Ready Player One (4/5 Stars)

Steven Spielberg, the father of blockbuster, made his splash in the genre in 1975 with the movie Jaws. In addition to being a great action movie, it had a great “making of” story. Apparently the main reason Spielberg kept the shark off-screen for most of the movie was because he couldn’t get his fake-looking mechanical shark to work. He spent most of the making of the movie innovating off of the top of his head various ways to accomplish the presence of a fearsome creature while not actually showing it. Contrast this situation with his latest Ready Player One, a movie backed by fully mature computer technology that can materialize anything Spielberg could possibly want and then some with an absurd ease. The climax of the movie is an insanely complex battle that takes place on an entirely digital snowscape with entirely digital characters, the most notable being Mecha-Godzilla and the Iron Giant. Think about it: only forty-three years ago, Spielberg couldn’t get his shark to work. The seemingly exponential progress of the visual arts in movies is absolutely mind-blowing.

Ready Player One seems preternaturally designed to exploit this new capability. The movie takes place in 2045 in a dystopic version of Columbus, Ohio. Apparently the outside world has turned to shit, so everyone now spends their lives in a virtual reality called the Oasis. The Oasis is everything you could possibly want it to be and you can be anybody you want to be in it (at least physically). It was dreamed up by a man named Halliday (played by Mark Rylance). It has rules much like World of Warcraft and leans heavily an ethos of ultimate freedom i.e. anarchy. Apparently if you kill someone in the Oasis, you get to keep all of their digital money and purchases. This lawlessness has seeped into the real world. A giant corporation has monopoly power on much of the Oasis and uses rent seeking to gain more. It also has a sort of debtor’s prison set up, where if you go into debt buying their stuff, you can end it up in a box in a warehouse in the real world spending your days mining virtual gold.

What drives the plot in Ready Player One is the last wishes of the Oasis creator. Apparently he hid an Easter Egg somewhere in the Oasis. The person who finds it, gets control of the entire thing. The Oasis creator also really loved 1980s pop culture, so every character who wants to find the Easter Egg has to steep himself in that stuff. In fact, there is a scene where the CEO of the evil corporation (who not coincidentally looks exactly like the principal in “The Breakfast Club”) tries to buy the services of our humble hero Wade. He attempts to do this by making a lot of 1980s pop culture reference, as if you know, he really cared about that stuff.

I for one do not care about 1980s pop culture references and believe that any author/screenwriter who believes that anyone in the 2045 would care is delusional. As Mr. Spielberg is responsible for many of the 1980s references himself, one could add the term narcissistic to delusional. And on a personal note, I have a general protest against metaness, in this case a heavy reliance on references to 1980s pop culture. Meta-ness is a bit like telling the same joke twice. It is remembering how great and/or funny some thing in the past was, which is generally an inferior experience to viewing something great and/or funny right now. (Why watch a movie that relies on your memory of past movies to work? Why not just rewatch the old movie? That is what I say.) But its not correct to simply attack the conceit of the movie without addressing how a movie is about it. Putting aside the silliness of the idea and the inferiority of meta-ness, the movie is well made. I mean that first car chase scene. Amazing.

My favorite part of this movie is the inclusion of a mercenary character named I-R0k, who is unmistakably voiced by the great T.J. Miller. The character looks like a bad ass. He has a cavity in the shape of a skull in the middle of his torso. However, he talks like a total nerd and gives away the underlying absurdity of this world, that however elaborate and mind-blowing it looks, it is actually just a bunch of people in trailer parks sitting on their couches wearing goggles.

Given how far the visual capabilities in movies have come in the last fifty years, it seems like it should continue to progress. But look at this movie, what is left to be accomplished in this field. What can be done visually that has not already been done before? Perhaps at this point, when visual delights like this become routine and maybe boring, the movies will come full circle and recreate the problem Spielberg encountered in Jaws. That is, the shark wasn’t working so he could not rely on anything visual to create action and suspense. Instead, he focused on story and character. If scenes like the war in Ready Player One become common-place, and there is nowhere bigger and elaborate to go, perhaps the movies will finally get back to the basics of storytelling.

Mud (3/5 Stars)

‘Mud’ is the third feature of one of the more exciting new American directors, Jeff Nichols. Nichols first came upon the scene in 2008 with “Shotgun Stories,” one of the more impressive no-budget films I have ever seen. He progressed in leaps and bounds with his second feature, “Take Shelter,” which I still consider the best movie of 2011. That movie added to Nichols repertoire the kind of special effects only achievable with a decent budget. With “Mud,” Nichols adds the presence of movie stars, something a small movie can generally only achieve when the makers have a reputation for quality work.

