurant/prison and becomes the symbol of a violent revolution. The sixth story takes place 106 winters after an apocalyptic doom maybe on Hawaii. The main character, a pacifist goat herder played by Tom Hanks, deals with a vicious tribe (not unlike the Maori) with the help of an interstellar human trader looking for a secret among the ruins of an ancient civilization that will save her dying planet.

The greatest achievement of "Cloud Atlas" is that all of the stories are equally good and what makes them equally good is that they reside in different genres with drastically different characters and yet find a way to complement each other. Take for instance the 1936 London. It is bereft of the action found in the car chases in 1972 conspiracy thriller and the futuristic cityscapes in 2144 science fiction epic, but it forms the important musical component of the movie which finds itself in every other storyline. Or for example the idea that a single theme, let's just call it "freedom," can be explored in wildly different ways, whether it is terms of the broad comedy in the 2012 storyline which culminates in the escape attempt from a nursing home by a quartet of elderly residents to the love story in the 1936 storyline between homosexuals that earns them the rejection of society to the actual revolution against a futuristic totalitarian state in 2144. These different stories comment on each other in unexpected ways from the 1972 discovery by Halle Berry of the Cloud Atlas Sextet written in 1936 which inspires her to continue her investigation in the face of mounting danger to the 2012 spontaneous shouting of the Jim Broadbent character during his first and failed escape attempt that "Soylent Green is People!" at once an absurd and funny exclamation given the seriousness of the reference in contrast to his own situation, but also a recurring and foretelling expression of something horrifying that was true before 1849 and will become true again in 2144. 

I think it is worth just going out and saying it. "Soylent Green is People!" is a reference to cannabilism from a 1972 science fiction movie about a futuristic dystopia in an overpopulated NYC in which a mega-corporations attempts to sell people as food to unwitting consumers. Cannabalism is a major theme in "Cloud Atlas." I'm not saying you are going to see people eat people in this movie, but it is brought up several times in this movie's debate about social darwinism and the natural order of things. The historical basis of this starts in the 1849 storyline. It should be noted that the slaves on the plantation are not any regular slaves. They are the conquered Maori tribe of New Zealand, which just happened to be a tribe of vicious warriors that practiced cannabalism and had successfully conquered and eaten all the other peaceful tribes around it before the Europeans conquered and enslaved them. So when the plantation owner (Hugh Grant) gets into a philosphical discussion with the young procurer (Jim Sturgess) about the natural order of race and brings in his Maori slave butler (Keith David) to defend his case, it is actually a pretty good question. Are the weak meat that the strong do eat?

"Cloud Atlas" is a three hour movie that feels like 90 minutes. There is so much in here and the pace is so quick that it recalled my experience in watching Robert Altman's "Short Cuts." It is sort of imperative that this movie be seen on a big screen in a movie theater. The scope requires a large screen and the plot's complexity requires your full attention. To wait to see it at home on DVD or streaming would be a mistake. 

For the most part I understood everything but some of the details in the sixth story about the Hawaiian goat herder. This had largely to do with futuristic linguistics of the characters. They had tons of slang that resembled English but not enough. I must confess I did not quite understand why Hugo Weaving was dressed up as some humongous evil leprecaun that apparently only Tom Hanks could see and hear. But that is not to say I did not enjoy the sixth story as well. I garnered enough of what it was about to sort of understand what was going on. It was sort of like listening to a song by Beck. The words sounded good even when the phrases didn't make any sense. 

And as far as using the same actors to play a multitude of roles in all the different storylines, was it necessary? No, but it sure makes watching the movie a lot of fun.

Death at a Funeral (4/5 Stars) April 18, 2010

Different Corpse. Same Laughs.

Let it be known that I throw my full support behind Hollywood remaking good movies that nobody has seen. Death at a Funeral is a remake of a 2007 British film by the same name. I remember when it first came out. It got good reviews but almost no distribution. None of the theaters where I lived were showing it so I never saw it. It must have been hilarious though because the remake is pretty funny and is currently getting a low 40% on RottenTomatoes. That sort of rating baffles me. I can only assume that most of the critics actually saw the British version and simply didn’t think the American interpretation was enough like it. Sort of like how people who saw the original British TV Show “The Office” don’t like the American version. Now, I’ve seen both versions of “the Office” and I’ve liked them both equally. In fact I got sort of a kick out of seeing different people interpret the same material. I bet I would like the British version of "Death at a Funeral" as much as this one. I'm not about to say that remakes somehow denigrate the original version. That's just stupid. With that logic we should stop putting on new productions of Shakespeare. I hope the movie industry remakes more good movies for several reasons. 1) A good remake will raise awareness of the classic movie it reinvents. The reason I saw the original “Manchurian Candidate,” an awesome movie, was because I liked the remake. 2) Not all classic movies are perfect! They have flaws that can and should be improved upon. The best example of this Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” which not only updates the special effects and action sequences but provides much more depth into the relationship between the girl and the Big Ape. 3) Hardly anybody has seen the original movie. When a movie ages a couple generations all the jokes become new again. I find it deplorable that a movie like “Date Movie” can come out with absolutely nothing creative in it when the writer could have simply watched a bunch of Billy Wilder movies, plagiarized all the great jokes, and incorporated the ones that still work into his screenplay. Keep in mind that it is the studios that own the original movie. There’s nothing illegal about sifting words you own from the past. You may find that somewhat unethical but as far as I’m concerned it is much better than the alternative: Knowingly putting out a bad movie. 