Two kids, Ellis and Nick, take a motorboat out to an island in the Arkansas part of the Mississippi river.  They are adventuring to check out a boat that somehow found itself in a tree. They find the boat but they also find a man named “Mud” (this is not a made up name apparently as all the other characters in the story call him that too) who is hiding out there away from the authorities. Mud (played by Matthew McConaughey asks for help and weaves a story about killing a man out of love for his woman Juniper (played by Reese Witherspoon). Ellis, whose parents are talking of divorce in the background of home scenes, decides to help Mud. Because as he explains at one points these two love each other. The kid does not do a whole lot of explaining his actions, which is accurate as he is just a kid after all and probably wouldn’t be able to articulate what he wanted to say even if he wanted too. The other adults in the story however take notice of his odd behavior and sneaking about and provide many opportunities for advice. The advice varies of course but most of it is about love and it is as helpful as basically anything you can tell a fourteen year old in vague, uncertain, and metaphorical terms (the funniest advice comes from Michael Shannon character, uncle to Nick. He uses a ceiling fan he dredged up from the Mississippi river to make his point). Some things, kids just need to figure out for themselves.

It is a good question as to what Ellis (played by Tye Sheridan) actually learns from the experiences he has in this movie other than women are unpredictable and it (maybe?) is not a good idea to fight with other guys over them.  I am going to keep from talking too much about the storyline here because there isn’t much more to the movie than the limited twists to the plot. I could talk a bit about the performances but I couldn’t really propound on the specialness of them that much. My best observation I think would be how Tye Sheridan must have a helluva right hand because he keeps landing punches in the faces of guys twice his size. It looks a little awkward because he has to reach up so high. I wouldn’t think the jabs would have much impact but they keep on doing so. I suppose I could also mention that the Mississippi river looks pretty neat.

You what this movie reminds me of? Those classic Criterion Collection European films. Ones like “The 400 Blows” and “Au Revoir Enfants.” These are movies that my book “The 1001 Movies You Need to See Before You Die” keeps telling me to see, but for the life of me I cannot understand what makes these movies great. I understand why they aren’t bad, but why would they be great? They accomplish perfectly what they set out to accomplish but in the end it is exactly what it is, not much.  

It is a sort of critical paradox that the more a movie tries to do, the more ways it can fail. I think that may be the reason why ‘Mud’ which does is a very good not so ambitious movie can score around 98% on Rotten Tomatoes while Michael Bay’s ‘Pain and Gain’ and probably Baz Luhrman’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ (I say probably because I have yet to see it, will so this weekend) are hovering around 50% even though they are very dense movies that aiming to accomplish quite a lot.

The Tree of Life (4/5 Stars)

He’s the one

Who likes all our pretty songs

And he likes to sing along

And he likes to shoot his gun

But he knows not what it means

Knows not what it means

When I say….

In Bloom, Nirvana

“The Tree of Life,” is a very pretty movie. I admit I didn’t quite understand it, but that still won’t stop me from suggesting other people see it. I would say it is worth seeing just because it exists. Sure, it is probably a good idea to take some time to think about it or read an article or two about the meaning in order to draw your own conclusions. That is something I myself will attempt to do at the end of this review. But I don’t think you have to in order to enjoy the movie. If there is one thing about this movie I can definitely say, it is that it is not the least bit preachy or confrontational. The movie is rated PG. It contains gorgeous images that are flashed onto the screen at a dime a dozen pace. It is lovingly directed, acted, and edited with great attention to artistic detail and is told in a calming, meditative, and above all, spiritual way. There was once this very similar movie called “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It too involved an incredible scope of vision that intertwined the eons of history with a visual odyssey set to an amazing score. Sure it was kind of long at times and had a meaning that was kind of hard to grasp, but the children of the sixties had a good way of dealing with that problem. They got high before they saw the movie. Now I’m not saying that you should do that before seeing “The Tree of Life.” I’m just saying I heard it worked for “2001: A Space Odyssey.” No, I wasn’t high when I saw the movie. I was tipsy on white wine, which is totally fine with Jesus.   

The director of “The Tree of Life,” is none other than Terrance Malick. He has made five movies since 1973. Rounded out, that is about one movie per decade. It shows. A Malick movie is something that always looks like the creator took the time to make as perfect as possible. In most other movies, there will perhaps be a scene or a single shot of great beauty that will catch your eye. Those movies will almost always take the time to really linger on the shot and milk it for all its worth. This happens about every 30 seconds in a Malick movie. If you watch the trailer and then the movie, you will notice that most of the images in the trailer happen within the first half hour of the movie. There is plenty more where that came from and it is just as good. The cinematographer’s name is Emmanuel Lubezki and the composer’s name is Alexandre Desplat. You should remember those names, as it is very likely that they will be hoisting Oscars come next February.

The plot of the story is unconventional to the extreme. After a brief prologue concerning several family members hearing about the death of a 19-year-old son and brother, the movie takes a detour to show the creation of the universe, from the big bang to the formation of the Earth. Evolution takes over in a series of montages that could be described as a biologist’s wet dream. This includes dinosaurs. Finally a boy named Jack is born in 1950s suburbia. At this point, we finally get characters. There is the mother played by Jessica Chastain, the father played by Brad Pitt, and three boys played by Hunter McCracken (“Jack”), Laramie Eppler, and Tye Sheridan. The story of the family is told through vignettes of specific details. The camera flows through the house and surrounding neighborhood in a curious and wonderful way. Most of the time it doesn’t matter what scene came just before or what scene comes right after. When the people speak it has the tendency to break the spell, so most of time the characters don’t speak, or when they do it is whispered in a voiceover or replaced by the lyrical score. In a way, the actors are even really acting. They are more like models in a moving Norman Rockwell painting. The main conflict in the movie is Jack’s relationship with his domineering father, a strict disciplinarian who insists that his sons call him sir, do their chores very perfectly, and learn how to fight him, etc. He is a bully but is deliberately shown as having the belief that he is doing his son’s a service in getting them ready for a hard world. He speaks enviously of neighbors with more money and his failed dreams of being a musician. He has it all figured out for his kids though, that is until the end of the movie where something happens and he doesn’t anymore. Life goes on and the family moves away from their idyllic house in the suburbs. We then see Jack all grown up as Sean Penn. The movie loses reality as Sean Penn looks like he’s taking a journey into the wilderness until we see that he is meeting up with a crowd that contains his already dead parents. They all walk around a big lake together to the tune of a Gregorian chant. Then the movie and the song end with several Amens. I read Ebert’s review and he suggested that the last couple of scenes were some kind of afterlife. I’m going to take his word for it. (Although if heaven we’re walking around a lake for all eternity, I think I would rather be reincarnated.)

So okay, what the hell does all of it mean? I’ll take my best shot at it. We might as well start with the quote at the beginning of the movie. It says “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”  It is from the biblical book of Job. For those not acquainted, the book of Job is the story of a good person who has many bad things happen to him. Wallowing in self-pity and scorning life, Job is joined by three friends who insist that since God is just, Job must have done something to deserve his situation. Job disagrees. He does not lay blame at God’s feet nor ask for anything back but simply asks for an explanation. If he is guilty than what did he do? This conversation goes on for a while until finally God shows up to put in his two cents. And here is where it gets interesting. God doesn’t explain himself. Instead he chides Job for having the gall to even raise the question. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God asks. The point being that men do not have the knowledge or experience to understand what God is doing nor does God have the duty to answer the questions of his own creations. The book of Job is part of a series of books in the Bible called the Books of Wisdom (others are Proverbs and Ecclesiastes). These are kind of amazing books because in essence they take an agnostic view of God. They don’t deny the existence of God, but they also quite explicitly reject the idea that God can be fully understood. Ecclesiastes is particularly skeptical. It declares everybody to be wrong and everything done on Earth to be in vain. All of this just goes to show that no matter what your beliefs are, there is a book somewhere in the bible that will support them.  

My best guess is that “The Tree of Life,” is a deeply spiritual agnostic movie. It juxtaposes the creation of the universe over billions of years with the story of how young Jack’s father was really mean to him for seemingly no reason. It assumes that they are connected somehow in some greater plan but does not explain why or how. In other words, a connection between the different parts in this movie is something the audience has to take on faith. Either you believe it or you don’t. The ending of this movie drew giggles in the theater that I was in. I can understand that because I saw the movie and I can attest that it doesn’t make logical sense. But such is spirituality and I believe Malick gets it at least that much right by not trying to prove anything. It is a mistake I would think to look to biblical prophecies or miracles as definite proof of God or his will because basing belief of God on tangible things isn’t exactly faith. It is more of a pseudoscience. In essence, faith is about being presented with a legitimate mystery, attributing it to God, and accepting that you won’t be able to understand it. Science on the other hand is based on the assumption that with enough work everything is knowable and if there is a God, then how that works is knowable as well. The two are completely incompatible no matter what anybody says. Both points of view have their downsides when it comes to living life though. The linchpin in this movie is the conflict within the Brad Pitt character. He is struggling to master a world he doesn’t understand and ruinously brings that fight into his home instead of accepting the mystery and being thankful and enjoying the life that has been given to him. 

I don’t know, maybe.

For those interested in spending more than one restless night thinking about these sorts of things, may I suggest the Coen Brothers movie, “A Serious Man.” It is about a Jewish physics professor who wants a decent explanation as to why his life is turning to shit, just like Job.