“Death at a Funeral” takes place all within a single day at a single place: Chris Rock’s house on the day of his father’s funeral. His entire family has shown up to share their respects. Each one of them has their own storyline. There is Rock’s brother played by Martin Lawrence. Lawrence is the successful one in the family who never visits and owes everybody money. There is a sibling rivalry rising from the fact that Lawrence is a published author and Rock isn’t. There is Rock’s wife Regina Hall who is on the last day of her cycle and wants Rock to take time out of his busy day to help make a baby. There is his mother Cynthia who won’t stop crying about her husband’s death and the lack of grandsons. There is his cantankerous Uncle Russell played by Danny Glover and his infantile helper Norman played by Tracy Morgan. There is his niece played by Zoe Saldana who is in the middle of a romantic triangle with Luke Wilson and James Marsden. Her father, Rock’s other Uncle, hates the one she likes and likes the one she hates. James Marsden, the one he hates and she likes, is super nervous to meet him again. She calms him down by giving him one of her brother’s, Rock’s nephew Jeff (Columbus Short), valium. Except it isn’t Valium. Jeff happens to be a chemist and Zoe just gave her nervous fiancé a hallucinogenic that will last the entire movie. The priest is played by an underused Keith David. Finally there is a strange little person who inexplicably shows up to the funeral and wishes to talk to Rock privately about his relationship with his father. The little person is played by the only holdover from the British Cast: the irreplaceable Peter Dinklage. He informs Rock that his father was having an intimate affair, with him, and that he’s got pictures to prove it. He wants $30,000 or he will walk into the next room and show the pictures to Rock’s mother. All of this happens in the first 30 minutes. The increasingly complex plot builds up from there into some pretty funny screwball territory for the rest of the movie. 

Complex ensemble movies are harder to write and direct but it really pays off in the comedic department. For one thing it adds in the spontaneity of all the jokes. A big scene for one of the characters can also serve as a subtle setup for the next big joke for another one. Also it helps the pace of a movie when there is always a different person to go to for a cutaway joke even if it is only for a second. The director Neil Labute does a very good job of organizing the whereabouts of everyone and keeping the comedic rhythm between all of the different storylines as they expand and interweave with each other. I don’t want to give away too much of the intricacies of the plot except to say that it gets pretty manic near the end. And yes, it’s all very funny. 

I hate to say this about Chris Rock but this might be the best movie he has ever starred in. That’s not much of a compliment. Rock may have been a classic standup comedian at his peak but he has almost never been in a good movie. His best before this just may have been 2000’s “Nurse Betty.” In this movie he’s not that funny either but that’s mostly because he is pulling his weight as the straight man all the other crazy characters goof off around. I can say basically the same thing about Martin Lawrence. This is his best movie since 2000’s “Big Momma’s House.” He's consistently funny though. He spends a significant portion of the movie hitting on the youngest girl at the funeral. When his brother bothers him about it, he tells him to take a hike because he’s too busy grieving. If there were a character that is probably nothing like his British counterpart it would have to be Tracy Morgan. I got the impression that he was ad-libbing most of his lines in his “30 Rock” persona. I can’t imagine the British screenwriter coming up with the story he tells the priest about finding God in a strip club. 

Perhaps the best performances though are by the non-comedians Peter Dinklage and James Marsden. Dinklage has the very modern task of presenting his character in a way that is not offensive in terms of race, sexuality, and height discrimination. He does a very good job in still being hilarious. I think it works even better when his motivation isn’t shady greed but a sense of betrayal and outrage that he wasn’t included in the will of the man he had a serious relationship with. As far as Marsden is concerned, his performance is the type that is very hard to critique on any level. He spends the majority of the movie tripping on acid and the entire second half buck-naked and freaking out on the roof of the house. I’m just going to go ahead and say it: This is the best performance I’ve ever seen him give (Other movies of his are, “The Notebook,” “X-Men,” and “Enchanted.” He’s usually the fiancé of somebody) and he deserves some sort of award. (Oh and there are gratuitous shots of his ass. He like totally works out.) 

If I ever see the original someday I will add a caveat here that says which one is better. Till then I’m pretty sure either one would be enjoyable.